A Place Called Bliss (28 page)

Mary pressed Margo’s head, the hair now in wild disarray, against her breast.
Doesn’t she see, can’t she feel the similarity?
Margo thought.
Hasn’t she pressed Molly’s head of identical curls in just this same way, countless times?

No, she doesn’t see,
she concluded. Or, if she did, it was not to be explored. Never to be explored.

And there’s no need for her to know, for any of them to know
, her thoughts ran on.
I’ll get out of here and leave them as they were. Leave them all with their hearts and lives intact
. Momentarily she indulged in the bitter wish that she might thrust the same knife of pain into Angus and have him suffer even as she was suffering. But to spare the others, she would, she must, leave them in
their ignorance. Yes, and in their bliss. And not for their sakes only but for her own sake.

Margo drew about her whatever remnants of pride she had remaining. She would be no illegitimate embarrassment to this family and to herself! She would be no tagalong appendage to this happy group! Life, for the Morrisons, would resume its sweet flow, spared the humiliation that would surely shatter them all, should they discover Angus’s (and Sophia’s) perfidy.

Now her whirling thoughts turned to her mother. Not only had recent events taken Margo’s fiancé from her and shaken her very roots concerning home and father, but now her memories of her mother were sullied. It was startlingly clear: Sophia . . . and Angus!

It was all too much. Margo whimpered out her anguish in the arms of her newfound friend and grieved for one final loss: these arms, too, would be denied her.

For that she would leave Bliss was the one certainty Margo had.

It was a silent trip home; it had been a silent leave-taking or at least a muted one. Kezzie was visibly shaken; even Molly’s vivaciousness was curbed. Of the haze surrounding their farewells with their loving pats and murmured words of comfort, one thing stood out clearly: Pastor Parker Jones’s prayer.

“Just a moment,” he had said, as Kezzie, Margo, and Cameron were about to leave the house. “Let’s look to the Lord concerning this.” Everyone bowed their heads, and Margo, who was not accustomed to prayer of any kind, was moved in spite of herself. Surely, if there was a God on the throne, everything would turn out for the best.

Margo found herself clinging to that thought as she jounced along on the wagon seat beside Cameron, Kezzie seated in the rocking chair behind them, looking white and worn.

“Want to talk about it?” Cameron said, and at her shake of the head, he added, “Let me know if I can help,” and he placed
his big hand momentarily over hers. In spite of the distraction of her wits, Margo felt the small thrill that sped from Cameron’s grip, up her arm, straight to her heart. Almost casting herself into his arms, she restrained herself somehow, gave him a watery smile, and cherished the thought of his touch and her spontaneous reaction.

With the afternoon sun warm on her back, the by-now familiar birdsong lifting occasionally from fence post and bush, with Nanny Kezzie within arm’s reach and the most desirable man she had ever met at her side, Margo’s spirits rallied. Her mindless reaction to something so simple as a curved finger seemed to border on foolishness. Perhaps it was the invigorating air she drew into her lungs, perhaps it was her passionate desire to fit into life in the magnetic beauty of Bliss, but Margo began to feel embarrassment over her strange outburst. What had possessed her? There would be, surely, no need to abandon Bliss and all it held for her. The thought poured like sunshine into her heart, and she lifted her head, dried her eyes, and squared her shoulders.

“Good girl,” Cameron said, noting the change, and his approval was music to her ears. “It was, we all know, a cruel blow—to be more or less disinherited—”

“It isn’t that so much,” Margo said hesitantly, “it’s wondering why. Papa . . . Hugh, said something about leaving the estate in the Galloway name and in Galloway hands.” And, in spite of herself, Margo looked down at the hands clasped in her lap; that brought to mind her curved little fingers, and an involuntary shiver ran through her.

“Well,” Cameron explained rationally enough, “when you marry, you won’t be a Galloway. Right?”

“Of course!” Margo felt considerably cheered and reassured. Truly, she had come to believe, here in Bliss the money didn’t matter all that much. It was the puzzle . . . the mystery . . . of the unexplainable will that troubled her.

Before she could lay it all to rest, she decided now, she would have to talk with Kezzie. Kezzie, she believed, held the key to the entire matter. And Hugh knew it. Needing a father so badly,
Margo regretted her earlier castigation of Hugh. She had, indeed, come to a conclusion that was unfounded. Or founded on such flimsy evidence as two small curved fingers!

Oh, how she wished she might lay her head on the broad shoulder that was just going to waste at her side. Instead, she smiled up at the eyes so seriously searching her own and felt the warmth of Cameron’s smile as it lit up his face, clear to the toes on her dangling feet.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed. And sorry for the . . . the . . .” Margo didn’t quite know what to call the recent incident. “That prayer, by Parker Jones. Perhaps God will work all this out, to His glory and . . . and for my best. I’m beginning to believe that.”

