glad
Frederick was
dead.
His only cheering
thought was that
he had a mother whom he had never met. Perhaps she would turn out to
be the anti-thesis of his
father, and
might love him the way Frederick never had.
Regarding Madeleine Lyndon’s
treachery, Dalton felt
a great deal of responsibility.
He couldn’t believe he had been so blind, and wondered
how much his
father had known. To
think how
close he had come to wedding an unchaste, devious, selfish woman
like her.
Only through him
seeing Emer in the
cathedral that fateful day, had he avoided making the biggest
mistake of his
life. He thanked God daily for the miracle that had brought
them together just
in time, though the consequences of that meeting had certainly
been shocking
enough.
At first Dalton had
not been able to
fathom that Madeleine was as bad as Adrian had told her, but
once she had gone
to trial, all of the men in Quebec, seeing how the mighty
Madeleine Lyndon had
fallen, hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to kick her
while she was
down.
Dozens of the men
had admitted to
having had an affair with her, and though Dalton had been
extremely embarrassed
by all the attention he had received from well-wishers, it was
through all of
his difficulties during the trials, and the details that
emerged about Emer’s
illegal trial and sentencing at the hands of his father, that
showed Dalton
just how many real friends he had.
Even Mr. and Mr.
Lyndon had taken
Dalton’s side in the end, and asked him if he would be willing
to run their
steamer company for them for a few months so that Mr. Lyndon
could take early
retirement, the shock of his daughter’s conduct and execution
having proven too
much for him.
When Dalton had
refused Mr. Lyndon’s
offer on the grounds that he had to go to Ireland straight
away to find Emer,
the old man had then offered to sell the company to Dalton for
a ridiculously
low price, and Dalton had had the good sense and business
acumen to
accept.
Though he was
really no longer
interested in the shipping business, he had left Reeves in
charge of the sale
while he was away, and agreed that he would pick up the reins
at least
temporarily until he decided what to do with the huge fleet of
ships he was now
responsible for.
At least he would
be able to do some
good to alleviate the plight of the Irish emigrants, and
improve the lot of the
sailors who had worked with both companies one day when his
own personal
affairs were better settled.
Dalton left Patrick
Bradley to help
Reeves at the Randall and Lyndon offices, and Marion Lacy was
left at the head
of the orphanage, with the Bishop handling all the funds.
Happily for the
children who had
formerly been resident there before the fire, many of them had
indeed been
adopted by the kind souls who had taken them in, but there
were always many
more Irish orphans coming in from Grosse Ile every day.
Likewise the
dreaded fevers
continued unabated, raging in the warm weather and insanitary
conditions of
dozens of ships’ holds like wild fire.
Dalton had left
Adrian in charge of
the new fever hospital and his new house on the south shore of
the river, and
had hired many new young doctors trained in the latest
theories regarding fever
to try to research the diseases and hopefully find more
effective treatments,
if not an outright cure.
But all of these
achievements paled
into insignificance compared to the loss Dalton had endured. He
yearned to hold
his son in his arms
again, and see those incredible golden eyes, mirrors of his
own, look up at him
with such love and trust.
He needed to see
Emer again so
desperately, his longing was like a physical ache.
She wasn’t
dead.
She just couldn’t be.
Dalton hoped that Emer would be at
Cork when he
arrived, and then he could bring her home. If she had already gone
to Australia, then
he would simply
have to follow on there with her acquittal papers.
But, since their
lives had never
been simple, Dalton’s certainty that he would get her back was
to be
unexpectedly thwarted by a combination of circumstances which
in the end only
served to drive them further apart, and threatened still more
any hope of them
having a happy future together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Emer’s weeks at sea
in the tiny
cabin on the
Britannia
had started relatively
uneventfully, for apart from
building up her arm
muscles, practising
walking, and
attempting to eat, she had been trapped in the confined space with
little
to do and only the
gruff old sailor for company.
After several days,
the sailor had
eventually thawed enough towards the seeming convict to
introduce himself as
Ben. He and Emer had developed a system of communication of
their own, for the
old man couldn’t read, and Emer couldn’t speak.
Long tedious days
at sea eventually
prompted him to try to converse with the odd girl with hair
like fine wine.
After a few halting tries at conversation, he had hit on
simply asking her yes
and no type questions.
As her life and
character became clearer
to him, Ben wondered why she had been treated so harshly, and
was to be
transported.
Eventually after
going through a
list of crimes, he gave up.
“I don’t
understand, Miss.
What did you do?”
Emer thought for a
moment, and then
pointed to her wedding ring, and then rocked her arms as
though she were
nursing a child.
“You were married?
And had a
baby? Where is
the baby now?”
Emer’s tearful
shrug and shake of
the head told him she had no idea. Then she pointed at the ring
again.
“The baby’s father
did this to you?”
Ben gaped.
Emer shook and then
nodded her head,
and pointed to the ring again.
“His family, his
father did this to
you?” Ben guessed.
Emer nodded, and
made a mime of
writing, and banging a gavel.
Then
she pointed to the captain’s cabin upstairs.
“I think I see. Your
husband’s father took the
baby away, had you arrested, and got you convicted, and
sentenced to be
deported for something you didn’t do?” Ben interpreted after a time.
“They were rich, didn’t approve of you, or summat?”
