The Distant Beacon

by T. Davis Bunn

  The young seminarian looked stricken. “That is not possible.”

  “I beg of you, sir! Lives are at stake here.”

  “May I ask your name?”

  “Gordon Goodwind.”

  “Ah. Certainly. I have heard of you.” The pastor glanced behind him at the barred doorway, then whispered, “Sir, I have given my solemn word to speak of nothing here save the gospel.”

  “Then I cannot, I shall not, ask you to break your word. But if you see it within your reach to simply mention to a certain Miss Nicole Harrow—”

  “The Lady Harrow? I saw her just this morning.”

  “She is well?”

  “Most certainly. She . . .” The young man bit down hard on his lip. “Sir, I beg you. My oath.”

  “Yes. Of course. Only if you were to perhaps mention that we have met, you would receive my undying gratitude.”

  The young man retreated toward the doorway as he said, “Sir, I urge you to think anew of your Savior and His undying gift.”

  Chapter 19

  Around midnight Nicole got up from her rumpled bed. She couldn’t sleep with her mind so full of questions. She pulled on her robe, lit a candle, and sat down at the little table. Just above her head, a simple cross hung on the stone wall. She found herself talking in her mind to God, asking why solutions were so hard to find. The answers seemed further from her now than when living in England. She sought with all her might to do His will. How could He remain silent for so long, and in the midst of such a troubling time?

  She yearned for her sister’s companionship. Her thoughtful, wise counsel. Anne’s most remarkable ability was how she could genuinely live the moment with another. During the times they had spent together, Nicole had the impression of speaking to another side of her own self. She desperately needed this gift now.

  Nicole drew out a quill and sheet of paper from her trunk. Fortunately the table’s inkstand was almost full. Even as she began writing, she knew full well she would not be sending the letter, at least not any time soon. According to what she’d heard in the dining hall, mail on its way to England was notoriously slow, if it arrived at all. Yet instead of feeling frustrated, Nicole found herself invigorated by the thought that, while writing to her sister, the words might come in a way that would help bring understanding for herself, perhaps revealing truth.

  So it was that she began her missive with one of the hardest questions of her entire life. What would have happened if she and Anne had not been exchanged as infants? What if their assumption had been wrong, the surmise that made it possible for Nicole to find a certain reason in all the pain and hardship that had followed: What if Anne had indeed been strong enough to survive the long journey to Louisiana? Did that mean that everything Nicole endured in her stead was only the result of happenstance, of life’s uncaring hand?

  She paused there, marveling at how there was no anguish in her soul at such considerations. She felt as if the night blanketed her with a comforting closeness, as if it sheltered her heart so that her mind might explore forbidden pathways. This was the clearest sign she could have received from an otherwise silent God—at least seemingly so. Maybe she was in fact not alone. She dipped the pen into the inkstand and continued.

  Nicole imagined how it might have been for Anne if she had traveled her road and, later on, helped to build their home in the Cajun country. In truth, she knew and so wrote, Anne would never have been a fighter. Her spirit didn’t contain Nicole’s restless impatience, her challenge to circumstance. She may have lived through the road’s travails, yes, but emotionally she would not have thrived. Wilted and weak, she would have silently moved through a life too severe for her gentle spirit. The constant struggle to adapt and survive would have overwhelmed her. The internal battles, which had only sharpened Nicole’s desire to grow and travel and see and experience, would most likely have proved too much for Anne.

  Nicole spent a long moment cleaning the quill’s nib, pressing it again and again on the ink-stained scrap. She knew what the next question was to be, and she didn’t flinch from it. She was merely gathering herself. She dipped the quill, took a long breath, and asked of the night: If she had remained in Nova Scotia, what would have happened to her?

