Back Roads to Bliss Read online

  “For how long, Parker?” Molly asked, just as directly.

  “I think I should plan on several months. I’m going to suggest to the board that they contact a Bible school for a substitute; the church shouldn’t be without a shepherd for that length of time.”

  “And us, Parker? You and me?”

  “I have the solution, Molly. If you’ll go along with it. You remember, last year, when I was in such a turmoil about my call and my future and thought I might go east and teach for a while? You prayed about that, remember? And you weren’t agreeable to going with me; you said your place was here in Bliss—”

  “For the time being, I said.”

  “What exactly did that mean, Molly?”

  “It meant, you silly boy—” Molly’s voice was rising with excitement, “that I didn’t feel we . . . I . . . should go east and be a teacher’s wife. It means I feel I have my own calling, and it’s to be the wife of a pastor. Pastor Parker Jones, to be explicit.”

  “Then simply going out for a short time—that wouldn’t be objectionable?”

  “Parker,” and once again she was on her knees in front of him, this time searching his face, his eyes, her voice tight with control as she asked, “are you suggesting, are you saying, we can be married, and I can go with you?”

  The smile on his face was enough for her. With a small cry she flung herself into his arms. He gathered her to him as a drowning man reaches for a rope. And now the tears were those of exultation. There would be no more delays, no more uncertainties.

  Mary and Mam were invited back eventually, and kisses and hugs were exchanged, with explanations made. They offered their condolences, then joined in the happy plans that were laid.

  “I haven’t thought of going until a thaw sets in,” Parker said. “But that can’t be far awayjust weeks, maybe days.”

  “Just long enough to get everything ready,” Molly added. “Oh, Parker, it can be a wedding trip!”

  “At my mother’s expense,” Parker said a trifle ruefully, being as poor as a church mouse himself and the fact well known to his prospective bride.

  “But you’ll be such a help to her,” Molly encouraged, taking his hand. “And I’ll do what I can.”

  “Mother will love you, darling Molly,” Parker assured her. “And my sister, too. What a wonderful opportunity for the girls in my life to get to know one another. My other girls,” he corrected, with an apologetic grin at Mary and Mam.

  And at that moment Parker Jones, in spite of flat purse and barren cupboard, worn shirt collars and no means of transportation save his own two feet, felt himself to be the richest of men.

  Quincy Middleton, as a mill owner and part of the despised (in his thinking) merchant class—along with clergy, doctors, and bankers—supposed himself to have attained the rank of Third Class in British Society. No one had specifically qualified him as such, nor were there lists, to his knowledge, to which one’s name was added when he attained a certain status or removed when he slipped from proper protocol and importance. No matter that the Map of English Society was drafted years ago; in people’s minds, if not on their bookshelves, it existed.

  Now, however, with these shenanigans of his older daughter, he felt he was in grave danger of slipping to the dreaded Fourth Class—along with lesser clergy, doctors, teachers, lawyers, shopkeepers, artists, and merchants of the lower class. (Quincy had nightmares from which he woke up perspiring over the dreadful possibility of such a demotion.)

  People of moderate income were also in this bracket. Quincy’s income remained large, though his workers were restless, grumbling concerning their need of better pay. But they hadn’t a leg to stand on; Quincy had them where he wanted them. They lived in his houses, on his property, and if dismissed from the mill, they lost both wages—meager though they might be—and home.

  No, Quincy had not slipped in the matter of his income, and he hoped that fact alone would suffice to maintain his place in the Third Class ranks.

  “This evil,” he was saying to his wife as he paced back and forth in the room that was designated as his study, his face red, his eyes snapping, “has got to be nipped in the bud. And quickly.”

  “Evil? Allison? Oh, Quincy! And anyway,” Letitia, seated nearby, was twisting her handkerchief, “she’s home again. It’s over now—”

  “Over? Over? People don’t consider it over. They see a family brought low by their offspring. They see her actions as a horrible smirch, misconduct of the vilest sort. And it’s destroying my reputation and the Middleton name!”

