Fair Wind of Love

by Rosalind Laker

  Sarah’s chin lifted slightly. “I’ll be able to manage, Dr. Manning.”

  He did not press the point, understanding that it went against her whole upbringing to accept a gift of any kind from a man to whom she was neither betrothed nor married, no matter under what guise it was offered. Yet he suspected that the thin purse left by Hannah would have to be subsidized by Sarah to keep the children properly fed on the long journey to York.

  She had no idea that he had paid extra for the rough accommodation that she had continued to occupy with the children in the lamproom, for he had been anxious that she should not return to the discomfort of the crowded hold. He had made the excuse to the captain that it was advisable to keep the little trio away from the rest of the emigrants, except in the open air, to avoid any last possible risk of infection.

  As a result of this pretext he had been able to be with her for some part of every day, but since that special moment when she had turned to him in her grief she had kept their relationship on an even, quietly friendly, almost impersonal level, keeping an invisible wall about her through which she regarded him with a grave, considering gaze. He could not believe that she failed to see how much he wanted to break through that barrier, but he sensed that too much had happened to her too quickly, and for a while she was not ready to laugh or love again. When that time came hundreds of miles would separate the two of them, and his chance would be lost forever. Yet this girl would continue to haunt him. Somehow or other he must find her again. There was only one way open to him.

  “I’d like to write to you,” he said. “I know you won’t have time to write to me for a while, but I could always reach you through the city of York’s post office—as long as you remember to call in for the letters.”

  “That’s something I won’t forget. I’ll be glad to hear from you.” She gave him a wide smile.

  There came a piercing yell a second later as Robbie, getting too near to the leapfrogging, was knocked flying by a cut with a boot. Sarah flew to him, but the graze on his forehead was only slight, and his noise quickly subsided as one of the emigrants, a fiddler of some merit, struck up a tune, making all the others come crowding round him. There in the bitter wind, below billowing sails, amid straining blocks and cordage, a song was taken up. It was sung with gusto, an expression of relief that the hard voyage was nearing its close. They felt that God alone knew what awaited them all in their new country, but it could not be worse than the conditions that most of them had left behind, and all were full of hope. Sarah and Philip stood listening; when he put his hand on her arm she did not move away.

  It took the Griffin ten more days to reach Quebec, sailing past wooded shores where occasionally small villages with thin white church spires came into sight, and the spring-plowed earth spread rich and dark around the clustered farm buildings. There was much seafaring traffic on the water, but it was the canoes skimming between the islands that caught the interest of the emigrants, who ran from one side of the ship to the other to gape at the Indians plying the paddles with red-brown arms with never a glance of curiosity at the schooner so newly come from so far away.

  In the shadow of the city on the Rock many farewells took place, for a number of emigrants were disembarking there. Sarah stood by herself on the deck near the gangway, waiting for a last word with Philip. He turned from the cluster of his fellow passengers, who had been wishing him well, and came to her. He removed his tall hat as he took her hand into his.

  “Thank you for all your kindness, Philip,” she said, using his Christian name for the first time. “I shall always remember you with great affection.”

  He would have preferred that she should have remembered him with love, but that had not been possible. In other circumstances and on another ship a voyage of forty-three days would have been long enough for the commencement of a serious courtship. But on the Griffin they had been destined to meet only to be parted at the first port of call.

  “I’m certain our paths will cross again,” he said, still retaining her hand in his.

  “I wish for that too,” she answered, an unexpected tremor in her voice, knowing how much she was going to miss his company.

  It had an effect on him that he was powerless to control. His arms went about her, and he caught her to him in a kiss of such loving intensity that she was fired to a remembrance of Giles, and stiffened in recoil. He let her go at once, the dark flush on his face revealing his furious embarrassment at having behaved so recklessly without any preparation or some certainty of response, the impulsive action having been against his whole stern, sagacious nature.

