Desperate Acts (6 page)

“Is that a sheet of notes I spy before you,
Mr. Dutton?” Sir Peregrine said helpfully.

Andrew Dutton, a retired attorney, glanced up
warily from under his flared brows, gave his trimmed goatee several
nervous strokes, cleared his throat and said, “Not on the topic per
se, Sir Peregrine – just a list of key personages. The memory,
which used to be as sharp as a tack, has begun to lose its edge –
or is it point?”

When, despite an indulgent smile of
encouragement from the chairman, Dutton offered no further
elucidating comment, Sir Peregrine said with a failed attempt at
light-heartedness, “Surely such a topic, so ably and dramatically
represented by the play, should be of interest to a colony that
itself has experienced some sort of minor
coup d’état
?”

“I think that very fact may have occasioned
our unusual reticence,” said Cyrus Crenshaw from his seat at the
far end of the table, facing the chairman. “You see, the wounds
from our recent farmers’ revolt have not had time to heal.”

“Ah, just so,” Sir Peregrine replied – not,
in his almost total ignorance of things colonial, really seeing the
point.

“But perhaps I may move the discussion
forward by saying that in my considered opinion the nub of the
issue concerning tyrannicide is whether the purported tyrant is,
first of all, a tyrant in fact, and then whether or not he is the
legitimate head of state.”

As Brodie had noted in earlier meetings,
Cyrus Crenshaw spoke in a deliberate and overly formal manner, as
if his vocabulary and sentence rhythms had been acquired late in
life and meticulously overlaid. He was the owner of a prospering
candle-factory up on Lot Street and the occupant of a fine house
nearby. A previous lieutenant-governor, Sir John Colborne, had made
him a permanent member of the Legislative Council, the colony’s
so-called Upper House.

“I agree whole-heartedly,” said Horace
Fullarton, sitting beside Brodie. “We must consider the fact that
Caesar crossed the Rubicon and made himself ruler of Rome, using,
of course, the usual excuse of bringing order out of chaos and
preventing civil war.”

Brodie was pleased to see his mentor – a
tall, handsome, nattily dressed man of forty years – join the
discussion with obvious relish. While a natural banker – in his
rectitude, his impeccable manners, and his instinct for making
money – he seemed to have paid a heavy price for his success and
his public standing. Away from the bank and in casual settings,
Brodie found him to have a sense of humour and a personality that
craved company and social interaction. But a lifetime of “minding
his Ps and Qs” had apparently made it difficult for him to “let
go.” His day-to-day existence was further constrained by the fact
that his wife Bernice had been an invalid for ten years and had not
been able to bless him with children. That he treated Brodie like a
son was both understandable, and welcomed.

“And just because he placed a crown on his
own head does not make him a tyrant,” Phineas Burke, the hawk-nosed
stationer said. “We’re given only the conspirators’ opinion of
Caesar. And their motives, Brutus excluded, are suspect, aren’t
they?”

“Very good points,” enthused Sir
Peregrine.

“I wasn’t particularly fond of that Martellus
Timber,” Dutton said.

“And how can we forget that our own rebels,
just two years ago, used the same false reasoning to justify their
actions,” Crenshaw said. “They claimed that Governor Head had
usurped the election of 1836 and had acted arbitrarily against the
express wishes of the Colonial Secretary in London. And they
suggested that the province was drifting into chaos and certain
ruin.”

“But Francis Head was the King’s surrogate
here, was he not?” said Dr. Samuel Pogue, physician and unsolicited
advisor to successive lieutenant-governors. “To threaten him was to
threaten the Crown itself.”

“I shudder to think on it,” Sir Peregrine
added.

“But is the state not something larger than
the monarchy?” Dutton chipped in, his lawyer’s mettle having been
whetted. “Is not Britain bigger than any single king or queen?”

“Surely the monarch
is
the state,” Sir
Peregrine said hastily, alarmed that the discussion was plummeting
from the lofty altar of Bardic idolatry.

“Tell that to King Charles,” said Ezra
Michaels, King Street chemist and staunch supporter of the Orange
Lodge and its obsession with all things monarchical.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. Could we not bring the
debate back to Mr. Shakespeare’s glorious play?”

But the ferret was out of its box.

