“Fred was your husband?” He regretted the dry question as he asked it, but she seemed beyond noticing. “Yes. He was in the British Army. Sergeant Croston.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need—” She was staring past him at memory, and speaking with the frankness of sheer exhaustion. “I didn’t love him. There was no question of that between us. But he was wonderfully good to me. He saved me—” She stopped. “He took me away. He was ill already then. He didn’t tell me. Oh well, what’s the difference ...” The phrases came out disjointedly. “I didn’t understand till we were on the troop transport, coming over. But I did the best I could for him ... I nursed him as well as a real wife could have done.”
“I’m sure you did.” Her explanation, such as it was, left him more puzzled than ever. He had spent long enough in England to recognize the clipped accents of an English lady. What in the world had this child been doing married to a sergeant? But his next question was forestalled by a knock on the door. “Don’t worry.” He moved before she could open it. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
But instead of the angry group of soldiers he expected, one man stood outside, old and bent in his rusty professional black, a doctor’s bag in his hand. There was a great smear of blood, of which he was quite unaware, on the side of his face. “I came as soon as I could,” he began. And then, “Jon Penrose! Thank God!”
“Dr. Brown!” Jonathan shook his hand warmly and drew him into the house. “So you didn’t run with the rest of them?”
“I? A doctor? What do you think? But how’s your grandmother? I told Mrs. Croston I wouldn’t be answerable for the consequences if she had to spend the night in the woods. How is she, Mrs. Croston?”
“Dead.” The girl raised her head to stare at him with lackluster eyes. “I killed her, Dr. Brown.”
Nonsense.” Quickly, Jonathan explained what had happened.
“Ah, poor Mac.” The doctor put down his bag. “So I’ll not be needing this. Not your fault, Mrs. Croston. Mine, if you like. After all, I made you stay. Or rather, made her.” And then, to Jonathan, “I thought Mrs. Croston should run for it, like the rest of them, but she wouldn’t. A young girl ... I’m ashamed not to have been here sooner; I meant to; but, Jon, that explosion! It was horrible; more than the army doctors could deal with. I oughtn’t to have come away now; I mustn’t stay. Thank God you’re here to look after Mrs. Croston. But, just the same, what are you doing here, Jon?”
Jonathan Penrose laughed savagely. “I came to rescue my grandmother,” he said, “and my cousin Liz. Chauncey wouldn’t let me land sooner.” Raw feeling shook his voice.
“Don’t blame yourself, Jon. There was nothing you could have done. It’s over ten years since you’ve been here, isn’t it? Your grandmother could no more have stood the journey to Boston than she could have jumped over the moon.”
“So it’s all for nothing.” The despair in his voice made the old doctor look at him sharply.
Even the girl roused herself from where she sat huddled in the big chair. “Not nothing to me, Mr. Penrose,” she said. “I find I’m glad to be alive. But why did you want your cousin Liz?”
He gave her a longer look than he had spared for her so far. She was no fool, this shrimp of a girl with the untidy hair and the huge brown eyes. “Quick of you,” he said. “It’s quite true. I did have a selfish reason for coming. Oh”—impatiently—“of course I wanted to get my grandmother and Liz away from the seat of the war. That was true enough. It was no place for them, two women alone. Well, so it has proved. But I did hope that Liz ... Did Mac tell you about my Sarah?” He turned to the doctor to ask this, it seemed, almost reluctantly.
“She did say something. Is the poor child no better?”
“Worse. I’d hoped that Liz might help with her. God forgive me, I suppose that’s mainly why I came. Arabella said it was a mad start. Well, she was right. My poor little Sarah.”
“But what’s the matter with her?” Jonathan’s tone, as he spoke of his daughter, had caught Kate Croston’s attention.
