Turncoat

by Don Gutteridge

  “Hatch mentioned that the young Mrs. Smallman is a widow.”

  Durfee again seemed puzzled by how much information this casual visitor had managed to cajole out of the usually discreet miller. But there was an openness, naïveté even, about the beardless young man before him that begged his confidence and trust.

  “Jesse died a year ago December,” Durfee said. “That’s why Joshua came back. And why we done all we could for him and Beth these past months.”

  Marc waited quietly until Durfee whispered, “He hung himself. In the barn. His wife found him.”

  EMMA DURFEE PRESSED MARC TO STAY for supper, but he assured her that Winnifred Hatch was expecting him to dine at the mill within the hour. Mrs. Durfee, as round and plump as her husband was spare and gnarled, smiled as if she were privy to some mutual conspiracy. “Ahh,” was all she said, but it was meaning enough. When Marc failed to take the bait, she added with feigned reluctance, “Well, there ain’t a man in the district brave or foolhardy enough to ignore the wishes of the handsome Miss Hatch.”

  Marc was beginning to wonder if “handsome” was part of Miss Hatch’s Christian name, in the manner of the pilgrims’ “Goody.”

  When Emma Durfee left the room to tend to her own cooking, her husband leaned forward and said to Marc, “You must’ve had some other reason for droppin’ by than to say hello and sample my finest.”

  “Hatch tells me you have a safe.”

  Which turned out to be an understatement, for the iron box that governed the otherwise modest space of Durfee’s office (itself adjoined to the taproom by a sturdy oak door) was roomy enough to have housed a successful brood of chickens and intimidating enough to have kept them safe from a regiment of foxes.

  “It’s been in the wife’s family for years. We sledded it over the lake last February.” Durfee fiddled with the dial and then drew the door open slowly, like a proud jailer who has no doubt about his dungeon’s impregnability. “What’ve you got that needs protectin’?”

  Marc dropped the leather pouch he had taken from the Yankees’ saddlebag onto Durfee’s rolltop desk. Then he gave the innkeeper the same abbreviated and carefully edited version of his encounter with Connors and O’Hurley he had given Hatch.

  “I’m surprised to hear that,” Durfee said, letting his breath whistle through the pair of wooden teeth on the left side of his jaw to emphasize his point. “Them two’ve been sidlin’ about the province for several years now, and they’re like most Yankee peddlers we get here—quick with the lip and about as trustworthy as a bull in a field of heifers. But they’ve never been known to do violence to anyone: all bluster and no delivery.”

  “I kept their saddlebag as security,” Marc said. “As an agent of the Crown, I’d like you to witness my opening it, and then keep it in your safe until I can deliver it personally to Government House or the sheriff of York. I’m going to write up a description of the two renegades and have you send it off to Toronto tomorrow.”

  “I’ll put it on the special courier comin’ out of Cobourg at noon,” Durfee said, and he stood beside Marc while he unbuckled the pouch and shook its contents onto the desktop. A wad of papers secured by a lady’s pink garter fell out.

  “A souvenir of the peddlin’ wars,” Durfee said dryly, giving the garter a playful snap. “But this ain’t the profits from tinkerin’,” he added.

  “It’s money of some sort,” Marc said.

  “American banknotes,” Durfee said, riffling the two-inch wad.

  “They look brand-new.”

  “They are new. Hundred dollar notes of the Second Bank of the United States.”

  Marc nodded to Durfee to place the confiscated money and the pouch in the safe.

  “Guns or grog, I’d say,” Durfee said as he gave the dial a spin.

  “I’ll let the sheriff know about it,” Marc said. “I’ve done all I can for now.”

  “That you have,” Durfee said, but his watchful eye suggested otherwise. “Now you best be trottin’ across to the miller’s. The handsome Miss Hatch don’t like to be kept waitin’.”

  AS WINNIFRED HATCH POURED HER GUEST his second cup of tea, she watched the hot liquid flow into the china cup as if it might, unfettered from her strict supervision, dash off towards some other cup. The tea settled obediently where it was directed. Miss Hatch had, of course, asked the table if it would prefer another round—“You’ll have another cup, then?”—but it was only nominally a question.

