by Ann Birch
SETTLEMENT
Ann Birch
Text © 2010 Ann Birch
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Cover design by Emma Dolan
Author photo by Studio Anka
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
RendezVous Press
an imprint of Napoleon & Company
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
www.napoleonandcompany.com
Printed in Canada
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Birch, Ann
Settlement / Ann Birch.
ISBN 978-1-926607-04-7
I. Title.
PS8603.I725S48 2020 C813’.6 C2010-904985-3
This book is dedicated to
Martha Lee Lawrence
John Harvey Lawrence
and
Hugh John Lawrence
remembering
“the lamb white days”
Table of Contents
Part One: Winter Studies
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
Part Two: Summer Rambles
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
AFTERWORD
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Part One
Winter Studies
PROLOGUE
York, 1817
The duellists and their seconds agreed to spend the night of July 17 in Elmsley’s barn just north of the town. No one would think of looking for members of York’s élite in such a place. There they would be able to hide from magistrates or family members who might try to put a stop to the wretched affair.
Sam Jarvis and his friend, Henry Boulton, arrived first and climbed up into the loft, where they could stay clear of the pigs and the worst of the stink. There they found a thick bed of hay. Sam cleaned his pistol, and they lay down to try to get some rest.
“How did I get myself into this mess?” Sam said. “Ridout is just a bloody-minded fool. Eighteen years old. And I’m twenty-five and should have known better.”
“He insulted your father, didn’t he? What else could you do?” Boulton gave a loud yawn. “People will give you credit for defending your family’s honour. But we’ve been over all this before, so shut up about it. Please.”
“The pity is, he reminds me of myself at his age. Remember those two Mohawks I almost killed over that squaw I fancied? I’d have gone to prison if Mr. Strachan hadn’t persuaded the magistrate to drop charges.”
“You might as well address all these remarks to the pigs, Jarvis. I’m not listening. I’ve got to get some sleep, and you should do the same.”
They had scarcely settled when the barn door opened and John Ridout and his second, James Small, arrived.
“Just like your old man and your whole bloody family, Jarvis,” Ridout said, coming to the foot of the ladder and shouting up at them. “Take the best spot and expect anyone who’s not part of your tight little circle to fend for themselves.”
Boulton put his hand on Sam’s arm. “Leave it, Jarvis. It’ll all be settled at dawn.”
Sam could hear the curses of the two men below—even over the snorting of the pigs. Eventually they found an empty stall and banged the door shut. The barn grew dark. There was no moon, and the pelting rain leaked through the boards overhead, making an incessant pinging sound on the bare floor in a corner of the loft. Sam lay awake, his nostrils filled with the stink of pig shit, his ears assailed by the rain and Boulton’s snores. Finally, just before dawn, he climbed down the ladder and went into the barnyard.
It would all be over before Elmsley’s farmhand made his morning rounds. Boulton and Small had checked that out. Nevertheless, Sam upturned a pail over the head of a rooster he noticed strutting about the yard. If it couldn’t get its neck up to crow, it couldn’t give off alarms to wake the man up.
Too bad someone had not put a pail over Ridout’s head the day he’d burst into Sam’s father’s office and accused the old man of evading his creditors. “Transferred all your land holdings to that son of yours,” he’d said, pointing to Sam, who had come into the office to help his father. “Now my family will never get back the money you owe us.” Sam’s father, who had gout, hobbled towards Ridout, supporting himself on a crutch the family carpenter had made for him.
“You’ve got an almighty nerve,” Ridout said and shook his fist in the old man’s face. The lout seemed ignorant of the fact that Sam’s father had unloaded on him all the huge debts charged against those land holdings. “You’ll pay them off, son,” he’d said as they signed the papers, “and I can die in peace.”
The clerks in the office were witnesses to the elder Jarvis’s humiliation.
Boulton was right. Any decent man would protect a father’s reputation: that was duty. And duty was the fabric of decency. Sam had grabbed Ridout by the back of his coat and booted him out the door.
Later that day, in full view of everyone on King Street, including the drunks in front of the taverns, Ridout had hit Sam with a cane and injured his hand. Then the scoundrel had sent his friend, Small, to Sam’s house with a challenge to a duel.
Sam walked over the field where the duel was to take place, whacking at the burdocks with his walking stick. Where was his blame in all this? He had done what any good son would have done, damn it.
At daybreak, the other three men emerged into the drizzle. Sam went back to the barn to get his pistol from the loft. Then they counted off eight paces in opposite directions, so that when Sam and Ridout turned to face each other, they were only fifty feet apart. Because Ridout was short-sighted, the four of them had previously agreed to this concession, the usual distance being twelve paces. Then Sam noticed that they were between two large tree stumps. He shouted, “We must pick a new spot!”
