Marc squeezed her hand gently, feeling in her grip the willpower and courage he had come to love more and more each passing day.
“Of course, I’ll go,” he said.
“Good. Now take a deep breath an’ tell me all about it.”
TWO
“You’re looking a mite peaked, my friend,” Oliver Bracken said to the other occupant of the coach as it slid nicely over the packed snow of the Kingston Road. “Perhaps a nip of brandy might rekindle the blood?”
It was late on a Tuesday afternoon and, despite the generally smooth passage, they had been travelling since daybreak from Kingston en route to Toronto. They had been a company of five at the outset, but three of their fellows had been dropped off at various crossroads along the way. Ever a garrulous man, Bracken had talked ceaselessly with everyone aboard except the prim and pale gentleman now seated across from him, who had merely mumbled during initial introductions and said nothing since. He was impeccably dressed but for the fact that he had wrapped several scarves around his throat and tied another below his chin so that it swaddled his ears and the top of his head underneath his hat. Despite the cold, which tended to redden the most reluctant cheek, the man had the pasty, disoriented countenance of someone far from home and weary of arduous travel.
Bracken held up a silver flask, and was gratified when his companion, without looking him in the eye, reached out, took it, tipped it daintily up to his lips, and drank.
“Most kind of you, sir,” he said.
The accent was English, and certainly a long way from central London.
“You’re welcome. Travel can be a most tedious business,” Bracken said, taking the flask back and returning it to his coat pocket. “And my surmise is that you have been journeying some distance beyond Kingston. All the way from the mother country, perhaps?”
His companion nodded, but whether he was acknowledging the general point of Bracken’s surmise or the specific one was not clear. But Bracken, an important functionary with the Hudson’s Bay Company, was not easily put off. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced when you joined us at Kingston,” he said, “and those who have recently left us, I’m afraid, tended to dominate the conversation. I am Oliver Bracken, from Montreal. I’m in the fur business.”
Either the brandy had done its work or the pale gentleman had realized he had no choice but to enter the dialogue, for he managed a tight smile and said, “I am Graves Chilton. And you have guessed correctly. I have come all the way from London.”
“My word! An ocean voyage at this time of year! No wonder, sir, that you appear, ah, under the weather. But let me assure you that we are only fifteen minutes away from the next stage-stop, and from there less than half an hour to the Cobourg Hotel, where a hot bath, good whiskey, a decent supper and a feather-bed await you.”
“I look forward to all four, then,” Chilton said with just the slightest hint of irony in the remark. How Bracken knew where they were situated was mystifying, as this so-called highway was a single-track trail that meandered though the densest, snowbound bush imaginable. For mile after mile they had been weaving their way through a virtual tunnel of evergreens and black-branched hardwoods – with an equally primitive crossroad here and there at intervals along their route.
“English gentlemen are received well in this part of the world,” Bracken said effusively. “My company, the Hudson’s Bay, is chartered by the Crown and has its headquarters in the grand old city of the Empire.”
“I am merely a gentleman’s gentleman,” Chilton said carefully.
“Ah, but a gentleman nonetheless!” Bracken chortled, determined to be impressed.
“A butler and a gentleman’s valet, to be precise, Mr. Bracken.”
“I see. And what brings you all the way from London to God’s country, if I may be so bold as to inquire?”
What indeed! Three months ago he had been a very important person in a very prosperous household in fashionable Belgrave Square, fawned upon by his master’s lady, feared and respected by a staff of eighteen. Now he was freezing in the middle of a wilderness even God wouldn’t acknowledge as His, and heading for what was laughably called a city on this Indian-ridden continent. If Toronto were anything like New York or Syracuse, then he was doomed to a punishment wildly incommensurate with his crime.
