The Girl in a Coma

by John Moss

  So, Maddie O’Rourke, the most beautiful girl in Peterborough, is my new friend.

  Am I impressed? Of course. “You’re looking a little tired. Tomorrow I’m going to make up your eyes. Keep track of my buddy Doris for me. Night, night, Allie.”

  Allie! I drift off to sleep, almost forgetting about murder.

  Lizzie

  Lizzie took a step back as the woman flung open the door. She still had the blue scarf wrapped around her face. She did not want to startle her Aunt Rebecca, but Rebecca did not seem startled.

  Lizzie glanced back at the Redcoat who was leading Fleetfire away by the halter.

  “Well Lizzie Erb, since you’ve arrived on a horse in a lather and it’s your uncle’s gelding, at that, you must be on an important mission.”

  Her aunt’s gentle mockery made her feel surprisingly secure.

  “Everything’s important in times like these,” said Rebecca. “Come along, there’s a gentleman here you’ll be wanting to meet.

  Rebecca led her like a military commander down the long hallway and into the kitchen.

  There were nearly a dozen men sitting around the large room that had an open fireplace across the back, with a fire blazing and crackling. The low beams and the plaster ceiling glinted in the firelight. Some of the men were eating stew and bread. Others were smoking pipes and talking quietly among themselves. They were dressed in a variety of heavy cloth coats. Several Redcoats mingled among them.

  Sitting hunched over a table with his back to Lizzie was a Redcoat officer in full military dress. She realized there had been a meeting that was now over. The British military wanted the support of the local people. Rebecca had provided dinner for them all.

  The officer did not rise when Lizzie and her aunt approached him. He must think himself very important, Lizzie thought. The man turned his head to acknowledge her, then gazed back into the candle flame in front of him.

  At least he was not Captain Blaine from the burning barn. If he had been, she would be as good as dead.

  Another Redcoat came into the kitchen through the side door.

  “I’ve put the young lady’s horse in the stable,” he explained. “She’s been riding it hard.”

  “Thank you Mr. Breckenridge,” said the officer. There were two other men at the table. Sitting beside the speaker was another officer, in dress uniform. Peering more closely through the candle’s flickering light, Lizzie recognized the other as her uncle, Matthias Haun. It seemed she was related to almost everyone in this part of Upper Canada. She nodded to Matthias.

  “Lizzie. You are keeping well. Your father is healthy?”

  “Uncle,” she said, her voice charged with emotion. “I have just come from your farm. These Redcoats are set to destroy you.”

  “You see, Macdonell,” said the first officer. “Even this wild young woman hates us. But if we are very lucky, she will fear the Americans more. Sit, sit, young woman. Do you have a name? What have we done?”

  “I have no desire to sit with you, sir. My name is Lizzie Erb and I will speak with the commander of the British Forces and no one less.”

  The officer rose to his feet, although he had to stoop to avoid bumping his head on the low ceiling. He bowed in Lizzie’s direction and then looked to her Aunt Rebecca to make introductions.

  “Lizzie Erb, this is Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, Commander of the Defense of Upper Canada and a guest in my kitchen. You will treat him with respect.”

  “I will treat him with what he deserves,” she snapped.

  General Brock spoke firmly: “June eighteenth, eighteen hundred and twelve, Lizzie Erb. That is the day the United States of America declared war on these backwoods farms and country lanes—since that day, you will respect me, for I am all there is between chaos and order. You will respect the Crown. And I am the Crown. Sit down.”

  Lizzie sat down beside her uncle, across the table from Isaac Brock. She had never seen a general before and this one was famous. He was in his early forties, exceptionally tall and very handsome, with a wildness to his dark brown eyes that matched her own, and a fierce intelligence in his solemn face that seemed to forbid the presence of a smile. He was clean-shaven and his golden hair was perfectly groomed. His high forehead and noble features picked up the firelight and gleamed with a peculiar intensity. Here was a man born for great things, a man stuck in the backwoods who understood the importance of a few acres of snow in the defense of the mightiest empire in the world.

