Wild Fell (24 page)

When I compared the two portraits side by side, I saw that there were echoes of the older woman in Rosa’s face, but whereas Rosa’s lips were full and lush, her mother’s were thin and pinched in an expression that hinted at pain so long suppressed and hidden that in hiding from the world, the pain had become second nature. As if to smooth away traces of whatever illness the painter was trying to camouflage, the older woman was ornately jewelled: against the black velvet of her dress shone a necklace of diamonds and pearls, and she wore a pair of diamond and emerald earrings. The effect was almost perfectly achieved. At a distance, there was nothing of the portrait that would have been out of place in a baronial hallway in any great house anywhere. It was only upon close scrutiny that the woman’s face hinted at secrets, or pain, or private grieving.

I withdrew a third portrait from the crate, and here I met Malcolm Blackmore, Rosa’s brother. Her
twin
brother, judging by his face, which was nothing less than a masculinized version of his sister’s.

I found myself surprised, not only by their close resemblance, as if they were mirrored selves, far beyond what linked either his sister or himself to their mother, but by the man’s sheer physical presence. To call Malcolm Blackmore merely handsome was to do him a great injustice, especially in the context of the era of the portrait—an era when well-to-do men were usually portrayed as voluptuous and spoiled-looking, red lipped and full-fleshed. By contrast, the young man in the portrait looked as though he had been carved from the very granite of the island that bore his family name. His thick hair was dark brown, almost black. It tumbled from a high, intelligent forehead. The nose was strong and straight, the jaw consequential.

Malcolm Blackmore’s eyes were the same clear charcoal grey-green as Rosa’s, and he looked out at the world through the painting with a similar aristocratic distance, but the similarity in their expressions ended there. There was a warmth and humour in Malcolm Blackmore’s face that was entirely absent in Rosa’s. That and—in spite of his obvious virility—a suggestion of gentleness, perhaps even weakness, in the turn of his mouth.

The final portrait stunned me even more than the one of Malcolm Blackmore, though not for any reasons associated with the portraiture, which was, again, excellent. Judging by the indecipherable signature in the lower right-hand corner of the painting, the same artist had painted all four paintings.

But if the artist had taken pains to flatter Mrs. Blackmore and her children, even his consequential skills as a flatterer had met their match in this instance.

The portrait showed a man in the colder years of late middle-age: hair iron-grey and still thick, eyebrows still dark, the nose and jawline as strong as his son’s—for this was clearly Alexander Blackmore, the patriarch. But here the resemblance to either of his children ended entirely. Aside from everything else, they had obviously inherited their mother’s pellucid eye colour. The eyes of the man in the portrait were almost black. More dramatically, there was an arrogance and a venal cruelty in Alexander Blackmore’s face that chilled me. It was the face of a conqueror that took no prisoners and cared little or nothing for the carnage he left in his wake.

I had encountered this expression often enough in photographs over the course of my history studies at university, particularly one course that dealt with the phenomenon of North American robber barons—the men who imposed their will on an unyielding landscape with their sheer implacability. In some cases, this strength manifested itself in photographs and paintings as a sort of forced
noblesse oblige
, one that never entirely succeeded in masking the reality that the titan in question was the son of a butcher, or a fishmonger, or a tailor, or merely that his was generic Victorian masculinity—strength, albeit more often than not a bully’s strength.

But in this case, by candlelight, in spite of the veneer of ducal
hauteur
in this portrait of the laird of Wild Fell, the face rendered here was the face of a monster.

The surface of the painting had been slashed with some kind of long, sharp instrument. There were no jagged edges; rather the cuts appeared to have been made almost lovingly, as though the vandal in question had taken his or her time and profoundly enjoyed the sensation of carving Alexander Blackmore’s face into strips.

I shuddered and turned the portrait away from me, facing it against the side of the crate. At that moment, a cold draft wafted through the basement, and I distinctly heard a soft sigh from the darkness behind me. The flame of my candle flickered, then went out. I heard something behind the locked third door, something that sounded like a piece of furniture being dragged across a stone floor.