“Nobody knows.” He turned to speak to her directly. “It began last year, when I was away in England. I had to go—” he seemed to be arguing with himself. “I’ve business interests there. My ships go there all the time. Went there, I should say. By last spring, what with Jefferson’s embargo on trade, and the British Orders in Council, things were pretty well at a standstill. And then the threat of war—I thought it my duty to go. To settle things there. Besides, despite all the War Hawks’ talk in Congress, we never believed, in Boston, that this crazy war would happen, that President Madison could be such a fool. Anyway, I went. I’d not left home before, not for five years—not since Sarah was born. I’m a sea captain,” he explained to Kate. “Used to be. I settled on shore when I married, six years ago. I sailed as a passenger for England last spring. Everything went wrong: winds, tides, incompetence ... We did not reach Plymouth till mid-June. Things looked bad by then. I pressed on with my business as fast as I could. No use. Before I was done, war was declared, my ship impounded. I spent a couple of nights in jail myself. That didn’t matter. Getting home did. It took me till fall. And then—”
“Yes?” She could see how hard it was for him to go on.
“You have to understand about Sarah. Before I left, she was the brightest, quickest little thing. Early with everything: sitting ... smiling at me ... pulling herself up in the cot. Then walking ... talking. You couldn’t hold her back. She followed me everywhere, to the mill, even, if I didn’t take care. Then—when I got home last fall, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d had no letters, of course. Nobody had warned me. They hadn’t realized at first how bad it was.”
“But what?”
“It’s like black magic.” The flight of fancy came strangely from him. “She didn’t even recognize me. She doesn’t speak: she doesn’t smile; she doesn’t look at you. It’s enough to break your heart.”
“The poor lamb.” He had her full attention and sympathy now, and Dr. Brown, watching, thought it was good for her to be taken out of herself. “But there must be some explanation,” she went on. “What happened to her?”
“If I’d only been there!” He would never forgive himself. “She was on a visit with Arabella—with her mother—at Saratoga Springs. She used to play on the hotel porch there, good as gold—she was such a good child always, my Sarah. One day, when her mother was out, she disappeared. They searched for her all night. In the morning they found her, half a mile away, in a deserted woodman’s hut. The door had slammed on her, apparently. How she’d got there ... what kind of a night she’d spent ... it doesn’t bear thinking of. Arabella blames herself, of course, but it wasn’t her fault. The child had always been so good, you see: she’d, never strayed before. And no one realized, at first just how much harm it had done. It came on slowly, they say: a little worse every day. She got quieter and quieter ... And then the screaming fits began. They go on and on. It’s breaking my heart.”
“I don’t quite see what good you thought your cousin Liz would be.” Dr. Brown was putting on his coat.
“Sarah needs caring for, I think, loving. Someone with her all the time. The local girls won’t stay.” And then, explaining: “They’re so independent, our American girls. They’d rather work in the mill. And—it’s worse than that. They’re ignorant, superstitious ... I heard one of them talking about witchcraft ... about Salem. I got rid of her on the spot. The others we’ve tried were almost as bad. They just don’t seem capable of the kind of patience—of caring that Sarah needs. That’s what made me think of Liz.”
“But your wife? Arabella?” Dr. Brown picked up his bag.
“She seems to make her worse. And she blames herself so, it makes it hard for her. Besides, she has her own life to lead. She has to be at our Boston house a good deal; that’s why we need someone we can rely on. I’m sorry. I’m keeping you, Doctor.”
“No matter. I needed the rest. I’m an old man, Jonathan. This y
ear’s work, and, more still, today’s has taught me that. As to your poor child, I’m sorry about Liz, but I’ve a suggestion for you just the same. Why don’t you engage Mrs. Croston here to look after her?”
“Mrs. Croston!” There was nothing flattering about his amazement.
“Yes, Mrs. Croston. She’s tired out, right now, with nursing your grandmother, and her husband before that And I watched her nurse them, Jon. I’d trust her with my own child, if I had one.”
“Thank you.” The girl raised her heavy head to look at him with a kind of weary sarcasm. “It’s more than Mr. Penrose would. And I don’t blame him. Look at what I did to his grandmother.”
“Nonsense,” said the doctor. “You might as sensibly blame yourself for what happened to Mr. Penrose’s child. I tell you, Jon, you’ll be a fool if you don’t go on your knees to ask her to come. Besides, you’re responsible for her. She risked her life to stay with your grandmother and nearly lost it too, by the sound of it.” He moved toward the door. “If I were you, I’d get her safe on board ship just as quick as you can. There’s all hell loose in the town by now—-and talk of a counter-attack by the British, too. The 98th are on their way to Kingston, they say, straight from Bermuda and full of fight.”
