Bittersweet Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  One reason. One reason only: the letter, the unsigned letter in the drawer of her bedroom chiffonier.

  Ellie was putting away the ironing board and returning the chairs to the side of the round table that dominated the kitchen end of the room when she heard the jingle of harness and the sound of an approaching rig.

  “It’s Marfa,” she announced, glancing out and addressing herself to Wrinkles, the cat, who was draped in comfortable somnolence on a rug at the side of the range. Wrinkles, the best of listeners and accustomed to such confidences, blinked one eye and returned to his doze.

  “I’ll just put the kettle on,” Ellie murmured, and Wrinkles flipped the end of his tail to indicate his attention.

  Ellie pulled the kettle of water toward the front lids of the range, where it would soon boil. Without time to do more, she turned toward the door, her spirits lifted in spite of herself by the variation in her day and the interruption of her memories.

  Marfa—Martha, nicknamed Marfa when she was small—and Ellie had been bosom pals for as long as they could remember, meeting first at Sunday school, church dinners, picnics, and sewing circles attended by their mothers. Starting school together, the years had come and gone with Ellie and Marfa as close as, probably closer than, most sisters. Sharing the good times and the bad, laughing together, crying together on occasion, growing up together, sharing each phase of life, they were inseparable. Marfa’s older siblings were married and gone, and back then she, like Ellie, was alone; perhaps this accounted for the staunchness of their affection—they needed each other.

  Totally unalike, as different in looks as in temperament, they seemed to complement each other. Ellie was dark-haired and hazel-eyed, with a certain glow of life and vitality, slender of build, quick of mind and movement; Marfa, gray-eyed and brown-haired, was short, given to chubbiness, deliberate of movement. Ellie’s sudden smile was as quick and brilliant as a passing shaft of sunshine; Marfa’s round face wore a perennial pleasant expression.

  Where Ellie was fearless, Marfa was inclined to be cautious; when Ellie’s vivid imagination conjured up outrageous escapades, Marfa’s more level-headed approach aborted many possible problems. It was Ellie’s portion to do the thinking, the planning; Marfa’s to help carry out her ideas or, as often happened, to reshape them to reasonable proportions.

  Along the way two more girls had attached themselves to Ellie and Marfa. Vonnie was slender, willowy, fair of hair and blue of eye, given to prinkings and poutings and inclined to be self-centered, capable of sudden bursts of sweetness and generosity. Flossy was part Indian, dark of face and eye, quiet, restrained, thoughtful. Together they made up the “gang of four.”

  Though the hamlet and community of Bliss viewed the four of them with some suspicion, having been the target of their shenanigans from time to time, the girls were tolerated, even accepted with indulgence. They were, after all, part and parcel of the Bliss family and, as such, no better and no worse than many others. And life in the bush, apt to be laden with responsibilities, burdens, and deprivations, was lifted out of its weariness occasionally by a grin and a shake of the head at the mischievousness of Bliss’s unpredictable four.

  The passing of the years had seen many changes as the girls matured, three of them eventually marrying. Flossy’s marriage took her to Prince Albert; Vonnie moved up north with her logger husband, only to have him killed in an accident; and Marfa—Marfa was soon to be a mother.

  “Come in, come in!” Ellie stepped out onto the small porch, her face lit by a welcoming smile, her hands outstretched. Marfa, having clambered laboriously from the buggy and tying the horse to a hitching post, stepped up awkwardly and was at once embraced warmly and escorted inside.

  “What’s up?” Ellie asked almost as soon as she had seated her friend. It was unusual for visits to be exchanged in the summer months when life was unendingly busy. And in the winter the weather precluded sociability; life in Bliss was apt to be a lonely affair any time of the year.

  “I needed to get out and away from that hot kitchen, that’s what’s up,” Marfa answered with a rueful laugh. “And I couldn’t think of a better place to go. If I go to the folks’, Mum’ll think something’s wrong again and fuss over me.” Marfa, in the six years she had been married, had lost three babies, not carrying any one of them to term.

  “And how are you? Are you all right?” Ellie asked, needing to know yet hesitating to raise the sensitive subject.