  “Now, then, Lizzie,” continued the General, “you have come from the Grand River. Good. Your father was Christian Haun. Your stepfather is also named Christian, Christian Erb. Your mother was Edwina de Vere, the sister-in-law of my good friend, Matthias, who was your late father’s younger brother.” He nodded at Lizzie’s uncle. “Matthias, of course is the brother of my friend, Miss Rebecca Haun.” He acknowledged Lizzie’s aunt with a warm smile. “Don’t let it confuse you, Miss Erb. Families are complicated things.”

  “I am not confused,” she said, “but I’m surprised that you know all this.”

  “I am a general,” he said. “Generals must know many things. Now, then, I understand you have brought me some much needed assistance.”

  “You seem to know more about me than I do about you, sir.”

  “It is my business to know who is carrying a large purse for our efforts.”

  “If I do have money, sir, it is to be given at my discretion.”

  “At your discretion? I see. And do you have this money with you?”

  Lizzie smiled wickedly. She had trekked for days from her family farm in the Grand River Valley, across the Beverly Swamp and through vast tracks of forest, carrying a leather saddlebag over her shoulder. It was stuffed with bank notes and gold coins. When she came to a clearing that overlooked the Niagara valley, she had hidden her treasure in a hollowed out section of a stone wall. It was less than half a day’s ride away but secure until she decided what was to be done with it. “I am not a courier,” she declared. “I am here in my own good judgment, on behalf of my father and his friends.”

  “Your own good judgment?”

  “To decide whether we will support your cause.”

  “What you call my cause is also yours. Without us, you would become American subjects.”

  “Citizens, sir. They are subject to no one.”

  “You admire the invaders, do you?”

  “I do not fear them. But my people chose to remain British during their Revolution and we choose to remain British now.”

  “Although your father and his friends choose not to fight,” he observed.

  “We will not. But we are prepared to invest in our common cause.”

  “Invest, indeed. Many of your neighbors have joined the militia.”

  “And many who are not inclined to make war will give you funds to support them. If we think it a sound investment.”

  “Good God, this is not a business transaction. Will you not give freely to your king, to his general, to fight the evils of Manifest Destiny? Do you know what Manifest Destiny is, girl?”

  “Lizzie Erb,” Lizzie said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “My name is Miss Erb, sir. And yes. Manifest Destiny is the American belief that it is their lot to rule the entire continent.”

  “Which is nonsense, of course,” said Sir Isaac Brock.

  “No more nonsense, sir,” Lizzie answered, “than your own belief that the British should rule the world.”

  She glowered at Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. A hint of a smile passed across his stern face.

  “Here now!” exclaimed Macdonell. “You mind your manners, girl. Who do you think you are?”

  “You mind yours, sir! I think I am Lizzie Erb. I was not addressing you.”

  No one questioned the young woman’s importance. She was from the rich Men
nonite communities around Berlin. And she was carrying a lot of money to help finance the British defense of Canada—unless she felt it was a lost cause or morally corrupt. It was her decision. She was seventeen years old, but she was a powerful woman. And Brock was the most powerful man in the colony.

  “It is not an accident of fate that I have found you here, General Brock. To be sure, there is a Redcoat captain wanting to kill me, but I’m here of my own free will.”

  “You have a price on your head? Well, Colonel Macdonell,” General Brock seemed suddenly jovial as he turned to his friend, “we had better do something about this murderous Redcoat.”

  “You may laugh, sir, but it is not amusing,” said Lizzie. “I saw your Captain Blaine murder my uncle’s hired man.” She turned to Matthias Haun. “It was Whittington, Uncle. The captain and two ruffians were stealing a cow.”

  “Hush, now, Lizzie Erb. One dead cow in the whole scheme of a war is not significant.”

