The Book of Secrets

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Where’s McLeod?’ Kate asked Eoghann.

  ‘Would you believe it, they say he’s working down at the waterfront on The Ark, a half dozen of them, as if nothing were happening.’ Eoghann was listening all around him, even as they struggled with the children.

  They looked at each other and recognised in their complicity that they had agreed to go along with the crowd now and not continue with their efforts to turn back, even if that were possible. Martha ducked through the legs of a group of people in front of them and rejoined them; they began to float along, not fighting the crush any more.

  The carriage had stopped at the church, for this was as far as it could go before the track ran out. Then Donald Campbell was lifted out and a great sigh, half moan, half exaltation, went around the crowd. The bands and the fiddlers stopped their racket and in silence broken only by the lapping sea and by indrawn breaths from the crowd, the fetters were taken from Donald Campbell’s legs. He was a sallow, thickset man with eyes placed back under the shelf of his forehead. His face was implacable as he began the walk towards the hill of execution. When he reached the gallows, one of the clergymen, Dr McGregor, stepped up to him.

  ‘Do you admit to your crime, Donald?’ Dr McGregor beseeched him. Donald Campbell spat at the ground, taking excellent aim so that the spittle appeared to skim Dr McGregor’s face.

  The clergyman stepped back. ‘For the last time, will you tell us before God that you are guilty, and ask Him for your forgiveness?’

  ‘Oh aye, I’m guilty all right,’ Donald Campbell replied.

  ‘And your repentance?’

  He turned his face away from them towards the gallows. ‘Oh that. You can do that for me.’

  ‘Donald, I believe nothing will ever melt your heart,’ said the reverend gentleman, and exhorted the crowd to pray. Kate wondered. whether he was praying for Donald who, it seemed, needed none of it, or whether it was for all of them who were shamefully committed to each other in the spectacle of his death. She tried to pray for Donald Campbell but she found she was praying for herself and her children who were about to witness this event.

  The Sheriff ordered then that he be placed on the gallows but Donald Campbell was already preparing to mount them himself. As he stood waiting for the executioner to draw the bolt the excitement began to turn to terror amongst some of those who had gathered. It was one thing to see the dead, and there were few amongst them who had not seen death at first hand, who had not been at a parent’s bedside or watched a child taken by a fever, or a friend or a neighbour struck down by the elements in the harsh and violent lands they had inhabited but none, except perhaps for seamen and visitors to the port, had ever witnessed the deliberate taking of a man’s life. Whimpering erupted from sections of the crowd and some began to push backwards, not wishing to see after all. Kate, holding her younger son in her arms, felt as if she was having the breath crushed out of her. Eoghann was struggling with the older boy, Roderick, who was playing hide-and-seek with another child among the people in front of them, and at the same time trying to pull Martha back from where she now stood at the front of the crowd.

  The executioner was hooded but it seemed that his identity was known, for some were calling out, ‘Come on, Mac,’ as if they knew him from other Macs who were there in the hundreds, ‘get on with it, what’s keeping you?’

  He was wrestling with the bolt but it was yielding only slowly to his efforts. The trapdoor fell at last with a heavy clang, but appeared to tip sideways so that instead of plummeting straight through it, Donald Campbell’s feet slipped to one side and the knot skewed round to the back of his neck. It was clear that his neck had not broken and that he was choking for breath.

  ‘Let him down, let him down,’ some of the mob were screaming while others shouted, ‘Do it again, do it again, make a proper job of it.’

  The rope uncurled, so that the man swung round to the spectators, his face blue and contorted. His heavy breathing could be heard over the crowd, while his body twisted on the end of the rope, as if the rope were being skipped.

  Kate felt vomit rushing to her mouth and tried to stifle it, but where she succeeded others did not, and moaning and stench began to fill the air, adding to the horror of the spectacle. She looked round for Martha and saw the child coming towards her. Her eyes were staring.

  ‘Why did you bring me here, mother?’ she said.

  And why did I, Kate asked herself, why do we start with so many good intentions to save our children from the world and from themselves, and then we let them down so easily? What have I done, that I followed here with so little resistance when it came to the point? She looked for Eoghann, and caught him staring at her as if he hardly knew her; a gaze so dreadful, she knew whenever she looked at him again some memory of what was happening now would pass between them.

  For Donald Campbell was still alive, and the executioner was blundering around the gallows making helpless little motions as if asking for someone to tell him what to do next. The Sheriff was strutting up and down, puffing out his chest and trying to look as if everything was going to plan, though it was clear that he had no more idea than anyone else what to do. For a moment it seemed as if he might try to have the man taken down, but by now Donald Campbell was more dead than alive. If he went ahead, a decision would have to be made whether to put him up again and finish the job more tidily, or whether to try and revive the dying man, thus thwarting the path of justice.

  This is what they thought, those who were watching, or thought afterwards that they had thought, for no rational conclusion could be reached at that moment.

  At last Donald Campbell’s thrashing ceased and his blue face began to relax into the contours of death. The crowd held still, calmer now, as the last death throe subsided.

