Shadows of Love

by Gail MacMillan

  Chapter Eleven

  “Let’s run away, Colin.”

  I made my startling proposal when we returned from a sleigh ride the following afternoon. Astonished, my husband halted the horse and turned to me.

  “Run away? Where would we go? What would we do?”

  “We could be itinerant musicians.” I rushed ahead with my idea when I saw he was willing to hear me out. “There’s a dearth of entertainment in this country in winter. Your father would never find us among the small villages and lumber camps of this province. Say you'll agree! I cannot tolerate your father’s pushing and shoving at us any longer.”

  And, I continued in my heart, I cannot bear to sit passively in that academy and await the news that Barret Madison has been lost at sea.

  “Of course, Starr!” He startled me by agreeing when I paused for breath. “It’s a wonderful idea! We can do it, I know we can.”

  “Of course we can,” I echoed. “Together we’re invincible.”

  “Yes.” He flapped the reins to start the horse. “I believe we are. And your idea comes at a perfect time. I was concerned about returning home. You see, Father didn’t send me to spend Christmas with you. I knew Barret was sailing for Halifax before the river froze, to be ready for his New Year’s voyage to London. I asked him to allow me to stow away. I’m already a runaway.”

  “Oh, Colin, you’re delightful.” I laughed, clutching his arm and giving it a squeeze. “Now we can really begin our life together.”

  ****

  At midnight that same night, I stole out of the academy dressed in boy’s woolen breeches, fur hat and coat, and high-laced leather moccasins which Colin had provided. My most practical clothes, along with a couple of elegant gowns I deemed suitable for performing, were packed into the carpetbag I carried.

  Colin, in the rough homespun of a woodsman, his guitar slung on his back, was waiting for me with a pair of saddled horses behind the school. We rode off into the sub-zero chill of a star-sprinkled night.

  Confident we could make good our escape, I had left Mrs. Lambert a note pinned to my pillow. She was not to worry, I had written. My husband and I were going away to be alone together. It would be days, perhaps weeks, before she could get word of our defection to Abraham Douglas in Pine.

  For several weeks Colin and I met with success both in our escape attempt and our efforts to survive by our talents. Winter after Christmas in this country was a hard, bleak time. Inns, taverns, and even logging camps welcomed any form of entertainment that would ease the tedium of grueling cold and backbreaking work.

  Colin came into his own during those early days of our escape. Given the position of the man of our small family and therefore my protector, he became self-confident, ready to meet any challenge to our wellbeing or safety.

  His newly found self-assurance was demonstrated one bitterly cold January night when a drunken lumber man attempted to grab me during a performance. Within seconds, Colin’s fist had connected with the man’s bearded jaw and sent him sprawling across the floor.

  As two of his fellows moved in to revenge their fallen friend, Colin planted his feet squarely apart and thrust aside his frock coat to reveal a pistol stuck in his belt, a knife hanging in a scabbard beside it.

  “The lady is my wife, gentlemen,” he said. “I insist you show her proper respect. Come, my love. I think it’s time we left these people to their own forms of entertainment.”

  Putting me behind him, he backed us out of the room. I was trembling with delighted excitement. This was all part of the adventure, and I was reveling in it.

  We continued to travel and perform through the months of January, February, and most of March. Sometimes we received only bed and board for ourselves and stabling for our horses; other times, a collection taken among the audience yielded coin. We were happy, free, and prospering…until Colin caught a chill.

  It happened late one afternoon during the last week of March, after our horses had plunged through the shell ice of a river near Truro, Nova Scotia. We were soaked to the waist. By the time we’d found a tavern willing to take us in, it was pitch dark and bitterly cold. As we made our way upstairs to the room the landlord had offered, Colin was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Get into bed and I’ll bring you a hot drink,” I ordered him. “Rum, if I can get it, with lots of butter.”

  “But we promised a show,” he protested, as I removed his jacket and shoved him down on the bed to pull off his frozen boots.

  “I promised a show,” I reminded him of my exact words to the landlord. “A low-cut gown, a few up-flips of my skirt, and he’ll never notice you’re missing.”

