The Book of Secrets

by Fiona Kidman

  I took a deep breath. When the snow cleared, I saw not only the foolish sheep blundering off at my approach, but also a man standing in my path. It was McLeod.

  Sister, I feel that McLeod is part of my fate, that in him rests some overwhelming and mysterious power which will change my life.

  My hands shake so much as I write, that I cannot go on …

  He stood barring Isabella’s way and this time she realised how tall he was; at least six feet or more. His black hair was worn smoothly and plainly, yet the plainness of its style could not disguise its thickness. His right eye had the beginning of a slight cast as if he were not looking quite directly at her, notwithstanding the intensity of his gaze. His complexion was of that darkness which distinguishes a man accustomed to be outdoors both summer and winter. But it was his mouth which she could not avoid looking at. It was set in a tight line with a downward inflection at the corners, as if trying to hide something, and as he spoke, Isabella could see that it was a fullness which might have been a tender curve had he allowed it full play.

  ‘Why are you out alone in the snow, Miss Ramsey?’

  Isabella stepped backwards, her knuckles grazing on a rock behind her, so that it was pointless trying to back further away from him.

  ‘Who are you?’ She was playing for time, making him explain himself, though she knew perfectly well who he was.

  ‘Norman McLeod.’

  ‘Oh, so you are. Yes, the Norman McLeod.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Madam?’

  ‘I hear of you often. The preacher, no less.’

  He smiled, or almost. She felt she had stroked a vanity.

  ‘You haven’t answered me.’

  ‘How d’you know me?’ she parried.

  His look narrowed, and she realised that he was a person who did not enjoy prevarication, however much he might indulge in it himself if it were to his advantage. She straightened, and looked at him more boldly.

  ‘I don’t choose to fall into loose conversation with strangers, Mr McLeod,’ she said. ‘If you wish to speak with me, then I must know a little more of your interest in me.’

  ‘I have no interest in you,’ he said. ‘Your name is known in these parts. You are talked of by men.’

  He said this with so much accusation that she flinched as if he were attacking her, and in his way she could see that he was.

  ‘I hope they speak well of me,’ she said, but her voice faltered.

  ‘Oh, the man who is so smitten with you, so foolishly running this way and that and deserting his parents and family who need him sorely, so that he can catch stray glimpses of your vain silly face and immodest ankle, speaks kindly of you. But that is to be expected of a man who has lost his mind. I speak of Duncan MacQuarrie, of course.’

  He waited but she said nothing, and she felt his anger hardening against her.

  ‘You know nothing of it,’ she said, turning away.

  ‘There are other men who speak less well of you.’ His voice followed her relentlessly. ‘They despair at the sight of a good man led astray by wilful and flirtatious unkindness.’

  She turned back to him, placing her feet across the path like a man, as if she were the adversary.

  ‘You have no business to speak in such a way to me, you, a student who is running foul of the authorities in Edinburgh from what I hear, for speaking out as if he knew more than the trained men of the church. Why don’t you wait until you are one of them yourself before you start pestering young women who walk alone, minding their own business?’

  ‘I am no longer at Edinburgh University.’

  ‘Forgive me, I had not heard of your ordination.’

  ‘It has not taken place. It will not.’

  ‘You have failed the course? I had heard that Norman McLeod never failed in any of his undertakings.’

  McLeod turned aside, and for a moment she glimpsed his weariness. When he spoke it was as if she was not there. ‘I find I’ve done forever with Edinburgh, Madam,’ and he turned back towards her and addressed her as if they had known each other all their lives and were very close. Afterwards she would recall that moment and wonder if she had misread him; at other times it occurred to her, as it did then, that in his own critical hour he had stumbled upon and recognised the kind of woman whom he most desired, one who would challenge him at every turn, and match his senses, too. She would also come to understand, in the future, that he would never forgive her for having exposed him to his own vulnerable state. He spoke now, in a low and rapid voice. ‘Miss Ramsey, I will never be ordained, so long as I live in this country, so long as the Church of Scotland and its clergy are so much in error in their interpretation of the Scripture and so lax in their moral behaviour. There are some people, ma’am, who consider me strangely singular, or even a touch fanatical, because I will not pronounce their shibboleth. I’m seen as a proud and insolent man, but that is as I am, and there is no other way. I will not seek favours or benefits, I will not flatter anyone in order to find an easy way. I chose not to go into the ministry after seven weary years of training for it, and I’m nothing more that a stickit minister, d’you know what that is? Aye, I’ll tell you: a man without power or authority in the eyes of the law. But in God’s name, I have no shame about this matter, and I know what is best for the people.’

  ‘You’re so very sure. I wish that I could be so certain of myself and what I believe.’

  McLeod had by now recovered himself and his manner was again haughty. ‘Then take advice from me. You are fallen, Miss Ramsey. You have only one recourse open to you if you wish to save your immortal soul. You must marry Duncan MacQuarrie.’

  ‘I have done nothing. I’ve committed no sin.’

  ‘Miss Ramsey, I saw you at the communion service with him, close to a year ago. You have led him to despair.’

