by Ann Birch
I got back on my horse, knowing that he must be telling me the Yankees were about to torch the Dickson’s house. It was a half-mile away, and we galloped there in a minute, just in time to see four Yankee soldiers carrying Charlotte, bed and all, into the front yard where they dumped her in the snow. Behind them came another man—I found out later that it was Joseph Willcocks himself—carrying a firebrand. At the front door, he turned and threw it back into the house. In seconds, the hallway behind him burst into flame.
“Devil!” I shrieked, running my horse directly at him.
The other soldiers came at me, brandishing their firearms. They whacked my steed in the chest, causing the animal to wheel about and bolt for the road. I yanked on its reins, managed to get it under control, dismounted, and ran to Charlotte. She looked up at me, her hair greasy and uncombed, her shift soiled and smelling of urine.
“Anne?” It was a desperate plea for help, barely audible among the shouts of the Yankees and the wild neighing of my horse.
“Anne?” laughed one of the soldiers. “You are a woman, are you? Well, shut your gob, you damned slut, and cause us no more trouble or we’ll toss you into the house to burn with the furniture.”
They ran off down the road then, hitting my horse with their muskets as they departed. The devil who had thrown the firebrand took a stick from the yard, lit it from the plumes of flame that were shooting upwards, and looked in my direction. He paused and came towards us. For a moment, I feared he would throw his burning weapon at Charlotte and me. But he turned suddenly and ran after the other men.
I knelt beside Charlotte and pulled the blankets around her. After that there was nothing more I could do than to stay with her. I seated myself beside her on the bed in the snow. Together we watched her house burn. At times the fire renewed its energy as it gobbled pieces of furniture or paper from the thousand-book library within, and the whole sky lit up with the flames of Hell.
It took one hour. At the end of that time, there was only a brick shell remaining. Everything Charlotte had owned, including those books I had once coveted, was gone.
“What can we do?” she wept. “I have lost everything now. Including my husband.”
“Your sons? The servants?” I asked. “Where are they?”
“A kind man came to us one half-hour before the torching. He warned us to get out while we could. But I was sick. I was useless.” More sobs. I clutched one of her hands, trying to warm it. “The one thing I could do was to tell the servants and my boys to leave. They wanted to stay with me, but I told them they must go . . .” Her voice broke. “It was all I could do for them.”
And, I asked myself, what had I done? I had stolen Papa’s winter clothes, put Lucy in an untenable position, caused Mama days of worry, and arrived in Niagara too late to be of use to anyone.
John and Jacques were now clattering down the path towards Charlotte and me, both of them mounted on Jacques’ horse. “What can I do for you, Anne?” John asked, dismounting. “You must not stay here longer. I must seek some place for you to shelter. There is nothing left standing in this town.” He looked about, his face lined with worry.
“I will go home,” I said. “Jacques and I will turn around and take the lake trails back to York. But before we leave, I must make some arrangement for Charlotte.”
“Help may come from the farmers who live beyond the reach of these Yankee bastards,” John said. “I shall go into the main street and see if someone can take her on a sleigh . . .” Without finishing his sentence, he climbed up behind Jacques again, and they headed towards the centre of town. I watched, seeing in the slump of his shoulders the despair he felt.
I stayed beside my friend, unable to help her in any real way, but hoping that perhaps my company might offer some surcease of pain and worry. I took off Papa’s coat and spread it on top of her blankets. Soon she seemed to drift off into a troubled slumber.
My thoughts distracted me momentarily from the cold seeping into my body. I acknowledged my hubris, a word I’d learned from one of Charlotte’s books of mythology which I had read during my stay with John and Isabella. I had been the most important person at Sarah Boulton’s lying-in. I had charmed York’s most eligible bachelor. I had organized and tried to carry out a scheme that I was sure would save my brother and his family. I had seen myself in those moments as Mary, Mother of Christ, or even Joan of Arc. Now I was forced to face the utter foolishness of my grandiose illusions.
In a half-hour, just as my thoughts and the winter’s chill made me long for death, John and Jacques returned, followed by a fur-hatted farmer in a large sleigh pulled by two huge steeds.
John seemed less fraught now. “Mr. McFarland here will take Mrs. Dickson to his house where she may stay until these hard times are over,” he said to me.
I heard his words with infinite relief. I remembered Mrs. McFarland. As Jacques and I had ridden along the Indian trail just outside of town, we had seen the woman and a servant at the front door of her large brick house, dispensing food and hot drinks to a crowd of people lined up outside. Jacques had wanted to get into the lineup, he was hungry, but I had decided that we must move on. By that time, I knew we were too late to warn my brother and his family, but I had still had some mad dream of being able to rescue them from the flames.
Together the four of us hoisted Charlotte’s bed onto the sleigh. I retrieved Papa’s coat. I kissed her goodbye.
Then Jacques and I mounted our steeds, waved to my brother, and headed back onto the path home.
Perhaps my mother’s strictures on propriety were, after all, a realistic assessment of a woman’s role. On my return to York, I would apologize to my family and marry John Beverley Robinson.
