“Mind you, I’ll be anybody you want for a day if there’s a bed at the end of it.” He cackled as he said this, as though it was some great joke.
“But you aren’t, in fact.”
“Well, no, not really. But you can’t blame a man for trying it on.”
“Well, never mind,” Luke said. “I’ll find him sooner or later.” He fingered the coppers he had in his pocket. Just as the purser had indicated, there was a market of sorts near the wharf, not large, just a few stalls that offered bread, cheese, and meat pies, but he suddenly felt uncomfortable about purchasing a meal in front of this emaciated group. And yet, he had not enough money to feed them all. Finally, he pulled three coins from his pocket.
“I know it’s not much, but it’s all I can do at the moment.”
The man practically snatched the money out of his hand. “Go mbeannai Dia duit. Bless you, sir,” he said, and to Luke’s astonishment he tugged at his forelock.
Chapter 5
The dead body on the beach at Wellington was a nine days’ wonder. The Quakers offered a plot in the corner of their burying ground and Thaddeus, Francis Renwell, and the two men who had helped carry the corpse home turned up to help with the digging. If what Dr. Keough had surmised was true, and the man was one of the emigrants from Ireland, Thaddeus thought it most likely that the man was Catholic, and wondered aloud if they were doing the right thing in interring him in a Friends’ cemetery. But Thaddeus’s employer, Archibald McFaul, himself an Irish Catholic, pointed out that he could just as easily be an Irish Protestant, or not even Irish at all, but one of the many Scottish crofters who were also fleeing the dreadful conditions that the lack of potatoes in their homeland was causing.
“I think Quaker is a good compromise,” McFaul said. “The Society is more or less acceptable to almost everybody. At least they don’t seem to be outright offensive. And besides, they offered.”
In any event, it was unlikely that anyone would ever know who the drowned man was, or why he had been dressed in women’s clothing, so the chances of some relative objecting to the manner of his burial was remote.
Martha and the other children, with the resilience of youth, had seemed to recover from the shock of finding the body, and after the burial everyone settled into the routine of their days, the summer winds gusting from the lake.
Thaddeus luxuriated in this welcome breeze as he walked along Wellington’s main street. The warm, fresh air was always such a lift to the spirits after the long grey days of winter, when the overheated rooms of his small house behind the Temperance Hotel seemed to close in around him. It was true that he had to be out and about every day in the course of his duties as secretary of sorts to Archibald McFaul, and he was thankful for the distraction these provided, but nothing could compare to the sense of freedom he had had while riding from village to village as a circuit riding preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Of course that was a thought that belonged to a summer day. When the blustering gales of February howled around his ears, his aging joints liked nothing better than to have him sitting by a fire. Still, the travelling life called to him now and again, though he knew those days were over.
It was noon, and he was just reaching the front steps of the hotel when he heard a shout behind him. He turned and squinted in the direction of the voice. The man moving down the street seemed very familiar, but he couldn’t quite place him. And then something in the way the figure moved jangled recognition loose. It was his son Luke.
It had been five years since he had sent his youngest child off west. When he left, Luke had still been a boy, gangling and unsure. The person who approached him now was a man, still rail-thin to be sure, but his shoulders had filled out and he walked with an assured air.
Thaddeus stuck his head inside the hotel’s front door.
“Martha! Run and get your grandmother,” he shouted, and then he walked back to meet his son.
Luke’s face split into a grin as he reached his father. Then Thaddeus folded him into a bear hug before pushing him away at arm’s length to inspect him.
“You look well,” he said. “You’ve filled out and grown an inch or two. You must be as tall as your brothers now.”
“I’m taller than Will. I still haven’t quite caught up to Moses.”
Luke turned as the door opened and Betsy came out on to the verandah. Thaddeus noticed that his son’s posture suddenly stiffened as he saw his mother. Time and illness had worn Betsy down and she no longer resembled the woman who Luke probably remembered. She hesitated on the step, peering, unsure of why she had been summoned. Then, when she saw Luke and realized who he was, she sat down on the step and burst into tears.
Luke hurried over and sat down beside her. He put his arm around her. “Well that’s quite a welcome for a long-lost son,” he said. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“Don’t tease,” she said. “It’s just such a shock. I thought never to see you again.” And then she flung her arms around his neck, still sobbing with emotion. Luke let her sob, a bemused expression on his face.
They might have sat there forever, Thaddeus thought, if Francis hadn’t appeared at the door. “Sophie’s put the kettle on,” he said. “I’m assuming you’d like this gentleman to come in and sit down?”
Luke stood, and then helped his mother rise, holding her arm carefully as she mounted the steps. She swatted at him. “I know I’m old, but I’m not entirely decrepit yet,” she said. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m porcelain.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Luke replied meekly, and Thaddeus laughed. Their son dwarfed his mother, but it was obvious that she still held the whip hand.
She led the way to the kitchen, motioned for Luke to sit down, and hurriedly set a cup of tea in front of him. Then she hobbled over to the stove where Sophie was dishing up the noon dinner. It was Saturday and they currently had eight guests staying over the weekend and another couple who had arrived just for a meal, but they had long since established an efficient routine. Thaddeus, helped by Francis and Martha, scurried back and forth to the dining room, while Betsy helped Sophie with the last-minute sauces and garnishes. That left Luke alone at the table,
and Thaddeus could see that he was wide-eyed at the bustle around him.
The flow of the traffic changed as leftovers were brought back to the kitchen, used plates taken to the sink room, and dessert delivered to the tables. Thaddeus was the first to sit down beside Luke. He helped himself to a cup from the teapot in front of him.
“We’ll have our dinner when the others are done,” he said.
“Is it always like this?” Luke asked.
“Like what?”
“Are mealtimes always this hectic?”
“Oh, this? This is nothing.”
“I must admit, I never thought to see my father wait at table.”
Betsy joined them. “Oh, he’s got quite good at it, hasn’t he?”
Just then an older woman hobbled in from the sink room.
“Well, hello to you, young sir,” she said.
“Eliza, this is my youngest son, Luke. Luke, this is Eliza Carr, Sophie’s mother. And, of course, Sophie is the genius over there by the stove.”
Sophie turned then and smiled at her mother, displaying two extraordinary dimples. Her glance took in Luke as well, a friendly welcome for unexpected family.
“It’s actually Mrs. Carr who has bought the hotel, although Francis and Sophie run it,” Betsy explained. “It’s nice that we’ve all