Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (18 page)

Tierney hesitated, torn between rushing to her friend’s comfort or urging her toward stiffening her backbone. What should it be—approval or correction?

While Tierney fluttered in the throes of indecision, Anne sobbed, ever more noisily, Frank’s eyes closed in longsuffering, Pearly acted. Pulling out a handkerchief she offered it to Anne.

“Now buck up, lassie,” she said practically, borrowing a familiar Scots’ word to do so. “How can we help yer if y’ don’t stop that puling and tell us what’s the matter?”

It was well done. Anne, lost in her misery, was jolted out of it. “P–puling?” she repeated, raising her eyes while sniffing into the handkerchief.

“Me ma said it was ‘grizzling’ when the babbies did it—whimper, that is. Now come, lass, surely yer knows why yer done it, come back, that is, and in such a short time. Did Mr. Schmidt here do or say sumfing to upset yer?” Pearly was badly fracturing her English once again; Ishbel would have been dismayed, perhaps scandalized.

Anne fidgeted, Anne flushed.

“Weel,” she wailed, finally, “I canna bring meself to admit it . . . again. I’m jist a coward, that’s a’ I am! I jist canna make myself do what I know I should . . . ought to do.”

There was no reason; there was nothing new. Tierney realized it was as she had feared: Anne was still in the throes of obsession where men were concerned, even such a seemingly unobjectionable man as Frank Schmidt. She sighed massively. What to do!

“We hardly got beyond the edge of town,” Frank Schmidt said now, “when she burst into tears. I noticed plain enough that she had been shakin’ and sobbin’ silently, but I thought she’d get ahold of herself right enough, once the good-byes were all past. I thought she’d start thinking ahead to the next thing—her job, and her responsibilities. To my grandparents.” Now Frank Schmidt spoke grimly. It was plain to be seen he didn’t hold with this shilly-shallying and that his patience was sorely tried. Still, he made an effort.

“Tell me, ladies, what is a man supposed to do? I been away two days now, awaitin’ and alookin’ until I found ya, then fiddle-faddlin’ around—” Frank’s speech was becoming more and more highly modulated, less and less reasonable.

Tierney could see the young man was getting worked up, as he had every right to do, but it wasn’t helping the situation, which was serious.

“Please, Mr. Schmidt! Let’s talk aboot this calmly—”

“Well, is she comin’, or ain’t she?” Frank asked. “I gotta get on my way, that’s for sure and certain. My family will think I’ve run into trouble somewhere, and they’ll be sendin’ out a search party for me. Is she comin’ or ain’t she?”

The amber eyes of Tierney, the purple eyes of Pearly, and the small, light blue eyes of the young man, were turned toward Anne—despairingly on Tierney’s part, who knew Anne well; questioningly and brightly on Pearly’s part, ever the eternal optimist; and distrustfully on the part of Frank Schmidt, who obviously had his craw full of temperamental women, Anne in particular.

If Anne, Tierney reasoned, ever had thoughts of Frank Schmidt casting longing eyes on her or harboring lascivious
thoughts toward her, she had certainly annihilated them. He looked on her with great disfavor.

“Weel, Anne?” Tierney said.

“I can’t go; I can’t!”

Anne sobbed; Tierney sighed; Frank muttered. Pearly, for some unaccountable reason, looked thoughtful.

It seemed, as the story began to come out, that the wagon had cleared the town, with the vast prairie stretching out endlessly ahead of them, before Anne spoke.

“This . . . this grass an’ sky—does it jist go on and on like this . . . all the way?”

“Sure does,” Frank Schmidt had answered cheerily, giving the reins a flick and urging the team to a faster pace. “That’s what makes it such grand farmland. My grandfather has a homestead, and so does my father; and I’d get land of my own, but my Opa—Grandfather—wants me to take over his place.” Frank sounded very satisfied with life, with himself, and with his future.

“And the reason I can do it,” he continued placidly, “is because this grand land just seems next best to heaven, to me at least.” Frank didn’t know that, with each glad word, his listener was shivering more and more. What he said next sent a lightning bolt of fear and fantasy through Anne’s heart.

“The next thing I need, for sure and certain, is to get me a wife.”

