Heirs of Acadia - 02 - The Innocent Libertine (34 page)

The redbrick manor with white-trimmed sash windows was most impressive, though not as grand as some of the country estates Lillian had known in England. But it most certainly held a certain sprawling majesty. A broad front portico was bordered by six Corinthian columns supporting a high sloping roof. To either side extended sheltered walks. Here the columns were both shorter and thinner, giving the impression of two classical arms outstretched to greet any new arrival. At the end of these walkways rose miniature versions of the central house. One looked like it contained the cookhouse; the other seemed to be apartments for the house servants.

As they all stepped down from the coaches, Lillian turned in a slow sweep of the surrounding vista. There was no other house to be seen, save the cottages in the valley below. In fact, she could find no other estate at all. Nor was there any road visible save the lane leading up to the house. The overall feeling was one of rustic elegance carved from an almost endless land. And isolation.

There before her stretched a future that was hers by force and by fate, but not by choice. Oh, she had elected to come. But not because it was where she wished to live. She came because all other paths were barred. She came to leave a lifetime of half-truths and outright lies and scandal behind. She came to find a secure place for herself and her son.

Yet as she stood on the manor’s broad front lawn and surveyed the farmlands and valley and forested hills beyond, she did not feel at all safe. Instead, she felt like an outsider, trapped in a role for which she was not made.

Their hosts, distant relatives of Erica, proved as welcoming and hospitable as their home was lovely. Erica’s letter of introduction had arrived only two days earlier, but this hardly mattered. Had they not received word at all, Lillian had the impression these kind people would have greeted them with open arms. She swiftly gathered that such chance meetings made up much of the social life of these far-flung American landholders.

They were all shown to inviting guest rooms and encouraged to rest and freshen up before supper.

Lillian was to share a room with Abigail, one that looked out over the front of the house. Dressing for dinner took little time, for like the others she had brought no finery on this journey. Once she had washed and changed into a fresh gown, Lillian pulled a book from her carrying case and sat by the front window. But her attention remained held by the view. The lands looked both rich in promise and beautiful in the softening light. Yet she was filled with the same sense of foreboding she had known when pulling up the drive.

“Lillian, did you hear what I just said?”

Lillian turned from the sunset and the pastures. “Forgive me, I was miles away.”

“Shall I leave you be?”

“No, please don’t.” Lillian turned from the window. “Tell me again what you said.”

“It’s nothing, really. Only that I shall miss dressing up.”

“So you think you shall remain in Wheeling?”

The younger woman replied simply, “I could not bear being separated from Abe. To even consider such a thing threatens to pluck my heart from my body.”

“I understand.” And she did. Yet agreeing with Abigail left her wanting to weep.

“It’s silly, I know,” Abigail said. “To be sorry over a trifling like nice dresses. I never did much care for the socials and ladies’ gatherings. Or opera.”

“I for one should miss the fine meals,” Lillian confessed, then silently added,
and so much else from my former life.
Such thoughts again drew her toward the parting from Reginald. She could no longer lie to herself and hope their Wheeling business might hold him there or even bring him back. The prospect of a new life in this alien world, heartbroken and alone, pierced her anew.

Abigail inspected her companion. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I was just reflecting upon all that will soon change.” Lillian forced herself to sound cheerful. There was nothing to be gained from keening over circumstances she could not change. She touched the letter she always carried in her pocket and reminded herself that another life was at stake here. “I must confess that I do miss my son very much.”

“I have never before thought of starting a family,” Abigail confessed, and blushed deeply. “Until now.”

Lillian found comfort in this young woman’s burgeoning love and the joy it brought. For Lillian, the future was bleak. But she could still find strength in the hopes of these others, and for her son. Lillian forced herself to smile through her pain. She would not destroy this woman’s fragile joy with her own sorrow. Not now, not ever. “Abe is truly a fine young man.”

“Yes,” Abigail softly agreed. “He is.”

A bell sounded from somewhere down below. “I suppose that is our call to table.”

Abe joined them on the upstairs landing. “Miss Lillian, did you spy the pianoforte in the second parlor?”

“I did not, Abe.” Once again, Lillian found solace in the young man’s affectionate eagerness. “Would you care to play again?”

“Only if it would not inconvenience you to sing.”

Perhaps her voice might indeed prove a comfort in this new land, Lillian reflected. Perhaps this tainted talent might be turned into an instrument of truth and light in her new life. “I have no objections.”

Reginald appeared as Abe and Abigail started down the stairs. “Might I have the pleasure of leading you into dinner?” he asked formally.

“It would be my distinct honor.” The effort of speaking evenly was a great challenge.

“You look troubled.” When she did not respond, he added, “May I be of help?”

If only,
she replied, but silently. Even so, the yearning and distress must have been there in her gaze. Reginald touched her arm, a simple gesture but one which left her fighting the urge to fling herself into his embrace.
My son,
she repeated over and over.
I must be strong for the future of my son
.

“I can do nothing unless you tell me,” Reginald said, his voice low.

“I am beset by problems for which there are no earthly answers,” she whispered.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“What one finds impossible, two can often overcome.”

“You are most kind, sir.” She spoke through lips stiff with the effort of control. “But in this case I know I face the prospect alone.”

Reginald’s own voice sounded strained. “Perhaps you should pray on it.”

She started to dismiss the words, yet in the same instant she felt a strong sense of harmony, of righteousness. “I-I really don’t know how.”

“God is not concerned that you say the proper words,” Reginald said, starting down the stairs with her hand on his elbow. “He merely wishes to have you ask with a contrite and open heart.”