  Then a woman’s cry, long, bitter and anguished, rang out across them all, a thin single note, and looking to where it came from, Kate saw that the woman who had made that terrible sound was Isabella. She thought that Isabella was about to fall, holding her baby in her arms, but instead she stared wildly from side to side, and the next moment, dishevelled and thinner than Kate could have thought possible, she slipped between the crowd, which parted to let her through, and then she was gone.

  When they looked back to Donald Campbell, he was at last, undoubtedly and mercifully, dead.

  The following morning Kate and Eoghann joined those who went to hear Norman McLeod preach his Sunday sermon.

  ten

  From a sermon by Norman McLeod, lay preacher at Pictou, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and nineteen.

  ‘Though in general you have been kind friends of mine for a long time now, I see, plainly, different traits in your characters and habits that are both very deep and dark, as well as very dangerous. Some of you are so self-conceited in your own wisdom, and so headstrong in your temper and disposition that I fear very much how far you can conduct even a Christian plain dealing. The Lord looks down upon the strong and selfish minds of people who are without real conviction or brokenness of spirit from their cradle. How will God’s precepts avail in our eternal concerns without the powerful light and life of the Spirit of Jesus Christ!

  I see all around me not only self-importance, but the fast and open signs of degeneracy in this place, and amongst our neighbours. Pictou is a fearful place. It is ripening and fast improving in wickedness. In truth, I am loath and fearful to remain within its boundaries. I experience an awful and uncommon dread in my heart and spirit concerning the increasing audacity of the inhabitants, as well as the approaching appearance of the tokens of God’s displeasure.

  I tell you now, this is a branch of Sodom. I have heard from eyewitnesses of the prevalence of great filthiness, particularly at the shipping place, where it is customary to see women accompanying sailors during the night. And with my own ears I have heard the sound of empty religion and the filthy song of the rioting drunken swearer, going hand in hand. With the same mouth to bless God and curse men, excited one of Heaven�
�s ancient complaints against similar sinners. And then there is the matter to consider, of dishonest and deceitful modes of transaction, particularly in lands and horses, carried on without a blush of shame.

  And still another thing alarms me sorely, which is a maddened itch for immoderate dressing, an example of the extravagance of the times, more notoriously in reference to females. There are two or three amongst you here today who will surrender your head-dresses to the elders at the door as you leave, and your foolish bonnets will be shorn of their ribbons, the better to remember that such vanity is not acceptable before God.

  Oh Pictou, Pictou, thy sins are fearful. I humbly desire to bless the name of the Lord, for having given me, and those of my friends who choose to join me, a gate to escape from this place while there is still time. Our ship sails for Ohio soon, north up the coast of Cape Breton, and veering south then to America. Some of my oldest and best friends will be accompanying me on my journey, and on this first mission we will stake our claims on the lands which our friends in the south have assured me are awaiting us; there we will flourish amongst godly people, like-minded to ourselves. Once again with thanks and humility we will regain the means of salvation.

  I urge those of you who have not already made up your minds to leave Pictou, to examine your hearts and minds in our absence and consider with such wisdom as you are able to muster, your course of action.

  My God has already spoken to me.’

  eleven

  Isabella’s Journal, September/October 1819

  In the mountain there are caves. The mountain is made of limestone. I have come to live in a limestone cave at the foot of the mountain. Does that sound mad? I am sure it does. Let me tell you something. It is madness. I have come here to hide it. No one can see my madness now except for my child, and he suckles me with a blind forgiving mouth, and his eyes are only for me and whether or not I can provide for him. Because I can, he smiles at me.

  The cave is very long and cool but it is not draughty. I think it is nearly a hundred feet long, but it is quite narrow, in places not much more than six feet. I know these things because while the child sleeps I pace backwards and forwards, and I count my paces and add up the distance. The cave is not as dark as you might think, for I am not the first person to have lived here. Someone has made a rough floor, and a door and a window. It is almost comfortable. And beautiful, it is so beautiful. There are columns of limestone hanging from the ceiling of the cavern — is this what is called a stalactite? — they look like ice, they shine where the light strikes through, glowing at night by the gleam of candle light. I half expect them to start dripping down the back of my neck.

  Through the floor of the cave runs a stream of the purest cleanest water I have ever tasted. By day I go out into the woods to gather berries. I have a net which I brought from the cottage and my skill at fishing stands me in good stead. I think that I, and Duncan son of Duncan, little Caveman, may stay here forever.

  What drove me mad? Do you know, I don’t know any more.

  Was it the wild men in the woods? Men? What men? I don’t think there were any men. They were figments of my crazy imagination. No, no. I never saw strange men in the woods. Ghosts perhaps. I remember my mother, long ago, telling me at night that there were no ghosts, or only ghosts for people who had been bad. Now what did I ever do that was bad? McLeod would say I was proud. Perhaps that is what it is. Perhaps I did not pray heartily enough to God. I have tried it here in the cave, but I do not know what to pray for. Even God does not bring husbands back to life.

  Poor Duncan. To think that I killed him. Now that is a sin. Driving him mad and driving him away with wild and fanciful tales of men in the woods. I still remember him saying to me the strangest thing. He said, ‘There were three tankards on the table.’ Who could have put them there? I must have. I must have been expecting company. Yes, that was it. No one had visited me for a long time, and I kept hearing bears in the woods, and thinking it was friends passing by, so I put out the tankards.

