The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) (2 page)

“I walked from the inn. It’s actually the isolation I was seeking,” I repeated.

“And exercise is a noble endeavor. Thoreau would greatly approve.” Humor notched up the corners of his mouth. “The inn’s a nice place to stay, and you’ll have plenty of isolation if you hang on through the winter. Just watch the weather. Don’t stray from the main path if a heavy snow is coming. I walk around the lake several times a day, but if it’s really cold, you could freeze before I found you.” As if he could read my mind, he added, “Cell phone reception is iffy. Actually dismal. Spotty in a lot of areas.”

“Thank you. I’ll use common sense. I’m here to work and I certainly don’t need an injury.” I almost went on to explain my quest at Walden Pond—to justify myself—but I managed to stop. Climbing the ladder of higher education had taught me to seek validation from others. It was a nasty habit I was determined to break.

He pulled a card from his pocket. “This has my cell phone number, and the number for the ranger’s quarters. If you run into anything you need help with, give a call, Miss … .”

“Cahill. Aine Cahill.” I tucked his card in my pocket, unsure of his intentions. “Thanks.” I turned away and retraced my steps. My mood was shattered. I might as well go back to the inn and work.

“Do be careful, Miss Cahill. Winter can be a deadly season here. I understand your desire for solitude, but be smart about it.”

Something in his voice touched me. My carefully constructed wall of caution cracked. When I swung around, the sun had peeped from the clouds and was falling upon his shoulders, almost as if he were spotlighted. Almost as if he were a gift. “Thank you, Ranger Sinclair.”

“If you have questions or need anything, call me. You have my numbers.”

“I do. And I will.” Feet crackling through the leaves, I left him beside the water.

I’d taken the cottage behind a mid-sized bed-and-breakfast that called itself an inn. The location was perfect. I was near enough to Concord and Walden to run my errands and research on foot, but I had the solitude I so craved. The Colonial Inn wasn’t far from Orchard, the home of Louisa May Alcott. She’d paid for the home and supported her family with her writing. Odd that Louisa May achieved financial and popular success, but was still somehow less than Thoreau and Emerson in the canon of literary studies.

Of the three writers, my reading preference was Alcott. Her story of the March sisters had once made me long for siblings. But it was Thoreau I’d chosen for my research. I had my reasons.

Thoreau was my ace up the sleeve; the magic trick an English doctoral student needed to gain a secure job in a collapsing economy. A philosopher, naturalist, and anti-development environmentalist, Thoreau had written about the duties of man—to himself, his community, and his god. Yet he’d hidden a large portion of his true self from his readers. Generations of literature students had been taught to view him as a solitary aesthete and intellectual, a man given to isolation and thought. One who’d surrendered the joys of companionship and relationship to serve the interests of his mind. There is no doubt he was a deep thinker, but he was also a man of great passions. Obsessive passions.

His time at Walden Pond had not been spent alone—I had proof of that. His depiction as a solitary thinker and writer had been perpetrated with all the care of a modern-day spin doctor. His romantic life had been thoroughly eradicated from his accepted biography, but I had a bombshell.

Whether his solitary image was deliberate or not, I knew the truth and intended to reveal him for what he was. A man who loved totally and deeply, who shared his innermost thoughts with a woman. His passion for Bonnie Cahill, my great-great-great-great aunt, would rival any movie or romance. While some would think this was merely family lore, I had proof.

Thoreau had shared his walks around Walden Pond with her. He’d planned and executed surprises and small jokes for her. They’d shared a magical time, the two of them, in the tiny cabin hardly big enough for one. My aunt described herself as a seeker, and in Thoreau she’d found her soul mate. The truth of their life together had been meticulously recorded in my aunt Bonnie’s hand in a leather-bound journal. Bonnie was his equal, his partner, in every aspect of his life.

The journal was more than a dear diary, much more. It was a collection of Bonnie’s thoughts and musings, her hopes and fears.

Included among the pages were pressed flowers and herbs, poems, and what appeared to be incantations, folk wisdom, and lore to ward off illness and ill fortune. In her flowing script, Bonnie documented the day-to-day of life with Thoreau. While I knew beyond a doubt that the journal held the truth, I had to find third-party documentation. My quest at Walden was twofold: to write my dissertation and to find records of my aunt’s existence.

