He reached for her hand and prized her fingers open. The rock tipped into her palm.
“See any edges?”
She did not. It was as smooth as every other round rock at their feet.
“This rock probably started out as jagged as the top of that outcrop behind us. Pointy and sharp, I’d say a pounding wave gave it such a walloping, it broke off and fell into the sea, to be sifted on the ocean floor against all the other rocks.”
Finella held the weight between them.
“Point is Finella, you may not think you belong with us, but you have to trust God to show you whether you do or not. This rock fits this beach. Looks just like the others beside it, because it’s been shaped that way. By life. By the storms and the crashes and the beating sun, and now it’s perfect. And it belongs. It has a purpose and it would not fit anywhere else as well as it does here.”
Slow tears fell onto her dress. She hoped they told him what her voice could not.
“We want you here. Molly needs you, and I don’t want to imagine life without you. That’s what muddled would look like.”
Her chest tightened. Still, she said nothing. What could she tell him? That she feared the love for him in her own heart? That she feared Aunt Sarah more?
She wrapped her fingers around the rock. He covered her hand and stroked it with his thumb. A gentle caress, firm enough to let her know he wasn’t going anywhere.
“You don’t have to answer right away. But you need to understand, even if Molly were a million miles away, I would still want you to stay. I would still want you.”
He tilted her chin and brushed his lips across her cheek, through her tears until he touched her mouth with a tenderness she never expected.
“And, if glasses and rocks don’t bring a smile to your face I may have one more thing up my coat sleeve.”
“What’s that?” She dared to breathe the words.
“A letter from your aunt. I dumped it in the skillion when I threw my coat in. Shall we go find it?”
A letter? Word from Aunt Sarah would bring counsel, wouldn’t it? Wisdom from a level head. She could only hope for something less crazy than the notions of her wild, wild heart.
*
They walked together, like they’d never walked before. Shadrach’s arm brushed hers, and every so often he held branches back for her to pass through the gully.
“It’s true. What I said about Molly. She needs you now more than anybody, but if my mother walked out of that thicket alive as you and me, wanting Molly back, I’d still plead with you to stay.”
Finella breathed in the eucalyptus. It no longer filled her chest as it did in the rain. It washed over her now, through the bush on a wisp of air, still pungent. But no longer heavy. It had become a fragrance to enjoy and she realized it also had become a comfort. Like the steady brush of his sleeve against hers when they ducked the tea trees. Like the tug of the black rock in her pocket.
At the open door of the house, Molly threw off her old shoes.
“Now can I try them on?’”
“Yes, you may.” Shadrach called back. “I promised she could walk around in them when we got back.”
“Brother, these laces are different.” Molly’s voice carried through the open door. “Come help.”
Shadrach made a face at Finella.
“My coat’s on the hook just by the door. Why don’t you take a few minutes to read your letter?”
Finella nodded and let him go on. Reading Aunt Sarah’s letter would be the closest thing to speaking with a loved one since Father died. She was glad to read in peace.
But the wall in Shadrach’s skillion held no coat. Finella searched the floor, and found it right where it must have slipped from the nail. She scooped it into her lap and sat on his pallet.
My dearest Finella,
I could not imagine a letter worse than the one you sent about your father’s death at sea.
But I weep with you to read the sorrowful news of Mr. Gleeson’s death. My dear girl, I have prayed and agonized over this tragedy for days now, wanting to help you as best I can.
And so I have secured passage on the Golden Empress, Australia bound. It leaves late next week, God willing with me aboard. The ticketing agent assures me the vessel will sail into a southern summer and deliver us early in the New Year.
I anticipate I will not be far off by the time this reaches you, and I encourage you to hold steadfast the calling shown to you by your father. There may be no Mr. Gleeson to marry, but there will be a man worthy of you, someone honest and faithful to God’s word.
Remember the legacy of your dear parents and their shaping of you for the days ahead. Whatever temporary amusement you may enjoy at Phillip Island, I am sure will equip you for the life God has chosen for when we return to England.
My prayers and courage for the days ahead.
Aunt Sarah.
Finella’s gentle sobs ruffled the pages, but they didn’t go far. Her tears made sure the letter remained weighed down and fixed to her hand.
Aunt Sarah was right. Two losses in as many months, and now two other hearts called her.
And what of the man Aunt Sarah believed she should find? What had she written? Finella looked for the words. Honest. Faithful. Devoted to service.
Wasn’t that Shadrach? If he wasn’t devoted to Molly, then Finella had never seen true devotion. Was he not honest? Had he ever caused her to doubt his integrity or roused her suspicion? He hadn’t. He’d told her all there was about his sad childhood, his longsuffering mother, his often absent and violent father.
He couldn’t furnish the answers George might have found for her, about the thief and his unknown identity. Shadrach’s memories of Ballarat were crowded with the specter of his cruel father, and Finella wouldn’t press him to share more of that misery.
But perhaps Shadrach Jones had something else for Finella. A different kind of freedom. One wrapped in the love only reserved for a man and woman. Could he truly be that man? For her?
