“No one knows,” Maggie said, and her voice was very hard and cold. “If they had us, the light would be on us now. Now take that sail down and row.”
He felt foolish about the sail, and leaped up to pull it down. She was right, he knew, and he began to pull with fresh strength. Everything was running against them, the wind and the currents, the weight of the boat, the lack of a sail, but they moved out into the firth away from shore, fighting to get out beyond the sweep of the light.
“Oh, God,” Gillon said, and put down the oars.
“What now?” She was angry with him.
“Don’t you hear it?” She didn’t. She didn’t know the sounds of the sea the way he did. “Drysdale’s cutter is in the water.”
“He can’t find us out here.”
“He can if he has the light. The joke of it is, he’s coming out to save you.”
“Well, he can’t save me if he can’t find me. Go on now, Gillon, row.”
But he didn’t pick up the oars.
“We’ve got to get rid of the fish,” Gillon said. “We’ve got to get the evidence out of the boat.”
He stood up and came down the boat to where Maggie was sitting to seize the tail of the topmost salmon. He started to pull and she held him by the arms with a grip that amazed him.
“You don’t throw those fish out. Those fish are as much my fish as your fish.”
He would not let go of the salmon.
“If those fish go over the side,” she said, very slowly and quietly in his ear, “I go with them.”
He dropped the tail of the fish and went back to his oars.
“It’s me who’ll spend the time in jail,” Gillon finally said.
“And it’s me who’ll wait for you to get out.”
What did she mean by that? Gillon thought, but he rowed on, and soon, he knew, if everything continued right, they would begin making their turn for Herringtoon, picking up the favoring winds and currents. Maybe, he allowed himself to think, just maybe … And that was a mistake, as he knew it must be, because as soon as he thought it he heard the thumping pistons of Drysdale’s engine pushing the cutter into the waves. There was no searchlight, only a large sea lantern on the bow, and when the ship was perhaps a hundred yards away, Gillon reached out and pulled Maggie forward on top of the salmon.
“Och, Gillon,” she said.
“Quiet,” Gillon ordered, “don’t move,” and she lay there groaning to herself, very quietly, while they rocked in the darkness, her face flat against the flank of the topmost fish, the stink of death and the sea overwhelming in her nose and mouth. She could hear members of the crew talking and calling to one another and then the voices were gone, but he wouldn’t let her sit up until the lantern was nearly gone too.
“He’ll be back,” Gillon said; “we’ve got to get going.” He took the oars and began to row as hard as he had at any time of the day. “They’re making a search pattern in the water. With luck we’ll be outside it when they come back down.”
She didn’t want to ask him, he was rowing so hard, but she did at last.
“Why did you do that to me?”
“To hide the reflection of the fish scales from the lantern. They shine like fireflies.”
“Yes, good, but you’ve ruined my lovely tweed suit.”
“It had to be.”
“Aye, it had to be,” Maggie said.
He wondered if he should tell her what he planned to do and decided she deserved it. The wind was rising and now was the time to risk it.
“I want to hoist the sail again but if I do we could swamp. We can be spotted by the sail but we also can run before the wind.”
He waited. She didn’t realize at first that it was a question.
“Well?”
“Put up the sail,” she said. It was brave of her, he thought, and again was aware of his love for her. He went to work swiftly and skillfully until the sail was rigged and the wind hit the canvas with a slap and the boat began to plow through water. There was a moment when it heeled over and water began running over the gunnels and Gillon was certain he was wrong, that he had tested the sea and lost. He felt he should prepare her for drowning, there was no way, he thought, for the boat to right itself, but it did, agonizingly slow, inching its way up out of the water and then it was up, that suddenly, and the boat driving through the chop, almost skidding through the scud-flecked sea. Gillon was exuberant.
“Do you believe in God?” he called to her.
“Sometimes.”
“Well, you should. You should offer a prayer.”
“It was that close, then?”
“Aye, that close,” he said, and saw that she was crying. He didn’t blame her. Sailors would have cried; he might have cried if the work hadn’t demanded all his thought and energy.
“Don’t cry,” he said, “don’t cry, now; we’re over the worst of it.”
“It’s not that.” The tears wouldn’t stop. He wanted to go back and hold her like a child.
“What is it, then?”
“My lovely tweed suit. It’ll never be right again.”
* * *
Far to his stern he could see the light from Mr. Drysdale’s boat working over the choppy water. They would have beach parties out before long, scouring the coast, looking for washed-up bodies. And up ahead he could see the first of the little blinking lights from the herring fleet anchored outside Herringtoon harbor.
“We’re safe,” he said, and his head fell on his chest. He slept that way for several minutes. When he woke, he felt revived. They had won a tremendous victory, she would never know how great.
“Do you know what you and I should do?” Gillon said. He felt bold and very much at ease.
“What should we do?”
“We should … well. Perhaps I shouldn’t have…” and he stopped. It was absurd, of course, a kiltie boy and a woman such as she. A man who never earned as much as a pound in a week—not fifteen shillings, usually.
