The Beloved Land (13 page)
As the carriage turned about and began the descent, a convoy of wagons and coaches appeared behind them. The men called a halloo and waved. Through her open window, Anne thought the women among them seemed both wan and stricken. When one of them offered her a tentative wave, Anne replied with as solemn a gesture. The men thought of the challenge, the adventure of the crossing, and a new life. But the women were leaving family and friends—the only life they had known.
When the carriage pulled up at dockside, Charles and Thomas hurried about, helping the other travelers unload their bundles and chests and barrels.
With Judith nearby, Anne stood watching, holding John’s hand and trying not to squeeze it too tightly.
“Excuse me, Lady Harrow?”
Both women turned as one at the address. None here was to have known their identity, save a single individual. They found themselves facing a young man wearing a vicar’s white collar beneath his black Dissenter cloak. Anne said, “You must be Pastor Fields.”
“Just so.” He removed his hat and bowed over Anne’s hand.
“And I am traveling as Anne Malvern with my husband, Thomas,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Yes. Of course. Forgive me. I have the name here on my list.”
“Malvern,” Anne repeated as he searched for the name. They had decided upon the maiden name of Thomas’s grandmother. Judith took John’s hand and led him over to watch the loading of the ship, out of earshot of the exchange.
“Yes, here it is. None save myself and my wife know your identity.”
“Once we are safely out to sea, we would be happy to be known by our true names,” Anne told him. “We seek to disguise our identity for their sakes as much as our own.”
“This is perfectly understood. You are not the only ones who are departing today under assumed names, I assure you.” He held his hat in front of him. “Actually, I wished merely to thank you for your most generous gifts.”
Anne smiled and said, “I’m glad we had the wherewithal to do so, Pastor. Good stewardship, I believe you would call it.”
“My lady—”
“Mrs. Malvern, if you please, Reverend.”
“Ma’am, I cannot thank you enough. As a result of your most kind donations, our entire congregation is making this journey. And even the poorest family among us shall travel with fresh produce and bedding and medicines and tools for the home that awaits them.”
“My only request is that the gift remain a secret between ourselves and God.”
“As you wish, ma’am. But I could not possibly let your goodness go without a word of thanks.” He backed away. “I must go see to my family. After we are safely away, my wife and I shall assist with the introductions to the others in our group.”
Anne sat on a trunk, her little boy on her lap. She tried not to hold him too tightly. He chattered away, pointing out all the fascinating things that were happening.
“Look, Mama!” He pointed to a crate of cackling chickens being carried on board. Fortunately she was not required to answer very often. It took heroic effort to hold back her tears.
Too soon the loading of the ship was completed … too soon. The sun was high, the day warm, the sea kind, the wind a southerly breath of invitation. The captain’s cries turned impatient, and finally Charles came and stood by her to murmur, “I fear the moment has come, my dear.”
John turned to look up into his mother’s face. “Are you going away now?”
“Yes, my dearest one. You remember I told you that Grandfather Andrew is ill—”
“And you are going to help make him well again,” he finished for her. “And Papa is going too?”
“Someone must come and take care of me, isn’t that right?”
John nodded somberly. “Are you sad?”
“Yes, because I shall miss you very much. But I shall think of you every day, and pray for you, and look forward with all my heart to seeing you again as soon as I can.” It both surprised and comforted her how she held to such calm. She felt a great distance between herself and the moment, a sense of watching herself speak. The same amazing peace kept her eyes dry and her voice steady. “You must promise me to be good and obey—”
“Uncle Charles and Aunt Judith,” he said, repeating the familiar exchange they had gone over several times in recent days.
“That’s right, my dearest.”
“And Maisy.”
“They all love you very much and will cherish you and keep you well. Now give me a hug and a kiss and tell me you love me.”
“I love you, Mama.” He looked at her with clear-eyed innocence.
She kissed his cheek and the silken hair upon his forehead. She breathed in the warm fragrance of her son. Then she did the most difficult thing she had ever done. She let him go.
Anne found it only mildly surprising that her face remained dry. She watched her husband lean forward to bid the boy good-bye and realized Thomas was weeping so he could scarcely speak. She let Judith stroke his shaking back. There would be time on board to hold one another.
They gathered together and prayed, including John’s small frame in their little circle. They hugged and they spoke final words, or at least all did save Anne. She let herself be moved from one moment to the next, coming fully alert only when her son was guided into the carriage. She heard Charles say something and knew he wanted to give her the letter he had prepared for Andrew. But just then her hands would not function, nor her mind make room for anything save the boy. John’s face emerged through the open window, and the sunlight lit his hair. She fought to keep her eyes utterly clear, for this was the vision she wished to find every time she shut her eyes during the weeks and months ahead. This was the sight that would sustain her.
“Come, my dear. It’s time.”
Anne allowed her husband to lead her away. She did not wave so much as reach out, openhanded, toward her son. “Good-bye, my dearest!”
Up the plank she walked. She released Thomas’s hand and moved to the side of the vessel, from where she could stand and see the sunlit tableau below. She felt Thomas move up behind her and was grateful for his comforting strength. She heard him shout their farewells and let him speak for them both. As the sailors drew in the gangplank and tossed the ropes on board and raised sails and canted the vessel seaward, it was all she could do to hold to her calm. So long as her boy was visible, she was determined to remain composed.
