“Our cabin?”
Harry laughed. He was obviously enjoying himself. “Of course. What sort of arrangement were you expecting?” When she did not answer, he continued, “I’m going outside to have a smoke on the deck, but I shall return. Don’t try any of your tricks again, Margaret, or I assure you that you’ll regret it.”
She heard the key turn in the lock when he closed the door. If only there were some way for her to get out before the boat left the shore! She waited for a few moments and then tried the door. Just as she had suspected, it was locked.
Oh, what was she to do? She looked around the cabin for something to work into the keyhole.
Next to the fruit bowl was a plate of cheese and crackers, with a small knife beside it. She had not noticed it before because she had been so repelled by the sight of food. Now she picked up the knife and inserted it into the keyhole. She twisted it first one way and then the other, but the stubborn knob refused to turn in her hand. In frustration, she kicked the door.
She put the knife back on the table in exactly the same spot where she had found it. It would not do for Harry to suspect what she had been trying to do!
How long did it take for a smoke on the deck? He would likely be returning at any minute, unless he found someone to engage in a card game.
Margaret fell to her knees beside the satin-covered bed and prayed from the depths of her heart. When she heard the key in the lock, she did not raise her head. She was sure that Harry would ridicule her pleas to the Almighty, but that did not matter to her one whit. What mattered to her now was that her Lord was with her, and nothing on earth could ever separate her from His love.
Margaret realized now that her whole life had been a quest, but only recently had she come to realize just what she had been searching for. Superficial romance, money, and material possessions had left her feeling incomplete and un-satisfied. Now that she had turned her life over to God, peace and happiness filled her heart. Facing unknown horrors, she placed herself in His hands.
She held her breath as the footsteps moved closer to her side. “The Lord is my shepherd. . .”
“Margaret?”
“Mikal!”
“Shh! We have to get out of here.”
“Oh, Mikal, how did you know where. . . ?”
He pulled her to her feet and led her toward the door. “No time for questions now. Just be quiet and follow me.” He eased the door open and looked outside in both directions before he pulled her onto the deck beside him. With his arm around her waist, he led her toward the loading ramp.
Margaret’s heart pounded as the two of them moved with the stealth of a cat stalking a mouse. They’d almost made it to the ramp when Harry Robards stepped out in front of them.
“You again,” Harry snarled. “I’ll have you arrested for breaking into my cabin!”
“Yes, do that, Harry. Call the captain. I know him well, and I have a few things I’d like to tell him myself.”
Harry’s face turned the color of a ripe plum. He looked from Mikal to Margaret and back to Mikal again. He seemed to realize the futility of further protest. “Take her, then. She’s not worth the trouble. You two ‘holier-than-thou’ idiots deserve each other.”
Just as Mikal’s arm propelled Margaret toward the ramp, a woman’s piercing scream split the air. “He’s got a gun!”
Mikal pushed Margaret to the floor and fell beside her in one quick motion, just as the shot was fired. Because of his instant reaction, the bullet that was aimed at Mikal’s heart barely grazed his left shoulder.
Harry was immediately overpowered by members of the ship’s crew and hauled away, his profanities ringing through the air.
Margaret pushed herself to a sitting position and looked at Mikal’s blood-stained shirt. “Oh, Mikal! You’re hurt!”
The steward crouched beside them, barking orders to his crew. “Someone call the doctor. Get a stretcher over here!” And to Mikal, he said, “Don’t try to move. We’ll have you lifted out of here in a moment, and we’ll have our ship’s doctor take a look at your shoulder. Are you all right, miss?”
“Yes, I’m fine, but. . .”
