A Distant Shore (8 page)

Except... she
did
have a chance at marriage. Rufus Anderson had given her one. Isobel closed her eyes, imagining that list that Mr. Anderson had mentioned, the list of prospective wives for missionary-minded men. What kind of women would be on that list? How did one go about actually marrying such a man? She could not imagine it, yet she had spent a good amount of time in the last week attempting to do so.

Of course she’d left the office of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in a huff of indignant denial; she was not in quite such a sorry state as to put her name on some sort of
list
, for men to pick and choose the candidates as they so wished! The idea was preposterous.

Yet even so, in her loneliest moments, Isobel was forced to concede the idea held some merit. She still wanted a husband, perhaps even children. A
life
. And if she had to go to such dire extremes to get those things, well what of it?

At least, Isobel told herself, she would have some choice. She did not have to marry anyone she did not like. Just as the man could refuse, so could she. She would have some power. And yet the awkwardness of discussing marriage with such a man… going over her attributes as if she were a cow to be sold at market!

Well, Isobel told herself, was it really so different than what happened in a ballroom such as this, or a proud papa’s study the next day? It was all a matter of barter and trade.

“Good evening, Isobel. What a lovely gown. I don’t believe you’ve worn it before, have you?”

Isobel turned to see Patience Fairley smiling sweetly at her. She recognized the supposed compliment for the barb it truly was; Patience had not seen this gown before because she had had no occasion to wear it. Most women, even among the highest circle of Boston society, would wear a gown more than once in a season.

“It is lovely, is it not?” Isobel agreed, keeping her voice and manner pleasant by sheer force of will. Patience was her own age, and had married a decade ago. She had long since cultivated the smug satisfaction of the successful matron, with four young children and a husband who, with the passage of years, had become florid and corpulent. Still, Patience knew how much she had in comparison to Isobel.

“Are you still teaching at that school?” Patience asked, in a tone that suggested that it would be rather dreadful if she were.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Isobel said, and saw Patience’s expression soften into intolerable pity.

“I suppose it keeps you occupied,” she stated almost mournfully, and Isobel gritted her teeth.

“Indeed it does, as do all good works. But as it happens, I shall be leaving the school shortly.” The words shocked Isobel even as they came out of her mouth, and she watched in dazed satisfaction as Patience’s complacent expression faltered, and her eyes narrowed.

“Is that so? And for what reason, pray?”

Isobel smiled mysteriously. “I’m afraid I am not yet at liberty to say. But you shall hear of it soon enough.”

Patience frowned, as if she suspected Isobel was lying yet could not say so.

And the truth was she was lying, or nearly. What had made her say such a thing? She had no intention of leaving the school.

Unless
...

Unless she married. Unless she put her name on that list.

“Please do excuse me,” Isobel murmured. “I must bring a glass of punch to my charge.” She hurried across the ballroom, delivering the beverage to the doleful Elizabeth. And as she settled back into her seat for another hour of tedium, Isobel decided this was not how she was going to spend the rest of her life.

She was going to put her name on that list.

The wind blowing off Charlottetown’s harbor was chilly, even though it was already early June, and the island was leafy and green. Harriet tucked Maggie’s shawl more firmly around her, and smiled ruefully as her daughter jerked away.

“Don’t fuss, Mam.”

“I just want you to be warm—”

“I’m fine,” Maggie said firmly. And with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she looked more than fine. She looked, Harriet thought with a sorrowful pang she couldn’t quite suppress, like she was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime... and more than ready to do so.

“Let your mam fuss,” Allan said gruffly. He’d been in a bit of a temper all morning, and Harriet knew it was because he didn’t like the thought of letting his oldest child leave the nest. Yet he’d given his reluctant blessing for Maggie to sail to Boston and reside with his sister Margaret while her husband was away on a merchant voyage to China. Now the day was here, Harriet was fighting her own fears and even regrets. Boston was so far away... and full of so many enticements to a country lass like their Maggie. More worrying than Maggie going at all was the fear that she might never come back.

Just then Maggie’s chaperone, Annabel Dunston, bustled up to them, her wide skirts brushing both Harriet and Allan. With her wide gigot sleeves and her hair dressed in elaborate braids looped over her ears, Mrs. Dunston looked, Harriet thought rather grimly, like a fashion plate. She’d been visiting her sister in Charlottetown, but had already made it quite clear that she much preferred Boston society to the rustics of PEI. Harriet would have preferred an island native to accompany Maggie on the ship journey, but there had been few choices and no matter her views on PEI, Mrs. Dunston was eminently suitable.

