The Book of Secrets

by Fiona Kidman

  3 November 1818

  The nights grow longer and colder, the dark comes early, the first snow has fallen, the fire dies out. Although I am not asleep I know I am not awake either. I know I must move and cover myself or I will die on my own hearth frozen by the cold … maybe there is nothing wrong with that …

  8 November 1818

  McLeod came to the house the other morning. He had brought me money collected by the people who had come out on the Frances Ann. I took it from him, then he suggested we kneel in the fresh snow by my door to pray. I looked at him then and told him to go to hell. When he had gone I took the money inside and counted it, two pounds and three shillings. It is not a fortune, but it will buy some meal for the winter. I think I will be able to shelter here until the spring but after that I do not know what will become of me.

  December, date unknown

  I saw a fox streaking across the snow today, its brown-gold fur was gleaming and its eyes were like coals in the reflected light of the dying day. I would like to slope off over the snow, over fallen branches, through the trees, leaving no trace of where I have been or where I am going. I have had enough of this adventure. I want to get away from it all.

  Towards Christmas

  Eoghann has brought me a hen. It lays well. It can winter in with me.

  My body has a curious familiar sensation about it. As when I was having a baby. The candle streams over my page; pale light and a room full of fallen shadows. While I am feeling like this, I think I will survive. That, at least.

  New Year’s Day, 1819

  It is true then. A quickening in the night. So that is what is to become of me. I am not alone after all.

  nine

  Isabella’s face was chalk white and she scarcely seemed to recognise Kate MacKenzie and Dolina Finlayson, the midwife, when they arrived at her house. The baby’s crown was already showing and she had stopped shouting, intent on finishing her task. A few minutes after their arrival the baby came without their help, a tiny boy with wizened features and a club foot.

  ‘Like Duncan,’ said Isabella, gazing at her child.

  ‘His foot was from an accident,’ said Kate sharply.

  ‘It is fitting though, don’t you think,’ said Isabella, gazing at them with her odd-coloured eyes. They seemed at that moment to be without expression.

  She did not speak to anyone else for many months.

  At nights Kate would stand and look out the window of the cabin into the summer darkness. There was nothing to see, but sometimes Eoghann caught her with her head tilted on one side as if she were listening, waiting for some sound above the night wind.

  ‘What is it? What are you listening for?’ he said one evening.

  Behind the curtain which divided the cabin across, one of the children cried out as if in a dream then subsided into sleep again, but she did not seem to hear him.

  ‘I don’t know. I think of her.’

  ‘Isabella?’

  ‘Yes. It must be hard to bear. To be so far away from God.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘She’s so far from humans, I cannot imagine that she is any closer to God.’

  ‘God is everywhere.’

  ‘Well maybe, but she’d walk right past Him without seeing Him at the moment, if you ask me.’

  ‘Is her child all right?’

  ‘He’s perfectly healthy … except for his foot. I saw him smile the other day.’

  ‘Do you know what she’s called him?’

  ‘She doesn’t say anything. There’s no point in asking her. Still … I opened her Bible when she was putting out the wash. There is a new entry there. Duncan. Well, what else would she call him?’

  The pale stars suddenly darkened as if touched by green and scarlet lightning; then the sky flickered and glowed. Together they watched the northern lights, wild tongues of brilliant colour licking the heavens.

  They tended to blame Isabella for a pervasive unease they could not shake off, although they both knew that this was unfair. It was nothing they could identify, but they both felt there was something amiss in Pictou. On the other hand they scoffed at wild reports that were being circulated by McLeod’s more ardent followers.

  They had not attended one of his gatherings since their child had been refused baptism, and in this they were joined by a number of families who had suffered the same fate. The pain of his refusal had eased a little once they began to realise that McLeod was indiscriminate in the manner in which he chose to dismiss parents from the prospective baptism of their children. Not only that, but there were some who had enquired about Holy Communion only to be told that there were none amongst them who were worthy to receive tokens for admission to the Communion rail. Yet in spite of this, and his increasingly harsh denunciations of individuals, the crowds which attended his sermons were swelling in numbers each week. And word was growing that soon those who wished to follow McLeod would be moving on.

  Eoghann told Kate of this rumour one evening as she was serving up potato cakes. She looked tired, her coppery red hair scraped back into a straggly bun, and she limped, for she had worked that day shelling dried oats with her feet in a barrel; her swollen toes were pinched and cramped in her boots.

  ‘McLeod is said to be done with Pictou,’ he said. ‘Says it’s not a fit place for his children to live.’

  ‘So where’s he carting Mary and the children off to this time?’

  Eoghann held his finger a moment longer than necessary over the pipe he was tamping. ‘It is not just his own children he is speaking of.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He thought she wasn’t listening, reflected, then spoke more to himself than to her. ‘All his followers now, he calls them his children in the sight of God. They’re calling themselves Normanites.’

  ‘Well, if you must call yourself something, that is as good as the next name, I suppose.’ She began to poke morsels of potato in the baby’s mouth. Eoghann could tell what she thought of what he had been saying.

