Desperate Acts (23 page)

“No, no, of course not. You see, Cobb, when I
was at Harrow, I was often cast in the women’s roles in the plays
and skits we boys put on. No girls available, eh? And when Lady
Madeleine and I took up dramatics as entertainment in our London
residence, I would do the same whenever we were short of female
volunteers. This is the undergarment for my triumphant role as
Beatrice in
Much Ado
.”

“You plannin’ on
re-prizin’
that role
here?”

Sir P. chuckled in the indulgent manner he
had been taught to effect whenever the foibles and fecklessness of
the unlettered classes warranted it. “When I get frustrated, as I
was by the execrable efforts of the Crenshaws out there, I come in
here, dress up like Beatrice and attack the ungrateful world with
her wit.”

“Yer mirror, ya mean?” Cobb said, recalling
that the screech he had heard did not sound like any lines
Shakespeare might have penned.

“My mirror, as you say. Now, sir – ”

“I’m off to fetch my paint,” Cobb said,
backing towards the doorway. “Sorry about bargin’ in on ya.”

Well, Cobb thought as he heard the bedroom
door click resolutely shut behind him, I’ll have something to tell
the major tonight.

***

Marc put his pipe down and said to Cobb, sitting
opposite him in the parlour of Briar Cottage, “So you think that
Sir Peregrine might be a cross-dresser, and that he was willing to
pay Duggan ten pounds a week to keep it from the general
public?”

“It’s possible, ain’t it? I know that the
gentle-tree
don’t fuss overmuch about that sort of behaviour
back in England, but Sir P., as we call him, is tryin’ to be a
somebody out here, startin’ up the Shakespeare Club, holdin’ fancy
balls, an’ suckin’ up to the likes of Bishop Strongarm.”

Marc smiled, “Have you forgotten that I too
am a bona fide member of the gentry?”

“You don’t count. You went Indian a month
after ya got here.”

“Still, you may be right. I suspect it
is
something he would want to keep hidden, if it is
true.”

“But I seen him, major. You wouldn’t believe
the get-up he was in. It’d make a brothel-keeper blush.”

“He offered you a plausible explanation,
though.”

“It was all he could come up with.”

“What I’d like you to do next Tuesday is find
a way to get into his bedroom again. Look in his closets and
drawers. There’s a fair difference between costumes and ordinary
clothing. If he is a cross-dresser, you should find evidence of it
in that room.”

“I can get into that hallway pretty much
anytime I like. I just haveta say I’m fetchin’ more paint.”

“Good. And the sooner the better. The trial
starts in five days.”

“And I got some
other
fair leads,”
Cobb said with some satisfaction.

“Such as?”

“Well, this Dutton fella seems to be
attracted to very young girls. He’s been givin’ Lizzie Wade the
lecher’s eye.”

“But he hasn’t really done anything
improper?”

“Not yet. But I heard Lady Mad, as we call
her, warnin’ the girl about Dutton’s strayin’ hands. An’ that woman
knows all about such things.”

“It’s not a lot to go on – yet.”

“An’ then there’s Fullarton. I think he’s got
his eye on Lady Mad. There’s a lot of friction between them, but
that’s usually a sure sign there’s lust somewhere in the picture.
And I seen the fella limpin’ a bit – she must’ve give him a kick
about a foot lower than she was aimin’. I’m gonna watch both of ‘em
like a hawk.”

“From what you say, there’s plenty of
opportunity for mischief between the acts, as it were. But
remember, I’ll need pretty conclusive evidence.”

“I got that, I’m sure, when it comes to the
Crenshaws.”

“You have?”

“Clemmy Crenshaw is addicted to opium.”

Marc did not seem to be properly surprised at
this revelation. “You’ve seen her taking it?”

“I have indeed. And I seen the glassy eyes
an’ stumblin’ about that it causes.”

“Lots of people in this town take more
laudanum than is good for them.”

“I know. But these Crenshaws are both tryin’
to climb as far up the social ladder as they can. The husband is a
Councillor an’ factory owner, but they’re dyin’ to get in good with
Sir P. an’ the real Family Compacters. Clemmy could scuttle them
hopes if her addiction was known by everybody.”

