Unholy Alliance

by Don Gutteridge

  “I should think poker would be his game.”

  They were crossing the tiled rotunda towards the master bedroom at the near end of the northwest wing when they were stopped in their tracks by a loud crash, as of crockery breaking, followed by a high, female cry.

  “My God!” Macaulay said. “What was that?”

  “It came from the servants quarters,” Marc said.

  “We’d better have a look,” Macaulay said, but Marc had already wheeled and made for the door to the northeast wing.

  “Straight ahead and down the steps,” Macaulay shouted. “It has to be in the kitchen!”

  The servants wing was entered through a narrow hallway and down four steps. Marc noticed to his left, in passing, what appeared to be a pantry or storeroom. Just past it, an even narrower hallway opened at right angles, but he plunged straight ahead and found himself abruptly in Elmgrove’s kitchen.

  In the middle of a very large, low-ceilinged room – ringed by metal sinks, polished wooden benches, thick-legged tables, racks of cooking pots and utensils, and an enormous woodstove – sat Mrs. Blodgett on the floor amid the remains of a shattered crockery pot. Her round blue eyes in her plump pink face looked permanently startled, as if any attempt to relax their rigidity might unleash the frustration, pain and pure chagrin that lay penned up behind them. She was struggling to slide her short, bare legs far enough under her so that she could lever her bulk upwards with the splayed fingers of both hands, but the slimy contents of the pot were rendering this effort futile.

  “Please, Mrs. Blodgett, let me help you up,” pleaded the skinny young woman pawing at her right elbow. “You’ll do yerself some damage!”

  “Leave off, Tillie! You’ll disrupt my arthritis!”

  “It’s yer arthritis that got you down there!”

  “Don’t get snippy with me, missy, I – ooh.” At this elongated sigh Mrs. Blodgett sat fully upright and grasped her right elbow with her left hand.

  “Come and help me get her up,” Macaulay said, brushing by Marc and moving to the stricken cook. “It’s all right, Mrs. B., the gentleman and I will get you into your chair.”

  “Oh, Mister Mac, I didn’t want you to see me like this! I’m such a stupid old woman, I – ”

  “No need to apologize,” Macaulay said as he and Marc gently raised her to her feet. “Tillie, fetch a towel so we can wipe the wet off your mistress’s legs.”

  While Tillie scooted over to a nearby towel-rack, Marc and Macaulay helped Mrs. Blodgett into a padded rocking-chair in one corner of the room. Macaulay, ever the gentleman, introduced Marc to his cook and handed her his silk handkerchief. Her bosom rose and fell beneath her spattered apron. As she rubbed her hands together in agitation, Marc noticed the ugly nodes of arthritis on every joint – swollen and painful.

  “That was me best crock, too,” she said, “and them was pickles I planned to serve at luncheon tomorrow.”

  “There, there, Mrs. B., we’ve got lots of crocks and a cellar full of preserves. It’s you we can’t replace.”

  “Oh, Mister Mac, you’ll make me cry,” she said as a single tear squeezed out and rolled over one pink cheek. “An’ that ain’t a pretty sight – at my age.”

  Tillie arrived with a towel and began drying Mrs. Blodgett’s legs. “You shouldn’t’ve been carryin’ that pot, should she?” Tillie said.

  At this moment someone else rushed into the room from the hallway. “Carryin’ what pot?”

  “Now don’t you start, Hetty Janes,” Mrs. Blodgett said. “I got enough worries without you girls wastin’ time fussin’ over an old woman who’s well past it!”

  “This is Hetty,” Macaulay said to Marc. “Tillie’s sister.”

  Almost her twin, Marc thought, as he introduced himself. The kitchen maids were both stick-thin with big brown eyes and shrivelled chins.

  “I begged her to stop liftin’ things,” Hetty said to her master.

  “I won’t be begged,” Mrs. Blodgett said.

  “There is no need for you to lift anything in here heavier than a scone,” Macaulay said. “You are my cook and a valued member of this household. Your cooking alone may win the French guests over to our cause. Let Hetty and Tillie help. You’ve trained them well enough, haven’t you? And if anything heavy needs carting about, call Bragg. Or, better still, I’ll have Struthers’ lad, Cal, come in here from the stables after four o’clock and be at your beck and call till bedtime.”

