Seasons of Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #4) (22 page)

“You need to be a help right now, Alice. And
this
won’t help.” Quinn shook the bottles in his hands. “This is a time for clarity, for sanity. You’ll need to be strong. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Alice reached a beseeching hand, her face anguished. “I
need
it!” she said huskily.

“No, you don’t. What you do need is a clear head. Your child needs you—no!” he said, to her raised head, pleading eyes, reaching hand. Alice capitulated, sinking back like a drooping flower.

“I’ll tell you what I
am
going to do with it,” Quinn continued. “I’m going to give some of the laudanum to Billy. He’ll be more comfortable soon. Sit over here—”

Quinn helped Alice to a rocking chair.

“And I’ll put him in your arms . . . like so.”

Suiting action to words, Quinn put the terrorized Billy in his mother’s arms and then, with Tierney’s help to hold the tossing head still, measured a spoonful of the medication into the gaping mouth. Billy, taken by surprise, gulped automatically, his mouth closing and his caterwauling hushed, though he spluttered for a while. Quinn and Tierney looked at each other with relief, relaxing, with long sighs, muscles that were more tense than they had known.

“These burns will need more attention than this. We’ll have to get him to the doctor,” Quinn said, and Tierney nodded agreement.

“I’m worrit aboot that eye,” she said. “Seems the hot water splashed into it.”

Billy quieted in his mother’s arms under the effect of the laudanum, but even in a doze his small body shook from time to time with dry sobs. Alice, her head back and her eyes closed, could have been praying.

Eventually Tierney remembered Barney and turned to find that small boy crouched in a corner of an overstuffed chair, tears streaking his white face, the chicken still clutched in his arms.

Gently lifting the chicken from him, Tierney took it to the door and released it. With renewed vigor it streaked off toward its companions, squawking its unbelievable story at the top of its voice all the way.

“Everything’s going to be a’ reet,” she said, sitting beside the trembling child and putting her arm around him. “It’s jist a . . .”—with a few words she relieved him of the lifelong burden of believing he had been the cause of bringing terrible pain to his brother—“a wee burnie. Mama will take him to the doctor. Would you stay here with me, an’ help me?”

Barney, with a quivering sigh, slumped against Tierney’s side and nodded.

Now Tierney’s eyes, which had been dry throughout the ordeal, filled with tears. Hugging the little boy to her, she muttered “Silly!” to herself.

Quinn was doing a hasty job of scraping the scone dough from the floor, pulling the boiling picallili to the back of the stove, and, in general, bringing order out of the chaos of the previous few minutes.

“I’ve been thinking about how to handle this,” he said, turning to Tierney. “I’ll have to take them to Prince Albert, I suppose. It’ll be some trip, but with this,” and he pointed to the dark bottle, “we should make it just fine. At least the boy will. I don’t know about the mother.”

Having deprived Alice of her support, he wondered and watched her but firmly kept the cordial and the laudanum beyond her reach.

“I’ll need to take the Bloom buggy,” Quinn said to Tierney. “I’m sure Lydia and Herbert would give their blessing if they knew what had happened. I didn’t see the Hoy horses in the barn or in the corral; perhaps Robbie is using them today. What will you do? Stay here until I return? Walk home? Remember, you’ll have the boy with you.”

“I’ll stay here the rest of the day, I think,” Tierney said thoughtfully. “Lydia will no’ be expectin’ me till later. Then, when Robbie cooms to do the evenin’ chores, I’ll have him take the news to the Blooms an’ I’ll stay on here wi’ Barney until you coom back. Then we’ll go back home together. How’s that sound?”

Quinn nodded his approval and went to hitch the horse to the rig.

The sun was high overhead when Quinn put Alice into the buggy and handed a drowsy Billy to her waiting arms. Alice had roused herself to fix her hair and put on her hat, and though she was pale and tense, was much more in control than at any time that day. Tierney wondered just what the real Alice was like—out from under the influence of whatever it was she imbibed, whether cheering cordial or numbing laudanum.

Tierney stood with her arm around Barney watching the buggy pull out of the yard, then turned back to the house and the tasks awaiting her there. With the fire stoked and blazing and the piccalilli bubbling once again, she proceeded with the canning, trusting that, in the deprivation of winter, the tomato pickles would be acceptable, though overcooked.

Later, with the sun sinking toward the west, there came a light tap on the door. It opened to reveal the bronzed face of Robbie Dunbar, quickly turning darker still with the flush that mounted to his cheeks when it was Tierney who turned from the stove rather than Alice.

Tierney was stirring a mix of potatoes and onions in a frying pan, and at her elbow, ready to come from pan to table, were delectable scones such as Robbie hadn’t seen or tasted since leaving Binkiebrae.

If Robbie’s first reaction was “This is what it would be like to coom home of an evenin’ if—” he checked it before it reached his lips or even conscious thought. Robbie Dunbar was a man of character, and though that character had been flayed bitterly recently, it had found no way to honorably speak of his deep love to one woman while promised to another.

Consequently he stumbled a little. “Wha . . .” he began, his confusion and surprise showing in more than the color that flooded his face.

“Coom in, Robbie. Sit ye doon a bit, if ye will, and I’ll tell ye wha’s been happenin’.”

Barney crept near, to be gathered into the circle of Robbie’s arm and to eventually climb up on his lap while the story unfolded.

