Books and banter by W.H.Manke

Henry could not sleep after he stumbled into his bed at the regiment’s quarters.  Throughout the next day he felt lost.  He dreaded his parents’ return.  Looking for Eugene in the late afternoon, he found out that he had not yet returned to his quarters.  Henry’s anger was rekindled, but Timothy persuaded him to wait for his parents at Lord Stambury’s residence and prepare himself to inform them instead of laying in wait for Eugene.  

On his way to Lord Stambury’s residence Henry rode past the looming doors of a cathedral.  He turned the two horses around, dismounted and tied the animals to a lamppost near the side of the building’s front door.  Angry and ashamed he felt a need to enter the church and bare his soul.  Slowly he entered through the huge front door and stopped once scarcely inside.  Hesitating for a moment, he finally walked to the step at the front altar like one going to the gallows. His eyes swept along the width of the front of the church, past the stained glass windows to the large cross in the center alcove.  He shivered.  At the front he sank to his knees and tried to pray, but no words came to him.  It seemed as if there was no forgiveness for him, no release from his troubled mind.  More troubled than when he entered, he left the church with his fists clenched.

Lord and Lady Stambury welcomed Henry.  To their inquiry about his brother he only said that Benjamin thanked them for the use of the horse, and that he has gone on a journey and would not need the mount any longer.  Feeling the need to be alone, he excused himself from his hosts, after they had dined together.  Silently he retired to the room that had been prepared for him for the night.  He tossed and turned most of the night until he had finally determined what he would tell his parents.  When the night fought with the dawn he fell into a fitful sleep.

Late the next afternoon his parents’ carriage arrived.  Henry watched his mother and Melissa enter the house.  He chose not to look at his father.  Slowly he made his way downstairs.  Meredith saw her son descent the stairs, after she had greeted the Stamburys.  “Henry, how nice it is for you to welcome us,” she said.  Melissa and Samuel came to her side and also greeted him.  “Is Benjamin coming down?” Meredith asked her son and smiled at him.  Henry stopped at the last step with his head downcast and his hand clinging to the banister upon hearing her question.

“Is Benjamin well?” Melissa queried, thinking Henry’s conduct and the absence of her younger brother strange. Her question affected her parents.  They quickly grew worried.

With a wondering look in her eyes Meredith turned from Henry to her husband.  Samuel suddenly was alarmed. “Henry where is Benjamin?” he demanded.  “You are too quiet for all to be well.”

“I have something to tell you.”  Henry spoke slowly and softly.  “Mother, Melissa it may be best for you to seat yourselves.”

“Henry!” his mother shouted in panic.  “Where is Benjamin?”

“He is not here,” Henry began.  “He has taken a journey and shall be gone for some time, I sadly fear.”

“Henry, you are not making sense.”  His father came to his side.  He demanded, “Why would Benjamin have gone on a journey?”

“Benjamin boarded a ship late Friday night and is sailing to Boston as we speak.  I begged him not to go, to think of all of us, but he had celebrated too much with sherry.  He became quite disagreeable.”  Henry watched his mother first and then Melissa drop weeping into a chair.  He licked his dry lips and continued.  “When he heard of the Fortune Four sailing that very night,  he said he had to do what Andrew meant to do.  We thought it was the drink in him speaking.  You know how quick at foot he is.  He jumped on board as the gangplank was being raised and shouted back, once he was on deck, to bid you all farewell.”   

“It cannot be!” Samuel insisted.  “Benjamin has too much regard for us to wander off without our blessing.  Nor could he have been equipped to go on such a long journey.  The Fortune Four you say?  It is a Packet ship and may take as many as forty days to reach her destination.  It cannot be!” 

“Henry, say it isn’t so!” Melissa shouted.  “How long shall it be before I shall see his sweet face again?”

“You must not torment us, my son,” Meredith pleaded.  She had collected herself a little.  “Put an end to the game you two are playing with us.  We cannot bear to hear of Benjamin’s absence.”

Henry looked to the floor and shook his head slowly.  “I wish it was a game, dear Mother.  How I would love to see my brother come down these same stairs smiling sweet mischief at us.  Hearing him say a welcome to all of you, and laughing at the sport we might have had together would be balm indeed.”

