by Argyle, Ray
“That old Indian I told you about taught me how to make native medicines,” Leonard said. “Did you know that cedar tips mixed with witch hazel can heal an injury quicker than anything?” When Leonard mentioned the Indians had a remedy for what the white man called melancholia, Rosannah showed a sudden interest.
“Maybe I should try it,” she said. “Dr. Griffin says I have the women’s disease, hysteria. I can’t help it if I get excited, or if some days I just don’t feel like doing a thing. All the women in my family are like that.”
Their conversation halted when Leonard felt a tug on his line. He had hooked a large trout that was not about to surrender without a fight. When it ran to deep water, he played it carefully and worked his way from the fallen tree onto the shore, where he slowly brought it in. He ran a stick through its gills and left it secured in a few inches of water.
Rosannah and Leonard returned to the blanket where they had eaten lunch. Nothing happened that afternoon short of tentative kisses and preliminary caresses. Leonard might have been embarrassed had his nervousness not held his libido in check, for he was too uncertain of himself to become hard. Yet the intimacy of their togetherness created a bond that gave him a sense of belonging. It was a feeling unlike anything he had ever known. He knew she was a girl of a different kind.
All that summer Rosannah and Leonard were inseparable. Leonard told her stories he had heard from his parents, and he read to her from books that his mother’s family had sent from England. He felt compelled to draw Rosannah into a discussion of what he had been reading – usually stories or articles from Blackwood’s magazine, or novels or art books.
On the day they went to Eugenia Falls to watch a tightrope walker attempt to cross the gorge on a cable, Rosannah listened quietly as Leonard talked of the books he’d read. At the Falls, they found a large crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding drama. A poster announced a ten-cent charge to see Arthur Wilson attempt to cross the five hundred foot chasm on a two-inch strand of cable. The Great Blondin had recently conquered the Niagara River and Wilson was but one of many imitators going about the country with similar stunts. Bets were taken on whether he would fall seventy feet to his death on the rocks below.
The spectacle excited Rosannah and Leonard. Wilson carried a long pole to balance himself and Rosannah clung tightly to Leonard as the crowd alternately gasped and held its breath while the daredevil aerialist teetered, then recovered his footing, and finally dashed safely to shore. Everybody clapped and cheered but all Leonard was aware of was Rosannah’s breasts pressed against his arm and back. When Leonard readied their buggy to go home, he chose a seldom-used back trail. After about twenty minutes, the trail widened into a clearing and Rosannah suggested they stop and rest. He pulled up the buggy and turned to Rosannah. He told her he had something to say.
“We’ve been seeing each other for awhile now. I want to keep on seeing you. I’m in love with you.”
Rosannah smiled and held out her arms to him.
“I’ve been wondering if you were ever going to say that.”
In a moment, they were in each other’s arms. Leonard breathed in the sweetness of her smell, a mix of fresh air and sweat, and the scent stirred him deeply. He found himself lifting her down from the buggy to sit on the blanket he’d thrown onto the grass. Their kisses led to a frantic shedding of clothes. Leonard finished quickly. After, Rosannah still clung to him, grinding herself against him.
Later, as they neared the Leppard place, Rosannah brought up the matter of his always wanting to read to her.
“You’re always telling me about people whose lives have nothing to do with ours,” she said. Leonard thought she might feel humiliated for knowing so little of the things that interested him.
“You don’t want to be ignorant, do you?” he asked her.
“I’m not ignorant Leonard. I just don’t know very much of the things you like to talk about. You’re always so serious, and I just want to have fun, like we did today. Why don’t you kiss me again?”
Leonard did, and that ended their small argument. But he realized later it was an omen of things to come. The more Leonard tried to interest Rosannah in matters removed from her daily cares and concerns, the more she resisted his efforts – as she put it – “to make a lady of me.” Her only goal, it seemed to Leonard, was to live unfettered by convention or responsibility. He dismissed her claim that she wished only to marry a rich husband. “You’ll never find one around here,” he told her.
