Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (19 page)

“And, Tierney,” Pearly took time to say, earnestly, “He’ll carry you like that, iffen you’ll let Him.”

“Aye; I won’t forget. I’ll try not to forget,” Tierney promised, and she stepped back, but taking with her a promise and a pledge that would see her in good stead in the days and months ahead, whether she knew it or not at the moment.

What a day for tears it was! Pearly’s cup seemed about to run over. Tears, of happiness and satisfaction, puddled in her eyes. She dashed them away, not ashamed before the gaze of the young man, who seemed to understand, as though it were perfectly natural for a prospective domestic employee to use Scripture and to talk about praying as though it were an everyday occurrence. One would have suspected the young man had been born into a home where Christian principles were important and the name of God revered, being often mentioned in prayer and praise.

“Can yer remember where it’s found, Tierney; in the Bible, I mean? It’s the Book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 11. Read it all, Tierney. It tells about people bein’ like grass. Fits this prairie, I’d say, and makes y’ think. Still, think of yerself as a lamb, will yer, Tierney, will yer?”

And Tierney promised.

Dressed in her “uniform”—the dark skirt and white shirtwaist—clutching her threadbare cape, Pearly turned toward the patient Frank. With alacrity for such a solid young man, he gathered up the bags and chattels that she indicated were hers and turned to go, Pearly at his heels, Anne and Tierney following.

Pearly paused. “Wait a mo. I better pray now; outside will be too busy and too public to do it prop’ly.” She bowed her head; the others followed suit.

“Dear Favver in heaven, here we are now, about to part and go our ways. Fank You for Anne and Tierney and their kindnesses to me. Bless ’em, Favver, and lead ’em in the way they oughter go. And let us all meet again, in Yer time and place. Fank You, dear Favver. Amen.”

Perhaps because of the prayer, perhaps because of the kindly, trustworthy-appearing young man and his solid ways, Pearly trotted down the stairs, across the foyer of the hostel, and to the street with no hesitation whatsoever. How different, Tierney thought, than the dragging steps of Anne and the reluctance she had displayed just a short time ago. Surely the One who answered prayer had guided them thus far and would continue to keep His good hand upon them, gather them in His bosom.

Even Anne seemed to realize the rightness of it all and clasped Pearly to her with warmth and gratitude; she had indeed been feeling guilty over her failure to keep her bargain. In the midst of her personal problem, she had given an uneasy thought or two to the elderly couple who needed help and who would be disappointed if no one showed up with their grandson’s return.

Tierney folded the childish form to herself with some understanding of the Almighty’s plans and purposes—far greater and more far reaching, far more personal than she had imagined—and blessed the day the little “Lunnon” waif had entered her life.

Pearly’s belongings were stowed in the wagon, and she was gallantly assisted up onto the spring seat by a solicitous Frankie.
The stalwart fellow lumbered around the rig and “ascended” (Tierney recalled Ishbel’s word with a small smile) to take his seat, tipping it until wee Pearly grasped the iron handle at her side and clung on for dear life.

With a grand flourish of the reins and a vigorous “Ya, away my good fellows!” by Frank, the team stepped out briskly, down the same street they had trod just an hour or so ago, but with a new cargo.

This time there was no shaking of the shoulders on the wagon seat, no tearful sob, no air of dejection. Pearly’s narrow shoulders were erect; her hat bobbed joyful cadence to the jolting of the wagon, and her smile, thrown over her shoulder to Tierney and Anne, was seraphic.

“I guess,” Anne said a trifle defensively, “she’s the one who is supposed to go. She seemed certain of it. Maybe,” she added thoughtfully, “there’s somethin’ to this prayin’ business. I mean somethin’ more than liturgy, somethin’ personal, maybe?”

“It certainly seems to work for her,” Tierney admitted and waved as Pearly cast another glance back. “Maybe . . . maybe it would work for us.”