“I’m fine, too,” Mikal said, staggering to his feet. “Just help us get out of here and I’ll have my own doctor look at this shoulder. It’s only a flesh wound.” He balled up his handkerchief and pressed it hard against his shoulder to stem the flow of blood. “Margaret, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Oh, Mikal, I’ve caused you so much trouble. Let the ship’s doctor look at you now before you lose any more blood. As soon as he says it’s safe, we’ll go to find John.”
twenty-two
Three people sat in John Gorrie’s waiting room, but when the doctor stuck his head through the doorway and saw Mikal and Margaret, he ushered them into his office at once. “What in the world have you been up to now?” he asked, eyeing Mikal’s arm in a sling. “I say, for a passive man, you’re managing to get yourself into more scrapes lately than the town’s worst ruffians! What happened here?”
While John removed the bandages applied by the ship’s doctor, Mikal gave a brief explanation. “Fortunately, young Alex was just coming down Margaret’s staircase when Harry Robards entered her shop. Not wanting another encounter with the man, the boy crouched on the stairs and saw everything. I was down at the wharf supervising the loading of my cargo when I saw him flying down the road toward me. I knew at once that there must be a real emergency, so I dropped everything and ran to meet him in the street. He told me everything that had happened. Luckily, he heard Harry say something about New Orleans, so I took off for the pier where the River Queen was docked.”
“But how did you know which cabin I was in?” Margaret asked.
“That part was easy. I know a lot of the crewmen who work on the River Queen. I just asked one of them where I might find Mr. Robards, and he directed me to your door. Picking the lock was the tricky part.” Mikal chuckled and then grimaced when the movement hurt his shoulder. “I’ve never been called on to do anything like that before.”
The grin that spread across his face melted Margaret’s heart, and she found one more reason to love this wonderful man. He was the one who had directed her to a new life in Christ, and now he had saved her from life-destroying harm at the hands of the evil Harry Robards.
“Looks like the ship’s doctor did a good job here, Mikal,” John said. “I’ll just pour on some of this antiseptic to ward against infection and rewrap it. It’s a nasty wound, and it’s going to hurt pretty badly for a few days, but your muscles are all intact, and when it heals, you’ll be as good as new.”
“I’m supposed to sail out of here tomorrow, John.”
“Sorry, friend. You’re not going anywhere tomorrow. In fact, I’m ordering limited activity for a week. I’ll have a room fixed up for you here at my house where I can keep an eye on you for the next few days. We don’t want to risk an infection.”
Margaret smiled inwardly. Mikal would be in town for at least another week. She had so many things she wanted to tell him before he left again.
“He’s going to need a nurse, Margaret,” John said with a twinkle in his eye. “Do you suppose you could hang around here during the day and help me take care of him?”
“Now, look here. . .”
“I’m sure I can get Amy to run the shop for a few days,” Margaret said before Mikal could finish his protest. “I’ll talk to her about it at once.”
Mikal uttered a mock groan, and John turned his back to conceal his grin.
❧
Margaret sat on the sofa in John Gorrie’s living room and spread her wide calico skirts around her. She let her eyes rest on Mikal, sitting in the chair across from her, and smiled. “John is spoiling us both,” she said. “That was a delicious supper.”
“Yes, and as soon as he gets back from his round of evening house calls, I’m going to thank him.”
“Well, we both thanked him already, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to thank
him again.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Mikal said with a wry smile on his lips. “I mean I want to thank him for something else.”
When Margaret lifted quizzical brows, he continued. “I want to thank him for keeping you here with me and for giving us this time alone together. There is so much that I want to say to you, Margaret.”
He crossed to sit beside her and put his one good arm around her shoulders. “I guess I’m not a very smart man. I had to almost lose you before I realized that I can’t live my life without you. I love you, Margaret. I think I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you standing on the deck of the Windsong with your hair blowing in the wind. I couldn’t admit it then, even to myself, because you were pledged to another man. But this afternoon, when you told me the story of your conversion, I knew that you were a part of God’s plan for my life, and although I’m going to have to make some adjustments to my lifestyle, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy.”
“Oh, Mikal! How I’ve dreamed of hearing you say those words. I think I fell in love with you that same day when we met on the deck of the schooner, but my values were so warped that I wasn’t able to see it clearly until much later.”
He drew her close to him and kissed her on the forehead, but when she tilted her chin, their lips met in a kiss that was at once both fierce and sweet.