Small shook his head in disbelief. “A new spot? What are you talking about?”
“Getting cold feet, are you?” Ridout said.
“Because the stumps make it too easy to sight my pistol quickly.”
Well, he’d done the decent thing. If he died on this miserable morning, people would at least have to acknowledge his fair play.
They chose another field that was clear of stumps and once more took their eight paces. “I’ll give the count,” Henry Boulton said. “It will be ‘one...two... three... fire’!”
The duellists turned, raised their pistols to shoulder height, and waited. Boulton called out from a safe distance. Sam could hear him clearly. “One..
.two—”
But he got no further.
John Ridout fired on the count of two.
His bullet missed Sam. The boy did not seem to know what he had done. He stood there, his pistol smoking, crying over and over, “Have I hurt you, Jarvis?”
Sam could not answer. He had dropped to his knees in response to the sound of the shot, and his heart was pounding so hard he thought it would break through his chest. He could not believe he was still alive. Then came an anger so huge he could not contain it. Kill the bastard. Kill him.
Small and Boulton rushed from opposite sides of the field to huddle together in the rain.
“Jarvis, you must comply with the duelling code and return the fire,” Small said finally.
“And Ridout must not have the chance to reload,” Boulton said. “The scum has broken all the rules of fair play.”
“Agreed.” This comment came from Small, who seemed ashamed now to be his friend’s second.
So Sam and Ridout marked out their paces for the third time. Turned. Faced each other. Ridout raised his empty pistol to shoulder level. Perhaps it was a pitiful attempt at bravado, but the gesture renewed Sam’s fading rage. He remembered his terror. He fired.
The bullet tore into Ridout’s right shoulder, knocking him backwards. Sam threw his pistol to the ground and ran towards him. The jugular vein had burst open. Blood was everywhere. Pools of it leaked onto Ridout’s waistcoat, spattered onto the weeds, soaked the ground under him. “What have I done? What have I done?” cried Sam, his rage spent. The only response was a moan. Then silence.
“He’s dead, Jarvis. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Boulton pulled him away. “Nothing to be done. We’ve got to get out. Now.”
The three men ran. Like rats. And all the way through the bush back into town, Sam said, over and over, “I fired on an unarmed boy. May God forgive me.”
ONE
Toronto, 1836
Sam Jarvis woke in the dark, stuffy pit of his four-poster bed. He drew back the curtains that encircled him. A pale half-moon shone through the lace curtains, illuminating the china drink-warmer on the table beside his bed. He took off the lid. The candle at the base had burnt out, but the tea laced with whiskey was still warm. He drank it down in one gulp, then lighted a candle and moved out into the hallway.
He tiptoed past the bedroom of his daughters, the chamber of his eldest sons, and the nursery with its three small inmates, and reached his wife’s room at the end of the hall. He lifted the latch, gave a slight push, and found resistance. He tapped his knuckles lightly against its smooth walnut surface. “Mary, Mary?”
No answer. He knocked again. “Mary, let me in!”
A door down the hallway opened, and a slim little figure in a pink nightdress appeared. “What is it, Papa?”
“Go back to bed, Ellen,” he said. “I just want to see how your mother is.”
As he said this, Mary’s door opened an inch. He glimpsed a strip of her white gown and her bare toes. “Come in if you must,” she whispered as he squeezed by her.
She stepped up onto the bed and moved over to the far side to make room for him. He pulled the curtains around them.
“Why was your door locked, Mary? You know I like to visit sometimes. Is it too much to ask you to let me in without waking up the children in the process?”
“Sam...” She moved towards him. He could smell the rosehip soap she used when she washed her hair. “I’m worn out. I cannot sleep with you again. I’m forty years old. If I found myself in the family way again, I don’t know what I might do.” He heard her sobs. “Men can’t understand.”
He put his hand on her breast and felt her pull away.
“I’ve tried to tell you before, but...I’d rather be left alone...” She rubbed her hot, wet cheek against his chest.
They’d married shortly after his trial for the murder of John Ridout. William Powell had been the judge. Murder among gentlemen—one joker’s definition of duelling—sometimes went unpunished, especially if one’s future father-in-law sat on King’s Bench. He and Mary had hoped for happiness, like any newlyweds. They had not reckoned on the tragedy that had occurred nine months after their union.
He, too, could not forget the screams from the bedchamber that went on hour after hour while he sat in the hallway. And then the silence, and the doctor calling him inside to look at a small blue-skinned corpse. He’d wanted to comfort Mary, but the sight of his dead son made him sick, and he’d had to puke into the basin with all the bloody cloths.
