Acadia Song 04 - The Distant Beacon (7 page)

In the days that followed, the tension between them persisted, even though Nicole could see that Gordon was doing his best to be an agreeable and helpful guest. He was courteous, ever ready to assist Catherine or share stories with John, and eager to help Andrew spade the garden or bring in wood for the fire. Nicole appreciated his congeniality, at the same time wondering if part of his desire to be involved with the others was to distance himself from her and any possibility of further misunderstanding. But that was not fair, she decided. He was more than proper with her as well, seeking often to be of assistance.

But Nicole was beginning to feel a familiar restlessness. There were questions about her future she must one day face, and being of the disposition she was, she wished to fling herself at them once and for all, to settle them so that life could go on.

Charles had entrusted her with a sizable estate and would certainly expect her to administer the estate’s affairs. She did not want to disappoint him, nor could she deny that she had a certain curiosity to see just what it was she now could name as her own. She had never before owned property. It gave her a sense of satisfaction to know she was a landowner. What potential, what possibilities, were now hers?

So despite the rumors of increased animosities, despite Catherine’s eyes turning dark with worry as this weighed upon her, despite Andrew’s obvious pleasure at having her home again and Grandfather’s enjoyment of having Gordon at his beck and call, Nicole could feel her restlessness driving her onward. She prayed for wisdom in presenting her plans to the other members of the household. There seemed to be no softening of the certain blow. So at length Nicole just plunged into the subject as she and her mother washed the evening dishes.

“I have put off my duty to Uncle Charles quite long enough,” she began. “And I’m afraid that if I don’t make the trip soon, then I’ll be doing so without the protection of Captain Goodwind. He has been excused from his post for too long on account of me. I feel I mustn’t detain him anymore.”

She noted the quick rise of Catherine’s head. The look of being caught off guard. The pain in her eyes in knowing she faced something she had been dreading, yet had no power or right to resist.

“I must make plans to travel to the estate in Massachusetts and put things in their proper order,” Nicole explained, more to cover for her mother’s distress than to give required information.

Still Catherine did not speak. She bent her head low over the pot she was scouring. Nicole wondered if it was a tear that splashed into the dishwater.

“I fear if we don’t leave while the weather is still holding . . .” Nicole decided not to finish the thought. Her mother had always been averse toward traveling in foul weather. Surely this argument would hold some weight.

The silence continued for some minutes. When Catherine did speak, it was just one word: “When?”

“I was thinking tomorrow,” Nicole answered slowly. “If we get an early start and it proves to be a fine day, we can almost make it back to Halifax. I don’t care for days on the trail and appreciate even less nights so spent.”

Catherine nodded without looking up. Nicole knew her battle was half won. Now she had but to persuade her father. She hoped he would offer no more resistance than her mother had.

In the end it was her grandfather who spoke his mind. “I don’t know what you can gain by taking up land in an area threatened by war. I’d feel much better if you’d just take one of the homes here in the village and then stay put. It’s not a bad way of life. Sure, folks might not pay much mind to your being a viscountess after the first flurry of excitement dies down—but you’ve always been accepted as one of us. What more can you ask than that? This title nonsense belongs to Britain. That’s where it should be left.” His voice sounded rather gruff as he finished, but Nicole stepped over and kissed his cheek. She was surprised to find it damp from a tear he’d tried to hide. Perhaps his words were merely his attempt to hold her close in his own way. She kissed him again.

“If all goes well, Grandfather, I won’t need to be away for long,” she consoled him.

“Won’t be back in time to bid me farewell,” her grandfather said even more gruffly. “I’ve already hung on for about as long as I can.”

The words shook Nicole to the center of her being. She cast a quick glance toward her mother. From the slump of Catherine’s shoulders and her melancholic countenance, Nicole could see that her mother agreed.
Would it be just Father who might be gone by the time Nicole returned, if indeed she ever returned?
That seemed to be the question in Catherine’s eyes.

“You must join me at the estate,” she hurried on, captured by the idea that had just come to her. “All of you. I’ll send for you as soon as I’ve made things ready, put some staff in place. Oh, don’t shrug it off, Father,” she said to Andrew. “You’ve earned your rest. Surely a man isn’t expected to serve his way into an early grave.”

But Andrew still shook his head, sadness making him appear older than Nicole had ever seen him. “I’m afraid there may be no coming or going—for any of us,” he said, and his voice sounded tired. “This war that’s brewing is bound to divide, not join.”

It was a frightening thought and one Nicole would rather ignore. She looked to Gordon for his support, but his eyes were on the tips of his borrowed house slippers.

“At least we have Reverend Collins,” Andrew said. “Perhaps we can still send messages through him.”

It was a ray of hope Nicole grasped eagerly. “Of course. I’ll send word through Pastor Collins in Boston.

He’ll let you know when I am established; then we’ll devise a way to have you all join us.”

No one argued her leaving any further, though no one seemed inclined to continue the conversation either. Catherine rose with the excuse of helping her father to his bed. Nicole hurried to take his other arm. There was still a silence, a tension in the room she longed to dispel. She was glad she would be spending the remainder of the evening busying herself with preparations for her morning departure.

By the time she returned to the main room, the bor- rowed house slippers had been placed on the mat beside the door and Gordon’s leather service boots were missing. She knew he’d left the cottage to make arrangements for their travel.

Chapter 6

The hills of Boston were still as bare as untilled earth, and the sky remained gloomy and leaden from the recently departed storm. Nicole stood on the ship’s quarterdeck, there at Captain Gordon’s invitation, and watched as their vessel was rowed farther into the mouth of the Charles River. They were hugging the bank closest to the city, and for good reason. On the river’s northern bank stood a crude wooden fort, which flew what she had been told was one of the rebels’ many flags. This one snapped and whipped in the biting wind, and on it she could make out what appeared to be a great snake.