Now Cameron’s eyes were the watery ones. Accustomed to Hugh’s rigid discipline, Margo marveled at a man who could show emotion. “That’s the best news of all,” he said from the depths of those emotions, and he reached and took Margo’s hand in his.

It was enough. For the moment, it was enough.

Kezzie had needed to rest when they reached home—the place of Bliss. And then there were the evening chores in the barn and pigsty. Margo was by now familiar with the routine and did her share almost automatically. When Cameron called her “Pardner,” she felt the glow. What a day it had been for glows, shivers, tears, and smiles. Now was the time for glowing, it seemed, and Margo did it well. Did it well and never knew that Cameron, stepping outside and away from her, looked up at the evening sky, raised a hand to shift the hat on his head, and mouthed a soundless, “Whoa!”

O
ne quart flour

One cup sour milk

One tsp soda

One-half pound lard

One-half pound chopped raisins or currants

Roll two inches thick and bake in a quick oven. Split open, butter, and eat hot.

Margo had toiled and fussed over the measuring, mixing, and rolling. Now she fretted about the heat of the oven. She took unnecessary peeks at this, her first baking. Tea cakes. Not like any she had eaten previously, she was sure, but a tried and true recipe that Kezzie recommended. Her family, she maintained, loved them.

“They should be done in time for tea,” Kezzie offered from her chair at the other end of the room. “Come, sit doon and rest. Y’ve been at it since dawn, lassie.”

Margo tossed aside the floury apron, smoothed her hair at the washstand mirror, and laughed to see the flour on her nose. What a day it had been!

Monday . . . and washday. Ignorant but game, Margo had struggled through, with Kezzie’s advice and help.

“For once,” Kezzie had said, “Cam can get on with the chores. Usually he helps with the wash.”

He still helped. There was no way Margo could hustle the great pails of water needed for the numerous piles of clothes sorted out onto the floor of the kitchen area. The copper boiler alone held about twenty gallons, all carried from the well, filling the boiler, which was placed on the front lids of the wood-burning stove. Galvanized tubs were brought in and placed on a bench, also brought in, and half-filled with cold water to which was added hot water from the boiler. Then, of course, the hard yellow soap had to be shaved and dissolved down in a small pot of hot water. Finally, she was ready to get to the actual washing itself.

Special needlework was done by hand; wool and silk items were done separately. White goods were put into the tub for scrubbing, then lifted by means of an old broom handle and transferred to the boiler. “Dry clothes are never put into the boiler,” Kezzie explained, “because the hot water sets stains.”

Soaking, bleaching, starching, bluing, wringing, all were exhausting. Thanks to Kezzie, dinner cooked at the same time—a pot of beans simmered on the back of the same stove that boiled the white clothes on the front lids.

Pinning a final batch of clothes on the line, Margo declared she would never again toss clothes as casually into the wash as she had done for a lifetime; somehow she’d eke another day’s wear from them! And to think—tomorrow was ironing day.

Clothes washed and hung and drying, there was the routine to go through in reverse. Out went the water, pail by pail, to be dumped as far away as one could stand the pull on one’s arms; out went the tubs, out went the boiler. There was a wet floor to
mop, the stove top to blacken. Only then could Margo draw a breath, collapsing onto a kitchen chair.

“What’s for dinner?”

It was Cam, in from the fields. Margo hurried to set out bread and butter and fill glasses with milk to accompany the piping hot beans. “I suppose,” she muttered, half-vexed, half-proud, “I’m
bustling
!
”

The tea cakes, later on, were a brilliant idea. Not only were they designed to teach her some baking skills but the fresh delicacies would call for a few moments of rational, civilized living—teatime. Kezzie was all for it, stating that the pantry, fortunately, held dried currants.

When the pan was in the oven and Margo had removed her apron and tidied her hair, she turned toward Kezzie with the decision to have the talk, say the things, ask the questions that had to be faced. It was natural and good to drop onto the rug at Kezzie’s feet, smiling up fondly at her dear old nurse.

“Granny,” she began, using the pet title from childhood, “please. . . .”

“Yes, wee angel,” Kezzie said tenderly, reaching out a worn hand to fondle the lively curls, brushing them back from Margo’s temple.

Margo took the hand in her own. “Granny,” she began again, “ever since Papa said what he did—about Heatherstone staying in Galloway hands—and ever since he said. . . .” Margo paused, her throat tightening.

“What did he say, lassie?”

“He left me this property here, and he said I’d understand if I cared to, or some such words. I think he said I could find the reason . . . if I cared to. Of course I care to! I can’t go on not knowing. There’s some sort of secret here, Granny. Why . . . why did Papa send me here? Why did he say what he did? You’ve got to be the one and only person to tell me, to shed some sort of light on this puzzle. To give me some sort of healing for the frightful ache I feel.”

As she talked, looking into the old face and holding the worn hand, Margo saw the face whiten, felt the hand tremble.

“What is it, Mam? What is it that makes you upset?”