On the Head of a Pin

by Janet Kellough

  “She must have been studying on it at the time.” Woodcock’s broad forehead wrinkled up in perplexity. “It was the strangest thing, though. She wasn’t exactly holding it. It had fallen open in her lap, I guess, so it was, you know …” he reddened, “down between her legs like.”

  “Was she … interfered with in any way?” He already knew the answer was no, the doctor had told him that, but he was curious as to what theory, if any, the Constable might hold.

  “No, no, nothing like that. Just her petticoats flung up and the book lying open. Oh, and the marks on her neck.”

  “Has the book been retained as evidence?”

  He looked surprised at the question. “Well, no. There was no reason to, was there? What would that have to do with anything?”

  “Do you know what happened to it?”

  “I expect it’s still there in the house. You’d have to ask the family, wouldn’t you?”

  “Thank you for your time, Constable. You’ve been most helpful.” He wasn’t sure the man heard him, for Bossy had broken away again and he left Woodcock in hot pursuit of her.

  X

  It was an odd group that gathered at the graveside. Seth was there of course, and the Varneys, who came because Minta and Rachel had been more or less of the same church, and because it would have been too much for Mrs. Varney’s curiosity to miss it. But Minta was not yet allowed up and not even Rachel’s parents could be there for a last farewell. They were apparently down with fever, as were her two sisters. She had another brother as well, but he had moved to try his luck on the Huron Tract far to the west. He couldn’t be expected to travel so far, not even to bury his sister, nor would he have arrived in time.

  The lack of family members was made up for in part by the crowd of young men. Both Caddick brothers were there, and for once they were not attempting to sell pins or portraits. They both looked shaken, Willet in particular. Another young man, the Quaker boy who had been at the church, attended as well, but he stood away from the others, off to the side, emphasizing the fact that he was an outsider, not conversant with the Methodist ritual of death. To Lewis’s surprise, Isaac Simms was also there, but he loitered by his wagon just outside the graveyard gate.

  Not so Morgan Spicer, who rushed forward to stand by the Varneys and looked as though he was perfectly willing to complete the service should Lewis falter in any way.

  Lewis had thought long about what he would say, and in the end decided that he could find no comfort better than the verse in I Corinthians:

  But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

  So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.

  “Amen,” Spicer intoned loudly.

  For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

  Another loud “Amen” from Spicer. Lewis found the interjections most annoying.

  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.

  “Would anyone like to say a few words?” Lewis asked at the end of the reading. He didn’t expect anyone to say anything — it was a mere formality on his part — so he was astounded when Spicer cleared his throat.

  “This is a sad occasion for the Jessup family, but a happy one for Rachel,” Spicer said. “She has gone to the Glory of the Lord and will be waiting for us all when our times come.” He continued:

  For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

  Seth’s brow darkened and he muttered something that might have been “Fool,” but might equally well have been a heavy sigh.

  After the coffin was lowered into the grave, and the symbolic clods of earth thrown down on top, Lewis led them in a hymn. His choice was not one that was particularly appropriate to the occasion, but it had been the one that Rachel had liked so well when she heard it at the camp meeting. It had the added advantage of being one that nearly everyone knew:

  “All people that on earth do dwell Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.”

  At the end of the service the young men looked confused and finally just wandered away, leaving Seth alone with his head bowed.

  As the Constable had indicated, Dr. Gordon believed there was enough question about Rachel’s death to justify an inquest. A group of citizens was selected by the sheriff to judge the case. It was hardly necessary; word had gone round the village that the coroner was unsure of the cause of death, and in spite of the somewhat strange characteristics of the way she was found, people quickly concluded that it was just another of those unexplained miseries with which God chose to punish them all.

  There were not many at the inquest. The case was not particularly sensational and there was just not enough interest in it to attract anyone besides the layabouts and the chronically curious, but Lewis adjusted his round in order to be there.

  Dr. Gordon presented the facts clearly enough: that the girl had been alone, that she had been fully clothed and was lying in her bed, the strange marks on her neck. But he didn’t mention the book or the little pin that marked the page.

  Lewis was almost certain that it had been Morgan Spicer who had given her the Book of Proverbs, but since it had not been introduced as evidence, there had not been any point in mentioning it. He wasn’t sure himself that it had any bearing on the case. Had Spicer been successful in giving it to her on the day of the camp meeting, or had he gone to her house at some later time? But no, Lewis thought, he had been determined to find her that day, and she had been such a centre of attention he would have had no difficulty in the finding. Besides, what was the harm in giving a girl a present? The other boys had given her presents, too. It was only because it had been found at the time of her death that it seemed in any way relevant.

  “And in your opinion, Dr. Gordon,” the justice of the peace asked when the doctor had outlined his findings, “what was the cause of death?”

  “Impossible to determine definitively,” the doctor replied. “But I can only conclude that she expired from some sort of fit. There are no other explanations that I can offer.”