  “I’m fine! You know, Ellie, I never carried any of the others this long. It’s only six weeks or so now. Just think, I’ll be up and on my feet before harvest. Right now I just need a little break.”

  Ellie sighed. It had long been her desire to open a haven, a resting place of sorts, where the ill and weary or troubled could draw aside from life’s burdens for a while, taking time out to recuperate. The flame of concern for others had burned in her heart for a long time—since childhood. Though she had often dreamed and sometimes schemed in the old way, wishing desperately to find a way to carry out her heart’s desire, circumstances had dictated otherwise.

  It had all been tied in, years ago, with the establishing of the new club...

  “The fateful hour,” Ellie said, her hazel-green eyes glinting in the shadows of The Golden Glade, her own fanciful name for the girls’ favorite bushy meeting place, though it was more green than golden most of the year, “is upon us.”

  Ellie, who more often than not had her nose in a book, was always talking like that, using words that annoyed or tantalized her friends.

  Polishing off the last of the cookies Flossy had brought and distributed, Ellie, seated on ground springy with last year’s leaf mold, drew up her knees, hugging them with her thin arms, looking around expectantly. Vonnie, Flossy, and Marfa were pulling their legs up in the same manner and draping their arms around them, resting their girlish chins on their bony knees. Or, in Marfa’s case, her plump knees.

  Three pairs of eyes were fixed on Ellie, the acknowledged leader of the group. Three faces were drawn toward Ellie as surely as iron filings to a magnet. There was expectation in the eyes, eagerness on the faces. When Ellie got an idea, life became interesting indeed.

  And it was about time for something new. Her last scheme, a candy-making experiment, had fizzled and failed. They had each filched a cup of sugar from home and, one noontime, had attempted to make candy on the school heater. Their goal had been a worthy one: sell candy to the children for a penny or so and buy handkerchiefs for Yanni Nikolai. Their motive was a mixed one—not only to help poor Yanni, who had a perennial problem with his sinuses, but to spare themselves the awful sight of Yanni continually wiping his poor, offending nose on the sleeve of his shirt. Or, in the summer, his bare arm.

  But the syrupy mass had frothed and boiled over, running over the heater and scorching, smelling to high heaven, making the fascinated children cough and gag. School was dismissed for the rest of the day while the fire was allowed to burn out and the heater to cool down, and the girls, overseen by a grim teacher, cleaned up the sticky mess.

  Their worst punishment was the sorrowful faces of their mothers as they had mourned the extravagant loss of sugar.

  “Go ahead, tell what it’s all about,” Vonnie said now impatiently, waiting for some explanation of Ellie’s new idea. Vonnie hadn’t liked being out of the preliminary planning as Marfa and Ellie had whispered and schemed secretly for days.

  “I hope our mothers won’t get mad,” Marfa said with some doubt, obviously still stinging from the scolding that had followed the previous experiment. Catching Ellie’s injured glance, she added quickly, “I don’t think they will—this time.”

  The Golden Glade was bathed in the fresh green glow of early spring: The graceful limbs of a willow embraced the hiding place on one side, and hazel bushes pressed close on the other, while a poplar spread its boughs over all. Bush children born and raised, the girls accepted the beauty and fragrance as part of their rightful heritage.

  Flossy tos
sed a few cookie crumbs toward a chipmunk frisking nearby, tail at full-mast, beady eyes watchful. Perhaps it was the sound of the chipmunk’s scurry that alerted Ellie. “Wait a minute,” she said, lowering her voice and looking around suspiciously, “we better scout for spies. To your posts!”

  Without any need for further instruction, each girl scrambled to her feet and slipped through the bush to her designated direction: Vonnie east, Flossy south, Marfa west, Ellie north.

  When they assembled again—hair askew, arms scratched—and took their places in the circle, it was to report briskly, “All clear on the western... southern... eastern... northern ramparts.”

  Even so, knowing how others tried to invade the circle, they drew together more closely than ever. Again they looked to Ellie, expectation in their eyes.