Lady Stambury walked to Meredith to comfort her.  Her husband pulled Samuel aside. “Let us hurry to High Street and inquire what other vessels are ready to plough these same waters this day.  If, per chance, one of the new Clipper ships should be anchored there, we might persuade the master of the ship to sail after the Fortune.  The Clippers, it is said, have marvelous speed and would catch the Fortune Four long before a week is out.” The two older men hurried from the house with Henry following close behind.  They returned a few hours later unsuccessful in their search.

Upon their return to the Stambury residence Samuel asked Henry to relate the details of Benjamin’s leaving once again.  Henry carefully retold the story as he had reported it to his family at first.  It seemed easier to him to make the report this time.  His heart beat with less apprehension.  Soon after that Henry set out to return to his regiment laden heavily with guilt.  He promised to see his family at Hawking Manor at his first opportunity.  Before he left he wanted to throw his arms around his mother and father to beg them for forgiveness, but he only looked to the ground when he embraced them lightly and whispered, “I pray all is well with Benjamin.” 

In the weeks that followed neither Meredith nor Melissa were able to come to terms with the fact that Benjamin was lost to them for a long time.  Often, when they were alone or only in each other’s company, they broke out weeping. Both prayed each night for his speedy and safe return.  Samuel kept trying to make sense of it.  Each time when he reviewed the details of Benjamin’s leaving he came to the same conclusion that it was too much unlike Benjamin to do this harm to those he loved.  Before they had returned to Hawking Manor from Liverpool he wrote a letter to the company that owned the Fortune Four to inquire about a passenger aboard their ship bound from Liverpool to Boston on the seventeenth day of May of the year of his writing, 1848.  When he received the company’s reply eleven weeks later it confirmed that a Benjamin Carstairs had been aboard the ship and had left it being well on its arrival in Boston.  

Life at Hawking Manor continued, but for the Carstairs happiness was gone and a large part of the sunshine of their life had vanished.  Henry’s first visit home, after that sad day that took Benjamin from them, even though only a few days long, brought a little relief to the people at the manor.  The knowledge that Henry would soon return to stay at home gladdened each of their spirits, but the heaviness in their hearts remained in spite of the many encouraging occurrences that took place in those weeks. 

Mother Elizabeth’s health improved.  She insisted she would be there to welcome her youngest grandson home again whenever it would happen.  Melissa received a proposal of marriage from Nathan Spencer, and their engagement was a happy family occasion.  The business of Hawking Manor prospered and everything Samuel undertook thrived.  Hannah and Phillip christened another child, an adorable son, and Lady Lydia came to visit often to cheer the family.

Before Henry left his parents’ house after his short visit, he spoke in confidence with Michael Keane who was employed by the family to order the day-to-day communications affairs of Hawking Manor and who sometimes assisted Samuel in other business.  “Michael I have a delicate request to make of you,” Henry said when he approached him.  “My parents and Melissa are vulnerable to unhappy news at this time, as you well know.  I beg of you to carefully note the letters that come to us in the post.  I am hopeful to find correspondence from my brother in due time.  To make sure it is good news that he reports I wish to see the letters first before my parents read them.  If Benjamin’s report is not favorable, I must prepare my parents for the news. You must promise me to be diligent in following my request exactly.”

Michael Keane at first had some objections to Henry’s request, but the young Carstairs persuaded him by insisting his parents and Melissa’s health must be guarded at any price.

“I shall do as you say,” he finally agreed.  “Only reassure me that you will not hold any news from your parents, and if the news is not pleasant, I will hold you to break it softly to your family.”

Summer brought with it glorious days of sunshine tempered by soft breezes and all in the world seemed to be well.  But Meredith could not bring herself to enjoy any part of life.  Her suffering continued unabated.  One evening when she and Samuel had retired to their room she could not tear herself away from the window, as if expecting to see someone appear in the alley among the trees leading to the manor house for whom she had waited for a long time.  “Come to bed, darling,” Samuel called softly to her.  “Tomorrow is another day for worry.”

