The Beloved Land (24 page)

It was Thomas who finally broke the silence. “Nicole had to leave before she was ready?”

“Here and gone in three days,” Catherine said, sorrow catching at the words.

Thomas looked a question at his wife. Anne shook her head in reply. This had not come up in Catherine’s recounting of the wedding details.

“I certainly did not have enough time with the lass,” John Price mused.

“None of us did. But we must be grateful for what we had,” Andrew said.

Anne held the words in her mouth for some time, tasting the question. Her hand shifted to touch her letter through the apron’s fabric. She asked, “Why was Nicole required to depart so soon?”

“Their journey did not end here,” her grandfather said to the fire.

“I don’t understand.”

Catherine looked at her. “She is now making her way to Louisiana.”

“She’s going to see Papa Henri and Mama Louise? But that’s wonderful news! How long has it been since she’s seen them?”

“Not since they visited here,” Andrew replied. “Not since before the war.”

“Nonetheless,” Thomas pointed out, “it seems a strange time to be making such a dangerous journey.”

“They do not do it for themselves. At least, not for themselves alone.” Andrew now was speaking. “The commandant of the Boston garrison has entrusted Gordon and Nicole to bear messages to the leaders of the Louisiana colony. And to bargain for some supplies—”

“Nicole is involved in the fighting?” Anne burst out in shock. “She’s working for the Americans?”

“And Gordon?” Thomas had bolted upright. “A British officer has gone over to the enemy?”

Andrew’s gaze drifted over, though his voice remained mild. “The Americans are not enemies. Not in this house.”

“Of course not. They are not enemies in either Harrow household. I fully concur with Charles’s stand in support of the revolutionists’ position.” Thomas paused a moment, then continued. “But I do find myself thoroughly perplexed by Nicole’s and Gordon’s getting involved in the action. Surely the matter can be settled by treaty. By agreement. To actually be engaged in the war—”

“It is shocking, I agree,” Andrew said. “But after the British stole Gordon’s ship, press-ganged his men, imprisoned him, and threatened to hang him, I can hardly disagree with his choice.”

Andrew looked directly at Thomas and Anne. “Gordon had made it clear he will not bear arms against his former countrymen.”

Thomas rose and began pacing the front room. “Of course. Though I’m not sure he would be able to maintain that resolve if push came to shove. I have never met him, but I am certain Nicole’s choice of husband would be a Christian and a gentleman. Even so …”

When her husband seemed unable to continue, Anne said for them both, “For Nicole to be directly involved in this conflict between countrymen who share the same heritage, at times the same faith, seems incomprehensible. How can they. . . ?” But Anne also drifted to a stop, looking helplessly from her parents to her husband, then to her grandfather.

John Price now cleared his throat and spoke up. “Nicole has spent her entire life searching for a home. I think she has found one to our south. In Massachusetts. In America.”

Anne heard not just the words but also the calm assurance behind them. She again looked around the room. Catherine’s face was serene in her inner certainty. As were her father’s and grandfather’s. Suddenly Anne knew she could wait no longer to read Nicole’s letter.

She rose to her feet. “If you will please excuse me.”

The point was empty. A few tattered wedding garlands shivering in the rising wind.

Anne seated herself upon the familiar trunk, the place from which she had watched the sea below the cliff, read favorite books, thought of the past, and dreamed of the future.

She pulled the letter from her pocket and began to read.

Before the first paragraph was completed, her sister was there beside her once again, the other half of her own life. Anne pressed the pages to her heart after reading the words,
“I am sitting here on our log in the meadow overlooking the sea. …”
Anne blinked away the tears and searched for the place she had stopped reading.

Anne was astonished by how matter-of-fact Nicole seemed to be about her dedication to the American cause, to their current mission. Anne halted three times during the initial read, staring out to the sea and asking herself, where did her own loyalties lie? The immediate answer was,
To the Lord above
. And certainly to Thomas and their son. But it was too simple. Too convenient. She thought about her uncle Charles declaring his support for the American Revolution, though it had cost him dearly. She had agreed with him, not so much because of strong convictions about the American cause, but because of the distress she felt over the course England and her rulers were taking, both against the colonists and against England’s own poor and dispossessed. But it was also true that she and Thomas wanted peace. Peace and security for all. Freedom to live and worship God as one saw fit. A life lived in safety, children raised in lands sheltered from combat. Swords beaten into plowshares.

As Anne read on, Nicole made very clear her own abhorrence of the conflict, and Gordon’s belief as a former British naval officer that he could not personally justify going into combat against England. Yet they both were acting on behalf of generals and their warriors! Anne rose and began pacing the point, as Thomas had done in the front room.

Anne halted toward the back of the meadow and reread the letter from start to finish. She did not want to argue with Nicole. She wanted to
understand
.