  The answer came easier here, perhaps because the search for truth was well under way now. The letter had become a journey into life’s imponderable questions. The answer was, she would very likely have fought against Andrew and the poverty that resulted from his and Catherine’s choices. Another dip of the pen, another long breath. And she would have hated Anne. For this family she had never met, and probably never would, had robbed her of the more prosperous way of life accorded Andrew Harrow, a military officer. It would not have mattered that this wasn’t the truth. In her dark and sheltered corner of a war-torn world, Nicole saw herself with utter clarity. The restless younger Nicole would have made it the truth. Why? Because it would have made her parents her adversaries, opening the door to the conflict her impatient spirit demanded.

  She used the hem of her robe to clear her eyes and then returned to her writing, now at a furious pace, desperate to keep up with her tumbling thoughts. She also would have loathed how Andrew and Catherine’s choices had caused them to become ostracized by the military and by polite society. Even though she might have agreed with their position, still she would have fought them over the result.

  As the night wore on, Nicole came to realize that Henri Robichaud’s staunch and unbending faith was precisely what she had required. Catherine and Andrew might not have been able to withstand her strong will and rebellion.

  The night’s hardest confession was that in the end she might well have come to oppose her father’s faith. She could have blamed God, and fought Him as well.

  If the switch had never been made, perhaps Anne might have survived physically, yet despaired emotionally. Nicole, on the other hand, would have thrived in Nova Scotia in one sense, but she may well have lost herself spiritually. And thus lost everything.

  This confession stripped her to the bone. Nicole stared at the bottom of the final page and saw written there the words her hand only in part had made. God did indeed work all things for the good.

  The candle flickered once, then dimmed. She watched it burn down to a final nothingness and disappear into a tiny glowing ember. Yet the night’s comforting closeness only drew nearer, holding her still in its embrace. Nicole rose from her chair, took off her robe, and climbed back into bed. She stared up at the unseen ceiling and wrote more words there with her heart. What was the purpose behind all she was experiencing now? What were the lessons to be learned?

  The night’s final question she whispered, the sound as a faint echo to her heart’s cry. “Gordon, Gordon, where have you gone?”

  The next morning Nicole ate a solitary breakfast with only her Bible for company. Chapel wasn’t for another half hour, and her room’s tiny confines seemed far too restrictive just then. She could feel eyes upon her from the other tables and could guess what they were thinking. A young woman on her own, mysterious and silent, and so the rumors swirled. That she was a titled lady, an heiress and a daughter to a Nova Scotian pastor. No, a daughter of an Acadian family. Nicole sighed hard enough to push away the thoughts and concentrated harder on the words in front of her.

  “Ah, there you are.” Pastor Collins stepped through the doorway and hurried over to where she sat. “How are you, my dear?”

  “I’m well, thank you.” She did not say more because she could see that a deep strain creased his forehead. “Is something troubling you?”

  “Perhaps I might ask you to come this way.”

  “Of course.” She followed him from the dining hall and waited till they were on their way back to his office before she said, “I hope the seminary hasn’t lost another friend to this horrible war.”

  To her dismay, Pastor Collins responded only by opening his office door and saying, “Please come in.”

  A young man shot up from his seat when they
entered. Nervously he twisted a wide-brimmed hat in his hands, one often used by New England clergy. Pastor Collins said, “May I introduce the soon-to-be Reverend Peters. This is our dear Lady Harrow.”

  Nicole started to ask that he use her given name, when she saw the two of them watched her with shared expressions of concern. Then the strength went out of her legs.

  Thankfully, Pastor Collins was alert and able to grip her elbow. “Here, my dear, please seat yourself here.”

  She allowed herself to be guided into a chair, then forced the words through a throat that had clenched tight with terror. “It’s Gordon, isn’t it?”

  Pastor Collins turned and nodded to the young seminarian, who swallowed and said, “I have been granted license to minister to the prisoners within the British garrison’s stockade.”

  “Stockade? Gordon? But that’s—”

  “Allow the young man to continue, my dear,” Pastor Collins cautioned gently.

