Unholy Alliance

by Don Gutteridge

  “I suspect she drew some assistance in her conquests from her specially distilled tea.”

  “What about the coalition an’ the alliance?” Beth said, serious again.

  “Francis rode out to Elmdale at nine o’clock last night to let everybody know that we had charged two men in the murder. LaFontaine assured us that when that news came, he would sign the document.”

  “Aren’t you worried that Winthrop’ll know what’s in it, an’ might tell his friends?”

  “That’s unlikely because he’ll be in jail until the spring assizes. And the spy’s notes, remember, were all but destroyed in Winthrop’s fireplace. If he’s inclined to tell the Tories anything, it’ll be to boast that he sacrificed his own well-being for the sake of theirs and for the province’s future – by breaking up the conference and sending the delegates home in disarray.”

  “An’ you, clever fellow, encouraged him to believe that?”

  “I did. And Robert and Francis will inadvertently let the same sad news get abroad.” Marc paused, then added, “But I’m convinced now that such a signed protocol will not really be necessary. One thing about a murder investigation is that those involved – guilty and innocent, police and suspects – get to know an awful lot about one another, and have a chance to observe up close exactly how their fellows react under duress. One’s essential character has a way of shining through.”

  “Like Bragg’s did, eh? An’ Prissy, who’s better off knowin’ what he’s like.”

  “Yes. I believe Louis now has more confidence in Robert and his associates than he would otherwise have had. And his companions have seen us at our best and at our worst. I really think we have taken another giant stride towards establishing the principle of responsible government and self-rule when the provinces are combined later this year or early next winter.”

  “We’ve both fought long an’ hard fer it, haven’t we?”

  Marc took her hand. “You were there long before me, luv – with a lot more at stake.”

  “Maybe now we can start to believe in a better future,” Beth said, leaning against his shoulder.

  “For little Maggie, especially.”

  Beth drew his hand across the swell of her belly. “You’re not forgettin’ little Marcus junior, are ya?” she said.

  About the Author

  Don Gutteridge is the author of more than 40 books: fiction, poetry and scholarly works, including the Marc Edwards mystery series. He taught in the Faculty of Education at Western University for 25 years in the Department of English Methods. He is currently professor Emeritus, and lives in London, Ontario.

  Other Books in the Marc Edwards Mystery Series

  Turncoat

  Solemn Vows

  Vital Secrets

  Dubious Allegiance

  Bloody Relations

  Death of a Patriot

  The Bishop’s Pawn

  Desperate Acts

  Or visit the Simon & Schuster Canada Website

  Coming Soon in the Marc Edwards Mystery Series:

  Minor Corruption

  Governing Passion

  The Widow’s Demise

  Available from Bev Editions

  Excerpt From Minor Corruption

  ONE

  Toronto, September 1840

  “So you’re finally gonna let me have a peek at the legendary Uncle Seamus?” Beth said to Marc as the brand-new brougham veered off Brock Street north onto the bush-path that meandered its way up to Spadina House.

  Marc gave eighteen-month-old Maggie an extra dandle on his right knee and responded to his wife’s remark in a similar bantering tone: “It’s not as if we’ve been hiding him under a bushel, and the dear fellow can’t help it if his antics have made him notorious in the stuffy drawing-rooms of Tory Toronto, now can he?”

  “Would anyone be paying attention at all if the man wasn’t a Baldwin?” Brodie Langford called back from his perch on the driver’s bench. He was able to turn only partway around, not because he felt obliged to keep an eye on the pair of spirited horses in front of him but because he did not wish to remove his arm from the willing shoulder of his fiancée seated beside him.

  “Possibly not,” Marc laughed as he held Maggie up so she could see the forest flowing past them and marvel at the goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace that bloomed flamboyantly along the edge of the path and in the beaver meadows here and there along their route. It was Maggie’s first trip out of town, and she was wide-eyed with wonder.

  “Well, he’s been here since July, hasn’t he?” Beth said without turning her own gaze away from the view on her side of the carriage or disturbing the baby asleep against her breast. “And he hasn’t shown up at Baldwin House or anywhere else that I’ve heard.”

  “Seamus Baldwin emigrated here for the sole purpose of retiring to the bosom of his family. Why should he wish to leave the company of his brother and nephew and his nephew’s children and the delights of Spadina-in-the-woods and brave the urban ruckus of the city?”

