A Distant Shore (12 page)

“Do you remember much of Boston from your last visit?” Margaret asked and she turned away from the sights with a little reluctance.

“A bit, but it feels new this time,” Maggie answered. “I was only ten years old back then and everything was such a flurry, with Uncle Ian and Uncle Rupert both marrying.”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” Margaret agreed with a smile. “Well, Rupert and Eleanor might be far away in the Western Territories now, but your Uncle Ian still lives in the city. I shall be sure to have him and his lovely wife Caroline for a dinner party.”

A dinner party! It sounded so grownup, Maggie thought, even as she realized her Sunday dress would probably not do for such an affair. She wished there had been time and money for some new dresses to be made up before she had left the island, yet she knew there had not. In any case she could not begrudge her mother or father, who had given so much to make sure she could go, anything at all.

The coachman helped them both down from the landau, and Maggie followed her aunt into a spacious townhouse with an impressive set of front steps and a shiny black door. Her eyes widened as she took in the elegant marble foyer and sweeping staircase. She’d never seen anything half so grand. A maid took Margaret’s mantelet and reticule, and clumsily Maggie gave the smartly-dressed servant her worn shawl.

Her aunt, she saw, had slit open a letter that had been lying on a silver tray and was now reading it with a little smile on her face. “Excellent,” she said and turned to Maggie. “My sister-in-law, Isobel, will join us for dinner tonight. But as for now, my dear, you must be truly fatigued. Why don’t you rest?”

Maggie nodded, for in truth all the excitement of arriving was taking its toll and she felt quite tired. A maid showed her to her room, and she gazed in wonder at the silk bed hangings and Turkish carpet, a small city garden visible from the large bay window. The sight of that little scrap of land, pretty as it was, suddenly made her feel homesick, for in her mind’s eye she could so easily see the rolling green fields and reddish roads of Prince Edward Island. Her home.

Swallowing, Maggie turned from the window, shed her shoes, and lay down on the bed, the counterpane as soft as a cloud. She was asleep within minutes.

That evening, having brushed down her Sunday dress and added a fresh lace collar, Maggie headed downstairs to meet her aunt’s sister-in-law, a true Bostonian. Anticipation fluttered in her middle, along with a few nerves. Isobel Moore might look down her nose at someone like her, and Maggie was worried she’d have nothing intelligent or interesting to say to either Isobel Moore or her aunt.

“Isobel!” Margaret rose from her seat as Isobel Moore was ushered into the drawing room. Maggie rose as well, smoothing her hands along the sides of her skirt. She watched Margaret embrace Isobel, a pretty woman with dark hair and clear, porcelain skin, although Maggie guessed her to be in her late twenties.

“I have news,” Margaret said, drawing Isobel forward. “But first you must meet my dear niece, Maggie MacDougall.”

“News?” Isobel repeated, and as she turned to greet her Maggie saw there were faint crows’ feet on either side of her eyes and lines of strain marking her forehead. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

“And you, ma’am.” Before she could think better of it, Maggie bobbed a curtsey.

Isobel arched a dark eyebrow, shooting Margaret a curious, amused glance. Maggie felt her face heat. In a moment, she thought dourly, she’d look like a tomato.

“Maggie is very excited to be here,” Margaret said, her lips twitching in a smile, and Maggie kept her chin up and a smile on her reddened face with effort. She was so obviously a country bumpkin to women such as these, and she knew there was no way to hide it. Even if her dress were as fine as her Aunt Margaret’s or Isobel Moore’s, she’d still be awkward and clumsy, no more than a girl fresh from the farm, and everyone would know it.

“I’m sure she is,” Isobel said smoothly. She turned back to Maggie with a distracted smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “I hope you enjoy the delights of the city, Miss MacDougall.” Maggie opened her mouth to reply, but Isobel had already turned back to Margaret.

“And now, Margaret, you said you had news? Pray do not keep me in suspense.”

“I shan’t,” Margaret said with a little laugh. With a whirl of her skirts she turned towards a table and rang a little silver bell. “But first I must call for champagne! For your father, Isobel, has agreed.”

Maggie didn’t know what they were talking about, but she gathered this was news of some import, for what little color she possessed drained out of Isobel’s face and she reached for the back of a chair as if for support.

“Agreed?” she questioned faintly, and Margaret laughed and shook her head.

“Isobel, you look as if you might faint! In truth I expected you to greet such news with a good bit more cheer.”

Isobel smiled, but Maggie thought she still looked rather pale and worried. “I am just so surprised. I did not expect him to relent.”

“Yet you seemed so sure the last time we spoke!” Margaret exclaimed. “Are you having second thoughts?”

Isobel didn’t speak for a moment, and Maggie decided she must be. She wondered what on earth the two women were talking about. “No,” she finally said. “No, I am not. I’m just surprised. Very surprised.”

A maid in a black uniform that looked to Maggie to be smarter than her own dress quietly opened the door. “Ma’am?”

“Champagne please, Ella. And three glasses.” She turned to Maggie with a merry smile. “You may have a taste, Maggie, but that’s all. Your mother wouldn’t like it otherwise, I’m sure!”

