A Distant Shore (29 page)

What if he didn’t come today? Occasionally he missed a day of school, because of work or family obligations. If he didn’t attend today, Maggie would miss her opportunity to tell him…
what?

She paused, a primer clutched to her chest, as she considered just what she intended to say to Seamus. Could she be so bold, so
brazen
as to tell him she loved him? Ladies never declared themselves first, but she knew instinctively that Seamus would not go against her aunt’s wishes, even though he had already kissed her. She would have to be the one to speak first, even if it appeared shameless. Her heart thudded harder at the thought. And what if he rejected her?
Then
she would feel shame… as well as a terrible heartbreak.

She had no more time to think on it for the first pupils were arriving and she was soon busy with settling the young ones and beginning lessons.

She had just instructed the youngest group to open their primers when the door to the school creaked open, and Maggie looked up to see Seamus coming in, his cap jammed low on his head. He slid into his seat, lifting his gaze to meet hers for one quick look that still made Maggie tremble. She would tell him she loved him, she vowed. Today might be her only opportunity.

Yet the hours passed and that opportunity did not arrive. Maggie was kept busy with all of the other pupils, and during the lunch hour Seamus left before she could so much as bid him a greeting.

“Where has Seamus gone?” she asked his sister Aisling, deliberately keeping his voice light.

“Mam’s been a bit poorly,” Aisling answered. “Seamus said he’d check on her, make sure she had a bit to eat. He’ll be back for lessons.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear she’s ill,” Maggie answered sincerely, even as she felt a rush of relief that he would return. “I hope she fares better soon.”

“It’s her chest,” Aisling explained. “Always has been.”

Seamus returned, and still the hours passed after lunchtime with not a single word spoken between them, or an opportunity for any further conversation.

Finally she lit on a solution. The fire in the coal stove had burned low and the scuttle was nearly empty. The coal shed was in the small yard in back of the school, and Margaret usually asked one of the older boys to fill it when needed. Maggie asked Seamus.

“I’ll just unlock the door for you,” she said, and instructed Lizzie, one of the older girls, to watch over the classroom while she was gone.

Seamus didn’t speak to her as she led him out to the yard. Although it was spring the air still held a damp chill and Maggie drew her shawl more closely around her shoulders as she summoned the strength to begin.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she said as she fumbled with the key in the lock. “It almost seems as if you’re avoiding me, Seamus.”

“It seemed best,” he answered in a low voice, his tone terribly final.

“It doesn’t seem best to me,” she answered, and with the key left in the lock she turned to face him. “Seamus, I—I care about you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Don’t say that! You keep thinking I’m some grand lady, but I’m not. I’m just like you.” Seamus shook his head, and frustration made Maggie want to stamp her foot or worse, cry. She swallowed hard and lifted her chin.

“Do you have any feelings for me at all?”

Seamus glanced away. “It would be better if I didn’t.”

“But you do? Seamus, look at me at least!” Desperation making her bold, Maggie reached up to put her hands on his broad shoulders. “I love you,” she said, her voice trembling. “And I even dare to think you love me back.”

Seamus closed his eyes, clearly battling against his emotion. Against her. “Maggie—”

“My aunt doesn’t matter,” Maggie continued rapidly. “I’ll be going back to PEI, to a simple farming life—that’s who I really am! Why can’t you see that?”

Seamus opened his eyes. “And if you’re going back, then what future is there for us?”

Maggie bit her lip. Could she really be so bold…? “There could be a future,” she said, her voice a whisper, “if you made it so. If you… declared yourself.” Her cheeks were scarlet with mortification and she stared down at her feet. Seamus did not reply and she felt grief add its terrible weight to her humiliation. How could she have suggested such a thing? And yet she could not stop herself now. “You could speak to my aunt,” she whispered, unable to look at him. “If you were of a mind to.” Still Seamus said nothing, and Maggie risked a glance upwards. His expression was stony, and yet she saw a conflicted torment in his eyes. “Seamus…”

“You should get back,” he cut her off gruffly. “Or the whole class room will be in a state, to be sure.”

She nodded, swallowing past the hot lump of tears that had lodged in her throat. So that was that, then. He didn’t love her, not enough anyway. She’d made a complete fool of herself, and for nothing.

“Maggie…” His voice stopped her at the door, her back to him. “I’ll… I’ll think on it,” he said roughly, and then cleared his throat. “I… I do love you.”

Maggie whirled around. “You do—”

“Get back in there.” Seamus waved towards the school. “I can’t say more now.”

