Back Roads to Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  “Papa—”

  “An embarrassment, I say,” Quincy continued bitterly. “For whatever reason—gambling, carousing, drinking, wasting the family fortune in some way and destroying the family name—”

  “Papa—”

  “Whatever the reason, the solution is the same: They are sent off to a far corner of the British Empire. Here they continue to receive a scheduled remittance or allowance from their families. If they choose to continue in their dissolute lifestyle, they hurt no one but themselves; the family is happily ignorant of their escapades. As we shall be of yours.”

  “Quincy—no!” Letitia said at last, gripping the arm of the chair and speaking beseechingly. “Not Canada. We shall never see her . . . rarely hear from her . . . not know how she’s faring—”

  “That’s the general idea,” Quincy said coldly. “There will be no more disgraceful actions to bring shame on the family. If that’s the route she’s chosen for herself, we simply won’t know of it. Oh, never fear, I’ll send financial support. But not enough,” he added firmly, “to keep her in the style to which she has been accustomed. And which she was so willing to leave, may I add, to share the fortunes—misfortunes—of one Stephen Lusk. If that’s the way you want to live, my girl,” he said smoothly, speaking to Allison, “impoverished—”

  “Impoverished!” squeaked Letitia. “But you said—”

  “I said there would be an allowance,” Quincy confirmed. “What do you think I am—a callous beast? But as I also said, it won’t be lavish by any means. Why should I send my hard-earned money across the ocean to be frittered away in riotous living? If she chooses to support every Tom, Dick, and Harry, that’s her decision. There will be no Papa to come running to for more; there will be no Grandmama sending gifts. There will be,” he said, fixing his wife with a stern glance, “no Mother supplying secret funds.”

  Letitia knew he meant it; Allison was certain of it.

  “When . . . how . . .” she managed into the silence that fell. “I’ve been working on it. There are still some details to finalize, such as the ship’s sailing date—”

  Letitia’s eyes glazed; she moaned.

  Quincy’s voice was a whiplash: “Give over, Letitia! Stop that foolish whimpering! We’ll have no vapors, if you please!”

  Regardless, Letitia’s tears began to flow. Silently, as from an artesian well, unaccompanied by sniveling, sighing, wiping of eyes, or sound of any sort, they welled, ran over, streamed down the sagging cheeks, splashed onto the bosom of her gown.

  Instantly Allison was at her mother’s side, was kneeling at her knee. “Hush, Mama, hush, hush,” she whispered.

  With the situation more or less out of hand, certainly not what he wanted or even expected, Quincy rolled his eyes, put his fingertips together, leaned back in his comfortable chair, and waited grimly for the little drama to conclude.

  “I’m sorry, Mama, I’m sorry!”

  And at last, finally, Allison was sorry. The intensity of her father’s anger had not been out of character, and though it stung, it affected her very little; like rain off an umbrella, she bent under the deluge of his words but hardly allowed them to touch her. But the anguish of her mother took her by complete surprise. That they were tears of self-accusation Allison never knew.

  Letitia was reaping—in one desolate moment—the results of a lifetime of careless mothering. Her abandoned weeping—interpreted by her daughter as grief and despair over the harsh sentence—filled Allison with a regret over her rash actions that she had not experienced before. She had, in fact, enjoyed a certain glow of satisfaction over her daring escapade and coddled a smidgen of pleasure over her few hours of independence. But now, in response to her mother’s supposed pain, Allison was guiltily regretful.

  “Don’t, Mama,” she urged now, wishing with all her heart there was something she could do, say, to ease the pain. “Everything will be all right . . .”

  And then her mother raised her soggy, somewhat bloated face and said drearily, “It’s too late, you silly girl! How many times have I warned you against your impulsiveness, your heedless behavior! Now look what you’ve done!”

  If a viper had risen up and struck at her, Allison couldn’t have been more stunned. Recoiling as though from an injection of poison, Allison rose to her feet, slowly backed away, her eyes on her mother. Letitia had gone back to her soundless weeping.