I didn’t wait for the scraping sound to repeat itself. I turned tail and stumbled as fast as I could back through the basement. When I found the stairs, I took them three at a time, as though the light from the kitchen windows was oxygen and I had been buried alive in the dark.

The Bass Tracker was full of water. I’d forgotten the tarp and hadn’t turned it upside down when I’d landed just as the storm came. It had collected water all night, and now the water swished around inside as though it were a child’s wading pool.

Though tied to the dock, it had drifted back onto the beach. I was horrified. My knowledge of boats was purely practical. I had no idea if the Tracker was constructed to withstand that much water without the engine shorting out. Although common sense told me that there wouldn’t be much point to a motorboat that was sensitive to water, I was acutely conscious of the fact that I was looking at my only method of leaving Blackmore Island. If the Tracker went down, that would be that. The boat was my sole access to the other side of Devil’s Lake, and only possible source of transport to my car and town. I could probably swim across if I had to, but the water was very, very wide, as I discovered on the boat ride across yesterday.

Oh God, if you’re there
, was the prayer of my hitherto irreligious self,
please let the boat start. Please, please, please let it start.

I turned it over and watched the rain water gush onto the rocky beach, making little river trenches that swept around the small rocks, creating islands out of them in their turn. Once it was drained, I gently pushed the boat out again into deep enough water, then climbed in, using the paddle under the starboard seat to guide it out into deep enough water to lower the motor. I inserted the key into the ignition and turned it. A sputter, then nothing. Again I turned the key. Again it sputtered.

“Fuck you!” I shouted. “
Start
, you fucking bitch!”

The third time proved to be the charm: the fucking bitch started. The engine turned over and the boat rumbled to life. I pointed it in the direction of the opposite shore and revved it. The tracker shot across the water leaving a deep V-shaped wake in the grey water. I looked back at Blackmore Island growing smaller and smaller every minute, though I continued to see the gabled roofs of Wild Fell through the trees.

Whatever had happened in the basement, whatever the sound had been, it had frightened me badly. Whether it was the cumulative effect of all the odd things that had occurred in the last twenty-four hours, climaxing in the discovery of the four portraits hidden away in a stone chamber under the house, or just a very natural nyctophobic reaction to the sudden darkness, my previous coolheaded awareness that I needed to go into Alvina for supplies had turned into an all-encompassing desire to get out of the house and see other human beings—see them walk, hear them talk. To feel
life
around me instead of the seemingly borderless silence of Blackmore Island and Wild Fell. What had felt like an adventure this morning was, at least a bit, beginning to seem like a possible mistake.

On the other hand, even though the impulse to return immediately to Toronto, to what was familiar, had occurred to me once I was out of the cellar, I’d already dismissed the thought. Standing by the kitchen windows, it was obvious that what I’d heard was a squirrel, or a raccoon making a nest behind the door. What had blown the candle out was nothing more than the breeze I’d already felt wafting up from the basement when I had opened the door before going downstairs.

Above everything else, the house belonged to me. I had bought it and paid for it. It was my responsibility now. It had been immensely beautiful in the early morning light, beautiful and full of promise. I remembered my fantasies of enriching and modernizing it. Giving all that up because I had noisy raccoons in the cellar would be pathetic. I would look like a fool, even to myself. What I needed was an afternoon in town, some provisions, and a visit to the library to learn something about my house. Perhaps understanding the lives of the people who had lived there, even a bit, would smooth my own transition.

I felt for my car keys in the pocket of my jeans; they were there. I felt the hard plastic contours of the key ring and the jagged edge of the keys, modern and
real
.

Not surprisingly, the wind on my face had an immediate calming effect on me, the same effect a cool washcloth might have on a fevered face.

The closer I got to the mainland shore, the calmer I felt. By the time the water became shallower and I cut the engine, my heart rate had returned to normal and I was fully in control of myself again. I tied the boat up to the dock and climbed the hill to where the Volvo was parked. The sight of its boxy stolidity cheered me. I fished my keys out of my pocket and opened the driver side door. I started the car up, then realized I didn’t have the faintest clue where I was, let alone how to get back to Alvina. I had followed Mrs. Fowler’s car to this spot without paying much attention, and I’d left her folder of directions and instructions back at the house. I swore under my breath.

