Turncoat (23 page)

“I can't find the courage to.” Hatch jabbed at the fire as if he might conjure in its flames some image of Isobel that would tender absolution. “And after all, Winnifred has devoted her life to me and our business since her mother died, giving up her own chances for happiness.”

“She looks like a young woman who makes her own decisions, for her own reasons,” Marc said.

Hatch sighed. “You know, I've even prayed that Mary
would get in the family way, then I'd have to find the courage, wouldn't I?”

That was a wish, Marc thought, that a benevolent Deity might easily grant.

M
ARC AND BETH SAT IN THE
cutter's seat among buffalo robes, and James and Emma Durfee snuggled together on the driver's bench as the team of Belgians followed the familiar road to town more or less on their own. The afternoon was clear and cold, making the runners sing on the snow and sharpening the tinkle of the bells on the horses' harness. Emma Durfee had peremptorily refused to ride in the back with Beth, claiming, with just a hint of humour, that a woman's place was beside her man. Forty minutes of steady progress would see them in Cobourg.

“You've spent most of your time here firin' questions at me,” Beth said, drawing one of her furs more closely about her throat, “but you haven't exactly told any of us your own life story.”

“There isn't much to tell,” Marc said. Their shoulders were touching fraternally through several layers of animal skin. “I was orphaned at five years and adopted by my father's … patron.”

Beth looked puzzled by the word “patron” but continued to nod encouragingly.

“I soon learned to call him Uncle Jabez. He was
unmarried, so I became the son he never had. I was raised on his modest estate in Kent, among gardens and hedgerows and thatched cottages. Next to us resided the shire's grandest squire, who befriended my uncle and me. Hartfield Downs was magnificent, both the Elizabethan house and the vast farmland surrounding it. I was permitted to play with the Trelawney children, who thought themselves the equivalent of princes and princesses.”

“Which kept you humble,” Beth said dryly.

“Uncle Jabez brought in private tutors who saw that I learned even when I didn't particularly want to.”

“The distraction of all those princesses?”

“Horses, mainly. I loved to ride and be outdoors. I worshipped my uncle Frederick, my adoptive father's younger brother. He was a retired army officer who had fought with Sir John Colborne and the 52nd on the Spanish Peninsula.” When Beth made no response to this news, he continued. “Uncle Jabez had been a solicitor in London, but when he inherited his father's estate, he moved back to the country and took up the role of gentrified landowner. He sent me to London to article at law in the Inn of Chancery, which means six days a week with your head buried in conveyancing papers. But I spent all my free time at the Old Bailey envying the barristers in their grand wigs and robes—strutting about the court like tragedians on a stage.”

“And poor you with no horses to ride or foxes to assassinate?”

“More or less. What I secretly longed for was action, excitement, some challenge to the manly virtues I fancied I possessed in more than moderate measure.”

“Your drudgery left you little time for dalliance, then?”

Marc tried to catch the look that underlined this remark, but failed. “I have seldom found women unattractive,” he said.

Beth laughed. “Nor they you,” she said.

Emma turned around and, for several minutes, engaged Beth in conversation about a proposed shopping venture and plans for a joint charity clothing drive among the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and, surprisingly, the Anglicans. This interlude gave Marc time to reflect on how he was going to reopen the interrogation of the woman sitting close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath.

“It must have been hard for an upright, honourable, and religious man like your Joshua to have accepted his son's suicide,” he said as soon as Emma had turned back to her husband and the road ahead.

Beth shifted ever so slightly away from him. “Of course it was. He loved Jess, even though they weren't together much after we got married. And Jess was no weakling. He was strong and independent, or else he couldn't've left home like he did or started the farm without a lick of help from anybody.”

“Did Joshua press you for answers? Reasons? Your own opinion of Jesse's state of mind before he died?”

“Not directly. That wasn't his way. But when I told him Jess was feelin' low, I also explained about the state of the farm and what the future looked like to him back then. One day, Father just asked me to take him to one of the rallies. So I did. And he listened, as I already told you.”

“He didn't hint in any way that he thought Jesse might have been tempted by more radical forms of action?”

“No.”