“The 98th?” Kate Croston’s voice rose almost to a scream.
“Why, yes, so they say. But there may be nothing in it. Anyway, I must be going. I’ll make arrangements for the funeral, Jonathan, when I’ve time, and then, my advice to you is to get back to the other side of the lake just as fast as you can. And take Mrs. Croston with you.”
Left alone, they looked at each other for a long moment in a silence charged with doubt. Surprisingly, she spoke first “Mr. Penrose, would you take me? Could you?”
“Oh, I guess I could, all right. Chauncey’s an old friend of mine. We sailed together once.” No mistaking the doubt in his voice.
“But you don’t want to. And I don’t blame you. Oh, I suppose I’m mad even to ask it, but, Mr. Penrose, I must get away. There’s someone—someone in the 98th. You heard Dr. Brown say they were coming? If I have to meet him again, I think I’ll die.” She was out of the chair now, her head hardly reaching his shoulder, her hands working together, her voice holding a threat of hysteria. And then, eyes eagerly searching his strong, unreadable face. “Suppose it was your daughter, Sarah, grown up: suppose she was begging you like this? Or begging someone else? You’d want them to help her, wouldn’t you? And, I promise you, I won’t be a burden on you. If you take me away from here, I’ll give my life to your Sarah. I’ll be glad to. It’s what I want, someone to care for.”
“But I don’t think you quite understand.” There was something chilling about his tone and his cool gaze. “This is no sinecure, Mrs. Croston. This is no pet child to cosset .The doctors say it’s hopeless. They don’t pretend to understand the case, but they say it can only get worse. Myself, I refuse to believe them. Well, I’m her father, I remember what she was like—before. But I’m the only one. Even Arabella—” he stopped. “Well, it’s no wonder; sometimes, when the screaming goes on for hours, even I despair. How could you cope with her, a little thing like you?”
Her chin went up. “Because I’d care, Mr. Penrose. You said that was what she needed, didn’t you? Loving ... caring. Don’t you see, I’ve been lonely, been unhappy myself, for so long—” And then, impatiently, “But why should you see? Why should you listen? You know nothing about me.”
“I know what Dr. Brown told me, but I confess I’m puzzled...”
“I don’t blame you. Well then, let me tell you: here I stand, poor but honest. I’m not quite a pauper; I won’t be a charge on you.” Her tone of self-mockery came as a surprise to him. She might be a plain little shrimp of a thing, but she had character.
“My father was a clergyman,” she went on. “In Sussex. I’ve lived there all my life. Till last autumn—” She stopped, teeth biting into her lower lip, then went off at a tangent: “I taught Sunday school there: I’m not totally ignorant about children, though I had no brothers or sisters. My mother died—four years ago. I looked after my father till he died last year.” Her voice shook on the words, and he was instinctively aware of immense gaps in her narrative. “I don’t want to talk about that.” She confirmed his guess. “Poor Father, he’d been so unhappy ... I can’t talk about it.”
“Never mind.” Oddly now, he found himself wanting to make it easy for her. “But how did you come to Canada?”
“With Fred Croston. My husband. I married him. Well,” she was looking back now, puzzled at herself, “there didn’t seem anything else to do, then.” She stopped, looking up at him hopefully, willing him to accept it as a complete explanation.
But he had another question. “And this man; what about him? The one in the 98th? The one you want to get away from so badly that you’ll trust yourself to a stranger like me.”
Suddenly, for the first time, she smiled, and he thought, with a little shock of surprise, why, she could be beautiful. “Oh, but I know all about you, Mr. Penrose. What do you think Mrs. McGowan and I talked about , but her grandsons? And you were her favorite. The soul of honor, she called you, and her dear Jon.” For a moment, her voice had been almost teasing, then her face changed: “Oh, poor old Mac! How can I be thinking, about myself?”