  Thomas Goodall—the angular young man who, Marc learned, assisted in the milling during the season and managed the modest farm as a sharecropper—swallowed his second cup in two gulps and said, “Well, I’ll be off, then. Got three cows to milk.”

  The chatelaine of the house stopped the progress of her own teacup several inches below her thin, unrouged lip.

  “If you please, ma’am.” Thomas dropped his eyes and slid noisily off his chair.

  “For God’s sake, man, go to your cows.” Hatch laughed. “They’ll be popping their udders.”

  Mary Huggan, the Irish serving girl who had, in the strange custom of the country, joined them after her initial duties, giggled into her apron, then sneezed to compound her embarrassment.

  “As you can see, Ensign Edwards, we don’t often have ladies or gentlemen in to dine,” Winnifred said.

  “One lady in the house is more than enough,” Hatch said with a grin.

  “That was as fine a meal as I’ve had since I arrived in York,” Marc said.

  Winnifred Hatch accepted the compliment with a curt but not ungracious nod. Either she had not bothered to change her clothes following her return from the quilting bee near Port Hope, or she always dressed in a manner designed to display her widely acknowledged handsomeness. Her magenta blouse, of silk or some such frilly fluff, hugged her tall, Tudor neck almost to the chin, flaring downward around long and elegant arms and outward to suggest subtly the curving of a robust bosom. Her purple, fluted skirt was pleasingly cinched at the waist by a lavender sash that might have seemed overly bold, tartish even, were it not for her regal bearing.

  “And just how long have you been with us?” she said in a voice that a Milanese contralto might have envied.

  “About eight months,” Marc said. “I arrived at Fort York last May.”

  “And you have been discovering some of our quainter customs, I trust?”

  The miller’s eyes were dancing delightedly at this turn in the conversation. His daughter, meantime, let her considerable gaze linger on their guest, expecting, it appeared, something more than a polite reply but giving no intimation on which side of the question she herself was situated.

  Marc smiled in what he took to be his most winning manner (the one that had such a volcanic effect on the female gentry of Toronto) and said, “I am a soldier, ma’am. A man of action. We have little time to concern ourselves overly much with the manners and deportment of His Majesty’s subjects, scattered as they be over the whole of the globe.”

  Hatch chortled, but he was brought up short by a glance from his daughter. The quickened anger in her reproof, followed immediately by a softening look that bespoke daughterly indulgence and forbearance, roused in Marc another sort of quickening. An image of the handsome Winnifred—her burnished mahogany hair loosed from its coiled bun, her Spode-white flesh gleaming in the moonlight—popped lasciviously into his head and made him feel foolish and abashed.

  “We are doubtless a source of constant chagrin—and some sport, I suspect—for those raised within calling distance of the Throne.”

  “I was raised in the countryside,” Marc said, as evenly as he could manage.

  “Is that a boast or a whinge?” The onset of a smile trembled on her upper lip, and stilled.

  “I have found much to delight me in Canada and little that has been discomfiting.”

  “Well said, lad.” Hatch laughed. “Now let’s go in to the fire and have a wee toddy so Mary can clean up the mess we’ve made.”

  Marc was only modera
tely surprised when, several minutes later, Winnifred joined them in the parlour, taking her place in one of the leather chairs arrayed around the blazing hearth. And he tried not to look too “discomfited” when she drew a clay pipe from under her shawl and clamped it like a sailor between her flawless white teeth. He recovered sufficiently to realize that she was waiting, ladylike, for him to reach across with his lit tinder and assist her in igniting the plug she had just tamped down. The look she gave him as he did so was inscrutable, though mockery, raillery, and mischievous glee all came to mind.