And what manner of peccadillo had brought upon him such instant and unforeseen calamity? A weakness for whiskey, yes. But he had sworn off that devil’s brew, and had kept his vow for over five years. Surely a single tumble off the water-wagon deserved clemency, if not outright absolution. But, alas, that tumble had led him recklessly into milady’s boudoir, and thence into the bed of her handsome new upstairs maid. How was he to know that the girl was the daughter of milady’s destitute half-sister, and a virgin to boot? It had all been a sordid mistake. His affairs and liaisons and quick encounters with the kitchen help had heretofore gone unremarked upstairs and downstairs, for he was by common consent a superior butler: intelligent, deferential and authoritative. Moreover, he possessed exquisite manners and a gracefulness of movement that might have been envied by a ballerina or a mortician. But milady, who had discovered him and the deflowered niece aglow, so to speak, had been in no mood for understanding or compromise. He was dismissed, summarily and without reference. And only the threat of scandal prevented her from having him charged with corrupting a minor.
His master, however, had taken him aside and suggested that if he were willing to go abroad immediately, references could be supplied and a position arranged somewhere in the colonies. His master knew several prominent gentlemen in Toronto, Upper Canada, for instance, and was willing to write there on his behalf. What choice did he have? While he waited anxiously in a cold-water flat, wasting his precious savings on life’s necessities, inquiries were made and answers received. By the end of the first week in January, he was aboard a steamship bound for New York.
“I’m on my way to become the butler in the household of a Mr. Garnet Macaulay of Toronto,” Chilton said in response to Bracken’s question.
“Ah . . . I’ve heard of the gentleman. Lives in Elmgrove. Fine manor house and old money: you’ll fit right in.”
To Chilton’s mind that hardly seemed possible, given what he’d seen so far of the manners and habits of North Americans. After a two-week sea voyage in which he had rarely raised his head above a chamber-pot, he had spent eight days in a New York hotel shivering from a fever and exhaustion. And when he was finally fit to travel, he found himself repelled by people professing to be ladies and gentlemen – on the street, in dining-rooms, or crushed closely in coaches and sleighs. They were loud, boastful, coarse-mannered, ignorant, and blithely unaware of their monstrous shortcomings.
However, Chilton had been bred to politeness, so he said to Bracken, “What line of business did you say you were in, sir?”
Bracken’s face lit up. “Furs!” he beamed. “Furs! The only business for a man of means and ambition to undertake in the Queen’s colonies. Let me tell you why, sir!” There followed a flood of information about the glories and virtues of the mighty Hudson’s Bay Company, most of which succeeded in enthralling only the speaker himself. However, as consolation to the listener, he brought out the flask and passed it freely back and forth between them. Chilton had sworn off liquor ten seconds after being surprised by milady in her boudoir, and had managed to drink nothing but water and tea since. But that first medicinal sip of Bracken’s brandy had proved fatal. He drank greedily. What did it matter now anyway? He wouldn’t be arriving at Elmgrove until tomorrow afternoon. He had a whole night in which to sober up and reconfirm his vow.
“Right now, believe it or not, sir,” Bracken was saying, “I am on route to Toronto to discuss some very important property transactions. Despite what you may have heard down in the States, this colony is about to go places. We’re on the move. Any gentleman with a nose for business and a little political pull can make his fortune.” He chuckled and added, “Even butlers’ve
been known to get rich!”
At this point the coach began to slow down.
“Are we in Cobourg?” Chilton asked, seeing only snow and trees on either side.
“No, no. As I said, we stop to change horses at The Pine Knot, a wayside inn where we can get a cup of tea and a biscuit, and where the best coach-horses in the province are kept. We’ll only be there about half an hour, but I guarantee you’ll not forget Mrs. Jiggins once you’ve met her!”
“Mrs. Jiggins?”
“She runs the inn, does the cooking, and coddles her customers. And does most of the talking.” Bracken’s cheeks blushed a deeper scarlet as he added, “A remarkable woman. Bessie’s got more tales than The Arabian Nights, and most of ‘em are twice as naughty!”
Chilton was ready to believe almost anything about this outpost of civilization. “Surely she doesn’t see to the horses as well?”
“Not that she couldn’t, mind you, but she has Brutus to do that. Big fellow. Can’t say an ungarbled word in English, but just give him a horse to talk to!”
