Man in the Shadows (21 page)

The fate of our land

God hath placed in your hand;

He hath made you to know

The heart of your foe,

And the schemes he hath plann’d

Sir John A. Macdonald sat in the audience, sunning himself, ostensibly enjoying the visiting classics professor’s speech. It was a lovely summer’s day in Kingston, so the lecture was held outside on Queen’s University’s new campus. Half-constructed limestone buildings surrounded them, blossoming with promise. The professor from Oxford University felt trapped in the provincial backwoods and longed for civilization, but Macdonald glowed with pride. Kingston was growing into a sophisticated centre of learning. Maybe, he thought, his constituency could become the Athens of Canada.

Occasionally, the prime minister glanced across the lake to the United States, where the guns had not long ended their fury. There were so many urgent problems today, and this tedious professor droned on and on about problems people had faced long before the birth of Christ. About Sparta. Or was it Crete? About Pericles. Or was it Horodites? Or maybe Herodotus? Macdonald didn’t have the faintest idea. The entire speech was in ancient Greek.

Lady Macdonald, harking back to her classical education, could follow fairly well; still, she occasionally drifted off, unable to keep up with the rhetoric. But Sir John appeared to listen intently. He laughed at some clever witticism and nodded appropriately at a particularly wise observation—not understanding a single word. At the end of the speech, Sir John was one of the first to congratulate the Oxford professor. “Well done, sir,” he said, shaking his hand and quickly retreating before an involved discussion could begin.

The prime minister strolled over to the gathering of newspapermen. “Didn’t you think the professor was brilliant? I particularly admired the bit about the development of Athenian culture. Kind of reminds one of Kingston, don’t you think?” None of the reporters had understood the speech, but each took note of Sir John’s comparison: Kingston, a burgeoning
academic centre comparable to ancient Athens—that could make interesting copy.

As Sir John moved through the crowd, shaking hands and back-slapping, Agnes whispered in his ear. “I didn’t know you understood Greek.”

“I don’t,” he answered. “But I understand politics.”

T
he train rumbled along the track, leaving Montreal behind. Their second-class compartment was luxurious enough, and D’Arcy McGee was content there, but Conor longed for first class. McGee kept his papers securely in front of him as he wrote furiously. He was always writing, as if he felt there wasn’t enough time in the day to get all his thoughts on paper.

McGee stopped working and looked out the window, taking in the small farms and patches of fields passing by. He held on to the paper he had been writing on as the train shook. Conor thought he was contemplating a turn of phrase, or thinking of his family, and was surprised when he asked, “Still no word on the troublemaker?”

“No,” Conor answered, “but it’s been quiet since the election.”

McGee turned his attention back to the window. The farms were getting smaller and the seemingly endless forest was taking over. Conor knew never to bother McGee when he was writing, but he wanted to take advantage of this quiet moment. “You know how you tell me in a debate to put myself in the shoes of the other man? Imagine how he would argue his point, and prepare accordingly?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Even address his arguments before he gets a chance to make them?”

“Anticipatory rebuttal, yes.” McGee was still gazing out the train window.

“Well, I keep trying to guess this man’s actions, anticipate them, but I can’t figure him out.”

“You know his motive. He’s a Fenian. He wants to discredit me.”

“Yes, but the attack at the Mechanics’ Hall—”

“Unrelated. It won’t happen again,” McGee interrupted sternly.

Conor felt McGee was in denial about the attack and its tragic outcome, but he knew he could not say so.

McGee shifted his attention from the window to Conor. “Let me give you the best advice I can offer: look inside your own heart; know yourself first, and then try …” He paused, to make sure he had Conor’s full attention. “Try to understand the heart of your foe.”

Conor considered that for a moment. “But what,” he asked, “if he has no heart?”

D’Arcy McGee was about to say something, but instead went back to work.

CONOR
saw her from a distance as the train sputtered into the station. Meg Trotter waiting for the Montreal train. She was wearing a light-green silk dress, pulled tight at the waist, expanding to a wide hoop at the ankles. And it was cut a little lower at the neck than anything he’d seen her in before. He rushed down the train steps toward her, but he didn’t dare give her a hug in public. He held back awkwardly. She laughed, reached out and kissed him. “Stop being so proper,” she teased.