Then I remembered I had a portable GPS in the glove compartment. I hadn’t needed it when I was following Mrs. Fowler and hadn’t thought to turn it on for the sake of getting a route registered.

With the car still running, I punched in
Alvina, Ontario.
Nothing happened. I tried again, with the same result. The GPS was lighting up and everything seemed to be working, but it wasn’t receiving a satellite signal from where I was parked on the promontory.
Perhaps it’s the trees
, I thought.
Or the rocks. Maybe farther up the road I’ll get a signal.
I backed the Volvo up, then turned it around and proceeded down that curious alleyway of trees that led to the main road.

As if by magic, when I’d passed through that corridor, the GPS lit up again. This time when I punched in
Alvina
,
Ontario,
the GPS requested a street. I didn’t remember Mrs. Fowler’s office address, and in any case, I had no desire to stop by her office, let alone see her, so I punched in
10 Main Street
. Every town had a
10 Main Street,
so that was as good a place as any to start.

The GPS took me into Alvina, but it guided me into a different part of Alvina than I’d been in yesterday. This part of town was newer, even a bit garish compared to the mid-century civility of the streets around Mrs. Fowler’s office. There were no boxes of geraniums lining the street, and the lampposts were the ordinary garden-variety ones that were commonplace in small towns everywhere. I had definitely driven down Main Street yesterday but perhaps there were two ends of Main Street—a historic district and this more modern, commercial one.

At a rundown-looking supermarket two streets down, I picked up some non-perishable supplies. I regretted not having checked to see whether or not any of the appliances in the kitchen were in working order. I bought canned goods, soups and stews, and sugar for coffee. I bought a small carton of milk and one of cream, not wanting to waste larger cartons in case the refrigerator was hopelessly beyond repair. I also bought a flashlight and some batteries.

At the checkout counter I asked the cashier if there was a library in town. She wore a pin on her red polyester smock that said
Ask me! I’m JANICE
, and she had the ready smile and plump red face of someone who was born believing that the world was just bursting with new friends she hadn’t yet met.

“Why, there
sure
is,” she said. “You new in Alvina?”

“Yes, I am. I’m just getting the lay of the land. Where’s the library?”

“Well, I’m
Janice
. Welcome to town.” She beamed. “Okay, the library.” She frowned. “You take a left on Main Street there.” She waved a plump hand in the direction of where I’d come. “Then you turn left on Nickle Street, then right onto Jesse Skelton Road. The library is right there.”

“You mean this end of Main Street, right?” I said, wanting to be sure. “Not the historic section?”

“There’s only one Main Street, honey. I guess it’s historic. Old, anyway. But I’ve never heard it called ‘historic’ before. Nice, though. Kinda ritzy.”

I thanked Janice, then left the store and loaded my purchases in the back of the Volvo. At the library, which was not, in fact, on Jesse Skelton Road, but one street over on Hymers Street, I asked about reference materials pertaining to a family called Blackmore who had lived in the area in the 1800s and had owned a large property on an island that likewise bore their name.

The librarian frowned. “That doesn’t ring a bell,” she admitted. “Let me look it up on the computer.” She tapped on the keyboard and stared at the screen. “Nothing yet.”

Trying to be helpful, I added, “I believe the owner, Alexander Blackmore, was in local politics. His house was called Wild Fell.”

The librarian looked up at me, her expression nonplused. “Oh,” she said. “How interesting.” She glanced back down at the screen. “Let’s just see . . . well, yes. There he is.” She tapped a few more keys. “Alexander Blackmore, elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the mid-1800s. Tory. Not very much on file here, I’m afraid.” She frowned. “That’s odd. I would have thought there would be more, unless he was a very minor politician. But still, elected to the Commons, there ought to be a bit more biography at least. Hold on, let me ask one of my colleagues if we have anything in the back. When the new library was built, a lot of the older material went to the historical society. They’ve got a more comprehensive archive there. After all, the past is all they
do
. I’m trying to convince people around here to modernize.” She sighed and stood up. “But I’ll just check, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you very much for the effort.”

