Vital Secrets
Page 3
“That is so. But this is not talk. Just last Thursday a gang of Orange thugs discovered a meeting of Mackenzie’s followers in progress about a mile east of Cobourg, and decided to break it up. But it was no Reform rally they were disrupting. The conspirators were armed with pitchforks, sickles, axe-handles, and, they say, a dozen or more pistols. There was a regular donnybrook. Dozens were injured on both sides. And by the time the constables arrived, the worst of it was over, and everyone fled who could still walk. Of course, the wounded suddenly contracted lockjaw. Nobody would lay a charge. What I’m saying, and what I fear every time I look into little Eustace’s eyes, is that these desperate men are planning an insurrection or show of force sometime soon.”
“But they’ll be slaughtered, don’t they know that? They can’t fight the British army with hoes and pistols.”
“That may be the only thing holding them back.”
Marc heaved a huge sigh. “You mean soldiers like me?”
“Yes, at least until they get guns and training. And they’ll need the Yankees for that.” Hatch tried to light his pipe with a flaming stick from the fire, without success. “If I were you, I wouldn’t wander around the back concessions of Northumberland County with that uniform winking in the noonday sun.”
“But surely an offer to buy their grain or hogs at a price well above the current market will have to be welcomed. The army is not their enemy.”
Hatch smiled. “They’ll certainly let you in the front door, but don’t expect a cup of tea. I think the poor buggers are desperate enough to sell their produce to anyone.” Hatch chuckled ruefully.
Marc yawned but, fatigued as he was, he did not want to fall asleep here in the cozy security of the Hatch parlour. Instead, he reached down between the two chairs, picked up the decanter, and poured himself a tumbler of port. Erastus declined Marc’s offer of more.
The fire, ebbing rapidly, snapped and crackled intermittently.
“Well, lad, there’s one subject we seem to have been avoiding, eh?”
Marc turned to face his friend. “Tell me everything I should know about what’s happened next door.”
“I thought you’d never ask. Let me start with the good news. My daughter and her husband are quite happily married, even though they are very different people. Certainly, I was as surprised as anyone when Winnifred announced she had selected Thomas Goodall, my hired man, as her husband. Thomas is a fine farmer and a good Christian, but he hasn’t said more than a dozen words a week since birth—less than that if you deduct the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday. Winnifred—well, you know her—she has two opinions on every subject and ain’t shy about conveying them to anyone within earshot. When she lived here she was more or less lady of the manor, but now that she and Thomas have their own farm, she’s pitched in and done more than her share of the outdoor labour.” He paused and lowered his voice. “And she’s in the family way.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Marc said sincerely, for he liked and admired this proud, intelligent woman, and wished her well.
“And just in time,” Hatch said cryptically. To Marc’s puzzled look, he said, “Well, believe it or not, Winnifred’s been getting involved in politics this winter, too. Radical politics.” This last remark was whispered, as if the walls might have ears.
“But she’s an independent thinker and a conservative like her father, surely.”
“Indeed she was. But the bad news is that the farm has not prospered. With last summer’s drought and the available water being tied up on the clergy-reserve land next to them, they had a poor harvest, despite their effort and the expense of hiring extra help. And what they did take off the fields was sold at prices that didn’t cover their costs. They’re desperate to get enough cash to pay the leasehold.”
Marc was astonished. “But surely Beth wouldn’t demand payment or turn them out? After all, they’re looking after Aaron for her. And she’s got plenty of money.”
“All true. She refused to take any payment on the lease. She’s offered to pay for any hired help to do Aaron’s share of the work until he’s fully recovered.”
“I’m told by Beth’s aunt that the boy has made remarkable progress.”
“Yes, he has, and we thank the Lord daily for that.”
“But?”