“So Quinn and Alice and Billy are probably in Prince Albert by now,” she finished, “and should be startin’ home anytime. I dinna ken what more a doctor can do than Quinn did, but he’ll have ointment, I suppose. I tell ye, Robbie, we had reason to be grateful for those bottles o’ Alice’s—withoot ’em that puir bairn couldna put up wi’ the pain.”

“You say Quinn wouldna let Alice hae any o’ the medicine hersel’?” Robbie asked. “How’d she seem, goin’ off like that withoot it?”

“Once she got used to the idea, she seemed to pull hersel’ together. Does she take that . . . that stuff all the time, Robbie?”

“Aye, all the time. An’ she’s a different person when she does—the laudanum makes her drowsy and slow, the cordial—well, she acts happy, cheerful, sort of. It takes a little gettin’ used to, the change in personality from one time to another. I sometimes wonder if I’ve met the real Alice.”

“Aye. I was thinkin’ the same. Well, sit up and eat, Robbie. Come, Barney, climb into your own chair now and eat your supper.”

For Robbie, sitting across the table from Tierney was both misery and ecstasy. Never had fried potatoes and onions tasted so like angels’ fare, never had tea so much resembled nectar. As for the scones, a reminder of home, family, and Binkiebrae, they were lighter than clouds on a summer day.

More than once, almost overcome, Robbie dropped his eyes to his plate, swallowing convulsively and commanding his exhilarated pulse to be still as he made an effort to bring his heart’s feelings into subjection to his head’s wisdom. The one cried out for satisfaction, the other commanded duty.

Once, raising his head, he looked straight into the amber eyes of Tierney Caulder and was lost. Starting to his feet to—he knew not what—rush to her side, perhaps, he was halted by the swift averting of her eyes, and her quick “An’ would ye like some more tatties, Robbie?”

Shaken at how nearly he had betrayed his word, Robbie sank back. Tierney fell silent, as though caught in the same torment of the moment.

Barney sat between them, slurping his milk and probably keeping restraint in the midst when desire threatened to put reason to rout.

Finally Tierney breathed deeply a few times and resumed eating, though it seemed her food, as his, had turned to sawdust
in her mouth; even the scones failed to wheedle either of them to continue with their meal.

Was there ever a more unnatural, miserable situation! Sitting across the table from each other yet miles apart; lips locked while words threatened to tumble out. It was torture, Robbie concluded broodingly, and he savagely crumpled a scone in his fingers.

“Excuse me,” he said eventually, preparing to rise from the table and flee the house. “I’ll get on wi’ the chores. Allan is takin’ care o’ ours, as he often does these days. Between us we manage to keep all three places goin’—his, mine, this one. You coomin’ wi’ me, Barney lad?”

“When y’re done here, Robbie, will ye no’ stop by the Blooms’ on yer way home and tell ’em why Quinn and I aren’t back yet?”

Robbie promised to do so.

When the buggy pulled into the yard and Quinn, Alice, and a sleeping Billy unloaded, quiet reigned in the Hoy house. It was clean and shining, a dozen jars of piccalilli gleamed in the lamplight, Tierney sat reading by the same light, and Barney, in his much-washed and faded nightgown, slept on the nearby sofa.

But the kettle was simmering, and hastily Tierney poured water into the waiting teapot. Almost before the travelers had crossed the threshold, she was pulling scones from the warming oven, preparing to feed the weary adults when Billy should be carried up to his bed and Barney hugged and kissed and taken to bed also.

Over tea, Quinn and Alice told how the trip had gone—for them, and for Billy, who, with occasional drops of laudanum, had dozed his way to town and back.

“Lucky for us,” Quinn said, “the doc was in, and sober. There was some squalling and battling from Billy, but Doc got the burns cleaned and fresh ointment put on, professional bandages. Gave us medication to bring home.”

“It seems the burns aren’t as bad as we thought. The water wasn’t actually boiling,” Alice explained in a strained voice, “though it was hot enough, goodness knows.” She shuddered at
the memory. “His eye, though, may have permanent damage. Oh, I pray not! I feel so responsible, so guilty—”

“Now, Alice,” Quinn said gently, as though they had gone over this ground before, “nobody is blaming you; try not to blame yourself, all right? It was the chicken’s squawk as much as anything that started the whole thing. Put it behind you, and get on with the healing.” Whether hers or Billy’s, Quinn didn’t specify.

Alice, weary and somewhat disheveled, managed to look queenly as her small head lifted, her narrow shoulders squared, and a glint of determination lit her delicate face.

“It doesn’t matter what you say, though you are very kind. I know I was responsible. And maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to know, after all. I’ve . . . I’ve not been myself ever since Barnabas died. Maybe it’s time to . . . to take hold again. As much, that is, as I’m able.”

Remembering that Alice was far from being well and that she had put in a day that would have taxed a strong woman, Tierney was stricken at her own pettiness where the fatally ill woman was concerned. Getting to her feet, she hastily cleaned up the table and all signs of the midnight repast.

“Get to bed, Alice,” she suggested. “Sleep while Billy sleeps, if you can.”

If Quinn saw Alice’s eyes stray to the cupboard and its empty corner, he didn’t mention it. It was only after Alice had taken a lamp and gone upstairs that Quinn, ushering Tierney before him, blew out the table lamp and turned to the door and the tired horse waiting there.

Whether he was awakened by the passing rig or had been on the edge of a restless sleep, Robbie didn’t know. But he tossed on his bed and knew without doubt it was Tierney and the manly, clean-cut, educated, capable, respectable, excellent—Robbie’s galling evaluation went on and on—Quinn Archer, passing in the night. Together.