by Ann Birch
Back behind the tables, Anna and two other women ladled out endless bowls of soup while Mrs. Strachan took offerings of food from people at the door of the church. Anna had no idea how much time had passed until she heard the Archdeacon’s wife urge her to go home. “Nothing more can be done now, Mrs. Jameson. They have all been fed. And very soon, my husband will have enough billets for the most needy. The tavern keepers and gentry have been generous. Even Mrs. Powell has opened her doors.”
Before leaving the church, Anna looked in on the trio in the choir stalls. Jemmy’s mother was asleep, her tear-stained face smudged with dirt, her breathing ragged. Her sister had laid Jemmy down on the bench, and when she saw Anna, she waved and put her fingers to her lips.
Anna trudged home. Her arms ached from swinging the buckets of water. Her feet were two blocks that she pushed forward. The stink of smoke hung in the air and pressed down on her lungs so that she could scarcely breathe. She thought of her first day in Toronto, of her dismay at finding that the house Robert had promised her was not completed. Now as she came in sight of the solid brick building he had provided in its stead, she could only feel thankful.
Almost at the door of her house, she saw Mr. Jarvis. “Just coming to inquire about you,” he said.
“Safe and sound, as you can see. But what will become of the dispossessed?”
“Already—look over there—some of them are starting to clear away debris. Fortunately, there are plenty of trees ready to give up their lives to the rebuilding process. This block of houses will rise again.”
“And were there many injuries?”
“Your husband’s associate, poor Mr. Bedwell, had his leg so severely burned that Dr.Widmer had to cut it off.”
“I think I saw the doctor in his sleigh and the unfortunate man stretched out upon it. I could hear his screams.”
“Ten people died of burns and smoke inhalation, and of course, the living must contend with grief and trauma.” Mr. Jarvis sighed and rubbed a smudgy finger across his brow. “I fear our jail will have its fill of the insane in the weeks to come.”
What had the prison to do with the insane? Anna wondered. But she could not ask. Mr. Jarvis seemed utterly weary. “Good night, sir,” she said and extended her hand.
“Dear Mrs. Jameson, you might have stayed here in your lodgings safe and comfortable, but you—a stranger in our midst— chose to help. I thank you from my heart.” He hesitated for a moment, looking down at her. Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead. In a flash he was gone, lost in the haze of smoke.
Mrs. Hawkins appeared in the front hallway to take her coat. Her face was clean, and she had put on a fresh apron over her soot-stained clothes, but the stink of smoke clung to her. “Oh ma’am, I wondered where you be. I just filled the tin bath in your bedchamber with hot water. Please to get in it right now.”
“You go first, Mrs. Hawkins. And take your time. That is a command. I shall be in the dining room.”
Her husband was at the table, finishing the writing of a letter. He had just blotted the page. When he saw her, he looked startled. “I did not hear you, Anna.” He folded the paper, and in his haste to get it sealed, he dripped wax across the table’s glossy surface. Then, with the letter clutched in his hand, he strode to the mantel to press the button. She could hear the bell jangle belowstairs, and in a moment, Hawkins appeared. Like his wife, he had not had time to change his clothes, and though his face and hands were clean, his waistcoat and trousers were smeared with soot.
“Good god, man, you stink,” Robert said. “Take this letter to the legislative building at once, and when you return, change your clothes.”
“We must excuse Hawkins. He has been up all night hauling water from the lake in an effort to try to save the dwellings of those unfortunate people.” Hawkins smiled, thanking her without words. Then he bowed and departed with the letter.
“Really, Robert, what was so important that you could not leave the poor man for a few minutes to tidy himself?” She looked at the sideboard where Mrs. Hawkins had managed to supply an urn of hot coffee and some oatmeal and raisin muffins. “Let’s sit down and eat.”
“I gather, my dear Anna, from the aura of smoke that hangs about you, too, that you were at the scene—as the writers in those vulgar daily papers would say.” He took the cup of coffee she had poured for him.
“Oh, Robert, it was dreadful!” She spooned sugar into her own coffee, drank it down in a gulp, and told him about the horrors of the night.
