Back Roads to Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  “I have no idea,” Letitia said helplessly. “All I really know is that it gets cold, wherever you might be. Be sure to take heavy garments.”

  As a result of the conversation, a large trunk was deposited in a corner of Allison’s room; she eyed it with a mix of dismay and enthusiasm. The first things to go in, down into a deep corner, were the Balmoral boots and petticoat.

  But whether or not they would be necessary, she didn’t know. Recalling the cold of Gretna Green, Scotland, Allison left the Balmoral garments in the trunk and added the warmest gloves she could find.

  Finally, her father came. It was the first time Allison had seen him since their encounter two weeks earlier in his study.

  Startled at the unexpected sound of the key in the lock, Allison glanced up from the book she was reading, then stood as her father entered, her expression calm enough but her heart racing. Were there to be more recriminations? Was there a change in plans? Had—heaven forbid!—Stephen been located and drawn into the whole miserable affair once again?

  Until now she had never considered what would happen if Stephen was tracked down, overcome, and dragged back to Midbury, and her father—full of righteous indignation—demanded that Stephen marry his daughter. It was an unsettling thought. Was it possible?

  She was a little chagrined at the relief she felt when her father’s first words put her uneasy conjectures about Stephen to rest.

  “Plans are coming together very nicely,” he said, gesturing her to sit, himself taking the other chair. “I’ve obtained passage on the Griffin for you and your custodian.”

  Custodian! Allison hated the word, hated the thought, dreaded the association.

  “The sailing date is exactly ten days from now.”

  “Ten days, Papa?” It was actually going to happen.

  “A week from Friday. So speed up your packing, my girl. Mrs. Buckle will assist you. I understand she has a relative in Canada and can give advice about the sort of things to take. She will also have the funds to purchase anything you may need.”

  “This . . . this custodian, Papa?”

  “Miss—ah, here it is.” Quincy fished a slip of paper from a pocket and read, “Theodora Figg.”

  “Have you met this Theodora Figg, Papa?”

  “Buckle procured her services. I understand she does this sort of thing regularly—accompanying women or children, overseeing the sick or elderly, doing a little nursing if necessary, delivering her charges to their destination. Very capable, I’m sure. Highly recommended, of course.

  “Once on the shores of Canada, she will transfer her obligations to . . . to . . .”

  Quincy fished once again in a pocket, drew out another paper, and continued, “Maybelle Dickey. Mrs. Dickey will be there to meet and greet you—”

  “You’ve heard from Mrs. Dickey?” Allison asked, surprised.

  “Well, no, there’s hardly been time. But if there is some slipup, Miss Figg will continue your oversight for as long as is necessary. Everything, I feel, is under control.”

  It sounded very tenuous to her, quite uncertain, rather alarming. But the adventurous spirit in Allison rose to the challenge; she wondered fleetingly, in that moment, if she were a pioneer at heart.

  Not much more was said. Quincy, businesslike as usual, said what he had to say, then turned to leave. At the door, his back to her, he never saw Allison’s hand, tentatively outstretched, never saw the pleading in her eyes.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes?” he asked and turned. Asked too crisply, turned too late; the hand was down, the eyes shadowed.

  “Nothing. It was . . . nothing.”

  Mrs. Buckle came. Mrs. Buckle came and lit into the task at hand as though she were a tornado in skirts.

  “There’ll be no need for this,” she’d say, tossing aside a favorite gown. “Too extravagant . . . too indecorous . . . too elegant . . . ostentatious.”

  Allison hadn’t known her wardrobe was so useless, so contemptible, so preposterous, and she watched with dismay as Mrs. Buckle, with a sniff, disdained most of it and filled the trunk with warm petticoats, flannel nightgowns, warm vests, boots, ulster coat, pea jacket, twelve handkerchiefs, twenty-four pairs of stockings, six pairs of gloves, a “housewife” with buttons, needles, and thread. “There won’t be anyone at your beck and call to sew and mend and replace buttons,” Mrs. Buckle said firmly, adding a pair of scissors and a darning ball.

