Vital Secrets

by Don Gutteridge

  For Beth’s benefit, Marc managed a smile at this reference to his aborted law career. They walked a few paces in silence, but neither seemed in any hurry to speed up. Something remained to be said.

  “How long will it be before Thomas is able to work again?”

  “Well, it was his left hand he cut, thank God, so he’s still able to do quite a bit with the right. Dr. Barnaby says it should be completely healed in a month, six weeks for sure, if he doesn’t tear it open or let it get infected.”

  “Barnaby should know if anyone does. He’s repaired a thousand sword cuts in his time. But what about Winnifred?”

  “I see the good news is out.”

  “Due in late September, Rastus tells me.”

  “She’s as strong as an ox. You’ll see quite a change in her.”

  “Her father was extremely worried about her.”

  Beth stopped. The axe-blows were much sharper. Along the northwestern horizon a bank of black clouds curdled the otherwise pristine blue of the winter sky.

  “You know about her going to the meetings?”

  “Not much. But enough to realize how much her thinking must have changed since I last saw her. Moving from church bazaars and social teas to smoky barns and questionable associates is quite a shift for anyone, and incredible for a—”

  “Woman? I think we’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”

  “Surely she won’t take such risks now.”

  They were still face-to-face: assessing, gauging, probing.

  “Surely not,” Beth said.

  “Well, then, I’m glad she’s being sensible. And Thomas, too.”

  Beth put a mittened hand on Marc’s arm. She smiled wanly, and he noticed now the dark shadow under each eye and the vexed wrinkling at the corners of the mouth he wanted to press against his own and breathe into comfort. “I haven’t been to any of the meetings,” she said. “I’ve been too busy with Aaron.”

  Marc’s relief was palpable.

  “I listen to what Winn and Thomas are saying, which isn’t a lot—at least not outside their bedroom. But I say nothing.”

  “It’s hard to believe you’ve given up,” Marc said, turning with her and walking, slowly again, towards the ring of Aaron’s axe.

  “Oh, I haven’t given up. But after we lost the election last June, after all our effort and after all the promises made and not kept by the governor, I couldn’t summon up the energy to protest—even though I was raging underneath my numbness. Auntie and I worked hard at the business all summer, and hard it was—dispensing bonnets and frippery to the very people that engineered us out of the Assembly. Then, when the bad harvest hit and the Yankee dollar collapsed and Sir High and Mighty reneged on his solemn word, just when my blood was starting to boil like it did when Jesse was alive and we were up to our necks in Reform Party politics, I discovered that everything had changed.”

  “In what way?”

  “The open talk of violence. And I don’t mean the vicious talk we’ve all got used to.”

  “Talk of revolt, you mean?” Marc could have bitten his tongue, but it was too late.

  Beth stopped and looked searchingly at the man who had done so much for her last winter and who had more than once declared his love for her.

  “Damn it, Beth, I’m not here as a spy!”

  She stared at her boots. “I’d not be honest if I didn’t admit that when I dropped those eggs at the sudden sight of you, that was my first thought.” She peered up. “But I haven’t thought it since. Nor will I again.”

  “But I’m still in this uniform?”

  “Yes, you are, aren’t you?” She started walking again, as if afraid to hold his gaze any longer for fear of what she might detect in it and preferred not to see.

  “I think we’ve had this conversation before,” he said.

  They had turned onto the path that wound between the barn and outbuildings towards the back-shed of the split-log cabin ahead. Marc stopped and quickly placed one hand on each of Beth’s shoulders. He held her gaze for several long seconds. She made no attempt to look away. He saw what it was he had to know: her feeling for him had not diminished, in spite of everything that had happened over the past fourteen months.

  “We’ve spoken about everything except the thing we really need to speak about,” Beth said softly, her eyes misting over. “I haven’t been avoiding it. After lunch, when it settles down inside, we’ll sit by the south window like we did last year and have a long cup of tea.”

  He leaned over and brushed his lips across her cool forehead.

  She pulled back, reluctantly he thought, and said, “Now, let’s go and say hello to Aaron.”