Anne shrugged. Free of the despair of going to an unknown place with an unknown man, her burdens seemed not so great, after all. Let another fearsome moment come, however, and Anne, too, would have no alternative—now that Pearly had left her “testimony” to ring in their hearts—but to think seriously of the availability of an Almighty God.

T
ierney and Anne stood alone in the street, watching the wagon trundle around the corner and out of sight, feeling more alone than they could have imagined. Was it just the absence of one, depleting their number by one-third, or was it a strangely vulnerable feeling of being out from under the covering of Pearly’s prayers?

And yet Pearly had tried, earnestly, to instruct them in how to approach God, how to make Him an integral part of their lives, bringing, at the same time, the comfort and strength they so badly needed to face the days ahead. With the bright sunshine of another Northwest day pouring its light over and around them, Tierney and Anne were still groping their way through darkness in more ways than one. Had Pearly’s brief time to “testify” been enough? Would there yet be a harvest from the planting she had done?

Nothing of this, of course, passed between the two girls; it may not have been definite, coherent thought. But the seed was planted, and stirring and struggling for life.

“There she goes,” Anne said inadequately, from a tumultuous mix of feelings: guilt, that she herself had not fulfilled the contract, that she would be responsible if Pearly stepped into a hotbed of misery and abuse, and relief—great, sweeping relief—that it was not she driving off with a strange man, into an unknown situation, in a new and, in some ways, terrifying land.

“We’ll probably never meet up with her likes again,” Tierney added with a tightness in her throat and unexpected tears stinging her eyes. “She’s a rare one, she is. Somehow, I think, we willna lose touch. After all, she’s not impossibly far awa’. Thirty miles, did he say?”

“That’s from here, where I’ll be,” Anne reminded practically. “An’ if they coom to town for supplies, as they’re bound to do, and Pearly persuades them to let her coom wi’, I, for one, will get to see her. Knowing summat o’ my plans, that I’ll be workin’ here, she’ll surely look me up.” Anne slanted a glance at Tierney.

“Ye’re remindin’ me that I really have no idea where I’ll be. That you’ll be here in toon, or so it seems, and I—”

The unknown future stretched, blankly and darkly, before her, and Tierney, having come so far with fortitude and courage, faced the hardest part of all—the end of the journey and the purpose for which she had come.

If she found herself settled into a miserable situation, what could she do about it? On a farm she could be stuck many miles from “civilization”—if this raw Saskatoon town could be termed civilized—and with no one, no one at all, to whom to turn. Ishbel Mountjoy had washed her hands, so to speak, of the girls when they were placed; Anne, quite helpless herself in many ways, could offer sympathy but probably no real solutions; and Pearly, whom she was now recognizing as a tower of strength, would be isolated on a farm out there, somewhere, in the vastness that was Saskatchewan’s prairie. And Robbie? Robbie Dunbar was as lost to her as though he had stepped off the end of the world.

It would be weeks, perhaps months, before she could hope to hear from Binkiebrae. She hadn’t, as yet, given James an address to which to write. Once settled—out there, somewhere—and finally able to finish and send the epistle she had been working on, giving James a return address, how would it get to a post office? How long would it take to cross this wilderness to a ship going to Scotland? How long would it take to hear back—back across the ocean, back across the wilderness, back to this unknown farm? In spite of herself, Tierney shivered. Isolation—she was beginning to understand the meaning of the word.

Though her future was unsettled, hopefully Anne was taken care of, and that was a relief to Tierney. With a job and a place to live, though she might be surrounded by strangeness and strangers, there would be one small place of familiarity and security for Anne—the hostel, which was already beginning to seem like an oasis in a desert of immense dimensions.

Knowing Anne well and loving her dearly, Tierney was unselfish enough to be glad it was Anne who was settled and she who must still face the unknown future.

When the wagon had disappeared from sight, when the very dust of the street had settled, when the last of Pearly Chapel had been seen, Anne and Tierney turned back toward the hostel and their room.

“At least,” Anne said as they stepped inside—and Tierney appreciated the attempt to turn the conversation to something of a lighter nature—“we won’t be so crowded in that beddie!”

