No Safe Anchorage
Page 1
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT
No Safe Anchorage
An evocative and fast-moving tale, set on Skye and the West Highlands before moving to Canada, No Safe Anchorage, like its title, swirls with risk and danger. It invokes the spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson whose childhood it portrays. With its sharp use of dialogue and tight, concise description, it also conjures up that writer in other ways, creating an adventure story that is as breathless and exciting as some of that nineteenth-century novelist’s work.
Donald S. Murray, author
No Safe Anchorage is a great second novel by Liz MacRae Shaw. We follow the life of nineteenth-century naval officer, Tom Masters, a square peg in a round hole. His childhood experiences, slowly revealed, loss of a close friend and awakening sexuality make for a very strong central character. Neatly woven in is part of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson who might be described as a similarly round peg within his lighthouse building family.
Linda Henderson, author and editor
Liz MacRae Shaw can spin a yarn like few others. The young Robert Louis Stevenson tucked up in bed recovering from a fall, Tom’s encounter with the fisher lassies, his fierce and admirable sister, Emma, and other vivid happenings set the scene for the sweeping adventure to follow. No Safe Anchorage takes Tom from the Hebrides to Canada and along the way he forms relationships, good and bad, with a wide span of characters.
Jenny Salaman Manson, writer and editor
First published by Top Hat Books, 2017
Top Hat Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
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Text copyright: Liz MacRae Shaw 2016
ISBN: 978 1 78279 706 7
978 1 78279 787 6 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016951869
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.
The rights of Liz MacRae Shaw as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design: Stuart Davies
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK
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CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter 1 Bournemouth, 1886
Chapter 2 Thirty-Two Years Earlier … HMS Comet, October 1854
Chapter 3 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 4 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 5 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 6 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 7 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 8 Island of Rona, Summer 1857
Chapter 9 Island of Rona, Spring 1858
Chapter 10 Island of Rona, Spring 1858
Chapter 11 Island of Rona, Spring 1858
Chapter 12 Scorrybreac, Portree, Isle of Skye, 1858
Chapter 13 Portree, Isle of Skye, February 1861
Chapter 14 Several days later. Aboard HMS Porcupine in Portree Harbor
Chapter 15 Aboard HMS Porcupine, the same day
Chapter 16 Aboard HMS Porcupine, the same day
Chapter 17 Aboard HMS Porcupine, 1861
Chapter 18 Isle of Raasay, 1861
Chapter 19 West Highlands, 1861
Chapter 20 West Highlands, 1861
Chapter 21 Oban, 1861
Chapter 22 Stornaway, 1861
Chapter 23 Argyll, 1861
Chapter 24 Argyll, 1861
Chapter 25 Liverpool, 1862
Chapter 26 At Sea, April 1862
Chapter 27 The Voyage Continues, 1862
Chapter 28 Landfall, May 1862
Chapter 29 Cape Breton Island, Summer 1862
Chapter 30 Cape Breton Island, Winter 1862
Chapter 31 Cape Breton Island, Spring 1863
Chapter 32 Cape Breton Island, Spring 1863
Chapter 33 Cape Breton Island, Summer 1863
Chapter 34 Journey Across Cape Breton Island, Summer 1863
Chapter 35 Journey Across Cape Breton island, Summer 1863
Chapter 36 Newfoundland, 1864
Chapter 37 Newfoundland, 1864
Chapter 38 Back to Cape Breton Island, 1864
Chapter 39 Cape Breton Island, 1865
Chapter 40 Cape Breton Island, 1865
Chapter 41 Nova Scotia, Summer 1865
Chapter 42 Cape Breton Island, Winter 1866
Chapter 43 Cape Breton Island, Summer 1866
Chapter 44 The Prairie, Spring 1868
Chapter 45 The Prairie, Summer 1868
Chapter 46 The Prairie, Summer 1868
Chapter 47 New York, 1872
Chapter 48 New York, 1872
Chapter 49 New York, 1872
Chapter 50 Samoa, 1891
Chapter 51 Samoa, 1891
Note to Reader
Glossary
Also by Liz MacRae Shaw – Love and Music Will Endure, an historical novel based on the life of Mary MacPherson (Màiri Mhòr nan Oran), the nineteenth-century Skye-born poet and political campaigner. Published by The Islands Book Trust, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-907443-58-9.
Preface
I was inspired to write No Safe Anchorage by the story of my great-great-great grandmother who lived on the tiny island of Rona, off the coast of Skye in the Inner Hebrides. For many years, she kept an oil lamp in the window of her house to help seafarers in the treacherous waters. She was visited by Captain Otter, who conducted many surveys of Hebridean waters and had a distinguished naval career. He was so impressed by her dedication that he wrote to Allan Stevenson, engineer to the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses in 1851, recommending that she be paid for the oil needed for her lamp. Coxswain Richard Williams who served under Captain Otter is buried near the remains of an ancient chapel on the Scorrybreac shore, near Portree on the island of Skye. All three appear in my story. As it is a work of fiction, I have changed some of the details of events while remaining true to the spirit of their characters. For example, Janet MacKenzie probably emigrated to Australia rather than Canada.
