The Sacred Shore (10 page)

The first birdsong rang out before the light became strong enough to dispel the sliver of moon. Catherine knew because she was awake and staring out the window, watching the gray wash of dawn take shape upon the eastern horizon. Andrew enjoyed sleeping with the window open. When the snows halted and the hard freezes were defeated by yet another spring, he treasured the return to his mild-weather habit of fresh air in their bedroom. No doubt the result of his years leading troops through all sorts of weather, it was a habit Catherine had found difficult at first, but now she loved it as well—all save that first moment when the covers were tossed aside, the frigid floor was touched, and the chill pounced on her through her nightclothes. Andrew did not seem to notice even that.

She knew he was awake too. Years of loving and lying next to this man had taught her to read the small signs. He was awake, and he was distressed, and he was trying not to trouble her. Catherine closed her eyes and prayed that he would have the same sense of peace she had known the day before. Then she rolled over and murmured, “Tell me what is the worst and most troubling thing of all.”

Andrew's eyes turned to her and focused instantly. He studied her a long moment, his expression clear and direct. Without needing to ask of what she spoke, he said, “It is bad enough that one of us is worried.”

“Tell me, husband dear. I want to know.”

He sighed as his gaze turned to stare at the ceiling. “All the wounds I thought God healed long ago have been torn open again.”

Yes, the peace was indeed still there. It was not something she could point at and say, here it is. No, she knew because she could lie there and calmly study the hair emerging from the edge of his nightcap. The dark brown was laced with silver and pewter, matching the fine etching of lines from his eyes and mouth. “My fine, strong, handsome man,” she whispered, tucking her hand in between the jawbone and neck. Andrew covered her hand with his own in silent acknowledgment.

“I suppose the most distressing possibility of all,” Andrew confessed to the ceiling overhead, “is that if Charles is successful in his search, we will not have regained a daughter. We will find Elspeth only to lose her a second time. She no doubt will become the next Lady Harrow, viscountess and holder of royal charters.”

When Catherine did not respond, Andrew rolled back over to face his wife. “These things do not distress you?”

She had no choice but to honestly confess, “Not at this very moment.”

“Tell me your secret, then. What do you know that I do not?”

“I only know that God has comforted me. It is such a fragile thing, I fear even speaking about it might disturb the calm.” She kept her voice soft, for only thin walls separated them from Anne on one side and her father on the other. “But it is here. I know it without doubt or question. It is the only thing that keeps me from being immobilized with pain.”

He blinked once, then reached over and took her hands with both of his. She felt in his contact the strong touch, the years of loving and working together for their God. “Does God say anything to you? Anything at all?” he asked.

“I have asked for guidance. And if He has spoken, it has been with a voice so quiet I have missed it entirely.”

“That,” Andrew murmured, “I doubt very much.”

“I have just one question for you,” she continued. “What if our daughter is out there someplace, and what if her lot in life is hard?”

He studied the face inches away from his own. “I'm not sure I would ever want to think thus.”

“No, nor I. But what if it is true? We have heard tales of hardship. What if Elspeth is among those who wander without home or solace?” She had to stop then, for the sudden pain pierced her like a sword. Yet a single breath was enough to still both the pain and the worry, and once again she felt certain that her heart was comforted by an invisible hand. She went on, “What if she has needs that only your brother's wealth can answer? What if God has brought Charles here because Elspeth needs what he can give? Or what if our Father wishes to use her to reach others also, in ways we could not begin to fathom? Would you deny Elspeth this?”

“Never.” The reply came instantly. “If I felt God's hand was upon the search, for whatever reason, I would not do anything to hold Charles back. I could not.”

Catherine slid forward, closer still, and softly kissed her husband, willing the shadows to be lifted from his features by the strengthening daylight. “There is your answer.”

Chapter 10

Louise and Nicole walked in silence from the village to the family's farthest fields. Land about the village was separated into three tiers. Where the neighboring bayous flowed broad and shallow, the clan had diked the thick mud. Anything would grow in this black earth, anything at all. Moving away from the rivers and the bayous, next came the prized village acreage, not as rich as the bayou silt yet fertile indeed. Beyond this second narrow band began the Louisiana plains. This was strange soil, unlike anything they had ever seen before, porous and loamy. It could rain buckets for days, yet one afternoon of sun was enough to return the land to gray dust. This land was good for growing cotton and indigo and little else. Irrigation ditches had to be rebuilt before each planting, and the crops required constant watering.

With a careless wave, Louise returned the greetings of neighbors working their land. Guy and his family were departing in four days. A ship was heading for the British colonies up the eastern coastline, the same one taking their indigo to the northern mills. The market wagons were leaving with the indigo, taking her brother's family. Ever since the letter had arrived, Louise had prepared herself for a momentous battle with her headstrong daughter. But Nicole had hardly spoken of it at all. She had gone about her business, but with a careful nature that left Louise wondering just how well she knew her daughter.

Louise shifted her lunch basket to her other arm and waited while Nicole spoke to farmwives taking lunch to their own families. She tried to pay attention to what was said, but even her smile came hard this morning. Finally she set down her basket and turned her full attention to studying her daughter, grateful for the bonnet's shadows that hid her gaze.