  ‘It’s not just what they call themselves,’ he said at last. ‘They’re planning to build a ship to carry them south to Ohio. It’s meant to be a more moral atmosphere down there, more sympathetic to McLeod’s way of thinking. They mean to call it The Ark.’

  ‘The ship?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He sensed a gleam of humour in her eye. He was surprised then, when she said, ‘Maybe he’s got something.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Ah well, it sounds mad to me, but what’s a bit of madness? Maybe that’s what it takes to change things.’

  ‘Some think McLeod’s really crazy.’

  ‘Is he?’ She sat down heavily at the table and took the baby, Ewan, on her lap. ‘I remember he saved us on the ship. I can’t dismiss him that easily’ She observed how closely he watched her and lightened her tone. ‘Ah, come Eoghann, we can do without him. We’re strong. We can stand up for ourselves, eh?’

  ‘But you would think about it?’ he asked, showing his hand.

  ‘Is that what you’re wanting? Oh, Eoghann, he’s naught but a narrow-minded bigot when it comes to it. It’s one thing to be grateful for good turns done in the past. But this is Nova Scotia … All things are new, are they not?’

  He nodded, but she could see that he was not convinced.

  ‘Look what he did to us.’

  ‘Aye, but perhaps we took it too personal. He has things on his mind, you know, Kate.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, I shall think about it then.’

  When next he spoke of it to her again, he could see that she had indeed been thinking and perhaps talking with the women. He approached the subject with care, uncertain of their common conclusions or whether they might reach any.

  ‘They say that quite a few are thinking of following him,’ he said.

  ‘That’s true. I’m surprised at the number. More than I thought.’

  ‘Would you, Kate?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t sort out right from wr
ong any more.’ Inside her head, a small voice warned that she was being led on to say something that was expected of her, but she could not stop herself for what she was saying had some measure of truth in it, was getting close to what she felt.

  ‘I like this place well enough. But what’s it going to be like when the children are older? Well … I don’t know … some strange things go on here.’

  ‘What sort of things? … Isabella?’ His voice was tinged with anxiety.

  ‘Oh … her. Oh, I don’t think so. Well, not just her. She disturbs me. But she chooses to be alone. She is … herself. I wish I knew … oh well, what is there to know?’ She pushed a strand of hair back into her bun. ‘I’ve heard John Munro is going with McLeod.’

  ‘That bothers you?’

  She shrugged. ‘He makes a kind of sense of this place. And if he thinks there is a cause to leave … well.’

  His hands lay on the table. She saw that they had become stringy and tough with horned nails. ‘Aye, there is something in that,’ he said, after a time.

  ‘And Norman McDonald. And Squire McLeod.’ They nodded, counting up in their heads all the people who had followed them to Nova Scotia since they left Scotland, people they had grown up with and respected. The same people were McLeod’s friends. ‘And then,’ she said, ‘there is this hanging that’s to be done.’

  ‘Who told you about that?’

  ‘Oh Eoghann.’ She looked at him a trifle scornfully, as if he were being foolish like one of the children. ‘You think I wouldn’t hear a thing like that? It’s the talk of the whole town.’

  He banged his fist on the edge of the table then. ‘I did not want you to hear.’

  ‘They will hang Donald Campbell on Saturday,’ was all she said.

  On Thursday afternoon a gallows was erected on the site of the house where Donald Campbell’s father and stepmother had lived, and where, it was said, he had killed them.

  The High Sheriff of Halifax arrived in town on Friday night and put up at the waterfront hotel. Outside, a rough and ready band consisting of three pipers and some fiddlers made a commotion they described as ‘a tune or two’ along by the seafront, and were followed by youths clapping a beat and shouting their heads off.

  ‘You must stay inside tomorrow, Kate,’ Eoghann said that evening. He stood by the window, drumming his fingers on the sill.

  ‘I’ve got no intention of going out. Will you stay here too?’ She was asking if he would witness the hanging.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied at first. Then he said, ‘But there may be law and order to be kept on the streets.’

  ‘Let someone else do it,’ she said sharply.

  ‘I thought you were worried about the way things are going in Pictou?’

  ‘Perhaps it is true,’ she said wearily and with traces of anger in her tone, both for him and for the way things were. ‘Maybe we have no place here.’

  ‘Aye, maybe,’ he said.

  In the night he lay awake, sweating one moment and cold the next. He lay closer to Kate, pressing against her flannel-clad back, but in a moment she would turn over in his direction; they seemed to swivel and turn from side to side all night. Towards morning he slept, but there was the sound of people passing in the woods as the dawn broke. He felt his wife lying tensely beside him, awake but trying to keep perfectly still so as not to disturb him.

  In the grey light he saw that her eyes were wide open and that the skin beneath them was blue and taut.

  He put his hand out and took hers. ‘I think you should get right away from here today,’ he said.

  ‘And you?’ she asked, still trying to arrive at some position, some positive indication of what he planned to do that day.