Bonnie’s love for Thoreau, a man ill-equipped to defy his family and marry her, had moved even me, a woman immune to flutterings of the heart. My only adventure in opening myself to another had ended in tragedy. But Thoreau and Bonnie had shared passion and love. They’d united against the norms of society. And when it ended, Bonnie disappeared and Thoreau’s health broke.

This would be the basis for my dissertation. I would change the worldview of Henry David Thoreau. While I lived in Middlesex County and traced the paths the two lovers once traveled, I would write my future and find proof of Bonnie’s past.

After years and years of being the scholarship student, the student who worked for room and board, the poor relation with no social skills, I would be sought after. I would be Dr. Cahill. Victory would taste sweeter than honey.

The three-mile trek to the inn in the brisk air left my ears feeling as if they might shatter and fall off, though I’d taken care to cover them with a scarf. The Middlesex County damp cold was more bitter than the misty mountain cold in Harlan County, Kentucky, where I grew up.

I pushed away those early years. Memories always rode double with pain and remorse. My stomach grumbled, and it was good to anticipate the tempting food awaiting me. Dinner would be served at the inn within the hour.

I stopped by the front desk, which retained the old-fashioned pigeonholes for room keys and messages. Dressed in a long gown and white apron with a mob cap, Dorothea Benton, the inn manager, shook her head. There were never any letters for me. Since Granny died, I’d cut all ties with my family. They had no clue where I was, nor had anyone looked for me. I had no friends who might write me. I’d failed to make the lasting friendships that most girls do in college.

Truth be told, I didn’t miss it. Any of it.

“Evening, Aine,” Dorothea said. “No post today.”

“Thank you, Dorothea.”

“How’s your supply of clean towels?”

“Everything in the cabin is fine.” I’d refused maid service, and the curiosity was eating Dorothea alive. There was little likelihood the cleaning crew would recognize the significance of Aunt Bonnie’s journal, but I was taking no chances. Besides, my papers were scattered about the cabin’s floor in what I viewed as organized chaos. To another’s gaze, it would seem to be piles of junk. To me, it was a filing system.

“Will you be having your dinner here tonight?” Dorothea asked.

“I will.” The inn was a cross between a full-service hotel and a bed-and-breakfast. The kitchen prepared a meal each evening, and Dorothea did her best to get a head count on who would and wouldn’t be eating. Waste not, want not.

“Hettie’s making chowder.” She pushed her mob cap off her forehead. “A good dish for a cold night. Shall I have some extra blankets brought around?”

“I’ll pick up a couple after dinner.”

“Would you like Patrick to lay a fire for you?”

I considered. “Yes. That would be nice.” I often wrote and read into the wee hours, and a blaze would be cheerful company. The fire would help chase away the morbid thoughts that sometimes dogged me. I couldn’t afford to waste time to the inertia of depression. Besides, the trip to the woodshed on a dark night made me uncomfortable. I’d escaped the Cahill Curse, but my imagination was my own worst enemy. Sometimes it caught me by surprise.

While dinner was being prepared, I started out for the cabin. It was older than the inn, which was saying something. Caulked with mud in the old style, it was snug and perfect for me. A fair distance from the inn and roadway, the log structure sat back in woods that crowded close to the narrow lane. On sunny days, I enjoyed the multitude of hues in the trunks of the quaking aspen, yellow birch, maples, and a scattering of oaks, red and black. The trees were slender but numerous and, even without leaves, created a place of shadow, especially on an overcast, leaden day. The path took a turn and the inn disappeared behind me. I faced a wall of woods, silvery trunks blending into black. So different from the green of Kentucky, where even in winter something alive could be found. I kept walking, uneasy due to my foolish fancy that the woods closed in behind me. An active imagination was a bane, and mine was more active than most. Growing up, I’d imagined all sorts of impossible things.

As I used my key to open the door, the first snowflake drifted onto my mittened hand. Large and fluffy, it was a tiny speck of perfection. The gray sky’s promised snow had arrived. I paused at the door to watch the flakes thicken in the air. I loved the way snow wrapped around a place and snuggled it into silence. It would be a good night.

