With Love from Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #2)
Read With Love from Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #2) Online
Authors: Ruth Glover
© 2001 by Ruth Glover
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3933-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
To Lela,
sister in all but birth
Contents
T
he figure on the bed was scrunched into a ball as tightly as the human body can fold and not be in the womb. Shaken by an occasional sob or hiccup, it seemed the child, though motionless, was awake. If she was asleep, her rest was wracked by bad dreams.
The sound of carriage wheels on the gravel below brought the small girl upright. On her cheeks were the marks of tears; her eyes were filled with something more than misery—something that reminded one of an animal backed into a corner, afraid.
Perhaps the one who entered the room saw and understood both the unhappiness and the fear. Perhaps she also saw the child’s pathetic vulnerability quickly cloaked with a pretense at dignity that was as pitiful as it was false. At any rate, Sister Bernadine’s voice, when she spoke, held a tinge of compassion along with the usual authority.
“Come now, Kerry, this is no way to go downstairs and greet your aunt,
Mrs. Sebastian Maxwell,
who’s come to get you, and on such short notice.”
Sister Bernadine was aware that she had emphasized the name of the guest who was even now alighting from the carriage, and a slight flush tinged her face. To think that she would be impressed by the high and mighty! Or perhaps it was the wealth associated with the Maxwell name. And who could blame her, constantly aware as she was of the needs of The Beneficent Sisters of Charity, the order to which she belonged, religiously devoted to the care of the poor. What was it the proverb said? “He that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.” Sister Bernadine, face-to-face with another example of that poverty, supposed she should be the happiest of persons. Instead, her heart ached for the overwhelming needs all around her and this small girl in particular, and she grieved over the little she could do about any of it. Still, her reaction to the wealth of the Maxwells was a worldly attitude and quite shamed her.
The child, huddled on the unmade bed with her mismatched and threadbare clothing askew and her hair tumbled, either did not know or did not care about the wealth and the prestige of her kin, and she looked painfully lost and alone. So alone. Poor, wee mite! She deserved some tender, loving care. Would the esteemed Mrs. Sebastian Maxwell provide it? Certainly the well-to-do woman was well able to lavish comfort and relief wherever she deemed it fitting, but on one small, inconspicuous mortal? Time would tell.
And was the child inconspicuous, after all? Hadn’t she, more than once in the last few days, rattled Sister Bernadine herself, as well as every Sister who came in contact with her, and by the very Word of God to which they were committed? If Sister Bernadine were a betting woman, she would have laid odds on Kerry Ferne being a power unto herself in most any situation that life (and Mrs. Sebastian Maxwell) might bring her way.
Now, in accordance with what Sister Bernadine already knew about her, Kerry summoned her considerable courage once again. Though her voice quavered, she looked up at the Sister bending over her and spoke clearly.
“She’s come? My Aunt Charlotte’s come?”
“Sure, and did you think she wouldn’t?” Sister’s tone was brisk, perhaps to forestall any repetition of the one and only demonstration of grief Kerry had allowed herself. What a heartrending scene it had been when the child was led—herded—from her father’s graveside. It would be best, Sister thought, if she could be brought to accept the finality of her loss, best that she adjust to her new status quickly—that of niece of one of the most affluent and influential women in the province of Ontario. To the aunt’s credit, she had promptly responded to the wire informing her of her brother’s death, delaying her arrival only until the funeral was over and her brother’s mortal remains were committed to the earth. Why the delay, no one knew.
Now her carriage was at the door; surely it was a good sign for the future of the child.
“Come, rise and shine. Get your hair brushed and your face washed,” Sister said crisply. But her hands were gentle as she pulled aside the bedding the small fist clutched so defensively—and so inadequately—against what must seem to be a strange and hostile world.
That Kerry did indeed regard it as hostile had been revealed by her words when she was informed that her aunt had been contacted, words that a studied theologian might have come up with, words of a remote Scripture. But what a Scripture! Hearing her aunt’s name, the child had quoted darkly, “A man’s foes are those of his own household.”
