The Beloved Land (8 page)
By English law, King George III was also the head of the Church of England. This had Christians up and down the country seeking either a change to the law or a change to the monarchy.
Twenty miles across the Dover Straits, France was in political and cultural turmoil. The cry of
Liberté Egalité, Fraternité
was on everyone’s lips, and revolution was in the air. All of this news was very troubling to the English monarchy. French cities were in flames. The rule of law was in tatters. The masses were breaking free of their fetters.
So long as Anne had remained in their small village in the north, it had been possible to ignore most of this upsetting news. But now it came at her from every direction. The English rulers’ response to these threats, both from within and without, was to outlaw public protests, and any criticizing the king or the prince regent were declared criminals and imprisoned.
The result was that churches such as the Farm Street Church became one of the few places where people who disagreed with the nation’s current course could safely gather. Members did their best to draw no attention to themselves. They dressed plainly. They spoke quietly. They avoided contact with a society they considered depraved. But their presence remained a thorn in the king’s side. As a result, these churchgoers had been given a new name. They were called Dissenters.
The Dissenters constantly lived under the threat of oppression and worse. They decided, as the Quakers and Mennonites and Anabaptists before them, to leave England forever.
Anne could tell the longer Thomas remained in London, the more troubled he became. It was difficult for Anne and him to talk freely, however, for the house where they stayed was always full. Since many Dissenters refused to stay in the uptown establishments where the society’s looser ways were on full display, several homes like this one had been transformed into unofficial inns. Only when Thomas and Anne huddled in their tiny room, the scrape of boots heard overhead and the din of conversation below, could they have any privacy.
“I fear I am doing Charles and his estate no good whatsoever,” Thomas quietly confessed.
“Why is that, Thomas?” Anne asked. “Who else does he have to whom he can trust his affairs?”
“Doors are closed to me everywhere. I am classed as a Dissenter, which means I cannot even speak to many officials.” Thomas looked as worried as Anne had ever seen him. “There are scores of pressing matters. The new Land Enclosure Acts, the village taxes, the state of our roads, our crops, permits for our markets—the list is endless.”
“Surely you can—”
“I tell you, Anne, I can do nothing. I have spent days going hat in hand from one place to another, scarcely receiving so much as a by-your-leave. I am unable to even approach the officials, much less request a private appointment.”
The murmuring voices below their room increased in volume, and Anne paused till it was quieter, then said, “What will you do?”
“The only thing I can, given the circumstances. I have sought out another to represent Charles here in London. Someone well removed from the Dissenters and their foment.”
Anne started to protest, but realized Thomas would not have taken such actions lightly. “I am sure you did what you had to.”
“It was agony just the same. All my life I have sought to give my clients my best. To represent them fairly and uphold their interests as though they were my own. I have not just failed Charles. I have failed myself.”
Anne sat up in bed and said, “Thomas, hear me out.”
The face he turned toward her was grim.
“Thomas, you are the most honorable man I know. You have a servant’s heart, a leader’s mind, and a prophet’s will. But sometimes you are too hard on yourself. You expect too much. You want all you do to be faultless.”
Thomas pushed himself higher against the headboard, his gaze glimmering in the room’s single candlelight.
When he did not speak, Anne continued, “Life is not like that. Christ calls us to be willing servants. He commands us to accept our humanness and the thorns which this world presses into our flesh. …”
Anne stopped. For the first time since Catherine’s letter had arrived, she came face-to-face with her answer. She could feel the impact of this realization and the sense of peace which accompanied it. Both together rolled through her soul.
“Please, Anne. I pray that you continue.”
She took a breath. “We are called to accept the imperfections life casts upon us and look to Him for strength and wisdom. We must accept that we cannot arrange the world as we would like, and that at times logic will not supply the proper course, nor will our deepest desires be entirely met. This is life in a fallen world, where wars come and go, where nations rage and people cry in torment. We must be strong, not in ourselves, but in Him. And trust that His love and His wisdom and His light will see us through.”
He nodded slowly. “You are right.” Thomas reached over and took her hand. “I sense that you have reached a decision of your own.”
“I have.”
“About John?”
“Yes.” She gripped his fingers. “I cannot risk his life in such a voyage.”
“No.” Thomas’s voice was low. “You cannot.”
“You have known this?”
“I have hoped and prayed you would come to this decision. But I meant what I told you before we departed. If you had decided otherwise, I would have accepted it.”
She raised his hand to her cheek. “You are such a good, dear man.”
“I must be,” he replied softly, “to deserve you.”
Gordon went through the laborious process of handing over his post to the new harbormaster, then sorted through his charts and papers to determine those that would be of value upon open waters. But the entire time, he occupied two spaces. His exterior world held to military precision. He ordered out a longboat and rowed the new master through the anchorage, talking of tides and currents and ships and the blockade. He signed the required documents, bid farewell to the harbor pilots, and invited one lieutenant pilot and a few of the best landlocked sailors on harbor duty to join his new crew.
The majority of his thoughts, though, remained hidden away behind the stern mask of a busy officer. Inside, down deep where none save Nicole and God might detect, he remained in turmoil.
Gordon was marrying a noblewoman. She might eschew the title, but Nicole Robichaud Harrow was a woman of wealth and holdings. Yet by giving her allegiance with him to the American colonies, Nicole was cutting herself off from her position and inheritance. The land in western Massachusetts was hers because it had been granted by the Continental Congress to Charles and he had deeded it to her. But the house had been burned to the ground during one of the battles that had raged through the colony. She had no funds with which to rebuild. All British holdings of colonials, including their bank accounts, had been taken over by the British crown. She was penniless. Despite her best efforts to convince Gordon that she would have it no other way, he could not help but question his own unwitting involvement in this loss of Nicole’s wealth.
