by Stef Penney
Mr Knox has a poor, greyish complexion that makes me think of liver salts, and is tall and thin, with a hatchet profile that seems permanently poised to strike down the unworthy–useful attributes for a magistrate. I suddenly feel as empty as if I had not eaten for a week.
‘Ah, Mrs Ross … an unexpected pleasure …’
To tell the truth he looks, more than anything, alarmed at the sight of me. Perhaps he looks at everyone this way, but it gives the impression he knows slightly more about me than I would like, and thus knows I am not the sort of person he would want his daughters to associate with.
‘Mr Knox … I’m afraid it is not a pleasure. There has been a … a terrible accident.’
Scenting gossip of the richest sort, Mrs Knox comes in a minute later, and I tell them both what is in the cabin by the river. Mrs Knox clutches at the little gold cross at her throat. Knox receives the news calmly, but turns away at one point, and turns back, having, I can’t help feeling, composed his features into a suitable cast–grim, stern, resolute, and so on. Mrs Knox sits beside me stroking my hand while I try not to snatch it away.
‘And to think, the last time I saw him was in the store that time. He looked so …’
I nod in agreement, thinking how we had fallen into a guilty silence on her approach. After many protestations of shocked sympathy and advice for shattered nerves, she rushes off to inform their two daughters in a suitable way (in other words, with far more detail than if their father were present). Knox dispatches a messenger to Fort Edgar to summon some Company men. He leaves me to admire the view, then returns to say he has summoned John Scott (who, in addition to owning the store and flour mill, has several warehouses and a great deal of land) to go with him to examine the cabin and secure it against ‘intrusion’ until the Company representatives arrive. That is the word he uses, and I feel a certain criticism. Not that he can blame me for finding the body, but I am sure he regrets that a mere farmer’s wife has sullied the scene before he has had a chance to exercise his superior faculties. But I sense something else in him too, other than his disapproval–excitement. He sees a chance for himself to shine in a drama far more urgent than most that occur in the backwoods–he is going to investigate. I presume he takes Scott so that it looks official and there is a witness to his genius, and because Scott’s age and wealth give him a sort of status. It can be nothing to do with intelligence–Scott is living proof that the wealthy are not necessarily better or cleverer than the rest of us.
We head upriver in Knox’s trap. Since Jammet’s cabin is close to our house, they cannot avoid my accompanying them, and since we reach his cabin first, I offer to come in with them. Knox wrinkles his brow with avuncular concern.
‘You must be exhausted after your terrible shock. I insist that you go home and rest.’
‘We will be able to see whatever you saw,’ Scott adds. And more, is the implication.
I turn away from Scott–there is no point arguing with some people–and address the hatchet profile. He is affronted, I realise, that my feminine nature can bear the thought of confronting such horror again. But something inside me hardens stubbornly against his assumption that he and only he will draw the right conclusions. Or perhaps it is just that I don’t like being told what to do. I say I can tell them if anything has been disturbed, which they cannot deny, and anyway, short of manhandling me down the track and locking me in my house, there is little they can do.
The autumn weather is being kind, but there is the faint tang of decay when Knox pulls open the door. I didn’t notice it before. Knox steps forward, breathing through his mouth and puts his fingers on Jammet’s hand–I see him hover, wondering where to touch him–before pronouncing him quite cold. The two men speak in low voices, almost whispering. I understand–to speak louder would be rude. Scott takes out a notebook and writes down what Knox says as he observes the position of the body, the temperature of the stove, the arrangement of items in the room. Then Knox stands for a while doing nothing, but still manages to look purposeful–an accident of anatomy I observe with interest. There is a scuff of footprints on the dusty floor, but no strange objects, no weapon of any sort. The only clue is that awful round wound on Jammet’s head. It must have been an Indian outlaw, Knox says. Scott agrees: no white man could do something so barbaric. I picture his wife’s face last winter, when it was swollen black and blue and she claimed she had slipped on a patch of ice, although everybody knew the truth.