  Lewis wanted to protest, to stand up and ask about the marks on her neck, to suggest that someone, somehow had had a hand in the death, but he knew if he did so that he would merely be put out of the courtroom. It was what had happened to him at Sarah’s inquest.

  The jury ruled “death by natural causes.” It was the easiest thing to do, since there was no bringing her back anyway, no clear indication of any culprit’s hand, no speculation as to who might have wanted her dead or for what reason. Besides, everyone had more important things to worry about.

  XI

  Lewis’s next scheduled visit to Demorestville again coincided with Isaac Simms’s round and, as usual, the peddler was full of news. For weeks there had been rumours that an American force had crossed the border, or was about to, or h
ad plans to. According to Simms, and he had newspaper accounts to back him up, a small group had in fact mounted a raid down near Niagara somewhere, abetted no doubt by William Lyon Mackenzie, who had somehow got himself off Navy Island and was living in Rochester, New York, just across the lake. The raiders were a motley bunch, consisting of Upper Canadian rebels who had escaped across the border and self-proclaimed American “patriots” who were determined to get rid of the British in British North America.

  One of the newspaper articles had quoted Governor Arthur: “There are on the American frontier thousands of these lawless characters,” he thundered, “these atrocious banditti, they are the scum of the population.”

  It appeared that the invading band was led by a certain James Morreau. No one was sure who exactly he was. Some said he was an Irishman, others that he was from Pennsylvania. One thing was clear: he had successfully infiltrated a place called Short Hills and was expecting the countryside to rise with him. He had issued a proclamation, complete with high-sounding flights of revolutionary rhetoric, calling on all Canadians to come to his assistance:

  We have at last been successful in planting the standard of liberty in one part of our oppressed country. Canadians! Come to our assistance as you prize property, happiness and life! This is the hour of your redemption. Rally to the standard of the Free and the tyranny of England will cease to exist in our land.

  Far from rising, the countryside received this proclamation with disdain.

  The Niagara Reporter summed up the local reaction in an editorial that called the invaders “vagabonds without name or nation” and labelled the enterprise “madness.”

  “We believe no individual dotard since the days of the first idiot ever exhibited such unutterable folly,” they wrote.

  Folly or not, the vagabonds were in Canada for ten days before Governor Arthur finally sent a troop of Queen’s Lancers to deal with them. Surprised at Osterhout’s Inn, the Lancers were forced to surrender when the patriots set fire to the building, and were afterward relieved of their uniforms and equipment, much to the embarrassment of the governor.

  No one was sure how many “patriots” were in Morreau’s band.

  “I heard there were hundreds,” Mrs. Varney said. “Do you suppose they’ll march this way next?”

  “Nay, mother,” Varney replied. “It won’t be that bunch, but some other.”

  Frustrated by the Lancers’ lack of success, Governor Arthur finally set the militia and their Indian hunters loose on the area.

  “That’s what he should have done in the first place,” Simms said. “If anybody can catch traitors, it’s the boys that know the country.” The militia had proved themselves in this sort of enterprise before. It had been militia and Indians, with red flannel strips sewn into their caps for identification, who had ruthlessly hunted down Mackenzie’s rebels. In any event, a mere rumour that the Indians were coming was enough to panic the patriots. They fled toward the border, strewing abandoned ammunition and equipment behind them. In spite of their haste, not all of them made it to safety, and now more than forty were in jail at Niagara or Toronto, Simms wasn’t sure which, since he had heard reports of both. Their trials were to be held immediately.

  Lewis was irritated and depressed by this news. More trials, more punishment, and he was sure the government would use this latest incident as an excuse for another round of persecution against anyone with Reformer leanings. He sometimes wondered what would have happened had last year’s rebellion been led by someone other than the quixotic, impulsive Mackenzie, who was a dab hand with rhetoric but completely incapable of organizing a military expedition. It was a musing he dared not share with anyone but Betsy. He was sailing close enough to the wind as it was, just by being a Methodist.

  Minta came to the next women’s class meeting with her infant in her arms. The other women made much of her, cooing over the baby and declaring it to be the finest boy anyone had ever produced. Again Lewis noticed that smugness about her whenever her child was discussed, and her evident joy would briefly light her pale, tired face.

  In mid-flight, he decided to change the topic of his sermon. He had been intending to base it on Jesus’ admonition to “render unto Caesar,” as it seemed to be so appropriate in light of the recent upheavals, but instead he spoke to the women on the subject of rebirth. It seemed to fit the occasion, with a nod to Minta’s boy and the hope that Rachel had been reborn in the Lord.

  Afterward, the women spent a little more time admiring the baby, but when they started to file out, Minta hung back.

  “I’d hoped to speak with you privately,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said, smiling. He was really growing very fond of this small quiet woman.

