Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (17 page)

Surprisingly, there was a knock at the door. Pearly started, hope lighting her eyes. Tierney saw, and puzzlement creased her brow. The knock came again.

“Who—?” Tierney muttered, preparing to rise to her feet.

Pearly beat her to it; with a bound she was off the bed and at the door. With a glad cry she flung open the door. With a blank look she stepped back, the glow fading from her face.

A total stranger stood there. Not much older than Tierney, the young woman smiled engagingly.

“Hello there,” she said, in friendly manner, almost as though she knew them.

And in a way she did. Was she not in the great Northwest for the same purpose? Apparently she was. And did she not feel a true kinship with these newcomers? Obviously she did.

“I’m Fria Klaus,” she said, and seemed to expect an invitation in, a member of the family.

But Tierney was cautious. Who Fria Klaus was and what she wanted was more puzzling than the odd behavior of Pearly Chapel. For now, to add question to question in Tierney’s mind, Pearly had stepped back, face downcast, and had seated herself once again on the bed as though she had no interest whatsoever in the person at the door. A visitor, in the faraway and strange place in which they found themselves, someone come to see them personally, and Pearly couldn’t be roused to interest? It was too much for Tierney.

Casting a frustrated look at Pearly, Tierney turned again to the young woman at the door.

“Yes?” she asked, still cautious. Could this innocent-appearing female be one of the clandestine group of white slavers about which they had been warned? It seemed most unlikely; the girl seemed as straightforward and natural as they themselves. She might indeed have been one of the British Women’s Emigration Society girls—

She was indeed.

She spoke the magic word: Ishbel Mountjoy.

Relief washed over Tierney like a dash of rainwater on a hot and dusty day.

“Come in! Come in!” she said warmly.

Fria Klaus stepped briskly into the room and, at Tierney’s invitation, took one of the two straight-backed chairs; Tierney
took the other. Pearly retained her place on the bed; but she could not, now, express disinterest. Another Mountjoy girl! And just when they were so alone!

“Did the Society send you?” Tierney asked, hoping it were true, hoping someone was still looking out for them.

“No. Sorry! Once you leave Toronto with your contract in your hand, you are pretty well on your own,” the stranger said, speaking with a definite accent, Germanic perhaps, perhaps Scandinavian; Tierney and Pearly were too inexperienced with other lands, other cultures, to know. It didn’t matter. The girl was neatly dressed, in what seemed to be a dark uniform, and with a white and snowy apron tied around her substantial middle. She was a strong, plain-looking girl, with an open expression and a straightforward look in her eyes.

Tierney and Pearly looked at the newcomer expectantly, set at ease by what they saw.

“I came here about three months ago—”

“To work in Saskatoon?” Tierney asked, obviously finding it hard to believe anyone would come freely for that purpose.

“To work on a farm,” Fria Klaus explained. Then, with a shake of her head, she added, “No one ever came to meet me.”

“Hoots!”

Fria Klaus was taken aback momentarily by the unfamiliar exclamation. But she rallied.

“There was nothing for me to do but to find work, which I did, and I’ve been here ever since.”

“You’re the lass the clerk told us aboot—”

“Yes, and he told me about you. I understand your anxiety about not being met by someone; I understand completely.”

“I guess so. And did no one ever coom to get ye . . . you?”

“Never.”

“And didn’t the Society do anythin’ aboot it?”

“By the time I finally got in touch with them, I’da been dead of starvation if I hadn’t gone ahead and taken care of myself. It turned out, finally, that the farmer and his wife who had contracted for me had serious problems; the man died, in fact. Of
course the wife never gave me another thought. Well, it can happen. We’re so far from headquarters . . . there’s no quick way to get word to anyone or from anyone . . . it’ll be wonderful when that new contraption—the telephone—begins to be used—”

“Oh, do ye think it ever will?” Tierney asked, awed. “In these out-of-the-way places?”

“Sure to,” the girl said confidently. “I work, you see, in a hotel near here, and I get all the latest news like that. Salesmen are always coming through, and newspapermen, and so on. Oh, it’s a great way to keep abreast of things. Now you—if you settle on a farm—will be lost just as if you were in the outback of Australia.” The girl spoke with scorn for the ignorant peasant who had nothing better to do than waste talents and time on farm work. Tierney was immediately certain that Fria was a farm girl, finally feeling superior.

“We’re both goin’ to farms,” Tierney said uncertainly.

“I thought there were three of you,” Fria Klaus said, changing the subject.

“One of us has already gone—”

“To a farm, I’ll bet.”

“Weel, aye . . . that is, yes.”

“Poor thing.”

Pearly, for the first time, spoke up. “Why do you say poor fing? She went orf wif a . . .” Pearly seemed to falter, “a very nice young man. She’s luckier’n us, I’d say. Here we sit, nowheres to go—”

“Better to sit here than slave on a farm,” Fria Klaus said with disdain for all such.

“Tell you what,” she continued. “Looks like you are not going to be met, same as me. I bet I can get you jobs . . . or,” doubtfully now, “one of you.”

Fria’s eyes swung from Tierney to Pearly, and back again. Her expression seemed to speak for her: Tierney was her choice. Pearly was too small, too childish, too frail.

Pearly was all backbone; Pearly was all determination. “Not me,” she said stoutly. “I’ve had enough of Lunnon to do me a
lifetime, and I’m not stayin’ in no town when there’s a clean, wide farm to live on.”

“What about you?” Fria asked Tierney. “Are you interested?”

“I dinna know; it’s a little early to say, isn’t it? This is only our second day here. Our employers could show up yet, couldn’t they?”

