The Solitary Envoy (12 page)

“Erica, there you are. Where have you been?”

“Downstairs, Mama.” She watched her mother set aside the prayer missal she had been studying. “Did you rest well?”

“What an odd question to ask at midday. What were you doing in the coffeehouse?”

“Visiting with Abigail Cutter.”

“Abigail was here? Why was I not invited to join you?”

“I needed to speak with her alone.”

“Did you, now.” Her mother indicated the place beside her. “Am I permitted to ask what this was all about?”

“Us. The family.” Erica had worked and reworked the way she wanted this discussion to go. But the effects of her conversation with Abigail still lingered.

“You are wearing the most extraordinary expression.”

The silence spanned several ticks of the clock. Mildred spoke again. “I did not realize you two were in contact.”

“I have not spoken to her in almost two years. She wants to be my friend.”

“Well. I suppose it is good to renew such connections.” Then her mother waited, an aura of deep calm emanating from her.

Actually, calm was not precisely the word Erica sought. Her mother sat with the same formal posture as always. She displayed no bitterness or anger over their situation. Instead, she observed her daughter from a haven of peace that Erica most certainly did not share.

Although Erica had faithfully accompanied Mildred to Sunday services, she had no inclination to join her the many other evenings her mother spent at church. She felt grateful that her mother was not just sitting upstairs in her cramped little parlor, surrounded by relics of a bygone era and dusty reminders of a man now in his grave.

“I invited her to come,” Erica now said. “I needed to ask a favor.” She had not intended to come into this so directly. But so little of this world came about as she wanted. “Mother, I must travel to London.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And soon. Time is not our ally here.”

“Daughter, be sensible. London is …”

Erica actually observed the change. Her mother had started to respond that London was out of the question. And she was going to revert to the haughty tone of command Erica had heard all through her childhood. “Yes, Mother? London is what?”

But the sharp edge was gone from her mother’s voice. Instead, Mildred Langston’s attention seemed at least partly held by something Erica could not see. “Perhaps it would be better if you told me what this is about.”

Erica laid it all out, not attempting to gloss over anything. At one point she went back into her bedroom and returned with the ledgers. “Our existence remains poised upon a knife’s edge of debt and expenses. We have no hope of ever rising above our current station unless I go to London and recover these funds.”

“Please, daughter, close the books. I trust you and your calculations. I also know you could tell me anything you like about the figures written there, and I would have no choice but to accept your words.”

“I am sorry, Mother.”

“For what? For managing our affairs so that we have a roof over our heads and food on the table? I know how hard you and Reggie are working.”

“I do the best I can.”

“I know. It defines your very nature. Now I want you to do something for me.”

The words rocked her. They were almost exactly what she had heard from Abigail downstairs. “Yes?”

“I want you to treat
me
as a friend as well. I am sorry that I have become someone to whom you cannot come first. That you must turn to a virtual stranger before you approach your own mother.”

“You have often viewed my work suspiciously, Mother.”

“Well do I know it. And no better than this moment, when I see you sitting there prepared for yet another quarrel.”

“Mama, I … I don’t know what to say.”

“No. And that is also most distressing.” Mildred sat very precisely, poised and erect as always. But the sunlight coming through the streetside window formed a gentle crown upon her graying hair, one that matched the soft light in her eyes. Erica realized for the first time just how much her mother had aged in the past two years. Mildred went on, “Let us begin by assuming you will be departing for London.”

Nothing that her mother might have said could have shocked her more than this. Erica felt the strength drain from her. “What—I mean how—?”

“I must trust your reason,” she continued. “I trust you every day to do what would have made your father very proud.” Only a faint trembling of Mildred’s cheeks revealed the strain these words caused. “Now explain to me why this trip to London is so vital, and tell me more about it. When do you hope to depart? With whom will you travel? Where will you lodge when you reach England?”

Erica answered her mother’s questions, although she remained numb throughout. Of all the ways this conversation might have gone, this was the most astonishing. She talked of the bankers. She talked of trade. She talked of the newly appointed emissary from America to London. She talked of her hopes and her plans. And not once did her mother object or interrupt or demand that she put aside these ridiculous notions. Erica paused several times in the telling, not because she expected these protests, but because she was confounded by their absence.

Mildred sat and watched and did not speak. What was more, she
listened
.

Erica did not stop so much as drift into silence.

At that moment, the clock chimed the noon hour. Twelve long strokes. The bell’s music resounded through the still air.

When the ticking resumed, Mildred said, “That was very clear, my dear. Thank you.”

“Mama, I don’t know what to say.”

“Nor do I.” She grasped her daughter’s hands. “So let us join together in prayer and ask for God’s wisdom in finding both the right words and our way through all that lies ahead.”

Over the ensuing days Erica found the idea of her journey gradually growing and taking root. She would start awake in the night, scarcely able to breathe. There were so many emotions tied to the very idea of traveling. She yearned for this trip fiercely and yet feared it with almost equal intensity.

She found herself pondering her conversations with Abigail and her mother through the long, dark hours. The two women were so different and yet tied so intimately together. Abigail’s words became a reflection of her own inner state. The last two years had taught Erica a great deal about loneliness. Shunned by those she had once counted as friends, at least close acquaintances, Erica had neither the time nor the interest to develop new connections. Most of the time, she remained too busy to care. In these hours of reflection, however, she could not escape how desperately lonely she felt. How she yearned for someone in whom she could truly confide!