But finally the harbor became merely a flat pan at the base of curving cliffs, the village a stony speck upon an emerald hill. Then the sunlight played upon the rolling waves, and the golden reflection gentled away her vision entirely. She turned then, as did several other women gathered there upon the railing. Anne buried her head in Thomas’s chest and gave herself over to sorrow’s flood.
The entire voyage was unlike anything Anne had ever before experienced.
Her first sea voyage had been in the hold of a ship wallowing in the storms of winter. She had been mourning the loss of her first husband, Cyril, and traveling to England because of Nicole’s fervently expressed invitation. Her days had been defined by cold and howling gales and crashing waves and moaning passengers and her own dismal grief. Only her tiny baby, her dear little John, stood between her and the darkness threatening to engulf her soul.
Now, in the first hours and days of this next journey, her son’s absence threatened to be her undoing. Anne found herself wracked with sorrow. Within the sleepless hours of night, surrounded by the cramped berths of other passengers wrenched by their own farewells, Anne experienced a small measure of her mothers’ pain—yes, both of her mothers.
She had known the facts of this all her life, how her French birth mother had allowed her friend Catherine to take her to an English doctor to try to save her frail life. And that while Catherine was in Halifax, the English had expelled the Acadians to the four corners of the globe. Raised by the English family, her beloved Andrew and Catherine, Anne’s double heritage was as much a part of her as her name, her hair, her eyes, her own breath.
She had never
lived
it, though, until now.
But I will see John again. We will be reunited soon,
she told herself over and over. And sometimes,
Oh, Mama Louise, how did you bear the sorrow, the not knowing. . . ?
She at least knew where John was, that he was being lovingly cared for in a place that was his home.
Sabbath fell upon the third day of their journey. Anne had not slept more than a few hours in the two nights since their departure. She ate because Thomas placed food in front of her and urged her to do so. She moved about the deck only when he grasped her hand and led her. That Sabbath morning began with the dawn, when Thomas drew her from bed with a bowl of the hot black tea called sailor’s broth. He directed her toward the chamber where the other women had gathered to wash and dress for the morning service.
By that time all the ship knew of Anne and Thomas, both who they were and how they had left their son behind. Anne had heard others tell their own tragic tales, but she had tried to close her ears to the words and the tears, unable to bear anything further. But this morning was different. As she returned to the main hold and gathered about the central table for a breakfast of ship’s bread and brine-soaked apples and more tea, Anne sensed a soft whisper within her heart.
For the journey they had taken the Dissenters’ style of dress, homespun frocks of black and gray. Thomas wore a long black overcoat and stiff-brimmed hat. Anne smoothed back her hair and settled upon her head a starched white bonnet and tied it beneath her chin. As soon as the bosun had piped the morning crew on deck and the others to their breakfast, the passengers made their way from their quarters.
The captain greeted them, doffing his hat and bowing to the elder of the two pastors. “It is my habit at sea to offer the men a Sabbath reading. But I’d be grateful for a proper vicar to bless this day.”
“It would be an honor for you and your men to join us.”
They began with a song, and another, and another still. One of the men drew out a concertina, another a mouth organ, and one more a set of bagpipes. There were no hymnals, nor any needed. This was a group bound together through years of shared worship and common faith. They greeted the rising sun in four-part harmony, causing the sailors to cast astonished glances among themselves.
At the beginning of the fourth song, Anne lifted her head far enough to study the sky above her. Every sail was out, a great billowing mass of canvas that filled the blue left empty by an absence of clouds. The sun rose behind her, burnishing the sails overhead. The timbers creaked, and the deck beneath her feet was never still. A pair of great black-headed seabirds with wingspans broader than her own outstretched arms flew alongside the starboard railing, their heads tilted as though to better hear the hymns.
The younger pastor, the gentleman who had greeted them at quayside, opened the Bible to the book of John and began the day’s reading. Anne listened, marveling that the words were coming to her understanding in their proper order. Her thoughts were clearing, her vision, her awareness.
She inhaled deeply, and it seemed as though it was the first true breath she had taken since their departure. She breathed again and found herself taking stock as one would when arising from a sickbed, making sure that all was finally back in working order. A third breath, and she realized that her sorrow was no longer the dominating force. The absence of her beloved John was still there and would be with her for as long as they were apart. Yet she held it with acceptance, a place that permitted her to look forward as well as behind.
“Thank God.”
For a brief instant she thought it was she herself who spoke the words. For that was exactly how she felt. Then she realized it was her husband who had murmured the thanksgiving. Anne turned to him and found the intelligent eyes inspecting her with love and concern. He whispered, “You have returned.”
Anne reached for his hand. She did not care if it was not proper in this time and place. “I have.”
“We need to make plum puddin’, Nana.”
“Plum pudding? I thought you were not particularly fond of plum pudding.” Judith previously had assumed that every child loved the treat. But her grandson had proved an exception. He had taken a few bites, then pushed back his bowl. “That’s quite enough,” he had announced in grown-up fashion. “I do not want to thicken my waist.”
Judith had hidden her smile behind a hand, casting a curious gaze toward John’s nurse. Had the child heard her make such a remark? She would caution the woman again to guard her speech in front of the impressionable young master.
John was speaking again, leaning up comfortably—and comfortingly—against her knee. “Mama likes it,” he was saying, returning to the call for plum pudding, though he sounded a bit forlorn. “We should make it today in case she comes.”
Judith felt a mist gather in her eyes. She knew John longed for his mother. In spite of their efforts to keep his days full and interesting, there was no way she and Charles could keep the boy from missing the most important person in his life.