by Ann Birch
“Now, set you down, dearie, in that chair by the fire and keep warm. As soon as the menfolk arrive, we’ll eat supper.”
As Anna settled into the comfortable seat, she heard the sound of a lark. Instinctively she looked out the little front window into the night. “But there are no larks in Canada,” she said aloud. Then she turned her head, and there it was, a tiny creature on its sod of turf in a small cage suspended on a hook from the ceiling. It trilled and warbled away, and she sat stock still in her chair, listening with her heart.
“Why are you crying, dearie?” The landlady glanced at her as she turned the fish on the gridiron. She took a napkin from the table and passed it to Anna.
“I don’t know...I don’t know what’s come over me. I heard your bird’s song, and suddenly I was in Ireland again, a small girl lying on my back on the hillside above my parents’ summer home, watching the larks as they sang and soared over my head— watching, watching, watching—until they melted into the blue sky. And here I am, in this inn somewhere in the wild forests of Upper Canada, listening to that caged bird’s song, lost, lost...” She took the napkin and wiped her eyes. “Oh, perhaps I’ve grown nostalgic because you remind me so much of my old nurse.”
The landlady knelt by Anna’s chair and took her hand in hers. “I, too, dearie, sometimes think of those beautiful green hills and tuneful birds and the folk I left behind. But I have been here for thirty years and more. My old man and my dear lost kiddies lie in the churchyard yonder. This is my home now, and a good one it is. I would not go back, even if the King himself asked me to.”
“I am beginning to understand how one could love this country,” Anna said. “I have seen and done things today which I could never have—”
She was interrupted by the arrival of Robert and Mr. Campbell. The landlady’s sons took their coats and hung them by the hearth, and they all sat down to a meal of venison steaks, fried fish, hot cakes, cheese, coffee and whiskey punch. “Best food I’ve ever had,” Robert said, ladling out another spoonful of punch.
The bedchamber seemed cold, and Anna snuggled against her husband. “A day to remember,” she said as she kissed him. “I felt happy when you hugged me.”
“Hugged you?” He seemed genuinely bewildered. “That was Campbell. I thought at the time he took an unwarranted liberty. But we were out of our minds with worry, I guess. And you were undoubtedly half-mad with fear yourself after being trapped like that.”
Had she imagined things as she wanted them to be? Or had he regretted his show of emotion and was now denying everything?
“I’m tired, Anna. Dead tired from wrestling with those damn horses. Just want to sleep. Sorry.” In a moment, she heard his breathing slow and deepen.
The next day slid by without mishap, and by late afternoon, they had arrived at Niagara. “Or Newark,” Mr. Campbell said. “It’s had its share of names. I’ll see you safely to your friends’ house, then be off straight away to see my dear wife and babe. I’ll call for you at eight tomorrow morning.”
Mr. John Lees Alma and his wife Emily had been English friends of Robert’s. Anna had visited them once or twice when she and Robert were first married, and she was glad to meet them again on this side of the water. Robert seemed so intent now on making friends for political reasons. It was pleasant to know that he wanted to seek out the Almas simply because he liked them.
They lived in a Georgian brick house just off the main street of the town. Mr. Alma was now a prosperous merchant, and his embonpoint was testimony of his success. Supper was served at a huge mahogany table. The plates were heaped with food, and everything was brown in colour, from the lukewarm soup with chunks of beef swimming in grease to the thick slice of mutton covered with gravy, to the caramel pudding with a viscous molasses sauce. Anna found herself thinking longingly of the venison steaks she had enjoyed on the way.
“I imagine you’re happy to have a decent meal after two days’ travel,” Mr. Alma said, as he passed Anna and Robert another glass of dark-brown sherry. “Now, drink up and enjoy our national pastime.”
“Which is?”Anna asked.
“Inebriety.”
Robert laughed, downed the contents of his glass and poured more from the decanter at his right hand. “Let me now recite the national anthem,” he said. “It applies to all immigrants to this country, you, me and the rest of them:
Men learn to drink, who never drank before;
And those who always drank, now drink the more.”
