“Good strong Sabbath brew, it is,” the old man said over his shoulder.
“They also know the worst is behind us,” Anne said.
“Of course they do.” Catherine gave her daughter a final hug.
When Thomas walked to the church pulpit, Anne thought he looked as weary as she felt. She glanced at her mother, who also looked stretched to the limit and beyond. John Price had declined the walk to church for the morning service, saying he would stay with Andrew. Anne faced the front of the church once more and said a silent prayer for her dear Thomas, for her father, and her aging grandfather.
Almost in reply, Thomas’s first words were, “Your pastor has asked me to speak for him this day. I am the first to confess that I hold neither the ability nor the insight of my father-in-law. So I ask for your prayers. I am happy to tell you that Pastor Harrow seems to be doing better this morning.”
He waited through the murmur, then continued, “Though we have met over his sickbed, and though he has managed only a few words, still I feel a very intense bond with my father-inlaw. I know this is partly due to all I have heard from my dear wife. I realize that it is his and Catherine’s godly influence that has shaped Anne. So although I do not yet know Andrew well, still I feel his imprint upon my life.”
Catherine’s hand slipped into Anne’s and squeezed. No word was necessary. Anne understood. She could feel it as well. Already she could sense the same spiritual anointing on her husband that she had witnessed in her father.
“I have no seminary training,” Thomas continued. “My studies have been of law. And so I shall not be drawing the deep scriptural expositions and interpretations such as Pastor Harrow no doubt has granted you. Instead, I shall spend the few Sabbaths until his strength has returned to speak of other people like myself. People who were called from various walks of life to follow the Master. People like Nicodemus and Stephen and Peter, from the Gospels and from Acts. People who lived through times of great trial and distress. People who faced the upheavals of life with Christ’s strength and wisdom. And we shall see what we can learn together.”
Anne stole a quick glance around and noted expressions from curiosity to openness on nearby faces. As Thomas read the story of Nicodemus from the gospel of John, she sensed his audience gathering around him in spirit to listen, to explore once again the familiar story.
“ … and this Pharisee,” Thomas concluded, “a ruler of the Jews accustomed to power and prestige, came to Jesus with his honest questions. He made himself vulnerable, like a little child would come to his father. And this is our example. …”
A thoughtful silence followed the closing hymn, and slowly the parishioners, one by one, rose to their feet, as if pondering how closely their yearning for spiritual truth paralleled that of Nicodemus.
Catherine and Anne stood in the church’s narthex as members of the congregation crowded around to greet them, welcoming Anne back into their midst and noting what a good sermon Thomas had preached.
The three finally were able to return to the cottage, their own demeanor rather silent and introspective as they walked along the lane. Anne’s small pressure on Thomas’s arm was quietly acknowledged with his grateful nod and smile. Anne knew he would be uncomfortable with further expressions of how proud of him she had been.
They were scarcely halfway up the front walk when the door was opened from within and John Price called to them, “I feared we would be forced to start without you!”
“I explained that you should not bother with cooking,” Catherine remonstrated, hurrying ahead. “You were not even able to join us for the service. The last thing you should be doing—”
But John Price’s chuckle stopped her, and he said, “We do have ourselves a very ample dinner, and I did nothing to prepare it.” He swept his arm toward the kitchen and the three followed him to the doorway.
Anne and Thomas crowded in behind Catherine to stare at the table laden with a half roast, a pot of stew, and several clay jars of compote and jams and honey. There were dried bunches of winter roots and herbs. Pickled mushrooms. A bowl of sea salt. Cider.
“Several came after the service to share with us from their own meal,” John explained.
“I don’t know what to say,” Catherine said weakly.
A voice from the back doorway replied, “Well, I most certainly do.”
“Father!” Anne rushed forward and slipped an arm about Andrew’s frame. Through the robe and nightdress he seemed scarcely more than skin and bones. “How are you feeling?”
“Hungry and impatient to rise from that bed.” He smiled at his wife. “Did Thomas speak well?”
“He made us very proud,” Catherine said softly. She moved forward and embraced him as well.
“Of course he did.” Andrew allowed the two women to help him over to a chair that Thomas held for him. “Perhaps you will do us the honor of saying grace,” he nodded toward his son-in-law. “It seems like years since I last ate anything that did not taste of my daughter’s pungent herbs.”
Chapter 27
Nicole watched as they sailed into a pale gray harbor. New Orleans at midday greeted them with scented mist and noise. After weeks of seaborne solitude, the clamor battered against her ears.
The humid heat was stifling. A strong wind had steadily borne them south around the tip of Florida and then back up the Mexican Gulf. But the breeze was nearly gone, and there was no relief from the damp and sweltering temperature.
The closer they came to the harbor docks, the more she recognized the familiar scents and odors of Louisiana—charcoal and spices and fried dough and roasting hickory coffee. Others came from oily smoke and muddy refuse exposed by the low tide and close-packed humanity.
A harbor pilot had come out by longboat to guide them in. Nicole heard him say to her husband, “With the tide as it is, Captain, I suggest you anchor out from shore and wait for the incoming sea to draw into berth.”