“Well then, my dear! Are you quite ready?” She eyed Maggie’s homespun dress, old-fashioned shawl, and sensible boots rather beadily; Harriet noticed she had eschewed a shawl for a lace pelerine over her gown, quite the latest fashion. Harriet had seen one only in a copy of
The Godey’s Lady’s Book
that occasionally found its way to the island.

“Yes, I’m more than ready!” Maggie exclaimed, and Mrs. Dunston narrowed her eyes slightly at her charge’s obvious high spirits. “Very well. You may say your farewells and then we shall board.” She turned only slightly away, making Harriet feel a stirring of resentment. She knew Maggie would not want embraces and tears with the fashionable Mrs. Dunston in hearing.

“Well then,
cridhe
,” Allan said, stepping forward. “You take care.”

“I will, Da.”

Unmindful of the chaperone standing so close, Allan enfolded his daughter in his arms. After a second’s resistance Maggie hugged him fiercely back, and Harriet was glad. “Write every week and mind your aunt Margaret,” he told her, stepping back.

“I will.”

Allan nodded at Harriet, and she stepped forward, cupping Maggie’s cheek even as she swallowed down the hot lump of tears that had lodged in her throat. Her daughter’s skin still felt as soft as when she’d been but a babe. “I love you, Maggie.”

Maggie flushed, her eyes darting to Mrs. Dunston, who was now tapping one slippered foot in thinly-disguised impatience. “Mam—”

“I just want you to remember it,” Harriet said firmly. “I know you’re bursting with excitement now, but in a week or two or a month, whatever it is, you might be feeling homesick and I want you to have something to hold onto.” Quickly she pressed a card into Maggie’s hand.

“I can’t—” Maggie protested in surprise, for the card contained a pair of silhouettes of Harriet and Allan, cut when they’d come to Boston five years ago for Harriet’s brother Ian’s wedding.

“Yes, you can,” Harriet said. “I want you to have something to remember us by.”

Maggie’s eyes brightened now not with excitement, but with emotion and perhaps even tears. “Thank you, Mam,” she whispered, and heedless of Annabel Dunston, Harriet pulled her daughter to her in a tight hug.

A few minutes later Mrs. Dunston was leading Maggie up the gangplank, and then onto the ship. Allan reached for Harriet’s arm. “We should go back,” he said. “The farm won’t wait for us all day.”

“I know.” Harriet fished for the handkerchief in her pocket and tried to surreptitiously dab the tears from her eyes. Allan, of course, noticed.

“Harriet,
mo leannan
,” he exclaimed. “What are these tears? You were the one who wanted her to go so badly.”

“I know,” Harriet sniffed, giving him a watery smile. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel a little sadness that she is going.”

Allan pulled her towards him, resting his chin on her head for a moment. “She’ll be all right,” he told her. “She’ll find her way back, you’ll see.”

Harriet nodded, wanting to believe it, yet she couldn’t help but feel that Allan was trying to convince himself as much as he was her.

Chapter Five

Boston, 1838

The drawing room windows were open to the fragrant June air as Stephen Moore sipped his port, his slippered feet stretched out in front of him and
The Boston Post
folded and waiting on a table beside him.

Across from him his wife sat placidly with her embroidery hoop, and Isobel made up the third point of this domestic triangle, a book forgotten in her lap. It had become the custom when there were no outside engagements for the three of them to spend a quiet evening at home in various pursuits, whether reading or embroidery or, for her father only, a leisurely perusal of the paper.

Yet now Isobel could not concentrate on her book, a slim volume of poetry by Tennyson, because she had decided tonight she would tell her parents of her plan to add her name to Rufus Anderson’s list. The thought of admitting what she planned to do set her heart to thudding and made her palms slick. She was not so naïve to think her parents would approve of her decision, or let her go without a protest. They would not, she suspected, altogether approve of her being married to a missionary, sent to some strange and hostile land, most likely to live out her days in difficulty and grief, bury her children as they sickened from some dreadful, foreign disease—

What was she thinking, really, to do such a thing? Terror clutched at her, and she pushed it away, determined to see this through. Anything, even danger or grief, was better than this wasting of her days, the last of her youth, here in Boston.

“Isobel,” her mother murmured reprovingly. “You are fidgeting. It is not ladylike.”