  ‘I’ll help you get the children away,’ he avoided her. They had three children, a girl and a boy who had come on the ship with them, and the baby. The eldest, Martha, was six, and had an enquiring nature that bordered on the inquisitive. They spoke fondly of her cleverness but there were times when she seemed a handful, and she had the physical presence of quicksilver as well. Aboard the ship, when she was still toddling, Kate often thought she would never have survived the journey were it not for the watchful eye of Isabella MacQuarrie.

  She thought of Isabella now. ‘We could perhaps go to Isabella’s house,’ she said.

  ‘I wondered about that,’ said Eoghann. ‘Is she the best you can think of?’

  ‘The houses of everyone else whom I know well enough, or who are likely themselves to be home, are towards the waterfront. Or there are the McLeods.’

  ‘We cannot go there now, not when we’ve stayed away so long.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Besides, I expect McLeod’ll be marching up and down proclaiming his own saintliness to the crowds.’

  Even the younger children were quiet over breakfast. Only Martha, who was in a talkative mood and not noticing her parents’ silence, demanded her mother’s attention.

  They had barely finished spooning the last of their porridge down when Kate began bundling them into warm clothes. She was longing to hit Martha and did not trust herself to hold her tongue, at least, any longer.

  As they made their way through the woods, people streamed towards them. Kate was shocked to see that many of them were folk they were acquainted with, taking their children in the direction of the waterfront.

  ‘You’ll always get those who feed on others’ problems,’ Eoghann growled, but by now she could see that he too was looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘Is it a misfortune to pay for a dreadful crime?’ she asked.

  ‘If you want vengeance why don’t you go down there and see it for yourself?’

  Suddenly they were quarrelling. What did she want, he was asking, she must make up her mind one way or another, as if it was she who was hankering to go there.

  ‘It is you who wants to go so much, so why don’t you leave us,’ she responded, two high points of colour burning her cheeks. The children were tripping in the undergrowth. She dragged Martha by the arm across a log and the child screamed at her in a fury, sporting blood on her shin.

  Another group passed them and called out in high spirits that they were going the wrong way. Kate was beginning to think that they had, in fact, misjudged the direction of Isabella’s cabin when they came upon it in the trees.

  ‘You can leave me here,’ said Kate.

  ‘You’d better make sure she’s there.’ Eoghann was trying to contain his anger, for Kate was on the verge of tears or attacking Martha. Neither of these responses was in her nature and he was alarmed by the depth of her rage. We are all unhinged, he thought. This hanging that is to take place is not just an occasion for punishing wickedness. Rather, we are celebrating the death of a simpleton. For that was all he knew of Donald Campbell who was to swing that day.

  Glancing around Isabella’s house confirmed what he had first thought, that it was empty. No smoke issued from the chimney, and there was a tight and shuttered look about the place. He tried the door. It had been bolted.

  ‘She’ll be hiding inside,’ said Kate, shaking, and more afraid now that she realised their journey had been in vain and that they would have to retrace their steps. ‘I know her tricks, that’s what she does.’

  Eoghann was rattling the door and banging on the window now. ‘No, I don’t think she’s there.’

  Kate stood still and listened, though it was not exactly a sound that she was seeking. On other occasions when she had been there and guessed Isabella was hiding from her, it had been a certain awareness of her presence which she could neither describe nor define. This morning it was not there. A hen scraped in the dust outside. Apart from that the place might have been abandoned for years. There was no sign of the baby’s clothing hanging in the sunlight to dry.

  ‘I should never have come here, we should have stayed inside and locked the doors at home.’

  ‘We’ll turn around and go back,’ said Eoghann. ‘Come on, we should hurry.’

  He was urgent
now for he had no wish to join the crowd surging through the woods. A weary repugnance overwhelmed him. It was as if some calamity was about to befall them all, his wife and his children, if he did not take them to shelter as quickly as he could.

  But their return was not going to be easy. People kept coming towards them. All the backwoods dwellers from far beyond Pictou appeared to be converging on the waterfront. The way they had taken was becoming choked with carts, some of them rough handcarts in which old men and women were being pushed along. There was an air of festivity and Martha was becoming infected with their gaiety.

  ‘Come along mother, father,’ she urged them, believing that they were heading for the same destination as everyone else.

  ‘Quick, come quickly, this way,’ said Eoghann, drawing them towards the stream bed over to one side of the track. They stumbled as he pulled them along in the new direction, but it was no use. There were more people coming this way too, and now he and Kate could see that their way home was cut off by the crowd. Suddenly Martha disappeared. They panicked, looking towards the stream, but in a moment they saw her again being borne away with the crowd in the company of a child she knew.

  Now they were forced to join the horde and so themselves became a part of the drive towards Roger’s Hill, where somebody alongside of them said the condemned man was about to appear at the church.

  ‘Martha. Martha, come back,’ Kate called out, her desperation mounting. The child looked back and saw her mother’s face. In terror she tried to return, understanding now that this was no ordinary game, but she could not move back through the crowd and they all continued to be pushed forward.

  A wheel carriage appeared and a body of militia headed by the High Sheriff marched along at its side. The fiddlers who had cavorted the night before began to play a jig, and a brass band started up a ragged march in opposition: oompah oompah pah pah. Behind the bands followed a group of clergymen.