The Sacred Shore (30 page)
The sun was so benevolent it was hard for Nicole to believe there had ever been a time of storms and gray days, or that winter would come again.
She strolled with Anne through the village of Georgetown, and the two brought the market to a standstill. All wanted to gather and greet the pastor's long-lost daughter, see the story come to life. Even people from outlying settlements had by now heard the tale of the babies being exchanged as infants. All had to approach and see the two young ladies standing side by side. The market and the village observed two girls who shared shy smiles and family heritage so intertwined the telling brought tears to the eyes of those who loved the pastor and his wife.
Anne led Nicole out through the town to the cliff walk, along the steep edge to where the sea stretched out on three sides, burnished mirrors of gold under the noon sun. Nicole spotted fishing boats and men casting nets into the sparkling waters. “My father loves to fish.”
“What is our father like?”
“He is not a tall man but strong as an oak. He is the village elder. No, more than that. The fact that we have a village at all, the reason we stayed together and arrived in Louisiana and built our homes, this is because of my father's strength.”
Nicole's mind became filled with images of her childhood. There would come a time to speak of her hard times, but not now. She wanted to share everything with Anne, this stranger who was swiftly becoming both a friend and the sister she had never had. But these memories were not fitting for a day of such peace and beauty. So she finished with, “Our father is a great man. And our mother is the woman he deserves as a wife. Kind and gentle and wise. And she is strong too.”
“Our parents sound very much the same,” Anne said quietly.
“Yes, I see much of Henri in Andrew, it is true. And Catherine and Louise could be sisters. Perhaps this is because they share the gift of faith.”
Anne looked over at Nicole. “Is it difficult for you, talking of God?”
“Not so much now. I see how you live this faith of yours, and I see it is what I want for myself.” She found herself smiling. “Do you know what surprises me most? How easy it is to talk with you. Not just about God. About anything. I could almost be jealous that your Dr. Mann will soon be taking your time and attention just when I am getting to know you.”
Anne led Nicole over to where the massive tree stump formed a comfortable bench for the two of them. “The day I learned that Uncle Charles was going to search for you, I came out here. My grandfather found me.”
“He is a wonderful man, Grandfather Price,” Nicole murmured, remembering back to the time when she had first met the man who was her grandfather. It was not just his tears that had touched her heart, but his prayer of thankfulness. He had held her as if he had always known her. Strongly, in spite of his weakness, joyous, in spite of his sorrow.
“Oh, I'm so glad you feel so,” Anne said, flushing with pleasure. “He found me here and asked me why I was crying. I told him it was because I was afraid you might be found and tear our family apart.”
Nicole opened her mouth to speak, but Anne's intensity silenced her before the first word was uttered. Nicole sat and studied Anne's faint air of fragility, her fine-boned features. The raven hair and warm dark eyes suggested a strength that was in truth not really there. She was healthy now, yes, but here was a woman who would never withstand life's harshest winds. Nicole felt her heart flooded with a feeling of protectiveness.
“Grandfather said that I mustn't worry, that God would see us through, and make whatever came a gift. I think I trusted Grandfather more at that moment than I trusted God. But I see now he was right. I feel as though I have gained a sister and a friend.”
“Me too,” Nicole murmured.
“A sister and a friend,” Anne repeated and opened her gaze to Nicole. “You know Dr. Mann and I are to wed in the autumn.”
“He is a good man,” Nicole answered. “I knew that the first time he cared for young Michel. I could see it in his eyes. His hands. Hear it in his voice.”
The color rose and fell in her delicate features. “I was wondering ⦠that is, would you ⦔
Nicole reached over and took Anne's hand with her own and waited. It was not for her to press.
Anne took a breath. “Would you be my bridesmaid, Nicole?”
Nicole smelled the scent of lavender water as she reached to embrace her. “I would love it so.”
