Duelling in a New World

by Ann Birch

  The Gov smiles complacently. “We can plant new ideas here, sir, and watch them grow and flourish. Let us have a celebratory drink in the oak bower now, eh, Mr. White?”

  They have finished one bottle of wine from the Gov’s stores when David Smith appears on the scene. He is a man of “overweening ambition,” according to Mrs. Jarvis. But White knows him to be a capable young sprout who the Jarvis woman perhaps fears may one day be given her incompetent husband’s position as administrator of land grants.

  At the moment Smith has one foot firmly placed in the political sphere, being the elected member for Suffolk and Essex. He has also curried favour with the Gov by taking on the role of acting deputy surveyor-general, a post which at the moment carries no salary. White feels sure he will be on the Gov’s side in this war against slavery, if for no other reason than to further his own advancement.

  Simcoe passes the slavery bill to him. “Look over this, Smith, while you have a glass of my best claret.”

  White opens a new bottle, passes a glass to Smith, and settles back to await the accolade.

  Smith pulls out a quizzing glass from a pocket of his coat. He waves it about so White can catch the glint of diamonds on its rim, then holds it close to his left eye, at the same time managing to keep the wine glass steady in his right hand.

  Moments pass while he squints at the document. What on earth can be taking him so long? My penmanship is the best, and I spent two hours last evening copying the document over so that there are no cross outs to impede its reading by the Clerk of the House.

  Finally he replaces the quizzing glass in his coat and heaves a sigh.

  “Well,” the Gov says, “let us hear what you think.”

  “With abject apologies, Your Excellency, it will not work in its present form.”

  “Why not?” the Gov says, his face growing red.

  “Think about the people who will vote on this bill, Excellency. Half of them are military men who have fought in the West Indies and America where slavery is still deemed immutable. Half are the peasants of this province who have no interest in anything beyond the needs of their bellies.”

  “Surely you are wrong about the people who voted for you,” White says as he tries not to think of the ignorance of the folk who voted for him in Leeds and Frontenac.

  Smith laughs. “I got the goodwill of my peasants by roasting three oxen whole and giving them six barrels of rum with which to wash it all down. They had not the slightest interest in anything I said to them. When they finished belching, they lurched back to their farms to see that their slaves had rooted out the turnips.” He pours himself another glass of claret. “You must agree with me, White. You are familiar with the peasants in the backwaters of Kingston.”

  He cannot disagree. But why should such peasants influence the outcome of this important bill? He can only hope that the Gov will stand firm for what he believes in.

  Simcoe leans back and folds his arms across his chest. White has come to recognize the gesture. It’s what he does when he’s under siege from a verbal attack.

  “What would you suggest then, Smith?”

  “A compromise, Excellency. Perhaps let the peasants keep the slaves they have now, but outlaw any further importation. That way you’ll still have the moral high ground, and you’ll get their vote. They can’t think beyond the end of their noses. And they don’t give a damn what happens after they’re dead and gone.”

  “Capital idea. White and I will work on it tomorrow.”

  Damn, damn, damn. I’m to work on the watering-down of a bill that has taken us days to write and that says everything that needs to be said against slavery?

  “And if I may offer another suggestion, Excellency. I should advise not introducing such controversy at the opening session of our Parliament. Perhaps in the second session?”

  To this, Simcoe responds by running his hands through his hair. It’s an abundant thatch and this gesture has the effect of making him look like one of the scarecrows White has noticed in a settler’s vegetable garden. Don’t give in on this point, Gov. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

  White waits for Simcoe to speak the words that will tell Smith to take himself off to perdition. The minutes tick away while the Gov looks down at the bill Smith has thrust back at him, and White contemplates throwing the wine in his glass at one or both of them.

  Finally the great man speaks. “I believe you are right, Smith. We can find a compromise surely, first getting the settlers on our side in this parliamentary session and then—”

  “Mealy-mouthed compromise is to be better than hard and honest speech?” As he says this, White stands up, knocking over onto the grass the small table and the bottle of the Gov’s fine claret.

