Dubious Allegiance

by Don Gutteridge

  “This is outrageous!” Pritchard fumed, in part to conceal his fear.

  “I agree, sir,” Brookner said. “But the good news is that it was the Frenchies and not our own so-called rebels. We’re well inside Upper Canada now, and the French traitors are no doubt skedaddlling back to their own territory.”

  They all got into the coach without further discussion. Gander Todd leapt up to his position, and they skittered off towards the safety of Cornwall, the next civilized town. A proper meal and a rest-stop for passengers and horses would have to wait until then.

  * * *

  “Mr. Sedgewick tells me that you operate a hardware store,” Ainslie Pritchard said to Brookner when they were well away from the place of ambush and the silence in the coach had grown as intolerable as it was ungentlemanly.

  “Indeed, I do, sir,” Brookner replied with the sort of gruff affability of manner he had recently decided to affect. “My premises are on the main street and constructed of quarrystone—built to last, I tell my customers to amuse them.”

  “And I am given to understand that your partner in life assists you in the family enterprise.”

  Brookner glared sideways at Sedgewick, who was dozing, and then smiled thinly across at Pritchard. “Adelaide helps out from time to time and, if I may boast, does an excellent job.”

  “For a woman,” Adelaide said in a barely audible voice. Her veil had come down again.

  Brookner threw his wife a warning glance of some kind, but before he could say anything, Marc said, “My fiancée and her aunt run a business entirely on their own in Toronto.”

  “Do they?” Pritchard said with ill-suppressed surprise.

  “What sort of shop?” Brookner asked.

  Marc noticed that the captain had put his greatcoat on before leaving the coach earlier and had kept it on. Even in the pale light of the coach’s interior, it gleamed a garish green and, with its wearer’s stiff posture, could have passed for a mannequin in a haberdasher’s display-window. Oddly, he was not wearing a black armband.

  “Millinery,” Marc said. “With a dressmaker’s workroom in back.” He did not think it wise to mention their recent troubles and subsequent flight.

  “Aah,” Pritchard and Brookner said together, with a dismissive sigh.

  “She operated a farm before that—on her own, after her first husband died.”

  “I’m told the women out here get up to the damnedest things.” Pritchard sighed, more ruefully this time. “But surely she will not carry on once she becomes the wife of an infantry officer.”

  “I believe she will, one way or another.”

  “But what will happen when the children start coming?”

  “I’ve learned to take life one week at a time out here,” Marc said. “You must remember that we are not yet fully civilized.”

  “Now there you speak the gospel truth, sir.”

  “You have no children, then?” Marc asked Brookner.

  “No, I have not, sir. To my deep regret. Mrs. Brookner and I have been happily wed for almost fifteen years, but the Lord has not seen fit to bless us with children.”

  “Then it has been most generous of you, Captain, to allow Mrs. Brookner to participate in your commercial affairs.”

  “Adelaide does the accounts,” Sedgewick said without opening his eyes.

  “Whenever I myself am too busy to do so,” Brookner said quickly. “Is that not so, my dear?”

  Whether his good wife was about to answer or demur was not known, because Sedgewick answered on her behalf.

  “Addie was very clever in school,” he said, smiling reminiscently across at the veiled countenance of his sister. “Especially in sums. Her other brothers and Marion and me only finished common school: Addie was sent into Kingston to Miss Carswell’s Academy for Ladies.”

  For a moment that remark, aggressive and affectionate, seemed to stop the easy flow of conversation. However, silence being anathema to the English merchant, he soon started it up again, in a fresh direction.

  “If you are going on to Cobourg, Mr. Lambert, then we shall be travelling together for several more days.”

  Charles Lambert, who appeared to have been somewhat shaken out of his earlier trance by his fright in the woods, nodded courteously, but did not speak.

  “Cobourg, I was told in Montreal, is a bustling new town on the big lake—Ontario, I believe it’s called.”

  “It is an incorporated village,” Lambert said, and for the first time a lawyerly precision of voice and cadence could be discerned. “And barely that. But we hope for more.”

  “You are newly set up in practice there?”

