Seasons of Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #4) (19 page)

Yes, Vivian, if she were to make it through the summer, needed diversion.

She settled on the pastor: good-looking, educated,
single.
Parker Jones’s devotion to spiritual things—God, the congregation, sermons, visitation, not to mention the girl Molly—was so single-minded that it was almost a game to Vivian to try to distract him, turn him aside, set his thoughts ajumble—a challenge worthy of her attention!

Sitting in a dusty buggy, impatient, Vivian could see the conflict in the eyes of the man on the parsonage porch, the pathetic parsonage’s excuse for a porch, which was made with split logs laid side by side for a floor and a small overhang of the eaves for a roof. Surely a man of refinement, of some education, could not settle for this forever. Vivian suspected that, even now, she could see the doubt in his eyes. It was a good beginning.

“Parker Jones,” she caroled. “What are you doing inside on a fine day like this? How about taking a little time away from the books? I’m sure you’ll be much more effective for it.”

Opening his mouth to respond fittingly, refusing her offer, Parker was checked when her voice, gaily importuning, continued.

“We’ll all be better off for it—you, me, the congregation—if you just take time to clear your head a bit, get a new perspective. Catch a new vision, perhaps?”

The last was in the form of a question, and Parker Jones found his armor pierced.

A new vision. Was it so obvious, that even this outsider recognized his problem, understood the uncertainties gnawing at his spirit?

Opening his mouth to speak, to say . . . what? Once more she was ahead of him.

“I had in mind a run . . . well, a trot, to Prince Albert. Are you game?”

“Not really,” he finally managed. “This is prayer meeting night, and I’m working on my talk.”

“Work, work, work! Talk, talk, talk! Is that all you do? Take a look around—doesn’t the bush call, doesn’t the sky beckon?”

In spite of himself, Parker’s gaze followed her sweeping hand. Summer was fast fleeting away; soon winter would be upon them, and buggy rides would be a thing of the past. And not available again until the far future, for the snow came early and stayed late; sometimes they had snow as early as September and as late as June.

“Besides, I have something I want to talk to you about . . . something important.”

In spite of himself Parker Jones was beguiled. After all, it was too nice to stay inside. The blue sky did indeed beckon, the birds’ sweet calls enticed, and the girl . . . the girl offered an hour or two away from the routine cares of the pastorate.

“I’ll get my hat,” he said, turning to the house and missing the triumphant look that sprang into Vivian’s eyes.

“I don’t think it can be as far as Prince Albert,” he said, climbing into the buggy and taking the reins she handed to him. “As I said, I have a service tonight. But we can take a spin for an hour or two.”

Clip-clopping around Bliss—there was no need to hurry—Parker began to relax. The prayer meeting message he had been struggling over was put aside, his meager supper menu lost its importance; even Sunday’s sermon was forgotten for the moment.

“Now see,” Vivian said archly as Parker Jones settled back, his hat tipped rakishly and his lean face, exposed to the merciless rays of the sun, showing to wonderful advantage, “you needed this—the afternoon off, the buggy ride, me, to help you get your priorities straight.”

“I’m not sure I have my priorities straight,” Parker hedged, “but it won’t hurt, for once, to take some time off in the middle of the week. ‘Six days shalt thou labor’ is the commandment,
and I work on the seventh day. There’s no reason to feel guilty over these couple of hours off.”

“Of course not! I hate sermons that make me feel guilty. It’s so . . . old-fashioned, so archaic, to preach that way.

“Tell me, Parker, about why you are in the ministry, and why in the world a young man would choose such a vocation anyway.” Vivian gazed earnestly at Parker Jones, giving him her full and rapt attention, an absorbed congregation of one.

Now here was a topic that related to the ministry. Answering her, Parker had a small feeling of relief—see! the time wasn’t totally wasted, at all.

“It’s hard to explain. Men and women who preach the gospel or go to the foreign field as a missionary refer to what they sense is a ‘call.’”

“And do you have such a call? Did you hear a voice or something like that?”