  “Calm yourself, sir. What you call ‘mealy-mouthed compromise’ is surely better than utter failure. Be at Navy Hall at eight tomorrow morning and we shall begin drafting a new bill.” Simcoe bends down to retrieve the upset bottle and the remainder of its contents.

  I must restrain myself. It would be fatal to my prospects to antagonise the Gov this early in the game. “Perhaps you are right, Excellency. I shall retire to my tent now and contemplate some phraseology we may use for amendment.”

  Chapter Nine

  Late August 1792

  Eliza Russell has opened the front door of their log house to let out the fug of smoke that has set off a coughing fit in poor Mary. The place is intolerable. There are but two small rooms. One has a hearth with a chimney that does not draw properly, a spinning wheel she has no idea how to use, and a crude table and benches. Job, the Negro slave whom Peter bought when they were still in London, sleeps on a mat in front of the hearth. The other room they call their bedchamber. Here she and Mary must sleep crosswise in a narrow bed while Peter takes the bed built right into the wall, no more than a mere platform of wood with a scattering of straw for a mattress. There is scarce enough space left for their pitcher, washbasin, and chamberpot, and no room at all for any degree of privacy. Nor can she get much sleep with Mary’s coughs and Peter’s snores. What’s more, they are in continual dirt, and when visitors come to tea, she is put to the blush by the wretchedness of their quarters.

  Things may improve. This morning, Peter told her he has started to build a commodious house on the commons above Navy Hall. But he also complained about workmen’s wages and the fact he expects to have to pay more than twenty-four hundred pounds out of his own pocket. And will this house be ready by winter? She scarce dares to hope.

  From the front stoop, she can no longer hear Mary coughing. Perhaps the girl has gone down to the wharf on the river. She likes to see the catch the Indians bring in their canoes. She will herself take a break now from her constant sweeping and sit on the back stoop in the sunshine and enjoy the view of the river and Fort Niagara on the Yankee side. The Fort is still in British hands at the moment, and Lieutenant Talbot, the Governor’s personal attendant, is always paddling the Governor and his lady across to parties and dances. She can, of course, take no part in these affairs. The bedchamber must be kept as Peter’s place to put on his evening attire. Even if she had a fashionable gown, she would have no maid to help her ready herself and no chamber to dress in.

  As she is about to close the front door, she espies Mrs. Jarvis coming down the well-worn trail that leads to their hut. No chance of escaping the woman, nor does she really want to. Her visit will be a diversion. But she will go in now and make sure the rocking chair by the hearth is well dusted and moved close to a tiny window that can be opened. Mrs. Jarvis will deliver her fourth child in a few weeks’ time, and no doubt will need to keep her lungs clear.

  “Yoo-hoo!” the woman calls, banging the knocker. It is a vile American greeting, and Eliza opens the door quick so she won’t have to hear it twice. Mrs. Jarvis is in full regalia as if she were attending a tea party in Grosvenor Square. Her hat is puffed out with a balloon-shaped crown and a wide brim, and she clutches at it with one hand.

  “Do let me out of this w
ind, Miss Russell. My hat has almost flown across the river.” She is a sturdy woman with pink cheeks and clear brown eyes that don’t miss a thing. Eliza is thankful the bricks in the kitchen floor are reasonably clean and Job has left water on the boil in the hearth.

  Eliza spoons some tea into the pot and pours the water over it. There are a couple of wedges of pie left from the previous night’s dinner. Job made it from what he calls “pie-plant,” a tall plant with big leaves and thick sour red stalks that cook up splendid with lots of maple sugar. She plops one of the pieces onto a tin plate and passes it to Mrs. Jarvis. Then she pulls one of the rough benches over to face the rocking chair in which her guest is ensconced.

  “In a mere month, dear William has managed to procure a supply of logs and a carpenter to add a decent room to our hut,” she says. “We now have four rooms in this town that God has forsaken.” She looks around at Eliza’s abode, one eyebrow quirked. “Shall I ask William to give the name of this capable man to your brother?”

