Dawn on a Distant Shore (84 page)

"Ain't even home
yet and she ready to run off again," Curiosity said with a sigh. "Me,
I ain't goin' any farther than Lake in the Clouds. Don' care if I never see
another city. Or smell one, for that matter." And she sniffed at
Edinburgh, ripe with waste in the summer sun.

They came into the
High Street, the women and children in the coach while Hawkeye, Nathaniel, and
Will rode, surrounded by Carryck's men. The earl would take no chances with
their safety; it would soon be common knowledge that Daniel Bonner of New-York
State had signed a document declaring himself the son of James Scott, and with
that they would become targets of the Breadalbane Campbells. It did not matter
that Hawkeye would keep his vow to leave Scotland and never come back again. It
did not matter, because the grandson he had left behind in Canada had made no
such vow.

Daniel played
peacefully in Elizabeth's lap. Nathaniel's second-born son. She still had not
come to a quiet place with this idea, but she would in time. Nathaniel had
expected her to be angry, or hurt, or worried about her own children's claims,
but thus far she had felt nothing but confusion and some vague curiosity. He
was watching her now from horseback, looking for some sign of her discontent,
waiting for her anger to swell up.

Someplace inside,
Nathaniel still believed that she regretted the life she was leaving behind,
and only time would convince him otherwise.

"I suppose that
Merriweather aunt of yours will want us all to set down with her,"
Curiosity said, jerking Elizabeth out of her daydreams. "She'll want the
whole story."

"I suppose she
will," Elizabeth agreed.

"But the whole
story hasn't happened, yet." Hannah looked up from the piece of ivory she had
been studying.

"Then we will
tell her as much as we know," said Elizabeth. "What is that in your
hand, Squirrel?"

She held it up. Not
ivory at all, but a tooth yellowed with age, long and curved.

"A bear
fang," Curiosity said, leaning forward to get a better look at it, and
catching Lily's hand away as she grabbed. "I didn't know there were bears
around Carryck."

"There
aren't," said Hannah, closing her fist around it. "Not anymore."

Curiosity was looking
more closely at Hannah's face now, with concern and some disquiet. As Elizabeth
was looking, seeing something new there in her familiar and beloved face, some equanimity
that she had left behind her somewhere on this long journey and now found
again. Robbie's sudden passing had moved her in ways Elizabeth had not quite
imagined.

"Did it come from
Jennet?" asked Curiosity.

"Jennet has one
just like it," said Hannah. "She will wear it on a string around her
neck."

"Elizabeth, my
dear, we must see a milliner before you sail. To go about with no protection from
the sun, have you forgotten all your training? Something must be done, for you
are already as brown as a--as a--"

"As an Indian,"
supplied Hannah easily, looking at them over the rim of her teacup. She sent
her father a sidelong glance, but Nathaniel kept his face impassive. He knew
better than to get in the middle of one of Aunt Merriweather's discussions
about hats.

"I admit I have
not been thinking of my complexion these last few months," Elizabeth agreed,
wiping biscuit crumbs from Lily's mouth. "But I promise to wear a hat on
the journey home."

Aunt Merriweather had
a way of rearing back with her head to look down the slope of her nose that always
put Nathaniel in mind of a cross-eyed bird. She was doing it now, her mouth
pursed into a little beak.

"I will charge
Amanda with making sure of it," she said. "If it were not for my
lumbago, I would make the journey myself. Heaven knows what you young women
will get up to, you are all so set on your independence. I did so count on
bringing Kitty home to Oakmere with me, and see how she changed her mind at the
last minute. I am still most seriously displeased, but perhaps you can persuade
her, Elizabeth, once you are home again. Certainly you must see to it that she
doesn't fall under Dr. Todd's influence. Such a very flighty young woman; she
requires your firm hand if she cannot have mine." She sniffed. "Of
course, you might still get it into your head to turn privateer and sail off to
China, children in tow. Certainly my son-in-law already looks the part."
And she scowled as if she had Will Spencer before her.

Elizabeth got up to
plant a kiss on her old aunt's cheek. "You are worried for us," she
said. "But please be assured, we have no interest in going anywhere but
home, and that as quickly as possible."

"Do not try to
mollify me," said her aunt, swatting at her with a folded fan. "I
shall worry if it pleases me to worry, every day until I have word of your safe
arrival. Now your husband has been waiting for you these twenty minutes, and
his patience is not eternal, I am sure of it. Go on, the two of you, but do not
be long."

They went to see the
ship that would take them home. Hawkeye and Will had been here before, as had
Thomas Ballentyne in his new role as Carryck's agent and factor. Even now
Carryck's men milled around the dock, and there they would remain until the
Bonners were safe away.