  “Starr, no! I hate when you…flaunt yourself for money.”

  I unbuckled his belt, opened his trousers, and pushed him back on the bed to strip him from the waist down.

  “Flaunt myself? Poor baby, just look at yourself!” I tried to tease him as I pulled off his clothes.

  “Dear God, Starr!” He grabbed a quilt and quickly pulled it over his nakedness.

  “Sweetheart, I’m joking.” I bent to kiss his flushed cheek and was appalled at the fire in it. “Rest. I’ll put on a little show, then bring us up a nice, warm dinner. And I promise, I won’t flaunt myself…unnecessarily.”

  “Starr…!”

  “Teasing, love, only teasing. Rest.”

  When I returned to our room after a successful performance, a tray of hot venison stew, biscuits, and tea in my hands, I found Colin feverish. He ate only a little of the meal before pulling the quilts to his throat and rolling up in a ball, shuddering with chills. I built up the fire in the small stove in the room, pulled off my dress, and joined him beneath the covers.

  “Hold me, Colin,” I said. “Let me warm you with my body.”

  He obeyed, and soon, lulled to sleep, he settled against me.

  ****

  Colin was worse the next morning. When I awoke in what I took to be pre-dawn darkness, I found our bed damp with his sweat. His face had a ghastly pallor, his breathing labored and rasping.

  “Colin,” I said sitting up and touching his burning shoulder. “Colin, love.”

  “Mother,” he gasped, arousing and staring up at me. His face was wet with sweat, his lips dry and cracked. “Mother, I don’t want to go back to the timber camp. Tell Papa…please tell Papa.”

  “Colin, it’s me, Starr, your wife,” I said. “Wake up, love. You’re dreaming.”

  But he grasped me with fiery hands and continued, “Mother, he hates me…he hates my music. Let’s leave him. We’ll go to your home in Vienna.” Then his grip relaxed, his eyes closed, and he fell back, unconscious, onto his pillows.

  I sprang from the bed to dress in shirt and breeches. I must get a doctor. Surely there must be one in the area. I pulled on my fur-lined moccasins in the faint glow from the embers winking out through the stove’s drafts.

  Not wanting to arouse Colin, I tiptoed to the door, coat and hat in hand, and tried to open it. It did not budge. I wrenched at it. I had to get out; I had to get a doctor. Colin could be dying!

  My best efforts failed. I stumbled to the window and threw aside the heavy tartan draperies. I found it shuttered and secured from outside. Colin and I were prisoners.

  Panic gripping me, I ran back to the door and pounded on it. “Let us out! My husband is ill! I must fetch a doctor!”

  My fists were smarting when a key turned in the lock and the door swung open. It let in a flood of light behind the big Scotsman who was the landlord. Two of his stable hands stood behind him.

  “Thank God!” I breathed. “My husband is ill. He needs a doctor.”

  I tried to rush past them, but the landlord caught me by the arm.

  “You’ll no be goin’ anywhere, lassie,” he said. “You and the lad are to remain our guests for a few days.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You and the lad are fugitives.” He shoved me back inside. “I saw a notice in Halifax last week offering one hundred pounds’ reward fo
r the apprehension of one Colin Douglas, blond-haired, blue-eyed, six feet tall, twenty years of age, believed traveling with his wife, a honey-haired lass of eighteen. You two fit that description to a T, so I’ll just be keepin’ the pair of you until Abe Douglas sends someone to identify you and make good his offer. I’ve already sent word to his agent in Halifax that I have you both in my custody. Now it’s just a matter of time before I’m a much richer man.”

  “How dare he!” I was outraged. “How dare he offer a reward for our capture! We’re not criminals, nor his property. You have no right to hold us.”

  “Abraham Douglas is a wealthy, powerful man.” The Scotsman shrugged. “He can do as he pleases.”

  “If you must hold us,” I said, seeing no way out, “at least get my husband a doctor. If you don’t see to his care, he’ll die before you can collect your reward.”