Chilton shuddered, and glanced at the flask in Bracken’s hand. But he himself had drained it not five minutes before.
The coach slowed further, lurched to the left, and stopped. Without bothering to tuck in his silk scarf, the Hudson’s Bay gentleman opened the coach door and stepped eagerly onto the snow-packed clearing before a ramshackle, two-storey, half-log building that, to the English butler’s eye, might had doubled as a hog-barn. But it was not The Pine Knot that held his attention. Trundelling towards the coach at an alarming speed came a woman of generous girth and flamboyant attire, whose zeal to welcome weary travellers threatened to overtake her tiny pistoning legs. A tatty raccoon coat, unencumbered by buttons, flapped out behind her like a vulture’s wings, and left her tightly swaddled bosom to fend for itself against the winter chill. And no bonnet, by the look of it, had ever deigned to tame the wild spray of stiff orange curls that haloed the round, pink, unpowdered face.
“My dear Bracken,” she boomed just as she succeeded in decelerating and came to a nimble halt a foot in front of him. “How delightful to see you once again,” she added with a dainty leer. “The coffee’s hot and my scones, as you know, are always warm.”
“Good to see you, too, Missus,” Bracken said with a blush, and before he could blush again he found himself wrapped in Bessie’s arms – smothered in fur and squeezed perilously bosom to bosom. Thus pinioned, he was rewarded with a long, luscious kiss – lip to lip.
By this time Graves Chilton had stepped, hesitantly, out of the coach, but had moved no step closer to the inn or the clenched couple. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a shambling giant of a man come across the clearing to join the driver beside the lead horse, who was stamping and fretting at the harness. The big fellow was distinguished only by a burn-scar that disfigured the entire right side of his face. The driver smiled and shook his hand, then stood back as the fellow leaned his cheek against that of the horse and began murmuring to it, his wordless mumbo-jumbo instantly calming the beast.
When Chilton looked back towards the inn, he saw – too late – that Bessie Jiggins had released Bracken and was starting to move towards him.
“And who’s this handsome devil?” she said, her blue eyes prancing in their pretty sockets.
“Mr. Graves Chilton, Bess – a gentleman’s gentleman, from England.”
As she launched herself in the butler’s direction, she noted the scarf holding up his chin, and cried, “Got yourself a toothache, have you? Well, Aunt Bessie’s got just the cure for that particular ailment!”
Just before the moment of impact, Chilton had time for one brief thought: perhaps he had made the right decision after all.
***
During the week before the secret conference was to begin, Marc Edwards, Robert Baldwin and Francis Hincks kept themselves busy in ways that would not raise the suspicions of their political opponents. They knew that the Tories and the Governor’s people were watching their actions closely, for even though the act uniting the two provinces was not expected to pass the British Parliament until June or July, its adoption was now certain. Some time in the autumn of this year or early in 1841 a new order was going to be declared. What then? Whose political might would prevail? Rebellion and its contentious aftermath in both provinces had left all the traditional alliances shaky and vulnerable. Would the French Bleus stick to their own conservative kind or throw their lot in with the radical French Rouges to forestall domination by les anglais? In Upper Canada, there were now conservatives who were uncomfortable at being labelled “High Tory,” and the rump group of these latter reactionaries was increasingly wary of being yoked to the Orange Order, whose propensity for violence and extreme measures in defense of the British monarchy were alien to true gentlemen.
And the Reformers, too, were hardly of one mind. Most of their radical members had participated in the failed uprising of 1837 with disastrous consequences. William Lyon Mackenzie, their political leader, had barely made his escape to the United States, along with his cohorts, John Rolph, Marshall Spring Bidwell and other stalwarts. The military leaders, Matthews and Lount, had been tried for treason and hanged, as had a dozen others east and west of Toronto. Then, just as the furore and recriminations were easing, the exiled insurrectionists, from both provinces, had attempted a number of armed incursions from the United States, aided by libertarian enthusiasts from that liberated nation. These so-called “patriots” had met an even grimmer fate: their military expeditions were met by fierce resistance, and quickly disabled. Dozens of “patriots,” Canadian and American alike, were captured, tried, and either hanged or shipped off to Van Dieman’s Land. All that remained of the Reform movement was a handful of moderates still sitting in the Tory-dominated Assembly, and men like the Baldwins and Francis Hincks, who had held aloof from the actual revolt while sympathizing with its aims. And while Robert Baldwin’s commitment to responsible government had never been questioned, some Reform supporters still saw him as a coward who had betrayed the cause in ‘thirty-seven, while the Tories continued to view him as a disciple of Radical Jack (as they had dubbed Lord Durham).