“Thank you, Aunt Margaret.” Maggie had never had champagne before, and looked forward to even jus taste. Isobel, she saw, had recovered her color and was standing straight now, her dark brows drawn together in a frown.

“But Margaret,” she said, “if it… if it all comes to pass, what shall become of the school?”

“You need not concern yourself with that,” Margaret said and Isobel shook her head, insistent. “But I must. I confess the teaching has tried me at times but that school has been my life for five years or more, Margaret. I will not see it come to naught for the sake of my own folly.”

Margaret pursed her lips. “You think this folly?”

“I do not know,” Isobel whispered. She bit her lip and looked away.

“I’m sure a teacher can be found,” Margaret said, and before she could think or guard her speech, Maggie burst forth with what, to her, seemed a marvelous and obvious idea.

“I could teach at the school, Aunt Margaret.”

Both women swiveled to stare at her in surprise, and Maggie felt her face flush once more. Country bumpkin she might be, but she knew her letters and numbers, and she liked to read. She also wanted to make herself useful to her aunt; such a desire was ingrained deeply inside her. “What kind of school is it?” she asked, and Margaret smiled.

“I admire your attitude, Maggie. It’s a charity school, for immigrant children. I started it over five years ago now, and Isobel took over the teaching after Charlotte was born. But it’s quite taxing, you know, to keep command of so many children. They can be unruly. Besides, I intended to show you Boston’s sights and society, not keep you shut away in a fusty old building!”

“Of course,” Maggie mumbled. “I just thought…”

Margaret laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re so kind, Maggie, to think of it and want to help. But I’m sure another teacher can be found.”

Maggie nodded, fighting back sudden tears. It seemed no matter what she did or said, she would feel and appear ridiculous.

South Seas, 1838

Henry blinked the world back into focus, like a swimmer coming up to the surface of the sea. His head ached abominably and his mouth was as dry as a desert. Coughing, he struggled to sit up only to have his vision swim and he was dragged back under.

“Captain,” he heard his first mate, Mr. Martin call, as if from a long way off. “The captain is awake!”

With effort Henry opened his eyes and saw the anxious face of his first mate gazing down at him. He was in his own quarters, he realized, in his own bed. The ship then, had survived the storm. But had his crew? “Mr. Martin.” His voice was no more than a croak. “Have we sustained any casualties?”

“No, sir. That is... no persons.”

Henry closed his eyes in relief, even as he realized Mr. Martin’s hesitant answer meant there were other injuries to sailors or vessel. “Water, please,” he said, and after he’d managed a few sips he turned back to his first mate. “And the state of the
Charlotte Rose
?”

“Not good, sir.”

Henry struggled to a seated position even though it made his head swim and his stomach revolt. He suppressed the urge to retch and forced himself to give Martin a direct look. “Give me the particulars.”

“The mast is cracked, sir, and the main sail is in tatters. “We can’t repair until we put into port.”

“
In port,” he repeated. His head throbbed even worse and he closed his eyes briefly. They were in nearly the most desolate stretch of ocean on earth. Putting into port anywhere was unlikely, perhaps impossible. He thought of the water he’d just drunk. “How are we for supplies?”

“We have water for five days, more if we ration it carefully.”

Five days. Dead in the water on this endless stretch of blue, it was not enough. It was practically nothing. Exhausted, Henry leaned back against the bolster and closed his eyes again. He could taste bile in the back of his throat. “Begin rations,” he finally said. “And let us pray that God sees fit to send us a ship to come to our aid.” For surely they needed a savior.

The storm that had devastated the ship had given way, Henry saw when he made his way to the deck the next morning, to a hazy, languid calm. The sky and sea shimmered in the heat, the horizon flat and endless, without any sign at all of life. Henry tried to keep his attitude cheerful and efficient, but his own injuries and the fear that twisted inside him made it difficult. He saw his men’s tense faces, knew that none of them wished to die of thirst. It was every sailor’s fear, worse than being lost overboard, a terrible, endless agony until death seemed like a mercy.

After an hour of supervising his men’s works on the ship Henry retreated to his cabin once more. He sank onto his bed, his head in his hands as realization echoed emptily through him. They could all very well die.

What could he do? There was no way to repair the ship, not enough to sail, even if there was a wind, which there wasn’t. He could send some men out in a dinghy to look for land, but it would be a fool’s errand, and one that would most likely result in death.

He rose from his bed and paced the small confines of his cabin, filled with a restless anger at the futility of his situation. He thought of Margaret’s fear for his safety when he’d insisted on this trip to China, and everything in him cried out for both her forgiveness and her comfort. To feel her arms around him one more time, her sweet breath fanning his cheek, her light laughter in his ear…

He would not give up. Not now, not ever. Straightening, he unrolled the map and placed it flat on the table, scanning this section of ocean as if a new land mass would magically appear. His distant gaze fell on the calfskin portfolio, now water-stained and worse for wear, and with trembling fingers he withdrew the letter he’d been writing to Margaret before the storm had hit.