  “Lassie, there’s nay a doctor for miles. My boys will tend him as best they can. After that, he either lives or dies. It’s the best I can do.”

  ****

  For the next four days Colin and I were held prisoners in that locked and shuttered room. The landlord and his men brought us hearty meals, fresh linen, and hot buttered rum, and saw to our other needs. We were waited on, almost pampered. Our jailer wanted us in good condition when Abe’s envoy arrived to collect us and pay him.

  I did not consider an escape attempt. Colin had grown worse, far too ill to travel, and I would not leave him. Often he was delirious and cried out for his mother or Barret.

  Finally, on a blustery March afternoon, the Scotsman came to take me down to the common room.

  “A gentleman sent by Abraham Douglas has come to fetch you,” he said as he led me down the stairs. “Master of the old man’s fleet, he says he is.”

  I caught my breath at his words and then was on the threshold of the common room, facing Barret Madison.

  “Mrs. Douglas.” Those two words warned me against familiarity.

  “Captain,” I replied, holding my head high, although I longed to rush into his arms, weak with relief that he was safe. “So you’ve come to drag us back.”

  “Aye, madame. I’ve already paid this good man for his trouble. Now take me to your husband. I want to be on our way as soon as possible. This day is working itself into a spring blizzard frenzy. I have no wish to be caught abroad in it. Mr. Colin is unwell, I understand?”

  He took my arm and headed me toward the stairs. “We’ll not be requiring any further assistance, landlord,” he said over his shoulder to the Scotsman, who had made a move to accompany us. “I’ll take charge of the two of them from now on.”

  “Barret.” Colin’s fever-cracked lips moved with an effort as he recognized his friend. “Take…Starr… home. I’m too sick…to care…for her…any longer.”

  “I’ve come to take you both home, brother,” Barret said, his tone gentle and reassuring. “I have horses and a sleigh outside. Now,” he said, sitting down beside Colin on the edge of the bed. “What is it?”

  “My chest.” Colin choked. “It hurts…to breathe.”

  “How could you have allowed this to happen?” The captain swung on me, gray eyes as cold as the day.

  “I didn’t know he’d get sick.”

  “Didn’t know? In God’s name, girl, where is your common sense? He had pneumonia only a little over two years ago, just before his mother died. You can’t be so ignorant as not to know that once a person has had that illness, he’s forever vulnerable to it.”

  I should have recalled his telling me about his illness; I should have guessed it had been pneumonia, although he’d never actually named it. I should never have allowed him to be in a position where he could contract it again. Oh, dear God, how could I bear the guilt if he died?

  “I can’t breathe,” Colin gasped. He looked up at Barret. “My chest pains.”

  “You need rest and a good doctor,” Barret said. “I’ll see you get both. Starr,” he turned to me, his tone moderating from that which he’d previously raked over me. “Get your belongings together. We’re leaving.”

  ****

  The drive back to Halifax was a bitterly cold act of madness. All through the blustery late afternoon and halfway through the harsh night that followed, Barret drove the powerful team he’d brought to collect us, drove with unrelenting savagery. When they dared slow their pace or faltered in a drift, he arose from his seat to crack his whip over their steaming flanks and roar curses until they once more floundered forward. Like a man obsessed, he kept the sweating horses moving, accepting nothing but their most valiant efforts. In the rear of the sleigh, wrapped in furs and drugged with laudanum, Colin slumbered.

  I kept my peace until one of the horses fell in a belly-high drift. Barret rose and brought the whip down on the animal’s sweating rump. The mare screamed and stumbled, trembling, to her feet.

  “Stop!” I grabbed his upraised arm as he prepared to strike her again. “She’s exhausted! If you don’t rest this team, they’ll never get us to Halifax.”

  He paused and lowered his arm.

  “You’re right,” he said, and leaped from the sleigh to throw robes over the wet horses. Leaving them standing heaving for breath, he rejoined me. For a few minutes, we sat in silence. Then I spoke.