“We have little besides ourselves to offload, sir. I’m quite happy to ride at anchor well away from the docks,” Gordon replied. He paused. “Forgive me for noticing, but I fail to detect any hint of a French accent.”
“Born and raised in Charleston,” the pilot told Gordon. The man was a barrel-chested old salt, with long sideburns thick as fists. “The British burned me out. Made my way down here when I heard they were looking for good pilots.”
“I am sorry to hear of your troubles, sir.”
“That’s the way of it, I suppose.” He shrugged, then pointed at the flag upon the masthead. “You’re flying American colors.”
“That is correct.”
“But you and your crew all have the sound of Limeys, if you don’t mind my saying.” Nicole knew the nickname had come from the new British habit of carrying the tiny fruit on all long voyages and doling them out on a weekly basis. A naval doctor, scoffed at by many, had recently suggested the fruit seemed to help prevent scurvy.
The pilot now told Gordon, “Here’s as good a place as any to drop anchor.”
Gordon turned to where Carter stood beside the wheelmaster. “Come about into the wind.”
“Aye, sir.”
The ship made a graceful sweep until her nose was pointed into the sporadic easterly breeze. The sails flapped so loudly Gordon had to holler, “Release anchors and make her fast.”
The crew leaped nimbly into action, almost running out along the long booms so fast it appeared they did not even require the rope-holds for balance. They gathered up the fluttering sails and tied them into place.
The pilot noted, “A well-trained crew, Captain. They move as if they were trained for battle.”
Gordon understood the man’s unspoken query. “My men and I came to the American cause as a unit.”
“We’re a fair piece removed from anyone who could confirm that. No offense intended.”
“None taken. In such times a wise man always watches his back.” He motioned to Carter. “Bring me the papers.”
Clearly the suspicion had been antici
pated, for Carter reached into the oilskin pouch slung about his shoulder and handed Gordon the packet. Gordon unfolded the letters from the American commandant of the Boston garrison and handed them over.
When the pilot saw the official seal, he murmured his apology. “I have no right to be asking you a thing, sir,” he added.
“I will be frank, sir. I would ask your lay of the land,” Gordon said. “Which means I first require your confidence.”
The pilot accepted the papers, studied them intently, then handed them back. “You’re coming to buy?”
“We are.”
“Then make yourselves ready for many hours of frustration and haggling.” The pilot shook his head somberly. “A more rapacious lot than the New Orleans merchants I have never met.”
Gordon looked him in the eyes, then gave a short nod of gratitude.
The morning after their arrival in New Orleans, Nicole woke up aching from head to foot. Her eyes would not focus, her body poured sweat, the slightest sound threatened to pierce through her head like a lance.
Gordon went ashore to find a practicing physician. The doctor, so rotund he had to be hauled up in the bosun’s chair and then lifted bodily over the side, had the merry countenance of one who lived well.
“A flux,” he declared in French after the most cursory of examinations. “Madame has come under attack from a summer flux.”
Gordon hovered about her bedside. When the news was translated, he asked the doctor, “Will she be all right?”
“Oh, most certainly,” he answered after Nicole’s whispered interpretation. “Madame is young and evidently most strong.”
“What should I do?”
“Madame must remain on board this vessel. The city air is foul this time of year.”
Gordon asked her, “Would you prefer that, my dear?”
Though her head rocked painfully every time the ship shifted at its anchors, this was a more comfortable prospect than lying in a strange bed in an airless hotel. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” she murmured.
The doctor returned twice to check her progress, but Nicole did not learn of this for five very long days, as the fever kept her in a semiconscious state. Even when her fever abated and her strength began returning, the heat lay upon her like an oppressive coverlet.
“I have never been bothered by bayou weather before,” she complained fretfully to Gordon the sixth evening after their arrival.
“This is not the bayou,” he replied from his chair pulled close as possible to the cabin’s open window. A constant clamor drifted in with the humid breeze. “It is the dirty, crowded harbor of a city, one that seems bent upon annoying me at every turn.”
“What is the matter?”
Gordon had discarded his coat and sat with his shirtfront opened against the heat. “Nothing that cannot wait until you are better.” He rose and moved to her bed to once more wet the cloth in a basin, wring it dry, and lay it on her forehead.
“I am truly feeling better already.” She struggled to a sitting position, but he gently pushed her back against the pillows.
“I will tell you this much,” he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Never did I expect to find a group of merchants more frustrating than those in Marblehead. But these Orleans gentlemen have gone those brigands one better.”
“They are greedy?”
“They are the worst of pirates masquerading as gentlemen. They sit in fine parlors and serve coffee scented with roasted chicory from delicate china cups. They claim to be friends and allies both. Yet they refuse to strike a deal.”
“Unless you pay,” Nicole finished.
“Pay in gold,” he confirmed. “At prices beyond belief. We might as well buy what we need from smugglers and privateers. At least then the money will remain within our own borders.”
Nicole could not help but smile.
“You find humor in my news?”