  “Farewell, Sarah,” he said abruptly, stepping away from her. He clapped his hat back on his head as he swung about to leave the ship, heedless of the stares of the other passengers, who had witnessed the spectacular parting with unabashed curiosity.

  Sarah swept across to the rail, and watched him hurry down the gangway. His luggage had already been loaded onto the waiting calèche, which he stepped into without a backward glance. The door was shut, and the driver flicked his whip. In a cloud of dust the vehicle bowled away, and was soon lost from sight.

  Thoughtfully she put her fingers to her lips, feeling the impress of his mouth still upon them, dismayed that she had snubbed so heartlessly the man she had come to respect more than any other person she had ever known. He must think her a prude and a prig. Never had she regretted anything more. Why had she confused his kiss with those that Giles had given her? Most assuredly Philip’s kiss had expressed the depth of true feeling. It had been a spontaneous declaration of love.

  The tail end of the voyage dragged for everyone, and it was with a sense of overwhelming relief that Sarah stepped ashore with the children at Montreal. Those traveling on up the St. Lawrence River, as they were, found their way to the waiting bateaux, manned by French-Canadian crews, which were to convey them on the next and final stage of the journey to York. Some of the crew had stepped ashore to assist passengers into the seventy-five-foot barges, and one stooped with a friendly grin to lift Robbie, and then Jenny, aboard.

  “Now your turn, madame,” he said to Sarah, holding out his hand to steady her as she stepped forward after them.

  She pondered over the way he had addressed her. Madame! Not Miss, or Mam’selle. He had assumed that she was the mother of the children. Suddenly her fostering of them took on a new aspect. Without a ring on her finger she could expect to receive askance glances in the future from those unaware of the circumstances in which she had acquired them.

  A dozen bateaux set off together, loaded with passengers, luggage, and cargo, and propelled along by iron-tipped poles in the hands of the crews. Awnings offered protection from the weather, but Sarah had selected places for herself and the children at the end of one of the long wooden seats where the warm April sunshine fell full upon them. There she discarded her bonnet, and loosened the children’s coats, for she had felt during those dark days spent in the hold, as well as in the stifling confines of the sickroom and the cramped quarters of the lamproom with its reek of oil, that never again would she be able to get enough sunlight on her body and clean, sweet air into her lungs.

  The journey took three weeks, much of it through wild and beautiful forested scenery that swept away on each side of the great river. Frequently the crews sang as they wielded their stout poles, deep throats rumbling the old songs of France and other ballads that had sprung up like flowers out of the hardship and toil that previous generations of French-Canadians had endured during the long years gone by.

  Nights were spent under canvas, often on the shore of one of the many islands where bonfires would be stacked up high, and everyone sat around in the leaping, dancing light, cooking and eating the food they had brought with them or purchased at villages along the way. The main meal of the day was also prepared at this hour by members of the various crews, and often there was some to spare, served out in wooden bowls, which Sarah found remarkably delicious and spicy after the stale, frequently rancid
food that had been served on board the schooner, and even the children tucked in with relish, although Robbie sometimes fell asleep before he had finished, his curly head tilting sideways into Sarah’s lap.

  The pace of travel was slow owing to the constant struggle against the rapids, when the crews and passengers took to the banks, and tow ropes were used to drag along the bateaux, which pitched and bucked on the angry, churning water like unbroken horses. Sarah, a healthy color in her cheeks, careless of sun or rain, enjoyed the feel of the hard earth under her feet as she walked along with the others, Jenny’s hand in hers, and Robbie humped on her hip.

  At last, on a warm May afternoon when they had been sailing the waters of Lake Ontario for several days, the city of York glided into sight, a cluster of white, gray, russet, and cinnamon-colored buildings in a lush setting of pines, spruce, and sugar maples.

  “We’re here!” Sarah breathed, an arm around each of the children. “Tomorrow you’ll be with your Dadda!”

  On the wharf Sarah asked to be directed to the address of the boardinghouse that Will had written about in his letter. With her portmanteau and a bulging cloth bag that contained all the children’s things as well as a few possessions of Hannah’s, she set off to find it, Jenny and Robbie keeping a tight hold on her skirts.

