Nearly two more years were to pass before the last shot of the war was fired. By that time York had been repaired and rebuilt, and there was talk of the old name of Toronto being used again.
Sarah and Bryne discussed the matter as they drove home in a sleigh from a call at Will Nightingale’s farm, traveling over the last of the winter snows. They had kept Jenny and Robbie in their care until Will had saved enough through rebuilding work to set himself up on his own land. If he had courted Mary Anne partly because of her deep affection for the children, and theirs for her, the marriage had worked out well, and they had established a comfortable little home together. Flora, who attended a boarding school nearby, liked to divide her vacations between the farmhouse and the house in York.
“Philip—being so English—thinks the city should continue to commemorate the Duke of York’s victory in Holland,” Sarah said, a slight frown on her brow as she thought of her old friend. Lucy, recently married to an officer whom she had nursed, had left Philip behind in her affections long since, but it was doubtful that he had ever noticed. He had become steadily more absorbed in his work, and had turned to a line of research in the treatment of burns that took every spare moment.
“Toronto, being an Indian word meaning a meeting place, is far more fitting,” Bryne stated, bringing Sarah’s thoughts back again.
“It was our meeting place,” she said softly.
He put a loving arm about her and she settled her head contentedly against his shoulder, listening to the runners hissing over the snow. Soon it would be spring again, and the trilliums would make a waving mist in all the woody places. Under her furs a new life stirred within her. This wild and beautiful land was ever full of promise.
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Acknowledgment
My grateful thanks to Eric Hounsom, who introduced me to early nineteenth-century Toronto. His advice and his book Toronto in 1810 gave me the background for this story.
R.L.
Fair Wind of Love Page 16