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
September, 1815
On this warm fall morning, I waited at the York Wharf to say goodbye to John Beverley Robinson as he left on the first stage of his voyage to England for further legal studies. His sister with one of her small sons, his brother-in-law Mr. Boulton, and the Reverend Mr. Strachan were there as well to wave him off. I stood with them, trying not to gag at the stench from the tannery a few steps farther along the bay.
Mr. Robinson seemed preoccupied with his luggage, of which there was a huge trunk and two portmanteaux, as well as a rather smelly packet of food provided by his sister. “Leg of lamb, boiled cabbage, and a bottle of porter,” she said to me, evidently proud of her culinary wizardry. I suspected that her package would soon feed some of the marine life at the bottom of the lake.
Mrs. Boulton’s remarks formed the extent of the conversation I had with anyone there on the pier that morning. When Mr. Robinson did speak, he directed his comments, not to me, but to Mr. Strachan, and I had no opportunity to say anything of import to him. I began to wish that I had spent more of the morning in bed.
I did know—from our conversation during our walk along the lake the previous day— that he intended to take a sloop to Montreal where he would board a schooner for the Atlantic voyage. We waited for several minutes for the sloop to appear, and when it came into view, I could see one of the sailors aboard announcing its entrance into the harbour by repeated blasts on a long tin horn. As soon as the sailor had thrown the rope onto the dock to secure the sloop, Mr. Robinson started hoisting his luggage towards the vessel. He seemed eager to depart. His only words to me, spoken in an undertone as he moved forward, were that he would write to me soon.
I confess that I was anxious to see him safely aboard and out of my life for several months or perhaps longer. Though I had vowed to become engaged to him after my failed attempts at independence, there had been little progress in the intensity of our friendship. We had been together for several subscription balls, a tea party or two in Mrs. Jarvis’s fine withdrawing room, some walks along the lakefront, but we had not committed ourselves to a more permanent relationship.
He had never repeated those long-ago words about his hope that we would one day become man and wife. I sus
pected that he probably regretted saying them. At any rate I sensed that he did not love me. I certainly did not love him. But York society acknowledged us as lovers, and I wanted to keep up the pretence that we were engaged. Life at home was so much more peaceful with Mama and Papa confident that I had become a woman of propriety, one day to become the wife of York’s most eligible bachelor.
As soon as the sloop moved out of the harbour, I left the group waving and began to trudge up the incline towards home. It was a relief to be on my own again. But soon I heard footsteps, and I turned to find Mr. Strachan puffing behind me in an attempt to catch up.
“You will be sorry to see Mr. Robinson depart,” he said.
“Yes, indeed. But Papa says it is essential that he complete his legal studies at The Inns of Court and be called to the bar in a proper manner. After all, he is destined to be a major force in the legal system of this young country, and he must prepare for it.” I paused at this point, hearing the pomposity in my voice. “I’m giving you Papa’s words, as indeed you may have guessed.”
“Forget your Papa for a moment, please. How do you feel about his departure?”
“Forgive me, sir, if I say that your question is intrusive. I do not wish to discuss my personal affairs.” I turned away, increasing my pace in the hope that I should leave him behind.
But the man caught up with me. “I apologize, Miss Powell. I have the most ardent desire to see my dear friend Beverley happily established with a fine woman of your calibre and position in the town. But he has said nothing to me about your relationship, and now that he is to be away in England, I must worry . . .” His voice broke, and I turned in astonishment to see that his bushy brows were furrowed, and his eloquent brown eyes had filled with tears.
I felt sorry for Mr. Strachan. I recalled that his friendship with Mr. Robinson went back to the days when he taught the young boy in Cornwall and had then been a surrogate father to him. A father worries about his son and wishes the best for him. In an instant, my reserve vanished.
“I must tell you the truth, sir. Mr. Robinson and I are not formally engaged, though it is possible that we may at some future time be man and wife. I ask you to say nothing of what I have told you.”
“Ah yes, the busybodies of this town . . . I shall say nothing of our conversation. But what you tell me has done little to calm my worries.” He grasped my hand and squeezed it, then turned away towards his own house.
* * *
At supper that night, there were only five of us at the long walnut dining-room table. My nieces were now in New York acquiring the education that I myself had once longed for. But I took pride in the knowledge that Mama and I had somehow persuaded Papa to expend money on their tuition. I think my success in this matter came mainly from his belief that I had somehow turned my life around and would now make him happy by marrying one of his favourite people.
He poured himself a large glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard, seated himself at the head of the table, and cleared his throat portentously. Some announcement of import was about to fall on our heads. Mama, Eliza, Mary, and I waited to hear it.
“Francis Gore returns from England, I am told, and will take up his position of Lieutenant-Governor in the early days of October.”
“That will be a grand moment for you, husband,” Mama said. “Surely you will receive from him the accolades you deserve.”
Papa took a sip of brandy and smiled. “Yes, my dear. I expect that he will, in due time, offer me a promotion to Chief Justice of Upper Canada.” He harrumphed again and puffed out his chest. “I have waited long for this preferment, but the time has now come. As the Bard said, ‘The readiness is all.’”