  Mrs. Blodgett snorted, “We’ll just trip over him!” Then she clutched her elbow and released a slow moan.

  “I want you to let Tillie tuck you in right now, Mrs. B.,” Macaulay said. “And on Saturday, I’m going to bring the doctor back here to have a closer look at you.”

  “I won’t have no truck with witch doctors!” she cried.

  Macaulay then did an unexpected thing. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Try to get some sleep, if you can.”

  As Marc and Macaulay turned towards the door, Mrs. Blodgett called after them, “It ain’t been the same since Alfred left us, has it?”

  The hallway was dark and Marc picked his way up the steps. As they passed the pantry on their right, Marc heard a giggle, very much female and undeniably sexual. Bragg and Priscilla, he thought, behaving like servants everywhere. Perhaps the new butler, however, had not approved, which might explain the tension among the three in the dining-room earlier. If Macaulay heard the giggle, he did not let on.

  Seconds later they were back in the well-lit rotunda.

  “Mrs. B. and Alfred Harkness were very close,” Macaulay said. “They came here as young employees in my father’s time, one a widower, the other a widow.”

  “Didn’t he have a brother?” Marc asked, recalling some gossip he had heard from Charlene’s beau, Jasper Hogg.

  Macaulay’s face darkened. “He did. Giles Harkness worked in the stables. He was my coachman and a wizard with the horses.”

  “Was?”

  “He left in a great huff when he learned that Graves Chilton was on his way here to take Alfred’s place.”

  “But Chilton’s your butler, not the coachman.”

  “Indeed. But believe it or not, Giles had thoughts of taking over from Alfred. But I wouldn’t let him near a china cup or a scullery maid. I may have let him know that a bit too sharply. At any rate he’s gone off somewhere, and I’m short a man in the stables.”

  “If anyone might have been envious of Chilton’s appointment, I’d have thought it would be Bragg.”

  “True enough. But Bragg likes it where he is. The fellow hasn’t an ounce of ambition in him.”

  They were at the door to the master bedroom. Through the nearby door to the bathroom they could hear someone singing lustily, in French.

  “Well, it’s nice to see Mr. Tremblay likes something in Upper Canada,” Macaulay said.

  They entered the bedroom, and Macaulay went over to a table beside the four-poster bed and brought back two large tomes. “Tell your Beth that she can keep the Dickens as long as she likes. She may find little time for reading once the baby arrives.”

  “It’s not due for another six weeks,” Marc said.

  “That’s what Elizabeth thought when our firstborn surprised us.”

  “I’ll have a leisurely gander at this Shakespearean treasure in my spare moments here,” Marc said at the door. “You’re not concerned about its security?” he added, stroking the leather cover of the rare folio.

  “Not at all. I trust my servants as I would my family. Leave it beside your bed. It’ll be there whenever you get back.”

  Marc thanked Macaulay and wished him good-night He crossed the hall to his own bedroom door opposite. As he was easing it closed, he sensed some movement on the other side of the rotunda. It was Graves Chilton. He had just emerged from the stairwell to the servants quarters. His jacket was buttoned crookedly and his pomaded orange hair poked up in unintended disarray. He glanced about warily, then scuttled into his rooms a few feet away. That’s od
d, Marc thought; Chilton had not been in the kitchen or within earshot during the noisy incident with Mrs. Blodgett. Where had he been skulking? Just then Marc spotted Austin Bragg descending the marble stairway from the upper floor of the northwest wing, an empty scuttle in his hand. Marc now had a pretty good idea where Chilton had been, and whom he had been with. Intrigue amongst the servants: that’s all they needed this week!

  Marc crawled into bed and opened the Shakespeare folio. Halfway through Twelfth Night he fell asleep.