It was his turn to be practical. “Because we must, I guess.” Whether she had intended it or not, her reference to his grandmother had reminded him of the debt he owed her. But it was with a sensation of doubt amounting almost to panic that he heard himself saying: “Very well then, Mrs. Croston, if you really want to come with me, “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
It was only much later, when he had got her safely installed in his own cabin on the Madison that he remembered she had never explained just why she was so anxious to get away from Canada.
TWO
The next few days did nothing to make Jonathan Penrose feel any happier about the responsibility he had taken on. While the Americans systematically plundered York of anything that could be remotely considered as military stores, Kate Croston lay inert in the tiny cabin on the Madison with a marine on sentry duty outside.
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Brown, to whom Jonathan confided his doubts after his grandmother’s bleak and hurried funeral, did his best to be reassuring. “The girl’s worn out, that’s all. It was no joke nursing Mrs. McGowan, I can tell you—and that consumptive husband before that. And that was an odd business, if you like. I never could understand how she came to be married to a mere sergeant. Something a bit havey-cavey about it, if you ask me.”
“Now you say that!” Jonathan exploded into anger. “After I’ve committed myself to the girl, on your advice. And for Sarah, too.”
“Well”—the old doctor refused to be roused—“you told me yourself you were in despair about finding someone for Sarah. Though why your Arabella can’t look after her ... but”—hastily—“never mind about that. To come back to Mrs. Croston: I’ve only known her a short time, but I swear to you, Jon, if she’s got anything to be ashamed of, I’m not the judge of people I ought to be. No, no: in a year or so you’ll be writing to thank me for persuading you. I’m sure—sure as I can be—that taking her is one of the best day’s work you ever did. Besides, what else can you do?”
“Well, that’s true enough,” said Jonathan ruefully.
When the American troops re-embarked at last, Kate was still lying dazed and passive, somewhere between sleeping and waking. She hardly noticed the tumult above decks, nor the new routine of the stormy voyage across the lake, but slept, and waked, and ate the food she was brought, and gradually began to feel again. It was not pleasant: rather like the tingling discomfort of life coming back to a numbed limb. There was so much she must remember, so horribly much she would rather forget. And as for the future ... well, at least the die was cast. Not much use now to regret the moment of mad panic that had made her thrust herself upon this unknown, almost hostile American. And, so thinking, she slept a
gain and woke to an unusual sound of activity above decks and a new feel to the motion of the ship.
A friendly sailor, rousing her with a cup of strong black coffee, confirmed her guess. “Welcome to the United States, ma’am. We anchored in the night And Mr. Penrose sends his compliments and asks how soon you can be ready to go ashore.” And then, perhaps sensing something a little ruthless about this message to an invalid: “We’re just east of Fort Niagara now,” he explained, “and liable to sail again any minute for Sackett’s Harbor, so you’ve no time to lose. I just hope you’re up to it.”
So did she. “Of course I am.” She drank scalding, delicious coffee and thought as she did so, that it was no wonder if British seamen were apt to desert to the American Navy. “Tell Mr. Penrose I’ll be with him in ten minutes.”
She was almost as good as her word. There was a minute, on the steep companionway, when the rancid smell of the between-decks hit her, and she thought for a moment she would faint. Then she set her teeth, held her breath, and clawed her way up to the blessed fresh air of the deck. It smelled rawly of spring, of dampness, and growth, and of something else she could not identify. She felt her strength coming back with every deep breath.
She needed it. Jonathan Penrose was pacing the deck, his eye anxiously on the telltale flag that told where the wind lay. “You’re better? Good.” It was rather a command than a question. “The boat’s waiting for us. No time to be lost, I’m afraid, if you’re coming with me.”
She felt a flash of anger. What else could she do? But she was in his hands. “Yes, please. Unless you have changed your mind.”
“Of course not.” He managed to sound almost as if he meant it. “This way then.”
Following him across the busy deck, she fought resentment. Had he no thought for what this moment must mean to her? She was leaving everything she had ever known—for an enemy country. But then—she picked her way carefully over a pile of ropes—he had not asked her to come. Why should he think about her? She gathered up her skirts with a firm hand, grateful to Fred Croston, who had shown her how to use the bosun’s chair without making an exhibition of herself.
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