  MARC REMEMBERED AARON MCCRAE WITH VIVID painfulness: a tall, gangling sixteen-year-old with one lame leg that he dragged behind him and slurred, stammering speech. But he was no simpleton to be patronized or mocked by his fellows, though Marc had little doubt they had done so more than once. He had his sister’s blue eyes that, like hers, saw much more than they conveyed. In fact, it had been Aaron’s observation and reliable memory that had helped solve the mysterious death of Joshua Smallman last winter. But Marc wondered what might have been wrought upon that misaligned frame by typhoid fever and eight weeks of agonizingly slow recuperation.

  Aaron spotted Beth and the uniformed gentleman at her side, and put down his axe. A quarter-cord of hardwood lay scattered about him. A big grin spread across his face as he recognized Marc.

  “H-h-h-ello, Mr. Edwards.”

  “Hello, Aaron. I’m so happy to see you are recovered, and back helping run the farm.” Marc made a point of admiring the lad’s handiwork.

  “Lieutenant Edwards has come for a visit,” Beth said. “He’s going to stay for dinner.”

  “G-g-good.”

  Marc, too, was pleased to hear this, then remembered that “dinner” was sometimes the local term for luncheon, to which meal he had already been invited.

  “Just finish up that log, Aaron, and then come inside. We don’t want you overdoing it, do we?”

  Aaron frowned, then smiled his agreement. Marc was astonished to see that Aaron had grown another two or three inches, bringing him close to Marc’s six feet. Moreover, he had “filled out,” as they said here in the colony, putting on muscle around bones that had thickened and toughened. His pale face and a telltale hollowness around the eyes hinted at the earlier ravages of the fever, and underneath the loose sweater and denim work pants that new bulk would likely be a bit flaccid and toneless, but the big-knuckled, bare hands and masculine jut of the chin intimated that he was soon to be a full-fledged, powerful man.

  “I’ll see you inside, then,” Marc said.

  Aaron grinned again, and gave his sister a curious look before turning back to his work.

  At the shed door, Marc stopped for a moment to watch the operation at hand. Aaron gripped the axe with both hands, raised it over his shoulder, braced himself as best he could on the lame leg, then drove the axe downward, using his strong leg for leverage and balance. For a second it appeared as if he must topple, given the angle at which his body was tilted laterally, but at the point of impact everything straightened itself—axe and axeman—so that the plane of the blow ended flush with the propped log. The wood split with a ruptured cry, followed instantly by the lad’s grunt of triumph.

  “He’s learned to adapt,” Beth said as she opened the back door. “Now let’s go in to lunch.”

  Like so many of those around him, Marc thought.

  THE MID-DAY MEAL WAS OF THE pioneer farm variety—roast venison, potatoes, turnip, fresh bread, slices of cold ham, and several pots of hot tea—cooked by Winnifred and Beth, and served by young Charlene, yet another of the innumerable Huggan clan, before she herself joined them. Quaintly referred to as the “hired girl,” Charlene received no pay. (“But I’m keeping track of wages owed,” Beth had said, “and I’ll settle up with her some day when she may really need the money.”)

  Arriving late to the table,
Thomas Goodall seemed startled to see Marc, then greeted him abruptly. Marc noticed the large leather mitt on his left hand and offered commiserations. Thomas merely nodded in acknowledgement and carefully removed the mitt to reveal a hand bandaged from fingertips to wrist and immobilized by a pair of splints.

  “So they’ve made you quartermaster again,” Winnifred said to Marc with a smile, deflecting his gaze as she passed him the bowl of steaming mashed potatoes.

  “To be honest, ma’am, I was asked along by Major Jenkin more or less to keep him company between the capital and Cobourg.”

  “And he lost track of you somewhere near Crawford’s Corners?”

  “He suggested that I had some business to transact in this vicinity.”

  “Whatever those transactions might be, I’m sure we wish you every success.” And here she glanced across at Beth in time to catch the full bloom of her blush.

