Dawn on a Distant Shore

by Sara Donati

  “We’ll read it together,” Elizabeth said firmly. “I’ll see if we can get a copy before we set sail.”

  There was a carriage in front of the door when they arrived back at Aunt Merriweather’s lodgings, with gold trim and an elaborate crest upon the door. Elizabeth caught sight of a young man waiting inside, lolled back against the cushions.

  “Someone has come to call,” she said to Nathaniel, and seeing the reluctant look on his face, she said, “I don’t care to sit with them, either. Let us go in through the kitchen entrance and see if we can avoid the visit.”

  Curiosity was waiting for them in the upstairs parlor. When they came in she said, “A letter came while you were away.”

  “A letter?” Elizabeth drew off her bonnet and put it on the table.

  “From my Galileo,” said Curiosity. “He sent it to Oakmere and they sent it up here.” She stood and breathed deep, put back her shoulders and then smiled. Elizabeth smiled, too, realizing now that she had been holding her breath for bad news.

  “Go on,” Curiosity said. “Read it out loud, Elizabeth.”

  To my dear Wife, Curiosity Freeman

  Our good daughter Polly writes this for me, with a quill I sharpened for her and the ink you made of dried blackberries last December. May the Almighty God hear our prayer and send you home to us healthy.

  Lung-Fever has come to plague us here in Paradise. The Lord spared our girls and their husbands and this tired old man. Manny fell ill but his sisters nursed him back to health. The Judge is took right hard with it, but Daisy is nursing him and it look like he has weathered the storm. For the Lord thy God is a merciful God.

  We ain’t seen Kitty since she took Ethan away to Albany, nor did we have word of her till just yesterday. She and the boy are well. She writes that last week she was married to Dr. Richard Todd. They say they will come home to Paradise in the fall, when the Fever is run its course and the Lord sees fit to lift this yoke.

  Yesterday evening I went up Hidden Wolf to see how the folks there were faring and found the place deserted except for Runs-from-Bears. He is in good health. The women are gone to stay with their people in Canada, and Otter with them. I am sorry to pass on the news that Liam Kirby ran off some weeks ago when the affliction came upon us and he ain’t been seen since. I know Hannah will be sorry to hear it, too.

  The girls want you to know that they have set plenty of beans and onions and pomkin. The spring grass is sweet and the livestock getting fat. God willing, Daisy will bring our first grandchild into this world in the late fall. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to behold.

  Now in the warm months the Miseries have left my back, but the Lord’s truth is this: the house is mighty quiet these days, but there’s no peace to be found here with you gone. Hurry home.

  Your loving husband of these many years

  Galileo Freeman

  Paradise, New-York State

  writ this sixth day of May in the Year of our

  Merciful Lord 1794

  “I don’t know what I dread more,” Curiosity said. “Telling your aunt about Kitty and Richard, or telling Hannah about Liam running off.”

  Elizabeth sat down and spread the letter out on her lap, ran her finger over the finely formed letters. She said, “What do you think it means, Nathaniel?”

  He shrugged, his face impassive. “I don’t know. Maybe Richard is hoping we won’t come home at all, thinking he’s still got a chance at getting Hidden Wolf.”

  They were silent for a moment, each of them thinking about that and what trouble it would mean.

  “Poor Liam,” said Elizabeth finally. “He lost faith in us, and I cannot say that I blame him very much. They have been a long time without word.”

  “Well, I admit it ain’t the best news,” said Curiosity, getting up. “But my folks are alive and well, and so are yours. Up at Carryckcastle they got four new graves, you’ll remember. I’d say the Lord has been generous.”

  Elizabeth turned to Nathaniel, who was lost in his own thoughts, and far away—perhaps in Canada, with the boy he had already claimed as a son before he had ever seen him by daylight.

  “Don’t you think so, Nathaniel?” Curiosity pushed him.

  He nodded. “Generous, indeed.”

