Back Roads to Bliss Page 5

  Turning, Allison allowed time for one quick embrace. Leaning against the slim form, she gathered what strength she could from it, and what courage. Through the dark, Stephen’s face was a white oval, and his eyes—so large and moist in the daylight, reminding one of an innocent fawn—seemed filled with something akin to panic on this night. The sight took the adventuresome Allison aback.

  Quickly she reminded herself of all that was at stake for Stephen. Far more, probably, than for her if they were caught. She could bear the recriminations; his entire future would be in jeopardy. Quincy Middleton could be counted on for no mercy. So she excused Stephen his natural reaction and his croaked words, “Hurry! The stagecoach is due any moment. We’ve got to make it!”

  Stagecoach. Allison was disappointed. She had hoped for a conveyance of their own, preferably a post chaise. Far more comfortable than the public stagecoach or mail coach, the post chaise was a favored means of travel. But it was expensive to hire. Although holding only two people—which pleased Allison’s romantic nature, thinking of two days shut intimately inside with Stephen—it used two or four horses, which must be changed regularly on an extended drive. For so small a conveyance, it required a post boy as well as a coachman and, riding at the back on the dickey, or platform, a groom. Yes, a post chaise was expensive. It was Allison’s first experience with straitened circumstances.

  Aside from the Lusk cart, not at all suitable, Stephen had made the decision to arrange seats on the stagecoach. Not a vehicle of the rich, like the post chaise, or of the poor, like a wagon or cart, the stagecoach was the transportation of choice for the ordinary person. Not the most comfortable, not the fastest, it was the only way to visit most places. As for trains, Stephen knew nothing of train schedules or routes into Scotland, nor did he have the courage to inquire. And probably not the money.

  With Stephen leading the way and Allison stumbling behind, her bag bumping her leg painfully, their feet crunching through the newly fallen snow, they made their way toward the village and the inn. Here a dozen people had gathered, bags and boxes were strewn around, and even as the couple approached, fresh horses were being herded into place.

  Someone was flinging baggage to the roof of the coach, shoving it into the boot. Already a satisfied man was firmly ensconced above in the box seat by the coachman, a favored place, perhaps the best of all. Except for the four inside seats.

  Four people, four only, would mount the step and ride inside. Crowded, cold, their state was much to be preferred than that of the poor wretches whose purses allowed only an outside seat; their suffering, long before they reached their destinations, would be dreadful.

  Now men and women alike, regardless of blowing skirts and flying shawls, were being handed up top, scrabbling for toeholds, settling themselves as best they could, pulling something, anything, around them against the wind and the snow.

  Dumbly, Allison turned her eyes on Stephen.

  “Inside, cherie,” he said with pride.

  Stephen had studied French at school, as well as Latin, and knew Shakespeare and the great masters of art and literature. Allison was sure he would be an asset to Middleton enterprises. But did he know commerce, trade? Could he handle investments, use funds to advantage? Well enough, it seemed, to arrange a seat inside the coach, and poor, shivering Allison thought it money well spent.

  “Oh, Stephen!” she said with relief. “Thank you!”

  Their baggage was hoisted above, and at the hostler’s urging, Stephen gallantly handed Allison into the rig. Bending, crushing her skirts to her side, she was thrust in, and turning, she fell with a plop into the seat. Fell onto a lap.

  From the shriek that erupted, it was a female lap; Allison was grateful for that.

  “These seats are taken,” a gravelly male voice said.

  “Oh! I’m sorry . . . I beg your pardon . . . I couldn’t see—”

  “That’s a’ reet,” the female voice said faintly. “Just turn around, if you will, and be seated—again. That way you’ll get off my toes.”

  “Gracious!” Allison said, still bent awkwardly, fumbling to turn her massive skirts in the small space. “I’m terribly sorry!”

  The couple already seated had the favored location—facing forward. Somehow Allison hadn’t realized that they might ride the entire two days backwards. And crowded. Stephen’s head and shoulders were inside, and he was looking helplessly, in the dim light, at the few inches of seat remaining to him.