  “I thank you, but Peter will make his own arrangements.” No doubt Secretary Jarvis’s focus on the wrong things is, as her brother says, the reason why very few land grants have been processed during the weeks they have been here in Newark.

  “Why the Governor dragged us to a spot on the globe that appears to have been deserted in consequence of a plague, I will never understand. We might have stayed in Kingston and been a good deal more comfortable. And then he has the nerve to rebuke dear William for not having brought parchment and beeswax and a screw press from England for the affixing of seals. I expect it is that wife of his that is behind it all. Petticoat rule, that’s what it is.”

  Eliza does not reply. Her brother is a staunch supporter of the Simcoes and she will say nothing to this woman that might become the subject of her tittle-tattle.

  “And that so-called bachelor, Mr. White, is a piece of work as well. I see him prowling about the neighbourhood like a feral dog. I wonder what bits of meat he will find.”

  Eliza is not sure what her guest means. She knows only that she must find a way to defend her friend. But before she can speak, Mrs. Jarvis is in full flight again.

  “William tells me Mr. White is helping the Governor draft a piece of legislation outlawing slavery. How are we to manage without slaves? You and the Receiver-General have a slave, I believe. What else can we do for servants in a land where the price of household help is beyond reason?”

  The back door opens, letting in a gush of fresh air. “Aunt Eliza —” Mary’s greeting is cut short when she notices Mrs. Jarvis in the rocking chair. She bobs a curtsey and heads for the bedchamber.

  “Quite the little savage your . . . niece . . . has become.”

  What on earth is Mrs. Jarvis referring to now? Mary curtsied, did she not? And why does she come down hard on the word ‘niece’?

  “Those moccasins she’s wearing. Where on earth did she get them?”

  “Mr. White gave them to her. And grateful I was for the gift. She has grown so much since we left dear old England. Dear Mr. White bought these for her in Kingston. Pretty they are with their beading and so comfortable, Mary tells me.”

  “Ah, so he is a friend of yours. Well, I shall say no more. But now you must tell me something. I notice the child calls you ‘aunt.’ Forgive my ignorance, but I did not know you and the Receiver-General had another sibling.”

  Eliza tells the story she has told so many times before: the shipwreck and the drowning of their friends, George and Anna Fleming, the rescue of the babe, and her delivery to their house in Harwich. But while she is telling it, she feels her face grow red.

  “Indeed.” The one word tells Eliza that Mrs. Jarvis believes not a particle of what she has just heard.

  “You must allow me to give you some advice, Miss Russell. You really must get out and about more. I understand you are somehow related to the Duke of Bedford. I know you are elderly—as is your brother—but you both have a responsibility to show people in this forsaken backwater how to behave.”

  This is more than Eliza can bear. “Scarce elderly, ma’am. I am thirty-nine years of age, no doubt much older than you or the Governor’s lady, but not elderly.”

  “Forgive me. I did not intend to be rude. But your brother is then twenty years older than you, is he not? That seems a great difference . . .” Mrs. Jarvis has set her plate and cup on the long kitchen table and now plants herself again in the rocking chair as if she wants to stay rooted there for ever.

  “Peter is my half-brother, ma’am.”

  “Your half-brother?”

  This is said in a tone that indicates she and Peter must somehow be living in sin. Eliza feels she must vindicate herself and her dear brother.

  “He is the only son of my father’s first wife. I met him for the first time when I was almost seventeen. He had been many years serving in a regiment in North America and the West Indies. He charmed me, so kind he was and so helpful. He went back to America and came to me again when I was twenty-eight years of age. Oh, I did need his advice then.” Even as she is saying this, Eliza knows that she has given too much away.

  “Needed his advice? What do you mean?”

  No retreat is possible now. So out with it. “I then had the charge of Peter’s step-mother, my own mother. By the time he came back again to me from the New World, she was insane. She suffered violent rages in which she had a mighty strength. She would bite me and strike me. My body would be covered all over in welts and bruises. On the very day Peter arrived back in Harwich, as he was a-coming into our drawing room, he saw she had pushed me down on the floor and was a-strangling me. Peter managed to pull her off and then he helped me to my feet. My dear brother saved my life.”