  A soft scratching at the door, and Aunt Merriweather’s waiting-woman came in. Maria had been in service at Oakmere for twenty years and Elizabeth had rarely seen her flustered, but now she was very much ill at ease. “Lady Crofton begs your company in the lower parlor.”

  “Who has come to call, Maria?” Elizabeth asked.

  “A Miss Somerville, mum,” said Maria, as she might have said the devil’s bride.

  “Lordy,” said Curiosity, getting up with new energy. “I don’t much like the woman, but I got to give her credit for landing on her feet. And imagine that, Giselle and Merriweather together in the same room. The feathers must be flying a good mile high.”

  Maria gave a tight little nod. “If you could come straightaway—”

  “Where’s my father, do you know?” Nathaniel asked. “She’ll want to talk to him, too.”

  “Yes, she has asked for him repeatedly,” Maria said. The sound of raised voices came up the stairwell, and she jumped nervously. “But Mr. Bonner went out with the viscount, sir. Some time ago. Please—”

  “We’ll be right there,” Nathaniel said. “You can go tell her that.”

  “Soon as we prime the pistols,” muttered Curiosity.

  Elizabeth said, “I’m wearing her gown.” And heard for herself how odd this sounded: Giselle Somerville had sought them out—the mother of Nathaniel’s firstborn son had sought them out—and all she could think of was the gown she was wearing. But Nathaniel seemed to dread this meeting as much as she did, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  “We knew she might be in Edinburgh, looking for some sign of us,” he said. “Once she hears what we have to tell her, she won’t care what you’ve got on your back. She’ll be on a ship to Canada as fast as she can find one.”

  They heard the irritated thump of Aunt Merriweather’s cane as they came down the stairs, three sharp taps that did not bode well. Elizabeth was reminded of the day her aunt had confronted Julian about the real extent of his gambling debt.

  Nathaniel looked very serious, but Curiosity did not seem concerned. Her grin did not leave her until the moment that the footman opened the door for them.

  “Obstinate woman.” Another three taps of the cane. Her aunt’s head swiveled around toward them on its long neck, and Elizabeth saw two things straight off: she was terribly irritated, and she was actually enjoying herself.

  Before her stood Giselle Somerville, as finely dressed as she had ever been in a round gown of dark gold Indian ikat muslin. She wore a turban of silk gauze on her head, and a fiery expression. She took no note of Elizabeth at all, her attention focusing immediately on Nathaniel.

  “This lady refuses to tell me where to find your father,” she said. “My business is with him, if what she says is true and Rob MacLachlan is dead.”

  “It’s true, all right,” said Curiosity. “God rest his immortal soul.”

  Aunt Merriweather’s eyes had narrowed. “If what I say is true? If? Let me warn you again, Miss Somerville, I will not tolerate such impudence, such incivility. How dare you come here with such scandalous falsehoods?”

  “Aunt,” Elizabeth interrupted gently. “I think it would be best if Miss Somerville and Nathaniel were to have a word together, alone.”

  “My business is with Dan’l Bonner,” Giselle said imperiously. “I have nothing to discuss with his son.”

  Under Elizabeth’s hand, all the muscles in Nathaniel’s arm were tense but his voice came steady. He said, “I know about the boy.”

  Aunt Merriweather turned as red in the face as Giselle was pale, but for once she was silenced by her surprise.

  Giselle went still. “Very well, your father told you about him. And?”

  “He ain’t
in France.”

  Some color came back into her cheeks. “Is it true, then. He’s in Montréal. And my mother?”

  “Your mother, too. We need to talk.”

  “I will make no apologies.” Giselle was struggling desperately, but her composure had been taken from her for once and Elizabeth was struck suddenly with a memory of that moment on the dock at Québec when she realized that her children were gone, and she could not call them back. It had torn a hole in her. Giselle had been living with that for eighteen years.