  “Was your voyage to London a success? Did Colin’s father get the mail contract?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows how such decisions are reached. The governor is still undecided. Are contracts awarded on proof of ability? Or on government patronage? I only know I gave it my best effort. Now it’s up to Randall.” He paused and heaved a weary sigh. “I lost two of my men in the process.”

  “You mean they deserted?” I asked, amazed. “Surely no one would dare desert the Commodore of Abraham Douglas’s fleet.”

  “No, I mean lost…dead. They froze to death chopping ice from the rigging to keep the Maris Stella from capsizing with the spray frozen to her masts. Abe’s proof of ability had a very high price tag.”

  “Barret, I’m sorry.” I felt his pain and regret as if it were my own. I put my gloved hand on his arm.

  “Don’t,” he muttered, pulling away. “I’ve been at sea for weeks, with only men as companions. I have needs, Starr, fierce needs after weeks of celibacy. To be touched by you, of all people, makes them even worse.”

  I nodded. Tears trickled down my cold cheeks.

  “Starr, don’t, please. You’ll break my heart, chèrie.”

  “Drive on, please.” I swung away from him and assumed my role as Mrs. Colin Douglas, loyal wife and haughty prisoner of the womanizing Captain Madison. “I do not wish to have my reputation sullied by being caught abroad and, for all practical purposes, alone with you at night. Let us get to Halifax as quickly as possible.”

  “Aye, Mrs. Douglas, ma’am,” he responded gruffly. “The sooner I’m rid of you and your invalid spouse, the better.”

  He jumped from the sleigh to take the covers from the horses, and I pulled the buffalo robes more snugly about me. The heavy wraps did nothing to prevent sharp, piercing ice crystals from forming about my heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You did a rash thing in encouraging my son to forsake his responsibilities,” Abraham said as I stood before his huge mahogany desk a month later. “You realize that now, I presume?”

  “No,” I said defiantly. “I did what I thought best for both of us. My only regret is that we did not succeed.”

  “Damn you!” he roared. “The only reason I tolerate your impudence is in the hope you’ll one day pass some of that indomitable spirit on to Colin’s children. God knows they’ll need all they can get.”

  He came to stand before me, his thumbs hooked into his vest.

  “Colin is recovering, but he’s still very weak,” he said, his tone cooling. “And you’re still slim as a reed and will remain that way for some time, as a result. I believe you’re quite content with that circumstance.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Shut up, you pie
ce of baggage!” He leaned toward me—and for a moment I thought he meant to grab me. “Shut up and do as I say, or I’ll have you thrown so far out into the wilderness not even God Himself will be able to find you.”

  I could barely prevent myself from cowering before his fury. I knew he meant every word. I didn’t speak.

  “That’s more like it.” When I failed to retort, he turned and walked away.

  At a window he paused and drew aside a lace undercurtain to look out at the village. His village, I realized, feeling his power.

  “Randall says Colin will need rest and a congenial climate to recover fully,” he said, his gaze on the river flowing cold and black between shores still edged with melting April ice. “When he can travel, I’m sending the two of you to an island in the Caribbean. I have a pleasant cottage there. You’ll enjoy the climate. It relaxes the inhibitions and arouses natural urges. I’m confident you’ll return to this house pregnant.”

  “Mr. Douglas, I love Colin,” I said. “He doesn’t have to give me a child to strengthen our relationship.”

  “Damn it, girl!” He swung on me, his face reddening. “I don’t care about sentimentality and philosophizing—I want a grandson. Now go to your husband and try to help him back to whatever pretensions to manhood he once had.”

  With as much haughty dignity as I could muster, I strode out of the room. Once beyond the office door, I collapsed against the foyer wall, my knees too weak to support me. I understood why strong men cringed before my father-in-law and were made to feel both hatred and respect for him

  ****

  “He ordered us to have a child, Colin,” I said as I came to the bed in a white silk nightshift that same evening. “He said we must.”

  Colin, lying on his back beneath the covers, moved uneasily in chagrined agitation. “Do you want a baby, Starr?” he asked. “Do you want my baby?”

  “I love you, Colin. I could love your child.”

  “But do you need a baby to hold us together?” he asked, looking up at me with harried eyes.