Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (33 page)

Ellie’s eyes, though she never knew it, shone like stars and filled with an unspeakable sort of hope as she lifted them to his, now searching her own. “Oh, Sam, I’d like to think so! But... but I have to remember—the reason I broke off with Tom is... is still very much a hindrance in my planning a future with... with anyone.”

“So,” Sam said gently, “we’ll just leave it there. I’m sure you, as I, pray about such matters—”

“All the time!” Her voice was earnest, almost desperate.

Looking at him sitting there, natural, relaxed, the picture of strength at rest, Ellie could think of no fine masculine trait that was not present in the form and face and character of Sam Dickson.

And she simply hadn’t the courage to tell him of the death—
murder
—of old Aunt Tilda all those years ago and the conviction that she was responsible.

Arguments presented themselves to her now as before: She had only been a child—yes; doing a good Samaritan deed—yes; in the eyes of the world she was unaccused... yes.

But still, a woman, a helpless old woman, had died because of someone’s carelessness. And try as she might, Ellie could not rid herself of the suspicion, perhaps the conviction, that it was she.

Though Sam waited for her to say more, Ellie could not bring herself to spread out before him and between them the miserable tale, pour out her abject fears, tell of her frightening nightmares. The moment passed; Sam took a sip of tea, and the subject was changed.

Often and often, as winter slipped away, Ellie was on the verge of confiding her problem to him. But fearing it might make a difference—if not with him then with her—she bit it back. She looked at the children and loved them. She looked at Sam—and loved him.

When Sam said he would be responsible for her fieldwork, Ellie’s heart leaped. To see him often! To fix dinner for him! To have the dear children underfoot during the summer days!

It was because of the fieldwork that Marfa eventually learned about Sam. With a blessed chinook and the rapid melting of the snow, with black fields lying rich and ready, with hens becoming broody, with cows calving, with garden spots calling for attention, Marfa could be excused for her concerned probing.

“Can George be a help?” she asked one day, having stopped by Ellie’s on her way to the store. “Ellie,” she urged, when Ellie hesitated, “have you made any arrangements for the work?”

“Actually, Marfa,” Ellie said in an offhand fashion, thereby exciting her friend’s suspicions immediately,“I have. There’s a Sam Dickson... from Fairway. Have you heard of him?”

Marfa had. Districts were small, clustered close around their individual schools so that no child had too far to go, and Fairway was dependent on the Bliss store for supplies. And though they
were isolated, they were not ignorant. News in the backwoods traveled as quickly as a passing rig.

“I know
of
him,” Marfa said, eyes thoughtful. “Didn’t his wife die last year?”

Ellie nodded, playing casually with small Bonney’s plump hand. “He’s going to do the fieldwork for me. I’ll manage the rest somehow—”

“Wait a minute, Ellie Bonney! How did this come about? Where did you meet him to talk to him that personally? What’s going on here?”

“Oh, Marfa!” Ellie laughed lightly. “He’s just a neighbor taking on some extra work. He’ll share in the harvest proceeds, of course—”

“Ellie Bonney!” Marfa said again, crossly this time. “You can’t fool me! What’s going on here?”

With a sigh, knowing she couldn’t mislead her friend and trusting her completely, Ellie gave in and confided the account—the rather romantic account—of her immurement at the Dickson home... overnight... in the snowstorm and the subsequent meetings with Sam Dickson.

When Marfa finally rose to go, it was to give Ellie a warm hug and say, almost tearfully, “Oh, Ellie! It’s time something good happened for you! I hope—I do hope—”

“Don’t say it!” Ellie interrupted with a shaky laugh. “Although... if you’re like me... you may imagine it.

“But oh, Marfa—if you ever prayed, pray with me about this!”

W
hen the last worn boot had scuffed its way through the door, when the final shriek of childish voices had ceased and the last hoofbeat faded away, Birdie sat alone at her desk, with only the sound of the Drop Octagonal breaking the silence. For some reason the usually unobtrusive tick seemed to swell in sound until it reverberated through the room, calling for her attention, calling insistently.

In obedience, Birdie’s mind groped back a year ago, almost to the day, and the moment she had taken a scrap of paper and a pencil and deliberately and cheerlessly totted up the clock’s unrelenting counting of the passage of her life.

Now, on an impulse, she opened a drawer of miscellaneous items and scrabbled around until she found it—the crumpled piece of paper she had recovered from the kindling box and hidden away: Sixty ticks per minute... 3,600 ticks for every hour... 86,400 ticks per day. Birdie’s eyes slid away from the scribbling that so baldly pointed out the vast number of seconds that had ticked emptily away. It was too sickening to contemplate.

But her head knew what her heart refused to hear: A few million ticks had tolled away the sum total of her life, bringing her to this hour as lonely, as unfulfilled as ever.

A year, twelve months, 365 days, thousands of hours, millions of minutes—gone, all gone; it didn’t bear thinking about!

And still the clock ticked on.

In cadence with the relentless ticking, certain words began rolling over and over in Birdie’s mind until, listening, giving heed, she focused on the words of the last letter she had received from her silent correspondent. Ever since first reading them, she had been aware that they had dropped, willy-nilly, into her heart, surfacing from time to time in a gentle, persistent way. Suddenly it seemed important to read them again, to understand them, to get to the bottom of them, to make them her own.

With hands that shook now—so great was her dismay over her meaningless days and the urgency of the impression—Birdie turned to the desk drawer and withdrew the last quotation she had received. Though not from the Bible, it was spiritual in content and, like the Bible quotations, struck and quivered in her heart like an arrow to its mark. This unknown, unseen person, through his beautiful, meaningful, and persistent words, had witnessed to her as no preacher had ever done. And not seeing him, she could not refute what was said, could offer no argument, could only feel this growing sense of his confidence in Christ and her own emptiness.