  And maybe Nathaniel saw it, too, because his voice softened. “I don’t want any apologies,” he said. “I’m as much to blame for what happened. But I’ll tell you what you need to know. And something else—there’s a place at Carryck for the boy, and for you, too, if you want it.”

  “Nathaniel,” said Aunt Merriweather, regaining her voice and the use of her cane, one thump for each word: “What does this mean?”

  “Aunt,” Elizabeth said. “Let them discuss this matter in private. I promise, I will make everything clear to you.”

  • • •

  Late in the night, Elizabeth woke to the whisper of a misting rain. She had dreamed of Margreit MacKay and of Isabel, too. Women she had known for such a short time while they lived, and still they seemed determined to accompany her on the voyage home. Perhaps Robbie would come, too, if she thought of him hard enough. Perhaps all the dead were that close, and only waited to be summoned.

  Nathaniel turned in his sleep. When he had come to her after his long talk with Giselle, the telling of what had passed between them had been slow and awkward, more questions raised than answered. Listening to him, Elizabeth realized that it was not their son who had forged an uneasy bond between Nathaniel and Giselle, but the uncertainty they shared. Luke was a stranger to them both, and might never be anything else.

  “I wish I had spent more time talking to him, that night in Montréal.”

  It was the last thing Nathaniel said before he fell into a sleep so deep that he did not stir when she rose to go to the window to look over the streets of Edinburgh, glistening damp in the lantern light, and in the distance, someplace, the sea.

  She had once made the trip to Paradise full of dreams and visions of herself as a teacher. Now she made it again, and some of those same dreams were still with her, and within her grasp. The Lord has been generous, she whispered to herself. A prayer of acknowledgment and thanksgiving, the only one that would come to her now in spite of the dangers that lay ahead.

  It turned out that Nathaniel was awake after all, coming up silently behind her to put a hand on her shoulder. She was shivering, and he slipped his arms around her.

  “Goodness,” she said softly. “Tomorrow you must get us all onto a ship in spite of the Breadalbanes, and here you stand. You need your rest.”

  “Ah, Boots. The bed’s no good to me without you in it.”

  He felt her smile as she rocked back against him.

  “So what are you looking at?”

  “The first light of dawn,” she said, pointing. “I imagine I can see all the way home.”

  It was a rare gift she had, this ability to look ahead, through the loss and heartache, beyond the hardship, to see so clearly the possibilities that waited for them. If they could be strong, if they could persevere.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “Do you hear the sea? Tomorrow there will be a good strong wind to take us home.”

  Epilogue

  Miss Hannah Bonner

  Lake in the Clouds

  Paradise, New-York State

  Dear Squirrel,

  Now that your half brother and his mother have settled in at Carryckcastle, I suppose it’s time I keep my promise and write and tell what there is to say. Truth be tolt, tis no an easy task. Ye’ll want to hear guid tidings, and there’s little comfort in the tale I’ve got to tell.

  He’s a slink mannie, is Luke. Tall and braw and bonnie, and slee as a fox. Cook calls him luvey, and bakes him tarts wi the last o the pippins. The Earl bought him a mare the likes o which ye’ll no see in all Scotland, as black as the devil and that smart, too. The lasses come up the brae for no guid reason but to sneiter and bat their eyelashes at him, and then run awa when Giselle catches sight o them. Even my mother smiles at Luke for all she looks daggers at me and makes me wear shoes. And what does it matter that I’m eleven years? I fear it has to do wi marriage, for it is first since she stood up wi the Earl that she’s turned so unreasonable. My only hope for a peaceful life is Luke’s mother, wha seems a reasonable woman (for all her lace and silk, she doesna mind what others wear on their feet or heids, either, and she is generous wi her stories o how she outfoxed the Pirate). They’ve become great friends, his mother and mine, and they sit tegither in the evening. If I’m aye chancie, some o Giselle will rub off and my mother will leave me be.

