Bittersweet Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  “Sorry I didn’t give you any warning,” he said, slacking up on the reins and turning the buggy toward the road, admiring her all the while with his eyes. “But as spontaneous as you are, dear Ellie, I knew it’d be no problem.”

  Tom knew her well. Ellie smiled and settled back, prepared to enjoy the ride to town (Bliss was termed a hamlet), the unexpected break from work, and being with Tom. It had been here, on this road, they had first met...

  Her father called good-bye as she left for school, raising a ruckus among the assembled chickens until a great fervor of cackles accompanied her departure. That familiarity and her mother’s wave from the stoop sent her off to her day happy and content. Parents might suffer anxiety, discouragement, and despair, but Bliss’s children would remember the warmth of the small home, the loving arms, the good friends, and the security they provided.

  The current Wrinkles accompanied her to the road, where he disappeared into the bush, hopefully to a day of mousing; mice in the bush were a scourge on a par with gophers and rabbits and crows.

  Ellie might have been in a concert hall: From bush and tree and sky, from fence post and meadow, a sweet chorus of bird songs filled the morning air, a tuneful accompaniment lifting her feet in a step as light as the dandelion seeds floating in the fresh-scented breeze.

  The most persistent element of Saskatchewan’s weather was the wind. Summer days were cooled by it; winter’s subzero temperatures were made excruciating by it. Early in the day as it was, Ellie felt the first touch of the breeze on her face and knew it would dry her mother’s clothes quickly, would blow through the kitchen’s open door, bringing relief, would skirmish through the fields, refreshing both man and beast.

  She had barely turned onto the road when she heard the clop-clop of a horse’s hooves. Turning, she saw two mounted children, a boy ahead, a small girl behind peering over his shoulder, urging their horse toward her.

  Pulling the horse to a walk, the boy looked down at Ellie. Brown hair fell over his forehead in a way that, as long as she knew him, she would think of as charming. His eyes were bright, alert, his mouth mobile and expressive, gentle for a boy. Of the girl, only the top of her head and one eye could be seen.

  “Hello,” he said. Not bashful, not brash like some boys she knew. Natural. Comfortable. And so she was to find him always.

  “I’m Tom. Tom Teasdale,” he said. “Your new neighbor.”

  Tom. Such a simple name to come to mean so much. Tom Teasdale. Even then, something stirred in Ellie’s childish heart. This Tom Teasdale—was it possible he would be different from other boys, different from those with pinching hands and taunting ways, teasing ways, show-off ways?

  What she said was, “Is that your sister?”

  “Yes. Her name’s Rose. Got another sister at home named Delphine, like my mother, but we call her Dee. She’s three. Rose is seven. I’m twelve. How old are you?”

  “Eleven,” Ellie said, adding quickly, “going on twelve.”

  “You got any brothers and sisters?”

  “None alive. Three dead, though. All boys.”

  The horse plodded along. Ellie matched her steps, scuffing the dust of the road, self-conscious under the gaze of the boy above but not looking up to see if he indeed was watching her. She was glad she’d put a ribbon on the end of her braid even though it would be in grave danger from the snatching fingers of some boy.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Elizabeth Grace Bonney,” Ellie said rather primly. After a moment she added, “Ellie. I’m called Ellie.”

  “Pretty.”

  What did he mean? Glancing up quickly, it was to find Tom’s eyes on her, frank, earnest, steady. And that, as the years came and went, typified Tom Teasdale—frank but kind; earnest but capable of humor; steady but not dull.

  At this point, looking upward, she stumbled, and her reading book slipped from her arms into the dust. Quickly the new boy Tom swung a leg over and slid down from the horse to pick up her book, brush it off, and hand it to her.

  Ellie was so surprised that her mouth fell open; her word of thanks was stammered. Properly raised children always thanked adults, but the same rules didn’t seem to apply to other children. Ellie was not accustomed to thanking children. But she did that day and many times following.

  Tom didn’t mount again but walked beside her and led the horse. Rose clutched the mane with a touch of anxiety and rode silently.

  “Are there boys my age in this school?” Tom asked.