  Lambert paused, as if considering whether or not he had said too much already, but eventually said, “We arrived there four months ago.”

  “Then you may have met my good friend, Dr. Charles Barnaby, a retired army surgeon who has a part-time clinic on King Street,” Marc said, suddenly interested in a man who had resided in Cobourg for the past few months and who, being no more than five miles from Crawford’s Corners, might well have information about the rebellion and its aftermath in the region.

  Lambert looked momentarily puzzled by the question, but like a good solicitor in training, he recovered quickly and said, “No, I don’t believe I’ve yet had the privilege. I’m an extraordinarily healthy man.”

  “It’s the bracing country air!” Pritchard said, eager to draw the conversation back to himself.

  “Then you and your wife must get out to Throop’s Emporium quite often. It’s been honoured with the quaintness award for the province, I’ve been told,” Marc said lightly.

  Lambert’s dark brows came down to squeeze his eyes almost shut. “Pardon me for being blunt, Lieutenant, but I don’t see how any of this is your business.”

  There was an embarrassed silence. It’s only my business, Marc thought but did not say, if you’ve never actually set foot in Cobourg. And if not, what are you doing on a stagecoach heading there? And what were you really doing up in St. Denis?

  “We’re merely trying to while away the boredom of the journey, old chap,” Pritchard said.

  “I don’t find my own company boring,” Lambert said uncharitably, despite the obvious truth of the remark.

  And that put an end to that conversation.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later they reached the outskirts of Cornwall and pulled up in front of the Malvern Inn. It was five o’clock.

  Alerted to their imminent arrival by the army courier who had passed through ahead of them, the innkeeper had prepared a sumptuous welcome for his affluent guests. A log-fire blazed in the huge stone fireplace of the reception area. Braziers had been sent up to their rooms and warming bricks placed in their beds between feather mattresses and goose-down comforters. The roast beef was almost ready in the cook’s generous oven, and the wine-steward-cum-errand-boy had just scurried off to the cellar for five bottles of the best that ready money could buy.

  Marc was hoping to observe each of his fellow passengers as they removed their outer clothing. He was looking for the telltale bulges of hidden weapons, but it was not to be. Everyone was exhausted, physically and emotionally, from the long journey and its troubling events, and headed straight upstairs to their assigned chambers. An hour later, with a wash and a nap accomplished, they reassembled in front of the roaring fire for sherry and pre-dinner chat. No doubt their various adventures would have been rehashed, if only in a perfunctory way, but Mr. Malvern and his angular wife insisted on sharing their affability and stores of meaningless gossip with their captive customers. And so, with the aroma of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding wafting in from the kitchen, they had to endure the Malvern chatter for the sake of the pleasures to come. Marc found himself almost too weak to eat anyway. He had fallen dead asleep in his room and had had to be wakened by an alarmed Captain Brookner who, once more, showed his disappointment at Marc’s choice of clothes for dinner, but made no comment.

  As they were being ceremoniously led
towards the roast beef by Mrs. Malvern, her husband drew Marc to one side.

  “I did not want to trouble you, sir, when you first come in, as you looked quite peakèd, but the courier left a message for you, the one that come from Montreal.” Without further explanation he thrust an envelope into Marc’s hand and bustled into the dining-room.

  Marc sat down in a nearby easy-chair. His name on the envelope was in Owen Jenkin’s handwriting. He ripped it open and read:

  Montreal, L.C.

  Noon, Jan. 17, 1838

  Dear Marc:

  I am trusting this message to Sir John’s express courier. If he is unimpeded on his journey, he should overtake you before you reach Cornwall. There is news here that you must know about as soon as possible: your life may depend on it. Gilles Gauthier, the man who was caught thieving at the hospital, was tried here this morning in military court, the regular courts being suspended. He was found guilty of theft—he had two spoons in his possession—and was sentenced to hard labour for ten years. But he was found not guilty of attempting to murder you with a stolen bayonet. Evidence in his defence was offered by a parish priest from Chambly, who testified that Gauthier spent the night you were attacked in a drunken stupor in the local church vestry. However, suspicion has now fallen on someone else. It seems that one of the French aides left the hospital two days after the attack, supposedly sick and unable to work. Head Nurse was too busy playing Boadecia to notice the coincidence or mention it to Dr. Wilder or me. The young woman’s name is Isabelle LaCroix. Nothing is known of her here, and the French will not betray one of their own or help us with our enquiries. So there it is. It seems you may have been attacked by a young Frenchwoman, of unknown origin and without a known motive. Please be careful. Further attempts may be made. Send news of your safe arrival at each post en route.