  Allison gathered up her skirts and her full cloak, pulling them around her, knowing she’d need them for warmth and grimly grateful for the Balmoral petticoat and shoes. A cold wind frisked through the open door.

  “Come on in, Stephen,” she urged.

  “Sit doon, if ye’ll be sae kind,” the gravelly voice said, more gently than before, “and close the door.”

  Stephen squeezed his long, thin form into the spot allotted to him, and the door was shut. Both he and Allison turned immediately to the small windows, watching anxiously, willing the vehicle to move, to get underway, to begin the escape from Midbury and Quincy Middleton.

  With a shout and a jerk they were off. The sudden movement caused another shift in the seating arrangements, and like coal shaken into a scuttle, the four travelers settled into place, side by side, toe to toe.

  Stephen had no covering; Allison could see he was trembling pitifully, from cold and perhaps nervousness; she could feel his shoulder shaking against hers, and she flipped the end of her cloak to cover him a little. The couple across from them were bundled together under a carriage robe.

  “We canna see ye verra weel,” the man said eventually, “but I’m Crispus McCloud, and this is m’wife, Clara. We’ve been in Lunnon, and we’re headed for Edinburgh, and home.”

  “I’m Ste—”

  A sharp nudge of Allison’s elbow brought Stephen’s introduction to a halt.

  After a moment’s silence, Allison said, “Go ahead, tell them our names, John.”

  “Ah, yes,” Stephen managed. “We’re the . . . the Buckles.” Allison, already tense, barely kept from giggling hysterically—the Buckles!

  The housekeeper and butler. Staid, upright, narrow-minded—the Buckles. If there was anyone in the world less inclined to flout the conventions of life, to run from duty and from security, Allison didn’t know who it might be. The Buckles!

  “And where might ye be headin’?” Mr. McCloud asked, as the carriage jounced over rutted and frozen roads.

  “Scotland. Yes, Scotland,” Stephen answered, adding quickly before the question could be asked, “but not as far as Edinburgh. Yes, that’s it—Scotland, but not as far as Edinburgh.”

  If the unseen Scotsman’s “I see” was a little dry, Allison and Stephen never noticed. Allison slipped her cold hand into Stephen’s cold hand and, eventually, let her head fall onto his shoulder, and she slept.

  They were all roused, of course, when a changing station was reached.

  “This’s yer chance to ’op out and warm up,” someone shouted and opened the door. The McClouds and “Buckles” took the opportunity to climb out, stretch cramped limbs, visit the necessary room provided for travelers, drink a cup of tea, and board again. Except for one or two men, the travelers up top never moved. Perhaps they couldn’t. Burrowed under their tentlike creations, they couldn’t take a chance of snow sifting in, of losing the small bit of heat they had generated.

  At dawn they stopped again, with more time allowed for the passengers to disembark, walk to and fro, and obtain something to eat. Allison was amazed to find out there had been a small child, just an infant, up top. Bundled and motionless until now, it set up a feeble wail, and the young mother rocked it patiently before the big fireplace in the inn, the Goose and Quill.

  “Stephen,” Allison whispered, moved to sympathy, “that baby has been up top all along. Maybe we should give our places to that woman—”

  Stephen was quick to reject the idea. He was a young man . . . youth . . . who knew his place. And
though it wasn’t in a post chaise, neither was it on top of a public stagecoach. He was even more aware of Allison’s place; if her father learned that she had ridden on top of a stagecoach for a day and more in bitterly cold weather, Stephen would suffer for it, and severely. Never having met the man, knowing him only by reputation, still Stephen showed the deference of his training and his station.

  “No, no!” he protested. “She wouldn’t thank us for interfering. We’d upset the entire balance of culture.”

  Sometimes, Allison thought, maybe Stephen shows too much education, or the wrong education. Surely thoughtfulness and kindness were more important than maintaining one’s position. Maybe it was because she was so tired, perhaps she saw Stephen in a light never suspected before, but at the moment he didn’t seem so handsome, so Greek-godlike. At the moment he seemed young, gauche. Funny that she had never noticed how his eyes—as well as being entrancingly doelike—protruded too much; his mouth—those gloriously curved and generously shaped lips—seemed weak.