“And you have no recollection of him remarking on anything unusual or suggestive that he might have found among Jesse's effects or heard about Jesse from some third party?”

“I was the one that sorted through my husband's effects.”

“Still, it's difficult to believe that you and your father-in-law did not have, from time to time, some moments of severe disagreement. After all, he was accompanying you to Reform rallies, and presumably listening to their arguments, but, as you've pointed out, he remained a Tory and a supporter of the government you despise.”

Beth didn't answer, but he could see she was deep in thought.

“Cobourg's just over the creek!” Durfee called out.

M
ARC'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE TOWNS OF
Toronto, Hamilton, and London should have prepared him for the village of Cobourg, not yet confident enough to declare itself incorporated. There was a main thoroughfare—King Street, no less—
with intersecting avenues and even, Beth told him, two or three concession roads running parallel to it farther north. But to one conditioned to expect cobbled roadways, brick buildings, gas lamps on every corner, tended gardens and stone fences, the rumble of hackney carriages, market wagons, and vegetable barrows, and the buzz and jostle of citizens on the go, Cobourg was a rude shock. The many log cabins and the few frame houses were largely obscured by clumps of untouched primeval forest. The roadbed was rutted solid from the last thaw and only somewhat smoothed out by packed snow. There were no sidewalks along the verges of King Street.

Marc's hosts vied with one another to point out to him the glories of the only stone church (“Presbyterian,” Emma added, “up there on William Street”), the simple, frame-built Congregational church (vast enough to entertain two hundred of the faithful), and at the junction of King and Division (the lone treeless intersection) the first stop on their journey: Benjamin Throop's Emporium (a glorified general store). Kitty-corner to this squared-timber, two-storey commercial structure stood St. Peter's Anglican Church.

Hatch's sleigh pulled up behind them a minute later. The women were left to forage through the emporium and, afterwards, walk across to St. Peter's for their committee meeting. Goodall was to pick them up there at four o'clock and drive them up Division Street to the Township Hall for the political “picnic.” Sandwiches and cake for afternoon tea had already been packed in wicker hampers, as if it were July and
the occasion pastoral. In the meantime, Hatch had agreed to meet the sheriff, not at the new courthouse and jail in Amherst just down the highway, but in the more commodious Cobourg Hotel.

I
N THE SHERIFF'S “OFFICE,” MARC WAS
handed a mug of beer by the smaller of two constables and urged to tell his story. While the sheriff of the Newcastle District, Hamish MacLachlan, rocked back in a chair constructed for his considerable girth and backside, Marc recited his tale much as he had rehearsed it with Hatch (minus all but a dozen arguably necessary polysyllables). The young constables, part-time supernumeraries or deputies like the miller, were so awed they forgot to sample their complimentary beer. But the sheriff himself showed no reaction beyond an occasional pull on his pipe.

“Well, what do you think, Hamish?” Hatch said when Marc had finished.

MacLachlan put out a boot to slow his rocking. “What you've got there, son, is one helluva bowl of beans—and no fart.”

Marc was not deflated by the sheriff's summary judgment. Nor was the sheriff offended by Marc's intrusion into local affairs. If Sir John and his successor wished to waste the time of an energetic young ensign on such a fool's errand, then it was no skin off his nose, especially if it meant no effort on his part. Besides, he was far too beset by immediate
problems, like the potential firestorm out at the Township Hall.

“I could use another pair of strong arms out there,” he said to Marc. “And that flamin' red petticoat of yours won't be a hindrance either. Too bad ya didn't bring your sword, and a Brown Bess with a bayonet.”

“He's exaggerating a tad,” Hatch ventured.

“You know perfectly well, Hatch old man, there's lunatics on either fringe, and it's a bitch to try and look over both yer shoulders at the same time.”

“You're not anticipating a Tory riot?” Marc said with a glance at Hatch.

“No, but Ogle Gowan's Orange Lodgers have been spotted over in Durham County holdin' powwows, or whatever monarchist, anti-papist mumbo-jumbo they get up to when they're well liquored and foamin' at the mouth.”

“What about the Hunters' Lodges?” Marc said.

