A Distant Shore (3 page)

Now, however, as she looked at her father’s careworn face, she wondered just how badly his business interests had been affected. Her father sighed and glanced up, and caught sight of Isobel. He frowned slightly before his face softened into a smile, and he beckoned her in.

“How were your pupils today, my dear?”

Isobel stepped into the private sanctum of her father’s study, inhaling the comforting scents of pipe tobacco and polished leather. “As ever, I suppose, Father.” She knew her father had, on occasion, wondered at the purpose of educating children who would do no more with their lives than sew piecework or assemble matchboxes, and Isobel didn’t always have a clever answer. The answer she felt in her soul, an answer which shamed her, was that she was teaching as much for her own sake as her students’.

“You’re well?” A little crease had appeared between her father’s heavy brows, and Isobel knew he was worried about her, just as her mother was. Neither of them liked seeing her unhappy or restless; she was usually better at hiding it from them.

Now she dropped a quick kiss on her father’s forehead. “Of course, Father. A bit fatigued, perhaps, but nothing that cannot be repaired with a night’s sleep.”

“You must rest before supper, then. I don’t want you becoming ill, Isobel.”

“No, indeed.” Smiling, she slipped from the room and headed upstairs, determined to cast off the gloom that had briefly enshrouded her in the quiet solitude of the school.

Once in her bedroom, she tossed her reticule on her bureau, only to have the pamphlet from Father Taylor flutter to the floor. Isobel stooped to pick it up, glancing at it thoughtfully. She could hardly imagine being gone from this country for over thirty years, as Adoniram Judson had, or living in such a distant, foreign place as Burma. What adventures had he experienced? What tales might he tell? She placed the pamphlet on her bureau, thinking she might ask her sister-in-law Margaret to accompany her to the lecture on Friday. It was the sort of thing Margaret would enjoy.

Then, slipping a thin, leather-bound book from underneath her Bible, she curled up on the chair as the last rays of sunlight slanted across the floor, already deep into the story of
The Gipsey Girl, a Romantic Tale by an Authoress
. Sighing happily, Isobel lost herself in the pages and forgot even to turn up the wick on the oil lamp as the fading sunlight cast longer shadows across the floor.

“Things are bad.” Henry Moore’s mouth tightened as if he would deny the words he’d just spoken, although he’d always maintained a surprisingly modern honesty with his wife Margaret.

Margaret sat across from him in the drawing room of their Back Bay townhouse, a porcelain teacup suspended halfway to her lips. Her eyebrows rose, her dark eyes bright with questions.

“Of course they are. They’re bad for everyone.” She smiled, and Henry felt a rush of admiration for the woman he’d married fifteen years ago now. Still only in her early thirties, Margaret was as lovely and spirited as the day he’d seen her on a muddy side street in Fort William, back in Scotland. She’d been furious by the refusal of her brother’s tutor to instruct her as well, and so Henry, a sea captain wintering with his aunt, had taken on her education. Chaperoned by his dear aunt, they’d begun a tender and tentative courtship until Henry had left for the sea in the spring, and Margaret had promised to wait for his return.

A year later he’d returned for her as he’d said he would, and they’d wed before settling in Boston. Margaret had always been independent, educated, and decisive. She’d taken on many pet charity projects over the years, although since the birth of their daughter Charlotte, now five years old, she’d spent more time in suitably domestic pursuits.

“I’ve had a thought,” Henry continued, his own tea forgotten now on a table by his elbow. “There’s no hope or trade to be had in this country. Everyone’s too frightened, and well they should be. It’s been nearly a year since the banks started calling in their loans, and there’s no end in sight. I read in the paper only yesterday that over three hundred banks have closed their doors. Rupert was right, you know. All that paper money is the problem.”

Margaret smiled faintly at the mention of her brother, who had begun as a clerk in Henry’s shipping company and was now a U.S. Marshal out in Arkansas, married to Eleanor, the sister of her own sister-in-law Harriet. Five years ago, when he, along with Ian and Henry, had exposed a ring of counterfeiters, he’d predicted the problems the banks would have as they continued to print paper bills without a thought to the consequence of so much worthless currency released into the market. Now those predictions had come to pass, and they’d affected just about everyone Margaret knew. Still, she said nothing, waiting for Henry to continue.

“So we need to turn elsewhere,” he said after a moment, his voice both tense and resolute. “I’ve been thinking I should begin to trade with China.”

“China!” Margaret returned her teacup to its saucer with an inelegant clatter. “Henry, are you serious? You’ve never traded with China before. No one here does, not reasonably. They don’t even accept traded goods, although of course there is that terrible opium...” She trailed off, her face darkening, ever the reformer.