  “This is it, then,” Ellie said, and even though they had established that no interloper was lurking within their hearing, her voice lowered dramatically.

  “We’re going to form a new club. It won’t be Skull and Crossbones anymore.” Ellie’s tone had a certain disdain for the club just outgrown, the club of their childhood. With the four girls approaching their twelfth birthdays, dignity and prestige were needed. One and all sniffed at the uselessness, the dullness, of former entrancements.

  “Well, what then?” Vonnie prodded.

  “It will be a club to help people, help the district.”

  In view of their close-knit seating arrangement, it occurred to Marfa that “circle” might be more fitting. She offered her idea only to have it rebuffed.

  “Just like all the old ladies in the missionary society,” Vonnie said scathingly, and Marfa subsided. “Club” would do.

  “What kind of things will we do?” Vonnie asked with suspicion. “Make beds? Wash dishes?” Vonnie was averse to work.

  “No, no,” Ellie continued, shaking her head. “Not regular chores. I mean interesting things. And not at home. We’ll branch out. We’ll find things to do to help people all over Bliss. We’ll be a service club.”

  There was silence as the girls digested this. It had its possibilities.

  “You mean—for money?” It was Vonnie again. Vonnie, always thinking of the sharp angle.

  “Of course not! We’ll do good deeds, like knights of old. Like the missionaries on the foreign field. Except that it’ll be here at home.”

  No one was more honored than missionaries.It was a high calling. A fine challenge.

  “But do what?” Flossy asked cautiously; still, her interest was piqued.

  “That’s where you all come in,” Ellie said. “When you go to church, for instance, listen to people as they talk; see if they reveal some problem at home. Look around neighbors’ yards, listen to the kids at school, look at what they wear, check on what they need. Maybe we can fix something. Something will turn up, I’m sure. Something we can do. Something noble. Something chivalrous. What do you say?”

  It was a radical idea, appealing to the kind heart of Marfa, the fault-finding side of Vonnie, and raising only a small hesitation in the timid Flossy.

  “I can think right away of something that someone needs to do, and why not us?” Vonnie said, and the others looked at her eagerly. This was going better than they had expected. “It’s the heads of the Nikolai kids,” and Vonnie gave a dramatic shudder; “I don’t think they’ve been washed all winter.”

  The other girls nodded emphatically, having stood behind one or another of the five Nikolai children when they lined up at school, looking down through the thin blond hair at the grimy scalps.

  “Good idea! Excellent idea!” pronounced a pleased Ellie. “That’s the very kind of thing I mean. Each of us must keep a list of things to do, and we’ll share them when we have our meetings. We’ll have meetings once a week at lunchtime, of course, as we have been.”

  “But school’s about out,” reminded Marfa.

  “Well then, we’ll meet like this on Sunday afternoons until school starts up again.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Flossy offered slowly. “It’ll give us a reason to get together all summer long.”

  “But—” Vonnie’s blue eyes sharpened, “who will be president?”

  “Ellie should be president,” Marfa said quickly. “It’s her idea. I don’t want to be in charge; that’s for sure.”

  After some discussion it was decided, with some reluctance on Vonnie’s part, that Ellie, having put the new club together, was the one to put it into action.

  “Only if you’re sure,” Ellie said, and she accepted the position graciously when a chorus of affirmation was her response.

  “If we’re not Skull and Crossbones anymore,” Vonnie said, recalling her mother’s disapproving reaction to that title, “what’ll we call ourselves?”

  “I thought,” said the resourceful Ellie, “that since we’ll be a club that helps people and does good deeds, we should have a name to fit. I thought—”

  “Yes?” breathed her three companions. Ellie knew how to build anticipation.

  “Busy Bees!” she pronounced.

  Vonnie frowned, Marfa looked pleased, Flossy undecided. They discussed alternatives, but no other name was satisfactory to all three, though Willing Workers and Happy Helpers were considered. A vote finally decided the matter; Busy Bees they would be.

  For the next half hour the girls chattered on and on about the possibilities that would open to the Busy Bees, how they would make a name for themselves in the community, how their assistance would benefit Bliss, and how they would be appreciated.