  “The Polchek boys—two of them. And a couple of Nikolais.”

  Ellie was amazed at how the conversation with a stranger—a boy—flourished and flowed. And so it was almost as though she introduced a friend of long standing when at last they met up with Vonnie and Flossy and Marfa, waiting where four roads met. The girls’ waves were restrained, having noted the newcomers, and their greetings, when rider and pedestrians joined them, were muted. But strangers were always of interest, and these appeared more interesting than most, if the reactions of three eleven-yearold girls meant anything.

  “This is Tom and his sister Rose,” Ellie said, and the girls stood silent and transfixed, their gazes settling on Tom after a cursory glance at the little girl.

  “This is Marfa,” Ellie continued, pointing out the round-faced, good-natured, plump one, “and Flossy,” directing Tom’s attention to the dark-complexioned, quiet one. “And this—this is Vonnie.” Ellie pointed out the slender, narrow-eyed blond who, instinctively perhaps, tossed her head and flashed a smile.

  From that time on, it was Tom Teasdale and the gang of four, a gang that, by official decree, could not open and allow one more person to join.

  Had it been possible, that person would surely have been Tom Teasdale.

  Later that morning—after Tom had been assigned a seat across the aisle—he raised brown eyes, candid and friendly under his lock of hair, and smiled, and Ellie found herself gazing down blindly at her arithmetic.

  Eleven years old, going on twelve, and gazing blindly at her arithmetic.

  Today, riding beside him in his buggy and remembering, Ellie glanced at the brown face at her side and the lock of hair, now somewhat sun-bleached and falling in attractive disarray over his forehead, and turned her gaze back to her surroundings. Tom was dear, but—in spite of attending church and Sunday school regularly—had never accepted Christ as his Savior, a troubling factor.

  Tom, patient Tom—how long would he wait? She had put him off so many times...

  Perhaps Tom, ever tuned to her thoughts and moods, sensed this one. Holding the reins with one hand he reached the other toward Ellie, covering her hand with his large, warm one.

  He said nothing. And his silence was as a drumbeat in her ears.

  “Oh, Tom,” she began, painfully, “you know—”

  “Hush,” he said. “We’ll not talk of it today. We’ll enjoy the ride and just being together.”

  So good... so kind... so—so patient.

  If Tom recognized that Ellie gripped his hand with a sort of fierceness, even a desperation, he made no comment.

  We’ll not talk of it, he had said. Not today.

  Birdie sat at her desk, still as a stone and as cold. The doorway, when the broad back of Big Tiny Kruger had disappeared, seemed particularly empty. Blank.

  And before she knew it and could throw up her defenses, it happened. So guarded against, still it happened.

  Perhaps it was that moment during the day when Little Tiny’s face had brought another child’s face to mind; perhaps it was the act of Big Tiny when, aware of her as a woman, he had made an overture, offering a ride home and conjuring up remembered responses. And then walking out.

  Whatever it was, the damage was done. Memories, unwanted and uninvited, crowded from the dark recesses of her heart where, obviously, they lingered and languished, throbbing with happiness and hurt for long periods of time until, demanding attention, they erupted once again.

  As always, when they had s
ucceeded in thwarting her best attempts to forget, they would not be denied—those wrenching memories. Times of bliss—all too brief. Times of anguish. Only the anguish remained.

  Birdie’s usual fixed countenance crumpled and twisted as the door to the past was thrust open, and the faces—two of them—pushed from obscurity into clarity. The man’s and the child’s, curiously alike, markedly different.

  The happiness had been so brief, the hurt so deep, the pain so dreadful. Even now, the ache was so huge that it was like sound filling her ears, consuming her thoughts, roaring out its anguish, threshing through her heart like some wild storm.

  Shoulders stiff, face twisted, eyes closed, Birdie Wharton submitted to the lashings of memories too sweet to forget, too bitter to remember.

  Eventually she wilted, dropping her head, laying her ravaged face on her crossed arms on the desk; then and only then did the tempest quiet, washed away in a torrent of tears.