  “The entire garrison is speaking of nothing else. Which is why I feel I can convey this news without breaking my word.” A shaky breath, then, “Gordon Goodwind was captured in the act of sailing an American vessel out of harbor. He is to be hanged as a turncoat.”

  Nicole could only stare at him. But clearly he understood the unspoken question in her gaze, for he added, “In three days’ time. On the same day, his men are to be given the lash and then press-ganged.”

  She bowed her head over her knees. She felt Pastor Collins’s hand come to rest on her shoulder, but the sensation receded into the far distance. As in the previous night, despite the tumult and the feeling of her heart being squeezed in her chest, she felt a peace come over her. And so she waited. She had no answers. She had no direction. Nicole leaned over with her forehead planted on her hands, her eyes tightly shut, and she permitted her mind’s frantic whirl of emotion to recede as well. For once, she refused to give in to her restless energy. For once, she would remain still within her own helplessness. She would accept her blindness, her lack of answers, and wait for the divine hand to point the way. Nicole stayed as she was, scarcely breathing.

  When she rose up, she found both men looking at her expectantly. She said quietly, “I must ask where you and your colleagues stand in this conflict against the colonials.”

  “The proper term for those opposing the British, my dear, is American,” Pastor Collins responded. “It is a tragedy we see all too often just now. Families have become split over the question of where their loyalties lie. So within these walls, we hold to one allegiance and one only. To our Lord and Savior. That is how we maintain peace. That is how we shall survive.”

  Nicole nodded slowly, taking in both this and the implication that some within these walls were for the other side. “I must go to the Americans,” she said calmly.

  “My dear,” the pastor objected, “that is a most perilous thought. You could find yourself in danger, right alongside the good captain.”

  “Nonetheless, that is what I must do. And today.” She then stood and addressed the young seminarian. “Can you help me?”

  Chapter 20

  The track through the marshland had turned boggy from the week’s constant rain. In parts the trail disappeared completely, merging with the surrounding swamp and vanishing beneath rain-speckled water. The four horses stumbled and snorted and whinnied in protest, their flanks steaming. Overhead the branches appeared gray in the faint first light of dawn. Nicole could barely make out the pastor and the second man buried in the folds of their dark greatcoats. Their tricornered hats became funnels that poured a continual stream of water onto their horses.

  The man had a knife scar that almost divided his nose in two. His eyes were gray and half hidden below eyebrows that seemed determined to grow until they joined up with his unkempt beard. He hadn’t spoken at all. The young seminarian had offered no name, introducing him only as a trusted ally.

  At a signal Nicole missed entirely, the trio halted. The seminarian watched as the other man unstrapped two long canvas-covered bundles from the fourth horse and said to Nicole, “This is as far as I dare go.”

  “I cannot thank you enough, Reverend Peters,” she said.

  The young man obviously took no pleasure in Nicole’s gratitude. “You are certain of your course, ma’am?”

  In reply, she slipped down from her horse, walked over, and patted his boot. “If you see Gordon—” “Please, my lady, I beg you.”

  “Yes. All right. Of course.”

  The man led the horses into a thicket so dense that after five paces Nicole couldn’t see them anymore. Swiftly he returned and hefted the bundles, holding them snug under each arm. He then glanced at Nicole, turned, and began hiking into the murky dawn. Nicole said to the young pastor, “Thank you again.”

  “Go with God, my lady.”

  “I hope so,” Nicole murmured, the words meant for herself alone. “I do most certainly hope and pray that He is with me.”

  The man led her along what could hardly be called a trail. To her eye it seemed to be nothing more than another clump of grass, a tiny glimpse of soggy earth rising from the water, a stunted tree. Yet the water level never came above her ankles, while to either side she saw fish jumping and water birds diving for their food. Her boots kept getting caught and held by the muck, and each step required her to jerk hard to pull her foot free. The man never looked back a single time to make sure she was keeping up but slogged onto the riverbank, where he dumped his bundles into a boat that Nicole hadn’t noticed until she was standing over it. He dragged the camouflage branches off the skiff, pushed it out into the water, and held it steady for Nicole as she climbed aboard. All without speaking a word.