  “Quincy,” Letitia begged, “be reasonable! Your reputation has nothing to do with it. As for her own, perhaps, given time—”

  “A canker, that’s what it is,” Quincy pressed on. “And it certainly does have something, everything to do with my reputation!”

  “Canker?” Letitia repeated faintly and shuddered.

  “Canker!” Quincy repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue like some sweetmeat. “Her behavior is like a canker, Letitia. A canker, for which there’s no cure except it be excised! Cut out!”

  “What are you saying, Quincy?” Letitia was alarmed—there was no operation to remove traits of character. And Allison was hotheaded, rash, independent. Only life itself would change the character of Allison Middleton.

  “I’m saying,” Quincy said, stopping before a window and staring out at the little kingdom he had built—wide green grounds around a beautiful house and, in the distance, the mill discharging heavy black smoke—“you can’t put a plaster on something like this and expect it to get well. A canker is a gangrenous growth—”

  Letitia was growing tired of the word and wished he’d move on. But Quincy wasn’t finished.

  “The only solution is to remove it.”

  His long-suffering wife sighed. “What do you propose?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Quincy stepped to the bell pull, gave it a hefty yank, and turned his heavy face toward the door, his finger tapping impatiently on the desk at his side, his cheeks flexing in cadence with the clenching of his teeth. Quincy, angry, was a fearsome sight to behold and a frightening power to encounter. Although his temper was not turned on her this time, Letitia was understandably nervous.

  “Sit down, Quincy. Surely you don’t have to pace around like a, like a wounded bull.”

  Her husband’s high-colored face turned even redder. A wounded bull! Quincy desired, above all, to act and react as an aristocrat would. Letitia had, across the years, managed to curb his brutish side more or less by her criticisms, her suggestions, her mockery. Now, hearing her, Quincy bit his lip.

  With massive control he turned to the chair behind the desk and sank into it. And though he would never admit it, Letitia was right—he immediately felt more dignified, more in charge than when raging aimlessly around the room. Like a judge behind the bench, he was ready to pronounce sentence.

  “Yes, sir?” It was Buckle, standing prim and trim before the desk, having entered the room quietly, like the shadow he was.

  “Bring Allison . . . Miss Allison, downstairs, please, Buckle.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  He needn’t sound so happy about it, Letitia thought with some annoyance. Quincy irate, Sarah sniveling, the servants titillated—it was a three-ring circus. Perhaps she, Letitia, should have insisted on seeing Allison, preparing her a little in advance for this moment. But the child had behaved shockingly; she should be made to suffer for it. And three days of seclusion on bread and water should have been sufficient punishment. But Quincy’s wrath had not subsided one whit. Letitia was uneasy about Quincy’s possible heavy-handed retribution.

  It had been a long three days. Allison had grown increasingly impatient with her enforced incarceration. Once each day Mrs. Buckle had appeared to escort her to the bathing room, had shut her in, and apparently had stood outside the door until Allison was through with her ablutions. The inflexible presence in the hall had a dampening effect on the girl and kept
her from dawdling over her bath, as she might have done otherwise. No, it was wash, dry, dress, and return to the prison of her room. Three times a day Becky scurried in with a tray of food, Mrs. Buckle once again standing guard outside the door.

  Of Sarah there had been no sound. Perhaps her attempt to communicate with her sister had been observed and reported to their father. At any rate, there was no further contact, though once Allison had thought she heard a snuffling at the door.

  “Fifi? Fifi?” she had called, lifting her head and listening.

  Soft footfalls rapidly fading had been her answer.