  ***

  Breakfast at Elmgrove was offered English-style. Sausages, pancakes, scrambled eggs and French toast were placed over chafing-dishes on the sideboard in the dining-room and replenished periodically by the staff. The guests were free to wander in as they pleased and help themselves. The Thursday meeting was scheduled for eleven o’clock, which left plenty of time to sleep in, or rise early to prepare for the event or take some exercise outdoors. Marc awoke at eight, made his ablutions (with hot water supplied promptly by the ‘amorous’ parlour-maid, Priscilla Finch), dressed himself in casual clothes, and made his way to the dining-room. He expected he might find Macaulay already there, as they had arranged to go walking at nine-fifteen. As Marc approached the half-open door, he was startled by a sudden burst of invective, loud and in unintelligible French. The voice was that of Maurice Tremblay, shaking with rage. Next came a low, cautioning response, unmistakeably the voice of Louis LaFontaine. The only word that was clear to Marc had been uttered by Tremblay: vendu – sell-out, traitor.

  Marc deliberately rattled the door-handle, paused until the voices ceased, and then entered the room with a booming, “Bon matin, messieurs! Un bel jour, n-est-ce-pas?”

  LaFontaine had quickly regained his aplomb, and greeted Marc politely. Tremblay had turned away and was trying to spoon some scrambled egg out of its dish with a trembling left hand. Fortunately for all concerned, Macaulay and Bergeron came into the room at this point, already talking about the racehorses awaiting their admiration in the stables. LaFontaine excused himself, and a minute later, with his breakfast untouched, Tremblay left also. Bérubé apparently had decided to sleep in.

  “I could hear him snoring away in there,” Bergeron said to Marc in French. “Sleeps like a hog. I barely got a wink.”

  After their breakfast, Marc, Macaulay and Bergeron dressed warmly, put on a pair of snowboots, and headed out the front door. Chilton was back at his desk in the little office off the foyer, thumbing through his master’s accounts. In the crisp, nipping air of the morning, the delegates walked along the winding trail that eventually met the Kingston Road. No fresh snow had fallen overnight, so it was obvious to them that no man, beast or vehicle had come into Elmgrove via the main drive. They had gone only a few hundred yards when Macaulay steered them towards a pleasant path – again untrodden – that took them through a spruce grove and back out to the east side of the manor house. Farther off to the east and slightly to the north, the horse-stables and cow-barn lay hunched down in the snow. A well-used, cleared path linked these outbuildings with the back door of the house, along which the hired help would make their way, hauling firewood, bringing in fresh milk for breakfast, or scurrying off to the privies to empty the chamber-pots.

  Undeterred by the language barrier, and with an occasional assist from Marc, Macaulay and Bergeron strolled along this path, discussing the pedigree and unmatchable qualities of Macaulay’s pair of prize Arabians, who awaited them in the barn just ahead. Marc noticed two things: halfway to the stables a thick grove of cedars acted as a welcome windbreak; and beyond the cow-barn sat a stone cottage with smoke curling out of its chimney.

  “Ah, there’s Struthers now,” Macaulay said. “He’s no horse whisperer like Harkness but a damn fine livestock handler just the same.”

  Marc was introduced to Abel Struthers and his sixteen-year-old son, Cal. The party went into the horse-barn, where they were given, in two languages, the grand tour. Marc feigned as much interest as he could, considering that his mind was already racing ahead to the pivotal meeting at eleven o’clock. However, he did have time to take comfort in the fact that Bérubé and Hincks had hit it off right away, and now the reserved and sleep-deprived Erneste Bergeron was warming up to the eminently likeable Garnet Macaulay.

  ***

  At five minutes to eleven Marc arrived at the library to find all the delegates there except Bergeron. Chilton the butler was discreetly serving hot coffee to those seated around the rectangular table. When he came around behind Macaulay, Marc heard him say quietly, “As I mentioned yesterday, sir, I’ve found a discrepancy between the number of bags of oats listed in your accounts and the number Mr. Struthers claims have been delivered to the stables.”

  “You think Harkness may have taken some with him when he left?” Macaulay said.

  “I couldn’t say, sir, but I’d feel better if I were to go out there and count them for myself – in the daylight.”

  “Ah, I see. You’d like permission to leave us on our own at some point?”

  “I would, sir. Bragg has agreed to serve the two-thirty refreshments you’ve ordered. I shouldn’t be long.”

  “No problem, Chilton. I applaud your conscientiousness.”