  “But Whittington, sir, Captain Blaine shot him dead.”

  Her uncle said nothing. Lizzie realized he was intimidated by the Redcoat commander.

  “And they burned your new barn to the ground,” she added.

  The color drained from Matthias Haun’s face. The loss of a hired man was one thing, the loss of his barn another.

  “What about the house?” he asked. “Did they burn that, too?”

  “The house is standing proud, sir.”

  He had hardly finished building his new stone house by Lake Erie when the British officers moved in. General Brock himself sometimes occupied the master bedroom. The modest ballroom was set up as a command center with maps everywhere. The kitchen at ground level had been turned over to cooks to feed the officers camped with a battalion of soldiers between the house and the water.

  Matthias had not yet lived in his new house. His family, including his ancient parents, Johannes and Margaret, were still living in the log cabins they had first built when they fled the Revolution.

  His large Pennsylvania-style barn had been completed the previous year. It had been filled to the rafters with hay and grain to get his animals through the winter. If there was no food for his livestock, he would have to slaughter the animals rather than let them starve to death. There would be terrible wastage.

  In an even voice, Matthias spoke to General Brock: “The Third Amendment to the American Constitution protects landowners from being ravaged by their own military.”

  “Ah, Matthias, are you quoting the enemy’s Constitution to a British General? You are fortunate we are friends or I would have you shot for treason.”

  “You would do no such thing,” declared Lizzie, with a vehemence that surprised even her.

  “And you might be shot as well, Miss Lizzie Erb, for boldness unbecoming in a young lady.”

  “I doubt that,” she said.

  “Which part?” Brock responded with a devilish smile. “That you are excessively bold or that you are a lady or, indeed, that I could have you shot? I could, you know.”

  He turned to address her uncle. “Now, Matthias, I assure you, we are equally as civilized as our belligerent foe. I have already agreed to pay for the use of your house. If my men have burned down your barn, we will pay to have it rebuilt. Perhaps with some of the treasure your niece has brought us.” Before Lizzie could protest, he asked her, “What about the animals? Were they burnt as well?”

  “I saved them.”

  “Of course you did.” He grinned as if nothing would surprise him about this intrepid young woman. Again, he turned back to her uncle. “So, Matthias, you have my word. We’ll give you whatever your barn is worth.”

  Lizzie wondered if General Brock had any idea what he was talking about. You cannot pay money to build a barn.

  The Matthias Haun barn had been built by a hundred volunteers. There was a large stable and above that was a threshing floor entered from the back on a ramp made from built up earth. It was a vast structure, built with cooperative effort by neighbors and friends. Did Brock think it could be replaced by money? Did he understand this strange world he found himself in, halfway around the globe from where he had been born, a world where people labored together to build a barn? This was not a land of castles and palaces, but of barns and dairies and mills. There were no lords and serfs in this place, no subjects, only freemen and workers.

  Matthias turned in his chair to look at Lizzie.

  She was pretty with her long brown hair coiled at the back of her head. Her deep-brown eyes betrayed stern compassion with a hint of playfulness at the edges.

  Lizzie knew Matthias was proud of her. His own family had divided loyalties. Many in Upper Canada who sympathized with the American cause would welcome the invaders. Many had relatives still living in the States.

  Lizzie’s own grandparents, Johannes and Margaret Haun, had come north during the Revolution and settled on the Canadian side of the Niagara River near Fort Erie, not far from where their son Matthias had built his stone house and huge barn. Not very far from the great Falls where Lizzie was right now, sitting across her aunt’s kitchen table from Isaac Brock, himself.

  After the Revolution was over, Lizzie’s parents, Christian and Edwina, had moved into the de Vere house in Boston with Edwina’s mother. Madge’s only son, William, had been killed in the siege at Yorktown, Virginia, which many believed decided the war in Washington’s favor. William’s betrothed, Lizzie’s Aunt Rebecca, lived in the house on Beacon Hill as well. Like her brother, Christian, she had left the Mennonites, though not without a sorrow that almost matched her grief for the loss of her beloved William.

