The Book of Secrets (9 page)

‘Isabella. He speaks of emigrating.’ Mary gripped her friend’s arm and her eyes were frightened.

But there was not time to discuss this matter for the carriage had come. McLeod appeared, ready to lift the trunks aboard, then mounted the carriage steps without looking behind him.

‘You have not said goodbye to Isabella,’ cried Mary.

He turned, looking as if his neck was stiff, and bowed slightly towards her. Of late, he had taken to wearing spectacles, and now, behind them, his eyes appeared to be without reflection.

‘Goodbye, Miss Ramsey.’

Mary craned her head back, straining to catch a last glimpse of
the young woman who had befriended her. She saw her standing in the doorway of what had been her house and might have been forgiven for thinking that Isabella looked forlorn, though she supposed it must be an illusion. She had never seen Isabella looking really downcast; today, as ever, her hair was drawn back and nicely arranged, shining in the pale sunlight, and her large exceptional eyes were fixed towards the distant space that she and McLeod were now entering. Isabella did not raise her hand as they rounded the last corner, the carriage bearing them up the hill and away towards the east.

When they had gone, Isabella thought, it is as well, I am pleased that they have departed. I have had enough of them. One way or another, they would have taken over my life, until there was nothing left of myself. Thank God, it is over.

But the truth was, that she felt very empty.

As she turned to pull the door shut, the shadow of Duncan MacQuarrie fell across the path in front of her.

T
he days after Isabella’s marriage to Duncan MacQuarrie had passed in a strange haze of decisions and quarrels and partings. It happened so quickly, and her parents swore on the still and sunny morning of its occurrence that they would never speak to her again, and upbraided her for her unnaturalness.

When she set off across the moors with her new husband striding along silently at her side, she half wondered if they were right, and if, in fact, there was something strange about her. It had seemed that her life was without purpose, and that no ordinary man would ever satisfy the hunger within her. At night the suffering face of Duncan haunted her, mixed up and confused with that of McLeod. In the mornings she would wake dazed and heavy, as if she hadn’t slept at all, and wander around the town feeling aimless and lost.

The first time that Duncan had reappeared after the McLeod’s departure she had been disposed to be briefly kind to him; too late, she had seen hope flare in his eyes. At once she became brisk and dismissive.

‘I have work to do, Mr MacQuarrie.’

‘What work is that?’

‘It is just some things I have to do.’

‘You’ll have rather less to do, now that the McLeods are gone.’

‘Well, maybe that is so. But still, I’m busy.’ When he continued to stand there, she cried out, ‘Oh, it’s none of your business, Mr MacQuarrie, now will you leave me alone?’

For a while he had, and when next she saw him he did not accost her, even looked past her as if indifferent. The days passed and she found herself wondering if she would ever see him again. Months went by without her daring to ask anyone if he was alive and well for fear they might misread her intentions.

When she had not seen him for six months, he came back to town. They almost collided outside The Arch, as she carried bannock cakes in a basket to Miss Ruby Quaid who was sick with the pleurisy. Grains of sugar gleamed on top of the cakes in a small bright rime.
Duncan looked at them. His clothes were more threadbare than ever. She reached into the basket and handed him two cakes.

‘Thank you, I will keep them until later,’ he said, holding them awkwardly.

‘I will marry you, if that is still what you wish,’ said Isabella. It seemed like an astonishing thing to say, but she knew she had been rehearsing it for a long time.

He nodded, as if he were not greatly surprised. Taking her hand he drew it through the crook of his arm so that this way they walked to the water’s edge, letting it be known for the sake of onlookers that they were united. When they reached the pier, she said, ‘Well, you should eat now, shouldn’t you?’

Gratefully, he ate her bannock cakes.

In spite of the bitter words that passed between Isabella and her parents when the marriage first took place, the couple did return to Ullapool after they had been north to announce the marriage to Duncan’s family. Adam Ramsey had, at last, grudgingly offered his new son-in-law work with the Company, although he let it be known around the village that he had taken on a cripple out of charity, for the sake of his foolish daughter. Still, the wage he paid allowed the couple to live in what had been the schoolmaster’s house.

In the months that followed, Isabella began to be glad that she had married Duncan and no one else. She had been a little afraid to move into the house vacated by McLeod and Mary, yet once in charge of it she had seemed to exorcise McLeod. She scrubbed and polished every board with relentless care the first week that she was there, and afterwards filled the house with flowers and the smell of her own baking. It was as if she had always lived there. At night when Duncan came home, it was him she saw and not McLeod. She felt alive, and beloved.

