by Argyle, Ray
Leonard hurried to the Evening Telegram. His orders were to have a story for the eleven o’clock edition. He couldn’t free his mind of the image of Kane being jerked to his death. He’d died by a newfangled method of hanging but he was no deader than Cook Teets had been when they’d finished with him. It was then the idea struck Leonard. When the presses churned out an extra ten thousand copies that day, the headline he’d put atop his story read:
JERKED TO JESUS
Thomas Kane Hanged This Morning
The Doomed Man Meets His Fate in New Device
Leonard headed directly to the Queen’s Hotel after the paper came out. He’d seen two hangings now. He realized that what had happened to Cook Teets hadn’t been all that unusual. Should he be upset about what was after all a common occurrence? Leonard decided that death sentences and hangings were something he could do nothing about. Society was determined to wreak vengeance on its transgressors. Still, nothing could justify the hanging of an innocent man.
A few days after the execution of Thomas Kane, Leonard received a reply to his letter to Richard Langley. A friendly note, it expressed the hope that Leonard was enjoying a profitable time in Toronto. The letter complimented him on his willingness to offer himself in service to the electors of Grey County. “However, any such plans must be deferred for the present. The government has decided that James Masson, the man who had defended Cook Teets, will be the party’s candidate in Grey North in 1877.” So that’s it, Leonard thought. I was just a loose fish to lure in a bigger catch. He finished reading the letter. “It is possible other opportunities might arise,” it told him, in which case Leonard would be contacted. The chief clerk had signed off, “Your most obedient servant.”
Leonard tucked the letter into a book he was reading. He was not entirely surprised. It had been far-fetched to think the Liberal-Conservative party would want him as a candidate. The whole business of getting into politics depressed him. He fretted about how he would explain this latest misadventure back in Vandeleur. That led to his wondering how practical it was to think he could ever find Rosannah’s killer. Before turning down the lamp on his night table, he wrote two letters. The first was to James Henderson, Vandeleur’s storekeeper, postmaster, and all-round paramount citizen. He asked him to try to find a new tenant for the Chronicle’s weathered little edifice, and to forward any mail. The second letter went to Sam Bowles, the neighbour who was looking after Vandeleur Hall and the Babington farm. Leonard said he had decided to stay in Toronto and would not be returning for some time. “Plant the crops you believe will do the best, and keep an eye on the house,” he wrote. “I have the utmost confidence that your prudent management will yield the most positive results.” Leonard wasn’t sure whether Sam could read but he knew that if he could not, he would have one of his children read the letter to him. He could see it clearly now – he would never forget Rosannah, but for now, he would stay on with the Evening Telegram.
Chapter 28
A GIRL OF THE ORANGE ORDER
July 17, 1887
A day for Leonard Babington at the Evening Telegram began with visits to the city’s three police stations. He got to know the constables who had the responsibility of logging the names and offences of citizens who had run afoul of the law. He tracked down detectives such as Amos Dewart, also known as “the Wart” for the ever-present growth on his neck, and asked questions about their cases. Collecting the names and details of offenders arrested overnight, Leonard was amazed at the myriad of charges that brought wayward Torontonians into the hands of the police. Most offences were petty – small-scale burglaries, assaults, drunkenness, or cases of homeless men and women picked up on vagrancy charges. Brothels were raided regularly, with predictable results: small fines to the madams and orders to the girls to get out of town. Street whores were treated more harshly, receiving sentences of sixty to ninety days in the Mercer Reformatory for Women. Even that failed to satisfy the city’s crusading mayor, William Howland. He wanted his city to be known as “Toronto the Good.” In pursuit of that goal, he set up a special morals squad with instructions to root out gambling and drug dens, and to stop the “desecration” of the Sabbath.
The Evening Telegram duly recorded the mayor’s orders that Toronto’s streets be carefully patrolled on Sundays; the day was not to be marred by games or other levity. The mayor pushed to have bars in the city shut down, or failing that, to force them to close at nine o’clock. Leonard wrote that this would “get the working man home at a reasonable hour, and make sure of his fitness for work the next day.” In two years, Leonard reported only two killings, a trifling number for a city of almost two hundred thousand.