When Leonard got to know Rosannah better, he found out that she was addicted to morning and evening doses of a mixture prescribed by Dr. Griffin. The bottle it came in was labeled Dr. Shiloh’s Cough and Consumption Cure. He’d read about such potions in Blackwood’s magazine. Their main ingredient, the article warned, was a generous portion of alcohol laced with a considerable amount of opium. Leonard worried about the effect of such stuff on Rosannah. Too much of that would kill a person, he told himself. When he smelled tobacco on her breath, she confessed she was using a pipe a day. Another recommendation by Dr. Griffin.
“I don’t think smoking does you any good,” Leonard told Rosannah. “And your medicine – I imagine you feel better taking it, but it just makes you want more. It could be dangerous.”
Rosannah frowned. “Dr. Griffin says I should take it, so I don’t see why you should tell me not to. Professor Babington!”
Leonard said no more on the subject.
Smoking and medicine were not the only things that affected Leonard’s view of his relationship with Rosannah. There was religion, too. Leonard made no secret of his family’s Methodist connection. But he knew Rosannah’s mother was a devout Catholic who would insist her children marry within the faith of Rome.
The time Leonard raised the possibility of marriage he was quick to add, “Of course, I could become a Catholic. You’re a good Catholic girl, aren’t you?”
“If you think I am, then I am,” Rosannah answered. She offered no encouragement to Leonard, either toward him becoming a Catholic or of their getting married. He decided he would say nothing more about it for the time being.
On Leonard’s next visit, he thought Rosannah looked glum. She seemed indifferent. There had been a light snowfall and Leonard helped her hang the family washing on a clothesline that was strung between two trees. Her mother and father had gone into Eugenia and she had promised to finish up the wash.
As they were hanging the last blanket, Billy ran up carrying a snowball encrusted in dirt. He threw it at Leonard but missed, hitting a sheet instead. It left a smear of mud. Rosannah was furious.
“Billy, you’re going to get a whupping for that,” she said. Turning to Leonard, she said, “You can do the job. I’ll get you father’s razor strap.” When she saw his hesitation she added, “If you can’t do it, I’m sure I can find someone else who can.”
Leonard hated the thought of using the strap on Billy. He had twice strapped boys at school. Both times, he felt degraded at what he had done. He vowed he would not strap another child. When Rosannah returned from the house, strap in hand, he took it and led Billy into the shed behind the house.
Once inside, he told Billy what they would do.
“When I hit the bench with this strap, you holler.”
“Aw, maybe you should whup me,” Billy said. “I shouldn’t have thrown that muddy snowball.”
“Doesn’t matter, just do as I say.”
Every time Leopard slapped the bench Billy let out a cry.
Rosannah seemed in a better mood when they returned to the house.
Their relationship continued pleasantly enough until the day later that spring when Leonard went to see Rosannah with a new book of poetry under his arm. A nice way to talk about love, reading poetry, he thought. She invited him in and they sat on the long bench under the window. He was unprepared for what she told him.
“I’m tired of your acting so high and mighty,” she said after listening to Leonard read a poem. “I think you should re
ad those things to somebody who loves you better than me.” She was holding back tears as she spoke.
Leonard felt crushed but after a moment, anger boiled up in him. All the things he’d tried to do for Rosannah. She liked to make love, but there’s more to life than that. What about friendship, respect, or working together?
“I’m sure I can find somebody who would like me to read to them,” Leonard told her. He didn’t really mean it.
“I think it would be better if you did, Leonard. We started out having fun, but it hasn’t been much fun lately. I feel invisible around you. Please don’t come to see me anymore,”
Invisible! How could Rosannah ever be invisible with that alluring body, her lovely face, her beautiful long hair.
Leonard pushed her back onto the bench and as they struggled they slipped to the floor. He had never felt this way. His anger fed his desire to possess her. He wanted to show how he loved her, and to enjoy what he’d come to think was rightfully his. He squirmed himself between her legs and pulled her shift up to her waist. She fought to roll him off but Leonard held her with one arm and with his other arm he pressed her to the floor and kissed her. He was hard now and he unbuttoned his pants and guided himself into her. His lunges caused her to respond and he could feel her relax and her legs envelop him. He came quickly, as much in triumph as in lust. When he tried to kiss her after, she slapped his face.