Mrs. Alma rose from her place. “Perhaps it’s time to leave the gentlemen to the national pastime.” A plump little woman dressed in the latest fashion, she had a bustle so large that she might have hidden a down pillow under her dress. “Do come with me, Mrs. Jameson, and admire some of our new acquisitions.”
Very proud she was of what she called her “Franklin stove” in the drawing room. It was set into the fireplace, “with its pipe let into the flue,” she said, “and the opening of the fireplace bricked up around it, as you can see. A great improvement on the open hearth, to my mind.”
“Yes, indeed,” Anna said. “It must hold the heat so well.”
“And now, I’ll show you what we have in your bedchamber. You and Mr. Jameson will find it so convenient.”
What on earth could that be? Anna wondered, passing through her mind the various items she and Robert might find ‘convenient’. A bedwarmer to heat up their lovemaking? A tub big enough for a communal scrub? A lithograph of a Bacchanalian orgy?
The “convenience” was a fine maple chair, and with a flourish, Mrs. Alma lifted the hinged seat to disclose a chamberpot below.
“A commode chair,” Anna said. “How...comfortable.”
She was striving to find another adjective to describe this piece of furniture when she noticed on the wall beside it a framed pencil drawing of a small boy wearing an embroidered skin shirt and, on his curls, a fur cap with a tail dangling from it. He wore tiny moccasins, and on his sturdy little legs, buckskin breeches decorated with beaded sashes. The drawing was beautifully done, evidently by a master artist and...
“Who is this pretty child?” she asked as she moved closer to look at its fine details. She could see the artist’s signature, Wm. Berczy, in beautiful copperplate. Below the sketch was a title. Nehkik. Surely not. She looked again. Yes, Nehkik.
“It’s a likeness of Sam Jarvis as a five-year-old. You’ve probably met the man himself in Toronto.”
“But what...? Why…do you have this picture?”
“The ladies at St. Mark’s—the Church of England—had a bazaar recently to help the poor. Someone who knew the Jarvises when they lived here brought in the picture, which they’d purchased at an auction. William Jarvis worked for the Simcoes, I believe, something to do with land grants. He was a ne’er-do-well, by all accounts, and I gather the son is no better. But I liked the sketch, and Berczy’s art may go up in value.”
“I wonder why the boy is in Indian costume.”
“It was the fashion then. Mrs. Simcoe liked the savages, had them about all the time, even had her own son dressed in buckskin.” Mrs. Alma ran her hand over the arm of the commode chair and lifted the seat once more. “My husband has put in an order for several of these from Montreal. He expects to sell them all.” She turned to Anna. “But tell me about Mr. Sam Jarvis. I have heard that he is a murderer and a renegade.”
“I too have judged him severely, Mrs. Alma. But many people like him. My friend Colonel Fitzgibbon is one. Mr. Jarvis is a generous host and kind to his wife and children. I confess—now that I know him—that I myself like him.”
Anna and her hostess went downstairs to have tea in the drawing room, where they were joined in an hour by the men, “rather the worse for wear,” as Mr. Alma put it. “And now you must get to bed,” he added. “Clumping around the falls in the dead of winter requires a good night’s preparatory rest.”
Their bed was high off the floor and Robert had some difficulty mounting it from the stepping stoo
l. Once they were settled, Anna pulled the curtains around them, making a dark little nest of warmth and comfort.
Robert pulled up her nightdress and touched her nipples for a moment. Then he put his limp member against her pubis. As she reached down to caress it into life, she heard his deep breathing and a gentle snore. She lay on her back and let the tears stream unchecked down her cheeks and onto the pillow. “Alone, alone, all all alone!” Like the Mariner, she felt doomed.
Mr. Campbell called for them promptly at eight in the morning, and they set out briskly for the fourteen-mile ride to the falls. “I shall drop you at the inn which overlooks the cataracts,” he said, “where you can spend the night after your sightseeing. Then in the morning, we start our return journey.”
“But are we not to see your wife and this lovely new baby?”
“Oh, ma’am, do you mean it? I’d be so happy. It would not be a great inconvenience for you, because my house is a stone’s throw from the inn. I could pick you up, take you there, show you the bairn and be back at your lodgings within two hours.”