  “What I’d like to know,” Diana Ramsay said from under Brodie’s left arm, “is what exactly makes him notorious?”

  Diana was governess to Robert Baldwin’s sons and daughters, and although stationed in the Baldwin’s town-house at Front and Bay Streets with her charges, she had accompanied them often out to their country retreat, Spadina.

  “But surely you of all people would know?” Marc teased. “You’ve seen the great man up close more than any of us.”

  “I have, and as far as I can see, he’s a jolly elf of an Irishman who loves a jig, a sentimental song and a good joke. What’s more, he’s become the darling of Mr. Baldwin’s children, especially little Eliza.”

  It was to celebrate nine-year-old Eliza’s birthday that Marc, Beth, Maggie, baby Marcus Junior, Brodie and Diana were jogging along towards Spadina on an early September morning in full sunshine under a cloudless sky. Brodie had just taken possession of the brougham – with its elegant, retractable roof, Moroccan leather seats and oak trim – and although he could afford to have several servants (and did), he had not yet relinquished the reins to anyone but himself.

  “Ah, but what songs! What jigs! What antics!” Brodie laughed as he gave Diana a discreet squeeze.

  She gave him in return a gentle elbow in the ribs. “You’ve only seen him once,” she chided, “and that was in July just after he came.”

  “It’s you two who are going to be notorious,” Marc said with mock solemnity. “Perhaps you should shorten your engagement, eh?”

  The young couple laughed, as they were meant to, but the date set for their wedding, more than a year off, was not really a laughing matter. Although now a wealthy young gentleman and budding banker, Brodie was not yet twenty-one and Diana, several years older, had accepted his proposal only when he promised to wait until all four of Robert Baldwin’s children were comfortably settled in school and she could, in good conscience, leave them in the hands of another governess.

  Maggie squealed and clapped her hands as a scarlet tanager flew up out of a pine tree ahead of them and fluttered in surprise over the horses’ heads.

  Marc sat back with his daughter in his lap and let her excitement play itself out. How much more content could a man get? he thought. Last April Beth had presented him with a son, Marcus Junior (now purring away in his mother’s arms). Soon after, work began on the five-room addition to Briar Cottage, more than doubling its size, and by midsummer it was completed. Maggie had a nursery to herself, Marc a study and library, Beth a sewing-room (also used as an office in her capacity as owner and manager of Smallman’s ladies shop on fashionable King Street), and their new live-in servant, Etta Hogg, had a small but satisfactory bedroom. And for all of them, a spacious parlour with a fieldstone fireplace. Their long-time servant, Charlene Huggan, had left them in June to marry Etta’s brother, Jasper. The couple took up housekeeping next door in the Hogg family home, caring for Jasper’s sickly mother and doing their best to expand the Hogg dynasty.

&nbs
p; Whenever he was not supervising the construction – carried out by Jasper and his new business partner, Billy McNair – or keeping watch on an unpredictably mobile Maggie, Marc found some time to assist his friend Robert Baldwin in his law chambers and to confer with Robert, Francis Hincks and other key members of the Reform party. Even politics, against all odds, seemed to be moving in their favour as both Reformers and Tories continued to lobby and plot in the run-up to the new order of things: the union of Upper and Lower Canada in a single colony with a common parliament. The Act of Union had been passed in the British Parliament in July, and it required only the Governor’s official declaration to become an irreversible reality, a move widely expected early in the new year. After that, of course, fresh elections would be held in each of the constituent provinces, and then it would soon become apparent whether French and English, Catholic and Protestant, Tory and Reformer could resolve their ingrained differences and make the unified state prosper where its individual parts had so glaringly failed. Unbenownst to the Tories, however, the Upper Canadian Reformers, last February, had concluded an accord with the Quebec radicals, and their hopes were high that together they could effectively dominate the new parliament. And that alliance had held and been kept secret now for over six months.

  “You aren’t gonna talk politics today, are you?” Beth said as they rounded a bend and came in sight of Spadina. It was not really a question.

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Marc said. “We’re here to celebrate a little girl’s birthday, aren’t we?”

  A skeptical tittering from the driver’s bench seemed the only comment required.

  ***