On the Head of a Pin (18 page)

“Nabby can't. She's not strong enough. And she's even more delicate now. She can't go flaunting herself around town with a babe on the way. I won't allow it.” Will's face reddened a little at this — the news that they were expecting a child.

“An expectant mother should retire until after the blessed event,” Nabby added. “It's not seemly to go out in company in this state.”

This was such utter nonsense that Lewis again was at a loss for words, but it also reflected something he was beginning to encounter on his long rounds — this idea that the natural processes that women went through were somehow shameful and should be kept from public view, as though no one wanted to admit where children came from in spite of the fact that they all arrived the same way. It went hand in hand with the notion of keeping women at home by the hearth, as though they were not partners in a marriage, but possessions, admired for their ability to produce children — but only after the fact, when the babes were safely delivered, never during or, strike even the thought of it, at the beginning of the process.

If only Sarah were here, he thought. She would have lit into her brother, booted her sister-in-law into action, and given them both a piece of her mind. He admired Betsy's forbearance, for he could see that she was ready to explode but knew she shouldn't and couldn't, for it would only make matters worse.

“I see,” he said finally. “Very well. Something else will have to be done, then, won't it? Right now the most important thing is to put money back into stock, and that means that you're going to have to live on whatever the farm produced last season until the new crops come in. And I suggest that someone see to the chickens, if they haven't all been picked off by hawks and weasels.”

“But I need new clothes,” Nabby said. “I don't fit into my old ones anymore. And I need things for the baby, too. And what about Martha? She's growing so fast, she grows right out of her things. Why I had to throw away her Sunday dress just last week.”

Lewis came very close to losing his temper then, but managed to say only, “Well, you'll have to cut up your old dresses and sew them into something that will do for Martha and the infant as well. And if you have to spend the next few months in a grain sack, then that's your look out. If there's any money at all, it goes to the farm.”

Will's face was a thunderous cloud. “I don't see why we have to live like paupers.”

“You're not exactly paupers, Will. This farm was producing enough to feed a family when I leased it, and it's no fault of mine that it doesn't anymore. No more expenditures until you set your house in order, do you understand?”

Will stormed out the door, Betsy looked dubious, and Martha started to cry. But it was Nabby's reaction that flummoxed him. She sat at her needlework placidly, looking for all the world as though none of the discussion had anything to do with her.

II

T
he Old Waterloo Circuit included not only villages like Portland and Camden, but the town of Kingston as well. Though he was often occupied in the smaller villages for weeks, Lewis could catch up on the latest news as soon as he returned to the large town with its bustling market and busy harbour, overlooked by the grey limestone walls of Fort Henry.

His estimation of the lawyer Macdonald went up when he learned that he had somehow arranged for the repatriation of a number of the American Hunters, most of them no more than lads who had got caught up in the excitement without any real understanding of the conse–quences. Many of the rest were sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen's Land, and Lewis reflected that between Mackenzie's rebellion and this last incident, that faraway place must be positively teeming with Upper Canadians and close to overflowing with felons and rebels.

As expected, the leader, Von Schultz, and those officers who could be credited with authority were condemned to be hanged. Lewis inquired at the gates of the fort as to whether any of them required the ministrations of a Methodist preacher, but he was turned brusquely away. He looked in vain for the officer who had so obligingly signed the papers excusing him from militia duty, but he was nowhere in sight. Not surprising, he supposed, as soldiers were moved around so much.

It seemed that the people of Kingston had only just got over the excitement of imprisoning these notorious criminals when they were stirred up again by the report issued by Lord Durham, the man sent to find a solution to Britain's colonial problems. To everyone's surprise and astonishment, he laid the blame for the unrest squarely on the shoulders of the government, particularly noting the roles played by Sir Francis Bond Head and the Family Compact cronies who dominated the Executive Council of Upper Canada.

“It appears as if the rebellion had been purposely invited by the Government which then severely punished the unfortunate men who were deliberately trapped into taking part in it,” he wrote.

His recommendations were astounding. “Combine the two colonies, Upper and Lower Canada, give them a reasonable government and let them get on with it,” was the concise summation of the report, as pronounced by the stonemason with whom Lewis stayed when he was in Kingston. “Doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me, provided we can keep the Pope out of our affairs.”

This was the one drawback to the whole scheme, as far as anyone could see — all those Catholics in the lower colony against all the good Protestants in the upper. But the English speakers of Quebec combined with the English speakers in Upper Canada were enough to outnumber those who claimed French as a mother tongue, and Durham seemed to think that they would all be assimilated in time anyway. He speculated that eventually the French in Quebec would be indistinguishable, in either language or religion, from the rest of the population. Lewis wasn't so sure. His own church was meant to have been assimilated by the Wesleyans, but the forced marriage was teetering on the brink of annulment, and Methodists like himself stayed staunchly Episcopal. Change didn't happen easily, just because someone wished for it.

Generally, though, people warmed to the idea of turning two colonies into one, especially when it was revealed that, in spite of the disparity in numbers, there would be an equal representation for each — a decision that could well work to Upper Canada's advantage. Lewis began to hear the phrase “responsible government” bandied about in almost every conversation.

There was even some talk that Kingston itself might become the capital of the newly fledged union of Canada East and Canada West. The young queen would have the final say, of course, but with its new penitentiary and its strategic location at the southern end of the Rideau Canal, the city stood a good chance of being considered for the honour. There was even some speculation that the Presbyterians might realize their long-held dream of establishing a university. All that was needed was for the Queen to grant the charter.

Thaddeus wasn't surprised that the Presbyterians were campaigning. The Methodists already had their own academy at Cobourg. The Anglicans had established their institution at Toronto, close to the current seat of colonial government. They paid little attention to the older city at the eastern end of the lake. If Kingston were to become the capital, though, there would be a scramble to re-establish themselves closer to the centre of power, and then the Presbyterians could probably say farewell to their charter, for the Church of England would insist that its hegemony be upheld.

