Dubious Allegiance (31 page)

*   *   *

James Durfee, tavern-keeper, postmaster, redoubtable Scot, sat back in his favourite chair in his favourite room, sipped at
his brandy, and cast a concerned and avuncular eye upon the young lieutenant seated across from him. Emma, it turned out, had gone out with Doc Barnaby to an ailing woman five miles away on the far concession of the township, and neither was expected back before noon the next day. But Emma had left a pot of stew and fresh bread, which Durfee was happy to share with Marc. Over supper, Marc gave him an account of his adventures in Lower Canada. Later, the two men returned to the den. It was Durfee's turn to provide explanations.

“I'm sorry you had to go over there and find the place like that, without any warnin'. I was hopin' you'd come in here first,” Durfee began.

“But I still can't believe Erastus would just pull up stakes and leave like that. It's completely out of character. Why, he's been miller here for a generation. He's respected by every honest man in the district, Tory or otherwise. He always managed to keep his head above the fray, he had no enemies—”

“All that's true, lad. But for the last year or more, as you know, it hasn't been a question of makin' enemies. Suddenly, you just become one.”

“The windows are all broken in Beth's house, and there's that ugly word plastered on the door.”

“Thomas Goddall became a wanted man. He lived in that house, owner or not. He had no place to hide. When Winnifred and him and the bairn packed up and took off for parts unknown, it damn near destroyed her father. Erastus was distraught. He'd put up with some of the farmers, men he'd helped and carried with credit over many a rough spot, when they threatened to take their business all the way to Port Hope
just to spite him. He was philosophical about that, figurin' time would heal those wounds. But when the warrant was issued for Thomas, it nearly broke him. His grown daughter and grandchild just fleeing, with an hour to say their good-byes. And bound for Iowa.”

“So you think he's gone after them?”

“I do. The gathering point for the Iowa expedition is Pittsburgh. From what you've told me, Thomas has made it into New York State and will head straight there.”

“How do you know all this?”

“You been away for more'n two months, haven't you? Well, two weeks ago a group of well-off Reform supporters—not rebels, mind you, but people like young Francis Hincks and Peter Perry—started up the Mississippi Emigration Society to help folks get out of this place.”

“My God. Matters are worse than I'd imagined.”

“They're sayin' up to ten thousand farmers might leave, sellin' out at ruinous prices and headin' west.”

“But why did Erastus take Beth's brother? She'll be devastated.”

“Emma and me offered to take Aaron in till we heard from Beth down in the States; we knew she'd be there a while. But the boy's seventeen or more, a grown-up lad. The only life he knows is farming. He begged to be taken along, and in the end, Erastus agreed. They couldn't keep young Susie Huggan from goin' along either. ‘I'm Baby Eustace's aunt!' she said, and that was that.”

“And what of the other Huggan sister, Charlene? She wasn't with Winnifred and Thomas.”

“Of course, there's no house to keep over there any more, so Barnaby's taken her on till we can find somethin' permanent for her.”

Marc stared into his brandy glass. “Does Beth know all of this?”

“Yes,” Durfee assured him. “The mail is irregular, but we've written to give her any news.”

Marc looked up at his friend. “Why am I wearing this uniform, James? Can you tell me that? I was sent into Quebec to put down a revolt against the Crown. And I helped to do so. I acquitted myself as a soldier ought to. We were sent also to bring about order. And we did. But we did not re-establish the law. We walked away as soon as the smoke of battle had cleared and left thousands of innocent citizens to the ministrations of vigilantes and vengeance-seekers. We brought order but no real peace. And certainly no justice. Sir John issued decrees against looting and reprisals but refused to send troops to enforce them. The Queen's writ is gall in the mouths of the people. And that is all they have to feed on. When a farmer burns out his neighbour, you know how deep the poison has penetrated.”

James reached over and placed a hand over one of Marc's. “I don't believe you would've actually set a torch to that house in St. Denis.”

“That is a question that's been haunting me for seven weeks. I do not know what I would have done if I had managed to clear the inhabitants out of that house. But I didn't. What I do know for sure is that I'm glad I was shot, for it prevented me from finding out how far my allegiance would've taken me from my own humanity.”

