Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive (13 page)

“But you couldn’t. Don’t you see? I do love him. But you treated me just like your parents did you. And you let them.” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “They took your true love from you. Just like you took Luca from me.”

Her mother dropped both spoon and bowl with a clatter. “You still remember what I told you that day? You were only a tiny child—”

“I remember everything.”

“For years I regretted saying anything to you. I prayed you had forgotten. When you said nothing more, I thought my prayers had been answered.”

“I said nothing because you told me not to. Never.” The gruel filled her with a languid tiredness, such that the words poured out in a gentle stream. It was the most she had spoken since being recaptured. “You asked me to promise and I did. But I remember.”

“It was a terrible, terrible mistake to say what I did.” Her mother raised a fist to her forehead. “Why am I tormented like this? What did I do wrong?”

“You did nothing wrong, don’t you see? Nothing except keep Luca from me.”

“Luca was wrong for you!”

“I love him.” The tears had come without her realizing it. Both mother and daughter were weeping and yet fighting to keep the sobs from tearing their words apart. “Why can’t you see that?”

“Not see it? Not
see
it? Daughter, the entire
world
sees you have been poisoned by this man! I have news for you, my darling. But your father has spoken and I agree. You are not well enough to hear what we have learned!”

“You are the one making me ill!”

“Enough! This has gone far enough!” Her mother leaped up from the bed, stumbling over the bowl. She picked it up and flung it onto the tray. “You will
not
speak with me that way.”

“Why won’t you see—”

“I see
perfectly
. I see a
child
who will not accept that her parents know what is best for her! I see a
child
who must be protected!”

“I am not a child!” Serafina said the words as if there were a breath between each one.

“Are you not?” Her mother could not pace. The room was too small. “Then rise from this bed!”

“I love—”

“Do not speak to me of love. Would an
adult
love her parents and cause them such grief? Would an
adult
lie abed all these weeks, refusing to eat until she grew ill and close to death?” The room seemed to vibrate with the force of her mother’s words. “You say you are an adult? Then stand up and show me!”

But the fever was creeping up again. Serafina could feel its power overtaking her once more.

“There, you see? A child I said, because a child you are.”
Her mother quivered with rage. “A child who is not strong enough to hear the truth about this man she claims she loves!”

Her mother opened the cabin door, picked up the tray, and slammed the door shut. Serafina lay still as death. The center of her chest was a hollow cavity, filled with a pain she knew would never go away.

Yet Serafina’s health did improve. The fever finally abated. One day for an hour or so. Then for three, then an entire morning, and eventually for a full day. She woke sometimes in the darkness of her little cabin and could sense it in the distance. Just waiting for a chance to return.

But she could not allow it to consume her any longer. For every day that passed took her farther from her love.

Serafina would never have thought herself capable of such determination. She had always been called willful. But this was something else entirely. She saw the world through a single lens. She needed strength and cunning to return to Luca. She had to make herself both well and strong.

She ate everything that was presented to her. As soon as she was able, she began exercising upon the deck. Because her father remained ill from the ship’s motion, Serafina was spared the necessity to dine with the ship’s officers and the other cabin passengers. Instead, she ate in her room. Often her mother joined her. But their conversations remained strained after the argument. Even her mother’s pleasure over Serafina’s recovery was muted by all that was left unsaid.

Serafina wished for some way to broach the distance and share her heart. But something in her mother’s dark-rimmed eyes said there was nothing to be gained from even trying.

They sailed the length of the Mediterranean. But once they passed the Gibraltar Straits, instead of aiming for America they turned north and east. Like most ships destined for a North Atlantic crossing, the ship was owned by British merchants. Serafina’s mother spoke of these matters to make
conversation over a meal. The American ports charged higher tariffs to all European vessels not flying the British flag. Half of this vessel’s cargo was bound for England. They would stop briefly in Portsmouth, only long enough to unload Italian goods and take on a shipment of English wool. Serafina made a tight mask of her face when her mother divulged this information. But that night and several after she lay awake and planned.

Her mother had an aunt who now lived west of London, she recalled. Agatha had also been her mother’s closest childhood companion—more like an older sister. Agatha’s family were skilled craftsmen and woodworkers. Agatha was also Serafina’s godmother, but Serafina had not seen her in more than ten years. Agatha’s husband had journeyed from Italy to England and taken over a furniture business in a place called Bath. But Agatha sent her a letter and a gift every birthday. The letter was always warm and cheerful and signed “With love from your aunt Agatha.” The gift was normally a beautifully bound volume of English literature. Serafina always wrote her thanks in English, taking pride in her ability with this difficult language. And she had made her way slowly through several of the books, improving her English skills.

Now Serafina clung to the vague image of a woman she had last seen as a child. Agatha was Serafina’s final hope.

Serafina began taking her turns on the deck when she was certain her mother would not be around. She came to know several of the seamen by name. They would doff their caps or touch a knuckle to their forelocks as she passed, observing her movements in furtive glances. One of the midshipmen tried several times to strike up a conversation. Danny was a cheerful lad who became utterly tongue-tied whenever she approached. But Serafina had years of experience dealing with stammering young men. She pretended not to notice as he struggled to shape the simplest comment. She smiled prettily and ignored how his face blushed crimson at whatever remark she made.

