“Why Shadrach Jones, fancy meeting you here?”
His heart surged, like the steamer pulling away and sending ripples into the deep in all directions. Finella waitied for him. She smiled at Jon Tripp who pushed the trolley, but her eyes found Shadrach and stayed there.
For two weeks, when he’d returned from market, she met him at the pier, a short walk from the guesthouse where she and her Aunt Sarah shared a small room. Her brown eyes still held the veil of their shared grief, and he didn’t expect that to ease anytime soon. He knew how it razed his own heart each time he remembered the loss of Molly.
Still, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to add a brightness to Finella’s honey flecked eyes. And today, while he had a pail of fruit to begin with, he had a little more tucked away for good measure.
He returned the smile and quickened his step, offering his arm to the beautiful lady who already held his heart. She wrapped her arm in his.
“Did you sell for a good price today?”
“Good enough to bring you back a present.”
“You mean the berries? I already saw them.” A twinkle played around her eyes and he warmed to see it.
“Not the berries, although they’re yours, too. If Jon Tripp doesn’t help himself to too many.”
“He can have them. I know what I want.” She held her chin high and breathed in the sea air. “Nothing too fancy. Nothing as bright as berries or rubies even. I want my Shadrach Jones.”
He pulled her to a stop at a wooden bench and let the new arrivals pass them for cool verandahs and the promise of fresh pots of tea. He needed something only Finella could offer.
“Speaking of gems and all things fancy, I want to show you something.” He waited for her to sit, and dug into his breast pocket.
“One of the traders at the market imports cargo from America. Anything you care to imagine. American stoves, furnaces, silk bonnets, felt hats. He brings it all. And look…” he sat beside her and pressed a catalogue into her hands. Dog-eared, he’d already marked the page he wanted her to see first. “See these houses? One will be yours, one day. The entire house.”
His words spilled almost as fast as his heartbeat, but he carried on, cheered by her growing smile.
“There’s floor plans, and see here,” he turned the page, “it says everything is included in the kit. The mantels, all timbers, glass panes, shingles, the entire frame and this one…” he turned back to the first page, “has a wash-house.”
She poked him in the ribs. “Who needs a wash-house?”
He grinned and sat back against the bench, his arm draped behind her while she poured over the plans. Single storey, double storey, fancy and even fancier, there’d not be enough sunlit hours for her to examine each one today. He knew the glimmer in her eye meant he’d brought more than a daisy for her hair.
“Who would’ve thought you’d be enamored by house plans so, so…” she stole a look from the corner of her eye, “elaborate?”
He laughed and leaned a little closer. “I’m enamored by you. And if you agree, I’m going to add that bee brooch to my savings and trade them in for the best house a bride’s ever had on this island. One to match the brick oven in our yard.”
She turned, her smile a little less radiant. Had he figured it all wrong? His heart sank and he pressed his hand to her back. “Unless you really want to keep the brooch to remember your mother.”
Finella put the catalogue down. “That brooch is pretty enough for any girl. But I’m not that girl. Not after my Mother and Molly, well… you know.” Her words faded, and he reached out for her chin to draw her back.
“So, you don’t mind if I work a little harder, sell the brooch and order us one of these? No mud walls, mind you. Only timbers. American hardwoods and the fanlight above the door is etched, see here?”
She didn’t even look. Her hand covered his and any of the glass inserts he wanted to show her.
“The brooch is yours to sell. All I need is what’s already etched in my heart. Nothing put there by my father, or George Gleeson. Not even by Aunt Sarah. As long as your blue eyes wink back at me, that’s all I ask.” She wound her fingers through his. “But I do believe a house as pretty as any of these deserves a name. I think we should call it…” She looked across the water where sparkles, lit from the sky, spilled over their waves and rippled along the shallows.
When she looked back at him, her eyes brimmed with the same light. The same hope he’d carried all the way home.
“I think we should call it the Blue Wren House.”
Love for her and all she’d brought him flooded his chest. “Kisses come with this house, Miss Mayfield. A lifetime of kisses. It’s part of the Blue Wren House package.”
She dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Then order us a lifetime supply, Mr. Jones. The fancier, the better.”
January 29
Aunt Sarah says I must mark the days. She says they are, each one, touched by God and I must look for his fingerprint at day’s end.
But I need not look far. His forgiveness and love have shaped me from the inside, and I will never be the same.
So I press to this book the already dried petals of the sweet pink gum and its leaf of curled green. I mark this day as the one we saw the birth of a field of muttonbird chicks. More than a field, an entire shore of nests.
Shadrach and I explored them at dusk against the urgency of hungry chirps and calls. Tiny creatures of soft grey down, the ends of what will one day become feathers, strong and free.
No one has begrudged us a wedding day and I am to marry Shadrach at the end of March when the last of the summer boats sail away. I shall return to our little island house to make a home beside the only man I have ever desired.
Where the wind stirs soft.
Where the blue wrens spar.
Where the kiss of the tide fills the shallows.
And I am carried home.
The End
Author Note
A writer dreams her story while she’s awake.
But the facts still need to be checked. The history-nut in me loves this part and I’m blessed to have people on my team to assist with fact-finding and fact checking.
Many thanks to Raymonde Fauchard who scoured her local history and found a birthplace for Finella, in Chingford Green, England.
All of the food references in Carry Me Home come from Australia’s first cookbook compilation, The Colonial Cook Book. I’ve spent hours fascinated by the food choices available in the 1870s and incorporated some of these recipes into the daily lives of Finella and Shadrach.
Local historians believe Shadrach’s bricks would have been made from pure clay and that there’s a distinction between the words mud and clay. For the purposes of the brick making chapters, I relied on Victorian Era brick making techniques which set the stage for these scenes. I hope the purists forgive me for using the words mud and clay interchangeably.
Kit homes were available in Australia as far back as the 1830s, thanks to the Hudson Brothers family business. Phillip Island’s Glen Isla House is believed to come from an American distributor of prefabricated homes. It is the inspiration for the home Shadrach promises to build Finella at the end of Carry Me Home, and the setting of books 2 and 3 in the Blue Wren Shallows series.
Thank you to my co-members at the Phillip Island and District Historical Society, Secretary Christine Grayden and President John Jansson, who read Carry Me Home for historical and local accuracy. I am in awe of your passion for Phillip Island’s rich beginnings and ever thankful for all you and the Historical Society members do to preserve its history.
Carry Me Away
Coming Soon
From Dorothy Adamek
To learn more about Dotti and her upcoming books, please visit dorothyadamek.com where you can join her mailing list and be the first to hear about the second book in the Blue Wren Shallows series, Carry Me Away.
Table of Contents
Praise for Carry Me Home
T
itle Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Author Note
About Carry Me Away
Carry Me Home Page 30