Conor realized he had left D’Arcy McGee behind and went back to help him down the steps to the platform. McGee feigned astonishment when he saw Meg. “You didn’t inform me of this,” he said. Conor smiled bashfully. McGee added, “But of course, I knew.”

Conor and Meg walked arm in arm to her mother’s boarding house. McGee kept pace; he was walking better, but still depending on his cane. “So what am I to think?” McGee asked, sounding amused but strangely parental.

“Whatever you like,” Meg responded. “Mr. McGee, you will have your regular room, and, Conor, you can move in with Will.”

“That’s a relief,” D’Arcy McGee said under his breath.

Conor loved how playful she could be with McGee. And how she seemed to tame him.

Conor had agonized over this reunion. Would they feel awkward in each other’s presence? Would Meg finally see him as he was: callow and unworthy? Was this a passing infatuation for her? A flirtation? But she seemed as happy to see him as he was to see her. He touched her hair, that wild mass of black curls. He felt at home. Almost at home. Walking along Sparks Street toward the Toronto House, Conor was painfully aware that he had turned his back on his own neighbourhood and his father’s tiny basement flat in Lowertown.

THE
Toronto House was not the preferred Ottawa address, but D’Arcy McGee had started staying with Mary Ann Trotter when he quit drinking because she limited the liquor on the premises. He also loved the spirited conversation at her dinner table and her inquiring mind.

Tonight, McGee was the only guest at dinner. Hector Langevin had led a group of Quebec politicians to George-Étienne Cartier’s house around the corner on Maria Street. A few junior members of Parliament had just said their goodbyes and were probably already ensconced in the Russell’s bar, hoping to be seen and heard.

As always, Mrs. Trotter was full of questions. She wanted to know chapter and verse about the Montreal election. McGee edited
out much of the detail, saying barely a word about Jolicoeur’s or the Mechanics’ Hall incident. Meg pushed for information, and he admitted a man had been killed. “But after we had left,” Conor clarified.

Will added his share of meaningless information. He was still quite fascinated with this game of base ball; Conor wasn’t. Meg talked about the latest series of essays she had read by Ralph Emerson. “Do you know he studies Buddhist and Hindu religions?” Conor didn’t, and he didn’t much care. He just wanted the everlasting meal to end so he could be alone with Meg.

After dinner, McGee retired to his room to read and Conor offered to help Meg and her mother with the dishes. Anything to hurry them along. When they could finally steal a moment, Conor said, loudly enough for her mother to hear, “Meg, would you like to go for a walk? The stars should be spectacular tonight.” He didn’t want to be accused of an impropriety.

As they walked along Sparks Street, she took Conor’s arm. “About a month ago, the Offord House shut down,” Meg said. “Mother simply runs a better hotel. I think we are starting to do quite well.” Without discussing where they were going, they turned toward the river.

Conor noticed that Meg often looked over her shoulder.

“I remember you from when I was a younger, you know,” he said. “But I didn’t think you ever saw me.”

“I saw you, always with your face in a book. Afraid to look up.”

“Winters in the lumber camps can make you rather shy, especially with someone much more worldly.”

Worldly? In Ottawa? The thought made her laugh. And she added, “Conor, you don’t sound like the other Irish boys, or people from up the valley. How did you lose your accent?”

“Work, practice and more practice.” Then he broke into a lumberjack’s sing-song speech: “I’ll be goin’ up the line this winter. I knows the pay is to be good, by jeezes.”

“Is that why you were so quiet? You didn’t want to sound like that?”

“I never wanted to sound like that. And I guess I just wasn’t ready to talk.”

They passed the East Block and continued west along the path on the river’s ridge. Lovers’ Walk. There were still scatterings of logs left in the water from the spring and summer log drive. Meg shivered, imagining the work the loggers did and, not for the first time, thinking that Conor had never really had a childhood.

“Tell me about the logging camps,” she urged softly.

“What’s there to tell? My father kept me away from the dangerous work, and I learned how to cook and wash the dishes. A skill I employed tonight, you might have noticed.”

She smiled. He hated to talk about his youth.