These were the circumstances, then, in which Hincks carried on with his editor’s work at the Examiner and, along with Robert, composed letters to LaFontaine in Montreal, knowing full well that the latter would not be there to receive them and that the Tory “eyes” in the George Street post office would take note of their passage. Robert continued his correspondence with Reformers in other parts of the province, visited his father out at Spadina as he did every Thursday, and even ventured out the next day to Elmgrove (a calculated risk) as he had often done throughout the winter. Meanwhile, Marc went to Baldwin House each day and assisted Clement Peachey, the firm’s solicitor, with the everyday (and fee-generating) activities of Baldwin and Sullivan. There was no need to hold a pre-conference meeting to plot strategy: all the arguments were known – on both sides. Marc had read the correspondence between LaFontaine and Hincks several times. They were ready.
Though no fresh snow fell that week, the weather remained clear and cold, assuring travellers along the Kingston Road a smooth and speedy journey. On Tuesday morning of the following week, a message arrived at Briar Cottage from Robert informing Marc that LaFontaine and an associate had safely reached Elmgrove under cover of darkness, in disguise and undetected. While greatly relieved, Marc found his excitement diminished by Beth’s precarious health. As with her first child, Beth was again suffering from severe leg-cramps that kept her from sleeping properly, which in turn had left her defenceless against a miserable cold. Dora Cobb arrived each day with copious advice and vials of “horse liniment,” which Marc was instructed to rub on Beth’s knotted calves.
“Don’t fuss so,” Beth said more than once. “The babe’ll come whether my legs are cramped or not. An’ when he does, I’m not likely to notice them, am I?”
But Marc enjoyed stroking Beth’s smooth legs, so much so that Beth
remarked on his enthusiasm. “I figure it’s not the oil that helps, but the rubbin’,” she smiled.
“And the rub-ber,” Marc said.
“I think I feel another little knot farther up,” Beth said sleepily.
It was at this moment, after supper on the same Tuesday evening, that the second messenger
from Robert chose to rap on the front door, startling Charlene into action and waking up Maggie.
Coming back from the vestibule, Marc said to Beth, “The other two delegates arrive tonight. Robert will pick me up in the cutter at ten tomorrow morning.”
“Then it’s begun,” Beth said, shivering.
***
It began snowing at dawn, a light, windless, steady downfall. It was still snowing when Marc waved goodbye to Beth, Maggie and Charlene, and stepped up into the Baldwins’ two-seater with his leather grip in tow. Nodding to Old Henry up on the driver’s bench, he sat down beside Hincks, facing Robert.
“The perfect camouflage, eh?” Hincks smiled, as he waved a mittened paw at the snow.
Robert spread a large buffalo-robe over Marc’s knees. Robert was wearing a fur trapper’s cap, and had wrapped two scarves around his coat-collar. He was very much an indoor man, in an outdoor country.
“Did the other two Montrealers arrive safely?” Marc inquired.
“If you mean, did they reach Elmgrove undetected,” Hincks said, “the answer is yes. Their successful landing has been confirmed.”
“Good,” Marc said. Looking at Robert, he added, “I must admit, I am damn nervous. I feel a little bit like I did when I went into battle for the first time.”
“I’m far too excited to be nervous,” Hincks said. “And if Robert here is nervous, he won’t show it.”
“We are well prepared,” Robert said. “We have compelling arguments to make. If they are compelling enough, they will win over our French allies.”
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