One day, Owen Staples came to Leonard with exciting news. “Mr. Robertson has given me a leave of absence. I got his letter from London this morning. At last, I can go down to Philadelphia to study. You know it’s what I’ve wanted.” Drawing Toronto streetscapes and sketching the interiors of city churches for the Evening Telegram was one thing. But Owen had spoken often of his need for formal training if he was ever to become a serious painter.
The Toronto Art Students’ League kept clubrooms above the Imperial Bank and whenever Owen could afford it, he invited Leonard there for a noonday meal. “I come here because I meet older, more experienced artists,” Owen said. “That’s how I came to get the idea of going down to Philadelphia,” he added. On their first visit, Owen pointed out the famous J.W. Bengough, the political cartoonist for the Grip paper, who was dining at a nearby table. “He gave me good advice,” Owen said. “Told me that if I wanted to amount to anything as a painter, I’d have to give up cartooning. Rubbish drawing, he called it.”
When Owen got his ticket-of-leave from Mr. Robertson, Leonard decided to make an occasion of his departure. He joined the Art Students’ League expressly to give Owen a going-away dinner. They met at their boarding house and together walked down to Gerrard Street. Leonard had not told Owen the true purpose of the evening. When they entered the clubrooms, a dozen young men began singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow.” To Owen’s delight and embarrassment, they one after another gave short, satirical talks about their guest of honour. Especially telling were the stories told of Owen’s school days. No one could top the tale told by Owen’s schoolmate Roger Easton. “Why, I’ll never forget how you jumped out the window to escape a birching from old Tompkins! Didn’t do you much good, he gave you twice as many as usual the next day.” The stories were accompanied by much drinking of ale and whisky and toasts were proffered all around.
The next morning, nursing a headache, Leonard escorted Owen and another art student to Union Station. He envied the two young men. Up till now he hadn’t given much thought to how Owen’s absence would affect his life. He’d often felt alone but as he stood with Owen on the station platform, he knew the loneliness that would move into him would be as sharp, almost, as when he had lost Rosannah. He was going to be lonely, damn lonely. Leonard tacked several of Owen’s sketches to his bedroom wall and wondered how he would fill his days during the two years he would be away.
Owen’s departure was painful to Leonard Babington in many ways. He had become accustomed to the good fellowship and camaraderie that his young friend’s presence had always brought him. But more than that, Leonard realized he was now almost forty years old and still a bachelor. He had not solved the murder of Rosannah Leppard. He preferred to turn his mind to the advice Owen had given him on the subject of marriage: “Get a wife. Live a full life. That’s what I intend to do when I get back.”
Leonard had seen Kaitlin Tisdall a few times and had even had tea with her and Dr. Barrett at the Toronto Medical School. But he hadn’t pressed his chances and he’d recently heard she had married a doctor who had a flourishing practice in Hamilton. He was tiring of the life of a bachelor and realized he’d have to become a serious suitor if he was to find a wife.
Leonard didn’t belong to a church nor did he wish to become a regular churchgoer. His job as a crime reporter
put him in contact with many people, but most were only slightly respectable at best, and few had sisters or daughters. You couldn’t find a wife by taking supper in some dining room or attending a recital – respectable girls didn’t go out alone, and if they did they took care to ignore uninvited overtures. Occasionally, he visited one of the houses on York Street that he’d written about for the Globe. He’d never find a wife that way, he realized. Leonard decided to wangle introductions through men at the Telegram who had the social connections he lacked. He went first to his editor, John Robinson. He was known at the paper as “Black Jack” and was considered a good fellow, if strict in his ways.
“This is something that I’ll have to think about,” Robinson told Leonard. “You’re asking me to put you in a position of trust by introducing you about. I’ll have to talk it over with the Misssus.”
The next day, Robinson called Leonard to his office.