But as Mary had before, in this house, she dreamed that this was how her life might always be.

As winter drew near, the work on the boats became dangerous. Ice began to coat the decks and the men were required to work faster to complete their tally before the season was over.

She saw Duncan was quieter, and that strain was developing in his expression. His hands were red and raw; at times he seemed to move with effort.

Mrs Ramsey, visiting her married daughter and enjoying a third snack before lunch, looked around the room. ‘You do very well, all things considered, my dear.’

‘Considering what things, mother?’

‘Well. What has
he
done in the way of firewood for the winter, for instance?’

‘It’ll be done. He doesn’t get much spare time at the moment, mother, as you know perfectly well.’

‘Hmm. But he’s not a great provider, is he, dear?’

‘You know, too, how hard he works.’

‘Oh. Oh, really? Well, if you say so, Isabella.’

‘Mother, is father saying that he doesn’t?’

‘My dear. I know nothing of these matters. Still, he did say that your husband let a whole netful of fish go over the side yesterday. Well, these things can’t be helped, I suppose. A matter of looking where one puts one’s feet, I imagine.’

That evening Isabella asked Duncan, ‘Has father been treating you unkindly?’

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. She saw that his gait was awkward. Something she had not observed before and supposed now that she must have overlooked, was that his limp was more pronounced. He was arranging his wet clothes across the fire.

‘He has right on his side,’ he said. ‘I do what I can.’ He turned back to her. ‘It is not always enough.’

‘D’you want to leave here?’ she asked.

He knelt beside her, placing his face in her lap. She sat very still. In the years she had observed the marriages of other people — even her brother and his wife in London, who still behaved with decorum and great politeness towards each other while in the midst of their affection. She had never been given cause to imagine what it would be like to have a man kneel in front of her like this. She placed her hands around his face, so that he was forced to look up at her. ‘I love you, Duncan MacQuarrie,’ she said.

In the flickering shadows that lit the room she thought she saw a figure. She blinked and it was gone, but she knew that McLeod was back.

She wanted to call out and tell him to leave, that he could not touch her, but already he was gone. He will come again, she thought grimly.

In the morning when Duncan was preparing to leave for the boats, she said, ‘Don’t go today, Duncan. Let’s pack our things and leave here.’

He looked at her. ‘Are you sure that is what you want?’

‘I am sure I do not want to stay. In the summer I’ll help you with the kelp. If other women can do it, why not I?’

‘What of the winter that is coming?’

‘I have a little money, as you know.’

‘Sooner or later, you’ll be hungry. You’ve never been hungry before. And cold. D’you know what it is like to be really cold?’

‘Well, we shall have each other.’

‘Yes. Yes, that’s so.’ Already he was looking around the house, estimating how quickly he could gather up their belongings and be on their way.

In the company of Duncan’s family that winter, Isabella found comfort and friendship with Willina McRae. The small amount of money the MacQuarries had brought helped all of them. The two women eked it out between them, so that although the winter had its difficulties, it was not all total despair. Armed with needle and thread, Isabella refashioned the children’s scant clothes; as she fitted them against their thin bodies in front of the fire, she began to feel the stirrings of a need for children herself. I am a real wife, she thought, I will be a mother.

But then she wondered, what will we do with them if they come? Along with this new yearning there was mingled relief as the months passed and there was no sign of a child. And yet her body felt animated: she was sure that when it was ready, it would let her know. She was sometimes shy in the crowded conditions in which they lived, that Willina and Rory might detect the pleasure she took from lying beside their brother, behind the screen at the end of the room. But if they did, they said nothing.

In the spring they had to move. The food and money had run out and Willina was delivered of another child, crying and screaming a great deal, and nearly dying during the ordeal. Isabella thought privately that there must be some way to avoid such difficulty at that age of one’s life. The only course, she supposed, would be to refuse certain acts, and she could not see how that was possible.

The McRaes said they must stay, that somehow they would all
manage, but having made the decision before they had come north to become independent and work the kelp, and clear in the knowledge that they would starve if they did stay, Duncan and Isabella pressed on with their plan to go to the beaches. Duncan built a shelter amongst the congregation of people who were coming together once more for the kelp season.

Isabella’s feet were cut to ribbons the first day she entered the sea. Her wounds stung in the salt water, becoming worse as the days passed. She had nothing with which to bind them and soon they became infected, swollen and oozing.

Each day Duncan would suggest that she stay home, and each day she would return. This is what I chose, she said to herself, I knew, I knew.