She turned toward her husband with tears in her eyes.  “I think it is my fault that our youngest son is lost to us, dear.  It is God’s way of holding me to account for the falsehood I fabricated when our father and Andrew lost their lives, and the other secret I have kept from you for many years.”

Samuel took Meredith into his arms.  He gently kissed her and wiped her tears away.  “Benjamin is not lost to us, my dear.  We will see him again in a little while.  I have hired two men who know the continent well to search for him and bring him home.  And you are not to blame.  The boy loves you more than life itself.  God is not vengeful but loving.  I know He honors your strong faith.”

“If only we had some word from him, Samuel.”  She nestled her head on his chest.  “I must not keep the truth and secret from you any longer.  I beg you, my love to hear me out.”  With tears streaming down her cheeks she bared her soul and told her husband what exactly happened the day that Percy fell upon them.  She also told him that before she had met him she had given Andrew her promise to be his.  “I gave up on him when he did not return quickly from the American continent, as he had said he would do when he began his adventure to the Americas.  I thought he had forgotten me, and when I met you I let myself fall in love with you.”  She continued weeping.  “Think of it, I was untrue to your brother and my vow to him.  Your love and the many happy days you have given me I did not deserve.  Now God is holding me to account.”

Samuel kissed her cheeks and brow.  “You have been my love from the first time I saw you.  Do not torture yourself with what could not be.  You are true as any soul can be and kind and beautiful to boot.  It is not hard to understand why Andrew and all the world that knows you would love you.  Andrew had the good fortune to meet you first, but he could not have loved you more than I have, my dear.  He told me, when he finally came back to us, that he had found that every loss is compensated by a faithful God with a yet a greater gain.  I did not understand what he meant at the time, but it is clear to me now.  He found contentment in spite of losing you.  I also never felt he loved me any less even though he saw me kissing the one he himself once loved.  Did he not tell you that years after he left you he found a soul mate in the New World who gave him a sweet child?  You see the turning of the world is not in our own hands after all.” 

“Oh Samuel, you are most precious to me.  I wish I could give you another child, but our time to conceive is past. How else then can I show you how much I love you?”

“To hear you say you love me is all I need.  And look how beautiful you are.  Your eyes and lips and breasts and all the rest of you set me aflame, my love.  No woman in this world can be more pleasing to behold.”  He kissed her tenderly and Meredith responded with caresses.  “Tell me one more thing that I do not understand.  What did Percy think to do with you, and who was it that in the end took his life?”

“I begged him to leave our father be and to consider the good of his own family.  He mocked me and said that he would prove himself a man to me, and after he had his way with me that he would close my lips forever.  Once he had mortally wounded our  

brother, Rebel and the wolf came upon him as I told you.  For that moment his eyes were not on me and I managed to gain our father’s sword.  With all my might I drove it into his heart.  I fear that our poor Benjamin did see too much that day.  It is likely he did see me end Percy’s life.  In my grief I also asked him take part in my deception by having him lay down tracks of horses to make it appear that four riders had fled the scene.  Those tracks were to give my deception the appearance of truth and proof of what I told you all.”

“You meant it all for good, my love.  No one could fault you for what you told the world that day.  This feud with Percy’s family would have gone on living.  Benjamin is resilient.  He will overcome the wounds of that day.  We will leave it buried with those whose lives it claimed that day.  Let us not speak of this again.”  They embraced each other.  Their gentle kisses put the past from their remembrance for the moment, and their caresses opened the world of love to them. For the first night in many Meredith fell asleep soundly.  In her husband’s arms she finally buried the past that had eaten away at her being.

Melissa, heavy of heart herself, for her mother’s sake put on a confident face and spoke of her belief that Benjamin would find his way home to them safely.  She spent many hours with Meredith to try to cheer her.  Her own days brightened whenever Jonathan came to be with her for a weekend.  He brought her flowers and gifts and spoiled her with much attention.  He understood her pain and tried his best to do the things he knew she loved to do.  Jonathan readily accepted her suggestion for a long engagement so that her hope of having her younger brother present at their wedding might be realized. 

