A Distant Shore (6 page)

Prince Edward Island, 1838

The fire cast flickering shadows over the hearth as Allan MacDougall stretched his stocking feet towards its warmth. The children were settled in bed, and Harriet sat across from him in the rocking chair his mother had brought over from Scotland, her face placidly composed and her eyes on the pile of darning in her lap. Still Allan wasn’t fooled.

“I know what you’re thinking,
mo leannan
. You want me to say yes to Maggie.”

A smile curved Harriet’s mouth as she raised her gaze to Allan. “Only if you think it wise.”

“If I think it wise!” He shook his head. “I’ve already given my opinion on the subject. But I warrant yours is different.”

“Not necessarily,” Harriet allowed. “If truth be told, I’d like to see Maggie settled with a husband of her own in the homestead next to ours, same as you would, I reckon.”

“In time,” Allan answered, and Harriet suppressed a smile.

“Aye, in time. I’m not wanting to see her settled too soon, Allan MacDougall. She is only sixteen.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Allan raised his eyebrows. “So it seems we’re agreed on the subject?”

Harriet paused, knowing she needed to choose her words carefully. “We might be agreed, Allan, but I know every child has to choose her—or his—own path, whether it takes her as far as Boston... or Red River.”

Allan frowned as he gazed into the fire. Harriet didn’t speak, knowing he needed to reflect on her words. Twenty years ago he had been in Maggie’s position, chafing against his father’s firm hand and longing to make more of his life. In an act of both defiance and rebellion he’d left his father’s farm to set out on his own, and made his way as a fur trapper, paddling his canoe down the many rivers of Upper Canada, all the way to the Red River in Rupert’s Land. Harriet, by the hand of Providence, had been reunited with him there, and they had returned to the family homestead on Prince Edward Island.

“It’s not the same,” Allan said at last, still frowning.

Harriet completed a stitch before answering. She knew her husband well enough to know she would have to handle this conversation with both gentleness and wisdom. “How is it different?”

“She’s a lass, for one thing,” Allan answered. “I’ll warrant you wouldn’t have even thought of going to Red River on your own.”

“You know very well I didn’t,” Harriet replied with a smile. “I was the companion for Katherine Donald, because both of us knew we couldn’t travel as a woman alone. However,” she continued before Allan could interrupt, claiming his point proved, “Maggie isn’t proposing to travel to a savage, untamed land, and neither will she be alone. She’ll be a companion to her aunt and namesake, just as I was a companion to Katherine.” Harriet paused, letting Allan reluctantly digest and accept this, before finishing, “If you are concerned about her ship journey, I am sure we can arrange a chaperone. Someone from Charlottetown is likely to be making such a voyage.”

Allan scowled at her, but Harriet could tell it was more for show, and perhaps pride, than anything else. “For someone who’d like to see her settled in the stead next to ours, you’ve spent a fair amount of time considering how our Maggie can get herself to Boston,” he observed, a hint of sharpness in his tone.

“I want to see her happy,” Harriet said simply. “And I hope and pray that if she satisfies that urge for adventure that all young people seem to have, she’ll return to us wanting to settle here of her own choice.” She spoke gently, knowing Allan would take her point. He could force Maggie to stay, but he couldn’t make her like it. In the end such a bending of her will would surely lead to discontent and resentment, just as it had with Allan and his father.

Allan was silent for a long moment, staring into the fire, his brow furrowed. The only sound was the settling of logs in the grate, and a few embers scattered across the worn hearth before graying into ash.

“I suppose there’s no harm in writing her,” Allan finally said with a sigh. “Margaret.”

Harriet resumed her sewing, completing several stitches before she spoke. “I’ll compose a letter on the morrow.”

Allan nodded gruffly, his face still settled into a frown. Harriet knew how hard this was for him. He had lost too many family members already; his brother Archie had died on the mail packet nearly twenty years ago, and his mother Betty here on the island, just last summer. Rupert was far away, serving as a marshal in the western territories of the United States, and with Margaret in Boston, Allan was the only MacDougall left on PEI.

He looked up, and Harriet was glad to see a small smile lighten his features. “Maggie,
cridhe
,” he called, “I know you’re listening.”

Sheepishly Maggie peeked her head out of the back bedroom. “Thank you, Da,” she said, and Harriet saw how her eyes sparkled like stars. Allan shook a finger at her even as he smiled.

“It’s just a letter, mind,” he warned. “That’s all.”

Maggie nodded quickly, but from the high flush on her cheeks Harriet knew she was imagining herself in Boston already.

Hartford, Connecticut, 1838

Ian Campbell was used to the bumpy rumble of the stagecoach from Boston to Hartford. He had travelled it over a dozen times in the last few years in his continuing attempt to experiment with ether and its use as an anesthetic. Usually he was filled with a blazing excitement as he made the journey, his optimism for a future of medical innovation and pain-free procedures buoying his soul. Today that anticipation was tempered by the cool distance he had lately felt between him and his wife.