Leonard lifted himself off her. He looked at Rosannah lying crumpled on the floor. He regretted what he had done. He’d as much as raped her. An apology wouldn’t change what had happened. He reached for his coat and left.
Leonard tried to put Rosannah out of his mind but no matter what he did – teaching every day, cleaning out the stable at home at night, reading by candle light until after midnight – he could not forget what had happened. He spent Sunday morning tending his mother’s flower garden. He cut five stems that held rich, red flowers and wrapped them in a wet cloth. He set out for the Leppard place, going over in his mind what he would say to Rosannah. He was sure a proper apology would set things right.
James Leppard was fixing a link in the split rail fence when Leonard came into the yard. A dog laid lazily on the ground and chickens pecked among the weeds and wild flowers. Leonard held his bouquet of roses behind his back, and continued on to the house. Molly met him at the door and when she saw the roses, she called to Rosannah. There was no answer from Rosannah but Bridget came quickly to the door. “What’s that you’ve got there? Oh, flowers! I’ll take them if Rosannah don’t want them.”
Nothing was working out the way Leonard had hoped. “Just something for Rosannah,” he said. “Can I see her?” As he spoke, Rosannah appeared in front of him.
“I cut them especially for you,” Leonard said, handing the roses to Rosannah. She took them from his hand and held them close to her face, enjoying their scent.
“That’s sweet of you, Leonard, but you didn’t have to do this.”
Encouraged, Leonard smiled for the first time since arriving at the Leppard house. “Can we go for a walk?”
They were almost out of sight of the house before either spoke.
“Leonard, it was good of you to bring me those flowers,” Rosannah began. “But I really wish you hadn’t bothered. Not just because of what happened last time. I’ve seen this coming. You don’t really want me. You want a girl who’s been through school, and who cares about all those fancy ideas you get from books.”
“Rosannah, all I know is that I love you.”
“You think you do,” Rosannah replied, a tone of exasperation in her voice. “Do you ever think about what it does to me? How it makes me feel? Knowing that I’ll never be able to keep up with you? That you’ll get tired of me? My stomach gets tied up in knots every time I see you. Then I have to take more of Dr. Griffin’s medicine. It isn’t worth it to me.”
Leonard didn’t know what to say. His carefully rehearsed speeches counted for nothing.
“So you’re saying you don‘t want to see me anymore.”
“It’ll be better for both of us.”
For the rest of the school term, Leonard looked for Rosannah every day, hoping she might come to take her sister home. But she never came again to the Vandeleur school. He tried once more to see her but when he rode Sugar Loaf to the Leppard place he found the house empty. The door was open and he went in and sat down on the bench beside the stove. He looked around, thinking how unpleasant it would be to live with so many people in such a small place. When Rosannah arrived, she was alone.
“What are you doing here, Leonard? I told you we shouldn’t see each other again. It hurts too much to see you and it hurts not seeing you. But I’d rather suffer from not seeing you, than the other way around. It’s less painful. You’d better leave.”
Rosannah stopped in mid-breath, apparently considering what else to say. Something final.
“If you ever come near me again, I’ll tell everyone what you did. So if something happens to me, they’ll know who to blame.”
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Leonard said. There was nothing to do now but leave.
Riding home, Leonard reflected on all that had happened. Slowly, the feeling came over him that he should not be so disheartened. By the time Leonard reached the East Back Road, he had Sugar Loaf into a full gallop. He thought of how he’d named him after reading of a certain stony mountain peak in South America. He was his own man again, and he had the road to himself. A warm breeze began to blow and Leonard pushed Sugar Loaf harder and harder. The horse’s exuberant spirit soon took hold and by the time they reached The Gravel, Sugar Loaf was running all-out and Leonard was whooping with joy as the trees swept by. The horse slowed to a canter only when the first houses of Flesherton came into view. Leonard turned Sugar Loaf about and rode back to Vandeleur Hall.