There had been nine more births within sixteen years of marriage. She said men couldn’t understand. But remembering that stillborn child, then the small son who died in the first year of his life, and all that terrible pain, those screams...well, yes, he could understand why Mary locked her bedroom door. He sighed, reached for her hand and held it. “Don’t worry, my dear, I will not come to your bedchamber again until I have seen Dr. Widmer. He can advise me. I hear there are devices a man can use.”
He could hear her intake of breath. “But surely, Sam, such... devices...are against God’s will.”
His head throbbed. Damn, damn. He’d offered to cover his prick with sheep’s gut, and she tried to give him a lecture on God’s will.
He listened to her sobs for a minute. “Sleep in your narrow bed without worry, my dear.” He climbed down and tiptoed back to his own room. She might come around in a few days. She usually did. He was off for his annual moose hunt tomorrow, anyway. And perhaps Dr. Widmer would have the sheep’s gut coverings by the time he got back. “They’re expensive,” he had told Sam. But Sam had so many debts, what was an extra bill? Widmer could always have another piece of Sam’s land if he desired.
He rose late the next morning. It mattered little when he got to the block of offices that flanked the new Parliament Building. No one cared. Deputy Provincial Secretary: an impressive title for a job that involved paper-shuffling. The pay was not bad, but not enough to cover his father’s debts and his own as well. Perhaps the new governor would come through with a promotion. He had an ego that could be stroked.
Mary was in the breakfast room. He got himself a cup of coffee from the sideboard and sat opposite her.
“Damn it, Mary—”
“Excuse me, sir.” The maid came into the breakfast room carrying a platter of poached eggs. She slipped three onto his plate, two onto Mary’s, and set the rest on the sideboard. While she was checking to see if there was still enough coffee in the urn, he dipped his bread in the eggs and put a large piece into his mouth.
“Disgusting,” he said and spat the dripping mess into his napkin. “Can a man not get a decent breakfast in his own house? These eggs are bad.” He threw the napkin onto the floor.
“If you please, sir, I tested them this morning in cold water. I did, sir. Cook says if they’re fresh, they sink to the bottom. If they’re rotten, they float. And sink they did, sir. I swear it.”
“Don’t argue. Take Mr. Jarvis’s plate to the kitchen and bring him some rashers of bacon.”
The maid picked up the napkin from the floor, set it on Sam’s plate, and hurried off with it.
He watched Mary pick at her eggs, then push them to the side of her plate. They drank their coffee in silence, listening to the sounds of their daughters and the little ones belowstairs, enjoying the attentions of Cook and their expensive but excellent new governess, Miss Siddons. The maid came in again with bacon and fresh-baked rolls, set them at his place, and clumped down the kitchen stairs.
Mary stared down at the uneaten eggs on her plate. The case clock chimed nine times. As if recalled to life, she rose, gathering her shawl around her. It was a cashmere shawl in a soft shade of green that set off her pink cheeks. He had bought it for her from a merchant on King Street, and the bloodsucker kept reminding him of its cost in the quarterly bills that arrived.
The maid came back into the room. She picked up Mary’s plate and headed for the door. Then she turned and came back to the table.
“Please, sir. I need...”
“Need? What?”
“My wages.”
“You’ll get them, damn it. Now leave me in peace.”
He sat at the table for a few minutes after she left. The bacon grease congealed on his plate. He picked up his cup of coffee. The dregs were lukewarm and bitter.
TWO
Sam and Jacob Snake portaged past the Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching, where the Indians had driven stakes into the water to trap fish. Carrying the eighty-pound canoe and their gear, they walked along the bank for a half a mile.
At a turn in the well-worn path, they came upon Sir Francis Bond Head and his official entourage. They were making an inspection of the huge Indian encampment which the previous governor had established. The new man was small in stature with a large head of pretty grey curls. Sam had met him twice before at official functions in Toronto.
“Surprised to see you in such a godforsaken spot, Jarvis,” he said. “Colborne left me with a mess here which I’ll have to sort out. Too many savages in one place. Bound to be trouble.”
“May I present my friend and guide, Jacob Snake?”
No response from Sir Francis. He looked down, seemingly more interested in counting the coloured studs on his frilly shirt than in acknowledging the introduction.
After a pause, Sam said, “Please excuse us, sir. You have much on your mind, and Jacob and I have a trek to accomplish before we make camp. Tomorrow we go moose hunting.”
They tipped the canoe over their heads again and trudged onwards until they were able to put their craft into Lake Couchiching, north of the Narrows. They reached their campsite just after sunset.
“Sorry about the Governor,” Sam said, as they pulled the canoe up on shore. Actually, he was more embarrassed and angry than sorry. “Savages” indeed. The nerve of the man. Why did these British upstarts have such a sense of superiority?
Jacob laughed. “Perhaps he is afraid of losing his buttons.”