It was on a walk in one of the meadows of Hawking Manor, after many months of waiting for Benjamin, that Melissa and Jonathan finally set their date.  “You are most loving and understanding of my pain, Jonathan,” Melissa said and nestled close to him.  “I fear I am not being fair to you by indefinitely leaving off a date when we can be husband and wife.  My brother means very much to me, but let us set a date today for I could not bear to lose your love.”

“Melissa, you are my love.  I gladly wait for you.  Please know that my own happiness is made complete just knowing that one day you will be mine.”

  Melissa drew him close to her, and he kissed her gently.  “If you will be content to wait until a year from this autumn, let us marry then when the leaves turn red and beautifully yellow and all the harvest is done.”  They chose a day that moment and spoke of their hope that Benjamin would be home before they walked to the altar together.  Hand in hand they came back to the house and shared their intentions with Samuel and Meredith. 

Grandmother Elizabeth came also to give them her blessing.  “You must not deny your own happiness, my dear,” she said.  “You and Jonathan can welcome your brother home here at Hawking Manor or in your own home, and he will love you all the same.  He would not ask you to wait for him, if he cannot return in time for your wedding.”  She continued to encourage them. Together the family celebrated Melissa’s engagement again that on the day when Jonathan had proposed was overshadowed too much by Benjamin’s absence.          

Michael kept his word to Henry.  Seven weeks after Henry had spoken to him, at the end of the second week of August, he directed a letter to Henry.  The letter was addressed to Samuel and Meredith Carstairs.  Henry opened it with great apprehension.  He noted that the letter was written forty-two days after the Fortune Four had left England.

“Dear Mother, Father and Melissa,” the letter read.  “I have just arrived in Boston in America on the Fortune Four and I am well.  I must beg for your forgiveness for my conduct. When you thought me to be happily celebrating my completion of studies and Henry’s return from overseas, I behaved shamefully.  While I have wondered many times since that day how I came to be drunk, nevertheless, I must sadly report that I partook of strong drink that night.  I can remember many things Henry and I did together with his two friends, but I cannot for the life of me remember going on board the ship.  As surprising to me was to find out the next morning, with my head pounding very painful, that my fare was paid in full.  I had no recollection of ever having seen the purser in my life to that hour.  I pray that you will forgive me for being not true to your teaching and your expectations of me.  I am truly sorry for causing you what I know were some dark days with worry.” 

The letter went on to say that the voyage was pleasant, but due to the lack of strong wind too slow for his liking.  He asked them to pass on to Henry his appreciation for his willingness to include him in the celebrations.  To Melissa he sent loving greetings and praised her good taste in men saying that he thought Jonathan to be an honorable and kind man. Benjamin spoke of making an adventure of his misfortune.  He told his parents of the promise he had made his uncle that he would one day try to find his daughter.

 “I assume you know that my godfather had a wife and daughter in the New World.  Before he passed away he told me of them.  He had hoped to go and find them but his life was cut short.”  Henry also read that Benjamin had met up with a young man after the voyage who intended to go by way of Cape Horn to the west coast of North America.  A Clipper ship was to sail within days of Benjamin’s writing, he reported in his letter, and like his friend he had purchased passage on it.  Benjamin told how searching in the west of the continent would give him the best opportunity to find his cousin.  “Sweet Hummingbird Clarissa is in the northwest of the continent.  I feel it strongly, after recalling everything my uncle told me.  I hope to find her this coming year and pray that I will see you all before the next summer has passed,” he wrote. 

His letter also spoke of Timothy and Eugene.  “Timothy, I feel is an honorable man and you can welcome him to Hawking Manor, but I think it will be wise not to make Eugene’s acquaintance.”  Benjamin closed his letter sending his love to each of his loved ones.

Henry’s anger with Eugene had subsided with the days that followed, which he spent at the regiment’s quarters. His own guilt also stirred less severely within him.  A week after his return from his parents’ place, once he had completed his day’s duties, Henry was on his way to the city.  Riding along the way he happened to come upon Eugene.  After riding along besides each other for a time without speaking a word to each other, Eugene suddenly turned to Henry, “Why so glum, my friend?  What ails you?”