“But Winnifred is … well, proud, too proud I’m inclined to think. But she says—and Thomas agrees, according to her—that they ought to be able to make a decent living out of their farm or else abandon it. And when she found that most of the farmers in the county were in the same boat, in spite of the backbreaking work and heartbreaking effort, well, she began to blame the government—and quite publicly. When Beth came down to nurse Aaron in January, she soon discovered that Winnifred was slipping off to gatherings of Mackenzie’s malcontents, spouting their slogans, and behaving strangely. Eventually Beth told me.”
“Did you succeed in stopping her?”
Hatch sighed. “No,” he said with a wry smile that conveyed both regret and acceptance. “My attempts to dissuade her simply encouraged her to become even more committed. When I heard about talk of violence and outright sedition at these rallies, I became worried. I did manage to persuade Thomas to go with her to protect her, and him without a political bone in his body. This she readily agreed to, to my surprise.”
“And now that she is expecting?”
“She’s stopped going. On her own account, we assume, unless Thomas found enough words to assert himself in the privacy of the boudoir.” Hatch smiled at the notion.
“But she hasn’t changed her mind about the lease or the success of the farm? Surely, with a child on the way—”
Hatch looked suddenly grim, the customary laugh lines of his face collapsing around his eyes. “She says they’ll give it one more year. The babe is due in September. If the fall harvest fails, they’ll wait out the winter here, then—my God, I can barely say it, Marc—she, Thomas, and the child will sell everything they have, go down to Buffalo, buy a Conestoga wagon, and head west across the Mississippi to the Iowa Territory.”
Marc took this in, then said evenly, “I don’t think that will happen, Rastus. There’s every chance the governor will be recalled and a new one will follow the British government’s policy of conciliation. There are moderate, decent men on both the left and the right: their voices will be heard.”
Hatch tried to smile his gratitude. “And you count yourself among the moderates,” he said.
“I do,” Marc said with some conviction. “It’s taken me a while, and I’m still learning, but I’ve come a long way, I think, in less than two years.”
“And we all know it.”
Marc was well aware whom the “all” was meant to include.
“But Winnifred’s luck hasn’t changed,” Hatch continued glumly. “Last Friday, Thomas was chopping wood out behind the house and damn near sliced off his left hand. Dr. Barnaby had to stitch it together like a rip in a glove. He’s got it wrapped in a great bloody bandage, with a splint on his wrist to keep him from using the hand for anything. He can’t even pick up a spoon to stir his tea with it.”
This was more serious than Winnifred’s political leanings, Marc thought.
“The man has chopped a thousand cords of wood in his lifetime. But he’s exhausted and worried to death,” said Hatch. “Fatigue will lead to such accidents.”
“Thank God for Barnaby,” Marc said. Charles Barnaby was a semi-retired army surgeon who lived across from the Durfee Inn but kept a surgery in Cobourg several days a week or whenever it was needed in emergencies.
“He’s a splendid gentleman. They don’t come any better than Barnaby. In fact, you won’t get to see him tomorrow because he’s been in and out of his surgery since the fracas last Thursday night—setting bones and lecturing the participants on their foolishness. I lent him my cutter and Percherons on Saturday so he could transfer some of the wounded home, if necessary.”
“I wondered why I didn’t see them in the barn.”
Hatch yawned. There was little time left. Marc cleared his throat to ask what had to be asked.
“Beth is fine,” Hatch said suddenly. “She nursed Aaron night and day all through January, and for a while there we were very concerned for her own health—”
“But she’s—”
“Fine now, as I said. As soon as Aaron began to regain his strength, she did, too. And since Thomas became helpless last week, Aaron’s been strong enough to chop firewood and help Winnifred and Beth with the chores in the barn.”
“Has she—”
“Ever mentioned you? Not by name. But you’ve come up in the general conversation several times this winter, and Beth’s been an avid listener. I’m sure she knows how much you’ve changed and that you still love her. But—”
“There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?”
“But she’s just been too busy with Aaron and with the problems of the farm to turn her attention to her own future. You know how faithful she can be to a task she feels is important, and how selfless she is when it comes to helping those who need it.”