  “Allison,” he pursued urgently, “if your father ever found out I let you ride on the top of a public coach—”

  He was sweet. And thoughtful.

  “At least,” she said, “go over and order that girl some tea and a little breakfast.”

  The McClouds proved to be a short, stout couple, now that they were unwound from their blankets and shawls. Their faces were kindly enough, but Mr. McCloud’s eyes were shrewd. Allison caught him studying her closely, and when she lifted her chin and gave him a straight look, he nodded politely and turned away.

  The day passed slowly, with occasional stops to change horses, rest a little, and eat a bit. Allison found herself more and more watching the road behind them and was not surprised to notice Stephen doing the same. Fortunately, because of riding backwards, they could watch the oncoming traffic without turning their heads. Still, Mr. McCloud grinned a time or two when some rig overtook them and whirled past them and Allison and Stephen drew back into the shadows of the coach.

  “He knows,” Allison whispered to Stephen, satisfied once again with the blazing blue of his eyes, the tender curve of his mouth, the gentle pressure of his slim hand, and the graceful bend of his slender body.

  They swayed and bounced, groaned and muttered, waking and sleeping through another night. It was at dawn the problem arose: A wheel came loose.

  The gyrations of the coach alerted them to trouble. Quickly the coachman hauled the rig to a halt. Allison could hear loud voices, felt the lurching of the coach as men climbed down, heard the discussion, the peevishness in the voices.

  “All right—everybody out! Everybody out!” Someone with authority issued the command.

  Standing in the dim morning light, shivering in the wind, people clustered together at the side of the road, ankle deep in snow. A wheel, loose and leaning away from the coach at a crazy angle, was clearly the problem. A low moan arose from the weary passengers, to be swept away in a swirl of snow.

  Mr. McCloud had stepped over to the group of men who had gathered around the wheel, kicking it, shaking it, testing it. He talked earnestly with the driver, motioning toward the huddled passengers, seeming to come to some conclusion.

  “The next inn,” he said, back with the group once more, “is aboot twa miles doon the road. There’s naething tae do but walk.”

  So saying, he took his wife’s hand, placed it on his arm, and turned his dogged steps forward. One by one the others followed.

  Allison knew she fared better than most. Warmly clad, young and strong, she actually found a certain exhilaration in being on her feet and moving again. But Stephen—poor Stephen. His thin suit was inadequate protection against the weather, which had steadily worsened the farther north they went. Where is his Macintosh, Allison wondered, until it occurred to her that perhaps he had none.

  She was in fairly good condition when they reached the warm hearth of the Harp and Trencher, but Stephen was blue and shaking, his hands, claws, his feet, in their light shoes, stiff and lacking feeling.

  Hot tea for everyone, a turn by the fireside, warm food, and there was a general reviving of spirits, even some dogged preparations to climb aboard once again and resume the trip, a fresh coach having been provided. There was no choice.

  The delay, though taken in stride by others, was agony for Allison and Stephen. Her father’s well-sprung coach, his well-fed horses, his determined men could overtake them easily now. Time was ticking away; every minute counted now.

  Consequently, it was with almost hysterical relief they finally disembarked at Gretna Green. The young couple—so pressured, so tense, so fearful—had no time to study the hamlet that would have interested them at any other time. They could only look around for some sign of the pursuit they feared. Then, reassured, they made a dash for the smithy.

  “God bless ye!” shouted Mr. McCloud. Watching them go, he turned to his wife and said triumphantly, “What did I tell ye?”

  The beefy blacksmith, far better dressed than for his apprenticed trade and obviously awaiting business in his acquired profession, stepped forward and greeted them.

  “And is it gettin’ marrit you’re wantin’?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!” The coveted moment, so dearly longed for, so dearly paid for, was within their grasp.

  “Good, verra good. Now step this wa’.”

  And there was the anvil, the anvil over which many a lover had pledged his troth, the anvil of romance, the renowned anvil of Gretna Green. A bedraggled but starry-eyed Allison—in her relief completely forgetting the Morocco slippers in her bag—looked up at a haggard Stephen and whispered, “We made it, Stephen; we made it!”

