The Beloved Land (22 page)
The voice sparked a memory. “Goody Newton,” Anne moved quickly toward her, “it is so wonderful to see you again.”
The old woman raised her hands toward the cloudless sky. “Praise be to the Lord of all,” she cried. “This is indeed a miracle.”
“Is something wrong?”
When the woman hesitated, Anne took a desperate hold upon Thomas’s arm. “Tell me!”
“It’s your dear, saintly father, child. He took a terrible turn not two nights ago.” The old woman pointed a trembling finger down the lane. “Hurry now, there’s not a moment to lose. May you arrive in time!”
Anne had used every device in her meager stock, willing her father to regain strength and health as she bent over his bed. The herbs had been made into a series of hot infusions, and every time Andrew regained consciousness he had been urged to drink. She had prepared a strong emetic, saying the age-old words as she helped him swallow—that first it would make him feel much worse, then it would make him better. With flange and knife and bowl, she had bled him twice. When she had used the same treatments for Charles, he had improved. She had nothing else to go on, save that these were the ministrations that had helped bring her father’s brother back to vigor.
Even at the worst moments, when Andrew was so weak he could barely raise his hand and her remedies were only making him feel worse, he would whisper to his beloved daughter, “I am so glad you are here.”
After four endless weeks of tending Andrew’s sickbed, Anne emerged from the cottage to a Sabbath morning awash in warm air and rosy hues. She walked to the gate and stood leaning upon the post, staring out at the empty lane. She lifted her face to the sky and heard the cottage door open and close behind her. The rustle of skirts signaled Catherine’s approach.
“He is talking with Thomas,” Catherine noted as she joined Anne at the gate.
Thomas knew nothing of nursing, but he would sit for hours beside Andrew, sometimes talking, sometimes listening patiently as Andrew attempted to converse.
“Thomas is a promise,” Andrew had earlier told Catherine as she had stroked his hand, willing him to live.
“A promise of what?” Catherine asked, then wished she had not.
“A promise of tomorrow,” Andrew had managed to say. “A beacon for all the morrows yet to come.”
Catherine had gazed down at her husband, grasping at the hope in his words.
Now she said to her daughter, “He asked Thomas to take the pulpit today in his place.”
Anne pointed out, “We have traveled here with two pastors from England. From what I’ve heard in the marketplace, they have preached most effectively these past three Sabbaths.”
“That is what Thomas told Andrew.”
“What did Father say?”
“That he would not insist, but he would consider it a great blessing if Thomas would agree.”
Anne pushed hair back from her forehead. “Knowing my husband, I think I know his answer already.”
The two women smiled at each other. Catherine stepped in closer. “I have been afraid to speak the words, but I think the critical corner has been turned—”
“He had no fever last night,” Anne agreed. “His breathing is easier, and his pulse remains steady.”
“The week after you arrived, I was seated at his side after you had gone to get some rest. I looked into my beloved husband’s face,” Catherine said, her whisper cracking, “and I saw death’s door open before my eyes.”
Anne reached for her mother’s hand. “I was thinking of another illness—”
“When you lost your dear Cyril,” Catherine said immediately. Her arms enfolded Anne. “My dear sweet daughter.”
“All that first week, I feared you would lose your husband also.” Her voice sank to barely a whisper.
They held each other and felt the sun warming their backs and necks. When the cottage door opened a third time, Thomas called out, “Grandfather is in here burning the husks and turning the morning tea black as night.”
“Good strong Sabbath brew, it is,” the old man said over his shoulder.
“They also know the worst is behind us,” Anne said.
“Of course they do.” Catherine gave her daughter a final hug.
When Thomas walked to the church pulpit, Anne thought he looked as weary as she felt. She glanced at her mother, who also looked stretched to the limit and beyond. John Price had declined the walk to church for the morning service, saying he would stay with Andrew. Anne faced the front of the church once more and said a silent prayer for her dear Thomas, for her father, and her aging grandfather.
Almost in reply, Thomas’s first words were, “Your pastor has asked me to speak for him this day. I am the first to confess that I hold neither the ability nor the insight of my father-in-law. So I ask for your prayers. I am happy to tell you that Pastor Harrow seems to be doing better this morning.”
He waited through the murmur, then continued, “Though we have met over his sickbed, and though he has managed only a few words, still I feel a very intense bond with my father-inlaw. I know this is partly due to all I have heard from my dear wife. I realize that it is his and Catherine’s godly influence that has shaped Anne. So although I do not yet know Andrew well, still I feel his imprint upon my life.”
Catherine’s hand slipped into Anne’s and squeezed. No word was necessary. Anne understood. She could feel it as well. Already she could sense the same spiritual anointing on her husband that she had witnessed in her father.
“I have no seminary training,” Thomas continued. “My studies have been of law. And so I shall not be drawing the deep scriptural expositions and interpretations such as Pastor Harrow no doubt has granted you. Instead, I shall spend the few Sabbaths until his strength has returned to speak of other people like myself. People who were called from various walks of life to follow the Master. People like Nicodemus and Stephen and Peter, from the Gospels and from Acts. People who lived through times of great trial and distress. People who faced the upheavals of life with Christ’s strength and wisdom. And we shall see what we can learn together.”
Anne stole a quick glance around and noted expressions from curiosity to openness on nearby faces. As Thomas read the story of Nicodemus from the gospel of John, she sensed his audience gathering around him in spirit to listen, to explore once again the familiar story.