To the young man’s surprise, Anne had reached for the reins, yanked back on them, and gritted, “Turn back! Turn back, I say!”

The wagon had stopped in the middle of the road. Frank turned bewildered eyes on the fierce face at his shoulder.

“Hey! Take your hands offa the lines, willya?” Naturally he gave them a yank to free them from Anne’s hands, at the same time speaking soothing words to the team: “Whoa . . . whoa . . . whoa there.”

When the prancing, startled horses had quieted, Frank turned a perturbed face on the bundle of agitation and frenzy that was Anne Fraser.

“What’s the matter with ya? You gone crazy or something?”

“I can’t go on . . . I
won’t
go on—”

And with that Anne had attempted to clamber from the rig. Only the firm hand of Frank had held her in the wagon.

“I’ll take ya. Sit down, wildcat!” And with that, Frank had turned the rig around and, once again, made his way into Saskatoon and to the hostel, barely an hour from the time he had pulled away from it.

With the telling, by Frank, Anne had squirmed but had not attempted to defend herself.

“Weel, Annie,” Tierney said into the silence that fell in the room, “what’re we to do wi’ ye now?”

“I’ll stay here. I simply can’t go out into the wilderness, far from y’ all and by mysel.’”

Anne shivered. Her fear, Tierney realized, was very real. Unspoken, probably for the man’s sake, was the real reason.

“But Annie, what’re we to do aboot the contract? Ye promised!”

Anne looked worried but mutinous. “Wha’ can they do tae me?” she asked. “Throw me in prison? I canna be the first one to turn down an assignment. I’ll worry aboot that when the time cooms.”

“But what’ll ye do, Anne? Money’s runnin’ oot—”

“There’s the job at the hotel,” Pearly said promptly.

“But there are men—” Tierney looked at Frank Schmidt apologetically. “There are bound to be men there, too.”

Frank Schmidt looked more bemused than ever. “Men? Men?” he murmured with a perplexed air.

As simply as possible, Tierney tried to explain. Anne sat gazing unseeingly at her fingernails, as though she were far removed from the problem or they were talking about someone else. But Tierney knew it was painful for her, and embarrassing.

“So you see, Mr. Schmidt, she has a sort of . . . of a panic aboot . . . weel, aboot men in general.”

“Poh!” the burly young man said disgustedly.

“You can Poh all ye want,” Tierney said with some heat, “but we’ve got a real problem here. I dinna know how we’ll solve it—”

“The hotel,” Pearly pointed out patiently.

“That may be fine, for Anne,” Tierney said, just as patiently, “particularly if the job should be doin’ kitchen chores and things like that. But what aboot Mr. Schmidt, eh?”

Now Pearly showed some impatience. “Poh!” (Pearly was a great mimic; never having heard the ejaculation before, she would now undoubtedly incorporate it into her vocabulary. Her limited vocabulary, which was growing by the day.) “I’ll do it. I’ll trade wi’ her.”

Anne lifted her head and gazed at Pearly as though at a savior. Tierney blinked her eyes, thinking seriously. Frank Schmidt gazed admiringly at the spunky sprite of a girl who had, in a few words and at one stroke, solved all their problems.

“Fine with me,” he said. “And my grandparents don’t know the difference.”

“But Pearly,” Tierney said slowly, “what aboot yer own contract? What aboot . . . what’s their name? Those folks from Red Fife—Belknap, wasn’t it?”

“Belknap? Belknap?” Frank said slowly. “I don’t know the name, but if they live at Red Fife, they’re burned out. Fire swept through there a coupla weeks ago. They’d be lucky to survive, let alone need a domestic.”

“Are you certain, Mr. Schmidt?” Tierney asked.

“Positive! Just ask the clerk at the desk . . . ask most anyone. They’ll tell you about the tragedy at Red Fife. Everyone knows fire is one of the great hazards of the prairie. Seems someone’s newfangled engine sparked, and before it could be stopped it had swept through the community, clear to the coulee. Take my word for it; there won’t be no one from Red Fife comin’ in for any help. May not even have a rig, or horses.”

There was silence in the room.

“Weel, Pearly—”

“If Mr. Schmidt is willin’, I’m willin’,” Pearly sang out.