Stepping into the cabin, I caught movement at the edge of my vision. Something larger than a fox or dog. I stopped. I wasn’t afraid, but I was wary. The forest surrounded the cabin on three sides, and the path that led to the inn had been empty when I traveled it.

“Who’s there?” I spoke firmly.

The wind was my only answer, rattling a few dying leaves in the branches of the trees.

Could it be Patrick, the inn’s bellhop/errand boy? Though he was younger than me by a handful of years, he’d flirted when he’d carried my bags to the cabin. He was a handsome young man who no doubt saw plenty of action—as long as Dorothea didn’t catch him. She’d pinch his ear off, repressed schoolteacher type that she was.

“Patrick? If you’re up to a prank, this isn’t funny.”

I shifted my body toward the open cabin door and heard what could have been a smothered sob, or maybe a small creature frightened by a predator.

“Stop clowning around, and step forward.” The warm air from the fireplace coursed out around me into the cold night.

Enough foolishness. Pivoting on my heel, I caught sight of a childlike form rushing into the woods on the west side of the cabin.

“Hey!” I stepped out onto the porch. A kid shouldn’t be out in the cold and the dark. “Wait up!” I jogged to the edge of the woods and stopped. It was futile to chase the child. Maybe it was a guest of the inn, or a grade-schooler from a nearby street. There were plenty of neighborhoods filled with Boston commuter families just a few miles from the inn.

Whatever the circumstances, I would do no good flailing about in the woods. When I went back to the inn, I’d mention it to Dorothea. Chances were high she’d be able to name the child and family. One phone call and she’d sort it all out.

I returned to the cabin and closed the door, sorry so much warmth had fled into the night. I’d postpone my shower until after dinner, when the cabin had had time to reheat.

I walked to the window and looked out upon the snow, now coming down thick. A light dusting already covered the ground. Soon the snow would insulate my world. It was perfect weather for writing.

At my desk, I jotted down a few notes and observations from my venture around the pond. My daily notations honored Thoreau—observations of nature and the weather, but hunger fractured my concentration. With little accomplished, I made the trip back to the dining hall, my mouth watering at the scent of bubbling soup and home-baked bread that drifted on a breeze.

The ring of an axe diverted my attention to the large woodpile behind the inn. Patrick worked with quick efficiency as he split firewood.

He caught sight of me and grinned, resting a moment on his axe. “I’ll take care of your fire while you’re eating. I’ll bring in enough wood to keep you warm all night.”

“Thank you.” I watched him return to chopping, his lithe body making short work of the chore. The complaints of my stomach drove me in to the feast Dorothea set in front of me, and for half an hour I lost myself in the simple pleasures of a fine meal.

2

I have begun a new journal, a new page, because I have begun a new life. From banishment to a welcome homecoming. From rejection to acceptance. From solitary to united. How quickly my life has changed, and all because of him. Yes, I am impetuous. He has changed me from a cautious woman to a wanton. He has taught me that risk is the measure of a living heart. And I have taught him that solitude does not preclude companionship. In the short time we have known each other, we have taught each other so much.

But let me start at the beginning. I am Bonnie Cahill, nineteen years old this past April. I have left my home in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, and moved inland to Concord, Massachusetts, to save my body and soul from the misdeeds of my family. We are a clan cursed by previous generations of bloodlust. The Bible predicts my fate if I do not escape my family. Exodus is clear. The iniquity of the fathers will be visited on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

And so I have fled. In doing so, I have found a man who touches me to the bone. I once disdained the lovesick musings of the poets, and now, joyfully, I have been proven wrong. My heart has been awakened from an icy pit, and I am alive in a way I never believed possible.

I met Henry David Thoreau strolling along the streets of Concord with his friend the philosopher and intellectual, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I had heard Mr. Emerson speak at the McGill home where I had taken a job as a governess. His talk was not necessarily religious, but it offered me a freedom I had never dared to dream of. He ignited a spark in my soul, a need to step out from under a God always angry, always looking for a reason to punish. I am tired of retribution and suffering, especially as I have done no wrong. In Mr. Emerson’s estimation, each person is responsible for his own actions—and for no one else’s.