  Beth recovered quickly enough to say, “The lieutenant has come to reconnoitre hogs for hungry soldiers, I believe.”

  Marc laughed, as he was meant to. He was delighted with the banter and quite pleased to be the butt of it. He had been afraid that the travails of the past months and Winnifred’s flirtation with Mackenzie’s cohorts might have soured her quick wit and frank appraisal of the world—qualities he had both admired and been wary of on his visit here last year. But there had been changes. Marriage and impending motherhood had apparently softened the edges of her cynicism and, if her father’s account were accurate, had cooled her anger at the injustices meted out to her and her kind.

  “I am authorized to issue contracts for grain and hogs on behalf of the quartermaster,” Marc said in a more serious vein. “It occurred to me that I might be able to help you out in that regard.”

  “We decided last fall that it was better to hang on to what we have rather than sell it at a loss. Since then the price of grain’s gone lower and paper money of any colour is shrinking.”

  “The army is offering a price well above market value—with the blessing of the lieutenant-governor.”

  That remark brought a moment of meditative silence, during which the only sounds were the click of forks and scraping of knives.

  “P-p-please, pass the—”

  Thomas Goodall, anticipating Aaron’s request, slid the bowl of turnips over to the lad with his good hand. The other he kept out of sight below the table. Aaron nodded a mute thank-you, but in spooning out a second helping, he tipped the bowl over. Beside him, Thomas instinctively reached out to right the bowl with the nearest hand—the swaddled one—then jerked it back in pain.

  “Are you all right?” Winnifred asked anxiously. The danger of sepsis was ever present in such circumstances, and Thomas’s reflexive wince was cause for alarm.

  Thomas nodded and tried to smile. But smiling was no more natural to his craggy, ploughman’s face than talking was. He looked up at Winnifred with an expression she alone read as reassuring. “Won’t be shootin’ no more deer fer a while.”

  Winnifred beamed. “This one’ll last us till spring,” she said to Marc. “Thomas bagged it in January.”

  “I’m not so sure you should be trying to work at all until Dr. Barnaby is ready to remove the stitches,” Beth said. “Outside of splitting wood for the stoves, there’s really not much in the barn that can’t wait awhile or be done by Winn and me.”

  “So stupid … so stupid of me,” Thomas muttered while keeping his eyes on his food and tucking the injured left hand into the safety of his lap.

  “If you need cash, then,” Marc said disingenuously, “perhaps you could spare a portion of the grain you’ve stored, provided it is in good condition.”

  “I’m a miller’s daughter,” Winnifred said. “I do know how to store grain.” She turned towards Thomas. “What do you think, love, can we afford to sell some of what we’ve saved for feed and seed?”

  Thomas put down his fork and peered ahead in thought. There was definitely a smile in the dark recesses of the eyes. “I figure about half,” he said, and brought the fork back up to his mouth.

  “That’s what I thought as well.”

  “We can do business, then?” Marc said, but his glance was more towards Beth than Winnifred.

  “If the price is right,” Winnifred said lightly, but her relief at the prospect of generating some cash out of their failed harvest was clearly evident. “Thomas and I will take you out to the granary later this afternoon, and we’ll talk turkey. We’ll be expecting you back here for supper. I’ll send Charlene over to Papa’s place to invite them to join us as well.”

  “Are you not worried about having a uniformed officer as your house-guest?” Marc said with a broad smile around the table, then realized, too late, the clumsiness of the quip.

  Winnifred was the first to break the awkward silence. “You mustn’t believe all the rumours buzzing up and down the back concessions,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you wish to.” Then, glancing at Beth, she added, “Or need to.”

  Sitting here in the welcoming warmth of this Upper Canadian farmhouse among people who had without doubt suffered both hardship and injustice, Marc could not bring himself to believe that these farmers would resort to armed resistance or open rebellion against the Crown. Their capacity and willingness to adapt to circumstance, with imagination and perseverance, was everywhere to be observed and marvelled at by newcomers like himself.