  She looked about with interest as she led the way along the earth pavement, keeping clear of the rutted street where muddy water was being splashed up by high-stepping hooves and the rolling wheels of passing wagons. Nearly every one of the buildings was spaciously set, although not all the surrounding land was well cared for, sometimes left to a grazing horse, or a pen of pigs, or used as a kind of dumping ground, but the private homes had gardens and orchards, the blossom already showing soft and pink upon the branches. Everywhere there was the new green of maple trees that hung like lace, destined to give some welcome shade when the sun gathered into its fierce summer strength.

  There were plenty of people about, chatting in doorways, looking in store windows, or hurrying about their business. There were Indians in deerskin garments, soldiers from a garrison, their uniforms making a bright splash of scarlet, loggers in spiked boots, farmers in stout homespun, and here and there a gentleman dressed as elegantly as if he had been transported by some magic means from a club in St. James’s Street or the Mall. The women, mostly on shopping expeditions with baskets on their arms, were simply and neatly dressed, but there were also quite a few in coats and bonnets that showed that the latest European trends in fashion were studied avidly, no matter how long they took to reach the shores of Upper Canada.

  Without doubt York looked a lusty, thriving, vigorous, if somewhat untidy place, but Sarah warmed to it, accepting that this was to be her new home, not surprised that it was quite unlike the village that she had left far behind her on the other side of the ocean.

  She found the boardinghouse on New Street close to the market. It was small, and built of squared logs. The woman who opened the door was as prim and austere herself in appearance, her gaze instantly wary as she viewed Sarah’s ancient luggage and two small children, grubby from the long journey in spite of a constant washing and drying of their clothes on the way.

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Cooper,” the woman said in answer to Sarah’s query. “What did you want?”

  “I believe Mr. Will Nightingale has booked overnight accommodation here for his family, but his wife died on the voyage coming over from England, and I’m taking his children to him.”

  Mrs. Cooper’s face softened at once. “The poor babies!” she exclaimed. “Come in. No booking has been made, but I have a spare room.”

  Her words startled Sarah, and made her singularly uneasy. No booking had been made. Later, when the children were fed and in bed, Sarah sat with Mrs. Cooper in the parlor, and questioned her about Will Nightingale.

  “I haven’t set eyes on him since he stayed here early last fall,” Mrs. Cooper said, swinging to and fro in a rocking chair, “soon after he’d landed in a bateau as you have done, fresh from the old country. To be honest, so many travelers stay for a short time under my roof that I don’t always remember them, but I recall thinking that Nightingale was a mighty pretty surname. He was a very quiet man, and rather morose—not like most new arrivals to Upper Canada, who plague you with talk and questions about everything from the climate to the price of corn.” She frowned, concentrating, and then gave a sharp little nod that set her rocking in the chair again. “He did say something when he left, now I come to think of it, about hoping to arrange accommodation at a later date for his family, but from that day I’ve never seen hair nor hide of him.”

  “That must have been when he went to take over his holding,” Sarah said, producing his letter. “He wrote that you’d be able to give directions to it.”

  Mrs. Cooper put on spectacles to read it, and would have read on if Sarah had not withdrawn the letter and folded it again. “There’s a wagon goes that way daily,” the woman told her. “You can get seats on it tomorrow if you’re outside the tanyard in Yonge Street by nine o’clock in the morning.”

  Sarah made up her mind to be there. In her room, before getting into bed beside the children, she studied that week’s copy of the Upper Canada Gazette, which Mrs. Cooper had lent her. The news from England was at least five months old, but it was not stale reports of the war with Napoleon that she wanted to read. She ran her finger down the lists of names of those offering work and needing help, and then copied out those that interested her in order of preference. Her money was fast running out. She must work as soon as she returned to York.