“Possibly. But if she’s displaying the
effects of the drug openly at Oakwood, the Shuttleworths have
probably guessed already what’s going on. Still, it could be that
Cyrus Crenshaw was willing to pay off Duggan
before
his
wife’s appearance at the manor this week. But somehow it doesn’t
seem enough. Not yet.”

Cobb knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and
said, “Are you gonna tell me what you’re plannin’ to do with all
this dirt if an’ when we get it nailed down?”

“I am, old friend. As soon as it’s credible
enough to take to court. Until then, it’s just a possible line of
defense. But I promise that you’ll be the first person to know if I
decide I can use it.”

“You got any other defense in mind?”

Marc shook his head.

So, Cobb thought, it’s all down to me.

***

On Monday morning a dishevelled Clemmy Crenshaw
arrived at
Smallman’s
shop on King Street between Bay and
Yonge. Rose Halpenny met her at the door to the dressmaking side of
the enterprise, and tried not to look amazed. Clemmy’s ringlettes
had been steamed into place once more but not quite subdued, and
her powdered and bedaubed face seemed to have been made up by a
masochist.

“Don’t worry, missus,” she said to Rose, “I
always look a fright before lunch. You got the costume ready?”

Rose did have Hermia’s costume ready, and
with a curt nod directed Clemmy behind a screen to remove the
ghastly green frock she was wearing. Rose slipped the costume over
the screen, and suggested that Clemmy put it on carefully, as two
or three seams had merely been basted to allow for last-minute
adjustments.

“Ooo – ain’t it lovely!” Clemmy cooed.

Not exactly lovely, Rose thought as she waved
Clemmy towards the nearest beam of sunlight, but it would do.
Designing what was supposed to be little more than a shift and
still render Clemmy a virginal lass of eighteen was one of the
greatest challenges Rose had faced in the two years she had been
working for Beth Edwards. Using what amounted to sleight-of-hand
and misdirection, she had rigged out a sequence of tucks, folds,
drapelets, pleats and ruches in a fine muslin cloth – all
calculated to give the illusion of a slimming, down-flowing
line.

“Good gracious!” Rose barked at the sight
suddenly before her. “You can’t wear your
corsets
under it!
You look like you’ve jammed a chemise over a suit of armour!”

The sharpish lumps and angles, used to girdle
Clemmy’s own lumps and angles, not only spoiled any slimming
effects of the frock, they had succeeded in protruding beyond it in
several places.

“Oh . . . but I couldn’t take my corsets
off!” Clemmy cried, adding acute distress to her general state of
anxiety. “They – they hold me together!”

Rose – who was a talented dressmaker and a
good-hearted soul, but no diplomat – eyed the rents in the costume
where rents were not expected, and replied, “But I spent a dozen
hours making this thing so you
wouldn’t
have to buttress
yourself with whalebone!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know, eh? I
ain’t no mind-reader!” Clemmy’s rejoinder was meant as a reproof to
one she considered to be a member of the labouring class, but
quickly wilted into a whine, and finished up as a sob.

“Now, now, woman, there’s no need to get
upset. Here, I’ll try to remove the costume without ripping it any
further. Then I want you to go back behind the screen, strip down
to your undergarments, slip on the chemise I left for you in there,
and come back out here so I can see if the damage can be
repaired.”

Clemmy felt that the mollifying tone in the
dressmaker’s voice barely outweighed the imperative nature of these
requests, but she acquiesced rather than appear too uppity with the
hired help.

Minutes later, she crept out from behind the
screen with both arms folded across her drooping bosom, and walked
over to the low fitting-stool with mincing little steps in order to
minimize the undulation of her liberated body-parts.

“Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll soon have you
lookin’ like a goddess.” This kind remark came not from Rose but
from her employer. Beth Edwards had just arrived with Charlene and
Maggie in tow.

***

It didn’t take Beth long to work her natural charm
on Clemmy Crenshaw and her “delicate nerves.” While Rose plucked
and pinned and re-pinned the costume, now beginning to “flow” about
the ungainly figure within it, Beth engaged Clemmy is a casual
conversation that included much talk about the proper way to raise
youngsters and keep a busy household afloat, interrupted from time
to time by gurgles of approval from the youngster herself. Having
raised four of her own to thriving adulthood, Clemmy felt she was
able to maintain the high ground in the dialogue, and Beth was not
about to deny her this meagre pleasure.