As Nicole looked out toward the American fort, four of the garrison’s guns boomed loudly, a foretaste of tempests to come. Three of the balls landed far short of their ship, creating a triple geyser in the slate gray water. The fourth skipped across the wave tops like a well-cast stone. Each time the ball hit, puffs of steam rose from the intensely hot metal, and the sound struck the ship’s side with the deep thump of a giant wooden drum. To her astonishment the men all gave a great cheer, which was answered faintly from the distant shoreline.

“Stout English oak! I say, there’s nothing like a solid ship of the line, no indeed, sir!” Their harbor guide was a young lieutenant from the English blockade, inflated with the importance of guiding a heavily laden supply vessel to safe harbor. “The rebels aren’t half bad with their aim, I’ll give ’em that. But they’re no match against our oak hull.”

“Not so long as we stay at the far bank, well out of range,” Gordon murmured from Nicole’s other side. But his words were tossed away by the wind, as intended. Clearly he had little time for the young officer, for he then added, “If you will excuse me, sir, I shall see to my vessel.”

The lieutenant gave but a half bow at Gordon’s passage. Not even the war could reverse the hostility between the Royal Navy and the merchant force. Gordon obviously took the young man’s attitude as an affront. His jaw bunched tight, and he jammed his hat down against the rising wind with an angry fist.

Nicole asked the young lieutenant, “Do the American colonials have control of the region north of Boston?”

“For now, your ladyship. Cambridge Common is aswarm with rebels, but only for the moment. General Howe has just arrived to take back control of His Majesty’s northern troops. He’ll see to these rebels soon as the men are resupplied. You can mark my words on that.”

When Gordon finally returned to the foredeck, he also asked, “How goes the blockade, sir?”

“Hard work, Captain. What with the storms and the winds blowing right their way around the compass. Howling like beasts of myths, with their teeth hanging clear and dripping from the yardarms all winter long. Ice long as my leg, we had. A month and more between supply vessels. Why, at one point the underdecks were down to boiling their belts for meat. Hard, sir. Very hard.”

They had been caught by the blockade vessels, just as Gordon had predicted. It came just after daybreak, when three sets of sails had appeared to landward, and together the trio had boomed out a full cannonade of warning. Instantly Gordon had laid his ship to, lowered all but his topgallants, and waited for the blockade commandant to arrive and inspect his papers. Because the wind and tide were against them, they had elected to be rowed in so they might remain well away from the colonials’ guns.

Nicole observed the far shore slide gradually by. The scene was brooding and far too cold for the first day of April. She wrapped the greatcoat tightly around her frame as she worried over the signs and portents greeting her arrival in Massachusetts Colony, the late-winter winds and gunfire from the people she hoped to call her own.

“My word,” the young lieutenant exclaimed, “but it will be nice to plant my feet upon the soil again!” Nicole turned to him. While the lieutenant was perhaps her own age, his unshaven cheeks and narrow features made him look more boy than man. “Have you been long upon the blockade, sir?”

“Next month marks a year, ma’am. And more than two months since my last landfall.”

The lieutenant was clearly taken with the viscountess, for each time he addressed her directly his features would flush. “I say, how was England when you last saw her?”

“Much as here, cold and blustery. I left in November.”

“Six months to make the voyage? You must have run into some heavy seas.”

“Yes.” She had no desire to recount her voyage, nor her recent departure from Nova Scotia. It still left an aching void in her heart. There was no telling when she would see her beloved parents again. And John was growing visibly older, not to mention Andrew’s own frail health. No, she refused to permit herself to dwell on this. Nicole shook away the worries and the sorrow and said, “I understand I am to pay my respects to the garrison commandant.”

“Indeed so, ma’am. No doubt he will be honored to host such a distinguished guest as yourself.” He pointed out over the nearest rooftops to where a series of flags whipped back and forth. “The northernmost hill has been taken over by the city’s garrison. Where General Howe is at the moment, I have no idea. But one of his aides will certainly—”

Suddenly a harbor signal gun fired a shot across the water, the wind sending a stinging spume of gunpowder and sulfur directly into Nicole’s face. Signal flags raced up the harbor flagpole. Gordon barked a command, and the ship’s bosun responded with flags of their own. Gordon leaned over the rail and shouted to the rowers, “Avast there! Heave to. Anchors away on my order!”

“I say,” the lieutenant complained, “the longboats are under my command.”

Nicole stepped away, having no wish to get caught up in the officers’ conflict. She watched Gordon as he strode from one side of his vessel to the other, and she felt grateful for the company of this strong and trustworthy man. Once again she entered the unknown, marked with danger and uncertainty. It was good to have an ally she could call a friend, and perhaps more than that.

Why was it, then, she found it so difficult to confess her true feelings, even to herself?

“His lordship will be most distressed that he was not here to greet you personally, my lady.” The colonel in charge of Boston’s garrison headquarters was a portly, redfaced man in his forties, who went by the name of Grudge. From Nicole’s first impression, the name suited him perfectly. “I shall dispatch a messenger posthaste to inform him.”

It was a lie, she sensed, but could not fathom why the man would consider it necessary to speak falsehoods to her. Nor why it seemed the man spoke every sentence with unspoken slurs. “That will not be necessary, Colonel,” she told him. “I intend to travel onwards as soon as transport can be arranged.”

“A lamentable decision for us all, my lady.” He used two fingers to lift the ship’s manifest. “If you will forgive me, Captain, it says here that your ship was intended to resupply the New York garrison.”