  AS MARC REMOVED THE WARMING PAN from under the quilts on his bed and slipped on his nightshirt, he tried to stave off exhaustion long enough to reflect on what had been accomplished in the thirty hours or so since his departure from Government House and Toronto. While congratulating himself on having so expeditiously and discreetly confirmed the existence of a crime only suspected by Sir John, and having set in train at Durfee’s the means of dealing with the peddlers, he tried not to think of Commander-in-Chief Colborne preparing for what would surely be an armed insurrection in Quebec before the year was out, leaving behind his favoured ensign. However, a speedy and successful resolution of the matter at hand would, if the world were just, guarantee his promotion and, more important, a place somewhere in the thick of the coming battle. This cheering thought was interrupted by the more mundane recollection that he had brought with him only two changes of linen and one additional blouse. A speedy resolution might well be a necessity.

  More happily, the mattress was a feather tick and the quilts thick and soft. Erastus Hatch, who seemed to have enjoyed every aspect of Marc’s company, had given him the best bedroom, the one he himself had used when his wife was still alive. The miller now slept in a smaller room at the front of the house next to the dining area. Some time earlier, Marc had heard the two women, mistress of the manor and scullery maid, enter the room across the hallway from his, chatting in low but amiable voices. He found this amusing to recall, but before he could summon a smile, he was asleep.

  HE WOKE WITH A START, SUFFERED a moment of disorientation, then rolled over onto his side and listened hard. A door had just closed. He heard the soft tread of bare feet on the pine boards of the hall—moving away towards the square-log cabin attached at the back of the stone building. This, Hatch had told him, had once been his parents’ home—the first building on the property. There was a summer kitchen back there and several cubicles where, apparently, Thomas Goodall kept house.

  Marc pulled his door open in time to hear a stifled giggle from one of the shadowy recesses beyond the hall. Young Mary doing a little night riding in the hired man’s bed? Well, some practices changed little from one country to another.

  Would that notion please the handsome Miss Hatch, or dismay her?

  FOUR

  Any euphoria generated by Tuesday’s events had evaporated by morning. Ensign Edwards awoke slightly disoriented, his spirits benumbed.

  Winnifred Hatch arrived at the table moments after Marc, swathed in a taffeta kimono that flattered the shapely figure beneath it. Still, Mistress Hatch carried herself with such confidence that she could have come clothed in diaphanous veils and still retained an air of rigid respectability. Winnifred Hatch had not learned to blush. In a straightforward manner she asked Marc if he had slept well and refilled his cup with coffee. This kindness was interrupted by the arrival of Thomas and Erastus from the barn. The whiff of manure, muted somewhat by the winter chill, blended uneasily with the aroma of coffee and the tang of fried pork.

  “How is the Guernsey doing?” Winnifred asked Thomas. He mumbled something positive but kept his eyes on his plate. Behind them, Mary Huggan sang softly over her stove.

  “We’ll take our coffee into the parlour and talk,” Erastus announced.

  “FIRST OF ALL,” THE MILLER SAID, “we need to dream up an excuse for you poking your nose about Crawford’s Corners. Then, whatever else we find out between now and Saturday, when I’ve got a meeting with Sheriff MacLachlan, has to be made official. After that, you and the sheriff can decide between you how to execute the governor’s warrant. Fair enough?”

  “Agreed,” Marc said. The hot food, the coffee, and the bracing sight of the two young women were working wonders on his mood. The prospect of facing the challenges of the day revived and excited him. However he realized, somewhat reluctantly, that the ruse of his courting the miller’s daughter would not do to explain his continuing presence.

  “I’ve got a suggestion on the first score,” Hatch said. “Every year about this time your quartermaster comes through the county, looking to buy surplus wheat or fodder. We can tell folks you’re one of his advance men reconnoitring the region. I’ve got a silo full of grain, my own and others’, that will most likely end up at the garrison in any event. Once I drop the hint to Thomas or Mary, the news’ll be all over the district by nightfall.”

  “I’ve already accompanied him on a similar foray, in December,” Marc said, brightening perceptibly. “We’re buying extra grain against the coming of troubles in Quebec.”

  “Splendid,” Hatch said, restoking his pipe.

  “I know what to ask. And it’ll give me an excuse to visit the local farmers and snoop about without raising suspicion. I’ve got more than a hunch that the man we’re looking for will be found amongst the left-wing zealots and Reform fanatics along the back roads.” Marc knew that Hatch was waiting for elaboration, but he was not prepared to tell anyone, yet, about Smallman’s role as Sir John’s secret agent in Crawford’s Corners. After all, this was the trump card that would give him the edge he required to sift and assess every tidbit of information that might come his way in the days ahead.