“Pearly—wee lass—dinna take up much space,” Tierney reminded, and thought, with a pang,
She scarce made a ripple under the covers but leaves a big emptiness in our hearts
.

“I guess,” Anne said, “I must go and see aboot the job. Will ye coom wi’ me, Tierney?”

“I’ll coom,” Tierney said, not certain it was a good thing to do. Anne must immediately learn to stand on her own two feet. Soon she would be as alone as the one clump of bracken atop Tierney’s barren hillside back home in Binkiebrae. That bracken had bent and bowed to wind and weather and had remained
unbroken. Anne, sprung from the same Scotch soil, so to speak, would demonstrate that same stern ability to adapt and endure. Tierney counted on it. There was no alternative.

Shaking their heads over the condition of their clothes, the girls, dressing to go to the hotel, settled once again for their serge skirts—which had survived better than anything else—and smoothed out their waists as much as possible. Still they looked wrinkled and limp, and they decided, sighing, to wrap themselves in shawls, pulling them neatly around their shoulders and clasping them in front and more or less covering up the pathetic waists.

Downstairs at the counter they asked directions to the Madeleine, finding it was not far away, a fine thing if Anne should be working nights, a finer thing when she would be working during blizzardlike conditions.

“Ye know,” Tierney needed to explain to the clerk at the desk, “that I’m lookin’ for a family named Ketchum to coom fer me. I dinna ken if ’twill be today or no’. I dinna like to gang sae far awa’, in case they coom—”

The face of the clerk was becoming curiously strained, perhaps embarrassed. For not only had Tierney, in her concern, slipped into pure Scots, but she was speaking rapidly and rolling r’s richly; the young man was obviously not comprehending what was being said to him.

“Whoa!” he said finally, stemming the flow of words. “Begin again, willya? I’m used to all kinds of people, from all kinds of places, with all kinds of languages and accents, but you’ve got me stumped for sure, lady.”

Tierney paused, flushed slightly, breathed deeply, and apologized, and began again. But slowly. “I’m sorry. Now, sir . . . if you could be . . . on the watch . . . if you please . . . for a family . . . by the name of Ketchum. . . . They may coom . . . come . . . lookin’ for me—”

“Of course,” the young man said smoothly. “I understand plain English very nicely, you know. No need to treat me like I’m deef and dumb. Ketchum, you say? I’ll just make a note of it. You’ll be back after breakfast, I suppose?”

“Aye. We’re actually goin’ on . . . on business. But I guess we’ll eat while we’re there.”

“Looking for work, eh?” the clerk said wisely. “Well, good luck. Ketchum, you say . . .”

“He certainly won’t forget the name,” Tierney muttered to Anne as they made their way to the street and turned in the proper direction, still smarting from her slip into “jargon,” which Ishbel Mountjoy had often warned them against.

The Madeleine, a four-square, unimposing, two-story building, was, as reported, close by, not more than two blocks away. Anne and Tierney made their way to a dining room crowded with customers. The clientele seemed largely of the rugged, mostly male, variety.

“Yes, ma’ams?” A slim, middle-aged, thin-haired man stepped toward them. Dressed in dark clothes, with a badge on his lapel that, on close inspection read “Host,” he exuded authority.

“May I seat you?” this paragon of propriety asked, rubbing his hands together.

Though neither Anne nor Tierney were judges of the patrician and aristocratic, even they could see that it was a serviceable room rather than elite. The floor seemed scuffed as if from heavy boots, the table coverings, though white in color, were oil cloth rather than linen, and the customers were of the hearty, hungry variety rather than the fastidious and fashionable. Still, there was a certain raw energy about the place, and a young woman—in serge skirt and with an apron cinched around her waist—was pouring coffee to a table of men seated near a window.

At the man’s approach, Anne had stepped just behind Tierney’s shoulder.

“Well?” the host asked, eyes turning a little frosty as he studied the two females standing before him in wrinkled clothes and having, truly, rather weary faces. To Anne’s weary countenance was added distrust.