CHAPTER TWO
Eighteen Months Earlier
August, 1789
Dear Ann
I hardly know how to address you after our last meeting. I suppose I can understand why you refused my proposal of marriage, but still…
Anyway, you didn’t forbid me to write to you, so I am; I’ll presume you haven’t revoked the privilege of calling you by your first name. If I am mistaken, then correct me now and accept my apologies.
Now, let me see if I can steer this letter onto safer subjects.
England is both larger and smaller than I imagined. St. Paul’s Cathedral is the biggest building I have ever seen, but the streets are small and so are the houses Londoners live in. I’m no artist, so I bought a sketch from one of the street artists, which I have included.
We travel to Cornwall to James’s ancestral home next week. He promises me I’ll like it better than the city. I know I can tell you this in confidence, but there seems to be no love lost between James and his mother.
James seems different here, less happy, although I suppose that is to be understood. His father has died and there seems to be a lot of work to do bringing the estate accounts to order. Hence our trip to Padstow.
I met another person of interest. A Lady Abigail Houghall. I mean, that is her title; she is a real-life lady. I was aware there was someone in James’s past who hurt him badly, and I’ve come to suspect it is she, yet he seems all too ready to fall into her clutches once more.
Anyway, enough of me. How are you? And Andrew? Tell him there will be a gift for him with my next letter. How’s the mercantile? Do you control half of Pittsburgh yet? And please tell me Mr. David Neville is no longer a bother.
Yours in friendship (and more if you agree)
Toby
London, August, 1789
* * *
Fourteen Months Earlier
May, 1787
Ann was at the church, helping nurse the badly burned men. There was no possibility of sleep, not while her husband was still missing. Robert was a mining engineer and shouldn’t have been at the Penventen pit today, but he’d insisted he wanted to see the opening of the new branch for himself.
Ruth had assured her hours ago that Andrew still slept and that she would send word when he awoke; perhaps there would be news of his father then. Until it came, Ann would stay, bathing wounds and holding the weak hands of men who were too far gone in their injuries to cry out pain.
The men so far rescued from Penventen Mine were badly injured. It had been a firedamp explosion, and six men, including her Robert, were still missing. Ann watched the preacher pray for one of the men who lay still—much too still—on a cot. Another life lost. How many more?
A red sunrise marked the dawn of the new day, and four men staggered into the church, their clothes filthy, faces blackened, exhaustion evident in every movement, grief written on their faces.
One woman grasped the import before anyone else and wailed hysterically. She was ushered outside by the minister and his wife. Two other women went to comfort the poor woman. Two of the men slumped wearily onto a pew.
The remaining two, men she knew by sight as the mine owner, James Mitchell, and his foreman, Toby Jackson, approached. Together, they went to one woman and then another to personally deliver the bad news. Ann lowered herself onto a chair in the corner and busied her hands rolling bandages.
Perhaps they would pass her by. Perhaps Robert was safe and helping up at the mine…
If they didn’t make eye contact with her, he was safe.
And yet with every beat of her heart, she knew.
She knew, she knew, she knew…
“Mrs. Sellars?” asked the blond one, Jackson. She nodded. He turned to the dark-haired Englishman.
“Mrs. Sellars, I…” James Mitchell cleared his throat, his voice hard and dry. “I regret to inform you your husband is dead. I want to express my most sincere condolences and give you my personal assurance that you and your children will be taken care of.”
It was plainly a speech he had given more than once today, but it seemed no less sincere for the repetition. It was clear by the pain in the man’s eyes.
Jackson spoke, drawing her attention back to him. “I believe you have a son?”
Ann nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak; if she did, her veneer of composure would crack. They stared at one another. Anguished disbelief was evident on her face from the answering expressions of regret from both the men before her.
Yesterday she had been a wife. Today she was a widow. Her mind processed what her heart would not.
New arrivals walked into the church, a day shift of helpers who would nurse the wounded and see to the care of the newly bereaved. Mitchell acknowledged them with a nod of his head and turned to Jackson.
“Could you escort Mrs. Sellars home? Then get some sleep.”
Jackson returned a frown. “You’re nearly out on your feet yourself. Surely it can wait until you’ve rested too.”
Strangely detached from the grief wracking her, Ann’s tired mind noted the unusual relationship between the men, more friends that employer and employee.
Jackson’s admonishment was answered with a pat on the shoulder, a demonstration of camaraderie. “I’ll find time to rest soon enough.” The mine owner moved away to exchange a few quiet words with Reverend Greenwood before disappearing into the sunshine outside.
“Mrs. Sellars?”
Ann turned at the gentle enquiry.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded and followed Toby Jackson outside, where the spring day seemed heedless of the tragedy it witnessed. It was strange; it didn’t seem right. Ann stared at the rose garden in the churchyard. Surely the flowers should be different; the clouds, the town, the steady stream of horse-drawn traffic on the street looked unreasonably unaffected and out of place.
She didn’t react when Jackson assisted her into a buggy and set the horses into a sedate trot. The shops, saloons, and houses seemed familiar but were not. Ann turned to the man beside her and blinked in surprise. He wasn’t Robert… No, that’s right, Robert was dead. The man with the reins was Tobias Jackson. Mr. Mitchell’s man.
The buggy pulled up outside a modest but well-kept little house. It looked like her house. That must be why Mr. Jackson pulled on the brake and jumped down. The door opened and the housekeeper, Ruth, ran out, tears streaming down her face. “Mrs. Sellars, oh, Mrs. Sellars…”
It’s all right, Ruth, she wanted to say. He’s not dead. Robert’s not dead. But the words wouldn’t clear her throat.
Jackson stood beside the buggy, his hand raised, ready to help her down. His face looked fierce, smeared with dirt and sporting a days’ worth of reddish-colored stubble. His mouth was a tired line, his clothes filthy. She placed her hand in his and felt warm for the first time in hours.