A Distant Shore (22 page)

“Isobel!” Hannah chided when she caught up with her the other side of the ballroom a few minutes later. “Really, I know the man was… difficult, but you cannot say such things as that! Calcutta is a small community—”

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Isobel said, although she wasn’t really. She was still shaking with fury at the indignities she had suffered through Mr. Casey’s callous conversation. “But I could not countenance such rudeness,” she told her friend. “I may be in dire straits, but I am not yet so desperate to tie myself to such an odious man!” She shuddered at the thought.

Hannah gave a reluctant sigh of agreement. “But then what shall you do?”

Any righteous indignation she’d been nurturing trickled away, replaced by cold reality. If she refused to marry James Casey, which she certainly did, she would have no choice but to return to Boston. The thought was so wearying that Isobel felt her shoulders sag, her spirits plummet with a rush.

In the distance Isobel could hear the tinkling sound a woman’s laughter, and a servant nearby offered a tray of champagne. Music struck up somewhere and in the next room she could see the colorful whirl of women’s skirts as couples began a country dance. “I don’t know,” she told Hannah, “but for tonight at least I intend to enjoy myself.” And defiantly she took another glass of champagne from the tray.

Chapter Eleven

Boston, 1838

Maggie sat in her bedroom in her Aunt Margaret’s house, the latest letter from her mother on her lap. She felt a surprising pang of homesickness for her family’s farm on Prince Edward Island, with the red dirt road winding its way through the birch trees, and the cheerful glint of the sea in the distance. She’d never thought she’d miss that poky place, yet in that moment, with the quiet elegance of her aunt’s house stretching out all around her, Maggie found she missed it very much indeed.

Although if she were honest, Maggie knew, what she really missed was the friendship she’d had with Seamus Flanagan. In the last few weeks he’d withdrawn from her, and the absence of his gentle teasing and shy smiles grieved Maggie sorely. Without his company she felt even more a stranger here, a country girl in the bustling city, whose plain ways and simple dreams could not be disguised by a few fancy dresses.

He had waited for her after school only a few days ago, and Maggie’s spirits had lifted to see him standing there, looking so serious and steady and strong.

“Seamus—”

“I’m afraid my sister and I won’t be able to come to your aunt’s house for tea, Miss MacDougall,” he said, making her mouth gape, “but we thank you kindly for the invitation.” And he’d started turning away before Maggie could so much as string two words together.

“Seamus!” she finally cried as he headed down the street, towards the docks and the tenements crowded with Irish families. The old warehouses that lined the harbor had been converted into shabby dwellings, with families crowded into the small, dark rooms. “Seamus,” she called again, and hurried after him, going so far as to grab onto his sleeve when he did not even turn to face her.

“Why are you acting this way?” she cried. “And why are you calling me Miss MacDougall?” He stared at her with a stony expression and Maggie blinked back tears. “I thought we were friends.”

“This is the way it has to be, Mag—Miss MacDougall,” he said resolutely, and shaking off her arm he headed back down the street. Maggie watched him go, her mouth hanging open, tears trickling down her face as she stood in the middle of the pavement, an icy wind from the sea blowing straight through her.

Since then November had bled into December and with it had come ice and snow, and a relentless, bitter wind that made Maggie shiver even when she was in her bed with a hot brick at her feet. Aunt Margaret had promised all sorts of amusements during the Christmas season, but knowing that Seamus refused even to speak with her, Maggie couldn’t look forward to any of it.

Now, with a sigh, she folded her mother’s letter back up and slid it between the pages of her Bible. She didn’t know why Seamus had suddenly stopped being friendly to her, and in the following weeks she hadn’t had a chance to talk to him again. He avoided her in the schoolroom, and hurried away as soon as lessons were finished. Now, just a week before Christmas, school had been stopped until January.

Yet something must have happened to make him this way, she knew, but she could not think what it was. She surely hadn’t offended him… but what if he’d met someone else? An Irish girl he might marry, and who would not look kindly on his friendship with another young woman?

“Maggie?”

Maggie looked up to see her aunt, as lovely and elegant as always, standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Quickly she stood up and smoothed her crumpled skirts.

“Yes, Aunt?”

“You needn’t be so formal with me, you know,” Margaret said with a smile. “I’ve had the tea things brought to the sitting room. Would you care to join me?”

“Thank you very much, Aunt Margaret.”

Her aunt rested a cool hand against her cheek as Maggie passed. “My dear,” she murmured, “are you well? It’s only that you’ve seemed a bit quiet lately.”

“I’m very well, thank you.” Maggie didn’t think her aunt wanted to hear about how she missed Seamus Flanagan’s company. Margaret hadn’t wanted him to attend the school in the first place.

A sudden thought assailed Maggie, as sharp and pointed as an arrow. Could her aunt have said something to Seamus? Warned him against being too friendly with her? Was that why he kept away now?