  ‘That’s his peril. He’s brought himself to that through a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Then you should right it.’

  ‘I have no duty to Mr MacQuarrie.’

  ‘Man is head of the woman.’

  ‘When she has chosen to be his wife.’

  ‘Madam,’ he said, and now it was as if they had barely passed more than a few words between them, ‘you are past free will.’

  The light on the alders was thickening into darkness. The young woman looked from side to side, seeking to escape McLeod. He stepped aside without bowing, wrapped his dark cloak more closely around him and began to walk away from her.

  … Louise, it is hard to tell you this, and you may think I am abominable and strange, but I wanted to go after him. I wanted to tell him that I understood, and that when he spoke of free will I knew that he spoke for both of us. He and I are two of a kind, what’s known as our own worst enemies. And we are due to make a closer acquaintance with each other, I suspect, for I hear today from Mother that he has been appointed schoolmaster at the parish school.

  Sister, McLeod raises a fire in me.

  Dispose of this letter. Burn it. Eat it. Well, at least, I implore you, don’t show it to my brother.

  Louise, would marriage really make me a better woman?

  I hope all is well with you in London. We have heard echoes of the battle up here, and of course will all sleep sounder in our beds for knowing Bonaparte has been despatched at Waterloo. I gather that we may expect no further trouble on that front.

  And I hear you are in a certain condition again, which of course gives Mother great delight. Bear up, my dear.

  Yours, with love, Isabella.

  P.S. Whatever strange passion McLeod invokes, I do not like him. That is quite different from what I have been describing of my feelings for him. But he is that strange kind of fellow who some would follow to the ends of the earth. I can imagine how it could happen.

  In the year that followed, Isabella was consumed by a great industry, which she tried to explain to Louise:

  Ullapool, 16 September 1815

  … I can just imagine how busy you are with three little ones on yo
ur hands. I do intend to come south and see young Master Robert for myself, but it is surprisingly difficult to get away these days. Mary McLeod is with child again. I help her out with John Luther, quite a handful of a boy. Mary is such a slight person, and she looks worn already. Her ten-year wait for McLeod meant a late beginning to her childbearing. Do you know, she used to sit and spin wool for knitting into jerseys for him, and then when the winter was over she would collect up the jerseys and walk a hundred and forty miles to see him? No wonder she looks old already.

  I do care for her very much, and since they have been here everyone has gone out of their way to make her life as comfortable as possible. All, that is, except McLeod himself, who seems quite oblivious to mortal needs. Still, she has a wooden rocking chair by the window and a small rug on the floor, and in the bedroom a big brass bed with a sparkling fresh coverlet, and she tells me that all of this is a great luxury.

  I try not to think too much of my own affairs. I have not seen Duncan MacQuarrie for a long time. Sometimes I catch McLeod’s eyes resting on me, but mostly his manner is very cold and I am most correct when I have occasion to speak to him. In the meantime, he and Mary spend a good deal of time on their knees in the bedroom.

  She has told me that she often prays that they will so please God that they be allowed to preserve their present way of life, though it worries her that McLeod might get to know of this and think she is praying for material things. Must confess, I get a little tired of this, but she is very kind in her nature and it is true that she does have a good mind when she is not too weary to apply it to the detail of the moment. At her best, I find her a thoroughly good companion …

  While Mary McLeod was on her knees praying for constancy in her way of life, her husband was pursuing other ends. There was general enthusiasm in Ullapool for his teaching methods, and it was said that the children had acquired ‘ever so much book learning in the shortest possible time’. The parents of some of the older children were heard to say with pride that at the rate they were learning, they wouldn’t have to stay at school much longer; at which McLeod, in his turn, rebuked them sternly with the advice that while they might have learned like monkeys to read and write, he still had much work to do on their spiritual concerns and that would take a great deal longer. As for the parents themselves, there was much that needed doing for their spiritual welfare too; in all honesty, he could not see how they could expect their children’s godliness to grow and mature if they did not look to their own.

  These pronouncements were greeted with some astonishment by the local people at first, for as a rule most of them attended church on the Sabbath when the town minister, Dr Ross, was preaching.

  ‘Come and join me and my friends next Sabbath day, and hear the true word of God,’ McLeod exhorted them instead.

  It had already been noticed since McLeod’s arrival that the population did swell each Sunday. The visitors were people from the north, come to hear McLeod preach his own sermons.

  ‘What do you think about Mr McLeod and his preaching?’ a parishioner asked Dr Ross after his sermon one Sunday morning. The congregation had been very small that day, while across on the other side of town the overflow from McLeod’s gathering could be seen spilling down the hill towards the sea, and cramming the street corners.

  Ross was a small man with a plume of silver hair and a lean handsome face. He smiled. ‘It is a phenomenon that will soon pass, you mark my words,’ he responded with easy assurance.

  ‘Dr Ross is nothing but a heathen libertarian,’ thundered McLeod.

  ‘Is it true,’ whispered Mary McLeod, one evening later in the week, ‘that you have offended Dr Ross and he is threatening to close down the school if you do not stop preaching on a Sunday?’