“Does that mean your answer is yes?” he asked her, pulling back to catch his breath.
Her shining eyes met his and a wellspring of joy burst from somewhere deep inside her as she whispered her answer. “Yes! Oh, yes, Mikal Lee. I do love you, and I want us to share the rest of our lives together.”
epilogue
On May 22, 1838, Margaret Abigail Porter and Mikal Austin Lee spoke their sacred wedding vows in the recently completed Trinity Church, which was built in New York and brought to Apalachicola in four sections.
The bride was radiant in a gown of white satin. Her attendants were Caroline Gorrie, recent bride of Dr. John Gorrie, and America McCutcheon.
Mr. Lee was attended by Dr. John Gorrie and Master Alex McCutcheon.
After the ceremony, all guests were invited to attend a reception honoring the bride and groom, held at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Gorrie.
Following their wedding trip to New York, Mr. and Mrs. Lee will be at home in their new residence on Concord Street.
❧
With their arms wrapped around each other, Margaret and Mikal Lee stood on the swaying deck of the Windsong, where they had met just two years before. Today the wind was calm, and the waters of the Atlantic were almost smooth.
“Did you ever imagine on the day we left Savannah together that we would one day be standing here together as man and wife?” Mikal asked her.
Margaret’s musical laughter floated on the ocean breeze. “Not in my wildest dreams,” she admitted. “And I still can’t believe that I am really going to New York with you.”
“If my guess is right, this is only the first of many trips we’ll be making to New York together while I’m training my new assistant to take over my duties on the Windsong. Did you get a list from Amy of all the things she wants us to bring back for the shop?”
“Yes, and our bookshelves, too, are almost empty. We’ll have a lot of shopping to do.”
“John tells me that the store next to your millinery shop will be vacated in about a month. I’ve been thinking of remodeling it to connect the two and moving all of our books in there. That would give you more room for your hats and bonnets, and I’d have a whole store just for books. What do you think of that?”
Margaret laid her head on his chest. “I think I have a very smart husband,” she said.
Mikal pulled her close and whispered into her hair, “At least I know one thing I’ve done that was smart, very, very smart!” He used his right forefinger to tilt her chin upward and looked deep into her sparkling green eyes before he bent to place a kiss on the lips of his beautiful bride.
❧
Apalachicola today
Although the Constitution Convention was held in 1838, Florida did not actually become a state until 1845.
Apalachicola, once the third largest port in the Florida Territory, is now a sleepy little town in Florida’s panhandle, where visitors can still take a walk down Market Street, savor the world’s most succulent oysters, and watch spectacular sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. Maps are free at the Chamber of Commerce for a walking tour of the historic district, which is less than two miles square.
Dr. John Gorrie died in 1855 at the age of fifty-two, but not before receiving a patent for mechanical refrigeration. Initially designed to cool his fevered patients, his invention spawned our modern air-conditioning and commercial refrigeration systems. Today his statue stands as the focal point of Apalachicola’s Gorrie Square.
Your tour will take you by the home of world-famous botanist Dr. Alvin Chapman and the two-story home that David and Harriet Raney built on Market Street in 1838. The Raney home is open to visitors on Saturdays.
The old lighthouse still stands on St. George Island; its beacon warns mariners of the dangerous shoals along the coast. The island is a shell-seeker’s paradise.
Trinity Church, the Greek Revival building that was shipped from New York in four sections and assembled with wooden pegs in 1837–38, is on the National Register of Historical Places and is the second oldest church in Florida where services are still held. It stands as a permanent monument to glorify God for His bounteous goodness.
About the Author
Muncy Chapman has four children who magically became eight (ie, their spouses), and then was blessed with eleven grandchildren. All live in Florida. She says she is married to the most wonderful man in the world with whom she recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Muncy likes to sew, cook, play the piano, and of course, write. She works with the children in her church, and also with the shut-ins as a “Caring Caller.” She enjoys writing with her husband. He likes the research and she likes choosing the words.
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