And yet, Maggie thought, her heart singing, he’d said enough.

Prince Edward Island, 1839

Harriet tapped her foot to the rhythm of the fiddle being played in one corner of the Andersons’ swept barnyard. The Scottish community on PEI was having a ceilidh in celebration of the ploughing being done, and nearly everyone had come along to join in the merriment.

Harriet’s heart was light as she looked around at her neighbors and friends; Allan was talking with a few other farmers, and he looked hale and full of health, the husband she remembered rather than the pale, drawn man he’d been lately. Perhaps he’d just been tired, she thought with a ripple of relief. Winters did take their toll, and now it was finally warm, the spring air almost balmy.

With a pang she imagined how Maggie would enjoy an occasion such as this. She was old enough to dance now, and there were surely a few farmers’ sons who might have had their eye on her for a partner. Harriet suppressed a sigh. She missed her daughter, her ready smile and easy companionship that made the long days of chores and cooking fly faster.

She’d be home soon, she consoled herself, now that Henry had returned from China. Harriet had already written the letter asking for Maggie’s return; all that remained was for Allan to arrange the passage.

“Care for a dance?” Allan had left the group of men he’d been chatting with and now stood in front of Harriet, his dear, weathered face creased into a smile.

“I certainly would, Allan MacDougall,” Harriet replied teasingly. “I was wondering when you would ask.”

“After nearly twenty years of marriage, I didn’t think you’d have to wait for me to ask,” Allan replied as he her his arm. “But here I am, asking. May I have a dance with my lovely young wife?”

“I don’t know about the young part,” Harriet answered. She’d turned forty last year. “But yes, you may.”

Her heart felt buoyant with happiness as Allan took her in his arms and they joined the crowd sweeping across the barnyard in a waltz, dust swirling in the air.

“You look as bonny as you did when I first asked you to wait for me,” Allan assured her as they danced among the other couples. “Back at Duart Castle.”

Harriet laughed and shook her head. “Away with you. I know there’s more gray than red in my hair now.”

“When I look at you, I still see that young woman willing to stand faith for me,” Allan answered, and Harriet felt a lump form in her throat. Allan had never been one for flattery or easy compliments, and she hadn’t minded. She liked his plain speaking. Yet now she heard a heartfelt sincerity in his voice that left her quite speechless.

“I shall stand faith for you as long as I live, Allan MacDougall,” Harriet said when she finally trusted herself to speak. “Wherever we are.”

As he whirled her around the yard, Harriet’s mind drifted through the years that had brought them here. She and Allan had always been childhood friends back on her home island of Mull, but when Allan’s family had emigrated to the New Scotland, Upper Canada, Harriet’s faith in both Allan and God had been sorely tested.

Years had passed before she’d received a letter from him; it had been the machinations of others rather than the fickleness of Allan’s heart that had caused Harriet to suffer that silence, and her heart had, in its suffering, nearly gone its own wayward path. She’d almost married another, and thanked Providence daily that she hadn’t gone so far as to say the vows.

When she and Allan had finally found each other in a lonely cabin near Red River, out west, she’d known God had always meant them to be together. And together they were and would be for as many years as God saw fit to grant them.

The fiddle ended its merry song and with consternation Harriet saw Allan put on hand to his chest. His face was flushed, his eyes bright, and he rubbed his chest with a wry smile.

“No matter how I might wish it otherwise, I’m not the young man I once was, even if you still look the same. I’m as breathless as if I’d been pitching hay all afternoon.”

Harriet tried to quell the sudden churning of fear she felt in her belly. And only moments ago she’d been resting sweetly in the knowledge that her husband looked hale again. She slipped her arm through his as they left the cleared yard.

“Come have a cup of cider with me,” she told Allan. “I would fain sit down myself.”

Allan nodded, and didn’t even protest when Harriet led him to a wooden bench and went to fetch their cups of cider herself.
He’s just a bit out of breath, that’s all
, she told herself as she dipped the ladle into the cauldron of steaming apple cider, fragrant with cinnamon.
And neither of us is getting any younger, no matter what foolish flattery Allan might tell me
.

She had just turned around to return to Allan when a sudden cry rent the air and stopped the lively chatter all through the yard. Harriet felt her heart lurch right into her throat, and the hot cider spilled over her hands as she started forward.

A space had cleared around the bench where Allan had been sitting, except he wasn’t seated there now. As Harriet hurried forward her heart seemed to stop beating altogether.

Allan had collapsed and was lying unconscious on the ground.