Marc nodded.
“Even if she is a Congregationalist.” Hatch smiled. “What I’m trying to say is, I think you’ve come at the right time to make your pitch.”
“Let’s hope she feels the same way,” Marc said.
But how far could he hope? How far did he deserve to?
MARC WAS AWAKENED SLOWLY AND LUXURIOUSLY by the mid-morning sun slanting across the counterpane. By the time he had completed the most rudimentary toilet and donned the scarlet, green, and gold of an officer of the 24th Regiment of Foot, the Hatches’ dining-room was well warmed by the fire in the wood-stove and suffused with breakfast aromas: bacon, frying eggs and potatoes, and fresh-baked biscuits. The chores had been completed: cows milked, fed, and watered; stalls mucked out; hens relieved of their night’s labour; kindling chopped; and the day’s supply of firewood lugged indoors. Marc tried not to look abashed when he was greeted by the household as if he were the prodigal son being treated to the fatted calf.
“Sit down, lad, and dig in,” Hatch said as he settled into his captain’s chair, then took Mary by the hand to stop her fussing with Marc’s plate and utensils, and eased her down to her own place next to him. Susie arrived promptly with a steaming platter of food.
“I apologize for sleeping so late,” Marc said.
“Nonsense,” Hatch said. “You’ve got a difficult day ahead of you, eh?”
Marc acknowledged the reference to the task at hand with a tight smile.
“How is the babe this morning?” Marc asked Mary.
“He’s as healthy as his papa,” Mary said.
Suddenly Marc felt his heart lurch. Seeing Erastus Hatch, so long a widower and so lonely just a year ago, happy and at ease here in his home made Marc realize how badly he wanted to change his own life, and how much depended on what might happen or not happen in the next few hours. He decided that he would need to take a long walk and consider carefully what he might possibly say to Beth that would make a difference. He knew also that he needed an hour or so to regain the courage he had imagined for himself when he had played out the reconciliation scene with Beth at least a hundred times since last summer.
Hatch was halfway through his request for more bacon when he was interrupted by the sound of the back door opening and closing. Susie Huggan set down a plate and hurried to answer the door. Seconds later she reappeared with a big grin on her face.
“It’s our neighbour,” she cried, “and she’s brung us a basket of duck’s eggs!” Susie stepped aside to reveal both the visitor and her gift.
It was Beth Smallman. She glanced at the figures seated around the table, and stopped when she came to Marc.
The basket fell to the floor, and the duck eggs with it.
THREE
“so, you’re in our neighbourhood again—scoutin’ hogs and whatnot?” Beth said with that touch of colloquial teasing in her voice that Marc found irresistible. She was alluding to his visit the year before and to his rather inept attempt to pass himself off as an assistant quartermaster. The “whatnot” suggested that she knew full well the true purpose of his abrupt arrival this time.
“And duck’s eggs,” Marc said, “when they’re not broken.”
“Things’ve changed a lot here since last June.”
“Little Eustace, you mean, and Winnifred and Thomas?”
“I think you know what I mean,” Beth said.
They were walking slowly northward along the snow-packed path that linked the miller’s house with the Smallmans’. It meandered its way more or less beside the frozen creek on their left and the cleared ground on their right. The snow was so deep that no stubble showed through from the fall’s meagre harvest. Only uprooted, charred stumps marked the crude outlines of pasture and wheat field.
“Fewer pigs and more radicals?” Marc said, struggling to keep the tone of the conversation light. It felt so good just hearing Beth’s voice once again that he found himself torn between wanting the dialogue to continue at any cost and the fear that one wrong turn in its progress would kill it outright. And her physical presence here beside him—their footsteps in lazy unison, the breeze crisp and clean in their faces, the sound of their voices the only sound anywhere, the delicate frost of her breathing mingled with his own—left him so intoxicated that he was sure to blurt out some foolishness or other. He was tempted to reach over and take her elbow, as a proper gentleman should, but he dared not.