Once again she read:

It mattered not who wrote it, who copied it, who quoted it; it was the Holy Spirit Himself who spoke it now, piercingly and
sweetly, into the hollow that was the heart of Birdie Wharton. It was as though He said, “I’m the one your heart is yearning for. Speak to me, for I’m listening. Come to me, for I’m here.”

With a cry that was half anguish, half yearning, Birdie dropped her head onto the old scarred Bliss desk and there laid her burdens, her loneliness, her emptiness. There her wanderings ceased. There she cried out her repentance; there she received the acceptance she had been seeking; there she found the happiness that had eluded her. There she found God.

Finally, raising her head, it was to hear the Drop Octagonal chime out the hour: four o’clock, and Birdie marked it down as the happiest hour of them all, and blessed the clock that indicated, by its faithful reminder, that there was time enough to know life as it ought to be. There was time to do the things she ought to do.

First of all, with steady hands she searched through the desk, searching out any vagrant quotations that might be there, bringing them to the light of day; slowly, methodically, with a lifted heart, she tore them into shreds.

What they said was good and true; some would linger in her heart, used of the Lord to point the way, to encourage her walk, to bring beauty and blessing. But the slavish attention she had given them was broken; her reliance on them and on the one who sent them was finished. Birdie’s world, rather than crashing like the biblical house built on the sand, was rising strong and sturdy on the solid rock.

Watching the little pile grow in front of her, Birdie felt like putting a match to it, so free was she. She would always be grateful for the part the quotations had played in bringing her to this moment; someday, perhaps, she would have occasion to meet and thank her human ministering angel. But there would be no more unhealthy attention given him.

Birdie would henceforth search out her own Scriptures, led by Another, who cared for her and knew her needs specifically, One upon whom she could call at any time. There would be no waiting for surreptitious messages through the mail; her daily
bread would be supplied as she read and absorbed God’s Word for herself.

Without hesitation Birdie forsook the unknown for the known. Her reliance, henceforth, would be on God’s Word. And she would come to know the writer intimately.

The last shred had barely dropped from her hand to the wastebasket when there was the sound of a rig outside, then voices. Turning, she was facing the door when Big Tiny stepped inside, followed by an elderly man and... and a young man.

Though Big Tiny spoke, Birdie’s eyes were fixed on the youngest member of the trio, her eyes puzzled.

“Miss Wharton, I met these folks in the Bliss store. They were inquiring about you...”

Big Tiny’s words, only half heard, continued. “This is Mr. Abner Jacoby, and his grandson...”

“Davey. Davey Gann.
Davey
!”

With a cry Birdie was around the desk, across the floor, her arms reaching for and clasping the young man, who—unashamed—was spouting tears. He was taller than Birdie; his head dropped to her shoulder, and his thin, young body shook with the feelings that could not be contained. Nor did he try.

Birdie, no less moved, cradled the young body, rocking gently, crooning the precious name over and over: “Davey... Davey... Davey...” It was a lullaby of pure love.

Eventually the boy—young man—lifted his head, stared into Birdie’s face as though not believing what he was seeing, only to drop his head again, be rocked again, lulled again.

Finally Big Tiny led them to a seat. Birdie lifted her eyes, comprehending the presence of the stranger. “Mr. Jacoby,” she said, and the older gentleman took the hand she extended, cleared his throat of what might be suspected as some strong emotion, and smiled.

Never having met, she knew his name. Was he not, after all, the grandfather of Davey Gann, and had she not brought his letters, time and again, from the post office, to read them to the small
boy who capered, excited and impatient to hear what the beloved father of his dead mother had to say?

While Davey searched out and used a handkerchief, sniffling and gaining control of his feelings, Big Tiny, standing by wide-eyed, dumbfounded, and startled into silence, had his explanation.

“Wil,” Birdie said—and, one would suppose, sent another frisson of joy through his being at this new use of his name—“this is... oh, you’ve already met, of course. Can you sit down? And you, too, Mr. Jacoby.”

“I told you, Wil,” she said softly, her eyes alight and her hand holding the hand of Davey, “about my marriage, about my husband. But I didn’t... I couldn’t tell you about his son, Davey.”

Birdie’s eyes threatened to spill over again. Gulping, swallowing, she continued. “I couldn’t begin to tell you about Davey. For one thing, it hurt too much. For another thing—he just defied description. Davey was... Davey is... the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Suddenly remembering her so-recent moment of commitment, release, and victory, Birdie added joyfully—and Big Tiny’s eyes widened—“Except for when I received Jesus as my Savior.”

And though the conversation swirled back to Davey’s and Mr. Jacoby’s story, it was plain that Big Tiny put the salvation account aside for the moment only.

“Can you forgive me, Davey, for the way I left? For not telling you I was going, for not writing? I felt that I dare not—”

“I know, Mama Bird—” Davey, the child, spoke the loving title spontaneously. Still, it called forth another sob from Birdie and another round of hugs and pats and croons.

“I knew more than you thought I knew.” It was Davey, the young man, speaking now. “I heard the beatings in the night; I heard your weeping. I’ve always been ashamed that I didn’t do
something
—”

“Davey, no! You were just a little boy of ten! And it would have meant a beating for you, too. No, no! You are in no way to blame, not for any of it! It’s I... I who left—”

“I was glad,” Davey said. “Knowing you were safely away, I had a kind of fierce gladness. I was so glad you escaped. Things went from bad to worse after that, Birdie. Dad drank more, worked less, moved around more.”

“How did you find me?” Birdie asked, fixing her eyes on Mr. Jacoby.

“We followed the trail of teaching positions you had held,” the white-haired man said. “One led to another, finally bringing us to Bliss. An apt name, Bliss. Now we are on our way to my home in Glenfield—”