“You know what my complaint is,” Henry hissed.  “I had a brother until the day he met you, a day on which we had meant to celebrate.  I had mistaken you for a friend and had not guessed to find a devil within you.”

“A devil within me, you say?  You knew me well enough.  Did we not do some mischief together this past year?” Eugene laughed his wicked laugh.  “Have you now forgotten how you used me to rid the Indian merchant of his jewel-studded dagger without paying for it?  You were happy with me when I let him have my mustache in his face so you could make your getaway?”

“I meant to buy it, but you persuaded me,” Henry started to counter.  His blood was beginning to boil again. Before he finished his sentence Eugene railed on him again.

“You are an ungrateful knave,” Eugene shouted.  “Who found you half the wenches for your entertainment?”

“And some prospect of stray lead balls from their disagreeable fathers,” Henry shouted

back.  Riding beside him he suddenly flung himself onto Eugene.  Both tumbled to the wet ground soaked from a heavy morning rain.  They were alone in an open area where they wrestled and fought within sight of the first houses of the city. Eugene was cunning, but Henry’s strength was too much for him.  His bloodied nose and his eye half swollen shut made it difficult for him to gain the upper hand.  His tricks also did not work on Henry who knew them well. 

“Enough!” Eugene finally called out.  He jumped back from the fray.  “Let us now remember our friendship.  Did you not often complain on nights when we had the watch together how the youth, your brother, played you for the fool, and how you sometimes wished he had been born other than a Carstairs?  I sent him on a short journey for your sake.  He shall one day thank me for the adventure.  Meanwhile, be grateful to me for the peace I have given you from your very troublesome kin, though it be but for a year or two.”

“He is only seventeen.  You sent him to a large and strange country too wild for a gentle youth.”

“Did we not watch him face a wounded bear without him trembling, as we did?”

“Uncouth men will take advantage of a child so far from home where his father’s reputation is not known.”

“I saw him fence with a man twice his age who had taken many lessons from a master of the sport, and in the end that youth lightened his elder’s pocket of a fortune.”

Henry halted from circling the retreating Eugene.  “I am not without fault, as you say,” he answered Eugene.  “Yet you have made my light shine less brightly in my parents’ house and caused them pain.”

Eugene considered Henry’s charge for a moment before saying, “They will love an only son all the more.  I know whereof I speak.”  He reached for his horse’s bridle.

“Let us call your foul deed punished for now and ride on to dine.”  Henry walked to his own horse.  “I am hungry for a shank of mutton.”  He swung himself into his saddle.  Eugene followed suit and they rode on into the city, soiled and bruised but laughing at each other.

The next day when the two horsemen presented themselves for duty, Eugene’s face showed ample evidence of the fight.  Their superior officer, who suspected that Eugene had disgraced the Dragoons by his conduct in the city, demanded to know how he came by the black eye and swollen nose.

“I was surprised by three thieves who fell upon me and meant to rob me when our First Lieutenant, Carstairs, came along the road.  Seeing me outnumbered he came to my rescue.”  Eugene smiled at Henry who stood at his side. 

Henry’s face was frozen by the prospect of facing the regiment’s discipline for injuring one of its own.  He had hoped to complete his service that ended in half a year with a clean record.  His parents did have high hopes for his reform and he did not want to disappoint them.  To his credit he had always been above reproach while on duty through the years with the Dragoons.  In the past six months had earned the praise of his commanders several times. Hearing Eugene say that he had conducted himself honorably and with bravery brightened his face and any animosity he still held in his heart toward his comrade dissipated with those words.

Lady Lydia’s visit in August brought a little cheer to Meredith.  Lydia had tried on several earlier visits to comfort her without great success.  She came again in August accompanied by her two daughters and their governess.  When she gave instructions to the servants about her luggage she told them that there was a package in the carriage that needed to be handled with great care. 

“Please carry it yourself,” she said to Alexander Watkins who had become the head servant in the Carstairs’ house. “I shall need it in the drawing room directly.”  As always, she greeted Meredith with an embrace.  Her girls curtsied to Elizabeth, Samuel, Meredith and Melissa.  After the greetings, when Lydia was seated, she asked if there was any news from Benjamin.  To her dismay Meredith had no news to report.