  With a colorless face Allison turned toward her father. “Be so kind,” she said in little more than a whisper, “as to tell me what you have in mind . . . for me.”

  “Don’t think I take any pleasure in this,” Quincy said with calmness, apparently feeling some explanation was necessary. “I would much rather be planning your birthday ball; I would much prefer putting money into that. I would much rather think ahead, with anticipation and satisfaction, to your wedding. All that and more you have disqualified yourself for. Remember, if you are tempted to think hardly of me—the way of the transgressor is hard.”

  “My punishment, Papa. What exactly do you have in mind? The wilds of Canada, you said—”

  “If you are going to behave like a savage, you might as well live among them. Like the remittance men, you will be shipped to that distant, wild, untamed frontier. However,” he said, qualifying his assessment a little, “I understand the eastern provinces are more or less civilized.”

  Allison, ignorant of Canada east, west, north, or south, waited.

  “Yes?” she said quietly.

  Quincy lifted a slip of paper from his desk. “You have a relative in Ontario,” he said, tapping the paper. “A third or fourth cousin who would welcome a little extra income. According to her family she married some ne’er-do-well adventurer years ago; I’m getting in touch with her about the entire matter. As soon as a ship can be located and a berth arranged for, you will set sail.”

  “Before you hear from her?” Letitia asked, raising her head and looking at her husband with horrified eyes.

  “That depends. If the sailing date comes before then, off she goes. Suitably chaperoned, of course. We have the address of this relative—”

  “Who is it, Quincy? Who is it?”

  Quincy’s eyebrows raised, but he replied calmly enough, “Her name is Maybelle Dickey.”

  “I’ve never heard of her. Why haven’t I ever heard of her?”

  “As I said,” Quincy continued, more than a little nettled now, “she is a distant relative.”

  “How distant? What’s the family connection?”

  Quincy tipped his head back, frowned, and figured it out. “Maybelle is the daughter of my Aunt Mildred’s husband’s cousin.”

  Frowning with concentration, Letitia tried to figure out the relationship. Finding it all too convoluted and too vague, she said, “That’s too distant, Quincy. She’s not really a relative by blood, just some in-law connection.”

  Quincy rose from his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk’s polished surface, having given as much time as he wanted to, and more, to this tommyrot. “You’ll have to leave it in my hands,” he said impatiently. “I’ll do what’s best for the girl, you may be sure of that. She’ll arrive on Canadian shores safely enough.”

  “But—alone, Quincy?” Letitia quavered. “Surely not alone!”

  “Of course not alone, foolish woman!”

  “You’ll go with her? Or perhaps all of us—”

  “Not at all; she’ll go without her family. That’s final!”

  “Who then? Who will accompany her?”

  “There are people who do this sort of thing . . . chaperones.”

  Letitia could do nothing but shake her head and moan.

  Allison drew a deep breath. Not understanding most of it, she understood some of it. Remittance men and their fate, or fame, were an unknown factor to her. Apparently her father compared her future to theirs. So be it.

  Banishment. This was to be her personal fate. Banishment to a distant shore. Banishment from a land that was as old as history itself to a land
only lately discovered, recently settled. She had no thought of escape; the ultimatum, like iron bands, coiled itself around her inflexibly. Other than death itself, nothing would stop her father’s will and wishes.

  But now, having heard the worst and finding it not only bearable but interesting, and being young and vigorous and, yes, adventurous, she couldn’t help but feel a small flicker of excitement rising in her spirit.

  Allison lowered her eyes lest her father see and suspect her reaction and be robbed of the satisfaction he was obviously feeling in regard to carrying out his parental duties.

  Canada! New horizons! Challenges! Never in a million years would such an opportunity have presented itself to her under normal circumstances. Any mention of leaving the fair shores of England for the new, raw land of Canada would have met with instant refusal and a severe reprimand for even mentioning such foolishness.