There were some who protested that Kingston was too small and too lacking in the necessary amenities needed for a capital, and that its southerly location made it vulnerable to attack. The recent events at Prescott had made the last a valid argument, although the same reasoning could well be applied to Toronto.

Still, there was an excitement about the place, and generally its inhabitants looked forward to the future with more optimism than they had felt in a long time. All they needed now was a period of peace, a reasonable harvest, and a steady influx of immigrants to help the city grow.

Lewis enjoyed this circuit. Although Kingston boasted a variety of churches, his rounds included the settlements east to Adolphustown, an area that included the first Canadian Methodist house of worship. The old church at Hay Bay, built with love and hoarded pennies by the first Loyalist settlers, appealed to his sense of what a meeting place should look like — plain, austere, nothing expended on unnecessary ornamentation — just a wooden building housing a people determined to worship God in their own way. He felt privileged to follow in the footsteps of William Losee, who had battled the elements and a broken heart to bring the Word of God to a people cast into the wilderness.

Losee was the first itinerant minister to leave the more settled Methodist circuits of the United States. He had arrived at the Bay of Quinte in 1790, galloping from place to place, setting a blistering pace for himself, seemingly indefatigable in spite of the fact that a childhood accident had left him with a withered, useless arm. “Oh, God, I call upon you to smite sinners,” was his cry, and often the sinners in question would fall to the ground, or so it was reported. Lewis wished it were that simple, that all he had to do was ask, and the terrible crimes and sinful passions of Upper Canada could be corrected at a word.

Losee was soon followed by others of his ilk. Their willingness to leave the settled areas for the lonely and isolated cabins and shanties of the clearings spread Methodism in a way that could not be countered by the faiths whose proponents preferred the comforts of a warm fire and a stout roof over their heads. Losee's success was also his downfall, however. He fell in love with a local woman who not only rejected him as a suitor, but chose instead a more popular and far handsomer fellow preacher who had followed him into the wilds. He gave up his travels then, and went home a broken man, never even having been fully ordained as an elder in his church. The travelling connection took its toll, Lewis reflected, one way or another.

Kingston enjoyed a lively farmer's market in the centre of town. “The Shambles,” as it was called, consisted of a series of wooden sheds, built to provide at least a modicum of shelter to the farmers who brought their goods in to supply the townsfolk. These shelters were flimsy affairs and a constant fire hazard. In fact, they had burned down twice already, but each time they were hastily thrown up again and The Shambles quickly returned to being a place of diverse scents and sounds as farmers' wives hawked fresh eggs and vegetables, Natives brought their beautifully woven baskets to sell, and everything from fish to joints of beef were displayed at the stalls for passing buyers to pick over. There was some talk of building a new, more lugubrious marketplace along with a new town hall, but so far it was only talk, and the farmers were against the notion anyway.

“So where am I supposed to sell my pork while they're buildin' their fancy new meetin' hall?” one farmer commented. “Typical, ain't it? The last thing they ever think of is what happens to the regular folk.”

Lewis thought the man might be forgiven for holding this point of view, given the total lack of consideration displayed by the powers-that-be over the years. He could only hope that things would change now that the colony had been re-invented as the exalted-sounding “Province of Canada.”

The market also served as a sanctuary of sorts for a number of transients and rogues. Although the local constabulary attempted to rout them out every night, there were many desperate men, women, and sometimes even children who would find a night's shelter amongst the crates and boxes that were left piled up beside the sheds. These people had been blamed for the previous fires —with good reason. They built small campfires after the sun went down, and in the attempt to shelter these from the eyes of the prying constables, they built them in out-of-the-way places, far too close to the piles of flammable material that surrounded them.

When he was in Kingston, Lewis often poked around the market in the evening, on the lookout for the sick, the hungry, and the spiritually bankrupt. It was only in this last area that he felt he was of much help; he could sometimes find aid for the ill, especially if they were children, and some members of the local Methodist Society might be persuaded to provide food for the truly starving, but there was little or no organized charity for the anonymous beings who had fallen on such hard times. Lewis found it difficult to talk to them about the state of their souls when he knew how cold and hungry they were, but occasionally he ran across a derelict who had drunk his way to a pitiful condition and wanted to turn over a new leaf.

It was a cold, raw December afternoon and Lewis could smell the snow that promised to fall that evening. There were few people in The Shambles. The farmers and their families had packed up early and gone home — it was too cold for customers to linger over their purchases and the farmers had no wish to stand all day for no return. As Lewis walked through the market, shifting crates and lifting boxes, he realized that there were very few of the other kind of regular inhabitants either. With any luck, they had all found warmer places to sleep on so cold a night.

As he turned to retrace his steps, Lewis heard a faint scuffling sound behind one of the empty crates. He assumed it was a rat — they were common enough in a place where foodstuffs were so easy to snatch — and continued walking until a nagging voice inside his head told him to go back. What if it wasn't a rodent but a small child? Or a woman, or a drunk, curled up behind a box and in danger of freezing to death? He turned around and approached the crate warily. He shoved it aside and found, not an animal, as he expected, but a dirty and unshaven man, his clothes tattered rags, his face sunken.

It was Francis Renwell!

“You!” Lewis bellowed, feeling an unreasonable rage come over him.
This man, this beast, had taken Sarah from him.
Suddenly Lewis was certain that he had done more than that. Renwell had been close enough to commit the other murders, as well, hadn't he? Having tasted blood, his appetite must have grown for it. Lewis didn't stop to consider any of the other details that had puzzled him so. He was convinced that it had to have been Renwell. How many other young women had he killed? How many other families had he ripped apart?