  The ride in the crowded wagon was more uncomfortable than Sarah could have imagined possible. The wheels jolted in and out of deep ruts, making everybody toss about, and Robbie was difficult and querulous, continually wriggling out of her arms, tired and utterly bored with traveling. When a fellow passenger, trying to be helpful, dangled his gold watch by its chain, Robbie seized it and dashed it to the floor of the wagon.

  “Don’t want it!” he cried in misery. “Want to get out! Want to walk!”

  There followed an icy silence as the other passengers watched Sarah bend quickly to retrieve the watch. The tight-lipped owner snatched it from her with a glare, and examined it with exaggerated care before returning it to his pocket.

  “I feel sick,” Jenny whispered with fastidious horror, giving Sarah’s sleeve a tug. And she was.

  Toward evening they came to the small settlement that was the center of the holdings allotted out in that area. Most of the passengers converged on the only building of any size, which was both a store and a hotel. There was so much business going on that it was quite a while before Sarah was able to obtain the storekeeper’s attention.

  “I’m looking for Will Nightingale,” she told him. “He took up a holding here last September.”

  But the storekeeper shook his bald head. “Ain’t nobody of that name around here, and I know every man farming for miles around, ’cos they all get their goods from me.”

  “Wait a moment,” she said, frantically unfolding the letter once again. “I have the number of his holding. Here it is!”

  The storekeeper looked at the number, and then at a map of the district on the wall. He tapped a section of it that, unlike the rest, was unmarked by an inked-in name. “You can see for yourself. Nobody’s touched that land yet. It must still be in Will Nightingale’s name, but he hasn’t been near it. That happens sometimes—a man changes his mind, or thinks he’ll do better elsewhere. Is the man your husband?”

  “No,” she answered, distraught, “but these are his children. I was bringing them to him.”

  “Well, lass,” the storekeeper commented cynically, setting his hands on the counter, “it looks as if Will Nightingale has winged it away from his responsibilities, and you’ll have a hard time catching up with him!” The color had drained from her face. Was it true? Had Will seized a chance to escape a marriage that had been dogged by hardship and poverty and misfortune? Mrs. Cooper had me
ntioned how morose he had been, as though he had been disillusioned already by his new land! Then Sarah remembered how Hannah had talked of him with such pride and affection. There had been no doubt in her mind. Something must have happened to prevent him taking up the option on the land, and sooner or later he would surely come to claim it.

  “If I leave a letter for him,” she said to the storekeeper, “would you give it to him if ever he comes here?”

  He nodded, and obligingly handed her ink and paper. As she turned with it she saw that Robbie had dropped off to sleep where he sat on the floor, but Jenny’s huge frightened eyes were staring up at her. Swiftly she stooped down, her skirts billowing about her, to clasp the child to her. “It’s all right, Jenny,” she said softly. “Dadda hasn’t got here yet. Something has delayed him.”

  “Don’t you leave Robbie and Jenny,” the child cried, her little arms locked in terror about Sarah’s neck.

  “Never! Never!” Sarah promised, hugging her tightly, deeply moved by the hard, silent sobs racking the child’s body.

  A terrible sense of foreboding had replaced the high hopes with which she had landed. If Will were dead too—and this was a dreadful possibility that she must consider—then she, Sarah Kingsley, must become father and mother to these children who had been given into her charge. Together she and they must face whatever was to come. Nothing should part them. No matter what happened!

  Three

  Sarah sat with the children on a bench in the gathering dusk and counted the money in her purse. So little! A knot of fear twisted in her stomach. These few coins were all that stood between them and hunger. Hannah’s money, spent on the children, had long since run out, and the fruitless journey to the settlement with a night spent in the hotel had been a costly affair. Since they had arrived back in York that afternoon she had applied to no less than ten different places for work, and been turned down at each. Not because she was not suitable, but because she had insisted that Jenny and Robbie must be with her, and that had changed everything. Nobody had wanted the children getting in the way, and some employers had narrowed their eyes suspiciously at her ringless left hand. Two doors had been shut in her face.