  I must be fair and report that Luke is a hard worker and there’s naught mean-spirited in him, but he’s an awfu tease and worse luck he’s guid at it, in Scots and English both. I’ll admit that he’s no so donnert as he first seems, for all his quiet ways. It would suit me much better were he witless, for my father has decided that since my guid cousin kens French and Latin (taught to him by his grandmother in Canada, he says, and what grandmother teaches Latin, I want to know?), I must learn them, too, never mind that I speak Scots and English and some of the old language, too, having learned it from Mairead the dairymaid. But the Earl would no listen and so I sit every afternoon wi Luke, no matter how fine the weather. And just this morn I heard some talk o mathematics and philosophy, to make my misery complete.

  He’s aye hard to please, is Luke, but when he’s satisfied wi my progress, he’ll talk o Lake in the Clouds, and then it seems to me that he misses the place, in spite o the fact that he spent so little time wi ye there. And he tells outrageous stories o trees as far as a man can see and hidden gold and wolves that guard the mountain and young Daniel catching a rabbit wi his bare hands, and then I ken that he’s a true Scott o Carryck, for wha else could tell such tales and keep a straight face all the while? But my revenge is this: I wear a bear’s tooth on a string around my neck, and he has nothing but the scapular my father gave him when first he came and took the name Scott.

  I’m sorry to say that I canna like your brother near as much as I like you. But tell me this, as you’re as much my cousin as is Luke, do ye no think it’s time for me to visit ye in Paradise? Perhaps the Earl would let me come, if your grandfather were to ask him.

  My mother sends her greetings, and bids me write that the pear tree she had planted ower Isabel’s grave has borne its first fruit this summer.

  Your cousin and true friend,

  Jennet Scott of Carryckcastle

  First day of September in the Year of Our Lord 1795

  Author’s Note

  Carryckcastle, Carryckton, and Aidan Rig are fictional places, just as the Earl of Carryck and his family are fictional. Real characters pop up throughout the story, however, and they include General Major Phillip Schuyler and his wife, Catherine; Sir Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester, and his wife, Maria, Lady Dorchester; Anne Bonney, pirate; Robert Burns, exciseman and poet; Willie Fisher; Flora, Countess of Loudoun; John Campbell, 4th Earl of Breadalbane, chief of the Glenorchy line, and Flora’s guardian.

  While Carryck is a fictional character, the religious and political conflicts which define his character and his relationship to the nonfictional Campbells were all too real. Also very real were the growing tensions between England, British Canada, and the young United States. In 1794, the United States did try to ship grain to France in an attempt to relieve the great hunger which resulted from the British blockade. The ensuing naval battle in which Hawkeye and Robbie were entangled—the Glorious First of June—was won by the British over the French. The tensions between Britain and the U.S. continued to escalate, leading to the War of 1812, sometimes called the Second Revolutionary War.

  Medicine was advancing at a rapid pace at the end of the eightee
nth century, but physicians had not yet put a name to the disease that ended Lady Isabel’s life—the same disease that killed Jane Austen. Its primary symptoms were debilitating fatigue, weight loss, nausea, and discoloration of the skin. It is now known as Addison’s disease, and sometimes as tubercular kidney—a type of tuberculosis which settles in the adrenal glands, causing them to stop producing cortisol, a hormone necessary to sustain life. Today this is a rare, chronic but treatable condition.

  Monsieur Dupuis suffered from end-stage melanoma of the skin, a disease that is still fatal unless it is caught early.

  About the Author

  SARA DONATI was born and raised in Chicago, but she has lived for longer periods in the Austrian Alps, on the East Coast (where she earned a Ph.D. in linguistics from Princeton), and Michigan. After twelve years as a tenured professor—getting up early and staying up late to write fiction—she took heart in hand and left academia. She now writes full-time from her home in the Pacific Northwest, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and three cats. These days she divides her time between her family, the next novel in the wilderness series, and a large, demanding but ever-rewarding garden.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  DAWN ON A DISTANT SHORE

  A Bantam Book

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by Sara Donati.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-40438.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-75654-1

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