  Remembering her terror and the relief she felt when Peter saved her, Eliza cannot hold back her tears. Mrs. Jarvis leans towards her, puts her arms around her. Eliza can feel her huge belly against her breasts.

  “Oh, my dear Miss Russell, how dreadful. And what happened next?”

  “Peter summoned the serving girl and sent her to the apothecary on the corner to buy a bottle of laudanum. He showed me how to add it to the broth my mother consumed nightly. In a day or two, the fits of rage vanished. She would fall into deep slumber, and I be once again able to rest myself and control her. Oh Lord, I will ever be grateful to dear Peter. We have since been a faithful couple for these many years.”

  Has she said too much? At any rate, Mrs. Jarvis asks no more questions. She stays only a few minutes longer, but on her way out she manages to open the wrong door and look into the bedchamber. “Pardon me, Miss Russell,” she says. “These days—it must be my condition—I get so thoroughly confused.”

  Chapter Ten

  October 1792

  White looks out the door of the rented log house which he and Osgoode now occupy. The black bear is there again in the “back forty,” an expression he’s just learned from an American farmer. Though he has no desire to meet the animal up close, he rather likes to watch it munch on the rotted apples that have fallen. There is a pleasant cleared space just behind the house where he hopes to plant a garden in the spring.

  He and Osgoode have a woman to cook for them. Her name is Yvette LaCroix. She’s what the settlers here call a “half breed,” having a French father and a Chippewa mother. The Frenchman accepted no responsibility for Yvette’s upbringing, so she has been raised by her mother’s Indian band. It’s a common occurrence in these dark Canadian forests.

  Much as he enjoys Osgoode’s friendship, he realizes they have few common interests. Osgoode is always content to fall to sleep at ten o’clock each night reading his favourite book, Boote’s Suit at Law, but he needs more stimulation. It’s a relief, though, to be in this rented hut and to escape from the gimlet eye of Mrs. Simcoe. By early fall of next year, he may have his own house. The builders are working on it now. Though it has a good view of the river, it’s a far cry from the stone mansion he once envisaged. But four rooms to himself, even in a house of logs, will b
e heaven.

  Four rooms to himself? Should he not ask Marianne and the children to come to him here in the wilderness? No, postpone it. There is but one doctor at the garrison, no school for the children, and not even a church for their spiritual enlightenment, only an itinerant Church of England preacher who conducts his services in a room in the Freemasons’ Lodge. Eliza Russell, bless her good heart, would tolerate Marianne, but how would his wife fare with the Gov’s lady? He tries to imagine Marianne engaging in a conversation with the lady about pet snakes, or the best way to cook a squirrel, or worst of all, sitting with Captain Brant, the Mohawk chief, at an official dinner. She would undoubtedly ask him how many scalps he had taken. He needs must put off these potential embarrassments for as long as possible.

  The Parliament of Upper Canada which convened in the Freemasons’ Lodge has been prorogued so that the farmers can get home to harvest their crops. White was at first worried about his role in the new assembly, but it soon proved to be the same as government anywhere: too much talk and too little action. But what can he expect from what David Smith has called a “lair of warriors and peasants”? It’s true that half the assembly is made up of former military men who have no experience in the world of politics and the other half of farmers who are mostly illiterate and untutored in the ways of the world.

  Though the amended slave bill has been postponed for the second parliamentary session, White is happy enough with the current passing of bills which set up the district courts and the Court of King’s Bench. That at least establishes a framework of justice. But he’s determined now to see regulations enacted to ensure lawyers, magistrates, and justices in this new world are properly trained for these courts.

  He heard over tea with the Jarvises last week that Peter Russell intends to supplement his income by sitting on King’s Bench. Mrs. Jarvis can sniff out gossip like a foxhound routing a fox.