The men go upstairs to the other room. I can tell where they go by the creak of their feet pressing on floorboards and the dust that falls between them and catches the light. It trickles onto Jammet’s corpse, falling softly on his cheek, like snowflakes. Little flecks land, unbearably, on his open eyes and I can’t take my gaze off them. I have an urge to go and brush it off, tell them sharply to stop disturbing things, but I don’t do either. I can’t make myself touch him.
‘No one has been up there for days–the dust was quite undisturbed,’ says Knox when they are down again, flicking dirt off their trousers with pocket-handkerchiefs. Knox has brought a clean sheet from upstairs, and he shakes it out, sending more dust motes whirling round the room like a swarm of sunlit bees. He places the sheet over the body on the bed.
‘There, that should keep the flies off,’ he says with an air of self-congratulation, though any fool can see that it will do no such thing.
It is decided that we–or rather they–can do no more, and on leaving, Knox closes and secures the door with a length of wire and a blob of sealing wax. A detail that, though I hate to admit it, impresses me.
When the weather turns cold Andrew Knox is made painfully aware of his age. Every autumn for some years now his joints have started to hurt, and go on hurting all winter no matter how many layers of flannel and wool he wraps them in. He has to walk gingerly, to accommodate the shooting pains in each hip. Each autumn the pains start a little earlier.
But today weariness spreads through his entire soul. He tells himself that it is understandable–a violent event like murder is bound to shake anyone. But it is more than that. No one has been murdered in the history of the two villages. We came here to get away from all that, he thinks: we were supposed to leave that behind when we left the cities. And yet the strangeness of it … a brutal barbarian killing, like something that would happen in the southern States. In the past few years several people have died of old age, of course, of fever or accident, not to mention those poor girls … But no one has been slaughtered, defenceless in their stockinged feet. He is upset by the victim’s shoelessness.
He reads through Scott’s notes after dinner, and tries not to lose his patience: ‘The stove is three feet high and one foot eight inches deep, faintly warm to the touch.’ He supposes this might be useful. Assuming the fire was going strongly at the time of death, it could take thirty-six hours to become cold. So the murder could have happened the day before. Unless the fire had already started to die down when Jammet met his end, in which case it could have happened during the night. But it is not inconceivable that it took place the previous night. In their search today they found little. There were no clear signs of a struggle; no blood other than on the bed, where he must have been attacked. They wondered aloud whether the place had been searched, but his belongings were scattered so haphazardly–their usual state, according to Mrs Ross–that it was impossible to be certain. Scott protested loudly that it must be a native: no white man could do something so barbaric. Knox is less sure. Some years ago Knox was called to a farm near Coppermine, after a particularly regrettable incident. There is a practice popular in some communities whereby a groom is ritually humiliated on his wedding night. It is known as a ‘charivari’ and is meant as a genial show of disapproval at, say, an old man taking a much younger wife. In this case the elderly bridegroom had been tarred and feathered and strung up by his feet from a tree outside his own house, while local youths paraded in masks, banging kettles and blowing whistles.
A prank. Youthful h
igh spirits.
But somehow the man had died. Knox knew of at least one youth who was unquestionably involved in the business, but no one, despite their regret, would speak out. A prank gone wrong? Scott had not seen the man’s suffused face; the wires cutting savagely into bloated ankles. Andrew Knox feels unable to exempt a whole race from suspicion on the grounds that they are incapable of cruelty.
He has become aware of the sounds beyond the window. Outside his walls there may be a force of evil. Perhaps the sort of cunning that would think to scalp a man to throw suspicion onto those of a different colour. Please God, not a Caulfield man. And what motive can there have been for this death? Surely not the theft of Jammet’s old and ill-used possessions. Did he have a secret cache of wealth? Did he have enemies among the men he traded with–perhaps an unpaid debt?