  Yours in friendship

  (Major) Owen Jenkin

  Marc’s first thought was that “a further attempt” may have already been made earlier this afternoon. But it could not have been carried out by a girl from the city. Most likely, whoever it was who wanted him dead had co-opted the nurse to make the first try, when he was helpless in a hospital bed. Now it appeared that the same person had himself, or in concert with others, made a second try, and failed. Certainly Marc’s disguise as an ordinary gentleman had not fooled the would-be assassin. Which meant that Marc was known by sight: he was neither a random nor a symbolic target. Someone hated Marc Edwards enough to make a concerted and sustained effort to kill him. And that person would know precisely where he would be sleeping tonight. He would have to be prepared.

  Mr. Malvern, as rotund as he was orotund, was delighted to hear from Captain Brookner after dinner that, due to the fragile health of Lieutenant Edwards, the distinguished company would be staying a second night before moving on to Prescott. His brown eyes ablaze with the reflected flame from his cheeks, Mr. Malvern assured the lady and gentlemen that healthful food and supportive drink would be supplied as needed, that recreation would be found to amuse and edify (cards and partridge hunting being the foremost among many choices), and with the local militia active in and around the village, no fears for their safety should be entertained or permitted to bestir the equanimity that their station deserved.

  As the men headed for the smoker to cap their day with a cigar and a brandy, Marc excused himself.

  “There is no need to excuse yourself at all, Lieutenant,” Ainslie Pritchard said graciously, his magnanimity expanded exponentially by roast beef and vin ordinaire. “We have already tired you today more than is conscionable.”

  With that, he manoeuvred his portliness towards the smoking chamber, and the others, with varying nods of approval, followed. Even the mysterious Mr. Lambert, less than loquacious at dinner, joined them. Despite being dog-tired, Marc was hoping to have a chance to speak with Adelaide Brookner alone, but she was already on her way upstairs to her room.

  Innkeeper Malvern, ever hovering, pounced from an alcove: “Anything I can do for you, sir, to make you more comfortable?” he asked.

  Marc paused, thinking hard. “As a matter of fact, there is,” he said.

  Malvern beamed.

  “Do you happen to have a pumpkin-squash I could borrow?”

  Although life as a hotelier had prepared Malvern for many an odd request or demand—he was already planning to write a book on the subject—he was stunned to hear a British officer ask him for a pumpkin on loan. The intrepid lieutenant’s exploits had been, to the latter’s acute embarrassment, the main topic of conversation between the soup course and the entrée. It seemed that Marc’s daring rescue of Eugene Yates, the young cavalryman from Montreal, had been bruited about that city by his companions of the 24th, and the tale had grown hairs in the retelling. Several variants were put forward and debated at table, but Marc had been too weary to adjudicate. No-one had noticed.

  “You have a root cellar?” Marc enquired as Malvern fumbled for a sensible response to the hero’s request.

  “Yes, sir. And yes, sir, there are squash and turnip of several varieties stored there. You want a pumpkin-squash, you say?”

  “Yes, about this big around.”

  With remarkable restraint and not a little aplomb, the order was duly given to one of the houseboys, and minutes later Marc trudged upstairs with a head-shaped, half-frozen orange pumpkin under his arm.

  Using some of the vests and jackets packed into the big trunk by Owen Jenkin, Marc arranged his bed so that the outline of a sleeping body clearly showed under the comforter. Against the pillow he laid the pumpkin, then draped a linen nightcap over its bald pate, and pulled the comforter up over its hairless chin. The night-sky outside his window was black and star-studded. A full moon bathed the room in quicksilver light. He hoped the deception would work. If the assassin who had tried to kill him this afternoon was determined to finish what he had started, tonight would be a logical time and place.