  Poor Duncan, yes. That was what a crazy woman would do. I have to look after his little baby for him, little Duncan Cave with the funny foot. He will have to be watched over in the woods, for he won’t be surefooted like the other children. Other children. Now, how silly of me, there will be no other children, we will live in the cave and the woods forever. No one will ever find us.

  I wash his little clothes in the pure water of the stream and hang them in the branches at night. What would they make of me, the good people of Pictou, a wild cave woman, with tangled hair, my skin burned brown by the sun? How my complexion has changed. I can tell this by the colour of my hands, though I cannot see my face. It is as well not to see it, I might be afraid of the burning eye which greeted me in the glass. But I feel the sun’s rays on my face, and it is a warmth I lap up like a cat.

  I am strong too, for I climb trees and set snares for birds. Last night I roasted a pigeon. Ah, but that was delicious, the fat dribbled down my chin as I tossed the little bones away and they got washed along by the stream, taken gently away out of the cave mouth.

  Why am I mad? Oh haven’t I answered that yet? No, no, I am still working that out. It must be my badness, my driving Duncan away to his death. I miss him, poor lovely pale-skinned Duncan, poor lost Highland man who was never happy in this strange land.

  I am. I think. Why should I not be happy? I am simply mad, but that is not a problem for me. It is only other people who find it difficult. That is why I have gone away, so that they will not be unhappy when they see me.

  Little Duncan Cave will not be unhappy. He won’t yearn for another home. This is his home, yes. He is brown too, he will be like a little Micmac boy. I took him to town one day. I thought I would go and collect one of my hens. In my flight from the cottage, I left them on their own. Poor things, they will be lonely, so sad for hens to be on their own, and I like their eggs. One morning I woke, and I was yearning for eggs. So I said to my little man, my baby boy, let’s go to Pictou and find a laying hen, so mother can eat eggs.

  But when I got to the town, the way was barred. There were people everywhere. We were pushed and shoved, and finally pulled along with the crowd who were all excited and full of some momentous event.

  I could not turn away, I was drawn along with them too. I was taken willy nilly to the hill where they were hanging Donald Campbell. I saw a man step forward, with a black sack over his head and slits for eyes, just as if it were the Tower of London itself. I was close to the front of the crowd, and I saw the hangman raise his hands to undo the bolt. They were short thick hands, and red hairs sprung in clusters along the backs of each finger. Now where have I seen hands like that before? I do remember, I cried out when I saw the hands of the hooded hangman …

  There are no men in the woods. There are no ghosts. There are only hands. Here in a long narrow cave I can keep my back to the wall all the time, I can keep watch. No hands can reach me here.

  Ah baby baby mother will keep you safe!

  Rain outside, a cold soaking rain, I must gather wood for the winter fires. I must hurry around as soon as this rain is over and make sure I have plenty, and get it as dry as I can …

  It is still raining, and I think the rain is turning to sleet. Oh the autumn cannot be over yet. I should have kept better count of the days. There must still be time to gather wood and food for the winter.

  What if the snow blocked off the entrance to the cave? Could it happen? Surely not.

  There, I am saved. It is sunny, the day’s like a polished sovereign. I am full of hope, I have been given more time to make ready. I have washed at the stream like any good housewife of Ullapool or Pictou. World to world, it is all the same. I make my cave ready.

  11 October 1819 — written at McLeod’s house in Pictou

  This morning McLeod came to the entrance of the cave. A cool misty rain was falling outside. I had been to collect Duncan Cave’s clothing from the branches outside. They were very damp and I had put stakes by the f
ire, hoping to dry them. I saw a long shadow and heard a voice I knew. It was as if I were a girl, back in Ullapool, when I was full of spirit and fire, and knew all about everything, and the whole world parted in front of me as I strode through it. I was back in that night on the moor when McLeod stood in front of me. He announced who it was, reassuring me as he stood at the entrance to the cave, but I knew already it was him.

  He had taken a sweeping look around him. Isabella snatched Duncan Cave to her, thinking perhaps that he had come to take him away from her. He squatted beside her then, and it occurred to her that she had never seen McLeod kneeling so low before although they had been close neighbours for all that time, and she had travelled so far with him. He put out his hand and touched the baby’s face.

  ‘He is like his father, then?’

  ‘Can you see it?’ she said, wondering, for her strange little baby of the woods did not seem like anyone she had ever known.

  ‘Aye, he’s like Duncan.’

  ‘He is named for his father,’ she said. Then, on impulse, she opened the blanket that was covering him and showed his foot.

  ‘He has his mark on him,’ she said.

  He looked hard at the foot then. ‘I had heard,’ he said, and touched the misshapen limb. ‘But it is coincidence. Duncan’s lameness was from an accident.’

  ‘Or is it the will of God?’ she said, and she could hear the hard edge in her own voice.

  ‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘But that has nothing to do with you.’

  She sat very still. She had not realised that anyone could read her thoughts so clearly, but it occurred to her that if it was to be anyone, it would be McLeod.