Henry nodded soberly. China’s Closed Door policy had kept many Western traders from offering their goods, although they were eager to import China’s offerings of tea, silk, and spices. Led by the British East India Company, many traders, Americans included, had begun trafficking in opium, smuggling it into China through third parties despite the nation’s imperial decree against it. The result had been profitable for the West, and disastrous for the East, who now had thousands enslaved in addiction to the sweet poppy.

“It’s true,” Henry agreed, “it has become more difficult to obtain goods from China, namely because the officials are so suspicious. The time is ripe for an investment, to bring China’s saleable goods to our shores—”

Margaret’s gaze narrowed. “And why should the Chinese officials allow you into Canton?”

“I have connections,” Henry replied simply. “Enough anyway, I believe, to secure a place at harbor. It’s a risk, of course, but one that could have a tidy profit.”

“Since so few are willing to take it!” Margaret shook her head. “It takes months to travel to China, and with the negotiations and a return trip...” She swallowed dryly, her face turning bleak. “You’d be gone at least a year.”

Henry nodded, his mouth no more than a grim line. “I know.”

Abruptly Margaret rose from her chair and went to stand by the long windows facing the street. Her back was straight and stiff, her shoulders thrown back. “How bad is it, Henry?” she asked quietly, yet with a thread of steel running through her words. “Really?”

Henry sighed and ran a hand through his now-thinning sandy hair. “|Bad enough. Do you remember that dinner we had here, back in ’32? Your brother was so full of excitement about this country and all of its possibilities. I didn’t see it, frankly, but then I’ve always looked to the water. But Rupert saw the possibilities on land... railroads, canals, cities built where there was nothing more than forest and plain. Do you remember? He spoke of Chicago, an outpost that none of us had ever heard of, and now it’s been incorporated as a city, and has chartered a railroad.”

“If Rupert was right,” Margaret interjected, turning to him and smiling to soften her words, “then perhaps you should follow his advice and invest in this country.” Henry was silent, and Margaret’s smiled faded, replaced by a frown of concern. “Henry—”

“I did,” he told her bleakly, his gaze sliding away from hers, and she felt a sudden, cold stab of fear. “More than you know. I invested in the railroads and the canals and everything that collapsed when the banks became scared and wanted it all back.”

“And you never told me?” Margaret couldn’t quite keep the hurt from her voice. She had thought their marriage was more honest and open than that. She was no fainting flower, to be shielded from life’s hardships. She wanted to share them with Henry; she wanted to help shoulder the burden, whatever it was.

“I didn’t want to worry you. I thought my shipping investments and trade could keep us secure, but the Panic has affected—infected—everything.” He rose from his chair to stand by her, laying a hand on her shoulder as they both gazed out at the darkening street. “I want to keep you and Charlotte safe, Margaret. Safe and secure and happy. That’s all. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

She shook her head, pursing her lips. “I don’t want to be shielded—”

“It wasn’t just that,” Henry cut her off quietly. “It was, I’m ashamed to say, a matter of pride. I didn’t want you to know how I’d failed.”

“So many people lost money in the Panic, Henry. It’s not a failure.” He just shrugged, and Margaret watched him, understanding dawning slowly. Going to China wasn’t just about making some money, she realized. It was about her husband proving himself—to her, to society, to himself. And she needed to let him do that.

“And you intend to go to China yourself?” she asked, turning to look out at the street. “You haven’t captained a ship in years, Henry.”

“Well I know.” If there was a shadow of regret in Henry’s voice, neither of them acknowledged it. “But the negotiations with China will be delicate. I’ll need to see to them myself.”

“Of course.” Margaret nodded her acceptance, trying to remain resolute even as she felt her spirits flag. Not only would Henry be leaving her for a year at the least, but he would be travelling to one of the most dangerous and unsettled harbors in the world. She turned her head and let her lips brush the hand that still weighed heavily on her shoulder. “You must do as you see fit.”

“Only with your blessing,” Henry said in a low voice. She raised her eyes to his, saw the worry and strain etched in fine lines on his weathered face and wondered how she’d not seen it before. How she’d not realized how much he’d kept from her. Perhaps she’d chosen not to see it, just as Henry had chosen not to tell her. She would not make the same mistake twice. Her husband would have her support now, fully.

“Of course you have my blessing,” she said softly. “Although I will fear for you every day that you are gone.” She pressed her lips against his hand as Henry drew her to him. “You will have my blessing even so, Henry. Always.”

Chapter Two

Prince Edward Island, 1838

Harriet MacDougall gazed over the dusk-cloaked hills of Prince Edward Island, her home now for nearly twenty years. From the porch of the farmhouse she shared with her husband Allan and their three children, she could see the fields, now ready for planting, stretching straight to the harbor. A road made of the island’s distinctive reddish dirt twisted through them, disappearing into the hills by the horizon. Smiling, Harriet sat back in her rocking chair and let the cares of the day slip from her weary shoulders.