Robert Louis Stevenson also appears in the book, both as a child and an adult. He certainly traveled to various Scottish islands with his father, Thomas, who was busy building lighthouses. Although there is not a specific reference to Louis visiting Rona, he became familiar with the Highlands in his youth and their influence permeated his later writing. One of the first books I remember being given as a present was, A Child’s Garden of Verses. Behind the simple joy in childhood pleasures in these poems lurks the sadness of a boy who was often ill and confined to bed. The Land of Counterpane is especially poignant and is alluded to in my story.
I should like to dedicate my book to these people who have inspired me. I should also like to give special thanks to Linda Henderson who edited my manuscript with shrewdness and sensitivity. My husband, Steve, has been an invaluable support in both the technical and creative aspects of writing this book. I am grateful for the efficiency and professionalism of John Hunt Publishing.
—Liz MacRae Shaw
Chapter 1
Bournemouth, 1886
No sign yet. He peered through the window down the quiet road, the hushed houses standing to attention behind their prim hedges. He sighed as he fe
lt a hankering for Edinburgh’s humming gray stone tenements.
Ah, was that him approaching? A young man stalked along the leafy road. Pernickety as a wading bird probing stones he stopped at each entrance, cocking his head before pottering on. He reached the right gate and screwed up his eyes at the ivy-draped walls. Starting as he noticed the model of the lighthouse by the gate post, he nodded at the name Skerryvore on the wall and scurried up to the front door. The bell clanged. It sounded through the house, but he seemed too agitated to wait for an answer. He darted past the French windows toward the side of the house where the lawn sloped down into a steep gully, glossy with rhododendrons. His steps faltered.
Louis decided it was time to rescue the poor fellow and strolled out of the side door. The man jumped as he heard the hinges creak.
“Ah, Mr. Ferguson? Do come in this way. You found my retreat without too much difficulty?”
The man stood dumbstruck until Louis walked up to him, holding out his hand.
“Er … yes indeed, sir. Thank you for agreeing to see me.” He lunged at Louis’s hand as if it were a flailing rope on a storm-battered ship.
“What do you think of my home-away-from-home? My miniature Scottish glen, my wife calls it.” He grinned. “Though what does she know as a mere American? Still she’s done miracles. Planting trees and making paths with seats where I can recline and think deep thoughts. Do come inside.”
He led Ferguson into a large airy room fitted out as a study, with a glowing fire in the grate. Apart from a desk and a hard chair the only furniture was a well-worn armchair and a daybed. The russet oriental rug in the center of the room had nearly disappeared under heaps of books, craning toward each other like half-timbered houses across a narrow lane. Landscapes were displayed on the walls—mountains, waterfalls, and sea cliffs. Among them was a portrait of Louis. It showed him walking toward the corner of a drawing room. On the opposite side of the picture was the suggestion of another figure, indicated by a swirl of fabric and a pointing bare foot. Louis smiled as he noticed his visitor staring at it.
“Your accent sounds American, Mr. Ferguson, although your name suggests Scottish forebears.”
“Well, I do believe so, although I have Irish and German ancestry, too.”
Louis gestured for his guest to take the armchair while he lowered himself into a seat behind a desk laden with books and papers. He shrugged a blood-red shawl over his shoulders. “I apologize for looking like an ancient crone with this decrepit old thing. It’s called a poncho, I believe. But I find the summer wind a little chill, even this far south. Fire away with your questions.” He folded his arms and ran his fingers over the nap of his black velvet jacket. Tilting back on his chair he perched his feet on the edge of the desk.
He watched as Samuel Ferguson shifted in his seat. Drawing out a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket, he stroked his sparse moustache, “Well, our readers are eager to know what inspired you to write Kidnapped. It’s a very different work from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, if I may say so. Are you perhaps returning to adventure stories like Treasure Island?”
“Back to the boys’ yarns, you mean?” Louis replied sharply.
Ferguson flushed. “I didn’t mean to suggest that Kidnapped and Treasure Island were merely children’s books. The action appeals to young minds, of course, but there is also a subtle portrayal of character.”
Louis shrugged, “Forgive me for being peremptory but I’m a little sensitive on the subject. Some critics dismissed Treasure Island as only a boys’ book. When it was successful, they changed their tune. To answer your question. I’ve long wanted to write a story set in my homeland but it was only after traveling abroad that I felt able to do so.”
“May I ask you about your choice of title? You see, sir, as an American, I may have misunderstood the meaning of this word. I’ve always taken kidnapped to mean someone who’s been taken prisoner so that his family has to pay a ransom to release him. What you describe is something different. David Balfour is captured in order to sell him into servitude. Now, the abomination of slavery stained our nation until recent times. A Negro could be bought and sold as if he were a beast of burden. But I hadn’t realized that white men could be treated like that in Europe, or at least not in recent history.”
“Mmm … an interesting point. I don’t think it happened regularly here, but there were certainly stories of poor Highlanders being bundled aboard a ship with the connivance of a landlord. It was kept secret of course, like the rest of the terrible treatment meted out after Culloden. I’ve always known about it, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you where I first heard of it.”