“There are a few families I know with marriageable daughters,” he said. “I could probably fix you up an introduction to Mr. Hughes and his wife. You know, he’s the Superintendent of Roads. Lives over on Beverley Street. Their Rebecca is a bright girl. He’s grand master of the Orange Order for Ontario West. Get into their circle and you’ll meet lots of fine people.”
Leonard had not paid much attention to the Orange Order back in Vandeleur. He knew it mostly for the parades it put on every 12th of July, celebrating King William of Orange and his victory over the Catholic, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne River. That saved Ireland for the Crown and made it a certainty that Catholics would never get the upper hand on British soil. He remembered as a boy watching parades led by a man who played the role of King Billy. He rode a great white horse, just as the king was said to have done. Since coming to Toronto, he’d acquired a better appreciation for the power and influence of the Orange Order. If you were Protestant and you wanted to succeed in politics or business, Irish or not you had better belong. The news he’d had from Richard Langley made it unlikely Leonard would go into politics, so he hadn’t given any thought to falling in with the pack.
On a pleasant Sunday afternoon, “Black Jack” and his wife Martha escorted Leonard to the Hughes residence. The house was large, with steeply pitched rooflines, a profusion of gables, and a three-storey square tower capped by a widow’s walk. The house was painted white and was surrounded by a generous lawn. The three visitors made their way to the garden where a harpist played classical tunes. Couples strolled about munching on sandwiches while drinking ginger ale and lemonade. About twenty people were in the garden.
Robinson headed directly to the hosts. “Ah, good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, and Rebecca. Your garden looks dazzling, as always. As does Mrs. Hughes and Rebecca. May I present Mr. Leonard Babington, one of our key men at the Evening Telegram.”
Leonard noted that Emmett Hughes bore his substantial girth and mutton chop whiskers with a dignified air, acquired no doubt from his years of leadership in civic government and the Orange Order. Mrs. Hughes, a stout but dainty woman, fluttered her fan and pronounced herself delighted to meet Leonard. It was Rebecca’s presence that made the visit memorable. Leonard was struck immediately with her beauty – the graceful lines of her chin and nose, her clear eyes, and her long dark hair that fell in curls to her shoulders.
“A man of the press,” Emmett Hughes commented, “must be a man well read. What books have you been into recently, Mr. Babington?”
Leonard hesitated. Truth to tell, he’d been too busy for much book reading beyond the few cheap novels he’d borrowed from the rental library. No need to mention those.
“I’ve been taken with a work of catastrophe,” Leonard confessed. “The new Zola book, The Flood. His depiction of the terrible inundation from the Garonne River is positively shattering. A small book, but nonetheless one hard to forget.”
Rebecca caught her breath. “Did you read it in French, Mr. Babington?” She said French had been her favourite subject before enrolling in the Normal School in St. James Square. She’d received her teaching certificate only a month before.
“If only I could,” Leonard answered with a sigh. “I’d need to spend at least a year in Quebec if I were to take on that challenge.”
The mention of Quebec brought a grimace to Emmett Hughes’s face. He was none too disposed to his daughter having learned a language spoken almost exclusively by Catholics.
“It’s English for me, Mr. Babington. The Queen’s English, if I may say so. Not the shoddy English those Irish Catholics speak, nor the foreign tongue of Catholic France.”
“Oh, I’ve never had any problem with Catholics,” Leonard said. The words had tumbled out before he’d stopped to think that an influential member of the Orange Order might have had a different experience.
Emmett Hughes forced a smile to his face.
“You’ll have to excuse us, we must see to the needs of our other guests.”
Once out of earshot, Rebecca turned to her father.
“You were rude to Mr. Babington, father. I should like you to invite him to supper.”
Emmett Hughes had long ago come to the realization that he could never say no to his daughter. Before the afternoon was out, Leonard had his invitation to supper Friday night next, a summons he accepted graciously.
Assisted by Mrs. Coles, Leonard dressed with care for the engagement. He’d polished his boots and his landlady had pressed his blue wool suit. He arrived at the Hughes residence at a quarter past five and when he raised the brass knocker on the front door a footman bid him enter. Emmett Hughes greeted him warmly. He seemed ready to overlook Leonard’s thoughtless comment of last Sunday. Rebecca inquired after his health. Mrs. Hughes, once the formalities of Leonard’s arrival had been completed, excused herself from the parlour, confessing the need to check on the serving staff.