She smiled wryly. “There’s not a lot going on here, as you can see. I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, she was in the company of an older woman of perhaps sixty-five who had the authoritative air of a senior librarian, or supervisor of some sort. She peered intently at me through round eyeglasses. She carried a manila envelope in her hand, but to me it looked woefully thin.

“This is the gentleman.” The younger woman indicated me with a nod. To me she said, “I asked Mrs. Beams, my colleague, about the politician you mentioned.”

Mrs. Beams said, “You’re researching the Blackmores?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m trying to learn something about their life here in the nineteenth century. I’ve seen some portraits of the family, and I was curious.”

“To be clear, you are researching the
Blackmore
family. Of Blackmore Island, in Alvina?”

I was confused. “Yes, that’s right. Is there something odd about that? Forgive me, I’m not sure I understand. Is something wrong?”

Mrs. Beams paused before answering. When she did, her tone was neutral, though I had the impression that the neutrality was forced, as though she were answering under duress. Not rude, but far from inclined to elaboration. “No, far from it. Nothing wrong at all. Unfortunately we don’t have a great deal of information about the Blackmores aside from the barest information about Mr. Blackmore’s political career. But most people in Alvina have heard something or other about Blackmore Island over the years.”

I kept my voice light, thinking of Mrs. Fowler and her happy ghosts. “That sounds ominous.”

“Not ominous,” Mrs. Beams replied. “Just sad, in some ways. We had some deaths here in town in the sixties. It tore apart the town. I guess most people of my generation associate the name Blackmore with that tragedy. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to sound melodramatic. I was just curious.”

“I heard something about that. The drowning? A young couple, apparently?”

“Yes,” she said. “Brenda Egan and Sean Schwartz. I was in school with them in 1960. I was a year ahead of Brenda. It was very hard on everyone.”

“I’m sorry. It must have been. But I’m really only researching the family—the Blackmore family.”

“So you said.” Mrs. Beams smiled, if a touch grimly. “Well, the past is past, isn’t it? Nothing to do with the present, especially for strangers. No, it’s not really important unless you lived through it.” She handed me a thin folder. “This is all we have, unfortunately. They’re photocopies of some photographs of the family that were saved when the old Methodist church in town burned down in the thirties. The Blackmores were generous supporters of the church, apparently. Pillars of the community, so to speak. Not very lucky folks, from what I’ve heard, but there you have it.” She handed me the envelope. “Please feel free to peruse these.
Here
,” she said pointedly. “They aren’t to leave the library. We’re not sure where the originals got to, and we’d like to hang onto these, if you don’t mind.”

I thanked the two women and assured them that I wouldn’t steal anything, then located a table far enough away from the main desk for privacy.

I opened the envelope, to which was affixed a sticker that read
Blackmore, A./Methodist Church Fire of 1932,
and withdrew the sheaf of papers. As Mrs. Beams promised, the images were poor-quality photocopies of nineteenth century photographs that were likely already faded when they had been photocopied in the first place.

Several appeared to be church events, with the easily recognizable Alexander Blackmore presiding in his role of town squire, cutting ribbons and handing out prizes to a group of children.

In one, the banner behind the podium at which he stood read
Dominion of Canada Day Children’s Poetry Recitation Competition.
Blackmore’s eyes were in shadow, almost invisible, but his mouth was stretched in a wide politician’s smile as he handed out what appeared to be a Bible, or a dictionary, to a small girl in a pinafore, and a boy in plus-fours and a flat cap. In another, he was seated onstage at a Christmas pageant, posing with the boys playing the shepherds and Joseph.

The little girl who was obviously playing the Virgin Mary was seated on his knee. His arm was around the child in a gesture that struck me as oddly intimate and proprietary, especially given the church setting. I frowned. Surely that couldn’t be Rosa playing the Virgin Mary? And, no, it was not: in the next picture, clearly taken on the same night, a young, unsmiling Rosa, perhaps thirteen, posed beside her father. Alexander Blackmore’s hand was clamped on her shoulder. While not actually leaning away from him in the picture, Rosa’s body language suggested tension, even constraint, as though at that moment she would rather be anywhere else than standing next to her father.