  Sitting by the window at times, dreaming of flight, Allison could see why she and Stephen had abandoned the idea of escape by means of the window—it was a long way down to the ground. Even Allison’s intrepid courage faltered over the thought of descending, reaching freedom by such means, though she spent a few moments pondering the possibility of sheets tied together, making a rope of sorts. But she wasn’t sure her knots would hold, and she could picture herself plummeting into the bushes below, to be ignominiously fished out and, once again, herded back to her room. And if she did make a safe descent, what then?

  Allison’s first spate of meekness, due perhaps to her weariness, was fast fading. If her father had called for her that first day or come to her room to see her, he might have found her tearfully begging for forgiveness, promising irreproachable behavior forevermore. As it was, with each passing hour she grew more restless, then peeved that she should be subjected to such humiliating treatment, then angry that it continued so unreasonably.

  So when Buckle tapped on the door, was granted permission to enter, turned the key, and came in, Allison was already belligerent.

  “Yes?” she demanded.

  “Your father wants you downstairs, Miss.”

  So the moment of confrontation had come. Good! She was ready!

  “I’ll be ready in a moment, Buckle.”

  Still Buckle waited.

  “You may leave, Buckle. I can find my way down, you may remember.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Buckle said with a slight dip of the head. And he withdrew, to stand, she realized, just outside the door, still waiting.

  It didn’t help her attitude.

  There was little to do to prepare herself; she was dressed—there had been nothing to do all day except see to her own needs, her toilette. Still, she fussed around a bit, banging this, rattling that, clattering her shoes back and forth across the room. In the end it availed nothing; Buckle still stood, and stood still, waiting for her.

  At the last, as ready as she could be, she snatched up a shawl, a pretty thing of black cashmere with a five-knot silk fringe eight inches deep, and a favorite of hers. Its splendid richness gave her a dignity, she felt, which she badly needed. And besides, though her room was warm and her father’s study would be warm, the passageways and corridors between were unheated and bitterly cold. The promised thaw had come but had not appreciably permeated the stone walls of Middleton Grange.

  Passing Sarah’s room, Allison ran her fingernails along the paneling, tapping gently. A muffled yap was the only response; if Sarah was in, she gave no indication of it.

  It seemed good to be free. Young, vigorous, weary of being pent up, and still coltish in some respects, Allison could have kicked off her slippers, hiked up her skirts, and run along the stretching halls and down the wide stairs. Could have but did not. Buckle would have been scandalized; Allison giggled momentarily, thinking of the staid servant’s predicament if she fled ahead of him, and the damage to his dignity if he was forced to chase after her, galloping along uncharacteristically and feeling severe humiliation.

  Arriving at her father’s door, Allison paused and tossed her shawl more gracefully around her shoulders, waiting for Buckle to step forward and open it. Once she was inside, Buckle closed the door and she stood before it, uncertain, for there was a grim atmosphere in the ordinarily comfortable room. It came, no doubt, from her father’s expressionless face and her mother’s bent head. Allison had to fight against the unreasonable sensation of being seven years old again and full of dread.

  “Come here,” her father said, and she half expected him to open the desk drawer and draw out a strap. A stinging blow across the palm had been his practice when dealing with childish disobedience. Allison had hated it not half so much as his coldness of manner.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Allison stepped forward. “Good morning, Mama,” she said politely, a faint quaver in her voice. “Good morning, Papa.”

  Letitia stirred but didn’t respond or look up. Quincy’s gaze, fixed on Allison’s face, never wavered. Though there was a chair at the side of the desk, he did not motion her toward it.

  This is ridiculous, Allison thought and asked, “May I sit, Papa?”

  “There’s no need,” he said. “This won’t take long.” Letitia spoke at last. One word. “Quincy—”

  “Quiet!” was the one-word response, and Letitia subsided. “Papa—” a one-word attempt.