  “Step forward; step forward,” someone invited.

  “Wait.” Allison had the wit to remember her footwear. To everyone’s amazement, perhaps amusement, she fumbled into her bag and withdrew her dainty Morocco slippers and, blushing slightly as she removed the Balmoral boots, put them on. Put them on feet cold and stiff, and turned, flushed and sparkling, to her wedding.

  “And now,” asked the waiting officiant—and the spittle turned dry in her mouth, and Stephen’s face turned a mottled green, and the world tilted at a crazy angle—“if ye’ll jist show me the papers, provin’—as required by an Act of Parliament—ye have lived the necessary twenty-one days in Scotlan’ . . .”

  Canada, 1898

  Parker Jones chunked another piece of wood into the big range that dominated the “living room” area of his simple home in the Canadian bush. Outside, winter was obviously far from over, though it was April. Chickadees, not finding much to eat in a landscape long picked clean, were eagerly chipping away at the generous slab of suet Molly, on her last visit, had fastened to a tree just outside the window. As Parker well knew, Molly, even more so than the birds, was impatient for better weather. Then and only then would the men of the church begin to enlarge his present abode, transforming it into a parsonage fit for a wife to preside over.

  How good it will be to have a proper home again, Parker thought as he looked around at the rough, though snug, cabin. Various church ladies had done what they could, but it remained, at best, cheerless. His glance rather sourly settled on the ubiquitous pot of beans on the back of the range, and he thought dismally of another skimpy supper scraped together and eaten alone. After all, one could only drop in, unannounced and hungry, on one’s parishioners so many times—gracious though they were and willing to add another plate to the table—without becoming a nuisance.

  But winter was no time for building, though the logs for the enlarged house were even now stacked in the yard, cut to size, and weathering, a constant reminder that better days were ahead for him.

  Though Molly would have done so gladly, there was no way he could ask her to settle into a cabin and from there carry on the ministrations of a bush pastor’s wife. She had been a small girl when her parents had come to Bliss from Scotland. Her family had been accustomed to a life of deprivations while they were bringing their land to prod
uction, and Molly had declared herself ready to live in a dugout, or house of sod, and happily, if it meant sharing it with Parker Jones. But dugouts, Parker thought with a shudder, were places of last resort; soddies, however, were plentiful, dotting the prairies by the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, and many a wellborn lady lived in one, having followed her man to his claim of free land. But here, in the northern bush country, soddies were replaced by cabins built from trees on the settler’s own land—an abundance of trees, a veritable shroud of bush, a tangle that intimidated some folks and turned them back from the massive task of clearing enough land, in enough time, to satisfy the Lands Office.

  Trees for building, trees for burning; Parker Jones opened the draft, and the fire flared to life, roaring up the slim stovepipe and throwing out a blast of heat into the room.

  He automatically stirred the beans, replaced the lid, and turned, with the enamel coffeepot in his hand, to the slop pail beside the door. Into it went the remaining dribbles of his morning and noon coffee and, after a vigorous shake, the meager grounds. With more care than usual, he measured new grounds, dipped water into the pot from a nearby pail, and set the coffeepot on the hottest lid of the stove to boil.

  Next, he turned to the open-shelf cupboards, clearly of the handmade variety, and contemplated his crockery, a mismatched conglomeration of castoffs gleaned from the homes of his congregation. He congratulated himself on having washed his dishes earlier in the day and felt something akin to a housewife’s satisfaction in what seemed to be, to his uncritical eyes, a neatly ordered cupboard. No board member should go home shaking his head over the pastor’s disgraceful housekeeping practices, to have his wife look at him with accusing eyes and remind him that the “poor man” needed a wife and was only waiting for the board to do something about it.

  Parker figured he would need five cups but could not, for the life of him, match them up with the proper saucers. At last they were set in a neat row on the round oak table that graced the center of the room and was covered with an oilcloth of Molly’s choosing and ordered from the catalog.