“Well, things are bad here but nothin' like Quebec. After the first surge of reprisal and payback, a lot of the steam's gone out of the vengeance game.”

“I'm happy to hear that. Revenge is a grim and self-defeating business.”

Durfee grunted. “Tell that to the extreme Tories and Orangemen. They've been callin' for a hundred hangings. There've been a few down in London, but the trials that are goin' on now are havin' a hard time findin' believable witnesses. The only ones likely to hang in Toronto are the two ringleaders, Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount. They were convicted last week and sentenced to hang on Saturday morning. Most responsible people now expect that'll be the extent of the bloodlettin'.”

“But there's still the threat of invasion.”

“True, but it's mostly a bunch of Yankee freebooters and opportunists lookin' to liberate the natives from despotism. Nothin' to worry about really. All bluster and no muster, as we say up here.”

Marc was staring grim-faced at his untouched brandy once again. “Still, somebody's got to do the actual scaring off, don't they?”

“You thinkin' seriously of takin' off that uniform?”

“I've been thinking about a lot of things, dear friend—and that's one of them.”

*   *   *

Marc was caught by a wave of emotion as the cutter sped across Scaddings Bridge and curved southwest along King Street
extension towards Toronto, his home-base for the past two and a half years. He had not seen it in three months, and for a time had been certain he would never see it again. It was the image of Beth and her plea that he survive and return to her that had propelled him through the maelstrom of battle and its squalid aftermath.

Now here it was: a city spread out before him with its snow-capped chimney-pots, its soaring church spires, its cozy homes tucked into rumpled drifts, and its audacious public buildings proclaiming a fragile dominion over the engulfing forest and the vast frozen lake at its feet. Welcome aromas from the lakeshore brewery and the nearby distillery wafted his way as Marc and his companions slipped into the city proper, and the familiar façades of the King Street thoroughfare rose up on either side.

Marc thanked his travelling companions when they let him out at the post office on George Street. They would be happy to inform Colonel Margison at the garrison of his safe arrival, recovering health, and a promise to report by tomorrow afternoon. They also agreed to take the bulk of his luggage to the fort. Marc sucked in lungfuls of Toronto air and strode, with the merest trace of a limp, into the post office. There was a substantial bundle of letters waiting for him. He sat inside on a bench and read steadily for almost an hour. It was three o'clock when he finished.

He had learned a number of things: Beth's aunt was doing well and was wishing her away to Toronto where she belonged. Beth finally agreeing. Beth announcing her departure. Beth in Pittsburgh, but no sightings of the Hatches or Goodalls, whose
departures she had learned of from Durfee. Beth on her way and predicting her arrival by January 26—tomorrow! Beth urging him to stay in the apartment over the shop. Beth grateful for his miraculous recovery. Beth.

Also, word from Uncle Frederick, via New York and the military post, that Uncle Jabez had left Marc a lifetime annuity of a thousand pounds a year. He was now a wealthy man. There was also news and earnest enquiry from Major Jenkin in Montreal, who hoped to be back in Toronto in time for any wedding. And finally a long, heartfelt letter from a lady in New York that made him at once happy and sad. The woman who had revealed herself to him as his mother was necessarily in the country to the south, and their tentative relationship was more surprise than familial comfort. Marc reflected that with Uncle Jabez's death, his links to the old country were frayed, if not severed. It had taken some time and not a little resistance on his part, but he realized with a pleasant shock that Canada was now truly his home.

The sun was still shining when he left the post office. He walked down to Front Street so he could take in the vista of the snow-bound lake and the distant horizon. Moving westward, he passed the Parliament buildings, where so much had been said to so little effect. Their cut-stone and brick façade gleamed in the southerly sun. He turned north on Peter Street, crossed Market, now called Wellington, and stopped before his former boarding-house. The Widow Standish, never far from sentry duty, came bustling out onto the porch in her slippers to greet him.

Marc put the simple belongings from his valise in his old room, then sat down and had tea with Mrs. Standish and her maid, Maisie. The women were agog at his war stories (well sanitized) and urged him to stay on until supper. But Marc managed to excuse himself, explaining that his dear friend, Horatio Cobb, would be expecting him. Well, then, he must go: duty was duty.