  Lizzie was born in the house on Beacon Hill. She was very close to her grandmother, Madge de Vere. But when she was five, her parents decided to leave the new nation. Even though they had fought for its independence, Christian and Edwina were more comfortable with the orderliness of British rule. With their children, they joined the Erb family and other Mennonites from Pennsylvania and trekked north by Conestoga wagon to the Province of Upper Canada. They stopped in to visit the Hauns near Fort Erie, then journeyed onwards to the Grand River Purchase near the town of Berlin.

  They cleared land bought from the Six Nations Iroquois people, where the Speed River meets the Grand. The land was rich beyond anything they had left in Pennsylvania, and they prospered. They opened a mill and soon a village sprang up around them.

  At six, Lizzie was keen to go to school and learn how to read and write, so she could exchange letters with her grandmother back in Boston. For the next decade, they wrote weekly letters. At first Lizzie’s were printed and included crude drawings of her memories of Beacon Hill. But she developed beautiful penmanship and her sketches became elegant pictures of life in Upper Canada. The bond between them grew stronger over the years as the girl matured and embraced the world while Madge grew ancient and retired to a darkened room. Their letters became a mirror for the serene old woman to see her own youth and for the girl to see the best of what was within her. Madge shared their correspondence with Rebecca. Lizzie kept hers to herself, the one thing of her very own in a tumultuous household.

  Lizzie was a British Loyalist and Madge was an unwavering American Patriot, but they had much in common that was more important than politics. In peacetime, boundaries and borders seemed unimportant. What counted was the bond they felt between them. Each recognized in the other something of herself.

  When Lizzie was thirteen, her father died. Re-reading her letters from her grandmother Madge de Vere gave her the strength to endure.

  Soon afterwards, news came that Madge herself had passed away. Lizzie felt strangely as if the bond between them had strengthened. She was sad, but she did not mourn. Madge had lived a full and generous life.

  Lizzie’s mother Edwina married again, a Mennonite also called Christian with seven children of his own. By then, Edwina had six. Christian Erb was a good man and the chi
ldren of her first marriage, including Lizzie, took the name Erb. As the oldest girl of thirteen children, a great deal of their care fell on Lizzie’s shoulders. She had to drop out of school. She grew strong and fiercely self-reliant, qualities admired by her neighbors in a man, yet she was lithe and pretty. This confused them; it confused her own family. It sometimes confused Lizzie.

  The house on Beacon Hill was sold and Rebecca moved to Niagara on the Canadian side of the river to be closer to her family. But not too close. Her father had accepted her back, as he had his oldest son, Christian, but neither Rebecca nor Christian became Mennonite again. They had seen too much war, too much of the world.

  Madge had left Rebecca enough money to live comfortably by herself in her frame house near the great Falls. Rebecca never married. It was said that General Brock was a frequent visitor to her home, although she was several years his senior. But she had given her heart to William de Vere. It was not in her nature to marry a man who could only be second-best, even if he was a knight and a general and exceptionally handsome.

  Rebecca sometimes journeyed from Niagara to the Grand River valley to help Edwina with her thirteen children. Several died very young, most survived. Rebecca and Lizzie had grown very close over the last few years, although they never talked about the Revolutionary War or about her lost fiancé. And they certainly never talked about General Brock, except as Rebecca’s very dear friend.

  Lizzie gazed at them both.

  She wondered about their conflicting loyalties.

  Was Aunt Rebecca still an American at heart, in spite of living on the British side of the River? In spite of her fondness for the most powerful man in Upper Canada?

  What about Uncle Matthias? Did he really have a choice when his house was occupied by Redcoats? Was he loyal to the British or simply trying to survive.

  And what about Lizzie herself, what was she?

  Canadian, she supposed, though she was uncertain what the term meant.