In the five years since he had wed Caroline, they’d certainly argued. They both possessed passionate tempers, and Ian privately thought they both enjoyed, to a certain measure, the blazing rows that often ended rather delightfully with Caroline throwing herself into his arm and him kissing her thoroughly.

This time it was different. Caroline was different, and although she remained dutiful and attentive, Ian could feel the difference, the coolness and reserve she emanated like an icy shield. On several occasions he’d caught Caroline gazing at him, her eyes shadowed with what he feared was disappointment. By refusing to use the inheritance Caroline had received from her uncle to fund his experiments with ether, Ian knew he had disappointed, and even worse, hurt his wife. He saw it in her eyes, and he felt it in the silent chasm that had opened up between them—a chasm he did not know how to bridge. Not without relinquishing his position, and he wasn’t willing to do that.

Restlessly he shifted in the uncomfortable coach seat. Across the coach an elderly matron gave him a sternly disapproving look. A tabby cat crouched in a covered basket at her feet, and it yowled as if agreeing with its mistress. Ian ducked his head in apology.

He did not know how to make amends with Caroline. He did not know if he could. The thought of accepting James Riddell’s money for his own purposes made his stomach churn and his body burn with a righteous anger he’d thought he’d surrendered long ago. It was nearly twenty years since Riddell had cheated Ian of his family farm back on the Isle of Mull, and as an adult Ian could now see his own foolish part in the sorry tale. He’d been proud and naïve and worse, careless, but Riddell had taken advantage of the fifteen-year-old boy he’d been, so desperate to prove himself to his family, and especially to his father, that he’d signed a contract without reading all the terms. He had signed away his family’s farm and legacy for a fraction of its value—and Riddell had set him up to do so.

How could he forgive that? How could he forget it? He couldn’t take Riddell’s money, even though he was fair enough to suppose it was reasonable for Caroline to expect him to use the funds she had inherited. Even so the suggestion alone had set a new fury pulsing through him, followed by a deep, wounding regret.
And I thought I was yours
. Caroline’s sorrowful voice echoed through his mind and heart. He wished she could understand. He even wished he could feel differently. Yet he knew he couldn’t, and he doubted he ever would.

His concerns about Caroline and her inheritance were momentarily pushed aside when Ian arrived in Hartford. He hired a hansom to take him to Horace Wells’s dental practice, already anticipating the rousing discussions they would have, the experiments they might perform. He had been collaborating with Wells for several years, and they had progressed from using the ether on small animals to using it on themselves, with undeniable success. Ian had performed a minor surgery on Wells’s arm while the man had been under the influence of ether, and Wells claimed he hadn’t felt a thing! It was miraculous, and the possibilities it opened up for surgeries were breathtaking. For a surgeon not to have to be as quick as he possibly could… to have the unimaginable luxury of taking his time…

The goal, of course, was for ether to be accepted by the medical community at large, and used in regular surgeries. Unfortunately, based on the loud opinions of some of Ian’s older colleagues, he bleakly wondered how, or even if, it would ever come to pass.

Wells was in a fever of excitement as Ian arrived. “Take your coat off, man, and come right into the examining room,” he bid Ian, shoving aside stacks of dusty books and piles of papers. Ian stepped gingerly amid the detritus, surprised and a bit alarmed by the way Wells’s house had descended into dust and dirt in the months since he had last been there. Admittedly, as a single man, Wells had never been the most tidy of gentlemen, yet Ian recalled that he had still employed a rather dour woman to do the scouring and cooking several times a week. If the state of the sitting room was anything to go by, she had not been in attendance for some time.

In just his shirtsleeves, Ian came into the examining room. It, at least, was in a better state than the sitting room, although he noticed a crumb-scattered plate and a dirty glass pushed to the side.

When had he become so fastidious, Ian wondered, even as he acknowledged that the state of Wells’s house did not alarm him as much as the feverish glitter in the man’s eyes. Together they were most unsettling, but perhaps Wells was simply excited by the possibilities ether presented, just as he was.

“I’ve been experimenting on myself, of course,” Wells began, and Ian’s eyebrows rose.

“Have you? Without an assistant? I thought we had agreed—”

“I had no choice. You have been kept busy with your own affairs in Boston—”

Ian did not know if he was imagining the slight note of scornful accusation in his colleague’s voice. “I have a profession to maintain,” he said stiffly. “As do you.” He glanced once more around the room. “Have you seen many patients?”

Wells shrugged impatiently. “What are you, my keeper? There are more important things to attend to.”

“I agree the research is paramount,” Ian said after a moment. He felt a deep and growing unease at the state of his colleague. He had always found Wells a bit reckless; it was what had given the man the boldness to start his experiments with ether. “But, Wells, man, we both have professional obligations—”

“Well, we can certainly make use of your professional status,” Wells interrupted, his tone turning sharp.

Ian raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

“It’s time you earned your place at the table,” Wells continued and Ian stiffened in affront.