She cradled her head and searched for a prayer. How much truly passed from father to son? Dr. Saville implied the children of convicts grew worse than their parents. Was it true? Even Shadrach? Surely not. And certainly not Molly.
Through the open door a gust of wind snuck in, and Aunt Sarah’s letter floated away. One page fell at her feet, the other stopped beside the crate Shadrach used for a table. A table where his weathered Bible sat, on top of papers she’d held… in another lifetime?
Her stomach fluttered. Was this the paper Father had given her in a letter set for her eighteenth birthday? With her own words drawn across the page? Had they tumbled out of one of her trunks?
The flutter in her stomach kicked harder. She gulped hard and snatched the book.
Page after page, she pulled out letters she’d sent from her girlhood home to George Gleeson. They pooled in her lap like the loose threads of a long lost diary, creased and well read, and in the possession of a man who had no right to them.
23
“Find your letter?” Shadrach mopped up stew with Trilloe’s fresh bread.
“I found it.”
Strangled words snapped at his ears, and both he and Molly looked up.
“Aren’t you going to eat with us?” He didn’t like the way Finella stood there, papers in hand. “That must have been a mighty long letter. You’ve been gone ages. Did she write you a book?”
“Not exactly. Two pages. Enough to say how sorry she is for the loss of my fiancé, and let me know her arrival date. First week of the New Year.”
Finella stood straight as a needle and stared at him. He didn’t like it. “Looks like more than two pages you’ve got there. Looks like—”
Finella pressed a page to the table. “This is my aunt’s letter. Page one.” She rummaged through her stack. “And this, is page two.” It floated onto the first as if it were a feather.
A piece of stew stuck in his throat like a fishbone he’d once almost choked on.
“
This page, belongs to another letter. Written to George. A private letter to my dead fiancé.”
“Finella,” he stood, letting his napkin slip to the floor.
“And this,” she rifled through the papers, “also belongs to another letter. The writer is also me. The recipient once again, not you.”
“I can explain. Please–”
“And here, we have letter, after letter, oh and look, more letters. All from me to my fiancé. Private words I wrote to him. Not to you.” She let them float from her hand until they littered the floor. Some fell under the table and one came close to the fire. He snatched it away and laid it with the others.
“Don’t touch my letters.” She slammed her hand on top of the pile to match the rise in her voice. “I don’t know how you came to steal them, but you had no right to take them. Or read them. You, who have always told us to keep out of your skillion, have the nerve to hide something that is not yours in there?”
“Finella, please sit down. Let me tell you how I got them.” He slid a chair out for her.
“I’m not interested in your tales. It’s clear you took these from George before I cleared his things. I always thought my letters were among his other papers. I never thought they were stolen.”
“They were never stolen. Stop saying that.” He fought to keep exasperation from rising.
“What should I say? The letters got up from wherever George kept them and hid themselves in your skillion?”
She pressed trembling hands to her red cheeks. “I can’t even remember what I wrote in half of them. Some were written just after my eighteenth birthday. How could you read them and not know it was wrong?”
“Listen, I’ll tell you, but you have to calm down.” He patted the chair back. “Will you sit?”
She sank into the seat.
He licked his dry lips. “George gave me your last letter. Do you remember me having it, at Queen’s Wharf? I had a photograph of you and your father, too. You know he gave me that letter, and photograph. You believe me about that, yes?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It was a means of identification.”
He knelt beside her. “George gave me that photograph, along with all your letters. In a bundle. He wanted me to have them. All. Don’t shake your head. It’s the truth.”
“Why would he do that? Why wasn’t one letter and photograph enough?” Her eyes demanded the truth he was not prepared to admit. “Shadrach?” Her voice softened. “Tell me.”
He looked away from her tears. “George gave them to me so I could learn more about you.”
Neither of them spoke.
“Why?” she finally ventured. “I didn’t come here for you. I came here to marry George.” Wrapped in pain her words came at him like an arrow to a target. Still, he knew his words would inflict the worst pain.
“He knew he was dying. He did it to protect you. Thought if someone stepped in to care for you and your father…”
She recoiled. “He knew?” she whispered. “You knew he was dying?”
She flattened her hand to her chest. “You all knew?”
“I knew.” Molly joined in from her place at the table. She’d long stopped eating. “And Mrs. Lawson. And about the promise to get married.”
Finella’s face caved. “Married?”
“Molly, hold your tongue.” He rolled a look at his sister that would have silenced any fourteen year old. But Molly wasn’t looking at him.
“What do you mean…get married?” Finella’s angry flush deepened. He wanted to take her hand again, but she twisted them into fists and pressed them to her lips.
“I guess people have inklings when death approaches. George asked me to care for you. And your father. If anything happened.” Shadrach cringed at the awkward way he said it.
“George passed me off to you?” She labored to breathe. “And you… accepted? Just like that?” She leaned as far from him as the chair allowed.
“George was a good friend. He showed me more about God’s love than any man ever had. Or probably ever will. He had time for me when others thought little of the poor farm hand with nothing to his name.”
“Still, who makes a promise like that?” Her voice quivered. “All these weeks, I thought I was here for Molly. Now you tell me even she knew the real reason. To keep a promise to George?” She shook her head. “Who gives away the girl they were going to marry?”