  “Well, then,” Hatch said, getting up, “I guess it’s time for you to meet Beth Smallman.”

  “Don’t bother Thomas about getting my horse ready,” Marc said. “I’ll just walk across to her place.”

  “You going to tell her what we think we know?”

  “I haven’t really made up my mind,” Marc said truthfully. “I need to talk to her first.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Hatch said, approving the instincts of this tunicked officer half his age. Then he grinned and added, “Beth Smallman is no ordinary woman.” It was as ambiguous a remark as Hatch was likely to make.

  THE SMALLMAN FARM, WHICH HAD WITNESSED much tragedy in the space of twelve months, lay adjacent to the mill on the north side. Taking Hatch’s advice, Marc followed a trodden path towards Crawford Creek that took him past the outbuildings of the mill where Thomas and a stableboy no taller than the fork he wielded were mucking out the cattle stalls. The colonel’s horse whinnied at Marc, but he kept on walking until he came abreast of the mammoth gristmill itself, its water wheel stilled by the ice of the creek. Two impressive silos made out of the same quarry stone as the main house stood as testament to the growing prosperity of the young province. Land was currency here, Marc thought, and the great leveller.

  Beyond the silos he found a well-trampled path that meandered along beside the creek. So this was how the locals travelled by foot when the roads grew impassable—to spread all the news worth embroidering. Marc pictured a network of spidery filaments from house to barn to neighbouring house, indifferent to woods, weather, and other natural impediments. He went north on the path a hundred yards or so, enjoying the briskness of the early-morning air, until he spied through an opening in the evergreens on the riverbank the pitched roof of a clapboard barn, and above it, a little farther on, wisps of woodsmoke.

  Next to the barn, a log hut with a plank door and single window sat hip-deep in drifts. The meagre smoke from its stovepipe slumped and frayed along the roofline. The door below it opened with a jerk.

  “Got yourself lost, mister?”

  Marc stopped, hid his surprise, and said, “Ah, good morning. My name is Marc Edwards. I’ve come from Constable Hatch’s place—to see Mrs. Smallman, should she be at home.”

  “Officer Edwards, is it?” The old m
an, for he seemed indisputably old even by the gnarled norms of Upper Canada, glared fixedly at the interloper, blocking the footpath.

  “I’m here on official business.”

  “Are ye now?” The old fellow gave no ground.

  Marc met his stare, then for a moment he almost laughed as the impudent oaf stooped into what was meant to be a fearsome crouch but resembled nothing so much as a petulant crayfish, for he was all bony angles, his ungloved fingers were stiffened into arthritic claws, and the beady peppercorns of his eyes wobbled in rage.

  “On Governor Colborne’s warrant,” Marc snapped. He had already said more than he had planned, and he held his tongue now with mounting impatience.

  “The governor that was, you mean?”

  That the news of Colborne’s reassignment had travelled so far and so fast surprised and momentarily stunned Marc.

  “Is Mrs. Smallman home or not?”

  “Where else would an honest woman be?” There was a rasping, spittled quality to the voice that skewed whatever outrage might have been intended.

  “I demand that you give me your name, sir, and then stand out of my way!” Marc reached down for the familiar haft of his sword and came up empty.

  “No need to lose your temper, lad. There’s plenty of daylight left.” And he scuttled sideways into the corral beside the barn, where he appeared to execute a crab-like jig.

  Marc walked with a dignified pace towards the house twenty yards ahead. The old fart was still jabbering to himself, or to some animal willing to grant him equal status.

  Up ahead, the Smallman house was more typical of Canadian rural residences than was the stone structure of the miller Hatch: a notched, squared-timber block, caulked with limestone cement, small windows of murky “local” glass that let in an impoverished glow, a pitched roof over a cramped second storey, and a snow-covered stoop. Marc strode past the windows along the north side, one of which was draped with a swath of black crêpe, put one boot on the porch, and raised his fist to knock. The door swung inward and fully open.