Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (16 page)

She had in her arms the revealing paper with its significant giveaway clue—the misspelled
Saskachewan
. Once home, she would compare the writing of the essay to that of the two letters. But she had no doubt concerning the writer; it had been Buck, perhaps with help from his older brother who was, by all accounts, as much a rascal as Buck himself. The very thought of their planning, snickering, contriving, made Birdie sick.

The pathetic part, the part that crushed and twisted and pained, was that she had taken the foolishness seriously, that she had given a minute’s consideration to such tommyrot. Thank heavens she had retained enough good sense to stay away from the suggested rendezvous! Her humiliation would have been complete, particularly if she had caught sight of the sniggering, peeking Buck.

All this and more she had brooded on as she trudged homeward, arms overloaded, steps slow, self-perception dragging as surely as her feet.

Perhaps it was because her resistance was at such a low ebb that she accepted the ride offered when Big Tiny Kruger pulled up alongside. More likely it was just plain good sense, for she was in danger of scattering papers to the breeze.

She noted, with some surprise, that aside from a cursory sentence or two, Big Tiny said very little. And yet the silence was not uncomfortable; she felt under no pressure to make light talk, and for this she was grateful. And apparently Big Tiny felt no such compulsion either, and so they jogged along in what might be termed a companionable silence.

And it was helpful—the ride. Birdie clutched her books and papers, lunch pail and handbag, stretched her buttoned shoes out toward the dashboard, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.

If Big Tiny, more finely tuned than one would imagine, cast a keen glance at her from time to time, no one would ever know. But anyone knowing him well might have suspected that he was doing some earnest thinking, perhaps making decisions, laying plans, solving what he saw as a problem; anyone knowing him well might have had a small feeling of sympathy for young Harold Buckley.

Reaching the Bloom homestead, there was no way Big Tiny Kruger was about to let Miss Birdie Wharton out at the gate, to walk the distance to the house by herself, burdened—he suspected—in more ways than one.

“Whoa, Dolly!” he said eventually, and he was out of the buggy and around to Birdie’s side as quickly as anyone ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter might have done.

“Here, give me those,” he said. “Let me carry them for you.” And Birdie meekly handed them over.

If only it were that easy
! But of course it wasn’t. Nevertheless, Birdie stepped from the buggy with a lighter heart than when she had entered it. And she was able to say with sincerity, “Thank you so much for the ride, Mr.Kruger. It was more help than you know.”

But was it? Big Tiny turned his buggy around and headed for the road and home, his nostrils pinched and his mouth stern.

Big Tiny had his standards, and intimidating teachers was not one of them.

Upstairs in her room, Birdie dumped her load on the bed. She had managed the meeting with Lydia very well, due mainly to the rationality that had returned to her thinking on the ride home. Thank heavens for a man who knew how and when to keep his mouth shut! Birdie had a small generous thought for Big Tiny, to her own brief surprise.

“I need to get rid of these,” she had said, and she hurried on through the kitchen, to the stairs, and up to her room.

Lydia’s fond smile had followed her. “Come down when you’re ready,” she said, “and we’ll have a cuppa.”

The first thing Birdie did—proving, perhaps, her recovery and her self-control—was to sit down, remove her dusty shoes, reach under the bed for her comfortable soft-soled slippers, and put them on.

Next, she stepped to the chiffonier, deliberately delaying the moment she reached for the letters, as though they didn’t matter, taking time to straighten her hair, rearrange the collar to her waist, drum her fingers, breathing, just breathing.

Coolly she unlocked and opened the drawer and removed the two letters; casually she turned to the bed. Searching out Buck’s account of Canada’s early beaver trade, she laid it side by side with the letters from the envelopes. There was no doubt about it—they were written by the same hand, though the letters were done with more care and without erasures.

She picked up the letters and calmly returned them to their envelopes. With steadfast step she turned toward the door, heading for the kitchen and the stove. She took a first step—and faltered.

Gasping, falling on the bed in a passion of tears, for one weak moment Birdie cried out her humiliation and hurt.

Rising, wiping her eyes, straightening her shoulders, Birdie marched down the stairs to the kitchen stove, lifted a lid, and, in spite of Lydia’s wide-eyed gaze, thrust the letters inside. Turning, dusting her hands in a manner that spoke as loudly as words, she said, “A good cup of tea would go well about now, Lydia.”

Wise Lydia; her teapot poured out love and compassion as well as tea. That, along with the subtle strength received in the buggy sitting beside the big man on the way home, ministered very well to the bruised heart and stinging ego of Birdie Wharton.

I
don’t think I’ll go today,” Brandon Bonney said at the breakfast table.

“Not go?” Astonishment raised Ellie’s voice a notch or two and her eyebrows as well.

Not go to the picnic? The event of the year? On a par with the Christmas concert, the sweetest celebration of the year, and the Fall Frisk, a celebration of harvest completed and crops garnered—and to be deliberately missed?