“There is one good thing that comes from these terrible fires.”
“What? I can think of nothing but the screams, the tears, the flames that devoured everything the poor wretches had in this world, the smoke, the—”
“Yes, yes, individuals suffer. But a fire is always a public benefit, is it not?”
She stared at him. Was the man mad?
“For every wood house that burns in this city, in time a good brick house is sure to rise in its place. Where this very block of five solid houses that we now inhabit stands, there was once, I am told, a miserable string of log huts. If these fires persist, we shall soon find a town of fine brick residences standing before our very eyes.”
He took a sip of coffee and buttered a muffin.
“I cannot bear to think that any public benefit can be based on individual suffering. I hate the doctrine and am not convinced by the logic.” She rose, shoved her chair against the table with a thud. “And now, Robert, I shall leave you. I have to wash and sleep. And you will want to enjoy another cup of coffee.”
“A good idea, my dear. All the alarums kept me awake, and I must get myself into a calm frame of mind and think of what I shall say to the Governor at our meeting later this morning. Wish me good fortune, Anna.”
The bathwater was tepid and smelled of ashes, but Mrs. Hawkins had left a fresh cake of soap and clean towels. Anna climbed into the tub. It was a small receptacle, and she had to bend her knees to fit into it. But the water made her feel better instantly. She got into her nightdress and crawled into bed.
She slept until she heard the case clock strike twelve o’clock. Heavens. Time to stir herself.
She dressed quickly and sat down at the table that served as her desk. She wanted to write while the horrors of the night were still vivid in her mind. She pulled the inkwell towards her.
She had got as far as the baby and its aunt when a knock came at her door.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I need to empty the tub. But I did not want to disturb you if you be sleeping.”
Mrs. Hawkins went to the tub with her bucket and slopped some of the water into it. But instead of taking the water belowstairs, she stopped by Anna’s desk and set the bucket down on the floor. Her face was flushed. Her fingers picked at the fabric on her apron.
Anna put down her quill. “What is it?”
No answer. The housekeeper looked beyond Anna’s table to the window behind her.
“Well? Speak out, please.”
“The letter my husband took to the legislative building, ma’am.”
“Yes?”
“It be to George Herchmer Markland, ma’am.” More plucking of the apron.
“Well? What if it were addressed to...Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Really, Mrs. Hawkins, I cannot see that my husband’s correspondence is anyone’s business but his own.”
“I don’t know Mr. Cold Ridge, ma’am. But I do have tidings of Mr. Markland.”
Anna pulled out a chair, motioned to Mrs. Hawkins to sit down, and said, “Something troubles you about Mr. Jameson’s letter. Tell me about it.”
The housekeeper sat on the edge of the chair. She had stopped plucking at her apron. Now she wrung her hands. “It be a story Hannah Pike told me, ma’am. She cleans the west wing of the Parliament, and she says there be some queer doings goes on in Mr. Markland’s office most evenings.”
“Yes?” Whatever was her housekeeper talking about?
Mrs. Hawkins had now placed her hands on the tabletop and was
rapping the fingers of her right hand against its surface. Her top row of teeth gnawed her lip. She seemed unable to continue.
“Queer doings? Please explain.”
Now it all came out in a rush. “Hannah Pike listened at the office door the other night. She said she heard such movements and such noises, the nature of which as convinced her there be a woman in the room.” Mrs. Hawkins’s face turned from pink to an alarming shade of magenta. “You take my meaning, ma’am?”
Anna took her cue from the woman’s blushes. “Yes, on the whole I think I do. But what business was it of this Hannah Pike to listen at keyholes? And why would she care if Mr. Markland had a woman in his office? Perhaps she should attend to her mops and slop pails.” Prostitution was evidently a commonplace in Toronto, just as it was in London. Someone had written a letter to the Canadian Freeman a week before about the “wretched and shameless depravity” of certain women “in our infant town”.
“Oh, ma’am, the person who come out that door fifteen minutes later be no woman. It be a drummer from the garrison. Hannah recognized his white band uniform. And from what Hannah be telling me, there be others too, the Archdeacon’s manservant and—”
“I believe I have heard enough, Mrs. Hawkins. And now I must ask why you are telling me this story?”
