The Imperialist (5 page)

“I
am requested to announce,” said Dr. Drummond after the singing of the last hymn, “the death, yesterday morning, of James Archibald Ramsay, for fifteen years an adherent and for twenty-five years a member of this church. The funeral will take place from the residence of the deceased, on Court House Street, to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock. Friends and acquaintances are respectfully – invited – to attend.”

The minister’s voice changed with the character of its affairs. Still vibrating with the delivery of his sermon, it was now charged with the official business of the interment. In its inflections it expressed both elegy and eulogy; and in the brief pause before and after “invited” and the fall of “attend” there was the last word of comment upon the mortal term. A crispation of interest passed over the congregation; every chin was raised. Dr. Drummond’s voice had a wonderful claiming power, but he often said he wished his congregation would pay as undivided attention to the sermon as they did to the announcements.

“The usual weekly prayer meeting will be held in the basement of the church on Wednesday evening.” Then almost in a tone of colloquy, and with just a hint of satire about his long upper lip –

“I should be glad to see a better attendance of the young people at these gatherings. Time was when the prayer meeting counted among our young men and women as an occasion not to be lightly passed over. In these days it would seem that there is too much business to be done, or too much pleasure to be enjoyed, for the oncoming generation to remember their weekly engagement with the Lord. This is not as it should be; and I rely upon the fathers and mothers of this congregation, who brought these children in their arms to the baptismal font, there to be admitted to the good hopes and great privileges of the Church of God – I rely upon them to see that there shall be no departure from the good old rule, and that time is found for the weekly prayer meeting.”

Mrs. Murchison nudged Stella, who returned the attention, looking elaborately uninterested, with her foot. Alec and Oliver smiled consciously; their father, with an expression of severe gravity, backed up the minister, who, after an instant’s pause, continued –

“On Tuesday afternoon next, God willing, I shall visit the following families in the East Ward – Mr. Peterson, Mr. Macormack, Mrs. Samuel Smith, and Mr. John Flint. On Thursday afternoon in the South Ward, Mrs. Reid, Mr. P.C. Cameron, and Mr. Murchison. We will close by singing the Third Doxology:

The congregation trooped out; the Murchisons walked home in a clan, Mr. and Mrs. Murchison, with Stella skirting the edge of the side-walk beside them, the two young men behind. Abby, when she married Harry, had “gone over” to the Church of England. The wife must worship with the husband; even Dr. Drummond recognised the necessity, though he professed small opinion of the sway of the spouse who, with Presbyterian traditions behind her, could not achieve union the other way about; and Abby’s sanctioned defection was a matter of rather shamefaced reference by her family. Advena and Lorne had fallen into the degenerate modern habit of preferring the evening service.

“So we’re to have the Doctor on Thursday,” said Mrs. Murchison, plainly not displeased. “Well, I hope the dining-room carpet will be down.”

“I expect he’ll be wanting his tea,” replied Mr. Murchison. “He’s got you in the right place on the list for that, mother – as usual.”

“I’d just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea the day he was coming to our house,” declared Stella. “But he
generally
has too much sense.”

“You boys,” said Mrs. Murchison, turning back to her sons, “will see that you’re on hand that evening. And I hope the Doctor will rub it in about the prayer meeting.” Mrs. Murchison chuckled. “I saw it went home to both of you, and well it might. Yes; I think I may as well expect him to tea. He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it myself.”

“We’ll get Abby over,” said Mr. Murchison. “That’ll please the Doctor.”

“I must say,” remarked Stella, “he seems to think a lot more of Abby now that she’s Mrs. Episcopal Johnson.”

“Yes, Abby and Harry must come,” said Mrs. Murchison, “and I was thinking of inviting Mr. and Mrs. Horace Williams. We’ve been there till I’m ashamed to look them in the face. And I’ve pretty well decided,” she added autocratically, “to have chicken salad. So if Dr. Drummond has made up his mouth for scalloped oysters he’ll be disappointed.”

“Mother,” announced Stella, “I’m perfectly certain you’ll have both.”

