Chapter 61
I write this as I am safe and ken I will arrive safe into this goodly life. But it is the Lord’s truthe that I was unsure as I climbed the bow rail and stared at the perfect darkness below. I heard Sister Constance’s voice above the others. She was not afraid, and she did not wail as the others.
Gun sàbhail an dorchadas thu
May darkness save you. It was a prayer we whispered to each other before we slept on the straw floor of the cottage in the Loch.
They were words of comfort that only a true sister would know.
I felt my heart light as I threw myself from the ship and met the water below.
I thought to join my Rory in the world to come, but our Lord had more plans for me.
My Rory waits; time is not for him as it is for us, and we will be joined when my time is done.
I have much work to do before that, and it is my honour as a woman of our Lord to serve him and my saviours.
It is in this manner that I find myself at Bell Manor.
I was bound to bed as the black flesh on my toes and feet healed and the rat bites were treated with salve.
The goodly doctor tells me it will heal most thoroughly with time, though I will not walk without challenge.
Every step is as though I am a wee bairn learning to walk anew and I thank our Lord for the gift.
As I write this I am healed so much that I am serving in what is called Bell Manor.
The Duchess Dewitt is teaching me the ways of this house.
At night, I sometimes sit with the infant children of the house staff in the nursery.
The staff of this great manor are treated with great regard, and I have not seen the like in my life.
The Lady Bell, as she prefers to be addressed, has no children of her own, and has taken me as daughter, even though I am but grown and a mother myself.
We spend quiet evenings together in front of her grand fireplace.
In the day, I work with the staff, learning the ways of Bell Manor and the business of life in this place.
She thinks to leave the running of this grand place to me one day as her heir, a privilege I will endeavor to perform in honour of my lady, my newfound mother, as well as those I left behind in my winding path to this place.
I thank our Lord for sending me to this garden of Heaven that he carved out on this earth for us lost souls.
It has been a year since the moonless night.
Since then a girl hath arrived from Andover.
She was hidden away on the ship with the good Lady Bell’s wings to hide and protect her from the night.
She was accused of bewitching a neighbor’s swine; she whispered to me that she was set to burn when men arrived to the Andover jail in the dead of night.
I am teaching her letters and writing so that she might write her story as I write mine.
Bell Island harbours a great many who have run from the horrors of the world.
The colored cook jumped from a slaver ship and managed to survive the sea, much as I did.
She was found half dead on the rocks outside of Outer Brewster and instead of ferrying her to her fate in Boston or leaving her to die, the men took her to Bell Island.
She whispered her story to me as I helped to knead dough in the kitchen.
She lives a life outside of slavery here.
We are just some of a growing number. A village is forming in the valley below the manor.
The people who make up its numbers are sent here by our Lord so that we might live a more free existence.
The journal ended, the ink faded and erratic, but the memories alive in Harper’s mind. She closed the journal and reverentially placed it back in the case. With a deep breath, she pulled the historian’s account near.
The aftermath of The Mary Clarence and Ewin Taine’s trials hold that Captain Cedric Caseling, all the sailors on deck that evening, as well as all the women present witnessed Ewin Taine throw Meg MacGruer from the bow of the ship.
It would be this most heinous crime that would shock and disgust the Boston courts.
The stabbing of a sailor could be overlooked.
There was often violence and disruption on the docks and at sea.
But the death of a young woman, who had been so tormented and mistreated, tipped the scales away from Ewin Taine.
Taine was hung in Boston Neck on 15 December 1690.
He was charged with the murder of Liam Kelly and Meg MacGruer, as well as Blasphemy in regard to his plural marriage and mistreatment of his many wives.
His wives were given lodging at The Temporary Home for Women and Children.
As 1691 began, their fate is somewhat unknown.
Only that of Constance Taine is mentioned, as she is last seen boarding a ship with her young daughter heading beyond The Graves to the island of New Kinross, a remote and difficult-to-access settlement that was largely left to its own devices by the Boston province.
In 1755, the Lady Loreana Dewitt neé Bell, and better known by her title Lady Loreana Bell, passed from old age and natural causes.
Bell Island had been under the control of her daughter for decades at the time of her death.
By all accounts, Lady Bell, who shared her mother’s grand name, was a fair and kind leader.
It was under her eye that much of the rich history of Bell Island began to grow and the isle beyond the mists began to take on a mystical quality.
She would see many other arrivals to Bell Island in her time, some were other young girls pulled in the nick of time from a hanging fate.
Some were escaped slaves who hid away in ships, or in the case of the cook mentioned in Meg’s account, a woman named Caroline Kimani, survivors of what should have been a watery grave.
It is on this note that the historical account of Meg MacGruer and her journey to Bell Island is concluded.
There are a great many other stories of those who have arrived to Bell Island under mysterious circumstances.
In more modern times, Bell Island remains isolated from the mainland, and the descendants of these brave travelers are content with their isolation.
Generations have been born and raised on Bell Island.
As it will continue to be, Bell Island will remain a place where, in Meg’s own words, one “might live a more free existence.”