“ … and this Pharisee,” Thomas concluded, “a ruler of the Jews accustomed to power and prestige, came to Jesus with his honest questions. He made himself vulnerable, like a little child would come to his father. And this is our example. …”
A thoughtful silence followed the closing hymn, and slowly the parishioners, one by one, rose to their feet, as if pondering how closely their yearning for spiritual truth paralleled that of Nicodemus.
Catherine and Anne stood in the church’s narthex as members of the congregation crowded around to greet them, welcoming Anne back into their midst and noting what a good sermon Thomas had preached.
The three finally were able to return to the cottage, their own demeanor rather silent and introspective as they walked along the lane. Anne’s small pressure on Thomas’s arm was quietly acknowledged with his grateful nod and smile. Anne knew he would be uncomfortable with further expressions of how proud of him she had been.
They were scarcely halfway up the front walk when the door was opened from within and John Price called to them, “I feared we would be forced to start without you!”
“I explained that you should not bother with cooking,” Catherine remonstrated, hurrying ahead. “You were not even able to join us for the service. The last thing you should be doing—”
But John Price’s chuckle stopped her, and he said, “We do have ourselves a very ample dinner, and I did nothing to prepare it.” He swept his arm toward the kitchen and the three followed him to the doorway.
Anne and Thomas crowded in behind Catherine to stare at the table laden with a half roast, a pot of stew, and several clay jars of compote and jams and honey. There were dried bunches of winter roots and herbs. Pickled mushrooms. A bowl of sea salt. Cider.
“Several came after the service to share with us from their own meal,” John explained.
“I don’t know what to say,” Catherine said weakly.
A voice from the back doorway replied, “Well, I most certainly do.”
“Father!” Anne rushed forward and slipped an arm about Andrew’s frame. Through the robe and nightdress he seemed scarcely more than skin and bones. “How are you feeling?”
“Hungry and impatient to rise from that bed.” He smiled at his wife. “Did Thomas speak well?”
“He made us very proud,” Catherine said softly. She moved forward and embraced him as well.
“Of course he did.” Andrew allowed the two women to help him over to a chair that Thomas held for him. “Perhaps you will do us the honor of saying grace,” he nodded toward his son-in-law. “It seems like years since I last ate anything that did not taste of my daughter’s pungent herbs.”
Nicole watched as they sailed into a pale gray harbor. New Orleans at midday greeted them with scented mist and noise. After weeks of seaborne solitude, the clamor battered against her ears.
The humid heat was stifling. A strong wind had steadily borne them south around the tip of Florida and then back up the Mexican Gulf. But the breeze was nearly gone, and there was no relief from the damp and sweltering temperature.
The closer they came to the harbor docks, the more she recognized the familiar scents and odors of Louisiana—charcoal and spices and fried dough and roasting hickory coffee. Others came from oily smoke and muddy refuse exposed by the low tide and close-packed humanity.
A harbor pilot had come out by longboat to guide them in. Nicole heard him say to her husband, “With the tide as it is, Captain, I suggest you anchor out from shore and wait for the incoming sea to draw into berth.”
“We have little besides ourselves to offload, sir. I’m quite happy to ride at anchor well away from the docks,” Gordon replied. He paused. “Forgive me for noticing, but I fail to detect any hint of a French accent.”
“Born and raised in Charleston,” the pilot told Gordon. The man was a barrel-chested old salt, with long sideburns thick as fists. “The British burned me out. Made my way down here when I heard they were looking for good pilots.”
“I am sorry to hear of your troubles, sir.”
“That’s the way of it, I suppose.” He shrugged, then pointed at the flag upon the masthead. “You’re flying American colors.”
“That is correct.”
“But you and your crew all have the sound of Limeys, if you don’t mind my saying.” Nicole knew the nickname had come from the new British habit of carrying the tiny fruit on all long voyages and doling them out on a weekly basis. A naval doctor, scoffed at by many, had recently suggested the fruit seemed to help prevent scurvy.
The pilot now told Gordon, “Here’s as good a place as any to drop anchor.”
Gordon turned to where Carter stood beside the wheelmaster. “Come about into the wind.”
“Aye, sir.”
The ship made a graceful sweep until her nose was pointed into the sporadic easterly breeze. The sails flapped so loudly Gordon had to holler, “Release anchors and make her fast.”
The crew leaped nimbly into action, almost running out along the long booms so fast it appeared they did not even require the rope-holds for balance. They gathered up the fluttering sails and tied them into place.
The pilot noted, “A well-trained crew, Captain. They move as if they were trained for battle.”
Gordon understood the man’s unspoken query. “My men and I came to the American cause as a unit.”
“We’re a fair piece removed from anyone who could confirm that. No offense intended.”
“None taken. In such times a wise man always watches his back.” He motioned to Carter. “Bring me the papers.”
Clearly the suspicion had been anticipated, for Carter reached into the oilskin pouch slung about his shoulder and handed Gordon the packet. Gordon unfolded the letters from the American commandant of the Boston garrison and handed them over.
When the pilot saw the official seal, he murmured his apology. “I have no right to be asking you a thing, sir,” he added.
“I will be frank, sir. I would ask your lay of the land,” Gordon said. “Which means I first require your confidence.”
The pilot accepted the papers, studied them intently, then handed them back. “You’re coming to buy?”
“We are.”
“Then make yourselves ready for many hours of frustration and haggling.” The pilot shook his head somberly. “A more rapacious lot than the New Orleans merchants I have never met.”
Gordon looked him in the eyes, then gave a short nod of gratitude.