“Because you be a good woman, ma’am, and Hawkins and me thinks you should warn the master of the goings-on in that office.”
“Thank you. But I must also warn you that it is unconscionable to engage in sordid gossip that may have no basis in fact and may harm the reputation of innocent people. Mr. Markland is the Inspector General of Public Accounts for Upper Canada and has, so far as I know, carried out his duties conscientiously and without a hint of scandal.” Anna stood up, and her housekeeper rose at the same time, scraping her chair against the floor. “Go now, please, and focus your energies on household affairs.”
“Oh, ma’am, I be sorry, so sorry. I didn’t wish...” Mrs. Hawkins took the bucket of bathwater and moved towards the door, muttering apologies all the while.
Anna picked up her quill, but as the door closed, she threw it down again. Well, nothing could be proved. Robert might simply have had some pressing government business with Markland that required a letter to be sent at once. But she remembered his annoyance at her entrance to the dining room just as he was finishing it, the hasty way he had sealed it, and his desire to get it out of the way and into the hands of Hawkins for delivery.
And then she remembered the strange love sonnet that Hartley Coleridge had once written to Robert and his anger when he found her reading it.
All in all, she reflected, Mrs. Hawkins’s news was not a surprise. Now she understood better her husband’s lack of sexual interest.
“Wish me good forture,” he’d said to her this morning. Perhaps today he would get his promotion. If so, she could leave him with a clear conscience.
She looked down at the notes in her journal and sighed. What a night. What a morning. She pressed her hand against her forehead. And touched the spot where Mr. Jarvis had kissed her. For a moment, she forgot the horrors and breathed in the cinnamon scent of red carnations.
SEVENTEEN
Mrs. Hawkins came into the drawing room, where Anna was putting the finishing touches to a sketch of the fire which she had drawn from memory.
Anna looked up. Her housekeeper had decked herself out in a pale blue cotton dress under an embroidered apron. “You look pretty, Mrs. Hawkins. What is the occasion?”
“Oh, ma’am, three o’clock it is, and if I’m not mistook, I believe the doorknocker will get some use this day.”
“You think I’ll have guests, do you?” Anna put her sketchbook and pencils down. Her housekeeper had a sixth sense about these matters.
“Sure, they’ll all be along to have a chinwag with you now that the master be Chancellor. My man cleaned the silver trays and urns this morning, and I red up the house from stem to stern. Best put on your silk frock, if I may say so.” As she spoke, Mrs. Hawkins knocked two cushions together and set them dead centre in the middle of the sofa.
Anna had barely got into her gown and straightened her hair when she heard a buzz of voices from the front vestibule. Taking a glance at herself in the mirror, she wiped a smudge of pencil from her cheek and made it to the head of the stairs in time to greet her visitors: Mrs. Powell, her daughters Eliza and Mrs. Sam Jarvis, and Mrs. John Beverley Robinson, wife of the Chief Justice.
“We come to pay our respects, dear Mrs. Chancellor, if I may call you that,” Mrs. Powell said, shaking Anna’s hand. “I heard the news last evening from the Archdeacon.” She took a chair that offered her a clear view of the living-room, the hallway, and the dining room, while the others settled on the sofa. “We are, of course, not surprised at Mr. Jameson’s promotion. He is universally respected.”
Anna poured sherry from the decanter on the Pembroke table near the fireplace. Everyone sipped. There was a moment’s silence.
“My husband mentioned your extraordinary help with the fire,” Mrs. Jarvis said.
“I am seriously considering becoming a member of the volunteer brigade, now that I have mastered the delicate art of swinging a pail.” As Anna thought of Mr. Jarvis’s goodbye, she hoped that his wife did not notice her blush.
“I do not think that sort of volunteering would be advisable,” Mrs. Powell said. “In his new position, your dear husband will now have an increased claim upon your affection, friendship and duty, and you must be the instrument to promote his comforts. You will be busy administering to his needs. You might, if you have any free time, consider some involvement with our main charities, the Society for the Relief of the—”
“Oh, Mama, Mrs. Jameson was making a joke.” Mrs. Jarvis turned again to Anna. “And I am to tell you, so my dear husband said, that the mother whose poor little girl died in the fire is now in the jail.”