“Winn an’ Thomas had to keep what grain they took off last fall to feed the oxen, the three cows, and our pigs.”
“Erastus told me about their troubles.”
“They haven’t had it worse than any others in the township.” Marc caught the edge in her voice, but when he glanced over, she was staring resolutely ahead.
“Rastus also told me how well you’ve nursed Aaron through his illness.”
The low morning sun blazed through the fringe of Beth’s hair below the tuque and transformed it into a russet halo. It took all of Marc’s willpower to resist pulling the tuque away.
“I’d have even prayed to the Anglican God if I’d thought He could help,” Beth said.
“Ah, but you know perfectly well He’s always been a Congregationalist.”
Beth laughed, and for the first time glanced sideways at Marc. The force of her gaze, the infinite blue intelligence of her eyes, struck him like a blow. He felt numb and then, strangely, invigorated. His blood hummed.
“Whichever gods intervened,” Beth said, guiding him briefly around a submerged stump, “Aaron’s made a wonderful recovery. In a minute you’ll hear him chopping wood out behind the summer kitchen.”
“Chopping wood? But—”
“Oh, I see that he naps every afternoon. But I figured he needed to get outdoors as soon as he could. He lives for the animals and his chores around the barn.”
“And he’ll be needed more than ever now that Thomas has a battered hand.”
“Seems we just get through one trial when a new one comes on.”
“Who’ll help with the spring ploughing and planting?” Marc said, trying his best to make the question sound disinterested.
Beth slowed her pace, for which Marc was grateful, as it suggested she was not overeager to arrive at the cabin. In the distance he could now hear the staccato chunk of an axe on wood.
“Well, Winn won’t take money, from me or her father, so it’ll have to be mainly me and Aaron and Winn. Winn and me have done some sewing this winter, so we’ll have a few goods to trade for a bit of hired help. And we can work the ox-team together if we have to.”
Of that Marc had little doubt, even though, under the bulky mackintosh and cloth trousers, Beth was tiny and trim and not much more than a hundred pounds.
“But that means you might be stuck dow
n here until June or later?”
“It’s not a matter of choice. We often get ‘stuck’ where we ought most to be.”
Marc winced at the reproof. And he realized with a sinking heart just how difficult and possibly hopeless a task lay before him. How could he plead a lover’s cause in the face of such competing exigencies, of such overriding moral claims? There seemed for him, equally, to be no choice: he, too, was where he “ought most to be.” So he plunged recklessly ahead: “But surely your aunt Catherine will be needing you at the shop? Spring and summer are your busiest seasons.”
“I hadn’t realized you were so well acquainted with the millinery business.”
Ah, that teasing tone again, but he persevered. “Your aunt did pull up stakes in New England, as I recall, to join you in Toronto. Surely you can’t—”
“Your ‘recall’ is as keen as it’s always been. But I can do without your ‘surelys.’”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. But it doesn’t matter because I’ve taken care of Aunt Catherine and the business.”
“You haven’t sold it?”
Beth laughed for a second time. “No, we haven’t. When I left in January to come here to nurse Aaron, we hired a young girl from the town to help Aunt Catherine with the seamstressing side of the business. And next month a distant cousin from her husband’s side of the family is coming up to Toronto from Rochester to stay with her.”
“Can she sew? And help run the business?”
“He certainly can’t sew—”
“He?”
“A great-nephew. About your age, I think.”
“And what help could he possibly be in a millinery shop?” Besides being a male presence, and possibly a handsome one to boot.
“Since you’re so curious, he’s really interested in starting a business of his own. Things’ve been bad in the States since the dollar went crazy down there, and he wants to start a new life. He’ll live in and keep his aunt company, help with any heavy work, and learn how to operate a shop. Any further questions, counsellor?”