“I’ll consider it,” replied her mother. “Meanwhile we would be better employed in thinking of what we have been hearing. That’s the third sermon from the Book of Job in six weeks. I must say, with the whole of the two Testaments to select from, I don’t see why the Doctor should be so taken up with Job.”

Stella was vindicated; Mrs. Murchison did have both. The chicken salad gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked delicious at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena was entrusted with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had never yet had a successor that was any hand with company. Mrs. Murchison had enough to do to pour out the tea. It was a table to do anybody credit, with its glossy damask and the old-fashioned silver and best china that Mrs. Murchison had brought as a bride to her housekeeping – for, thank goodness, her mother had known what was what in such matters – a generous attractive table that you took some satisfaction in looking at. Mrs. Murchison came of a family of noted housekeepers; where she got her charm I don’t know. Six o’clock tea, and that the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, and a good enough rule for Mrs. Murchison, who had no patience
with the innovation of a late dinner recently adopted by some people who could keep neither their servants nor their digestions in consequence. It had been a crisp October day; as Mr. Murchison remarked, the fall evenings were beginning to draw in early; everybody was glad of the fire in the grate and the closed curtains. Dr. Drummond had come about five, and the inquiries and comments upon family matters that the occasion made incumbent had been briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the pastoral visit and the practical interest that relieved it. And he had thought, on the whole, that he might manage to stay to tea, at which Mrs. Murchison’s eyes twinkled as she said affectionately –

“Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off.”

Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr. and Mrs. Williams, just a trifle late for etiquette, but well knowing that it mustn’t be enough to spoil the biscuits. Dr. Drummond, in the place of honour, had asked the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semi-official character of the occasion having been delivered, was in the best of humours. The Murchisons were not far wrong in the happy divination that he liked coming to their house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he expanded in its humour, its irregularity, its sense of temperament. They were doubtful allurements, from the point of view of a minister of the Gospel, but it would not occur to Dr. Drummond to analyse them. So far as he was aware, John Murchison was just a decent, prosperous Christian man, on whose word and will you might depend, and Mrs. Murchison a stirring, independent little woman, who could be very good company when she felt inclined. As to their sons and daughters, in so far as they were a credit, he was as proud of them as their parents could possibly be, regarding himself as in a much higher degree responsible for the formation of their characters
and the promise of their talents. And indeed, since every one of them had “sat under” Dr. Drummond from the day he or she was capable of sitting under anybody, Mr. and Mrs. Murchison would have been the last to dispute this. It was not one of those houses where a pastor could always be sure of leaving some spiritual benefit behind; but then he came away himself with a pleasant sense of nervous stimulus which was apt to take his mind off the matter. It is not given to all of us to receive or to extend the communion of the saints; Mr. and Mrs. Murchison were indubitably of the elect, but he was singularly close-mouthed about it, and she had an extraordinary way of seeing the humorous side – altogether it was paralysing, and the conversation would wonderfully soon slip round to some robust secular subject, public or domestic. I have mentioned Dr. Drummond’s long upper lip; all sorts of racial virtues resided there, but his mouth was also wide and much frequented by a critical, humorous, philosophical smile which revealed a view of life at once kindly and trenchant. His shrewd grey eyes were encased in wrinkles, and when he laughed his hearty laugh they almost disappeared in a merry line. He had a fund of Scotch stories, and one or two he was very fond of, at the expense of the Methodists, that were known up and down the Dominion, and nobody enjoyed them more than he did himself. He had once worn his hair in a high curl on his scholarly forehead, and a silvering tuft remained brushed upright; he took the old-fashioned precaution of putting cotton wool in his ears, which gave him more than ever the look of something highly-concentrated and conserved but in no way detracted from his dignity. St. Andrew’s folk accused him of vanity because of the diamond he wore on his little finger. He was by no means handsome, but he was intensely individual; perhaps he had vanity; his people would have forgiven him
worse things. And at Mrs. Murchison’s tea party he was certainly, as John Murchison afterwards said, “in fine feather.”