Ferguson nodded and scribbled some notes down. “Again, if I could ask you about the historical background which will not be familiar to American readers? In the States there was, and is, a gulf between Yankees and Southerners. It seems to me that your heroes, David Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart, represent a similar divide between Lowlanders and Highlanders.”
“Aye, you’re right. They have opposing virtues—Highland courage versus Lowland caution.”
“You’re from the Lowlands yourself, I believe, and yet your portrayal of Alan is very sympathetic. How did you achieve that?”
Louis leaned forward and flicked a hank of hair behind his ear while he considered the question.
“I congratulate you, Mr. Ferguson. You’ve identified something I can’t explain. My family are Lowland Scots through and through. Practical, no-nonsense sort of people who built lighthouses. Even my old nurse, Cummy, was from Fife and fiercely proud of it. So where did the Highland influence come from?” He cleared his throat. “Yet coiled deep within me in bone and blood is this knowledge of the Highlands. Imagination can’t be tied down. As a writer I have an idea. I warp the loom but the weave of the cloth comes from dreams beyond my control. I was often ill as a child and when I was delirious my visions would melt into reality so that the two couldn’t be distinguished. If I were being fanciful, I would say that my inspiration comes from hidden creatures, colored brown-gray like sealskin.”
He looked sideways at Ferguson who was sitting motionless, creasing his brow and sucking his pencil. Louis’s shoulders heaved but his laughter turned into a fit of coughing. He slammed his feet back on the floor and groped in his jacket pocket. Hauling out a handkerchief, he turned away to spit out blood-speckled phlegm.
Ferguson leaped to his feet, looking alarmed, “May I help in any way? A glass of water perhaps?”
Louis shook his head, “It’ll pass. Just give me a minute,” he gasped, wiping his mouth. He could see Ferguson peering at the portrait again, especially at the partial figure at the edge of the canvas. As the coughing subsided, he said, “It’s Fanny. She told John Singer Sargent that she was only a cipher and a shadow. He took her at her word and put only part of her in the picture.” Ferguson looked sheepish.
“You must think me a queer fish altogether, with these strange ramblings,” Louis said.
“Not at all. I’m honored that you should share your thoughts with me.”
“It’s a strange sensation. There’s a presence there, images just out of reach. A wild sea, a galloping horseman, a fire in the darkness. The stuff of nightmares dissolved by daylight.” He sighed. “It’s beyond my ken but I tried to show the pride of the Highlander and the canniness of the Lowland mind.”
“Will you write a sequel? There is surely more to be told about the two men.”
“I hope so although maybe not—”
He started coughing again and the inside door juddered open. “What’s going on? I heard you spluttering for breath. I only agreed to that reviewer coming if you didn’t get overexcited,” a woman scolded.
She glowered at Ferguson. “Have you been exhausting my husband? You know he has delicate health?”
Ferguson jumped up, his notebook dropping to the floor.
“Fanny, my dear, this is Mr. Samuel Ferguson, a compatriot of yours. He’s innocent of all charges of upsetting me. It was
my laughing that brought on the wretched cough.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stevenson,” Ferguson stuttered. The woman continued to frown.
“Mr. Ferguson has been admiring your beautiful garden, Fanny.”
She made no reply but moved to stand beside her husband, chafing his arm.
“Your husband told me how you have turned the garden into a miniature Scotland.”
A clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour before she replied, “I wanted it to be somewhere where he could feel inspiration.” Her ruffled feathers seemed to be settling. “I’ve planted fruit trees and tiger lilies, too.”
“And there’s a dovecote, kennels and stables, too. A veritable Noah’s Ark.” Louis squeezed his wife’s hand. He smiled to himself, thinking how the three of them formed an ill-assorted menagerie. Fanny with her dumpy figure was a bustling hen. Samuel Ferguson in his ill-advised tweeds with their startling scarlet and emerald check was an exotic but timid wader. What about himself? With his spiky limbs and bony head he feared that he resembled a pterodactyl, or more generously, a hunched gray heron.
Ferguson bent to retrieve his notebook. He scanned Fanny and Louis anxiously. Fanny’s expression was disapproving but Louis winked at him. Ferguson opened his mouth to speak but his nose twitched and he let out a trumpeting sneeze. As he scrabbled in his pocket for his handkerchief, Fanny screamed, “You’ve brought a cold with you. How could you? Louis must be kept away from germs.”
She lunged at him, dragging him toward the door. Louis huddled his shoulders deeper into his shawl, shaking his head as the reporter was hustled outside. Ferguson tripped over the step as she crashed the door behind him.
“Well, my dear, you defend me as well as the geese that warned the Ancient Romans of invaders,” he said as Fanny returned. “I have only one concern. I heard a clatter as Mr. Ferguson beat his retreat. Naturally I hope he didn’t hurt himself, but I would be even more worried if he knocked over the model of the Skerryvore Lighthouse. Papa would never forgive me if that monstrosity was damaged.”
Chapter 2
Thirty-Two Years Earlier … HMS Comet, October 1854