He sighs, dissatisfied with his thoughts. He had been so sure that seeing the cabin would provide him with clues, if not answers, but he is left with less certainty than before. It hurts his vanity to admit that he could not read the signs, especially in front of Mrs Ross–a provoking woman who always makes him feel uncomfortable. Her sardonic gaze never softened, even when describing her appalling discovery, or confronting it for the second time. She is not popular in the town, for she gives the impression of looking down her nose at people, although by all accounts (and he has heard some pretty hair-raising gossip) she has nothing to be conceited about. However, to look at her and to recall some of these lurid stories is to find them incredible: she has a regal bearing, and an admittedly handsome face, although her prickly manner is not compatible with true beauty. He had been aware of her eyes on him when he stepped up to the corpse to feel for warmth. He could barely keep his hand from trembling–there seemed to be no flesh free from blood to touch. He took a deep breath (which only made him feel nauseous) and placed his fingers on the dead man’s wrist.
The skin was cold, but felt otherwise human, normal; like his own skin. He tried to keep his eyes off the terrible wound but, like the flies, they seemed unable to stay away. Jammet’s eyes stared up at him, and it occurred to Knox that he was standing where the killer must have stood. He hadn’t been asleep, not at the end. He felt he ought to close the eyes but knew he wouldn’t be able to do so. Shortly afterwards he fetched a sheet from upstairs and covered the body. The blood was dry and wouldn’t stain, he said–as if it mattered. He tried to cover his confusion with another practical remark, hating the hearty sound of his own voice as he did so. At least tomorrow it will not be his sole responsibility any more–the Company men will arrive and, probably, they will know what to do. Probably, something will become apparent, someone will have seen something, and by evening it will have been solved.
And with this spurious hope, Knox tidily rearranges the papers into a pile and blows out the lamp.
It is past midnight, but I sit up with a lamp and a book I am unable to read, waiting for a footstep, for the door to open and cold air to fill the kitchen. I find myself thinking yet again about those poor girls. Everyone in Dove River and Caulfield knows the story, and it is recounted to anyone who comes here, or repeated over and again with subtle variations on winter evenings in front of the fire. Like all the best stories, it is a tragedy.
The Setons were a respectable family from St Pierre La Roche. Charles Seton was a doctor, and his wife Maria a recent Scottish immigrant. They had two daughters who were their pride and joy (as they say, though when are children ever not?). On a mild day in September Amy, who was fifteen, and Eve, thirteen, set off with a friend called Cathy Sloan to gather berries and picnic by the banks of a lake. They knew the way, and all three girls had been brought up in the bush, were familiar with its dangers and respected its code: never stray from the paths, never stay out after dusk. Cathy was exceptionally pretty, famous in the town for her looks. This detail is always added, as though it makes what happened even more tragic, although I cannot personally see that it matters.
The girls set off with a basket of food and drink at nine in the morning. At four, the time by which they should have returned, there was no sign of them. Their parents waited a further hour, then the two fathers set out to trace their daughters’ footsteps. After zigzagging around the path, calling constantly, they arrived at the lake, and searched, still calling, until after dark, but found no sign of them. Then they returned, thinking it possible that their daughters had taken another route and had by now arrived home, but the girls were not there.
A massive search was got up, and everyone in the town turned out to help look for the children. Mrs Seton took to fainting fits. On the evening of the second day, Cathy Sloan walked back into St Pierre. She was weak and her clothes were filthy. She had lost her jacket and one of her shoes, but was still holding the basket that had contained their lunch; apparently now (grotesque detail and probably untrue) it was full of leaves. The searchers redoubled their efforts, but they never found a thing. Not a shoe, not a scrap of clothing, not even a footprint. It was as though a hole had opened in the ground and swallowed them up.
Cathy Sloan was put to bed, although whether she was actually ill was a moot point. She said that she had had some sort of argument with Eve shortly after setting off, and had dawdled behind the other two until losing them from sight. She walked to the lake and called for them, thinking they were mean to have hidden from her. She became lost in the woods and could not find the path. She never saw the Seton sisters again.