The upshot was that Rose was soon able to
declare the costume almost fit for public display, and Clemmy did
not recoil from the image of Hermia she was coaxed to view in the
looking-glass held up by Beth.

“With a proper hair-do and a little tiara of
flowers, you’ll do fine,” Beth said with only slight exaggeration.
Now, if the woman could be persuaded not to paint her face with a
mop, there was legitimate hope for her stage debut.

At the door, Beth said that she would bring
the reworked costume to Clemmy’s house for the final fitting at ten
o’clock Tuesday morning. This pleased Clemmy very much. As the
proprietor of a successful business, Beth Edwards was a candidate
for Clemmy’s roster of approved people – even if she did drop the
“g” off her “ings.”

“I’ll have some tea ready, Mrs. Edwards, an’
we can carry on with our chat. Bring little Maggie, if you
like.”

“I’ll need to ask her first,” Beth
smiled.

***

Monday afternoon saw the opening of the Legislature,
a parliamentary session that would one way or another determine the
future of Upper and Lower Canada. The presence of a new governor,
Charles Poulett Thomson (soon to be Lord Sydenham), who had brought
with him not only extraordinary executive powers but a keen mind
and intricate knowledge of the workings of British government, had
stirred the passions of Upper Canadians in ways they thought they
had exhausted. The galleries were packed. Hundreds stood outside in
the chill November wind off the lake, waiting for word on the
contents of the Speech from the Throne.

Inside, after the pomp and ceremony of the
opening protocols, the tall and impressive figure of Governor
Thomson rose to speak in a voice that was deep, authoritative, and
very much vice-regal. In a straightforward manner he discussed the
political impasse and economic stagnation that the fruitless
struggles of the past decade had produced. Then he announced what
everyone present more or less knew: both the Upper and Lower House
– the Council and the Assembly – would be asked to approve the
Union Bill already accepted in principle by the Mother Parliament.
They would be asked to endorse the following: first, the merging of
the two provinces
per se
; second, an equal representation
from each province in each of the two legislative chambers; third,
the granting of a permanent and sufficient civil list (to provide
the executive with a talented, committed and continuing cadre of
civil servants); and fourth, that the provincial debt of Upper
Canada (£75,000) be charged upon the joint revenue of the united
provinces.

Much of the groundwork for the successful
passage of these terms through the Council and Assembly had already
been laid. Governor Thomson had shamelessly appealed to the sense
of loyalty to the Queen that animated the appointed Councillors,
while simultaneously threatening them with the loss of their
lucrative, lifetime sinecures (to be reviewed now by each
successive governor – including the present one). Robert Sullivan,
Baldwin’s cousin and law partner, had worked up an anti-French
speech that, as chairman of the Legislative Council, he planned to
deliver the next day with a nice blend of guile and eloquence.
Meanwhile, the Assembly would move into committee-of-the-whole and
debate the bill clause by clause. Here the deftly orchestrated
scheme of the Governor and the Reformers had borne fruit, for the
dozen or so moderate conservatives they had been importuning had
agreed to vote in favour of union and its terms.

What neither the Governor nor Robert Baldwin
knew, however, was that the murder of a common blackmailer would
soon threaten to bring their carefully constructed strategy
crashing down.

THIRTEEN

An elderly maid with a wall-eye answered the door of
the Crenshaw residence on York Street at five minutes to ten on
Tuesday morning.

“Whaddya want?” she said, intensifying her
natural scowl. “Tradesmen go to the back door!”

Beth smiled as if she had reason to. “I have
an appointment with Mrs. Crenshaw. I have her costume here, an’
she’s invited me to tea.”

The maid squinted at her with her good eye.
“Ah. Then you must be Miz Edwards. I was told to take ya into the
sitting-room.” She stepped aside to let Beth enter the cramped
vestibule. “But you won’t be gettin’ no tea!”

With that cryptic remark the woman turned and
began to trot off down the narrow hallway, her heels sending up
tiny puffs of dust from the carpet. Beth determined that she was to
try and follow – or be left stranded.