  “I’m putting in soap for rinsing out your clothes,” she went on, fitting in a bulky packet. “This chaperone of yours won’t do your laundry, I’m sure of that. As for ironing—” Even Mrs. Buckle’s confidence wavered at the thought of ironing.

  “Shoe polish,” she said, proceeding doggedly. “Curling iron—you won’t need it. You’ll have to do your own hair, of course. I’ll put in some hair nets—”

  Somehow the Adventure no longer seemed quite as Grand as it had in Allison’s dreams.

  Brother Dinwoody, church secretary, stopped by the parsonage with the letter from the Bible School of the Dominion.

  His feet, in tall rubber boots, splashed through the remains of winter’s snow, a rich slush; his head, in its shapeless hat, was lifted into the bluest sky imaginable. He was surrounded by the freshest fragrance—of life reawakening, earth reappearing, buds swelling. Phlegmatic man though he was, Brother Dinwoody was stirred in heart.

  As he waited on the stoop, his jaunty whistle vied with several issuing from the bush that pressed close on all sides (they really would have to cut that back if the parsonage was to have a garden). His cheery grin greeted his pastor when Parker Jones opened the door; it would have taken a frozen man to resist the blandishments of spring in the Canadian bush.

  “I thought it was a robin out here on the porch,” Parker said, smiling.

  “An old crow, more like,” Adonijah Dinwoody responded with uncharacteristic jocularity.

  If he keeps this up, Parker thought, we’ll have to call him a name more frivolous than Brother Dinwoody. Ijah, maybe?

  “Come on in, Brother,” is what he said, however, and his board secretary obligingly did so. No matter that he tramped water all over the floor; it was nothing but rough boards and would benefit from a little scrubbing when it was mopped up. Besides, any day now the building of the new parsonage was to begin.

  “We have a response here to our letter in regard to a supply pastor,” Brother Dinwoody said, and he took a rather crumpled envelope from his pocket.

  Parker showed his guest to a chair, took the proffered letter, opened it, and read it silently, assuming Brother Dinwoody had read it previously.

  “It’s good news,” he commented. “At least they’re working on our request.”

  “We wrote at the right time,” Brother Dinwoody nodded, “just when school is about to let out for summer. He—the fella who wrote—hopes to have someone lined up by that time. This letter was just a courtesy, I guess you’d have to say, lettin’ us know they had received ours, and advisin’ us that they are workin’ on it and will give us the final word later on.”

  “Yes, that was thoughtful of them,” Parker said absently, thinking ahead, realizing the arrival of the interim preacher would be several weeks away at best.

  Molly was ready for the wedding: dress completed and waiting, other mysterious sewing finished, plans made for the day of the ceremony. And, heaven knew, he, Parker Jones, longtime bachelor, was ready. Ready and eager, and feeling a keen sense of disappointment that there might yet be a delay of several weeks before he could claim the delectable Molly Morrison as his bride.

  “I think Molly and I won’t wait,” he said now firmly, and he saw Brother Dinwoody wilt and lose some of his carefree satisfaction with the day and the weather. Obviously visions of having to preach rose in his mind.

  “We’ll go ahead with the wedding if Molly is willing, and I think she will be. This means, of course, that we’ll be away from here before the new man arrives. You may remember, Brother, I exhorted you and the other boar
d members to be prepared to fill the pulpit if it became necessary. Well, it looks like it’s going to be necessary. Have you given that some thought?”

  Though the day was far from warm, Brother Dinwoody seemed to break out in a sweat. “Isn’t there some other way, some other solution?” he asked feebly.

  “Short of a miracle—no,” Parker said. “But I know you can do it. If each of you takes a turn, that’ll take care of a month of Sundays. You can come up with a sermon in that length of time; I know you can.”

  Brother Dinwoody seemed far less certain than his pastor. Gloomy-eyed, he pocketed the letter that had spelled the end to his carefree days. His good-bye was far more muted than his hello had been; there was no rollicking whistle; even his hat seemed to have forsaken its rakish angle and sat on his head in a manner most subdued.