Before the meal, Franklin Harrow led them through the main rooms. They were invited to inspect a framed document hanging above the great room’s fireplace. Lillian read how a grateful Continental Congress had affirmed an earlier Harrow’s ownership of this estate. She was surprised over the particular wording used and asked, “Do I understand correctly that your forebear was an earl?”

“He lost his titles,” Franklin said, “and all his British holdings for backing the Americans in the War of Independence.”

Sylvia Harrow held herself upright, seeming stiff and a bit distant. “My husband has made numerous appeals to the Crown, requesting that the earldom be restored. All to no avail.”

“Aye, well, it would be a falsehood to say I don’t wish for the titles. Especially now,” Franklin conceded.

“Why is that, sir?”

“Coal!” Franklin Harrow was a big-boned man, not as tall as Reginald but considerably heavier. He wore his hair long and was dressed in a crimson housecoat over a starched white shirt. But his hands bore the scars and callouses of a lifetime of hard work. He was an incongruous figure, part frontiersman and part Eastern socialite. “The hills about these parts are full of the finest grade coal you could ever hope to see. I’ve acquired land to the south of here, just over the Virginia border. There are veins so rich you can pull the stuff from the earth with your bare hands.”

“Franklin has tripled the size of the holdings he inherited from his father,” Sylvia Harrow interjected proudly.

“The new mills around Boston are paying top dollar for good coal. Top dollar! Now that the National Road is open, I’m filling two wagon trains a week. There’s a new turnpike abuilding that will take me as far as Philadelphia. From there the roads are straight and open all the way to Boston. The mills want ten times what I’m supplying now, and I intend to deliver.”

“Franklin has acquired a house on the same square as Paul Revere’s silversmith shop,” Sylvia put in.

“The Boston merchants were making more money off my coal than I was. Gouging me, they were. So I’m going to sell directly to the mills. Which means Sylvia and I are up and moving to the big city.”

“I was raised in Philadelphia,” Sylvia said. “I have always missed the life in town.”

“And now she will have it again.”

“But the folks in Boston won’t afford Franklin the respect he deserves,” Sylvia commented.

Franklin Harrow blew out his cheeks. “They’re some of the oldest families in America.”

“They treat us like paupers and miscreants,” Sylvia said, sounding incensed by the notion.

“It’s not so bad,” Franklin said, putting on a jovial tone.

“It is and you know it. They put on the most dreadful airs and turn their nose up at us, like, like . . .”

“Like we didn’t belong,” Franklin finished, shrugging his big shoulders.

“Never did I think I’d be hearing that Americans would not measure a man by his own accomplishments,” Reginald offered.

“They say Boston is a world unto itself,” Franklin replied. “And they’re right.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well, enough of that. Let’s go to the dining room.”

They were joined at dinner by the local vicar. John Stout certainly lived up to his name, for his girth was almost as great as his height. But genuine intelligence and warmth gleamed from his brown eyes. And his clean-shaven face held an interest in everything about him. Most particularly the unexpected guests. “Mrs. Erica Powers at the same table as myself. What a delight. What an unexpected delight. My wife will be doubly sad to learn what this bout of croup has kept her from enjoying. I can’t tell you what your and your husband’s writings have meant.”

“You do us great honor, sir.”

“Stuff and nonsense. I am but a minor servant fighting this dire plague called slavery. But you two, why, here before me stands a portion of the struggle’s very heart.”

“We are able to do very little,” Erica replied. “And so far none of it to great success.”

“Why, you know that is not true,” he protested. “We out here in the hinterland hear how much ire you are raising with your writings, both in the nation’s capital and farther south.”

“Yet still the slave trade flourishes.”

“For the moment. For the moment. But the day shall come when we will look back upon our struggles in triumph. And triumph we most certainly shall, you mark my words. We shall then see that your honest reporting has sparked the flames that grew to sweep across our nation.”

“My husband and I are soon departing for England,” Erica confessed, “and we feel as though we leave nothing save defeat in our wake.”

“Not defeat. Not at all. Merely a temporary setback. But we shall win, of that you can be sure. With God’s help, the seeds you have planted shall erase this scourge from our great nation once and for all.”

The dining table was large enough to comfortably seat them all. The three Harrow children, aged between seven and twelve, sat at the table’s far end. Their mother’s stern gaze was sufficient to keep their antics to a quiet minimum. The driver and his wife and little Hannah sat with them as well. Three servants helped Sylvia Harrow bring out the feast. And feast it was. There was roast goose and smoked pork and wild turkey served with cranberry sauce. There was a stew of beef and another of venison along with fresh okra, potatoes, white corn, and beets with onions. A sweet potato casserole and green beans joined the freshly baked bread to be topped with churned butter and cheese still sweating from the cool house. The food just came and came. After the sparse fare of roadside inns, the travelers gaped in wonder.

As the vicar blessed the food and the gathering, Lillian found herself reflecting on Reginald’s advice. Did she truly know God so well as to be able to pray for guidance? She had only recently begun to bow her head at mealtimes and in church. Also at bedtimes she had occasionally offered up a few words. But to pray and ask for help, this suggested a new element to her relationship with the divine. Was God truly close enough that she might seek His specific direction?

The vicar’s words intoned directly across the table from where she sat. Lillian heard them with one part of her mind, but with the other she saw with utter clarity that if there was a barrier to her drawing near to God, it lay wholly on her side. God was the constant. She was the one who had held to a distance from Him.

She found herself praying an apology.
For all the days and weeks and years I have spent too far from Thee, God, I am most humbly sorry
.