She looked up from the letter and found herself staring at a forgotten wedding wreath. One by one the last petals were plucked away by the strengthening wind and hurled upward to the sky. Anne stood and watched until the wreath was nothing more than a knotting of empty vines.

She lowered her head to her hands, and she wept. Though if asked, she could not have said the reason why.

Anne’s days remained full with ministering to Andrew and helping about the house. At night the slightest cough from her father was enough to snatch the sleep from her. Free moments were filled with her mother and grandfather Price, repeating the news of Charles’s search that Anne and Thomas had brought with them, including much speculation on what further might have turned up during the intervening months.

The diary of Catherine’s mother provided quiet moments before the fire at night as they sat together and read passages aloud.

I cannot express my joy. I have been trying to do so all morning in my prayers heavenward, but there simply are no words. I am with child. I keep saying those words over and over in my heart. I am with child. I am quite sure of it now. It is a miracle. I will count the months—the weeks—the days—and then—oh, bliss—I shall have my heart and arms filled with a little someone. I know not who, but I am sure that God, in His infinite wisdom, will send me the perfect one to share my heart and feel my love. How I long to immediately share with John my hidden secret. He is so busy. So anxious. I know he feels that the frontier is no place to raise a child. Not with the French so close. So threatening. He does not trust them at all.

He is still unforgiving. I have prayed and prayed for his release from his bitterness. How I long for that day—and I pray that it will not be far in the future. But back to my wonderful secret. I will keep it tucked in my heart until I am really sure. There is no use causing him to fret for no good reason—and I feel he will fret at first. He worries so about me, an adult, so I cannot think how he will respond to our helpless baby in this primitive settlement.

I talk to my little one sometimes when I am lonely. Oh, not aloud. But she helps me through the dreariest of days. I think my dearest John would have a difficult time understanding that, being such a no-nonsense person. He is so busy with the matters of this new land I scarcely see him except in early morning as I serve his porridge and again when his shoulders already droop with weariness. I worry about him. He has so much to bear. I am blessed to have been granted partnership with him
.

In the hours of quiet intimacy, the fabric of Catherine’s life knit the two women more closely together. Though not by birthright, Anne felt a connection to Catherine’s mother and to the French sister Grandfather Price had never known.

It is getting near the time. I reminded John last evening as we sat before the fire that we must think of names. He looked surprised. I could not help but laugh. It was as though he thought we were just to go on and on in our present state. I could almost see him mentally counting the months, then nodding agreement. I suggested the name of John if it is a boy, but he said he would rather give the child a name of his own. He favored Reginald. It sounds too military to me—like regiment, but I bit my tongue. If John wishes his son to be Reginald, then Reginald he shall be. I asked him about a name for a girl. I do not think he had ever considered such a possibility. A girl? I think he deems our frontier village far too rough and rustic for a girl. So he passed the need for a girl’s name off to me, saying that I should have the privilege—if perchance I gave birth to a daughter rather than a son
.

The next page brought joyous news, but the hand holding the pen looked not as steady.

Baby Catherine arrived an hour past midnight, five days past. I think that John was stunned at first, but he was quick to recover. I watched him with her today. I think she has already
captured his heart. I should be jealous were she not so much a part of me. I have never seen such love shine from his face
.

Gradually the months and years they had been apart were filled with facts and thoughts and emotions. The two women discussed Nicole and Gordon’s marriage in great detail, the way the villagers had gathered to celebrate with them, how the point above the cove was decorated like an outdoor chapel. Catherine’s lovely gown was brought out, and of course Anne begged her to don it again. Anne reveled in the sharing, pushing away the sorrow that she had not arrived in time to share the day also.

Chapter 30

Anne emerged from the forest to find Thomas standing where the path joined the village lane. Thomas leaned toward her, questions in his eyes, but he only tucked her arm in his.

“A group of the French elders have asked for me,” Thomas told her as they walked, “and Catherine is busy with Andrew, and, well—”

“You need a translator. Come, let us be off.”

“Today is the time each week when the outlying French settlers visit the market,” Thomas told her. “I would not have interrupted your contemplation, but with their long homeward journey, I did not want to make them wait overlong.”

When they arrived at the market square, they found a large number of Frenchmen gathered by one of the last wagons. Her uncle Guy was not among them, but Anne recognized several other faces. The men all doffed their hats at their approach. Anne could not help but notice how the men seemed genuinely happy to see them.

There was no mistaking the Acadians. Most of the men were clean-shaven, with strong faces seamed by the sun and a farmer’s hard life. Dark eyes normally sparkled with good cheer. Today, however, they glanced at one another before the man Anne recognized as a village elder said, “Your family is known to all as God’s instrument in times of hardship.”