A few days later, Leonard sent a letter of resignation to School Section Eleven. He would not be back in the fall, he wrote. He had made up his mind to go to Toronto. He knew he was in for a great fight with his father. For all the bravado of his wild ride, anything would be better than staying home and facing life in Vandeleur without Rosannah.
Chapter 10
THE AUTOPSY
Afternoon, November 3, 1884
After the midday break Alfred Frost called Dr. Thomas Simpson Sproule, the Member of Parliament for the riding of Grey East. The doctor had performed the autopsy on Rosannah the afternoon of her death. He entered the witness box wearing a Prince Albert coat and a white shirt set off by a blue silk bow tie. His pants were hiked well up on his hips and his polished shoes made a strong contrast against the rough footwear of the men in the courtoom.
Dr. Sproule brushed aside stray strands of hair that fell over his ears. A Walrus mustache drooped onto his mouth. Leonard Babington’s father had been an enthusiastic supporter of Dr. Sproule and in one election he’d put on a picnic at Vandeleur Hall where neighbours came to hear a campaign speech. Leonard remembered a long, boring talk on a hot afternoon. Now, he guessed the doctor would have recognized about half the men present as his constituents. He was of Irish Protestant stock, one of the “Belfast Irish,” and a staunch supporter of the Orange Order. He was proud to sit as a member of Sir John A. Macdonald’s Liberal-Conservative government.
Alfred Frost peered intently at his witness. “Can you tell me, Doctor, if your examination of Rosannah Teets revealed any natural cause for her death?”
Dr. Sproule remembered he had been alone in his office in his newly built block on the main street of Markdale. It was about four o’clock. He had just sent his receptionist, Mrs. Royce, home with a cold when John Field, the constable for Artemesia Township, arrived to say there was an emergency.
“One of the Leppard girls died this morning and we need an autopsy,” Constable Field said. “There’s to be an inquest and they want to know the cause of Rosannah’s death. They think she might have been poisoned. We’ve brought her body. Took us four hours.”
Dr. Sproule sighed and put asi
de the letter he was writing to Prime Minister Macdonald. Field’s arrival reminded him how an autopsy always upset him – even though he’d conducted many since coming to Grey County. He thought of how he had endured sights that would cause most people to faint dead away – the man with his guts ripped out when a saw jumped from the log he was cutting, the boy with a crushed skull from a falling tree, the woman beaten so badly by her drunken husband that her face was no longer recognizable. Now, he’d have to undertake a series of acts that no ordinary person would wish to witness. Such was the duty of a country doctor.
Constable Field, with the help of his occasional deputy George Thompson, carried Rosannah’s body up the narrow stairs to Dr. Sproule’s office. She was wrapped in a blanket and the constable was puffing by the time they got her through the door.
Dr. Sproule asked them to put the body on his examination table in his consulting room.
“Where did they find her, John?”
“She died at home – the Leppard place, you know that rundown outfit across the river from Vandeleur.”
Dr. Sproule knew the Leppards as just another poor family, and the thought of them reminded him how he tried not to judge people by the way they lived. A good attitude, he thought, for a man with political ambitions.
“Bring those two coal oil lamps from the waiting room,” he asked the constable. “I’ll need extra light.” While Field brought in the lamps Dr. Sproule washed his hands in a basin. “You can go now, but come back in an hour and I’ll have something for you.”
“As you say, Doctor. I’ll go over to Mrs. Sykes’s and have something to eat. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” Dr. Sproule noticed he didn’t mention that would allow him time to enjoy more than Mrs. Sykes’s cooking.
After Field left he lit the lamps, raised the blanket covering Rosannah, and found she had been wrapped in a white sheet that bore stains of urine and feces. She was still clad in the nightgown in which she had died. Using his scalpel he slit the gown down the front, exposing her slim, white body. It was quite rigid.