Her mother’s words seemed connected to such feelings, raised to the surface by Abigail’s discussion. Time and again Erica found herself thinking about the astonishing change in Mildred Langston. She could discount the transformation no longer, for it affected everything about her own future and her plans. When they were together during the day, Erica often observed her mother discreetly. Her mother’s calm agreement seemed to challenge her in some subtle way.

Erica could not explain precisely why she felt this way nor why she often watched and waited for the storm. Yet it was this new calm that came to her most often in the night hours, when she would lie awake and find herself forced to accept that her mother had grown from this tragic period. She had changed in ways that were utterly lost on her daughter.

Two weeks to the day after her meeting with Abigail, Erica’s mother called her into the upstairs parlor. “Might I have a word?”

“Of course, Mama.”

“Don’t hover, child. Come sit down beside me.” She indicated a sealed envelope resting upon the corner table. “I have prepared a letter to your great aunt. At least we have thought of her as part of the Harrow family since she was raised by my grandparents as their own. You, of course, recall my speaking of her in the past. It is Anne Crowley’s son who became the adopted heir to the lost Harrow estates and titles.”

“I remember you telling about this when I was younger.” But, in truth, Erica’s mind was held by what the letter represented. If her mother was writing distant relatives about the journey, it meant that she was most definitely going.

“Anne’s husband was a lawyer turned vicar. They lived in Nova Scotia for a time, but her husband was called back to take over a church in Manchester. That is a city north of London. I wish I could be more pleased with this family connection in England and what it might mean for you. But recently I learned that her husband is in the last stages of a serious illness and is not expected to survive. Anne is apparently quite devastated.” Mildred sighed. “But I suppose it can’t hurt to write of your journey.”

“No, Mama.” Erica felt a hidden knot of tension begin to unravel. She was going to London.

Mildred studied her daughter. “You once asked me not to address you any longer as a child. Do you recall that?”

“Vividly.”

She took her daughter’s hand and spent a long moment inspecting it. “You will accept an old woman’s advice?”

“You are not old, Mother.”

“I will take that as an affirmative. Listen carefully, my dear. Do not make the same mistake as your father.”

Erica jerked her hand free. “Father was the finest businessman I have ever known. This matter with the London bankers was—”

“I am not referring to his business. I am speaking of how he was affected by the setback.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“You say you are going to London to speak with lawyers and seek to obtain what is rightfully ours. I fear that is not all that drives your mission.”

Erica did not respond.

“I am concerned that you are also going for revenge. You must set this aside, my dear. It will eat away at you from within. Heed my words. It will consume you.”

“Mama—”

“Oh, I am well aware how you and Reggie view the time I spend with the church community. It fills an old woman’s hours. And that is true, as far as it goes. But it has also kept me from falling into the same trap that caused your father such anguish during his final months. Do you recall the anger and the sleepless nights and his overwhelming urge to wreak vengeance upon those who had wronged him?”

Mildred continued to face her daughter, but her eyes stared back through time, and what they saw aged her features by decades. “He became a man possessed by the furies. He saw none of life’s goodness. Revenge was all he could see, all he wanted, all he had room for in his life. He was blinded. He was turned into a man unhappy within his own soul, one who could never be satisfied. Even if he had received what he had wanted, he would have remained unquenched.”

Mildred blinked slowly, drawing Erica back into focus. “You are your father’s daughter. Go to London if you feel you must. But do not seek vengeance. Instead, seek what was good in your father. Seek what is good in yourself. Go with lofty purpose, and pray God will guide your every step. As shall I, my dear young lady. As shall I.”

Chapter 10

Three and a half months passed before Abigail Cutter delivered the longed-for invitation from her daughter and son-in-law in London. The acting ambassador’s family was occupying the embassy’s upper two floors while better accommodations were being sought, but they would most certainly make room for Miss Langston.

Another two and a half months passed before companions were located for the journey, as Erica, of course, could not travel alone. A suitable family was found. The head of the family was the son of old acquaintances. He was a silversmith taking over a family concern in the Prussian capital of Berlin, stopping off for six months’ work in London.

All this delay was in truth not without its benefits. Winter had passed in the meantime, one of the most ferocious on record, and as Erica visited the port offices she heard tales of what a winter voyage could mean. One ship arrived with the loss of eighteen souls, half of them children. She trod home through the snow and ached for the families fated to start life in the New World bearing such terrible woes.

With the new year came word that Britain had finally conquered the emperor Napoleon. England had warred against France for a quarter of a century. The English broadsheets were full of the great victory. Erica stocked the coffeehouse with three such British papers, supposedly for the patrons but in truth so she could study this unknown terrain. What the British victory meant for her own undertaking, she did not know.

Then suddenly the months of waiting turned into days of frantic activity, counting down to the moment of departure. There were still a thousand things to do, and Erica knew she could never finish it all.

That morning, Erica stood over a desk piled high with articles still to be packed and complained to her brother, “Why did I ever think this was a wise course to take?”

“Because it is.” Reggie held up a final bundle of documents held together with ribbon and wax. “Where do you want these?”

“In the case with the other papers.”

“If I put even so much as a hairpin in there, the case will explode and we will be back where we started, only your precious papers will be spread out all over the floor.”