No one was able to explain the light that shone in the big eyes. One would have thought Pearly was actually happy, perhaps tremulously happy, to go with the sturdy young man Frank Schmidt out to a prairie homestead, there to work her hands red, her back sore, her frame weary, for fifteen dollars a month. One might even think, knowing Pearly, that it was an answer to prayer.

Finally, Anne had the grace to ask, “An’ do ye mean it, lass? Are ye willin’ to do this? I mean, is it a’ reet wi’ ye?”

Little mimic that she was, Pearly seemed to bubble her response, “A’ reet? Sure, it’s a’ reet! If it’s a’ reet wi’ Mr. Schmidt, it’s a’ reet wi’ me.”

Mr. Schmidt seemed to lose himself in those pansy/purple orbs as he blushed and murmured, hardly hearing himself:
“A’ reet!”

C
aught up in the little scenario acting itself out before him, Frank Schmidt murmured the Scottish “a’ reet,” only to change it hastily to “It’s all right with me.”

“All right” it may have been, but his expression indicated it was superlatively all right. Frank Schmidt was relieved, and massively so. Strange, come to think of it: Here was the lovely face and curvaceous form of Anne Fraser about to be withdrawn from his intimate world, and his expression, as he contemplated the stick-thin form and elfin face of Pearly Chapel who would substitute herself for Anne, was one of supreme satisfaction. The one—Anne—seemed a woman in all ways, the other—Pearly—a child by comparison.

But Pearly was no child in ways that matter. Her small face glowed; she actually
bustled
as she went immediately to the task of folding up her clothes and repacking her shabby bag with her meager belongings.

Anne watched silently, embarrassed and relieved at the same time. Tierney, more concerned with the legal and moral aspects
of the transaction, looked doubtful. But what was there she could do? Both Anne and Pearly, who were the signers of the contracts, seemed content with the decision. Frank Schmidt, most concerned of all, was nodding, his round face reflecting his approval. “Are ye sure, Pearly—” Tierney began.

“Not a doot . . . doubt,” Pearly said blithely, already casting aside the Scots she had picked up without effort. “In fact—”

Pearly hesitated, slanted a glance at Frank Schmidt, then continued boldy. “In fact, I were prayin’ about it when they showed up, I were so sure it were my place to go and Anne’s to stay.”

Frank Schmidt blinked, then nodded placidly. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him,” he quoted sagely, “and He shall direct thy paths.”

You’d have thought the sun had come up. Pearly’s face blazed with light and joy. She turned the full glow of her eyes on Frankie Schmidt, and words were not necessary.

Tierney felt a lump come up in her throat and, for a moment, battled with tears that threatened to spring forth. How steadfast and true Pearly was to what she believed! If one were to “get religion,” Tierney acknowledged silently, one should get it like Pearly, having it consume one’s life in every phase. Such personal devotion to the Christian walk made the kirk and its liturgies and formalities seem as a springboard to something vital and personal. Life in Christ, Pearly called it.

As if the lump in the throat were not enough, Tierney found her eyes misting. She was going to miss Pearly! Hardly having had time to get acquainted, still she was going to miss her most dreadfully. Suddenly she was filled with a small sense of panic. Why hadn’t she been more responsive while it was possible? Why hadn’t she taken Pearly’s “testimony” more seriously? Who was going to pray now, when things were not going well? Tierney had grown to rely on Pearly’s prayers and the consolation it brought to know a troubling situation had been placed in God’s hands.

“Pearly,” she said now, half anxiously, touching the girl’s shoulder and turning the piquant face to herself, “there was a verse; you said you had a favorite, number one verse. Tell me, Pearly. Tell me—what is it?”

With Frank Schmidt and Anne willing listeners, Pearly, sweetly and poignantly, quoted the Scripture that had comforted and kept her across a wild and restless ocean, a vast land, and an empty prairie, that gave her peace the entire time, and courage, not only through it all, but to face today and tomorrow.

“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,” Pearly, soft-eyed, quoted; “He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

“Aye,” Tierney breathed. “He shall gather the lambs . . . He shall carry them in His bosom. How comforting.”