“I just don’t feel like myself,” Bran said mildly enough. Even so, Ellie, immediately alarmed, rose to her feet, rounded the table, and pressed a hand to her father’s forehead.

“You don’t seem to have a fever,” she said. “What is it, Dad? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing much,” Bran said, shrugging, wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. “As I said, I don’t feel quite myself, that’s all.”

“You do seem a little pale,” Ellie said, stepping back and looking at her father critically.“Does your head ache? What about your
stomach—you haven’t eaten your breakfast!” There was reproach in her voice.

“I’m not hungry. As I said, I don’t feel well. A day at home will fix me up just fine.”

“Well, I’m not going, either.” And Ellie, her mind made up, settled the question.

“Of course you’ll go!” Bran said firmly. “The lunch is all ready—I saw how you baked yesterday; I see all the things laid out, ready to be packed. Tom’ll be by to get you. Of course you’ll go.”

“No, indeed,” Ellie said.

“Ellie, please—”

“No, Dad. I know you. You’d never admit to feeling poorly if you didn’t. And you’d never miss the picnic unless you had to. I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace if I left you here, alone and feeling bad.”

Nothing he could say changed her mind. She began methodically fixing a pan of hot suds, preparing to wash and dry the breakfast dishes.

“Then I’ll go,” Bran said. “Get on your picnic duds and pack up the box.”

Ellie whirled from the dishpan. “Do you think I’d drag you off to the picnic just so I can have a few hours of fun? Nothing doing! There will be plenty more picnics.”

Bran sighed. What a stubborn daughter! Just as stubborn, perhaps more so, than he was. Look at the way she refused to consider marriage. And all because of some dim and distant tragedy that was not her fault. The Mounties had determined that. What if some members of the community—thoughtless, irrational people—blamed her, an innocent child? What if, a few times, the word
murderer
had been whispered where she could hear it, even written on the blackboard at school, sent through the mail a time or two. All this had hurt, apparently maimed, his daughter in a deep, psychological way, so that her life seemed to be warped, her expectations shattered.

Bran sighed, watching the sweet shell that was his daughter and knowing it to be empty of hope and perhaps happiness.

But all that—that bad time—was over and gone, buried in the Bliss cemetery. The years, as they came and went and as Ellie grew and matured, should have dimmed every memory. Perhaps they had.

For everyone except Ellie...

“And where are you off to this afternoon?” Serena asked, watching her daughter collect certain items for her basket, her Busy Bee basket: jar of soup; pencil and tablet (Ellie wrote letters for her “patients”); needle and thread in case mending was needed; small tin of Camphor Cold Cream—“salve of remarkable healing properties, it cannot be excelled as a soothing and healing application to burns, and a dressing for abrasions of the skin, pimples, boils, etc.”; camphorated oil—“excellent for rubbing on chests and throats in case of croup, difficulty in breathing, sore throat, coughs”; olive oil...

Simple remedies all, items her mother had approved and which might bring ease to a sufferer, and in any case, would do no harm.

“Is it Aunt Tilda again today?” Serena asked, and Ellie flashed her mother a quick smile.

Such satisfaction for one so young! Surely her “calling” was to care for the sick, the needy, the lonely. Barely twelve years old, and already expending herself for others. And her friends right along with her. Flossy, Vonnie, and Marfa, faithful in this as in all else, were active participants in the Busy Bee motto: “Let us bee about our Father’s business.”

“Yes, it’s Aunt Tilda,” Ellie said now. “We went last week, you know, and she just loved having us there.”

“Are you sure, Ellie? She can be cantankerous, I’ve heard.”

“She gets a little cross with us,” Ellie said, chuckling a bit in recollection of the elderly woman’s crotchety ways. “But she can’t do much about it; she can’t chase us off. And she can only take a swipe at us with her cane if we do something that upsets her.”

“I hope you don’t do that, Ellie,” her mother said. “Remember, you promised me the purpose of the club is to help. You’re
big enough now to be a real help, if you go about it in the right way.”

“Bee-ee-ee helpful, that’s me,” Ellie sang out. “Aunt Tilda really needs help, Mum.”

“I know that,” Serena admitted, regretting that her strength these days was too limited to allow her to do more than care for her own family. “It was so sad when Mr. Beam died; at least they managed until then. I hope some family member will come forward with an offer of help before winter; she’ll never make it through that alone. Apparently she has no wood up for winter; as for food—no one has taken care of her garden since her collapse—”

“She says she had a brain spasm.”

“Brain spasm? I’ve heard of heart spasms...”

“Anyway, whatever happened, she can’t get around anymore. And it’s hard to understand her when she talks. People bring meals to her, leaving the food close by the bed so she can get it. But she spills something awful. You should see her bedding, Mum. Ugh!”

“You can’t wash bedding, Ellie! Don’t even try. Maybe the missionary society ladies will come in before long and do that and whatever else needs to be done. In the meantime,” Serena finished fondly, “I’m sure she appreciates what you girls do to make her comfortable. I’ll talk to the minister and see if he knows what plans are being made for her. He’s been writing relatives, I believe.”