“No,” Parker Jones said rather haltingly, not a bit sure he could explain it and already struggling with this very concept. “No voice. Just a growing conviction—”

“But is that enough to build a lifetime on—a growing conviction?”

“I thought so—”

“What if the conviction, as you call it, stops growing?” she asked shrewdly.

“I only know,” he said, rather too heavily for Vivian’s preference, “that I had it. It was like a gleam. It isn’t anything one can give up . . . easily.”

“See what I have,” Vivian said abruptly, bringing out a slender box from under the seat and opening it. “Chocolates! Have one . . . have several, and see if the day doesn’t sweeten up a little for you.”

The anticipated hour or two spun out into the remainder of the afternoon. Up one road and down another, across Bliss and into the neighboring district of Home Park, back again for a stop at the store in Bliss and a bottle of Wild Cherry Phosphate
paid for out of the meager coins in Parker Jones’s pocket. Finally, they turned the buggy back toward the parsonage.

“You said you had something important to talk to me about,” Parker Jones finally managed to interject into the flow of chatter.

“It can wait,” Vivian said, tossing her head until her hair, loosened by the breezes, whipped across his shoulder, so close to hers. “After all, you need this time to unwind, I’m sure of it. Such a hardworking minister I never saw!”

No mention of the fact that her association with ministers was limited to Easter and Christmas services. And so the “important” item was tabled for the time being.

“You can come to dinner again soon,” Vivian said, “and that would be a fine time to talk about it.”

Parker agreed; supper out was never refused.

“Now see,” Vivian said, as they turned in at the parsonage driveway, “you’re home in good time for your prayer meeting—”

“What—” Parker interrupted. There was a buggy in the yard, pulled up to the fence.

A man sat on the edge of the porch, his head in his hands.

Pulling the horse to a halt, Parker Jones handed the reins to Vivian and reached a foot for the ground, his eyes fixed with apprehension on the bowed figure, a picture of misery and despair.

“Jake? Is it you, Jake Finnery?”

The craggy face of old Sister Finnery’s son, raised to Parker Jones, was twisted with pain and runneled with tears.

I
t seemed forever before anyone came to the door. Tierney, having knocked, stood by with numerous things in her arms—paraphernalia that Lydia had suggested she bring for the canning process at the Hoy home—feeling more strange by the minute. Quinn was heading toward the barn to unhitch the horse. He would find numerous things to do there, or so it was assumed, and would stand by to give Tierney a hand if she needed it, another suggestion of Lydia’s.

The lace curtain stirred at a window, catching Tierney’s attention. She recognized the small face that appeared, chin just higher than the sill. The child—Billy, Tierney recalled—gazed at her solemnly.

Tierney smiled. The small boy blinked, but his expression remained unchanged.

“Can you let me in?” Tierney asked, raising her voice.

Billy continued to gaze at her soberly, silently.

“H’lo.”

The door had opened, and Barney, the older child, stood in the opening, as solemn as his brother if not as speechless.

“Hello, Barney. Remember me?”

The boy nodded. “Mama’s sick,” he said.

“May I come in?” Tierney asked, already stepping forward, gently pushing open the door that had been ajar just enough for Barney to be seen and heard. Willingly enough, he stepped back.

“She’s over there,” and the boy pointed across the room.

Struggling to sit up, Alice Hoy was the picture of disarray. Clutching a robe about her with one hand, with the other she pushed at the back of the sofa on which she had been lying, attempting to come erect. The sofa’s mix of vivid colors offered a startling background for Alice’s frail, pale outline. In a room that was well furnished, the tufted sofa was one of three pieces in an overstuffed parlor “suit”; it was ornamented with fringes and featured tassel valances around the bottom and arms. At another time Tierney might have admired it. The material, she knew, was called “crushed plush,” and if it hadn’t been crushed before, it was now: Alice had slept there.

