“I take it you’re the sleeping librarian,” I said.
“Sounds like the title of a Perry Mason mystery, doesn’t it? I deserve that, I suppose. I’ve had too many late nights — well, no matter. I confess I slept during library hours.”
“Well, I imagine there’s no theft to worry about in the Port Medway Library. I’ll drive right over and make amends.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lattimore. I understand you’re a very private person, so leaving your phone number was appreciated. I’ll file it away for safekeeping.”
“Be there in fifteen minutes.”
Bethany Dawson was about forty and mentioned almost right away that she’d been the Port Medway librarian for eight years. “People have asked my heritage — I mean, look at me, such a mongrel, eh? There’s some Scottish and some Abenaki. In years long past such things happened, eh? That’s how my grandmother put anything to do with ancestors, ‘in years long past.’ With my grandmother you never knew if she meant a decade ago or in Bible times. And I’ve got traces of Dutch. All sorts of people got along well in my past, apparently. Ha-ha!” She had a nice laugh.
“Where were you born and raised?” I asked.
“Born in Anglo Tignish, Prince Edward Island. My mother and father were living there for a few years. But I grew up mostly in Kentville. Up through high school. Then off to study library science in Montreal. Then an early marriage. Then an early end to it. Ha-ha! Then assistant librarian in Bridgewater. Then fed up with Bridgewater. Then searched the job listings and up popped Port Medway. I live right next door to the library here.”
“The house painted robin’s-egg blue. I’ve admired that house.”
“The exterior was painted by yours truly, so thank you.”
Bethany showed me the proper way to borrow a book. There was a brown, leather-bound ledger for that purpose. “The book by Mr. Drury hadn’t been checked out in five years,” she said, “and it was last checked out by Mr. Drury himself. He said he’d given all his personal copies away. Are you interested in the local birds, Mr. Lattimore?”
“Sam, please. I’m hoping to stay in Port Medway a long time, and I’m trying to educate myself a little. I guess I like knowing the names of things.”
“I’m not admiring of people who keep life lists, so called. Reduces the variety in nature to arithmetic. Besides, as Emerson said in an essay, repetition of experience does not necessarily refine understanding. I agree with that.”
“I don’t keep a list of birds. I’m just trying to tell one from another.”
“An owl from a heron,” Bethany said. “Not so difficult, really.”
“I mean one sandpiper from another sandpiper, one sparrow from another sparrow, one warbler from another warbler.”
“I had a seagull drop down my chimney last winter. I was sitting with a hot cocoa in my robe and pajamas and slippers a cozy morning, when all of a sudden in it fell and exploded out the cold ashes. But since I hadn’t yet got to putting new logs on the grate, lucky seagull. Luckier yet, it didn’t get stuck. Gulls are large birds. People don’t always realize that. It took me nearly an hour to chase it out.”
“Well, Bethany, very nice to meet you. I’ll do things correctly next time.”
“Any more questions? About the library, I mean.”
I hesitated, then said, “On the phone you mentioned my being a private person, but how did you come to that conclusion? We’d never met. I hadn’t been in the library before today.”
“I regretted saying that the moment I said it. Naturally, us being on the telephone, I couldn’t see your face, but I somehow knew what I’d said had put you off. Now that you ask, everybody in Port Medway talks about everybody else. Like they say, the mail route’s a gossip route. Besides, we’ve got your first novel on our shelf, and when I heard you’d moved here, I read it, to familiarize, in case someone inquired. Also, we read the newspaper here in Port Medway, and your family tragedy, and the movie, has been…”
“Of course, people are just people.”
“And people talk, and I’m sorry they talk about certain—”
“I’m not well known as a writer, not in the least. It’s everything else that got me in the newspaper.”
“‘I’m not a household name except in my own household, and then only on occasion’—that’s from Robertson Davies, a very fine Canadian novelist. Comical stuff, you probably know it.”
“I’ll return the book on time. Thank you. It was nice talking with you.”
I drove to the little grocery in town and purchased some milk and eggs. On my return, going past the library, I noticed Bethany Dawson standing in the small cemetery out back of the library. She was jotting something in a notebook. I stopped my truck, got out, and walked over to her. “Ah, Sam Lattimore,” she said, “your book’s not overdue yet.”
“Sorry to bother you. I saw you out here and I was just wondering what you were up to.”
“Well, I have a number of occupations. Besides my being the librarian, the Town of Port Medway has hired me to research every single grave in this cemetery. Who’s who, family histories, all like that. I’m filling up notebook after notebook. Next I’ll be doing research on the little cemetery by the wharf. All my employments are within a short distance of my very own house. Which suits me just fine. I’ve actually — this might seem odd — I’ve actually purchased a grave site. Right over there, top left, by the fence. Even if I don’t for some reason stay on as Port Medway librarian, I choose to be buried here.”
“At least you know where you’re heading in life.”
“That’s precisely how I thought of it. But you’re wondering what I’m copying out. It’s the epitaph on this stone here.” She pointed to a very tall, narrow gravestone in front of us. “It’s what scholars in the field call a retribution marker. There’s half a dozen in Nova Scotia, the majority up in Cape Breton.”
“Retribution?”
“Yes, just read what it says.”
In France it was I saved
my brother Donald McMillian’s life,
not vice versa.
It was I carried him
back to the trench.
God as my witness.
— Henry McMillian
“Beautiful language,” I said.
“Beautiful language revealing a big, nasty family secret. And as part of my research, I found out that Henry McMillian — may he rest in peace here — Henry and his older brother, Donald, both served in the same Canadian infantry unit in France during World War I. Their family was close to the Dewis family, who at one time lived in Port Medway but now live in Advocate Harbor, up along the Bay of Fundy. My research took me up to Advocate Harbor. Want to hear what I transcribed from Mrs. Annie Dewis, age eighty-one, up there?”
“Very much.”
We went back inside the library. Bethany Dawson opened a metal cabinet and took out a notebook. She sat at her desk and paged through it until she found the right entry. “Okay,” she said, “this is from Annie Dewis, transcribed from a tape recording. I can’t do her voice justice, but here goes:
Donald McMillian simply couldn’t live down the shame of it. It ate away at him that he’d lied. All those years about it being him who saved his brother Henry’s life. It was Henry, by the way, who suffered the mustard-gas cough, whereas Donald breathed freely. In 1926 Henry McMillian drowned off a lobster boat, gone missing into perpetuity. His marker is down to Port Medway. So his grave is empty, having died at sea. He died angry at his brother, which is awfully sad, to my mind. Some say it was innocent drunken carelessness, the two brothers out in the lobster boat that morning. But those who say that are fools, too much faith in mankind. And you know, folks who have too much faith in mankind, they live everywhere, not just in Nova Scotia.