Lydia took Meredith’s hand, “I have great confidence in the boy, my dear.  I am convinced he will surprise us one day soon   with his appearance.  Until he does, dear Meredith, we wish to make a gift to you that we hope will make your waiting a little easier.”  She signaled to her girls to take the package wrapped up with a large bow and to give it to Meredith.

“You know how dear Benjamin is to me, and how he has been a faithful friend to Albert.  When I bemoaned the fact one day that there is not a recent painting of our boy, Rebecca said to me that she was sure that Albert would remember how Benjamin looked the last time the two friends shared a few hours together.  Some weeks ago Charles and I drove to visit your cousin at her house.  Albert was excited with our suggestion that he paint his friend from memory.  A fortnight ago Albert completed this painting.” 

Meredith took off the wrappings hurriedly and to shouts of joy she held up a painting of her son.  “Oh my dear friend,” she cried out with tears of joy streaming from her cheeks.  “Look Samuel, look Mother Elizabeth and Melissa, our Benjamin.” 

Melissa came and held the painting.  “It is lovely and just like him.  Look Father how his smile tells of his delight for his horse.”  The painting showed Benjamin standing at the side of the head of one of his stallions smiling at the animal and the spirited horse looking expectantly at his master.

Albert had taken great pains to capture Benjamin’s face.  In it the beholders saw the love for life that they had so often admired in him.  Lydia was delighted with the happiness the painting had brought to her friend.  She spoke excitedly of the times she had observed Benjamin from infancy to the last time she saw him.  Her memories also cheered the Carstairs.  So a pleasant hour sped by.  To moans from her daughters Lydia reported that they were bound for London the next day where they were to meet Charles. The governess was to visit her own kin, she explained.  “But would you believe it, my daughters dread the trip?” 

Melissa immediately begged Lydia to let the girls stay at Hawking Manor.

“Oh Mama, can we, please can we,” Rebecca shouted and her sister joined in her request.  After some consideration and a promise from Samuel that he and Meredith would bring the girls home safely a week later, when Lydia and Charles intended to return to their home, she consented to grant her daughters their wish. 

“You must promise me to always practice your best manners,” she instructed the girls, “and remember to say your prayers each night.”  She girls happily agreed.  For Meredith and Melissa the two youngsters were a godsend.  In the week that followed they spent many happy hours with the children, giving themselves a reprieve from their worries about Benjamin.

Albert too had taken the news of his friend’s departure with a heavy heart.  His progress toward the goals he had set with Benjamin’s encouragement slowed quite considerably.  There were days when even his delight to paint or draw was absent, and he felt alone.  At other times he became angry thinking that Benjamin had deserted him and forgotten about the plans they had made together.  It was with great delight then that he received a letter from his friend one day as autumn began.  The letter was sent from Rio de Janeiro where Benjamin’s ship, on which he had passage to sail around Cape Horn, had stopped to take on fresh supplies.  Benjamin wrote of the adventures he had to that day and how he had one morning found himself on board the Fortune Four bound for the Americas.  The letter told of his plans, and that he hoped to return home again in less than two years bringing with him Clarissa his uncle’s daughter.  Benjamin explained much of what he had learned from his uncle about the people with whom Andrew had lived when he had traveled in North America.  For a little while Albert’s former determination to improve his legs’ strength by exercise returned.  With it came a new desire to paint.  He had painted a portrait of Benjamin for Lady Lydia, and he set out, after reading the letter, to do another painting of his friend, as he envisioned him arriving home after all his adventures.

When Henry was discharged honorably from the horsemen with the coming of autumn, he chose to celebrate quietly with Timothy who had also earned his discharge.  A day after their release Henry set out for Hawking Manor, while Timothy returned to his own home before assuming a post he had received with the Hudson Bay Company.  To Henry’s surprise he found out from his friend before they parted that Timothy would begin his career with the Hudson Bay Company at a Prairie post in North America called Buckingham House situated along the banks of a river called Kisiskatchewan by the native people.