An absorbing topic held them, a local topic, a topic in volving loss and crime and reprisals. The Federal Bank had sustained a robbery of five thousand dollars, and in the course of a few days had placed their cashier under arrest for suspected complicity. Their cashier was Walter Ormiston, the only son of old Squire Ormiston, of Moneida Reservation, ten miles out of Elgin, who had administered the affairs of the Indians there for more years than the Federal Bank had existed. Mr. Williams brought the latest news, as was to be expected; news flowed in rivulets to Mr. Williams all day long; he paid for it, dealt in it, could spread or suppress it.

“They’ve admitted the bail,” Mr. Williams announced, with an air of self-surveillance. Rawlins had brought the intelligence in too late for the current issue, and Mr. Williams was divided between his human desire to communicate and his journalistic sense that the item would be the main feature of the next afternoon’s
Express
.

“I’m glad of that. I’m glad of that,” repeated Dr. Drummond. “Thank you, Mrs. Murchison, I’ll send my cup. And did you learn, Williams, for what amount?”

Mr. Williams ran his hand through his hair in the effort to remember, and decided that he might as well let it all go. The
Mercury
couldn’t fail to get it by to-morrow anyhow.

“Three thousand,” he said; “Milburn and Dr. Henry Johnson.”

“I thought Father was bound to be in it,” remarked Dr. Harry.

“Half and half?” asked John Murchison.

“No,” contributed Mrs. Williams. “Mr. Milburn two and Dr. Henry one. Mr. Milburn is Walter’s uncle, you know.”

Mr. Williams fastened an outraged glance on his wife, who looked another way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it was absolutely understood that she was to reveal nothing of what “came in,” and was even carefully to conserve anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it in. Mrs. Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the matter of letting news slip prematurely; and as to its capture, her husband would often confess, with private humour, that Minnie wasn’t much of a mouser.

“Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” said Mrs. Murchison. “I lay awake for two hours last night thinking of that boy in jail, and his poor old father, seventy-nine years of age, and such a fine old man, so thoroughly respected.”

“I don’t know the young fellow,” said Dr. Drummond, “but they say he’s of good character, not over-solid, but bears a clean reputation. They’re all Tories together, of course, the Ormistons.”

“It’s an old U.E. Loyalist family,” remarked Advena. “Mr. Ormiston has one or two rather interesting Revolutionary trophies at his house out there.”

“None the worse for that. None the worse for that,” said Dr. Drummond.

“Old Ormiston’s father,” contributed the editor of the
Express
, “had a Crown grant of the whole of Moneida Reservation at one time. Government actually bought it back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail for the Clergy Reserves in ’fifty.”

“Well, well,” said Dr. Drummond, with a twinkle. “We’ll hope young Ormiston is innocent, nevertheless.”

“Nasty business for the Federal Bank if he is,” Mr. Williams went on. “They’re a pretty unpopular bunch as it is.”

“Of course he’s innocent,” contributed Stella, with indignant eyes; “and when they prove it, what can he do to the bank for taking him up? That’s what I want to know.”

Her elders smiled indulgently. “A lot you know about it, kiddie,” said Oliver. It was the only remark he made during the meal. Alec passed the butter assiduously, but said nothing at all. Adolescence was inarticulate in Elgin on occasions of ceremony.

“I hear they’ve piled up some big evidence,” said Mr. Williams. “Young Ormiston’s been fool enough to do some race-betting lately. Minnie, I wish you’d get Mrs. Murchison to show you how to pickle pears. Of course,” he added, “they’re keeping it up their sleeve.”

“It’s a hard place to keep evidence,” said Lorne Murchison at last, with a smile which seemed to throw light on the matter. They had all been waiting, more or less consciously, for what Lorne would have to say.

“Lorne, you’ve got it!” divined his mother instantly.

“Got what, Mother?”

“The case! I’ve suspected it from the minute the subject was mentioned! That case came in to-day!”

“And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never telling us!” exclaimed Stella, with reproach.

“Stella, you have a great deal too much to say,” replied her brother. “Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a log. We won’t complain. Yes, the Squire seems to have made up his mind about the defence, and my seniors haven’t done much else to-day.”