  Banishment, what her father meant as punishment. Much, much worse, she thought with a gust of pure relief, if she were to be kept locked away endlessly in her room, followed doggedly everywhere she went, her every move monitored, her decisions made for her, including an eventual marriage of convenience. Such a possibility, such prospects, were daunting indeed. Canada seemed, at the moment, like a way of escape. Her father, thinking to punish her for her escape to Gretna Green, was opening the door, thrusting her into the adventure of a lifetime. And paying for it!

  “May I go now, Papa?” she asked politely, hiding her exultation.

  “You may,” he nodded. “It’s probably too soon to begin packing, but you might like to consider what you will take and what you will leave behind. Remember, insofar as we can see now, this is a long-term assignment. Hopefully someday you may return to us, a dignified lady.”

  Allison’s head was bowed in pseudo humility. Her passage to the door was accompanied by her mother’s sudden wail.

  Her mother’s wail, and her father’s pious summation of the entire matter: “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.”

  If she had felt like skipping when she came downstairs, she felt like flying when she went back up. But already in big trouble and all on account of her unpredictable behavior, Allison’s feet walked sedately enough—Buckle in faithful attendance—while her spirit soared.

  With the click of the key in the lock behind her, decorum forsook her, however; propriety fled, pretensions collapsed, and Allison, holding her full skirts up and out of the way, kicked up her heels in a jig as full of fancy as of freedom and circled the room. Finally, collapsing on the bed, she gasped out her feelings in tears and laughter.

  It was too unbelievable. The very thing she longed for, the chief desire of her life—freedom—was to be hers, and without any conniving or arranging on her part. Of course, she reminded herself guiltily, her unprincipled actions had brought it about. Even so, she couldn’t find it in her heart to be sorry. Except for Mum . . . her mother’s tears.

  Thinking of them, Allison sobered. The excitement of the moment was shadowed by the remembrance of her mother’s weeping. And then she recalled the heartless recriminations her mother had all but spat at her and rallied from her brief pang of compunction.

  With nothing else to do, she settled herself for the time of waiting. Without some guidelines about Canada and what would be needed and suitable for that place and that climate, there was little she could do to prepare herself. But inertia, for Allison, didn’t come naturally; often in the next days as she watched the approach of spring from her window, she felt cooped, restless. At times she paced the floor, devising ways to keep her mind engaged and her courage up. Imagining, planning, dreaming. Urging herself to be patient; what her father had ordained would come to pass.

  Sarah was finally allowed to come to her sister’s room. Allison recognized the tentative taptap immediately and had to admit that—at the thought of talking with another human being—her heart leaped at the sound she had once spurned as bothersome and interruptive. Mrs. Buckle’s duties had brought her into the room from time to time to clean, to gather up laundry, to change the bed; Becky—with Buckle standing guard—brought trays of food three times a day. But Mrs. Buckle was grim and speechless, by nature and by design, and Becky, though her eyes rolled speakingly and her mouth grimaced soundlessly, was speechless by command.

  “Come in,” Allison caroled in response to her sister’s knock, her welcome evident in her voice.

  The key rattled in the lock, and Buckle held it open as Sarah stepped past him into the room; he then closed it and—both girls realized—waited just outside. It could put a damper on the visit.

  Buckle might hear, but he couldn’t see. And even his crusty heart might have been touched to see the girls bound across the room to each other, meeting in the center, embracing, weeping a little, rocking each other, all in a manner never experienced before. They had missed each other; they were aware of the approaching separation that would part them for years, perhaps forever.

  “Come, Sister,” Allison said at last, drawing back and taking Sarah’s hand and leading her to a seat on the edge of the bed. It seemed a spot much more conducive to sharing, to whispering, than the chairs set in neat isolation on each side of the fireplace.

  “Oh, Allie,” Sarah said, weeping rather freely now, “I don’t believe I can bear it—you going off so far from England. From home. Oh, Allie!”

  “Come now,” Allison said as cheerily as she could, “it’s really not so bad.”

  “It’s bad!” Sarah insisted. “Especially for you; partly for me.”

  Allison hesitated—how could she tell her sister that she was truly looking forward to the Grand Adventure, as she had termed it in her thinking.