Nicole spoke with a warmth that was both becoming and unusual. She had never been a haughty child, but she could be very abrupt, as though whatever she had on her mind occupied her totally. Now, however, she opened her face and her smile to the women, sliding the bonnet off her head so that it hung down over her long auburn tresses. Her green eyes sparked with genuine warmth, and her smile was from the heart. The women seemed to come alive with Nicole's attention, laughing and chattering like nesting birds. Louise felt a burning to her eyes, but could not think of why she was saddened by the sight of her daughter being sociable with their neighbors.

When the women had moved off, Nicole turned a questioning gaze toward Louise. “Yes, Mother?”

“I was wondering,” Louise said quietly, “what has caused this change to come over you.”

Nicole could have denied the change or pretended not to understand. Instead her green eyes opened, revealing depths Louise had never seen before. Her daughter replied, “I am trying, the best I know how, to wish my friends and clan a fond farewell.”

Louise rallied all her resources in preparation for the argument that had been boiling inside her for so long, the one that would begin with the declaration that her daughter was not leaving.

Louise saw in her daughter's eyes that she knew the battle was joined. But Nicole did not back away, did not arm herself with that temper famous from Plaquemine to Martinsville. Instead, she simply stood and waited.

The sun and the warm breeze teased the corners of Louise's eyes, drawing from them a wetness she had no intention of releasing. She knew now why Nicole's warmth to the neighbors had sorrowed her heart. They were the actions of a woman. Not a child, not her daughter, not a youth she could command any longer. Louise hid her distress by bending to heft the basket and start down the lane. “We shouldn't keep the boys waiting.”

Their trek was marred by a tension that floated with the pale dust. Finally Nicole asked, “What was my name, Mama?”

“Your name,” Louise replied with a firmness she did not feel, “is Nicole.”

Again there was the disconcerting calm. “What was the name given to me at birth?”

Louise felt the sorrow burn not only her eyes, but her throat as well. “I was wondering when you would ask me that.”

“Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. I would never forget such a thing. Never.” To her own ears, her voice sounded as flat and dry as the dusty trail. “Your name was Elspeth. Elspeth Harrow.”

They entered the final copse of trees that separated the village and the bayous from the hot plains. The air was instantly cooler, tinted with the fragrance of spring blossoms and new leaves. The silence held them almost to the forest's other side. There Nicole said, “I have to know who I am.”

“You are my child. My beloved daughter.” Louise felt a heaviness constricting her chest, a lifetime's sorrow pouring forth to be lost in the hot Louisiana sunshine. “You are a precious gift God has given to me.”

It was as though Louise had never spoken. “I need to know who I am. I need to know who these British are, the people who sired me, who gave me life. I have spent years hating them.”

At this Louise whirled to face her. “Now you listen to me,” she said, her voice grating deep with intensity. “You were blessed with the most genuine parents a girl could ever have. Your mama—she was all love. All sweetness. This—this exchange never would have happened if she had not possessed the heart of an angel. She loved and fussed over you like I never saw another woman do. But she knew I loved my little Antoinette in the same way, yet I was watching her die. Before my very eyes she was fading away. That's why she offered to take her to the doctor. Our baby would have died, sure enough, if Catherine …”

“Catherine? Was that my mama's name?”

Louise caught herself short. She hadn't meant to let that slip. Now she had no choice but to reply with, “Yes. Catherine and Andrew Harrow.”

Nicole quickly said, “I didn't mean I hate
them
in particular—but their kind. Sometimes I think I don't want to know them. Ever.” Louise watched closely as Nicole turned to sweep the landscape with a sorrowful gaze. “I must sort this out,” she said slowly, as if speaking to more than Louise. “I must find out who I really am. I … I feel that I'm two people. Part of me belongs to all this, and part of me is lost. I have to find
myself
. I must put the two pieces of my soul together again.”

“But—”

“I may never learn to forgive them. I don't expect to ever be able to love them. But I must know them. I must. The love I felt for Jean …” Only here did the resolute calm seem to shiver and threaten to break. But Nicole stiffened and continued in the same tone as before, “I need to make up my own mind now. I need to meet these people, and to know this other part of my heritage. And, I hope, come to know myself.”

Louise was not only defeated by the calm, she was terrified. “I don't know if I have the strength to let you go,” she whispered through trembling lips.

“It will be hard for us all.” The sunlight filtered through the trees and already beat upon them with the intensity of coming summer heat. Up ahead the boys spotted them and shouted their thirst and their hunger. As the four started toward them, Nicole finished, “So hard for us all.”

Chapter 11

Louise felt as though her heart were being squeezed in a blacksmith's vise. Nicole, who sat silent and pale beside her, was soon to board a ship that would carry her from their sight to a great unknown future.

It had been useless to try to protest further. Louise knew that from the start, even before Henri held her close and whispered, as he patted her back with work-roughened hands, that they could not, dared not, try to hold this young woman, their beloved Nicole, who also belonged to another set of parents.

The trip itself was not Louise's biggest fear. Oh, she fretted about the perilous sea voyage, but that had not caused her sleepless nights as the wind sighed through the cypress trees. No, it was the thought that once gone, Nicole might never return. Louise could not imagine life without her daughter.

“I've lost one daughter,” she had mourned to Henri that dawn. “Now it appears that I am about to lose another.”

He had tried to console her, but she knew his heart was heavy also. No matter how hard he struggled to maintain a brave front, his visage reflected her own sorrow.

“We must leave her in God's hands,” he finally had answered. “Since we are also in His hands, we will be joined together always, though the distance is a little longer.”

“You call
this
a little longer?”