At supper, Leonard sat opposite Rebecca, allowing him ample opportunity to study her face as well as her chest and shoulders. He could not keep his eyes from her. Several courses were served – quail, roast beef and salmon – each accompanied by a different wine. Leonard wondered how Emmett Hughes could maintain such an extravagant table on the salary of a civic office holder. The man must have private wealth, he told himself. Or perhaps he was the recipient of favours.
The conversation turned to politics once an appetizer of pigeon hearts had been disposed of.
“Toronto’s an English city and must remain one.” Emmett Hughes declared. “We’ve been inundated by Irish Catholics these past twenty years. Those Irish fill the hovels of Corktown and Cabbagetown. They’ll get no road improvements, I can assure you. City money’s best spent elsewhere.”
“Yes, we must be prudent with Crown revenues,” Mrs. Hughes sniffed. Rebecca looked uncertain as to whether she should be part of this conversation. After a moment, she turned to her father.
“I hope you’ll use your influence,” she told him, “to do something about that horrid Dr. MacMurchy at Jarvis Collegiate. He absolutely refuses to engage female teachers. I think he’s been there too long.”
“He’ll go in his own good time. A great disciplinarian. Runs what must be the best school in Toronto.”
Leonard thought it would be wise to inquire into the affairs of the Orange Order. He commented that this year’s parade had gone off smoothly. There’d been few hecklers compared with past years, when the Greens, the tag taken by Catholic protestors, had created a fuss over the parade’s passing through Catholic neighbourhoods.
“We’ve never been so strong or enjoyed such influence,” Hughes replied. “All but one of the council men are of the Order. We’ve never had more staunch an Orangeman than Mayor Howland. Three of the Toronto men in Parliament wear the sash. Doesn’t matter, Conservative or Reform.”
“Then you see prospects for harmony in the city, Mr. Hughes?”
“Harmony? Who said anything about harmony? It’s quiet that we want.” He paused to swallow a morsel of trout. “Quiet from those Corktown Irish. We see Irish beggars every
where, as ignorant and vicious as they are poor. Lazy, improvident, and unappreciative of all we do for them. They fill up our poorhouses and our prisons. What money the Irish have they give to their priests, spouting an alien religion. Or spend it on booze. Bent on violence, like those Fenians that tried to invade Canada.”*
Leonard was well aware of the fundamental differences that divided Protestants and Catholics. It had all come out at the Cook Teets trial. But he was unprepared for the venom issuing from the mouth of this man. He thought of Rosannah Leppard’s family, half Irish and at their mother’s behest, Catholic, and what Emmett Hughes would have had to say about them. Rosannah and her like would have been kept in their proper place.
“Don’t you think education’s the answer, Mr. Hughes? I taught school for a time and thought it a worthwhile vocation. Perhaps Rebecca would like to teach the Irish children. Despite the law requiring it, many receive no schooling whatever.”
Leonard qjuickly realized his words were, to put it mildly, not well received.
“No daughter of mine will waste her talents on Catholic children,” Emmett Hughes declared.
Leonard had to respond, to say something to amplify what he’d already told his host.
“Yet Rebecca is hurt by the fact Dr. MacMurchy will not engage female teachers. Are not Irish children equally hurt if we decline to engage them in a proper education? We all know most of the Irish live in poverty – it’s as if we put up a fence and told them they could never cross over to a better life.”
Leonard realized he was challenging the Superintendent of Roads. He couldn’t help himself. Everything he’d seen and learned in Vandeleur convinced him the Irish were no better or worse than English and Scottish riff raff he’d encountered. He often regretted having been schooled at home where he had little opportunity to mix with others. Now, he realized, that solitary upbringing had spared him from the worst prejudices of his community. Leonard suspected Rebecca held a kinder view of the world than her father, but he knew that if he were to court her he would have to accept her family’s intolerance and prejudice.