  Parker followed the dejected man to his buggy and stood alongside for a moment. “If you think you need extra time to prepare, Brother,” he said kindly, “speak up for the fourth Sunday before the others beat you to it.”

  Brother Dinwoody’s chest heaved with a burden he’d not had when he arrived. Then, he’d been full of the joy of life, anticipating the bush’s glorious spring with nothing more alarming to trouble him than a broken plowshare, a gimpy horse, and a calf due too soon.

  The board met and voted—after considerable discussion—to accept Parker Jones’s suggestion that they themselves fill the pulpit, freeing him to go ahead and get married and leave for the East before the Bible school man arrived.

  Last-minute plans for the wedding, long in the works, were finalized. Everything was ready except the actual setting of the date, which the couple now announced. The entire district was agog with expectation. For this would not be a home wedding with only the family in attendance, as was the custom, but a “church” wedding. That is, it would be held in the schoolhouse, and the full congregation, the entire district of Bliss, would be included.

  Brother Dinwoody was too slow in expressing his wishes—or too wishy-washy—concerning his choice of speaking dates; Bly Condon obviously had the same thought, and before Brother Dinwoody could say “fourth Sunday,” Bly had the date snatched up for himself. Brother Dinwoody’s despair accelerated; how could he bring anything meaningful to the people of Bliss when he himself was so mired in the slough of despond?

  Angus Morrison would take the first Sunday, Herkimer Pinkard the second; Brother Dinwoody found himself slated for the third Sunday. Maybe, he thought with faint faith, if he prayed fervently enough, the new preacher would arrive before his turn came up.

  Even then Parker Jones was saying, “If the new man doesn’t arrive by then, you can start the slate over again.”

  Two weeks later, on a glorious Sunday morning, the schoolhouse was packed long before Parker Jones took his place behind the makeshift pulpit to deliver the day’s sermon; the wedding ceremony would follow.

  It was an unusual arrangement—Sunday sermon, followed by a wedding. Saturday would have been a better day, particularly for the groom with his pulpit responsibilities. But spring work was underway, and Parker and Molly would not ask their hardworking neighbors to set it aside for them. Since most of them obeyed the biblical injunction to labor six days, their attendance at church on the seventh was a matter of course, barring illness or tragedy.

  They were present and in place on this day, eager for the most special occasion of the year, easily rivaling the Christmas concert in importance and excitement—the marriage of their pastor and their own Molly Morrison.

  The hymnbooks—Hymns of Praise Number One, with shape notes, bound with jute manila—were distributed. Sister Dinwoody at the organ was at her best. Her generous hips, wider by far than the crimson mohair organ stool on which she sat, pumped energetically, bringing up the pressure in the bellows; her work-worn fingers set the stop knobs just so and pounded out the melody on the yellowing celluloid keys. The hymn of choice made a fitting opening for the occasion: “O Happy Day!”

  And though the small congregation couldn’t rightly fill the quota mentioned in “Hark! Ten Thousand Harps and Voices,” their enthusiasm—when they reached the chorus of “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen!”—swelled and lifted through the building, out the open door, and across the bush in glorious, if ragged, testimony.

  Parker Jones, shined and pressed, did his best to preach. But it seemed he would never be done smiling; it was not a day for rebuking or chastising. It was a time of expectation, of assurance, assurance first of all that Christ would return one day and, secondly, that he, Parker Jones, though leaving them temporarily, would return to them.

  “Philippians, chapter one, verses 25 and 26,” he announced as he began, Bible in hand, and there was a rustling of fragile leaves as the faithful turned to the proper place: “I know,” he read, “that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.”

  Heads lifted, eyes shone, a few mouths smiled; Parker Jones had taken the words of the apostle Paul and applied them to their present situation. The Philippians’ consolation was theirs. The Philippians’ admonition was theirs—Pastor Jones concluded with a portion of the twenty-seventh verse: “Whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.”

  Amen and amen.