I could not hold my tongue. “You will not surely accept it, Papa?”
“And why not, girl?” He still called me “girl” though I was now in my twenty-eighth year.
“Do you not remember how upset you were when the Governor scuttled off to the safety of England just as the Yankees were heating up? You said at the time—and these were your very words—that his leaving was ‘an act of cowardice.’”
“Shut your gob, girl. I shall do what I wish to do, and you will have nothing to say about it.” He slammed his chair back and went to the sideboard to refill his glass.
“Perhaps one good thing will come of his return,” I said, picking up my soup spoon. “Perhaps he will now pay Mr. Strachan the twenty-five pounds he promised three years ago for a new pulpit in St. James Church.”
“Tush, Anne,” Mama said, “let us think about and be thankful for the important role your dear father will assume in our town.” In other words, shut your gob, girl. There was a silence that no one dared break. Then Mama attempted to lighten the charged atmosphere.
She smiled at me—it was more of a grimace, really—and said, “Now you must tell us, my dear, about Mr. Robinson’s departure for England this morning.”
I could not stand one more moment of this discussion. “Please excuse me, Mama. I feel a headache coming on. I shall tell you the story later. Please ask Lucy to bring my supper to my room.”
I left then. But looking over my shoulder I saw Papa throw his napkin into his bowl of mushroom soup.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The yap-yap-yapping sent Annie careening down the stairs from her bedchamber. In the downstairs hall, she almost collided with her daughter Anne who was headed in the same direction: towards the belowstairs kitchen.
They both arrived just in time to see Cook throwing a burning ember from the hearth into the wooden wheel structure affixed to the wall near the spit that turned the roast of pork scheduled for the day’s dinner. Sancho, the turnspit dog, was yelping from the pain.
“Stop, you witch!” Anne’s screams slammed into Sancho’s cries.
“I take my orders from Mrs. Powell, not you. The cur stopped running. The spit stopped turning. You be wanting to eat this roast within the hour. What am I to do?”
Annie placed a hand on her daughter’s arm. “We must be patient, my dear. Cook is right. Your Papa will be home soon for his meal, and he—”
“Why, Mama, why must it always be Papa’s wishes that rule this household? Look at that poor animal. He has a bleeding leg. He is suffering. The woman has obviously thrown more than one coal at him.” She wrenched her arm from Annie’s grasp, and before her mother could say a word, dragged a chair over to the wheel, climbed up, opened the door, and pulled Sancho out.
She sat down then on the bench by the table, the dog on her lap. It whimpered and licked her hand as she sat stroking its back and whispering to it.
Annie felt a pulse throbbing in her head. What was she to do? She herself had for some time suspected Cook’s cruelties to the spit dog, but she had deliberately avoided any confrontation with the woman. She knew that roasting a pig took a long time. The wretched cur had probably been running around and around in the wheel for hours. No wonder it had stopped, undoubtedly from complete exhaustion. Her friend Mrs. Jarvis had two spit dogs that took turns running in the wheel. But William had decided that one animal would be plenty.
There was therefore only one thing that could be done. The dog must be reinserted into the wheel to complete the roasting process. And it must be done right away. Now. In her mind she could almost hear the footsteps of William coming up the path to the front door.
Anne placed the dog on the kitchen floor and began rubbing its ears. It was an ugly, brown-haired creature, low to the ground, with short, crooked front legs. William had purchased it from a pedlar a few months before, telling her what a bargain it was. It would work in the kitchen, he said, rubbing his hands with glee, and require no pay except for a dish of gravy from the dripping pan at the end of the day.
“Please, Anne, give the animal five minutes’ rest. Then it must go back into the wheel to complete the roasting of the pig for our dinner.”
“Sancho will not go back into that wheel. Ever.” And with those words, Anne scooped the dog up from the floor, pressed h
im close to her bosom, and ran from the room.
Well, that was that. There was no point in further argument. The dog was gone. Annie knew that some other decision must be made now.
“Call Lucy,” she said to Cook. “She must turn the spit herself. When she gets too hot or tired, she may come up to the parlour and summon me. I shall then take over, if necessary. What is important is that this roast is cooked within the next hour. Mr. Powell will be home then and ready for a good meal.”
As Annie went up the stairs, she heard the front door close. Clearly, her daughter was leaving the house. But where in tarnation was she going? She went into the front hall, looked through the narrow pane on the door’s left side and saw the girl heading down the pathway. She seemed to be carrying the dog bundled against the front of her coat. Annie had no idea what was happening. It didn’t matter. The only thing she could do now was to focus on getting that damned roast cooked.
* * *
The case clock in the hallway struck twelve noon. Annie had dozed off on the sofa in the parlour, and the clock awakened her. She jerked her head forward; she must have been snoring because her mouth was dry. She looked up. Lucy was standing over her. The young woman’s face was flushed, and she smelled of grease.
“I can stand the heat from the hearth no longer, ma’am,” she said. “Cook asks you to take over the turning of the spit while she finishes making the gravy. Please, ma’am.”