“For god’s sake, Anna,” said Robert into her ear. “We came all this way to waste time burbling over a baby?”
The road led them along the Niagara River and over the Queenston Heights. “Yonder is General Brock’s memorial.” Mr. Campbell pointed at a tall monument on the highest point of land.
Anna found herself thinking about her conversation with Colonel Fitzgibbon during the cariole ride. “Look, Robert,” she said, pulling the blankets away from his face. “It’s where Mr. Jarvis carried the battle plans to General Sheaffe after General Brock died.”
“You seem to have impressive knowledge of these colonial wars, my dear. And you keep bringing up the subject of Sam Jarvis. Is he of special interest to you?”
“Yes, I find myself trying to fit all the parts of his life together.” She told him of Mrs. Alma’s drawing. “Sweet little boy, brave young soldier, vile murderer, vicious vandal, loyal husband and loving father.”
“Quite the puzzle,” Robert said and burrowed again under his bearskins.
When they were within four or five miles of their destination, Anna asked their driver to stop. “I want to listen to the roar of the cataracts. Oh, so many times I have heard of their vastness. They must make a tremendous noise.”
They stopped. How calm it was! The sun shone, and the sky was without a cloud. How vast the glittering white waste and the dark forests! But how disappointing, too. Not a sound could she hear. Mr. Campbell touched his whip to the horses’ flanks, and they were away again.
She nodded off at that juncture, and she was entirely unprepared for Mr. Campbell’s sudden check of the horses and his shout, “The falls!” She looked upwards, still half asleep, expecting to see their immense height. Then she realized. Not up. Down. She must look down on them. There they were, two great cataracts in the midst of a flat plain. Merely a feature in the wide landscape.
She must have made some sort of noise—a sigh, a moan?—for Mr. Campbell turned from his driving to look at her. “You are disappointed, ma’am?”
“Oh, sir, forgive me. I have seen Niagara, the wonder of wonders, and felt—yes, disappointment!”
She scarcely heard Mr. Campbell’s comforting comments, or Robert’s conventional murmurings, “How impressive, quite beautiful.” She tried not to cry. They went on to the Clifton Hotel where their driver left them at the front door. “I’ll pick you up late this afternoon. You’ll have plenty of time to do a tour, Mrs. Jameson. You may find it all seems more wondrous when you have had time to look around.”
The hotel was a desolate place. Its open verandahs were covered in snow and hung round with icicles. Inside were forlorn empty rooms, broken windows and dusty dinner tables. The owners were huddled in a dirty little kitchen and seemed quite overcome with amazement to see visitors in the depth of winter.
Robert leaned down to speak into her ear. “We cannot stay here over night.” Then he turned to the old man who stood before them, mouth agape. “Crampons, if you please. We are here to see the falls. Then we shall come back and have a cup of tea and a glass of whiskey, if you can manage that much.”
Without Robert’s foresight in ordering the crampons, they could not for a moment have kept their footing on the frozen surface of the snow. At Table Rock, the ground became even more unsettled and dangerous. As they walked, the snow beneath their feet slipped in masses from the bare rock, and the spray that fell on the rocks changed instantly into a smooth, glassy sheet of ice. Down came the dark-green waters, over the edge of the falls, bringing with them enormous blocks of ice. On the ledges and overhanging cliffs on each side huge icicles dangled, at least thirty feet in height, and thicker than the body of a man. Every tree branch fringing the rocks and ravines was an ice sculpture, and the spray from the cataracts had frozen into strange shapes, sometimes houses of glass, sometimes old men with long white beards.
Anna crept to the very edge of Table Rock and looked down. The boom of the falling ice and the torrent of water assailed her. For minutes she stood, her mind emptied of everything but the noise. The spray, cold against her cheeks, washed away her hot tears. She was scarcely aware of Robert pulling on her sleeve.“Good god, woman, come away! What are you thinking of?”
They returned to the hotel after their adventure and had barely time to drink the tea and whiskey before the ever-faithful Mr. Campbell appeared. He looked around at the filthy room in which they were seated. “My apologies. I had no idea... I have only seen the inside of this place in the summertime, when it is full of people. You cannot stay here. Let us go and see my wife and the wee fellow, then talk over what to do.”