With a distracted smile Maggie followed her aunt downstairs, her mind still wrestling with this unwelcome possibility.

Maggie only managed a few minutes of stilted conversation before Margaret put down her teacup and gazed at her with bemusement, her eyebrows raised.

“Maggie, you are clearly thinking of something else. I have asked you the same question three times now, about whether you would like to go to the Westons’ Christmas party.”

“I’m sorry.” Maggie flushed and bit her lip. “I’m sure a Christmas party will be lovely.”

“Yet you sound positively grim!” Margaret shook her head in exasperation. “What I really wish to know is what is distracting you so this afternoon.”

Taking a deep breath, Maggie blurted, “Did you tell Seamus not to talk to me anymore?”

Margaret’s mouth tightened. “Seamus, is it?” she remarked coolly, and took a sip of tea.

Maggie felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. She’d always been hot-tempered, and the fact that her aunt hadn’t denied her accusation nor even looked surprised made her think the worst. “Yes, Seamus. He was—is—my friend.”

“Girls of your age do not have friends with men like Seamus, or any men at all, for that matter.”

Maggie’s temper flared. “What do you mean, like Seamus?” she demanded.

Margaret sighed and set her teacup aside. “Maggie, I know your head has been turned by this young man, and I do understand that. You are new to this city, and your life thus far has been very quiet. Naturally you are looking for a little excitement—”

“That’s not it at all, you know.” Maggie spoke quietly even though she felt filled with a powerless rage. “I don’t like Seamus because he’s different and exciting. I like him because he’s familiar, because he’s like me.” She threw one hand out, gesturing to the elegant sitting room, the sashed windows with the view of Boston Common. “
This
is what is different, Aunt Margaret.”

“The point is,” Margaret returned sharply, “you should not like him at all. What would your mother, or your father for that matter, my own brother, say to you having some sort of affection for an Irish immigrant fresh off the boat?”

Maggie’s jaw nearly dropped at her aunt’s blatant snobbery. “They’d be happy for me, I should think, if he were God-fearing and honest, which I know he is,” she returned with heat. “They’re simple people, same as me. And the same as Seamus. You’re the one who is different, Aunt Margaret.”

“I can see by the way you’re talking this has gone much to far already.” Margaret drew herself up, her eyes narrowing. “Has this young man taken liberties with you?”

“Liberties!” Maggie flushed a deep red. “No, of course not! And I don’t feel about him that way. He’s just my friend.” Yet even as she said the words, Maggie knew they weren’t quite true. She did feel “that way” about Seamus, at least a little, and it had taken her aunt’s awful assumptions to make her realize. Yet if Seamus refused even to speak with her…

“What did you say to him?” she asked in a whisper.

“Never you mind.”

“Aunt Margaret, please! I’ve always conducted myself above reproach, and so has Seamus. But I must know why he won’t even look at me any longer.” Her voice, thick with tears, wavered, and Margaret sighed.

“Very well, I simply told him his future at the school was uncertain if he continued to befriend you—”

“How could you!”

“Maggie, I am thinking of your own welfare, I promise you. Seamus Flanagan may remind you of simpler island ways, but he is a poor laborer with no chance of bettering himself. He’ll never own his own farm the way your father does—”

Maggie shook her head, blinking back the hot, angry tears that threatened to spill. “How can you know that?”

“Because I am more experienced in the ways of this world than you are, young lady!” Margaret looked exasperated, which made Maggie only more furious.

“You don’t know anything,” she snapped, “not anything at all! Stuck here in your fancy home, too smart and snobbish to be friends with anyone—” She stopped abruptly, horrified by how much she’d thoughtlessly said. And from the quelling silence that followed she knew she’d gone much too far.

“If indeed you find me such poor company,” Margaret said quietly, “then perhaps you should consider returning to Prince Edward Island. It does not seem I am providing adequate entertainment or chaperonage for you.”

“No, Aunt Margaret—” Maggie bit her lip, fighting tears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that. Please don’t send me away.”

Margaret opened her mouth to answer but was stopped by the sound of the front door being flung open with enough force it seemed to take it off its hinges. Shocked, Margaret half-rose from her chair, only to have her face drain of color when she heard a voice ring out.

“Margaret? Charlotte?”

It was Henry, home at last from China.

Serampore, 1838

She’d missed the sailing. Isobel hadn’t meant to miss it, yet somehow in the ensuing drama of her confrontation with Mr. Casey—he complained to all and sundry about how unladylike she was—Isobel had not arranged her passage back to Boston.

Joshua Marshman had been away, preaching in Midnapore, and Isobel had simply let the days slide by until the ship had sailed and she realized rather dully that she was now stuck in Calcutta for another six weeks. The Marshmans would surely be tired of her long before then, if they weren’t already.