But I did not know it would be like this. I did not know it would be so bad.

In the night she cried until towards morning, when she slept fitfully. The acrid smell of burning kelp filled the air and a continual pall of smoke hung over the camp. Eyes and noses ran constantly and the features of some of the kelp pickers became so swollen that they were virtually unrecognisable as the people who had arrived in the spring. Touching her own face, Isabella suspected that she was one of them.

‘I am no sort of wife for you, Duncan,’ she whispered one night when he had brought thin fish head gruel to her. ‘Let me go back to my parents.’

‘Do you want to go? I would understand if you did.’

‘Of course I don’t want to go. But what use am I here?’

‘If you do not want to go, not for anything on earth will I let you go back.’

Before they left for the waves again, he helped her into her clothes each day. The clothes would still be damp, but he would have spent half the night, while she was tossing and turning, holding them to the fire so that they would dry as much as possible. Even so they were still rough with salt, abrasive, and rubbing her too-sensitive skin so that sores opened under her arms.

‘This time, stay home. Please, you must,’ he said one morning. He saw a hectic flush in her face and knowing better than she did the signs of fever, he was afraid.

‘I’m coming with you,’ she said, struggling to rise.

‘If you must go somewhere, go south. See if your parents will feed you.’

‘You would have that? You said …?’

‘I didn’t realise the work would so nearly kill you.’ He had been going to say, ‘so soon’, but did not. ‘Oh what would I do without you?’ he said instead. ‘Isabella, you can’t come with me today.’

‘Will you stay here with me, then?’

‘I cannot.’

A sharp early autumn shower beat a tattoo against the side of their shelter. She trembled, was overcome with shivering.

‘I will rest today,’ she said, capitulating, ‘then tomorrow I’ll go south.’

But by evening she was too ill to move anywhere at all, and Duncan, sitting beside her as the days passed, waited for her to die.

‘It is pneumonia,’ said Willina, come to take a turn sitting beside her.

‘I know … If only we could move her. That she should die like this, here, like a bleached fish …’

‘I will not die,’ said Isabella in a loud distinct voice. Both the watchers jumped. Duncan leaned over to speak to her, but she was asleep.

‘She will pull through,’ said Willina thoughtfully. ‘If the weather only holds.’

Isabella did recover and as winter approached again Duncan went, on their behalf, to ask her parents for food. Still weak and finding it hard to move around, she waited for him to return, full of guilty, greedy hunger at the thought of the food he might bring back.

She expected him to slink through the door on his return, for he had viewed his journey with considerable distaste. Instead, when she heard his footstep she did not at first recognise it, it was so jaunty. His face was alight.

‘Duncan, tell me directly, what is it?’

‘Eat first.’ Which he did not have difficulty in persuading her to do. She tore at strips of meat and sucked some mutton chops dry, stripping them down to their marrows, and filling both her hands with oatmeal cake in order to stuff her mouth more quickly. She
thought then how unlike her life before this was, that she was eating in this animalish gulping fashion, squatting on her haunches in a rude shack, with the sea pounding outside her door. Looking across at him, and the gangling set of his body, she thought, it could only be so with him. Not with anyone else.

‘What have you to tell me, then?’ she asked again, when her stomach had settled.

Even then he did not tell her at once, and when he did he chose his words with care. That day, in Ullapool, he had met McLeod.

‘McLeod? But he is supposed to be in Wick.’

‘He’s paid his debts and he has money in his pocket. He is talking of emigrating.’

Immediately Isabella knew what was on his mind. Trust McLeod, she thought, to turn their lives around. Yet who else? It made perfect sense.

McLeod had told Duncan of a ship, the
Frances
Ann
,
which was to leave Loch Broom in the middle of the following summer, bound for Nova Scotia. It could take four hundred people. McLeod was planning to leave Mary and the children while he went ahead to find a place for them to settle.

‘Would you consider going too?’ he asked.

‘Nova Scotia? Where is that?’ she said, although inside her she thought she already knew the answer to his question.

‘New Scotland? It is on the eastern seaboard of North America. A place also known as Acadia, for the French lived there a long while till the English chased them out.’

‘America, eh? A big continent.’

‘So what d’you say?’

An inner voice was asking her, can you bear it, close to McLeod? Can you be near him again? She saw him standing in the corner of the room, in the house in which they had both lived, and thought, will I get away from him by running? But she had known he would come back. Aloud, she said, ‘I’ll send for the money from my brother in London.’