The Campbells’ house was close by the falls. Mr. Campbell took Anna upstairs at once to see his wife and child. Mrs. Campbell was young and lovely with tendrils of curly hair slipping down her forehead. The bedchamber was a nest of warmth and comfort. Anna took the newborn child into her arms, and in a moment it fell asleep in her lap in spite of the roar of the falls nearby. “What a strange lullaby!” she said.
“We never notice it. Such is the force of custom.”
“And the power of adaptation.” But as Anna said this, she realized that there were circumstances to which she herself could never adapt.
Back in the drawing room, Robert seemed ready to accept Mr. Campbell’s invitation to spend the night. As their host left the room to get the whiskey decanter from the dining room sideboard, Anna said, “To intrude on the Campbells at such a time is impossible.”
“Equally impossible to have the man drive us back to the Almas and then come all the way back here. Don’t be stupid.”
It was by then nightfall, and Anna was forced to agree that they had no alternative but to stay. In the hastily prepared bedchamber to which a maid took them, they undressed in silence. In silence they climbed into bed, each lying on the extreme edge of the mattress, as far apart as they could manage without pitching forward onto the floor.
It was an uneventful trip home. There was nothing to distract Anna from the reality that faced her. At Newgate Street, Mrs. Hawkins met them at the front door.
“A nice supper be ready for you. Just take off them woollies right here, and my man will sort them out.”
A nice supper it was: a roast fowl with apple stuffing, fried potatoes and a squash pie with whipped cream. Robert tucked into it with gusto. Anna tried to do it justice but finally pushed her plate away, the squash pie untouched.
Mrs. Hawkins collected the dishes, then she and her husband retired to their quarters belowstairs. Robert began to drink his port in earnest. “A pleasant interlude in the great white wilderness, was it not, my dear Anna?”
“It’s dead, Robert.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our marriage. It is like those blighted trees we saw on our travels.”
“I’m too tired to listen to your flights of fancy. Perhaps we can talk of it at another time.”
“No, Robert. I must s
ay what I have to say. It’s been a slow death. I think it started the first week after our wedding. You remember those rooms we rented in London? On Tottenham Court Road? How on our first Sunday as man and wife, we set out to visit Hartley Coleridge? Because you told me you always had Sunday dinner with him?”
“You’ve held that against me, have you, all these years?”
“Think about it. Put yourself in my position—if you can. I wore my white dress, the one I’d bought for our wedding. It started to pour rain. I was cold and tired. I couldn’t stop my teeth from rattling like castanets. I said to you, ‘We must turn back, Robert.’ And you said, ‘Go back, then, be damned to you. I’ll go by myself to Coleridge’s’.”
“As I remember it, my dear Anna, you shouted at me, ‘I’m not going one step farther.’ And then you said, ‘I should have listened to my father. He said it wouldn’t work. He said you could never love a woman properly.’ How do you think I felt to hear that in our first week of marriage?”
“I shouldn’t have brought up the past. Let’s concentrate on the here and now. I have finally realized what I was crying about when I stood on Table Rock. I was mourning the death of a marriage.” She reached out and touched his arm. “There are two principal methods of killing trees in this country, according to Mr. Campbell. You can set fire to them. Or you can ring them, a slow death in which the vital juices cannot circulate and the tree droops and dies. Do you remember all that?”
“No doubt you have some point to make?”
“Just this. Like those trees, there are two ways in which a woman’s heart may be killed—by passion and by prolonged sorrow. To my way of thinking, better by far the swift fiery death than this ‘ringing’. Our marriage has taken twelve years to die, and this trip has shown me that we must now lay it to rest.”
Robert took some gold coins from his pocket and jingled them in his hand. “We had an agreement. You remember the terms. You will stay until I get my promotion to Vice-Chancellor, and I will provide you with generous amounts of money as compensation. If you leave now, you receive nothing.” He laid the coins in front of her. “Send these to your family. I can easily spare them at the moment. And your father and mother and sisters will undoubtedly welcome a New Year’s emolument.”