“Surely we are right to see Cassius as a kind
of Willie Mackenzie, organizing the overthrow of the legitimate
government for his own selfish ends,” Dutton said with some
passion, “and in the process deceiving both ordinary, naïve
citizens and his own associates, like Bidwell and Rolph – and poor,
pathetic Matthews and Lount, whom we hanged for their sins.”

“And who, then, would our Brutus be?”
Fullarton said, giving Brodie a gentle nudge, “Robert Baldwin?”

This drew a laugh that puzzled Shuttleworth
but was well understood by the assembled Tory gentlemen.

Brodie, no Tory, knew that the others around
the table saw Robert as a reluctant rebel who had not exercised his
conscience so much as his sense of self-preservation in not joining
Mackenzie’s revolt. He felt it was time to make his maiden
contribution to the discussion. “Are there, then, no circumstances
in which an oppressed people can legitimately seek to relieve their
grievances by some kind of insurrection?” he said.

Those around the table turned as one to the
nineteen-year-old upstart – more expectant than hostile. How would
the Yankee youngster and prospective banker answer his own
question, given his upbringing in the breakaway republic to the
south?

“You are alluding to the
soi-disant
revolutionary war, I presume?” Sir Peregrine said, lifting both
chins and staring down the table with a watery, blue-eyed gaze.

“If the grievances of the American settlers
had been addressed, perhaps Queen Victoria would still have her
Thirteen Colonies,” Brodie said.

“I take great exception to that remark,”
Cyrus Crenshaw said. “My father, God rest his soul, died a hero’s
death on the bloody battlefield of Moraviantown in a glorious
effort to halt the advance of General Harrison’s Yankee
freebooters, who burned and pillaged as they drove into the heart
of our land.”

The direct relevance of this outburst to the
debate was not readily discernible, but its passionate delivery
overwhelmed any logical inconsistencies. It was not, of course, the
first time that Crenshaw had insinuated his father’s martyrdom into
the club’s deliberations. It was a subject upon which the
candle-maker and legislative councillor was fixated.

“But we survived that war, didn’t we?”
Fullarton said, his banker’s instinct for propriety and equanimity
taking hold. “And we have welcomed into our midst thousands of men
and women from the Republic and made them loyal subjects of the
Queen. And Willie Mackenzie was a disaffected Scot, not a rabid
democrat from the United States.”

“I trust, Cyrus, that you and the Legislative
Council will fight against the pernicious tide of Durham fever?”
Dutton said, unconscious of both his non-sequitur and the mixed
metaphor.

Crenshaw smiled his gratitude for the
question and the opportunity it bestowed. “There will be no union
between our province and the French traitors of Quebec as long as I
am a member of the Council and have a voice to speak for the living
and the dead.” And it was clear that the dead included one
particular hero of the War of 1812.

A chorus of “here-here’s” greeted this bold
proclamation.

“And it should be noted also,” retired
attorney Dutton added when the hubbub had subsided, “that Upper
Canada is very much a place where a humble farmer’s son can rise
though the social ranks and make his mark.” He looked benignly at
Cyrus Crenshaw, inviting assent but drawing from that self-made
candle-maker only a grudging quarter-smile.

Brodie was happy to see the elderly lawyer
enjoying himself, for he had heard from Horace Fullarton the sad
story of the fellow’s life. His first wife, Felicity, the love of
his life, had died tragically three years after their wedding.
Dutton had been almost forty by then, having married late.
Felicity, it seemed, was a fragile and anxious young woman who had
suffered two miscarriages. A decision was taken for the couple to
sail to her home in Scotland, where it was hoped the bracing air
and the comfort of relatives would restore her health. But during a
stopover in Montreal, Felicity caught a fever and died. Dutton
buried her there and came back home to Toronto. Five years later he
married his housekeeper, and then watched in anguish as she
succumbed to puerperal fever. Their son was stillborn.

The discussion continued for another twenty
minutes without once veering close to the originating topic. Almost
everyone had his say and a portion of his neighbour’s as well –
except for Sir Peregrine, who wished he had brought his gavel with
him.