“My main memory is smoke and sweat and darkness. I’m not really complaining, because I wasn’t outside felling trees in the freezing cold. But the camboose was its own kind of hell.”

“Camboose?”

“The men lived in shanties, in lines of bunks, surrounding an inside cooking fire. That was the camboose—a square of logs where we cooked. The only ventilation was the hole in the roof where some of the smoke went. The cooks and I manned the kettles and pots and kept the fire going.” He left the nickname he hated out of his description. “It was a world of extremes, frigid outside and swelteringly hot inside. I worked in a pit of dried sweat, boiling pots and choking smoke. That’s what I remember.”

There was someone following them. She sensed it. But he hadn’t noticed. “Did you learn how to shoot a gun?” she asked, trying to hide the fear in her voice.

“Sure. The cooks and I would go out and hunt for rabbits, grouse, any creature stupid enough to come nearby and tasty enough to add to a soup.”

She took another look over her shoulder.

Meg had decided not to tell Conor that she had been threatened, or “warned,” by the Orange gang. He might want to retaliate. She didn’t want to start a spiral of futile violence. But she did want protection.

“Will you teach me?” she asked. She took another look over her shoulder. “Will you teach me to shoot?”

“WILL
you teach me to shoot?”

That night, Conor couldn’t get Meg’s words out of his mind. He had answered, “Yes, I guess,” but he hadn’t meant it. He was proficient with a rifle. He had learned from loggers who would throw an axe at a hapless squirrel just for fun and thought nothing of gunning down an angry bear. As a cook’s assistant, he had been relegated to chasing down smaller animals, and he actually became a very good shot. He just didn’t like it. He took no delight in killing and saw no sport in the hunt. Some men felt power when they held a gun; Conor felt afraid of the weapon’s power. And anyway, women shouldn’t be firing guns. What was Meg asking this for?

He had let the matter drop, but something had happened to make her skittish. Right after the shooting remark, she asked him to walk her home. She held on to his hand tightly, almost desperately. When they entered the house, she said simply, “I’m sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And rushed to her room.

“Will you teach me to shoot?” It went against everything she stood for. He didn’t fully understand her talk of humanism and transcendentalism, but he knew it didn’t involve guns and shooting. She was scared. Why? He fell asleep wondering.

THE
news from Kingston shocked Sir John A. Macdonald. If he paid more attention to his finances, maybe he wouldn’t have been surprised, but that was never his style. He went from day to day, expecting the sun to shine. If it didn’t, he blamed the Opposition.

There was no sun shining on his bank account. The Commercial Bank of Canada had collapsed, leaving hundreds of people in dire financial straits. No one was affected more than the prime minister. The Kingston-based bank was his law practice’s main client. Although he had long ago let his practice fritter away, he was still one of the bank’s directors. Now he was $80,000 in debt. He would have to borrow to pay his bills that month. His only income was his salary as prime minister, and he wasn’t certain that would last for long.

The prime minister of Canada was nearly bankrupt. And he was drunk. He sat in his upstairs study, his head covering a mass of bills and correspondence, murmuring despair about life, money and politics. He would have to pull himself together for the next session of Parliament. But not yet. Blindly, he reached for the bottle and knocked it over.

Agnes heard the noise and peered into the office. She called these episodes his “attacks” or said that he “disappeared into the shadows.” It sounded romantic. Like Coleridge or Byron. But she hated these attacks; she dreaded the shadows. She stood at the doorway for a second, looking in on him sadly. She closed the door, said a quiet prayer and left him alone with his shattered bottle, his fears and his demons.

THE
man named Marshall handed Jim Whelan another drink. A thick liquid in a small glass. Whelan gagged at the taste of it, but it made him light-headed. “What is this?” he asked.

“Think of it as a chaser to go with the whisky.”

“It’s that, to be sure,” Whelan giggled. He was having fun, even though there was something strange about Marshall. He was quiet and sullen, but he knew how to show him a good time in the burlesque theatres and back rooms on Clarence Street. Whelan didn’t really miss his wife in Montreal; in fact, it was nice to be away from her stern and sober ways. He was having a great time in Ottawa and making pretty good money. Marshall was actually his best customer, asking him to make up a variety of different jackets and waistcoats.