  So consoled, so admonished, they were bound to stand fast until their shepherd should return to them.

  A brief closing prayer followed the short exhortation, and then, rather than the usual dismissal and turning toward the door and home, an expectant silence fell.

  “It’s our privilege, mine and Molly’s,” Parker Jones said simply, laying his Bible aside, “to share with you our exchange of vows. Brother Temple—if you will kindly step forward . . .”

  From the back of the room, Rev. Temple, an itinerant preacher who was known to many of them, worked his way through the desks. Reaching the front, he embraced Parker Jones, shook his hand, and turned to face the congregation, a smile on his cadaverous face. With little or no physical beauty, Rev. Temple exuded the simple love of the Lord. Everyone knew his devotion, his dedication, his sacrifice, and they gave him their attention now.

  Parker gave the bemused Sister Dinwoody a quick glance, and with a start and a blush, she turned to the organ. As prearranged, she played, as soulfully and meaningfully as she could, “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” The second time through, the tempo became quicker, the sound more vigorous; it was a sign to the breathless audience. As one person they turned and followed the direction of Parker Jones’s eyes.

  Through the door, walking alone, stepped Molly—head lifted regally, slim shoulders straight, face flushed prettily, her vibrant hair intertwined neatly with ribbons. Lightly she came, brightly, gladly, through the aisle that opened for her.

  No petal-strewn path or flower-decked arbor was ever trodden by a bride more proudly than Molly Morrison walked the oiled schoolhouse floor; no cathedral held guests nobler than the pioneers crowding into Bliss’s scarred desks; no bride looked into faces more supportive than those that turned to Molly now.

  There were no flowers; there were none to be had. Though vases of budding boughs had been placed strategically at the front of the room, the earth had not produced one crocus as yet, no brave early violet to pin to the bride’s shoulder. But the sweet fragrance of lily of the valley perfume accompanied her, and in her hand Molly carried a small Bible.

  Straight and true she went—brave in her navy Kersey with its jabot of frothy white—to the waiting Parker Jones. His face was alight, as though he had seen or was even now seeing a vision. With never a falter Molly walked through the crowd and into arms that came out automatically to receive her.

  It was so unexpected, the embrace, so spontaneous, that the crowd, awed and silent until now, broke into applause. Only then did Molly turn and Parker raise his he
ad—as though waking from a dream and astonished to discover they had an audience—to smile at their audience, then step apart and turn to face the minister.

  Afterward Molly was to say she heard only the familiar “Dearly beloved” and nothing more—although she was assured she gave her pledge at the proper time—until Rev. Temple directed the new husband, “Salute your bride,” and Parker, in front of a deeply moved, even tearful congregation, kissed her as his wife, Mrs. Parker Jones.

  There was no recessional; there was no way a path could be made through the packed building. Rather, friends and family crowded around, with hugs and handshakes, pats and kisses being the order of the day.

  It was not a day for dispersing; it was a time for fellowship, for reminiscing. It was a time of eating together. No home was large enough, no hall available. Though it was not yet really warm, it was sunny. The snow was gone, the earth was drying; it was possible to set up trestle tables in the school yard.

  Every household in the district, and several from surrounding districts—well-wishers who had come for the wedding—produced boxes containing every taste treat imaginable. It was a celebration. Who would want to go home to a cold dinner eaten alone when special food was available for the taking, with conversation flowing richly?

  Winter’s hardships were still sharp in the memory; spring’s promises were not yet fulfilled. This day, with its food and fellowship, was a time of transition, a laying aside of the old, a laying hold of the new.

  Parker and Molly, as was right and proper, took time to go from table to table, group to group, even family to family, expressing appreciation for each guest’s presence, assuring one and all of their return. But it was obvious they were biding their time, and they turned gladly toward Molly’s brother, Cameron, nodding their willingness to be on their way when he looked at them inquiringly. Cameron was to take them to Prince Albert where they would spend the night at the Maple Leaf Hotel. The next day they would take the train to points east and Parker’s childhood home.