Vital Secrets (6 page)

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.

M
arc 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 for 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.”

Even though Marc was keenly aware of where this argument might lead and could feel a chill slowly seizing him, he could not help but marvel at the eloquence and clearheadedness of this tiny, beautiful woman. Little wonder, then, that she had been such a disruptive force in last spring's election.
Nor was the irony of the present situation lost on him: the very qualities he loved most might ultimately drive them apart.

“There's lawlessness on both sides now. The secret meetings are no secret. I don't know for sure but it's a good guess that some of the treasonous talk is already more than that. You can't imagine the terror I felt this winter, the endless nights as I sat beside Aaron coaxing him to breathe, praying like a sinner to any god who'd listen, and worrying myself sick that Winnifred—proud, loyal, law-abiding, churchgoing Winnifred—was miles away in some snowbound barn, cheering and clapping at some sermon of rage and desperation, and all them torches waving away no more than two feet from the nearest bale of hay.”

Marc could think of nothing to say.

“These gatherings are still going on, and sooner or later it'll be the troops who'll have to put a stop to them.” She glanced across at Marc's tunic, and he was grateful that he had not worn his sword. “Do you know what my recurring nightmare has been?”

“I think I can guess,” Marc murmured, and looked away.

For a minute Marc thought she was not going to answer her own question, but finally she said in a hollow voice, “Winnifred and Thomas are running through the woods, being pursued by a dark shadow. Exhausted, Thomas turns around, steps in front of Winn, and faces his pursuer. It is you. You raise your musket, call out ‘I'm sorry!' and fire. The noise wakes me up.”
“Then I'll rip this uniform off my back! I'll buy out my commission—”

With the tenderest of gestures, she reached over and placed a finger against his lips. “Oh, you dear, dear man. I knew you would say that, I knew you'd promise to fetch me the moon if I asked you to. You're still a romantic, and it's hard—oh, so hard—not to love that part of you. But think what you're saying. You're only twenty-seven years old, and already you've tried the law to please your uncle and quit it, and then chose the army—your boyhood dream—and here you are offering to throw that away to marry me. Then what? Help me sell ladies' hats? Live off my inheritance like an English gentleman? Return to the law and hope you don't hate it too much?”

She paused to swallow the lump in her throat. “No, if we're going to come together as man and wife, it's got to be on equal terms: the burden of our love's got to be parcelled out fairly. Surely you see that?”