“They could, I suppose,” Fria said grudgingly, obviously having no patience with the system.

“Tell me,” Tierney asked, “what happens to your fee, when you don’t fulfill the contract?”

“Well, in my case, it wasn’t my fault. They just never showed up. It was the Society who finally ran down the problem and informed me what had gone wrong. Of course they offered to find me a new place, but by that time I was at work . . . had to be or I’da starved to death.”

“The fee?” Tierney probed.

“They think I owe it, because they paid my way over here. I dunno. I’m balking at paying it, you may be sure, since they didn’t fill their part of the bargain. We’ll see, I guess. In the meantime I’m working and happier about it than if the old geezer from the farm had showed up. Tell you what, you take another day; if no one comes by then, you’d feel free to do something else, wouldn’t you? You’d almost have to, wouldn’t you?”

“Aye—for sure,” Tierney said. “We canna sit around and do nothin’. If there’s work for only one o’ us, we’ll take it and pay our bills, and the other one will look for somethin’ else. Right, Pearly?”

Pearly seemed lost in a dream. She started. “Oh! Yes, o’ course,” she said quickly. “But,” darkly, “I want to be on a farm, meself. I haf to pray about it.”

“You do that,” Fria Klaus said briskly, rising to her feet. “Now, it’s almost time for me to go to work. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and see what’s happened in the meantime. All right?”

“A’ reet,” Tierney agreed, and obviously gladly. “By the way, I’m Tierney Caulder, from Scotland, and this is Pearly Chapel from Lunnon . . . London.”

The young women shook hands properly. Even Ishbel Mountjoy would have been gratified.

Shutting the door behind their newfound acquaintance, Tierney turned to Pearly, relief on her face and in her voice.

“Well, dinna tell me that wasn’t ordered of the Lord, Pearly. To me it seems like a life raft thrown to a drownin’ person. I dinna feel nearly so adrift—in this sea of grass—as I did a half hour ago.”

Pearly, however, had allowed herself to fall back across the bed. Her eyes were shut, and her lips were moving.

Frustrated again, Tierney rose to her feet, watched Pearly for a moment, and turned away. Pearly was praying, she supposed. Finally, battling anxiety and, in spite of Fria Klaus and her encouraging words, more than half-worried—with Anne gone and Pearly in a passion of prayer—Tierney dug her journal out of her battered traveling bag, seated herself at the small table in the corner of the room, and commenced writing.

Loneliness, worry, weariness overcame even Tierney’s intrepid spirit. Laying her head on her arms, she let the tears come. Her slim shoulders shook, and the tears puddled on the open journal, blurring Robbie’s name and obliterating Tierney’s silent call to him. Robbie was as lost to her as the penned name disappearing in the watery stain. The realization caused a fresh outburst.

What a sight they were—Pearly, eyes closed, lips moving silently as she lay stretched on the bed, Tierney, lying across the table, weeping. And Anne? Anne saying—

Pearly sat up with a start; Tierney lifted her head, one final tear running down her nose.

“Open the door; let me in.”

Pearly’s eyes met Tierney’s; a blaze lit those pansy eyes with something like joy. Tierney stared blankly at Pearly.

“Tierney, Pearly—it’s me, Anne. Open the door.”

It wasn’t imagination; it was Anne. Anne, or a perfect impostor.

Pearly got to the door before Tierney. Fumbling with the latch, then the knob, she eventually flung it open. Flung it open to see Anne—big-eyed and white-faced—standing in the hall. Behind her, Anne’s bags in his hands—Frankie Schmidt.

For a moment there was silence. Anne, drooping, tired, pasty-complexioned, seemed transfixed just outside the door. Frank Schmidt, his open face a mix of dismay and helplessness, peered over Anne’s shoulder, wordless, at least for the moment. Anne’s bags dragged in his hands.

Reaching the door a moment behind Pearly, Tierney could see Pearly’s face directly in her line of vision, joyous beyond belief.

Tierney stretched her hand toward her weary friend. Pearly’s hand was stretched—not to Anne, who stumbled into the welcoming circle of Tierney’s arms, but toward the figure still standing in the hall, the square figure of Frank Schmidt.

W
hat a flurry of gasps, of hugs, of comforting pats! One would have thought Anne had been gone for months rather than minutes—sixty of them, to be exact.

With considerable fluster and flutter Anne was transported across the floor and to a chair. Here Tierney, clucking and murmuring wordlessly, seated her friend, removed her hat and helped her off with her gloves, first taking from her grasp the small case she clutched.

Pearly was, in a way, doing the same for Frank Schmidt. She indicated that the traveling bags should be set aside; then, with sympathetic face and gestures, she urged the robust young man toward the other chair.

There they sat, like twin statues, one on either side of the table: Anne, whose dazed look was being replaced with a shamefaced expression, Frank Schmidt continuing to seem more bewildered than anything.

“Weel . . . weel . . .” Tierney began, standing before the two of them, her hands clutched before her, threatening to wring helplessly and disclose her surprise, perhaps her dismay.

Anne—back? Now what in the world could Tierney do or say to persuade her to “do her duty”? The future—for herself as well as for Anne—gaped blankly before her. How could she leave for her own appointment if Anne were still here, alone, helpless, hopeless?

Pearly was direct, as she was apt to be. London had held little softness of character or ease of circumstance for Pearly Gates; Saskatchewan had done nothing, at least as yet, to bring change into the basic personality of Pearly Chapel.

“Whatcher doin’ back here?” she asked bluntly, but not unkindly.

At this Anne burst into tears. Frank Schmidt raised his pale blue eyes to the ceiling and sighed deeply.