“Never heard of 'em, but they probably exist, if only to keep me from my good wife's bed. You fellas can take your cutter or ride with the constables here, but one way or t'other, I'm gonna need all of ya. I've outlawed all liquor in the hall and, of course, there'll be no weapons of any kind, not even a gardenin' trowel. Transgressors'll be bounced out pronto. I'm also gonna patrol the grounds and privies, and empty every jug and teapot I see.”

When Marc looked skeptical, MacLachlan added: “You can be sure Mad Annie's brood'll be somewhere nearby. If
you sight any one of them cretins—male, female, or otherwise—I want ya to latch on and hold 'em down till I come with the irons.” He took a lusty pull at his beer. “Philander Child's gonna be present to see the bylaws of the last quarter session are strictly enforced.”

The young constables had finally noticed that their mugs were still full.

“All right, lads, finish your drinks and be off. I'll trot down on Old Chestnut in a while.” He winked. “My whistle ain't quite wetted.”

M
ARC STOOD SENTRY ON THE
P
ORCH
of the Hamilton Township Hall, the largest secular structure in the village, and watched with growing amazement the arrival of the Reform party's adherents and detractors. They came by sled, sleigh, and cutter, pony and dray-horse, by shank's mare and snowshoe, toboggan and skid and Norwegian skis; in family groupings, couples, and fraternal cliques. That the backwoods could harbour so many sentient beings without advertising their presence was in itself astonishing, but that somehow these scattered and bush-bound castaways from Britain and elsewhere could discover the date and locale of this political gathering, could find the time to consider its significance, and then arrange for their simultaneous arrival within the hour appointed—this was truly cause for wonder.

For a few minutes Beth stood at Marc's side greeting one
newcomer after another by name, many of whom, to Marc's consternation and concern, were women. “How did all these people find out about the rally?” Marc asked.

“Well, most of us can read,” Beth said, “and the
Cobourg Star
gives us some practice once a week.”

At five o'clock the front doors were closed. A few torches had already been lit inside under the supervision of Magistrate Child and the fire warden. The brand-new Rochester Pumping Wagon stood at the ready on Division Street. At his own watch, Marc heard the commotion at the rear of the hall as a sleighful of dignitaries apparently drew up in a lane behind the building and entered it via a vestibule presided over by the sheriff and the larger of the two constables. A raucous cheer, punctuated by hoots and catcalls, rose up. Marc hoped that Beth had kept her promise to stay close to the Durfees.

Before going inside to monitor the proceedings, Marc circled the grounds of the hall and checked the privies. All seemed quiet. He lifted each of the several dozen confiscated jugs and jars near the front door: all were now empty. Next to these lay a jumble of wooden handles from farm implements. The smaller constable was instructed to guard these rudimentary weapons, and keep an eye on traffic to and from the privies and the side door of the hall.

Marc made note of the arrival of Azel and Lydia Stebbins, Israel Wicks with his two sons, an unsteady Orville Hislop, and, to his mild surprise, Elijah, the hired man. How
had he got himself to town? For the briefest second, Marc's eye caught Lydia's as she brushed past him. She looked quickly away, but not before offering him the hint of a smile—mocking or conspiratorial, he could not tell.

The fifteen or so women stood at the back of the hall near the double doors, not so much because their presence was considered inappropriate but because, in the event of a disturbance or fire, they could get out easily. James Durfee, though not officially deputized, stood watch for the women. Winnifred, Emma, and Beth were close beside him. Mary was with her sister—and many wives and children who had made the arduous trek with their husbands—a block away on King Street. Here, between the Cobourg Hotel and Throop's Emporium, there was much socializing around several bonfires and in the “open-air parlours” of the bigger sleighs.

Every one of the several hundred spectators inside the hall was standing, even though a number of benches were available on the periphery for the infirm or dyspeptic. The torches that lit the smoky, shadowed interior were set high on metal sconces on the walls. As Marc took up his assigned place between the podium and the side door, the first speaker was being introduced: Peter Perry, member of the Legislative Assembly for the nearby constituency of Lennox and Addington. A thunderous roar erupted as he stepped into an undulating pool of torchlight in the centre of the makeshift platform. His companions in the cause, four of them, were
seated behind him, hidden in the oily darkness beyond the reach of torchlight.