Emer nodded,
relieved.
Ben sighed. “Many wouldn’t
believe you, miss, but I
can see from the look of you, you’ve had a very hard time of
it. Here, I’ll
start bringing you some of
my lime juice, and I can see now that you can’t really chew
that old ship’s
biscuit with your jaw being broken and all. If there’s any soup
going, I’ll bring
you some bowls of that
and some porridge from now on, and see if I can find something
in the medicine
chest for your face. If
I bind up
your jaw, then p’rhaps it will start getting better.”
Emer shook his hand
gratefully, and
began to grow stronger once she was able to eat more food.
As the days passed,
Emer continued
pushing up and own on her arms to strengthen them, and then
tried to get her
legs onto the floor. She
would
attempt to put her full weight on them, and eventually managed
a few halting
steps leaning on the bunk and wall for support.
Ben, seeing her
improving so
rapidly, also helped her pass the time by givting her some
work to do. One
day she mimed sewing, and soon he
was bringing every garment on board to her for repairs, for
which she was paid
a small sum.
Thus the first
three weeks Emer
spent at sea passed by relatively calmly, with a few squally
showers but no
great storms.
“I must say, you’re
a great
sailor. But
then, you must have
been on a ship to get Canada, seeing as you’re Irish.”
Emer nodded and
mimed climbing up
into the rigging.
Ben gaped. “You
worked on a ship?”
Emer nodded, and
gestured that she
had done cooking and cleaning, and sewing the sails.
“Perhaps I can
speak to the captain
about finding some work for you, then. It's roasting down here, and
you could come up on deck
and help mend the
sails, and get a bit of fresh air.”
Emer nodded
excitedly.
One bright day at
the end of June,
she was carried up on deck by Ben and sat down by the mast.
She was tied
to it by her waist
just in case the ship began to roll, and Emer sat contentedly
in the sun,
repairing the sails and staring at the ocean waves through the
rail.
The crew grew used
to the strange
silent crippled girl after a few days, and ceased to pay much
attention to her.
Emer noticed their
lack of
vigilance, and grew more and more optimistic that she would
somehow be able to
escape.
She saw her chance
in the first week
of July, when the lookout in the crow’s nest shouted, “Land
Ho!”
Emer’s knowledge of
Irish geography
was fairly good. Though
she had
never been to Cork, she knew there was a huge harbour. If she jumped
ship
as they entered it,
they would have to search for her on both sides of the
harbour, and with any
luck the captain might even assume that she had drowned.
Emer knew she had
made a great deal
of progress so far, for she was now able to move her toes and
feet again, but
even so, she knew she was unable to walk.
As for swimming,
she could only hope
a favourable current would wash up up to shore, rather than
drag her under or
out to sea.
Though she knew the
risk of drowning
was high, anything was better than being transported down to
Australia in a
hulk, a difficult journey of nearly a half a year at least
crammed in a
disease-ridden hold, chained up with all the other prisoners,
many of them
desperate and even violent.
In the privacy of
her room, Emer
sewed the coins she had earned into the hem of her shirt, and
stripped off her
undergarments, leaving on only her blouse and very
light-weight summer skirt so
the water soaking the fabric wouldn’t drag her below the
surface.
Then Ben came to
fetch her up on
deck, and she managed to convince him not to tie her, since
the weather was so
fine the ship wouldn’t roll.
Emer wondered if
Ben knew what she
was up to, for he looked at her for several moments, and then
came back with a
small scrap of paper and a pen and ink.
“I can’t read nor
write myself, but
if you write your name, and your husband’s address, I’ll see
that I find
someone who can, and let him know what’s happened to you.”
Emer seized the pen
and paper
gratefully, and printed the information on the scrap of paper
as it fluttered
in the wind. Then
Emer handed it
to Ben, and shook his hand.
Ben smiled, and
walked away, leaving
Emer relatively alone on the deck.
She waited until
she was certain no
one was looking, and crawled over the rail. Hanging onto the end of
the sail she had
been mending, she
slipped over the side into the freezing water with only the
smallest of
splashes.
Emer gasped at the
chill water and
bobbed up and down for a few moments, and then began to swim
for the western
shore of the harbour, kicking her legs as best she could, and
floating on her
back when she needed to catch her breath.
By the time the crew noticed Emer was gone
several minutes
later, they did not trouble too much to look for her, since
most assumed that
she had gone done below.
It was only when
they got into port and
saw she was not in her cabin that they concluded that she had
been been washed
overboard by a freak wave.
The captain sadly
wrote a report on
the incident to present to the authorities when the
Britannia
arrived
in town. If they suspected
she had escaped, they certainly kept it to themselves. Ben had
vouched for her,
and it was none of their business in any case. What was one
prisoner more or
less in the whole scheme of things. A crippled woman with a
broken jaw was
hardly a dire threat.
The old sailor
prayed she had made
it to shore. As soon as he got leave in port, he went to find
a person he could
trust who could read and write.
Emer was terrified
of drowning as
she tried to kick her heavy legs to stay afloat, but she also
knew she needed
to conserve her strength and not panic.
Turning herself
over, she began to
float on her back, willing herself to relax and be patient. As the
watery sun
warmed her stomach,
she felt a slight current tugging at her limbs.