  “You’ll be quiet, Miss,” he ordered, and Allison, like her mother, subsided into silence. But after all, she thought, what was there to say? Squaring her shoulders, Allison determined to take her punishment calmly, even placidly. She was ready to get it over with and move on, back to her normal life. There was so much ahead to look forward to, not the least of all being the birthday ball that had been in her mind the last three days when she had had little else to occupy her thinking. Her ball gown would be of the handsomest silk moire, green, shot with silver—

  “I needn’t tell you that you’ve disgraced the family and the name of Middleton,” her father began.

  “I’m sorry, Papa—”

  “Be quiet! If you think an apology of yours can wipe out the damage you’ve done, the pain you’ve inflicted, the shame—”

  Allison closed her eyes as her father’s wrath lashed out at her bitterly.

  It won’t take long, he had said. But once started, Quincy Middleton was a machine grinding out his grievances. Before he was half done, Allison found her knees trembling and kept her feet still with some trouble. This was dreadful! Never, in her moments of imagining this scene, had she supposed it would be this horrendous. Bowing her head, as Letitia continued to do, Allison let the fury fall around her like rain.

  Finally, silence fell. Allison raised her head. Was there more?

  There was; she could not have imagined what was to come.

  Her father rose from his chair, walked to the window, and with his back to her and to his wife, said, “There’s only one solution to disgrace such as yours. That is—expulsion.”

  Allison was puzzled. “Expulsion?” she repeated.

  “Behavior such as you have demonstrated cannot be countenanced in a civilized country, in decent society—”

  “Oh, Quincy!” Letitia’s voice was strained.

  He turned. “There are places for people like you. Scoundrels, scamps, second sons who get themselves in trouble. Remittance men. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”

  “Well, yes, but—” What was her father saying?

  “Shameful actions call for shameful measures. Yours call for nothing short of banishment.”

  What was her father saying!

  “Pack your things, my girl. You’re bound for Canada and the wild West.”

  The chinook! Parker rose one morning to find a strange, silent change in the weather. Weary of winter, with a special reason for wanting spring, watching and eager for any sign of melting, he was quick to detect what seemed to be a faint settling of the snowbanks, banks compacted of snow piled on snow for more than eight months. When he opened the door and stepped outside, he was sure there was a softness to the breeze on his cheek. Before long he saw the first drop splash from the eaves and knew the fire in the stove had not yet warmed the roof enough to cause it.

  Could it be the longed-for, the dreamed-of, the gentle chinook?

  About April each year the people of the bush began that fervent wat
ch, that eager longing for the magical moment—as though Mother Nature would wave a benign wand over the land—that would mean the beginning of the end of their snowbound existence. With warm breath she touched the land that had been ravaged by the icy hands and wanton will of one—Winter—who had had his capricious way long enough, shrieking out his fury at one time, casually dropping a curtain of near-impenetrable snow at another, obliterating their roads, vibrating their stovepipes, frosting their windowpanes, darkening their days at will.

  The chinook. No one really understood the phenomenon, but Parker knew vaguely that it had its origin west of the Rockies. Moisture-laden winds from the Pacific Ocean struck the lofty barriers of the Rocky Mountains, precipitating snow and rain; but somehow, as the winds descended the eastern slopes, they became dryer and warmer until, reaching the prairie provinces, they ushered in a rapid thaw.

  It was difficult to settle down to anything, Parker felt now. There was a leaping in his spirit, an expectation. But standing on his small porch and looking out at the softening snow, watching it glisten in the sunshine, he knew it was foolish to get out into it on foot, except for an emergency.

  With reluctance he turned back to the house and his studies. Was it too soon for a sermon from that glorious passage—which he appreciated more fully since living in the northlands—about winter being past? “The time of the singing of birds is come,” were the words that sang through his spirit.

  Turning to the Song of Solomon, Parker’s eyes settled on the first verse of the second chapter, beginning with the evocative “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys,” proceeding through “his banner over me was love” in verse 4.

  He lingered over verse 8: “The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.”

  About to become a bridegroom himself, Parker gleaned new meaning from the rich picture that he had always seen as Christ’s love for His church.