  “I’ll be fine, Sarah. You mustn’t worry about me.”

  “But, Allie—Indians! Think of the Indians! Indians scalp people! And your hair is so pretty—” Sarah’s voice choked.

  “Nonsense, Sister. I don’t believe Canadian Indians ever did such things. But if they did, it was ages and ages ago. And anyway, you’re talking about the West; I’ll be in the East, in Ontario. Everyone knows someone who’s been to Ontario, and I’ve always heard it’s quite civilized, really.”

  “But so far away. Oh, Allie!”

  Allison seemed unable to stem the tide of her sister’s tears, until in desperation she confided, “But, Sarah, I quite like the idea. Now don’t look so upset; that was meant to comfort you.”

  “You like the idea?”

  “I do; truly I do.”

  “Is Stephen Lusk,” Sarah asked, looking up darkly from the handkerchief she was holding to her wet eyes, “waiting for you over there?”

  “Not at all! Stephen Lusk is a thing of the past. I’ve seen the last of Stephen Lusk, I’m sure, and probably heard the last of him.”

  Sarah’s slender face filled with sympathy. “Ahhhh . . .”

  “It’s all right, Sarah! It’s all right. Can’t you see that this development—going to Canada—is much more exciting, much more to my liking?”

  Sarah was on the verge of disapproval, of exchanging her sympathy for agitation. Obviously she was struggling with this shifting of passions.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t God’s will for me to marry Stephen,” Allison said piously, hoping to be rewarded by Sarah’s acceptance of such a strong argument.

  It was the wrong approach. Incensed now, recalling Allison’s recent flagrant ignoring of scriptural admonition, Sarah demanded hotly, “What do you know about God’s will, Allie? You’re a big fraud, that’s what you are! If you cared two pins about God’s will, you would be a little more prayerful, a lot more careful about finding it.”

  “All right, all right,” Allison soothed. “So I’ve got a little to learn about God’s will—”

  “A lot to learn!”

  “All right—a lot. Maybe,” she added coaxingly, “I’ll learn all about it in the—”

  “The wiles of Canada, Allie?”

  “Not wiles, Sister. Wilds.”

  “Are you so sure?” Sara
h said with wisdom far beyond her knowing.

  Letitia came. Again Buckle stood guard.

  “Why is Buckle stationed outside all the time?” Allison asked rebelliously. “It seems the silliest of precautions. Where do you think I might go if I got out of my room?”

  Settling herself in a comfortable chair at the side of the fire, Letitia looked at her daughter—flushed, perturbed, the picture of imperious indignation—and spoke more sharply than she might have otherwise.

  “You ran off once, and we certainly hadn’t anticipated such an action on your part. Who’s to say you wouldn’t do it again?”

  “Going to Canada—that won’t be running off?”

  “Under your father’s direction. And of course this time we’ll know where you are,” Letitia pointed out. “And if you choose to associate with runagates, well—” Unspoken the thought that foolish actions on Allison’s part would no longer bring embarrassment to her father and mother.

  Allison was silent for a moment, the color coming and going in her face. Finally, quietly, almost humbly, she asked, “Mama, don’t you care that I’ll be so far away?”

  “Of course I care,” Letitia said. “I care that it’s necessary; I care terribly. It gives me great pain.” And Letitia bowed her beautifully coiffured head into her hands.

  Although she didn’t rush to bow at her mother’s knee again, Allison repeated her apology to the best of her ability, wondering at the same time how meaningful it was if it was only half meant. And she was sorry, she realized, to have caused hurt, even shame—more thoughtless than intentional though it had been—but not sorry to be going to Canada!

  Letitia dabbed tearless eyes, sighed, and changed the topic of conversation.

  “I’m going to see that a trunk is brought down to you, and you can begin to sort through things, deciding what to take with you.”

  “Mama,” Allison said, “I don’t have any idea what to take. Are there any guidelines? I mean—will I be on a farm? In a city? Can I buy things there that I find I need?”