Gordon saluted the final cadre of harbor soldiers, thanked them in his best quarterdeck voice, then turned his face directly into the rain-drenched wind. His papers and instruments had already been sent back to his quarters. Scheduled to leave at dawn, his own men were busy with last-minute duties. Soon he would be standing upon the heaving deck of a ship under sail. He was engaged to the love of his life. He had every reason to be happy.
Gordon was expected at the seminary for a last meal with Nicole and Pastor Collins. But his feet took him in the opposite direction. Gordon pulled the gold chain attached to his pocket watch. As soon as he opened the latch the face was spattered by the whipping rain. He wiped the face clean and shut the case without taking note of the time. In truth, he was not going to take his present anxiety to dinner with Nicole. If need be, he would make his apologies on the morn.
His thoughts drummed out a dirge in time to his footsteps.
She is losing everything—because of me
. He had fought all his life to rise from humble beginnings and live according to a code of honor. It did not matter to him that Nicole was willingly giving it all up. Were it not for him, what reason would she have for giving herself to the American cause? None. It was that simple.
Gordon found himself standing near the same point they had passed that morning on the way to Merchant’s Row. But now something else snagged his attention. Across the North Square from where he stood rose Christ Church, renamed by its parishioners the Old North Church. It was from this whitecapped steeple that the sexton had placed two lanterns to warn the Charlestown garrison that the British were marching on Lexington and Concord.
Gordon crossed in front of Paul Revere’s silversmith shop and climbed the church’s steps. To his great relief, the doors were unlocked. He entered the sanctuary and seated himself midway down the central aisle. A number of others were there, scattered about the hall in silent communion. He studied a few of the faces and wondered at what struggles might be hidden behind closed eyes.
He found it not enough to sit. Gordon slipped to his knees on the scratched wooden floor. He rested his forehead upon the pew before him and closed his eyes. Suddenly he found himself sensing a clarity of thought, and words formed of their own accord.
I beg you, Lord, give me the vision to properly understand. Strengthen me so that I might see with the wisdom of heaven and not of men. Hold me to the passage of your choosing. Chart my course through the storms and torment of this life, and let neither pride nor my past come between me and your divine plan
.
Gordon went on with his prayer, asking for direction concerning his marriage to Nicole and their future together.
He lifted his eyes to the cross hanging above the nave and said aloud, “Amen.”
He knelt there for a time longer, though there seemed no need for further words. A deep sense of harmony filled the silence within and without.
Eventually he pulled out his pocket watch and now made careful note of the time. If he hurried, he might still make the evening meal.
As he rose to his feet and started back down the aisle, he spotted a familiar figure kneeling in the back pew. The face was so unexpected in this place and time it was not until the man rose to his feet that Gordon recognized him. “My good fellow!” Gordon exclaimed. When a score of faces turned their way, Gordon raised his own hand to his lips and ushered the man from the sanctuary. Once they stood upon the front steps, Gordon wrung the man’s hand with both of his own. “John Jackson, as I live and breathe. What a delight! What a genuine delight.”
“It is good to see you again, Captain.” Clearly the man did not expect such a welcome.
“Don’t let’s stand upon formalities, man. I insist you call me Gordon.” He pointed at the brevets sewn into the man’s greatcoat. “Besides which, I see you have been promoted to first lieutenant.”
“Yes, despite my best efforts to the contrary,” he responded with a wry grin.
“Nonsense. Both Nicole and I found you to be a man of great potential. It is good to see you have finally been recognized as such.” He could not help but notice the gaunt features, the pale skin above the man’s unkempt beard, the sunken eyes.
“You have been ill?”
“Consumption, I’m afraid.”
“I am indeed sorry to hear this.” Gordon looked more closely at this sergeant who had helped Nicole enter the garrison at Cambridge, then rescued Gordon and his men from the British stockade. But the man’s former ebullience was not to be seen. “Are you recovering?” he asked.
“Slowly.” A pause, then he added, “I wintered with General Washington at Valley Forge.”
The twilight wind gripped Gordon harder still. “My poor man. I have heard it was most terrible.”
“Good and bad both, sir. Good and bad. The conditions were fierce, as you have heard. But General Washington took us raw colonial recruits and whipped us into a true fighting force.”
Gordon leaned closer still. “What brings you to Boston?” he asked.
“My family left Philadelphia during the battles, intending to come here and stay with relatives. My father learned only at the last minute he was slated for arrest as a traitor.”
“A patriot,” Gordon corrected quietly.
“My family has left for the West. I have neither the funds nor the strength to follow.”
“See here now. You must come and let me arrange quarters. And a meal.”
Jackson drew himself up as straight as he could. “I did not come seeking charity, sir.”
“Look here, Jackson. I owe you a debt I can never repay. Were it not for you, I would have swung from a British yardarm and been buried in a paupers’ field. You know this is truth.”
“The debt is due to Miss Nicole, not I.” He coughed, wracking his entire frame. “Forgive me. The lady, she is well?”
“She is residing at the seminary guesthouse. The lady will be as delighted as I to see you again.”
“I should not visit Miss Nicole in this sorry state.”
“Nonsense, she will not mind in the least.”