Remembering the incident, Sister Bernadine found herself, again, startled and even dismayed by the strange, even dire, words. Where would the child have learned such a bitter attitude toward her father’s sister? Was it that Avery Ferne, scholarly gentleman though he was, had been on bad terms with Charlotte Maxwell? But if Avery Ferne’s daughter had learned Bible verses of any sort under his tutelage, he was a different man indeed from the image the world saw—that of an intemperate rake with an unsavory reputation, addicted to gambling and with a habit of not paying his bills. But here was his small daughter, spouting Scripture like a vested pontiff.
There was a story back of all this, and Sister Bernadine’s curiosity was aroused. But she quelled it in face of the need at hand—and just now that was Kerry’s rising from the bed and making herself presentable.
But what a precocious child! There were additional times when she had inserted Scripture into conversations, some of it suitable enough, some of it with a most uncomfortable application.
The night after the dreary burial, for instance, when Sister Claude was putting the drooping child to bed and attempting to comfort her with the assurance that her aunt would soon come for her, Kerry had shaken her head with its dark curls and quoted, “I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.”
“I was speechless,” Sister Claude confessed later to Sister Bernadine and others. “Have any of you ever heard of such a passage from the Bible? I certainly haven’t. It was unsettling, to say the least. And what did she mean by it?”
The quirking of a lip here and there—some of the Sisters had personal knowledge of the ready and sometimes guilt-provoking quotations—was quickly replaced by a more decorous expression when Sister Claude frowned and paused.
Seemly order restored, Sister Claude continued. “And then she looked up at me with her great, dark eyes and said, quite earnestly, ‘I believe that
her
can be used in place of
him,
don’t you? Else it wouldn’t be fair, would it? I mean, all the Scriptures seem to be given to men, but they must mean both men and women, don’t you think?’”
Nodded heads affirmed that the child had touched on a surprisingly thoughtful truth.
“I was considerably at sea in my thinking by this time,” Sister Claude continued, fully appreciative of her attentive audience. “I must have shown my confusion, because she got an anxious look on her face and said, ‘What I mean is, like where the Bible says that man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. It’s been my experience’—mind you, this is coming from a nine-
year-old—‘that women are born to trouble, too, so it must mean
both
men and women when it says man or him.’
“Then she asked me, anxiously again, if I understood her. By this time I wasn’t certain of anything, and I guess she saw it; she’s a sensitive child. She went on, patiently—and I don’t mind telling you, I felt like a dunderhead—‘So what that Scripture means is that
she,
meaning me, will be safe from
her,
meaning Aunt Charlotte, that puffeth at me.’”
“Puffeth?” someone repeated.
“How very odd!” exclaimed another, while someone murmured “Dunderhead?”
“It has an element of truth in it!” This was spoken warmly by Sister Vivian, a novitiate and the youngest in the listening group.
When a dozen pairs of eyes were turned on her, Sister Vivian blushed, gathered her courage, and hurried on with her comment.
“I mean about the Bible including woman in its references to man. I think it means
mankind
.”
“Well, of course, Sister—”
“But,” Sister Vivian hastened to add, humbly, “I don’t understand, not one bit, the
puffeth
part.”
“That’s all right, dear,” someone said kindly, “I’m sure we’re all at sea about it.”
While Sister Vivian subsided, and needles resumed their mending of the rips and tears and worn places of the castoff clothes being repaired for the poor of the city, someone asked Sister Claude, “Well, what did you say to the child after all this?”
Sister Claude looked around at the expectant faces and took a new lease on the narrative.
“Well, quite naturally I think, I asked, ‘Puffeth? What do you mean, puffeth?’ It seemed reasonable of me to ask, since she was speaking in riddles, and even though I felt it put her in the place of teacher and me of learner, still—”
Sister Claude was sometimes inclined toward garrulousness. This was known by all and usually borne with long-suffering, but now someone brought her quickly back to the matter at hand.
“Yes, yes, Sister, it was indeed a reasonable reaction on your part. I’m sure I might have thought the same thing in the circumstances. But then what?”
“Well,” Sister Claude said, “she gave me more of that same verse, which was, ‘The Lord will rise for the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy.’ Imagine my reaction by this time, if you can. It was the strangest conversation I’ve almost ever had. Even stranger than when that delivery man asked me if any of us had ever considered—”