By Eastern windows (39 page)

Elizabeth smiled. ‘George simply adores her. Every move she makes seems to fascinate him, every little cry and he goes running. From the day she was born George has always referred to her as his “little sister”`.

‘Aye, oh aye …’ Mrs Macquarie nodded. ‘George is a fine young man … and a kind one.’

*

Later that afternoon, while she sat on the window-seat cradling her sleeping granddaughter, Mrs Macquarie watched through the window as Lachlan and Elizabeth took a stroll down to the shore, their manner of happy companionship heightening her own feelings of joy. The two were talking and laughing together, and then Elizabeth suddenly gave a little skip as if she was delighted to be going down to the water and breathing in the sea air.

She smiled to herself … Elizabeth looked so fine and fit and not at all like a woman who had recently given birth.

And Lachlan … well, he had travelled a long way to reach this time of love and happiness in his life … not as passionate as his love for the first girl, she supposed, but aye, it was a new kind of love she saw in his face now when he looked at Elizabeth, more calm and contented, as if all the scattered threads of his life over the years had finally knitted together back here in Scotland in a pattern of stability and completion … Aye, for him now, there would be no slipping back into the past. His new love for Elizabeth, and his adoration of this wee child in her arms, would ensure that.

She came out of her thoughts and continued watching as the two figures, hand in hand, dwindled into the distance and disappeared down the grass-edged path towards the calm waters of the old grey sea.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In Macao, (Macau) the first Protestant Cemetery was finally established in 1821 by the British East India Company.

THE FAR HORIZON

In this sequel to
BY EASTERN WINDOWS
George Jarvis is now a young man, and with him we travel to a wilderness on the other side of the world and witness the rise to greatness of Lachlan Macquarie who, with extraordinary intelligence and a deep compassion for the inhabitants, turned a neglected convict colony into a country, and named it Australia.

New South Wales, a convict colony peopled with characters from all walks of life, and all places in the British Isles, who find themselves banished to the Antipodes for crimes often no greater than fishing in a neighbour’s stream, or pilfering a strip of ribbon from their mistress’s sewing basket.

And it is amongst these unlucky people that George Jarvis meets the girl of his dreams, and teaches her about the goodness of life.

Also by Gretta Curran Browne

The Liberty Trilogy

TREAD SOFTLY ON MY DREAMS

FIRE ON THE HILL

A WORLD APART

*

GHOSTS IN SUNLIGHT

(
Contemporary Thriller)

ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL

(Novel of Fim starring Kevin Spacey)

RELATIVE STRANGERS

(TV Series Tie-in starring Brenda Fricker)

*

The Macquarie Series

BY EASTERN WINDOWS

THE FAR HORIZON

JARVISFIELD

www.grettacurranbrowne.com