It wasn’t exactly a gavel, but the arrival of
Gillian Budge and Etta Hogg laden with trays of food and drink had
the same effect as one. All serious talk ceased, and the members of
the club moved quickly back across the room to the “lounge” area,
where the women were laying the trolleys there with dozens of
pastries and bottles of white wine. From a large hamper, Etta
removed a decanter of brandy and a box of cigars. The gentlemen
settled in without ceremony, and suffered themselves to be served
by the fairer sex. Several pairs of eyes lingered upon the pleasing
curves of the elder of that gender, but were averted speedily
whenever Gillian swung her own gaze in their direction. Mrs. Budge,
not yet forty, was still a handsome woman – an ageing but
conscientious sprite. However, she brooked no funny business, of
word, deed or glance. That she owned The Sailor’s Arms lock, stock
and barrel (having inherited it from a wise father who had entailed
it to discourage gold-digging suitors) was a fact she was eager to
broadcast, and those who crossed her soon found themselves outside
looking in.

Etta was another matter. Her supple figure,
not yet in full bloom, and her fair-haired allure drew many a
lecherous glance. Moreover, such appreciative attention was usually
greeted with a coquettish swish of pink tresses and a shy smile,
but only when her employer was looking the other way. This evening,
however, Etta appeared pale and distracted, the consequence, Brodie
knew, of her run-in with the blackguard in the taproom and the
violent reaction of Tobias Budge.

When the women had finished and departed, the
men helped themselves to the various pastries, washed them down
with chilled wine, and then moved on to the cigars and brandy,
feeling no doubt the supreme satisfaction of having their
worthiness recognized and indulged. Just as the comfortable buzz of
conversation was winding down and several members were thinking
about trying to rise out of their chairs with some dignity, Sir
Peregrine surprised everyone by calling for their immediate and
solemn attention.

“Gentlemen,” he began, after giving the stub
of his cigar a lubricious lick, “as you know, our theme for next
Wednesday is ‘What does Shakespeare tell us about love in his
incomparable comedy,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
?’ We shall of
course devote the main segment of our meeting to a full discussion
of that question, and I urge you to reread the play and choose
appropriate illustrative excerpts. Thereafter, however, I should
like to devote some quarter-hours to a dramatic reading of
pre-selected passages –
en rôle.
”

This final phrase was delivered with a
daintily trilled French “r” and a delicious shiver of the baronet’s
jowls.

“You mean in role as in
acting
?” said
chemist Michaels.

“In the sense that I am calling for dramatic
projection – of voice and gesture – yes. What I am proposing is
that such a session, where we try out our voices and talents in
various parts from the play, be a prelude to a fully staged
version.”

Seven cigars ceased moving, as if their fiery
ends had been summarily and simultaneously snuffed.

“You’re not talking about putting on a
Shakespeare play?” Dr. Pogue said, aghast. “On a
stage
?”

Sir Peregrine smiled in a way that was both
patronizing and indulgent. “I am, good sirs.”

“But that’s the sort of nonsense Ogden
Frank’s thespians get up to at the Regency – not the sort of thing
a gentleman aspires to,” said Phineas Burke, a grocer’s son turned
stationer and aspiring gentleman.

“I heartily concur,” Sir Peregrine said
smartly. “Mr. Frank allows anyone at all to join his pathetic
little troupe, even ordinary artisans with more schooling than is
good for them.”

“And
women
of every sort,” Michaels
added, feeling he had no need to elaborate.

“But there
are
women’s roles in
Midsummer Night’s Dream
,” Cyrus Crenshaw pointed out,
looking to the baronet for help.

“Indeed there are. And we shall have ladies
to play them.”

“I don’t understand,” Andrew Dutton said.

“Let me expatiate fully, then,” Sir Peregrine
said. “Back in London, Lady Madeleine and I belonged to a
delightful clique of ladies and gentlemen who included among their
amusements and diversions dramatic evenings in which playlets,
pantomimes and tableaux were
de rigueur.
The audience was
composed entirely of personages from our own social class in what I
might term a ‘salon setting.’ We set up a proper stage in a
drawing-room, donned full costume, and
presented.
We were
amateurs in the purest sense, acting out the Bard and lesser lights
for the sheer pleasure of it all and performing solely for the
delectation and warm-hearted approval of our friends and
acquaintances. And let me assure you, the quality of our efforts
was not strained. We rehearsed to a fault, until our work was
faultless.”