“Yes?”
“I was speaking out of turn,” Gillon said, and put his feet up on the salmon and let the sea carry him.
He looked back down the boat at her and then at the fish and suddenly began laughing. It was all so mad. What was this woman doing in his boat stealing these fish with him?
“What are you laughing at?”
“Us.” He wanted to ask her how it had happened. He wanted to tell her what a victory they had won, but only a sailor would understand that. He was filled with the sadness of having done something memorable, surviving some tremendous storm and sailing into harbor safely, with no one to tell it to. They were coming into the first of the boats and Gillon got up to take down the sail and cover the salmon with the canvas. There was no need to flaunt the catch, not even in Herringtoon, where they despised Mr. Drysdale and his water factors.
She said very quietly, “I know a place where a man can earn forty-eight shillings a week.”
It was a great deal of money. She could see his head nodding. It was incredible, he was thinking, how she knew what was in his mind.
“What do you think of that?”
“I think a lot of it.”
He was back at the oars and glad to be rowing, since it gave him time to think.
“And in two years’ time, he can be making sixty shillings in a week.”
They were coming through the first of the boats, and he was pleased that no one seemed to pay any attention to them.
“Where?” he asked at last.
“Where I live.”
The idea of it excited and puzzled him. What was she after?
“And what kind of thief do I have to become?”
“The kind my father is.”
It was getting closer and closer, a kind of game they were playing, but he didn’t know the rules, only that he was in a box and didn’t want to get out of it.
“Which is what?”
“A collier.”
“A what?”
“A collier.”
&
nbsp; He let go of the oars. “One of those who go down to mine the coals and all? That?”
He could see her nod.
“A coal miner?”
She nodded again. He slapped the water with an oar.
“He couldn’t be,” he nearly shouted at her. Some men in a boat looked at them and went back to their nets. He could see the teeth, her bright little moor-fox teeth, by the dim lights from the herring-boat masts.
“I couldn’t be one of those—oh, no, never, down under the earth all day in the dark. I’d die down there. Oh, no, out of the question. How could I do it, anyway?”
“If you came with me.”
She said it so offhandedly he couldn’t let himself believe he heard it at first.
“I’ve heard about those people, anyway. Read about them. The dregs of the earth, scum of the earth. They used to be slaves in this country, you know.”
“I know.”
“No different than the blacks.”
“I know.”
“Then why would I want to be one?”
“Miners make money.”
It was slow going through the herring fleet. The salmon-heavy boat was almost unmaneuverable but Gillon poled it through the crowded harbor until they were near the shadows of the wharves. They were not due to come in until the fleet had gone out and he dropped his anchor in the shallow water, hiding in the shadows, and waited.
“Is it cold down there, or hot? I would guess hot because it’s nearer to hell.”
“It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”
He didn’t know whether to believe her or not.
“And what about the black? Does it ever come off?”
“I would wash it off for you.”
He felt his heart constrict as if it had been squeezed. The thought of her small brown hands running over his sweaty back, her hands pouring warm water over his head, the water flowing over his chest and back while she laved his body with rich creamy soap, made his hands tremble. He was afraid to talk because of the quaver he knew would be in his throat. He could see her smiling at him.
“They’re beginning to go out now,” she said to him.
“Oh, yes.” He was glad for any movement but then he didn’t move.
“You said, ‘If you come with me.’”
“Aye.”
Gillon lifted an edge of the canvas and pretended to be studying the fish.
“And what does that mean?” he asked, after a wait.
“Ah, Gillon,” she said. She was laughing and yet there was a kind of anger in her laugh. He couldn’t stop thinking of warm water and brown hands and the tub and the soap. “I am asking you to marry me.”
He dropped the canvas back on the fish and looked across the water.
“Aye, I thought you were.”
He did nothing. All the boats were leaving the harbor; the noise of oars and creak of rope and wind hitting canvas covered his silence.
“Which is the last wharf?” Maggie said.
“Why, this one.”
“We want the fourth one in.”
He pulled the anchor and poled the boat along the line of wharves. At the fourth one he ducked his head and began moving among the blackness of timbers and pilings. There were some stairs and then someone seized the boat and said, “Is that you, Miss Drum?” in the heavy Herringtoon accent.
“We gave you up for dead. How did you do?”
“Five. Five big ones.”
“Four,” Gillon said.
“No, I think five,” Maggie said. Gillon never understood.
There was a dim light in the loft overhead and gradually they could see. A line was dropped and fixed to the tail of a salmon and the first of the first was winched away.
“Och, they’rt beeeg,” Maggie heard.
“Hoosh, hoosh,” someone said, and she determined to ask for more than was agreed on. These fish—all of them, she knew then—were special. She felt for the steps and went up the stairs and into the loft.
“No women here,” someone said.
“But I am here,” Maggie said.
Gillon could hear the argument, the tone of it but not the words, and he never asked about it later on. When the last of the fish had been hoisted into the loft he heard the sounds of ice and then the sound of money, coins being poured from a box to a purse.