  “There’s something I feel I need to say, but I don’t know who else to say it to.”

  He waited silently until she was ready to tell him.

  “It concerns the night that Henry was born. Seth was there right afterward, and I remember him picking up the boy and looking at him. I was afraid he would hurt it, he’s so big and the baby was so tiny.”

  Lewis nodded. There was a good reason men were generally kept out of the childbirth business. It was a delicate affair and they were seldom as careful as the women would like.

  “I fell asleep after that, but my mother tells me that Seth went out. He said he was going to tell the whole neighbourhood that he had a son.”

  This was undoubtedly a euphemism for going to the tavern and getting rip-roaring drunk, Lewis thought. It was the way these things usually went.

  But Minta’s face was troubled as she went on. “He wasn’t there in the morning when I woke up, and he hadn’t been there all night. He finally came in near noon and Mother asked him where he’d been. He said he went to sit down by the bay for a while and fell asleep.

  “Had he been drinking, do you think?”

  “I don’t think so. He never drinks. The thing is,” she went on, “I don’t know for sure where he was or what he was doing. And then when Rachel was found, and the constable asked us about Seth’s whereabouts that night, we all lied. We said he’d been with us.” She began to weep a little. “I don’t even know what I’m suggesting, Mr. Lewis. I don’t see how Seth could have had anything to do with Rachel’s death, so it’s not as if we were protecting him that way or anything. I don’t even know why I said what I said. It just seemed easier at the time, but now it lies sorely on my heart. Please tell me what I should do.”

  Lewis thought for a moment. A night and half a day would have been ample time for the burly blacksmith to ride from his in-laws’ house to Demorestville and back. The question, as Minta realized, was why on earth would he? There was no reason for Seth to do anything to Rachel. Quite the opposite: he and Minta would have been counting on her to help with the child.

  Finally he said, “You’ve confessed to me now, and the Lord will take that into consideration. Rest easy and leave this with me. I agree that it’s unlikely that Seth had any hand in Rachel’s death, and there certainly is no point telling the authorities. They won’t do anything anyway, now that the coroner’s jury has ruled.”

  The woman looked relieved.

  “Just one thing, Minta. When Rachel was found she had a book in her lap. Do you know what became of it?”

  She looked confused. “Oh, I’m not sure. It might still be at the house. I don’t think anyone took it away.”

  “Do you think you could find it for me?”

  “Yes, of course. But why do you want it?”

  “I just want to look at it, that’s all. And then I’ll return it to you. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, but you’ve presented me with a bit of a puzzlement, and I’d like to resolve it if I can. At the very least, it would help you set your mind at rest.” Another misdirection. They were piling up on him, lie upon lie. He could hardly take Minta to task for the same transgression.

  The Jessup’s rented house was tiny, just two rooms, but in perfect order and as clean a place as
Lewis had ever seen. Constable Woodcock said that Rachel had gone to bed fully dressed, with even her boots on. Seeing the immaculate condition of Minta’s kitchen, he thought it improbable that anyone within her influence would ever dream of doing such a thing. In his experience, cleanliness was a habit that spread.

  Minta beamed when he remarked on the pleasant home she had made. “It’s so small, it’s hard sometimes to keep it tidy. Seth hopes to be able to buy Mr. Chrysler’s business soon and set up on his own. There’s a house comes with the smithy, so we’ll have more room then.”

  She deposited Henry in the wooden cradle near the stove and disappeared into the second room. She returned with a wooden box. “These are Rachel’s things,” she said, setting it on the table. “Go on — look through it if you like. I have no idea what to do with any of it, except to keep it in memory of her.”

  There were pitifully few things in the box: Rachel’s faded everyday dress and apron — she would have been buried in her Sunday dress of course; the little wildflower painting that Willett Caddick had presented to her; a raggedy doll with a wooden head. This last item brought tears to his eyes. It was obviously a relic from her short childhood, something she had treasured and saved. It made him realize how young she had been. And finally, in the corner, a small book with a red cover. He opened it — The Book of Proverbs. The inscription was there, just as the constable had said, in a fine sloping hand. To Rachel, with my fondestst regards. There was no signature to indicate from where the regards might have originated. He thumbed the pages carefully and was rewarded when the bible fell open at a page marked by a steel pin. In this book, each chapter of the Proverbs

  was set off by itself, so there was no mistaking that it was Chapter Five that had been open when she died, the chapter that contained a warning against seductive women: “For her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold in hell.”

  It was a strange passage for a young girl to be studying, although he knew plenty who read the Bible cover to cover on a regular basis. There was no indication of any particular passage in the chapter having been marked, no clue to tell him what Rachel’s state of mind might have been at the time, nor any clue that would lead him to anyone else’s involvement. He wouldn’t have thought it significant in any way if he hadn’t seen an identical book opened to the very same spot in the lap of another — identical, except for the inscription.