“Jemmy’s mother? What has she done, poor soul, that would send her to jail?”
“She has gone quite mad from grief, apparently, and her sister fears she may take her own life.”
Ah, thought Anna. Now I understand why Mr. Jarvis said the jail would be full. “So, if I understand rightly, there is no institution for the insane in this town?”
“None. The mad go into the prison for safekeeping.”
While they were talking, Mrs. Hawkins had come in quietly with the maple tea poy, and now she brought cakes and set them in front of Anna, who took a look at the array of baked goods. There was the usual excellent gingerbread, but today her housekeeper had tried something new. “Why, Mrs. Hawkins, what have we here? Derby cakes, to be sure. How...extraordinary.” Having made sure the guests had everything they needed, Mrs. Hawkins left the room, winking at Anna as she passed her chair.
Anna mixed the tea and poured boiling water over it. There was another silence while they all waited for it to steep. Then came sipping and nibbling.
Mrs. Robinson took a bite of one of the Derby cakes, chewed carefully and set the uneaten portion back on her plate. “Now that you are the Chancellor’s Lady,” she said, “you will undoubtedly find yourself presiding at a good many tea parties. May I respectfully suggest that my housekeeper send your Mrs. Hawkins her recipe for Derby cakes?”
“And may I respectfully ask what is wrong with Mrs. Hawkins’s recipe?”
“Please do not take offence at this suggestion, but I recommend an increase in the amount of butter. And the raisins,” at this point she touched her napkin to her mouth, “must be sultanas.”
“If, as you say, the cakes need more fat, we have an excellent soap factory nearby. Perhaps they could supply a quantity of sheep’s tallow. It would certainly be more economical than butter.”
Eliza, who had helped herself to a second sherry from the decanter, giggled.
“Good recipes make for good living, Eliza,” her mother said. “Your laughter is unwarranted.”
There were footsteps on the staircase, and a few seconds later, Mrs. Hawk
ins’s announcement: “Mrs. Widmer to see you, ma’am.”
In the woman came, calling over her shoulder, “Please ask your man to bring a nosebag of oats to my horse.” She was wearing a dust-coloured riding habit with large sleeves gathered at the wrist and a beaver hat trimmed with feathers.
Anna got up to greet her. “You have been out for exercise, I see.”
“Along King Street East—past dear Mr. Jarvis’s offices and the church. So exhilarating.” She pulled up the short skirt of her habit to reveal in full a pair of white trousers and black half-boots. “Unlike the other ladies in this town, I do not ride side-saddle. I want full control of my steed.” She let her skirt flop down again and moved into the room. “And now, Mrs. Chancellor, please be so good as to give me a cup of tea.”
Mrs. Jarvis rose from the sofa, giving Mrs. Widmer a perfunctory nod. “Please excuse me. Mama, you and Eliza and Mrs. Robinson must stay if you wish, but I have a pressing engagement.” She took Anna’s hand, speaking to her in a low voice. “Will you come with me to the door, Mrs. Jameson? I have something to tell you.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Mrs. Jarvis took her mantle and muff from the coat tree. “Dear Anna, I may call you Anna, mayn’t I? I must explain why I’m running out. I cannot stand that woman. Well, you saw her in action at our Christmas party. She pursues my husband relentlessly. She rides up and down King St. every afternoon, her little white legs on full display, waiting for him to emerge from his offices.”
“I suppose there is nothing you can do...Mary?”
“Nothing. Sam is indebted to Dr. Widmer in so many ways. He holds the mortgages on our land and supplies Sam with...” She broke off here, her face becoming very red.
“If I may say so, I saw nothing in Mr. Jarvis’s deportment that would indicate he has the slightest interest in Mrs. Widmer.”
“Oh, my dear, thank you for that.” Mary pressed Anna’s hand and opened the door. “I gather you do not have to worry about some hussy pursuing your husband, Anna?”