“All right, fair is fair,” someone said. “I knew something would come of this, from that first day. You can call me Cherry now. Partners in crime and all. Anytime you have another plan you know where to find me,” and then Gillon heard her footsteps on the wooden stairs and she was back with him in the boat. She handed him three notes and a bag of silver and copper coins. The notes felt soft and warm and used in his hands.
“I never had one of these pound notes before,” Gillon said, “and now I have three.”
He poled out from under the wharf and headed down Herringtoon shore, along the wharves, for the dock at the Toon. Without the dead weight of the salmon, the boat leaped ahead in the protected water. He tried the words over and over, and they would not come right no matter what combination he arranged. In a few minutes he could see the light from the dock. Mr. Drysdale’s cutter was tied alongside.
“We’ll have to beach it here,” Gillon said, and jumped easily over the side and began to pull the boat up on shore so Maggie wouldn’t get wet.
“You’ll have to walk to Lovatt Street and get around behind him that way.”
“Yes.”
“And, Maggie.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“What you said before.”
“What? I said a lot.”
“What you said.”
“Marry me?”
“Aye.”
He didn’t know what to do then. Just because he had said he would marry her didn’t seem to give him the right to embrace her. He had helped her out of the boat and they were standing along the shore, Gillon a little way out in the water, the way they had first met.
“Yes, well, that will be all right by me,” Maggie said. He started toward her, feeling some kind of gesture was called for, but he wasn’t sure what it should be and so he stopped. He wasn’t much for standing on ritual.
“It will be very good,” Maggie said.
“Yes, I think so,” Gillon said, and then was amazed to see her turn around and start across the beach toward the alleyways that led into Lovatt Street.
“Where are you going?” he called out.
“Why, my drink with Mr. Drysdale.”
He watched her all the way across the beach until she reached the alleyway and was gone. She wasn’t much for standing on ritual either, he decided, although perhaps a little kiss or something like that might have been in order. But it didn’t really matter too much, Gillon thought, and suddenly felt how very tired he was and got in his boat and began the long row home.
7
They never talked about the wedding later on. It had been a disappointment for Gillon and he never knew how Maggie felt about it.
He had hoped, in a clannish sentimental moment, to be married in the family kirk, but the deacon in Strathnairn would have no part of it unless they posted a month of banns and agreed to sit on the cutty stool the Sunday before the wedding in prepayment for the sins he knew they were about to commit.
“Further,” he had said, stones of eyes through iced glasses, “I will not marry a child. How old are you, child?”
“Twenty-three,” Maggie had said.
“Are you really twenty-three?” Gillon asked later.
“If you are going to tell a lie, tell a substantial lie,” Maggie said, and he had learned something. But he never learned her exact age. Having never been a child, she was, in her way, ageless. Age was never a concern; it didn’t seem to matter with Maggie the way it did with other people.
They were married, instead, in an O’er Boggie, a marriage conducted without a minister and arranged for them by Cherry MacAda
ms, who would know how to do that, in a fish house in Herringtoon by the Reverend Archibald Bothwell, unordained minister of the Reform Kirk of Nova Scotia for Returned Highlanders whose congregation consisted, as far as Gillon ever found out, of one person, Mrs. Bothwell, who was not a returned Highlander.
It wasn’t that Mr. Bothwell didn’t try. Some of the service was in Gaelic and some in English and some in Scotch. There were songs sung by both the Bothwells, and the Reverend Bothwell did a ponderous Highland dance that Gillon thought he remembered seeing danced before the bull was sent into the byre to mate with the cows, and poems were read, most of them written by Bothwell himself and a few by Burns. Before the service there was an intermission and Mrs. Bothwell went downstairs for wedding refreshments, which turned out to be pints of ale and drams of whisky. It was a very reformed kirk. When the Reverend felt strong enough the service was continued.
“Now, before I pronounce you man and wife, I will have my closing words,” Bothwell said.
“Gillon Cameron, from this hour forward, I want you to be the master of the union I am now joining. Just as children are unhappy deprived of the guiding hand of a father, so is a wife without a master in the house. It is a very sad house where the rooster clucks and the hen crows.
“It is the way of life, the order of nature, the command of God.
“Will you do that for me, Gillon Cameron?”
“I will.”
“And you, Margaret Drum. If your master does something that you disapprove of, will you be understanding and not stamp your foot and make pawky faces but know your proper place in the order of the house? Because this is a good man. He may at times be wrong—indeed, none of us are perfect—but he will be right more often than he is wrong.
“So I say to you, for a happy nest, learn to close your mouth and open your heart. And remember, Margaret Drum, as a woman your silent submission is your beauty.”
“Amen,” Mrs. Bothwell said. Gillon was surprised to see that she was crying, her eyes milky blue with warm tears. Margaret’s eyes were as dry as little brown pebbles on the sand.
“In your submission is your strength, in your submission is your key to freedom and to glory—the glory that God, not man, understands—and in your submission is your duty, which is the meaning of all life.
The Camerons Page 7