Charles found himself amazed at how sweet the earth smelled. And how pleasant it was to weed a garden. Such a simple act, one that was utterly new to him, so alien that John Price had twice chided him for pulling up vegetables with the weeds before going inside for his nap. Charles reveled in the closeness to growing things and the sunlight and the sweat on his brow, and he promised himself that whatever came he would make a garden of his own. Whatever came.
From his position in the front garden, the sun was angled so that Anne and Nicole walked straight into the light. He had opportunity to observe them before they saw him. The two were remarkably similar, yet incredibly different. They walked arm in arm, both looking pleased and bashful at the same time because of their newfound closeness. Anne's fragility was most evident when walking alongside someone as vibrant as Nicole. From the little time he had spent with this young woman, Charles was amazed at how utterly unaware she seemed of her own innate strength, both of spirit and body. She was held from being a beauty only by her sharp-featured strength and determination. Charles shook his head and returned to his spade work. Nicole was indeed a most appealing yet formidable young lady.
The two girls finally spotted him in the front garden and self-consciously dropped arms. “Uncle Charles, what are you doing there?”
“Enjoying myself utterly.” He brushed the earth from his hands. “Never knew it could be such a pleasure to till the earth.”
Nicole had withdrawn into her natural and mysterious reserve. Charles rose to his feet and lifted his cap, saddened that his presence should draw such a response, but expecting no less.
Anne asked, “Do you know where Father is?”
“He and John Price took your young doctor to visit an ailing parishioner.”
Anne turned to Nicole. “Why don't you stay out here and enjoy the warmth,” she suggested. “I'll go help Mother with the meal.”
“But ⦔ Nicole's hand rose and fell, the protest dying before it was formed. Her reluctance showed as she slowly turned toward Charles, her eyes squinting against the sun, her features now strained.
“I would be most grateful,” Charles said quietly in his careful French, “if you would join me for a moment.”
She nodded assent, but he knew there was no eagerness there.
Charles waited until she was seated before joining her on the kitchen window bench. He started to excuse his dirty hands and knees, but something told him that this was not a time for the usual social courtesies. He waited through a moment of afternoon sunshine and birdsong, then said, “I can well imagine what you must think of me.”
“You have no idea,” Nicole stated with a firm shake of her head, “what I think. None.”
“A young woman makes an impossible journey to find her blood kin,” Charles continued, pitching his voice low. He knew that everyone within earshot had a vital interest in what he said, but the French words would provide some measure of privacy. Even without that, though, he found he did not mind. Either he was a part of this family, or he had no business speaking at all. “A man she meets upon the course of her journey, a wealthy man, turns out to be a long-lost relative. He arrives in Georgetown a few days after she returns from a journey of renewal and joy and asks if she might travel with him to England. He explains that he wishes to shower her with wealth and titles, make her his appointed heir, and grant her entry to the highest echelons of society. But the young lady does not think this is a gift. Not at all. This man and his fancy words threaten to shatter the fragile bonds she is building to a mother and sister she only recently met.”
So slowly, it seemed to Charles, that she moved against her own will, Nicole's head turned to gaze upon him. He kept his own face pointed toward the sunlight and the garden, and continued, “I represent a threat. It is true.” He waited a moment, marveling at this newfound ability to speak the truth, even when it went against his own stated aims. “A threat to the goals you set for yourself at the start of your voyage.”
“I am not so sure anymore,” Nicole replied, her voice so soft it would have been easy to miss the words entirely, “what my goals were.”
“Do you know,” Charles said, “I believe we might have found some common ground.”
Nicole said nothing, simply watched and waited.
Her patience was as astonishing as her strength, so different from what he had known of the young ladies of London society. A part of him would have argued, cajoled, bribed, or whatever else he could mobilize to impose his will upon her. Charles shut his eyes to the light and the day. She was intelligent, resourceful, strong, wise. What she did not know in the way of etiquette, she could most certainly learn. She was, in all truth, a perfect heiress. Though he had faced incredible odds to finally find herâno, even after all that he could not take credit for discovering herâshe had turned out to be far more than he had hoped and dreamed.