The boys, standing to the side and watching Tierney, were big-eyed and still. They were dressed, but carelessly, as if they had put on the same clothes they had removed the night before. Or perhaps they had slept in them.

On the table were two bowls with the remains of what had been servings of oatmeal. The pot in which it had been cooked was on the back of the stove, dribblings of oatmeal drying down its side. A breakfast made by a man, Tierney deduced promptly—a woman would have filled the pot with water. A woman would have dressed the boys more capably, would have combed their hair.

So thinking, Tierney felt a sadness tinge what was a grudging admiration for Robbie’s efforts. She felt certain his had
been the only attention given, on this morning, to the boys and their needs. He was keeping his part of the bargain.

As of course he would. Having given his word, Robbie was bound. Though the cords used by the sick woman were as fragile as spiderwebs, they were as binding as chains.

“Wha . . . who is it?” Alice asked now, making an effort to focus her gaze toward the light coming in the open door.

Tierney closed the door behind her, laid the kettle and other canning materials on the table, and approached the woman who was struggling to rise.

“Dinna get up,” she said kindly. “It’s me—Tierney Caulder.”

“Scotch,” Alice murmured. “Robbie’s friend . . .”

“Aye. I’ve coom to help wi’ the cannin’ of the day.”

Alice put her face, momentarily, in her hands. “I’ll . . . I’ll be all right . . . in a minute. Sometimes I have trouble . . . getting going . . .”

“I’ll make you a cuppa tea,” Tierney said, speaking cheerily. “Me mither always said a cuppa tea would put the curl in your hair, the light in your eyes, and the bounce in your step.”

Alice attempted a wan smile, putting a hand to her own head of hair and combing it with shaking fingers.

“Now, let’s see,” Tierney said, at a loss in a strange kitchen, tea-making escaping her for the moment. “Laddies, hae you had enough to eat?”

They nodded, sidling over to their mother. Alice pulled them to her, a child on each side. Burying her face in Billy’s hair, she grimaced faintly. Apparently it had been too long since heads had been washed.

“I’ll go get dressed,” she said, and it was obvious she had regained enough of her poise to feel a certain embarrassment, perhaps humiliation, over having been found in a state of disorder. She got unsteadily to her feet, and as she did, a bottle fell with a thump from the folds of the blanket to the floor.

“My medicine,” she said quickly. “Barney, pick that up for Mother; that’s a good boy. It’s empty . . . toss it into the wood box.”

Tierney was clearing the table, putting the bowls aside to be washed later, getting a dishpan of hot water from the reservoir, adding soap, making a suds, and preparing to wash, then sterilize, the jars that would be needed for today’s canning. In a large kettle of water, she put the clean jars on the stove to boil.

“I understand,” she said to Alice, “Mrs. Dinwoody was here yesterday and left things ready for piccalilli, reet? Lydia said she would hae chopped up the green tomatoes an’—”

“Yes . . . they’re in that big pan. Have you made piccalilli before? You have, with Lydia, of course. We . . . all of us, I guess . . . have such an abundance of tomatoes this year. Somebody picked those—I think it was Hazel Trumbell—oh, I don’t remember—”

On the verge of leaving for her room and the task of fixing herself up, Alice hesitated, troubled over her faulty memory.

“Aye,” Tierney reported, looking in the kettle, “they’re all ready—one peck of green tomatoes, eight large onions, all chopped fine, with one cuppa salt stirred in. I’ll jist build up the fire, and as soon as it’s hot I’ll get to the boilin’ part—twenty minutes, the first time.”

With Alice gone and Billy with her, Barney staying behind, kneeling on a chair, elbows on the table, watching her, Tierney went about the job of draining the “liquor” from the green tomato mixture, breathing a sigh of relief when that was accomplished with no mishap.

“Add two quarts of water,” she murmured aloud, checking the notes she had placed on the table, “and one of vinegar. Now where in the world would she keep vinegar?”

Gravely the small boy climbed down, marched across the room, and pointed to a corner cupboard. Sure enough, just inside—a gallon jug of vinegar.