  “Now, remember,” Ellie cautioned, “we’re not doing it for fame or fortune. And don’t forget—no pay. When people try to thank us, we’ll say, ‘Give thanks to the Grand Panjandrum Bee,’ or something like that.”

  As always happened when Ellie came up with words and ideas that boggled the minds of lesser individuals, the others gazed at her with admiration as they rolled the noble appellation around on their tongues.

  Grand Panjandrum. It was a title and an honor not to be regarded lightly.

  With a clasping of hands, the meeting was dismissed.

  Just that easily, just that thoughtlessly, Skull and Crossbones—ineffectual and harmless as it had proved to be—was discarded, and Busy Bees was inaugurated, setting in motion events that would spell catastrophe.

  “The kettle’s about ready to boil,” Ellie said as she chunked another piece of wood into the range. Marfa, heaving a sigh of content, settled herself at the side of the table.

  The oilcloth on the table, mainstay of every homestead, clearly wouldn’t do for company, faded as it was and showing wear. With a swish Ellie reversed it—a transformation that the visiting Marfa never tired of seeing. “Something new,” the catalog had alluringly offered when it came time for Ellie to reorder oilcloth, “with marble face and turkey red damask patterns printed on the back.”

  “Two cloths in one,” Marfa marveled as the turkey red surfaced and the washed-out side disappeared. And that was the principle: If company came and the top side of the oilcloth showed cracks and wear and tear, it could be deftly turned, and voilà—no embarrassment for the hostess.

  The everyday crockery wouldn’t do, mismatched, chipped, and crazed as it was, and Ellie turned to the buffet, her mother’s pride and joy. For too many years Serena had stacked her dishes in rough open cupboards fastened to the log walls. Ellie could recall the moment the huge crate had arrived and the oak creation had been unpacked.

  “Handsome” was the word the catalog used; handsome was the word Serena Bonney whispered when the sideboard had been set in place. Small shelves on each side of the German bevel plate glass mirror had immediately received the two or three treasures Serena had brought halfway across a continent and hoarded until this moment. In the buffet’s drawers she placed her few linens. Here, after a good harvest—behind its scroll-worked, brass-knobbed doors—she had eventually stacked a complete set of dishes: “Grey Delhi” English semiporcelain ware, costing the magnificent sum of $11.
50 and delivered to the post office in Bliss without breakage.

  “Well, it’s an occasion!” Ellie said with a smile as she lifted the dainty cups from the buffet to the table, for Marfa’s lips were smiling and her eyes twinkling. Because of her own small home and limited supply of household goods, Marfa appreciated, even relished, the display of possessions the Bonney house, at long last, had acquired. Trust Ellie! Even though the years had come and gone and childhood was far behind, she still knew how to keep one’s interest, to arouse one’s expectations.

  Abruptly, Marfa asked, “Ellie, how are things with Tom?”

  Tom. Tom Teasdale, childhood friend and longtime suitor for Ellie’s hand in marriage. Tom, who had waited patiently these seven years, perhaps longer, for who knew exactly when friendship had turned to something more? Certainly Tom, by his very willingness to wait, had established forever the depth of his affection for Ellie Bonney.

  “Fine, of course,” Ellie answered, surprised. “Is there some reason you should ask?”

  “No, of course not,” Marfa responded quickly.

  Ellie poured the boiling water into the warmed teapot, set it aside, and turned to the kitchen cabinet and a plate of sliced fruitcake, covered carefully against the threatened barrage of summer flies.

  “Tell me how you are, I mean really are,” Ellie invited when at last she was seated, a serviette on her knees, a dainty cup of tea in one hand, a piece of fruitcake before her.

  “There are no signs of trouble,” Marfa said with composure. “And even if something goes wrong, I’m near enough through the pregnancy so that everything will be all right, I think.”

  “You know me well enough, Marfa—”

  “Would I fool you, Ellie? Could I fool you?” And both young women laughed a bit, admitting to the truthfulness of what Marfa had said. Without a doubt they knew each other thoroughly, almost understood each other’s thoughts.