  Not until the Drop Octagonal—that dogged timepiece by which her life was ticked away minute by minute, day by day, month by month—ruthlessly indicated that another hour of her time had slipped away, did Birdie draw a quivering breath, raise her head, search for a handkerchief, wipe her eyes and nose, pass a hand over her hair, and finally get to her feet. Like a willow whipped by a fierce gale, she was bent, her thin body straightening slowly until once again her shoulders were erect, head up. Her hands, by instinct, began gathering up the papers and books she needed for the weekend. Her feet, from practice, took her to the door, through it, down the steps, and in the direction of home.

  Home. Never had it sounded better; never had it promised more. God bless Lydia and Herbert!

  Born and raised in a small town in Iowa, Birdie’s childhood days had been times of deprivation and loneliness. Her father, injured on his job with the railroad, was an invalid for many years. Her mother, becoming the town washerwoman, abandoned to a great extent her job of mothering. Lacking many things, it was the loss of her mother’s attention and time that scarred Birdie the most. Overworked, overburdened, never strong, her mother had hung on only long enough after her husband’s death to see her daughter prepared to teach school; then, with a sigh, she had taken to her bed and was soon gone. Birdie, filled with anguish over the loss of something she had never really had—a mother and a father—faced life alone. Really alone.

  Her one brother, older by several years, weary of poverty, impatient with illness and dreaming of a better life, had made his escape to the big city. Following their mother’s death, his communications became fewer and fewer. When Birdie—fired with a desire to be on the front lines of life—joined the throngs of emigrants to the vast and echoing plains and plateaus of their neighbor to the north, all thought of brother and sister ever seeing each other again was deemed improbable, even impossible.

  At first, for Miss Bernadine Wharton, teacher, it had been schools on the Canadian prairie—challenging, fulfilling. Each move took her farther north; the parkland—that verdant strip across the center of the province—tantalized her imagination, and when in an instant of time hope and happiness had shattered, she had literally fled into the arms of the bush. Here she somehow felt she was tucked away, oblivious, a shadow flitting through the thick growth, lost in the miles and miles of poplar, birch, willow, and the tangle of bush that contrived to make itself nearly impenetrable in places. Intimidating to some, the feeling of isolation was welcomed by Birdie Wharton.

  And in this fashion, day had followed dreary day until—wonderful moment!—Lydia and Herbert Bloom had opened their home to her, and their hearts. Birdie dared to believe Bliss might live up to its name. If not bliss, then peace. Until, that is, the memories stirred again.

  Perhaps her eyes were still swollen, perhaps the assault of the past had left a stamp upon her features, telling the story, giving her away. More likely it was just the kind heart and discerning eyes of Lydia that made the difference. A timely difference.

  The kitchen, when Birdie walked in, was fragrant with the smell of fresh-baked gingerbread; Lydia was in the process of pouring boiling water into the big brown teapot that was central to much that went on in the Bloom household. Summer or winter, morning or evening, in health as in sickness, the pot dispensed cheer and warmth. Birdie, who needed its ministration as never before, turned to teapot, gingerbread, and friend as a flower turns toward the sun.

  “Come in, come in!” Lydia sang out, looking up momentarily. But long enough and sharply enough to cause her to suggest, “And why not unbutton those shoes? Here.” She scurried to fetch a footstool, setting it in front of the ancient oak rocking chair, one of two that were fixtures at the side of the big range.

  Of middle age, short, and given to plumpness, Lydia, comfortable and old fashioned, bloomed with high color, bright eyes, and a frank expression. In looks as in manner a person of openness, there were no shadows in Lydia.

  Birdie laid aside her armload of books and sank gratefully into the cushioned rocker, laying her head back, her hands hanging, her feet up. Tears, those betraying tears, tears that seemed so ready today, stung her already burning eyelids.

  “Come now,” she said to Lydia, with an effort producing a small laugh, “I can take off my own shoes.” Lydia had begun the job of undoing eight buttons per shoe.