Marc walked east along King Street, where all the elegant shops were located. Just past Bay, he came upon Beth's millinery shop, which had once been part of Joshua Smallman's dry-goods emporium. While braced for the worst, he was still saddened and angered to see the display-windows boarded up. Mr. Ormsby spotted him from the adjacent shop and came out. He apologized profusely for not having been able to protect Beth's place from being vandalized. But for several weeks after the failed revolt, the city fathers—without regular troops—had been unable or unwilling to safeguard the property of perceived traitors or their sympathizers. Certainly Constable Cobb had done his best to help, but even he had not been successful. Things were quieter now, but the public hanging of Matthews and Lount, scheduled for Saturday morning, was likely to stir up passions yet again.

Marc thanked him, then walked slowly and disconsolately along King to Toronto Street, where the entire block from there to Church was taken up by the twin edifices of the Court House and jail. Constable Cobb was just leaving the police quarters and spied Marc in his distinctive uniform before Marc saw him.

“Well, now, Major, ain't you a sight fer soarin' eyes!”

“I'm glad to see you, too,” Marc said, laughing for the first time in a long while.

After a hearty supper prepared by Dora and served by the children, Marc sat spellbound as Delia and Fabian recited duet scenes from Shakespeare, after which they were applauded and cheerfully ordered to bed—or rather as far as the bedroom, for the door thereof squeaked open and shut several times during the next two hours, whenever young ears pressed too eagerly up against it. While Dora sat by the fire knitting, Marc and Cobb exchanged war stories, one set distinguished by understatement, the other by forgivable hyperbole and dramatic heightening. Cobb was particularly dramatic when narrating, with appropriate sound effects and mimicry, his day at Government House before the
“infan-try in-sult”
on the unguarded capital, the highlight of which was the near-capture, not of a would-be political assassin, but a failed piglet thief.

“It wasn't exactly the
gun-power
plot,” Cobb chuckled.

“It's the pig I feel sorry for,” Dora chimed in, “not the governor.”

“So you and two dozen armed citizens actually saved the city from falling?” Marc asked, amazed to hear that previous versions of the encounter relayed about Montreal were very near the truth.

“I was a regular Horatio at the bridge,” Cobb said with a twinkle. More seriously, he added, “But you know, Major, I pointed my musket at the man in the moon and fired. I'd be damned if I'd shoot some poor dumb bugger just to save the skinny neck of Francis Bone Head.”

“And one of them dumb buggers was my nephew, Jimmy Madden,” Dora said. “What was Mister Cobb supposed to do, shoot his own kin?”

“Luckily fer everybody, both sides skedaddlled like jackrabbits,” Cobb said.

“Don't
scourge-ilize
yerself, Mister Cobb.”

“Well, it weren't no
Watered-loo,
Missus Cobb.”

“But the militia arrived and completed the job properly two days later?” Marc asked.

“Yup. But that turned out even worse.” Cobb looked to his wife. “Can I tell him?”

“Marc's a friend, ain't he?”

With much relish Cobb proceeded to recite a tale that would in time become a family legend, to be told and retold down the Cobbian generations. It seems that foolish young Jimmy Madden had run away and joined Mackenzie's rebels. He was present during that first unhappy encounter below Bloor Street, and had scampered away with his frightened cohorts. Scared to death but determined to remain steadfast in the cause, he stuck with Mackenzie and Lount at Montgomery's tavern until the militia arrived on December 7 to scatter the rebel force and send its remnants into flight. Jimmy had been spotted and identified. And pursued. Cobb returned from work that evening to find Jimmy cowering beside the fireplace and Dora wringing her hands.

What could be done? If Cobb were found to be harbouring a rebel fugitive, he could lose his job and his sole livelihood. He had taken an oath to uphold the law and already was feeling guilty for taking a pot-shot at the moon. But blood was blood.
This was Dora's sister's boy, foolish or not. No decision had yet been taken, however, when Fabian rushed in to say that a squad of militiamen was a block away and headed towards the house.