And still, Nathaniel
knew maybe better than Elizabeth did herself that she would not rest easy tonight
unless she had examined the ship and met its captain and officers.

She was called
Good
Tidings
, a small but comfortable packet on her way to New-York with the mails
and a shipment of Scotch whisky for the governor and porcelain for his wife. A
fast ship, and not so large that she would attract the attention of
privateers--but well armed enough to repel anyone who showed unwelcome
interest. The captain and owner was a Yorker by the name of George Goodey, a
small man with a stern expression and a taciturn way about him; he showed them
their quarters, had his sailors run out the guns for Nathaniel's inspection,
and then he bade them good-bye. He suited Elizabeth very well.

"Curiosity will
lock horns with him," she noted as they walked back to her aunt Merriweather's
lodgings. "And she will enjoy every minute of it."

"It'll be close
quarters," Nathaniel said. "Your cousin may get a little itchy."

"Amanda is too
pleased to have Will back again-- even her mother cannot interfere with her
happiness."

"And what about
you, Boots?" he asked, tucking her arm tighter under his own.

"Me? I would
paddle a canoe home if that's what it required," Elizabeth said. "We have
been gone only a little more than four months, but it feels like so much
longer."

They walked on in a
comfortable silence for a while, and then she turned to him suddenly, and stretching
up on tiptoe, she kissed him there on the High Street, with people all around.

"What was that
for, Boots?"

"For keeping our
children safe."

"You're thinking
of Isabel."

She nodded. "I
can hardly think of anything else but Robbie, and Isabel."

A flush was creeping
up her cheeks, anger and grief pushing her to sudden tears. Nathaniel put his
arm around her as they walked, willing to wait for her to put words to what she
was feeling. Until she did that, she would have no peace.

It came in a low rush.
"I cannot imagine what Carryck is suffering now, to have lost his daughter
not because she was disloyal, but because he was too blind to see Moncrieff's
true nature."

Neither did we see him
for what he was, not at first
. Nathaniel thought of saying this, but held his
tongue, knowing full well that they would have to deal with it soon enough.

She said, "The
look on Carryck's face when we took our leave--I don't think he will ever
forgive himself for refusing to go to Isabel when he had a chance, there at the
end. And perhaps he does not deserve forgiveness." She was flushed with remembering,
still full angry.

"You know I'm not
likely to make excuses for the man," Nathaniel said, as evenly as he could
manage. "But it seems to me he knows well where the blame lies and he
ain't shirking it. I don't know that he'd survive all this, if it weren't for
Jean Hope and Jennet. And you'll forgive me, Boots, if I point out that the man
buried his priest and his daughter within a day of each other. That's
punishment enough."

She shook her head,
quite forcefully. "He is getting what he wanted, Nathaniel. A way to keep
Carryck free of the Breadalbanes, and an heir. Do you not worry about sending
... Luke to him, knowing now how he dealt with his own daughter?"

"I don't know
that Luke will want to come here," Nathaniel said slowly. "He's more
of a stranger to me than Carryck is. And the truth is, it don't feel real, yet,
the news about the boy. You're asking me if I trust Carryck with a son I don't
know, and might never see again. I've been thinking about that all day long,
and I'll tell you what. He's a man already, as old as I was when he came into
the world. We'll tell him what he needs to know about this place, give him the
good and the bad of it, and he'll make his own decision. And if he wants to
come here and if that solves Carryck's problems, well then, I'll be glad for
both of them, Boots. But I know one thing for sure, and maybe it's something I
can see and you can't. Carryck will be relieved to get the boy if that puts an
end to his problems, but there's no joy left in this world for him. He buried
that part of his life with his daughter. And Moncrieff."

They had stopped
walking while he said this, and Elizabeth was looking up at him with an expression
divided between surprise and acknowledgment. A look came over her, the one that
meant she was casting back through her memory for some words she had read
somewhere, something to help her make sense of what she was feeling. And then
she had them, and she spoke them out loud, but more for her own benefit than
his.

"His flawed
heart,--

Alack! too weak the
conflict to support;

'twixt two extremes of
passion, joy and grief,

Burst smilingly."

"That's about it,
I'd say. Now where did that come from?"

"
King Lear
,"
said Elizabeth. "A man who misjudged his daughter and paid for that
mistake very dearly."

"Maybe I should
read that book," Nathaniel said, trying to strike a lighter tone.
"The days ain't far off when Squirrel will be moving off on her own, and I
suppose I should be ready."

"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.