From time to time she entered her parents’ cabin and sat with her father. The gentleman scarcely noticed her presence. He lay supine upon his bunk and groaned softly at each motion of the ship. The ship’s doctor came once while she was there, explaining that most people recovered in a week or so. As was her custom, Serafina’s mother had gone topside for a breath of air while her daughter sat with her ailing husband. The doctor was pleased with his ability to administer a tincture of laudanum. This was a new remedy for seasickness, the doctor explained, the first discovered to have a positive effect. The patient was able to hold down small meals if the first bite was taken with a spoonful of the potion. Sleep came before the meal was finished.

When the doctor left, Serafina rose and cast about the cabin. She moved almost without conscious thought. She knew what she needed, had known it for some time. But it was only now, as the doctor’s tincture offered her this chance, that her plan took full form.

Her father’s clothes hung from two pegs on the side wall. Serafina found his coin purse in the inner pocket of his long coat. The clasp made a loud noise when she opened it. She glanced over at the bed, but her father remained motionless with his back to the room. Carefully, so as not to permit the coins to clink, she took out four of the gold ducats. There was a slight difference to the weight of the purse, but not so much as to be noticed. Or so she hoped. Serafina rolled the coins up tightly into her handkerchief, knotted the ends together, and pocketed the money. She slipped the purse back into the coat and resumed her seat. She forced her hands to remain still in her lap. She took several unsteady breaths. Only now that she had done it was she nervous. Only now did she feel a gnawing sense of guilt over her deed.

The following Sunday, Serafina accompanied her mother to the shipboard service. Her mother spoke what she called
an adequate English. But today she insisted that Serafina translate. It was a subtle means of drawing her out of her internal world, and Serafina tried to object. But her mother merely chose seats on the rearmost bench and pointed her face determinedly forward.

The shipboard vicar was a young English priest returning from a sojourn in Rome. He was bright-eyed and jocular as he spoke first a few words of welcome in halting Italian. But when he started his sermon, it was in English.

The vessel was four days beyond Gibraltar and three from Portsmouth. The North Atlantic was a far cry from the gentle Mediterranean. The ship cleaved through great waves of froth and slate-gray water. The air was biting. But that was not why Serafina shivered.

“Why have you stopped translating?” her mother inquired softly.

“I—I . . .”

“Hurry, now. I want to understand what the Englishman is saying about our Lord.”

But Serafina’s tongue seemed unable to shape the words. In fact, the vicar’s words left her speechless.

“I came to Rome a stranger in a strange land,” the young man was saying. If he noticed the cold reserve with which most of the Italians received his presence, he made no sign. Instead, he seemed filled with a brisk good cheer that matched the wind-swept day. “I came seeking to learn and understand. I feared I would find only hostility, for I am an apostate in many of your eyes, an Anglican in a Catholic world, a breakaway. But I found only a Roman welcome, only offerings of peace, only a desire for harmony. And that is what I wish to speak with you about today. Harmony amidst life’s impossible conflicts.”

The vicar was able to balance himself against the ship’s swinging motions with an ease that suggested he had lived shipboard for years, rather than spending his time in a Roman seminary. His eyes were as bright as the sky overhead, his
voice bell-like in the clear air. “Our churches have spent years and years quarreling over so many issues. Take absolution, for instance. I could add my own voice to the centuries of argument. But for just this one moment, let us try and search out areas where we are in harmony.

“The Scriptures tell us that the Lord offers forgiveness to all sinners. As far from the east is to the west, so the Bible tells us. So absolution, or the forgiveness of sins, is something we all can agree upon, yes? Good! Excellent!” He beamed over the silent gathering as though they had all joined with him in joyful accord. “So what must we do in order to be forgiven, or as you say, absolved? Here again the Scriptures are clear. We must address the Lord with a contrite heart, yes? Is that not true?”

Serafina’s mother turned and began to say something. But whatever her mother saw in Serafina’s face caused Bettina to remain silent. She simply stared at her daughter for a moment, then turned back to face the speaker.

“A contrite heart,” the vicar repeated. By now the whispered translations were being greeted with nodding heads among the Italians. Many remained stone-faced, with crossed arms and an attitude of resistance. But all were now carefully listening. And the vicar’s smile grew larger. “And what else? Well, we are told that we must turn from our sins. That we must repent in our hearts. Only then, when we are contrite in our confession and earnestly seek to sin no more does our confession have meaning.

“And to whom must we confess? Why, to Jesus, of course. So what happens when we kneel in the confessional? Do we speak to the priest or do we speak with God? Jesus says clearly that we must place no man, no human authority between ourselves and our Lord. But sometimes we are weak, yes? Sometimes we need another who will aid us in seeing clearly the truth within our own heart. Sometimes we need a human friend who will help guide us first to confession and then to true repentance.”