  Next, he rigged a booby-trap against the door, which, as in most country inns, had no lock, merely a brittle wooden latch that could be jimmied with a penknife. He piled up, precariously, a tin washing-bowl, his canteen cup, and a crockery chamber pot so that the least jarring of the door would create a jangling tumble with enough noise to awaken him or in the least spook the intruder. He himself planned to sleep curled up in the oversize mahogany wardrobe across the room, leaving its door ajar and his officer’s pistol—reluctantly retrieved from the bottom of his own small trunk—cocked and ready.

  Satisfied with his handiwork, he doused the whale-oil lamp and folded his weary bones into the bottom of the wardrobe. It was uncomfortable, but he figured that he could sleep anywhere tonight.

  He had just begun to drift into a doze when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, which ended in the hall just outside his door. He recognized the voices, saying brief good nights: Ainslie Pritchard and Charles Lambert. He heard two doors close. Then he was fast asleep.

  * * *

  Something woke him. He sat up with a lurch and banged his elbow on a shelf. Christ! He was holding the pistol in that hand. He could have shot himself. Still trying to recall where he was and why, he glanced across the moonlit room. His facsimile lay undisturbed under its cozy camouflage. The booby-trap still teetered nicely. He looked towards the window. It was then that he heard voices, the noise that had wakened him. There were two of them, Randolph Brookner and Percy Sedgewick, very close to his door, exchanging unpleasantries in fierce, drunken whispers.

  “I’m tellin’ you, Randy, for the last time, you do that once more and you’ll . . . you’ll live to regret it!”

  “What I do is my own business, and I won’t be bullied by a bumpkin farmer like you, you cowardly son of a bitch!”

  “I don’t need no musket to make me a man, you prancin’ peacock!”

  “If you weren’t my brother-in-law, I’d beat the living shit out of you right here and now!”

  “You just remember what I said: no more, ya hear? I can make your name mud all ov
er the county. And I . . . I got a shotgun in my shed I use to kill rats and foxes and other vermin!”

  “You snivelling little bastard. You think I’m afraid of you or anybody else? And don’t you forget, I can have you charged with treason in the wink of an eye. Only the fact that you’re my wife’s favourite brother stops me from—”

  “The Scanlons were my neighbours, for Christ’s sake. What was I to do, turn the women and kids inta the bush to freeze! We’re farmers and Christians out in the country, not—”

  There was a brief scuffling sound, some ferocious panting, then silence. Finally, two doors farther down the hall opened and closed discreetly.

  Marc lay back, carefully placing the loaded pistol on his chest pointing away from him. He was hoping to spend a few minutes mulling over the significance of what he had just heard but was asleep before he could get started.

  When he woke up again, he found he was still tired and aching now in places he had not previously noticed. From the angle of the sun across the chamber, he could tell that the morning was well advanced. He was happy that the party would be spending the day resting here. Owen had been right about the fragile state of his constitution: he was a long way from full recovery.

  Then he remembered why he was curled up inside the wardrobe with his pistol. He looked over at the bed, then the door. No-one had come in to disturb his dreams or worse. Well, he mused, I’ve survived an eventful day and a night. What else can happen?

  When Marc entered the dining-room, it was empty except for Adelaide Brookner. She sat alone, darkly resplendent in her mourning clothes, picking at some food growing cold on her plate. While her gown was low-cut in the current fashion, she had arranged a copious crepe scarf so that it covered her chest and neck almost to the chin, giving the effect of an Elizabethan ruff. Her expression was unreadable, as if all thought and feeling had been sucked inward and she hadn’t bothered to put a face on for the world. There was a slump of resignation to her posture, and it was all the more striking because there was an ingrained and obviously cherished pride in her person. She reminded Marc of the proud and intelligent Winnifred Hatch, now Mrs. Thomas Goodall. Just outside the front entrance he could hear the jangle of sleigh-bells. He walked into the breakfast-room and sat down opposite Adelaide Brookner.