She stood and searched the room. There was nowhere to hide. For either of them now. She swung back.
“All this time, you’ve been reading my letters to get to know me better? To find out ways to tip me into a marriage you and George devised while the man fought delirium? Are you as crazy as he?”
He’d heard enough. “What’s so crazy about it? You didn’t think it was crazy an hour ago when we talked on the beach. What’s so crazy about opening your mind and heart to a possibility? Yes, I agreed to help George. Out of loyalty to him. It was crazy. But it isn’t anymore. Not to me.” He let his words simmer down. “It’s something more than crazy, and if you stopped long enough to think about it, you would see the gift George gave us.”
She blinked through tears. “I thought you were a man I could trust. Someone who didn’t stoop to deceit. I was warned this country echoed with cheaters and thieves. I didn’t think you were one of them. But now, I’m not so sure. Not when I discover I was a mere possession. Secretly passed from one man to another.”
He wanted to stem her pain but his words failed each time. He reached for her but she pulled away, breathing harder.
“You knew George was dying and kept it from me. And conspired to get me here and somehow, I don’t know how exactly, use whatever childish thought I may have expressed in old letters to get into my head and …what?” She pointed to the lemonade set. “Win my heart with trinkets and fancies you detest anyway?”
“Finella. Please, listen.” He heard the pleading in his voice, and hoped it would speak through her anger. “This is so much more about what I love now, than what I ever detested. Can’t you see that? You’re twisting it the wrong way.”
Her fists hung by her side. “How did you and George plan to twist it? Was this discovery part of your plan? Did you think I’d be pleased when I found out your scheme?”
“You didn’t mind when your father made plans. You were pleased to marry at his suggestion.”
“I was a child, trained to obey. And as you so rightly told me yourself, I have a mind of my own and I don’t need anyone to plot my course anymore.”
“Your father loved you and wanted the best for you. So did George.”
She dug into her pocket. “George marooned me here under false assumptions. I have him to thank for being laughed at behind my back, and you for toying with my affections right under my nose.”
She tossed his rock onto the table where it toppled the lemonade jug with a sickening splinter and crack, right there on the tabletop with more scars than a table should ever hold.
24
Finella’s heart didn’t normally slam in church. She preferred the calm of sliding into her seat and resting in the prayerful solace only Sundays brought. Today, she battled a prickle of nerves.
Shoulder to shoulder, the little white church crammed with parishioners, some she’d not seen before. Upright and alert, perhaps the entire district sought to allay their curiosity, and take a long look at the new preacher.
He bellowed the hymns as if he’d penned the words himself. But when the hymnals were laid down, he leaned into the pulpit, long arms draped over it as if it had always been his.
“My parents hated God. He was nothing more than a curse word most days.”
Less heat would have flooded her cheeks if Goliah Ashe upended a sack of unwashed pantaloons onto the church floor.
“They encountered Him when they were only a few years off meeting their maker.” His voice did not waver.
“But they lived most of their lives ignorant of God. Most of what they’d heard was wrong. At best, inadequate.�
� The new preacher introduced himself. His voice resonated off the timber walls, and not one sleepy head dipped at the sound.
“That’s how I ended up with my name. They thought Goliath was a giant hero. Someone mentioned him in a tale and they figured it would be a good name for a strong boy. Problem was, they didn’t know the whole story and saddled me with something I have to explain each time I shake a stranger’s hand.”
A chuckle from young Simon Callahan didn’t stop the preacher’s stride.
“But I can tell you my name is one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me. It made me want to know the real Goliath. And I was not impressed.” He fingers tightened around the pulpit.
“However, I was impressed with David. Soon I became impressed with David’s God. I found myself wanting to know more.” He speared the youths with a look. “What I’m trying to tell you, good people, is God draws us to Him in different ways. But He does draw us. He calls and invites, but He never insists. Your name, your background, your circumstances, none of these things matter. What matters is how you’re going to respond to God’s love and forgiveness. Where you’ll let him direct you in the days to come.”
Like a cool wind, his words draped Finella with an unexpected freshness, and all eyes remained focused on Goliah Ashe, the man who stood in the imprint of her George.
Even Molly did not fidget. She listened to the man’s story, woven with words of scripture and somehow by the end of the morning, a sermon on God’s love had been delivered, couched in the story of the man with the foolish name.
For a few luxurious minutes Finella forgot how many churchgoers might know about Shadrach’s promise to George. Instead, she let herself concentrate on the echo of the new preacher’s words.
“God’s rewarded me for seeking Him. In that search I also found my real self, and in doing so became the man I’ve been able to offer to this beautiful woman you see sitting here. May I introduce my dear wife, Agatha Ashe.”
He beamed and she stood and bowed before quickly resuming her seat. “My wife would’ve arrived with me earlier this week, but remained in Sydney to attend to her younger sister who became a mother for the first time last month. I am indebted to her for following me here when she would have liked to stay longer, but she believes as much as I do, this is where she belongs.”
Carry Me Home Page 17