  The oarlocks were caked with old grease, the oars wrapped with an oily netting so as to give off no sound. He grunted softly as he plied them in a steady beat, pulling away and into the stream. Soon the bank was lost behind a curtain of driving rain. The swiftly flowing water was gray as the sky, as the day, as her heart. What was she doing? What did she expect to accomplish? Nicole bowed her head and watched the rivulet of water gush off the edge of her hood. O Lord God in heaven, bless me this day, bless my actions. Please guide me. Show me what is intended here. Reveal to me the purpose behind this risk. Give me strength and courage. Amen, O Lord. Amen.

  The shore appeared out of the rain and the gathering daylight. Clearly the man had made this journey many times before, as he maneuvered the boat into a tiny creek that suddenly revealed itself among the undergrowth. He continued to pull them forward until the oars were touching either bank, then he tied the leader to an overhanging branch, stowed the oars, and stepped into thigh-deep water. He guided the skiff over to the bank and held it firm for Nicole to step out. Afterward he hoisted his two bundles and headed away.

  Only then did Nicole realize he was leaving her alone. “Wait!” she called after him.

  Reluctantly the man turned about. “Which way to the Americans?” she asked.

  He used a bundle to point toward the northwest.

  “When do you return to the other side?”

  The man’s entire face worked, as though it required much labor to extract the single word, “Dusk.”

  With that, he turned and was gone.

  The walk began in sheets of rain, although it seemed to her she’d scarcely gotten started along the trail before the rain tapered off. Had she not been outside in it, she would not have believed such a transformation could occur so swiftly. All she felt was the lightest puff of breeze upon her cheek, just enough to toss a few blustery droplets off her hood and onto her face. Yet up above the clouds seemed to be plucked asunder as a higher wind ripped away the heavy cover and revealed a morning of splendor.

  By the time she caught sight of the church’s spires, the day was already so warm she had dropped her hood and opened the front of her cloak. The surrounding fields and orchards had awakened with a flourish. The birds sounded so loud to her ears she suspected they also were enthralled by the sudden change of weather
.

  The trail broadened and became a brick-paved road. This was something she’d always loved about villages in England, how they kept their towns so much neater by paving the main roads. Boston had such, of course. But Boston was a very imposing place, with many large houses and tall, fortified walls and structures. Boston was a city striving for grandness. This was a village. Cambridge, she read on a shop front—a lovely, English-sounding name.

  The farther she walked through the village, the more she was enchanted. Even in the midst of war, Boston held to a grandeur that reminded her of London’s self-importance. Cambridge, on the other hand, held tastes of everything she had loved about England. And this was the perfect day to explore it, with the air sparkling from its recent scrubbing and the first hints of springtime green tracing new edges around the trees and shrubs. The houses were either splittimbered in the Elizabethan style or more staid and stalwart, dressed in stone and red brick. High-pitched roofs opened to dormer windows glinting merry and bejeweled, chimneys gave off woodsmoke, and the smells of morning meals lingered in the air. She heard a child’s laughter and smiled in reply. Truly this would be a very nice place to call home.

  “Well, hello there, my darling missy!” A rakish man wearing a saber and double pistols across his chest doffed his hat and bowed so low the peacock feather in his brim scraped the earth. His mates chuckled at the theatrics, ogling her. “How’s about a kiss to greet the day?”

  Not even this rudeness could ruin the day’s fine spirit. Despite their lack of uniforms, their stance and watchful gazes caused Nicole to approach and inquire, “Are you soldiers?”

  “That we are, missy. That we are.” The man settled the hat back on his head, cocking it and grinning at her. Even with the dirt and the hour, the man presented a dashing look. “Unless you make it a point not to kiss soldiers. Then we’ll just have to be whatever it is that delights you.”