  Chilton bowed and was about to back out of the room with his trolley when he was almost blindsided by Erneste Bergeron stumbling past him, flushed and wide-eyed.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” Macaulay said, rising.

  Bergeron looked wildly about, noticed the others seated comfortably with their coffee around the table, took a deep breath, and said in French, “We’ve got a spy amongst us!”

  The accusation needed no translation.

  “That’s not possible, Erneste,” Macaulay said evenly.

  Everyone present, especially the Quebec delegates, was staring at Bergeron, more in disbelief than dismay.

  “Would you be kind enough to explain?” LaFontaine said with admirable calm.

  Macaulay waived the butler out of the room. Bergeron, at Macaulay’s urging, sat down, took another deep breath, and said, “When I went up to my chamber a few minutes ago to fetch my notes for this meeting, I noticed that someone had been tampering with them.”

  He waited while Marc translated.

  “Stolen?” Bérubé said.

  “No, not that. I left the three sheets of paper on my night-table before I went for a walk to see the horses – ”

  “And they were not where you left them?” Bérubé prompted.

  “Oh, they were still there. But page three had been placed where page two should have been. Someone must have gone into my chamber and read what I had written about yesterday’s discussion.”

  LaFontaine looked steadily at his compatriot. “Can you be absolutely sure that you left them in the proper order, Erneste? Please, think carefully. We do not wish to have the important business of this day distorted or sabotaged by concerns over security.”

  Bergeron flushed. “I am reasonably sure,” he said hesitantly.

  “Miss Finch has been instructed not to enter your room to tidy up until we are safely in our meeting,” Macaulay said, “unless specific requests are made for hot water or other items. I will check with her and also speak to the other servants, but I can assure you that they are completely trustworthy. Moreover, none of them speaks or reads French, as you’ve probably noticed by now.”

  “You’ve been having trouble sleeping, have you not, Erneste?” LaFontaine said kindly. “Is it not likely, and certainly understandable, that you merely mixed the pages up yourself? After all, you say they were still exactly where you had left them.”

  “You’re probably right,” Bergeron said with a sigh. The dark patches under his eyes confirmed the state of his fatigue. “I regret disrupting matters here. Please accept my apologies.”

  “Accepted,” Macaulay said. To the others he said, “I asked my stableman Struthers to walk the periphery of the estate this morning. He informs me that no-one has come onto or left the property since the s
now stopped at noon yesterday. We are as secure as it is possible to be. I suggest we proceed with our deliberations.”

  Hincks and Robert looked much relieved. Marc was as well, although it did occur to him that the only servant Macaulay did not know much about was Graves Chilton.

  FIVE

  The chairman began the meeting by encouraging members to comment further on those items of their joint party platform – step one as Robert had termed it – that had been raised and more or less agreed upon yesterday. They had had the evening and early morning to mull these matters over, and there were bound to be clarifications required or additional points to be considered. Daniel Bérubé was most happy to revisit the topic of commerce and the myriad ways it could be increased once the double yoke of British rule and priestly interference was lifted. Some useful suggestions were made regarding a common tariff for the canal system and the need to dredge a deeper channel through the St. Clair River. The first new topic was the contentious issue of land distribution. The Clergy Reserves question had been settled last fall in Upper Canada, but both delegations were concerned about the rapacious land-grant companies chartered in the upper province and the vast fiefdoms of the seigneurs in Quebec, where ordinary farmers were little better than serfs. Lots of inexpensive arable land would be required if each half of the new dominion were to grow and thrive. Maurice Tremblay spoke passionately about the issue, but had no more practical remedies to suggest than anyone else on either side of the table. Some headway was subsequently made on squatters’ rights and more reasonable terms for homesteading.

  There followed a useful discussion of the nature of the civil law to be adopted in each province. Quebec had already been granted by Britain the right to use the Code Napoleon, but Upper Canada, of course, was governed by British civil law and its jurisprudence. Hincks pointed out that his understanding of the new political structure was that Canada East and Canada West would have separate, designated cabinet posts for both attorney-general and solicitor-general, among others. Such a clear provincial division of responsibility should make the application of differing civil codes workable.