Nicole repeated. “ ‘Do us good. Our borders.’ That is what you said.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” He sat up straighter. “I beg your pardon, my dear. I know your own loyalties cannot be as clear.”
“My loyalties are to God first and then to my husband,” she replied simply. She reached for his hand. “You are a man of great allegiances. It is one of your most endearing traits. When you give yourself to something, you do so totally.”
Gordon gazed out the cabin window, then turned to her. “It’s true, I admit. I have given myself to God, to you, and now to the American cause.”
“My husband,” Nicole said, her voice trembling with emotion, “I am indeed blessed.”
Chapter 28
Anne carefully observed her father for another ten days before she was sure that Andrew was indeed better.
She was in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle’s whistle. She poured water over the herbs knotted with string and resting in the clay mug. She used a spoon to swirl the water about, then pressed the herbs flat and set them aside. Andrew sat at the table, watching her motions with a mild frown. “Is it already time?” he complained.
Anne laughed. “I have added a touch of cinnamon and honey. Perhaps it will go down more easily.” She had three different remedies she was using. The midday herbs were the ones Andrew found most objectionable. “Try this,” she said, lifting the mug to his lips.
He sipped and grimaced but protested no further. Instead he patted the chair beside him. “Sit yourself down a moment. Where is Thomas?”
“I believe he is in the garden with Grandfather.”
“Good.” Andrew waited until Anne had moved to the chair. “I want to thank you again, daughter.”
“There is no need, Father.”
“There is every need.” He lifted his mug. “I have no doubt these remedies of yours are doing me a world of good. But what truly saved me was your love. Seeing you again stirred my spirit so that I could not let go of life yet.”
Anne reached across the table for his free hand. “I am glad,” was all she could bring herself to say.
“Between the war and the distance and leaving your dear boy, I can scarcely imagine the sacrifices you and Thomas endured to come to me. How is our little John?”
“John is fine. Charles is like a second father to him. I’m sure he is fine.”
“Charles. Yes, and his new wife, Judith. So many things to hear about. But not now. That is not what I wanted to speak with you about.”
Andrew’s hand in hers seemed so frail she was afraid to press his fingers too firmly. Only his eyes held the same fervor, the same strength of spirit.
“Anne,” he said, “I wish to share something with you. Coming this close to death has permitted me a few moments of what I can only describe as a divine illumination.”
Anne looked into his face and waited expectantly.
“While Thomas was seated beside me during those long hours,” her father said softly, “talking about the work he shares with you and his fervor for our Lord, I am sure I heard God speak to me. It was not something I would ever have thought to say before now. But that is what happened, I am quite certain of it.”
“What did He tell you?”
Andrew drew himself around. “Let me ask you this, daughter. What would be your response to Thomas studying for the ministry?”
“I would not object. How could I if …” Then, struck by the realization of what Andrew was saying, she whispered, “Oh, Father.”
“I could not raise such a thing with him, not without first talking with you. I do not believe God gave to me an edict. He offeredthis. Do you understand?”
“I’m … I am not certain. Yes, yes, perhaps.” Her mind was a jumble of disconnected thoughts and feelings. “I would love to return here. You know that.”
“I know.”
“But there is little John. And Charles now. All the responsibilities—”
“No one is asking you to decide just now. Of course there would be many considerations.” He seemed to be simply musing aloud. “I wonder
how Charles feels about England at this time.”
“He loves his home, of course. But England?” The answer seemed to be waiting for her. “He despairs of his homeland,” she went on. “It wrenches him, the course his government and his nation is to be taking.”
“So his ties to England are not as strong as they once were.”
“If pressed, I doubt he would feel much of any tie at all just now.”
“Perhaps you might wish to discuss this with him as well.” Andrew turned back to the fire. “The province of Nova Scotia is growing at an unbelievable pace. Georgetown has doubled in size just since this war began. There are problems everywhere. Having a pastor who is also trained in the law could ease the burden many of our poorer brethren carry. Not to mention the fact that here Charles would find numerous avenues for his largess, many people in need of aid, many worthy projects he could bring to fruition.”
Andrew pushed himself up from the table. “I fear I can keep my eyes open no longer. Perhaps you should have a word with your husband. And with the Lord, of course. See if perhaps He will speak with you as well.”
Anne watched her father move slowly toward the door, then folded her hands in front of her on the table.
Andrew slept away much of the afternoon. Anne scrubbed the kitchen, prepared the vegetables and beef stock for the evening meal, rolled out a tray of fresh biscuits, then went to seat herself on the sunlit front bench, intending to give herself over to further reflection and prayer.
In the space of several breaths, she was fast asleep.
The next thing she knew, Catherine was settling herself down beside her. Her market basket was perched on the end of the bench, full of recent purchases.
Anne straightened and pushed her dark curls away from her face. “I must have drifted off.”
Catherine laughed and patted her arm. “I cannot tell you what a tonic it has been having you and Thomas here with us again.”
“Of all the homecomings I have dreamed of since going to England,” Anne replied, “this particular one never occurred to me.”
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