  ‘Its nothing,’ said McLeod. They were sitting at dinner. He took a piece of fried bread and used it to scoop the last of his fish into his mouth. Beside him, John Luther grizzled and pulled at his coat tail, hanging over the edge of the chair. He took the child on his knee and rocked him, reached over and took a morsel of bread his wife was toying with on her plate, and fed it to his son. The boy smiled and was still.

  ‘You worry too much,’ said McLeod, dismissing her question.

  ‘But what of John’s baptism? Who will do that?’

  ‘Do not question me, Mary. It is unseemly of you.’

  When his wife related this incident to Isabella, the younger woman was full of indignation.

  ‘It’s not good enough, Mary!’ she cried. ‘You should stand up to him. The way he’s going on, Dr Ross is bound to close him down. I mean, can you blame him for being angry? There were only three people in church on Sunday.’

  ‘And were you amongst them?’

  Isabella shifted uncomfortably. ‘You know I was listening to Mr McLeod.’

  ‘And you are different from all the others who go?’

  There was a silence between them. ‘You’re not married to him,’ said Mary, finally. ‘You do not know to what lengths he will go.’

  Isabella looked away out the window. Her friend’s eyes followed her. When she looked back, Mary had taken to rocking quietly in her chair. Under her hands the baby she was carrying fluttered, turned restlessly inside her. It is as well not to try and read her, Isabella thought.

  After she had gone, Mary sat looking out to sea. It is all right for Isabella, she told herself. She is young, and she has always had enough to eat, so that her strength is not sapped. It’s all right for her to have fallen under his spell, she has other chances and will get over it. I am too tired already to fight with him.

  The following week McLeod announced to his wife that John Luther would have to be baptised at Loch Carron.

  ‘But that’s forty miles away!’

  ‘We have walked further before.’

  ‘But now?’

  ‘I’ll carry the child,’ said McLeod. ‘You will have no need to concern yourself about that.’

  ‘Can’t we wait for the summer?’

  ‘We’ve waited too long already.’

  ‘Then can you not appeal to Dr Ross? It is not the child who has offended him?’

  ‘My dear Mary, do you not understand?’ He spoke with a certain solicitude, as if she might be incapable of grasping what he was saying.

  And indeed she did not understand him, but dared not tell him so.

  McLeod explained seemingly with great patience, but there was an underlying agitation in his manner. ‘Dr Ross is a man of the worst temper, to begin with, but that is not the point. We are talking of our son’s baptism, the future of his immortal soul. The man who ministers such a sacrament must be worthy of that responsibility. Allow me to inform you, my dear wife, that last Sunday when Ross preached, he took the text “Ye are the salt of the earth” and all he had to say was about how salt is procured and processed. And the Sunday before that, the learned doctor preached on “Ye are the light of the world” and what did he talk about? Why, the planetary system! Hercules and Herschel and Neptune and Newton were the topics and personalities under discussion. But of sinners and the Saviour, he spoke not a word. There now,’ and his voice had assumed a note of positive triumph, ‘surely you can understand that. Well don’t you, Mary?’

  ‘No,’ she said, but not to him. It was Isabella whom she told of difficulty in coming to terms with her husband’s philosophical scruples.

  Privately, Isabella wondered how Mary would stand the journey to Loch Carron. The skin of her face was softy pleated around the mouth and her colour very pale. The small pulse in her throat throbbed constantly. She had seen it as Mary lay in bed, some days too tired to get up and attend to John.

  ‘What would I do without you?’ she said on days such as this, putting her thin hand on Isabella’s arm.

  ‘It will get better, you’ll see,’ Isabella had said, but sometimes she wondered if it would. It was not so much the state of Mary’s physical condition that bothered her, although it was clear that she was not strong, but rather her total disincl
ination to oppose McLeod, whatever he said even though his suggestions were often difficult to the point of impossibility. Or that was how it appeared to her.

  Although when she had first come to Ullapool Mary had demonstrated a clear sharp brain if called upon to do so, lately it appeared that this required too much effort. More and more often if there were details about the housekeeping which involved McLeod, or extra bills to be paid, she would ask Isabella to tell him. McLeod would receive the information in silence, but he would invariably act upon it.

  One morning as she made her way down Shore Street, Isabella realised with sudden shocked clarity that Mary would really like her to take over responsibility for McLeod. That she should be as a wife was beyond consideration, yet the day-to-day running of their lives, and perhaps even the matter of intellectual transaction, was something she appeared to be suggesting could best be attended to by Isabella.

  ‘It will not be like that,’ said Isabella with a grim force that made her almost speak aloud. ‘She will not take me over and hand me to him on a plate.’

  Besides there were things Mary did not know of her and McLeod. The meeting on the moor would seem to have sealed their relationship into a cool and distant mould which McLeod, for his part, would be unlikely to alter. She wondered at times why he had accepted her presence so readily in the house at all, but considering its great convenience to himself, it would seem that he must be an opportunist as well as a dictator. It might even be that he had already mapped out her position as a retainer, growing older and more spinsterly before his eyes as the years passed; in that, he would achieve his ascendancy over her.