  “We’ll just have us a little interlude,” Lydia proclaimed, relinquishing the shoe buttons and turning toward the tea things. Having attended a play years ago in Ontario and enjoying the “light, farcical interlude”—the short break, or interval, between acts—Lydia had forever after termed teatime an interlude. “It’s a break in the day,” she explained. “It shouldn’t be considered routine, like a meal. Not ever. It’s a time for pleasure, for relaxation. For recuperation, perhaps.” At other times, depending on her mood and the need, she referred to teatime as “sheer magic,” “medicinal,” “restorative,” even “pure bliss,” depending on what it accomplished.

  Any time, according to Lydia, was suitable for tea. Tea was perfect in the early hours, setting the tone for the day, opening one’s eyes without the zing of coffee; it was wonderfully warming after a cold drive or walk, without the cloy of sugared cocoa. A good cup of tea settled worn nerves after a busy day much better than Bromo Vichy, purported to be “A Morning Bracer, A Headache Reliever, A Brain Cleaner, A Nerve Steadier.” All this and more a cup of tea would do, in Lydia Bloom’s opinion. Perhaps best of all, it bonded friend with friend as conversation blossomed and barricades dissipated.

  Pouring the boiling water into the pot, shrewdly noting Birdie’s puffed eyes, Lydia depended once again on the magic of teatime.

  Teatime called for dainty cups and for serviettes, a sense of the luxurious even in the distant reaches of the Canadian bush. Putting the lid on the pot and setting it to steep, she reached into the cupboard for the bone china cups. Treasures indeed, these items had been escorted across half a continent, held in abeyance through the Blooms’ first season in a tent, and finally unpacked and set with pride and satisfaction in the kitchen of a house still smelling of wood shavings—a touch of home, a touch of class.

  The tea was piping hot; the gingerbread was warm, the whipped cream rich. Birdie sipped and let the tea work its magic. Lydia, wise Lydia, neither questioned nor pressed for conversation, least of all an explanation.

  But Lydia had seen—in the material Birdie had set down on the table—a letter partially exposed between the layers of books. An unopened letter; a letter that strangely resembled one received not more than a week ago, brought home by Herbert on the occasion of his last visit to the post office. That one, like this one, bore no stamp but had obviously been slipped in the Bloom box, bypassing the postmaster. Written, then, by a local.

  Lydia saw the very minute Birdie’s gaze left off its weary enjoyment of the cake and tea and strayed toward the letter. Saw the flicker of her eyes, heard the drawing of a quick breath.

  Birdie laid aside the dainty cup and the serviette Lydia always deemed a necessary part of a dec
ent tea, glanced apologetically toward her friend and landlady, and said, as she got to her feet, “Thank you, Lydia. This was so special and more important than you may know—”

  Not so, Lydia’s wise eyes said.

  “And now, I think I’ll make my way up to my room and change into something cooler perhaps—”

  And read your letter, Lydia’s silent lips spoke, adding to herself with great sympathy, Oh, my dear, I hope you’re not going to be hurt again!

  The words, had she heard them spoken, would have astonished Birdie. Wrapped into herself as she was, so secretive, so alone, who could possibly have suspected that underneath was a secret that she had no intention of revealing, even of fully facing anymore? As far as Birdie was concerned, bygones should be bygones and Bliss a new beginning.

  But in finding a home—not a boardinghouse but a home—Birdie had laid herself open to intimacy and to observation. It hadn’t taken much, Lydia would have been the first to confess, to realize something... someone, had hurt, and hurt desperately, the empty shell that answered to the name of Birdie Wharton.

  Shutting the door to her room behind her, Birdie relished once again the comfort the Blooms had provided: white flocked curtains at the window; one straight-backed chair pulled up to a small table for study purposes with a bookshelf above; gracefully scrolled white iron bedstead; bright quilt across the foot of the white tufted coverlet; chiffonier—a dresser with a beveled oval mirror set in a fancy swing frame and decorated with carving. “Of choice oak,” Lydia had said, quoting the catalog, “handsomely finished, with swell front and two small and two large drawers fitted with cast brass knobs and handles and having locks and keys.”

  And though the keys had been handed over promptly to the new roomer, Birdie had found no use for them—until the letter. Then, though with a feeling of shame, she found herself locking the small drawer in which it was kept.