They townspeople went on searching, sending delegations to the nearby Indian villages, for suspicion fell on them as naturally as rain falls on the ground. But not only did they swear their innocence on the Bible, there was not a scrap of evidence of a kidnapping. The Setons looked further and further afield. Charles Seton hired men to help him look, including an Indian tracker and then, after Mrs Seton had died, seemingly of a broken heart, a man from the States who was a professional searcher. The searcher travelled to Indian bands all over Upper Canada and beyond, but found nothing.
Months became years. At the age of fifty-two Charles Seton died, exhausted, penniless and at a loss. Cathy Sloan was never quite the beauty she had been; she seemed dull and stupid–or had she always been that way? No one could any longer remember. The story of the case spread far and wide, and then passed into legend, recounted by schoolchildren with wild inconsistencies, told by frazzled mothers to curb their children’s wandering. Wilder and wilder theories grew up as to what had happened to the two girls; people wrote from far-flung addresses claiming to have seen them, or married them, or to be them, but none ever proved well founded. In the end, no explanation could possibly fill the void left by the disappearance of Amy and Eve Seton.
All that was fifteen years ago or more. The Setons are both dead now; first the mother died of grief, then the father, bankrupt and exhausted by his relentless quest. But the story of the girls belongs to us because Mrs Seton’s sister is married to Mr Knox, and that is why we fell into a guilty silence when she came into the store that day. I do not know her particularly well, but I do know that she never speaks of it. Presumably, on winter evenings in front of the fire, she talks of something else.
People disappear. I’m trying not to assume the worst, but all the lurid theories about the girls’ disappearance are haunting me now. My husband has gone to bed. Either he isn’t worried, or he is indifferent–it is years since I could tell what he was thinking. I suppose that is the nature of marriage, or perhaps it just goes to show that I am not very good at it. My neighbour Ann Pretty would probably incline towards the latter; she has a thousand ways of implying that I am deficient in my wifely duties–when you think of it, an astonishing feat for a woman of such little sophistication.
She holds my lack of living natural children as a sign of failure to do my immigrant duty, which is, apparently, to raise a workforce large enough to run a farm without hiring outside help. A common enough response in such a vast, underpopulated country. I sometimes think that the settlers reproduce so heroically as a terrified r
esponse to the size and emptiness of the land, as though they could hope to fill it with their offspring. Or maybe they are afraid that a child can slip away so easily, they must always have more. Maybe they are right.
When I got back to the house this afternoon Angus was back. I told him about Jammet’s death, and he examined his pipe for a long time, as he does when he is deep in thought. I found myself close to tears, although I did not know Jammet well. Angus knew him better; had gone hunting with him on occasion. But I could not read the currents moving under his skin. Later we sat in the kitchen at our usual places, eating in silence. Between us, on the south side of the table, another place was set. Neither of us referred to it.
Many years ago, my husband took a trip back east. He was gone for three weeks, after which he sent a telegram saying to expect him back on the Sunday. We had not spent a night apart in four years, and I looked forward keenly to his return. When I heard the rumble of wheels on the road, I ran to meet him, then saw, puzzled, that there were two people in the cart. As the cart came closer I saw that it was a child of about five years, a girl. Angus pulled up the pony and I ran towards them, my heart beating thickly in my throat. The girl was asleep, long lashes lying on her sallow cheeks. Her hair was black. Her eyebrows were black. Purple veins showed through her eyelids. She was beautiful. And I couldn’t speak. I just stared.
‘The French Sisters had them. Their parents died of plague. I heard about it and went to the convent. There were all these children. I tried to get one who would be the right age, but …’ He trailed off. Our infant daughter had died the year before. ‘But she was the bonniest.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We could call her Olivia. I don’t know if you’d want to, or …’
I threw my arms round his neck and suddenly found that my face was wet. He held me tight, and then the child opened her eyes.