With great effort, Charles made himself relax. He could notâwould notâdo it. Even if it were possible, he could not try. She was a woman in her own right. He had seen from where she had come, the hardships she had endured, the fortitude it had taken to arrive here. If this was her quest, what right or ability did he have to subvert her chosen course?
He was changing as well. His own course was altering. He did not know where he was headed, or what was intended. Only that change had begun. And that he was no longer alone.
He opened his eyes to find her still watching him. “Yes?” he asked.
“I was just thinking,” Nicole said, “how strange it was that we would sail together for weeks and only now sit and talk.”
“A few months back,” Charles said, returning to gaze at the golden afternoon, “I would have said it was a mockery of fate. And use it as a reason to mold my own course, to bend others to my own will and direction.”
“And now?”
“Now, yes, now ⦔ A hint of breeze traced its way across his forehead, and Charles found himself recalling a different afternoon, one far grayer with a gale blowing many times greater. Enfolded in the sea and mists of timeless seeking, he had felt upon his face the whisper of something unseen, yet very present. “Now I confess that my own will is but a feeble thing. That there is a power far greater at work. And I need to acknowledge the Source of this greater power. To know His will and what is intended here.” He had to smile. “I can scarcely believe I am saying these words.”
“And I,” Nicole replied quietly, “can hardly believe that I agree with them.”
“Two agreements in the same afternoon,” Charles said, no mockery to his tone.
“Yes.” She turned her own face to the light, leaning against the wall, in comfortable companionship. “I feel as though I am relearning lessons my parents attempted to teach me, but it is only now that I am truly ready to learn. Lessons about one's choices in life, and what it means to begin by making the
one
choice correctly.”
“The one choice,” Charles murmured. “Well said. Very well said indeed.”
Agreement brought with it an easy silence that was both restful and deep, such that when Nicole spoke again, it was with a new openness. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything.”
“I must ask that you hold it in strictest confidence.”
Charles turned to her, though she would not meet his gaze. “As you wish. You have my word.”
“My father was named village elder in the year before the expulsion from Acadia. He buried the village treasure upon a hill above Minas. My uncle was assigned to retrieve it and find a way to get it back to Louisiana.”
Charles leaned forward in anticipation of providing a service for this remarkable young woman and her family. “Do they wish the items themselves or its value? I could readily arrange for a banker's draft and have it sent to your father through connections in New Orleans.”
“I don't know which they would prefer. I will need to discuss it with my uncle.” She released a sigh. Then she asked, “You met my parents?”
“I did. And saw your home.”
“What did you think?”
“Your mother is a French version of Catherine. Two ladies more similar and yet without common bloodlines I have never before met. It was most remarkable.”
“And my father?”
Charles found himself recalling the contrast between his arrival at Plaquemine, with its squalor and tragedy, and the quiet, rock-steady comfort within Vermilionville. And he said with genuine sincerity, “Your father is a king among men.”
The day itself seemed to hold its breath. Then Charles was startled by Nicole's slender hand upon his own, light yet incredibly strong, feminine yet marked by toil and affliction. “I have not thanked you,” she said, and her voice was low, controlled, “for coming to look for meâno matter the reason. And for arranging passage on your ship. Things could have been so different had our group not been given berth. ⦔
Charles looked at her and met a gaze that was shaped by history and journeys he could not fathom. Eyes as green as the summer, as deep as the oceans he had passed through. And he knew, no matter what might lie ahead, or the distance that might be set between this young lady and himself, he knew with absolute certainty that their lives were bound together. So it now was, and so it would remain.
The trail was broad and easyâand surprisingly empty for that time of year. Andrew rode alongside Charles. Ahead of them, the three women sat in the comfort of a new wagon driven by Cyril. John Price had seen them off with fond farewells, even for Charles, and the declaration that though he did not feel up to a journey to Halifax, nonetheless he would be fine there on his own.