  Under his present misgivings, then, a deep calm prevailed. He even felt ready to face Beth, alone and unprotected by sword or uniform.

  FOUR

  Marc and Beth were together in the sitting-room. The potbellied stove glowed cordially in the corner, a pale winter light ebbed through the window in the south wall, and the two cushioned chairs faced one another at an amiable angle. A little while earlier Beth had led Aaron to her own bedroom for his requisite afternoon nap. There, Marc noted once again the small library of political and religious books left to her by her clergyman father, one of them open on her pillow. Thomas had gone out to work in the barn and Winnifred had accompanied him, Marc suspected, to make certain he kept the makeshift mitten on and had any help he might require to otherwise preserve his dignity. Charlene Huggan had been dispatched to the mill to invite the Hatches for supper and to fuss over her sister’s baby.

  For a long while Marc and Beth sat quietly and sipped their tea, content for the moment to enjoy the presence of the other in the exact place where their eyes had first made contact, and where they had discovered the wordless covenant that quickens love and sweeps it beyond the reach of reason.

  Beth put down her empty teacup with a resolute gesture, then leaned forward in her rocker and placed both hands on Marc’s knees. “I want to talk, and I’d like it very much if you’d just listen. I need to explain what’s in my heart, to you and to myself, and I won’t know whether I can find the right words till I hear myself saying them. Do you understand?”

  Marc nodded, and gave her his full attention. She averted her gaze, however, as if looking directly at him might cause her to falter. Instead, she stared at the window and the drift of snowflakes now whispering there.

  “One thing I know for sure, and so we don’t ever have to doubt it, is our love for each other. I used to think that was the hardest part. I was barely eighteen when Jesse came courtin’ the minister’s daughter. For the longest time I thought he was a nuisance I could do without—go ahead, you’re allowed to smile.”

  Marc did.

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to feel flattered or have my stomach go queasy whenever he came into a room. Then after a while we got to know one another a bit, and began to talk some, and I started to like him very much. But it was only when he turned up one day in the back pew of the Congregational church that I knew he loved me. He seemed to be saying he was willing to switch gods for me.”

  The Lord of the Anglicans had lost more than Jesse Small-man lately, Marc thought.

  “We went for a long walk, and I was held by a man fo
r the first time, and we never looked back. I’m telling you all this, I think, because I want you to understand that I know what love is and what it asks us to do. You have the same look in your eye—you had it the first day you came here—that Jesse did, and I feel about you just like I did when Jess and I went for that Sunday stroll along the river flats. No, please don’t say anything, not yet.”

  She stared longingly at the wisps of snow against the windowpane. Marc waited.

  “First of all, let me say that I know what you did last June during the election, I know why you left the governor, and I know what you did for me and what it cost you not to betray a trust.”

  Marc started to protest but Beth raised her hand. “I got it from the horse’s mouth.” She smiled wryly. “Your policeman friend liked his cup of tea and a good gossip with Aunt Catherine.”

  “Constable Cobb.”

  “He was your staunch defender and ally, and convinced Auntie to take up your cause—daily. She argued, and I came to believe, that you’d become as weary of politics and hypocrisy and broken promises as I had.”

  “Then, if I’d come to you before—”

  “Before January and Aaron’s illness? Maybe. At least I’d have had the chance to look into your eyes myself. But you’d have come, as you have now, wearing that uniform—please, let me finish or I’ll lose my nerve.”

  No battle-nerves could be as agonizing as this, Marc thought.

  “You know, I hope, it isn’t the uniform itself. I believe passionately in law and order and justice and equality. I’ve read bits of Paine and Rousseau and Locke and Burke. Jess and I worked for the Reform Party because we believed we could change things, get justice for the ordinary folk through politics and lawmaking. So, I wanted you to find the men responsible for my father-in-law’s death last January and bring them before the law. To me, a soldier is an arm of the law or ought to be, and so should be nothing to fear. But when the governor himself corrupts the parliament and bends the law to suit him and his rich friends and ignores direct orders from London—then the law becomes something to be feared, and so do those sworn to uphold it.”