Turncoat

by Don Gutteridge

  “She’s quick with figures, mind—like her mother,” Hatch was happy to add. “And a handsome lass, eh?”

  Summoning his own good manners, Marc said, “Most men would describe her so.”

  MARC WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THE challenge of eliciting essential and perhaps incriminating information from Israel Wicks, Azel Stebbins, and Orville Hislop—the trio of suspected extremists passed on to him by Sir John. But he was not anticipating with any pleasure the imminent interview with Beth Smallman. The death of a loved one—especially a parent—was devastating. And while he himself had been a mere five years old when both his parents had died of cholera, he could still recall the numbing sense of loss, the abrupt rupturing of the world he had believed permanent and incorruptible, and the long, bewildering absence that followed and would not be filled. More immediate perhaps was the love he felt for “Uncle” Jabez, who had adopted him and raised him up in ways that would have been inconceivable had his parents survived. Beth Smallman had seen her husband hang himself out of some deep despair, the roots of which Marc knew he must probe, and barely a twelvemonth later she had suffered the unexplained death of a father-in-law she had come to revere as much or more than she had her husband. How and why that affection had grown, and its consequences, were facts he had to learn, if his investigation was to be rigorous and objective.

  Taking a deep breath, Marc turned onto the Smallman property.

  “You again, is it?”

  “My visiting your mistress is no concern of yours,” Marc said when he had recovered from the shock of Elijah’s sudden materialization—this time from behind the manure pile in the stable yard. He realized immediately the ineptness of such a reprimand here in the bush, but not before Elijah had guffawed with his own brand of upstart contempt.

  “The missus and me’ll decide what concerns us,” Elijah said. “We ain’t impressed by no fancy uniform.”

  Marc ignored the remark and switched tactics. “When did you leave your cabin and walk up to Philander Child’s place on the day your master died?” he demanded in his best drill-sergeant’s voice.

  Elijah’s eyes narrowed, and his ungloved fingers squeezed more tightly around the handle of his pitchfork. “And who wants to know?”

  “The lieutenant-governor,” Marc said, bristling.

  But Elijah had already turned away and was now ambling towards the barn. As he went in, he called back over his shoulder, “Don’t tha’ be long up there. I won’t have ya upsettin’ the missus.”

  So much for imperial authority.

  “YOU’RE WONDERIN’ WHY I’M NOT DRAPED in widow’s weeds,” Beth Smallman said.

  In truth, Marc was silently noting not the absence of mourning attire but the arresting presence of a plain white blouse, brown woollen skirt, and an unadorned apron that might have been stitched together out of discarded flour sacking. Once again her flaming russet hair was behaving as it pleased.

  “Well, there’s no one would see them, is there?” she said, once again seated across from him in the tender light of the south window. “Besides, grief goes much deeper than crêpe or black wreaths upon doors.”

  “I apologize, ma’am, for the necessity of this interview—”

  “Please don’t,” she said. “I’m as eager to learn why Father died in the way he did as you and the governor are.” Her face was grave but not solemn. She struck Marc as a woman who would do her weeping at night—more Scots than Irish. “Livin’ with ‘whys’ that never get answered is as hard as grievin’ itself.”

  That she was alluding to her husband’s death as much as to her father-in-law’s was not in doubt. But Marc was not ready to take up that cue. Not yet. “It is the why, the motive, that I need to discover,” he said quietly. “And to do so, I must learn as much as possible about your father-in-law’s thoughts and feelings and actions over the past few months.”

  “I understand,” she said. Her voice was breathy and low: she would be an alto in the Congregationalist choir, he thought. “I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “My task is made somewhat easier by the fact that until your husband passed away a year ago, your father-in-law lived and worked in Toronto. We need to focus then on those activities he took up here subsequent to his return.”

  “He was born here,” she reminded him, “and grew up on a farm near Cobourg. When his father died, he sold the farm and moved to Toronto—it was still York then. He enjoyed the country very much, but his talents lay in business, in the life of the town.”

  “And your husband’s?”

  Beth paused, smiled shrewdly, and said, “They did not share similar interests.”

  Marc decided it was politic to sip at his tea and sample a biscuit before he spoke again. “Jesse was not enamoured of dry goods?”

  “While his mother was alive, he pretended to be. When she died seven years ago, Jesse took the money she left him from her own father’s estate, moved back here where they were just opening the township, and bought this farm.” She looked down at her tea but did not drink. “He felt he’d come home.”

  The scraping of a boot along floorboards announced the entrance of Aaron. Marc waited patiently while Beth fussed over the boy, tucked a biscuit into his twisted mouth, did up the top button of his mackintosh, and escorted him back outside, whispering instructions into his ear as if she were not repeating them for the hundredth time.

  When the tea was replenished and she was seated again, she said, “You’ll want to know how we met.”

  “Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t look as though you’ve been a farm girl all your life.”

  “You’re very observant for one so … young,” she said. And so coddled and pampered and protected from the true horrors of the world, she implied with her single, taut glance. “But these are genuine calluses.” She showed both her palms while the cup and saucer teetered on her knees. “You learn how when you have to, and quickly.” That she herself was younger than he appeared to be of no relevance.

  “You met your husband here, then?”

  “My father was the Congregationalist minister in Cobourg. We came up here when I was eight, after my mother died back in Pennsylvania.”

  “But your husband was Church of England,” Marc said.

  Once again he was raked by that appraising gaze. “A venial sin,” she said. “Congregationalists are a tolerant lot. And democratic to boot.” She watched to see the effect of this last remark.

  “Would you say that relations between Jesse and Joshua were strained?”

  “Did Father come to the wedding, you mean?”

  “Did he approve of the … way his son’s life was going?”

  “He came down for the wedding at St. Peter’s in Cobourg.”

  “And that was … ?”

  “Almost four years ago. Jess and I came directly here.”

  “Did his father visit?”

  Each new question seemed to disconcert her just a bit more, but the only outward sign of discomfort was the length of the pause before she could answer. When she did, Marc could see no indication that she was reluctant, withholding, or evasive.

  “Only at Christmas. And once at Easter.”

  When the thorny issue of whose church to attend must have complicated matters.

  “Perhaps if there had been children …” Her voice trailed off.

  “But there weren’t,” Marc prompted, uncertain now of his ground.

  Her smile was indulgent but nonetheless pained. “No miscarriages, no stillborns, no infant deaths,” she whispered. “Nothing.”

  “But Joshua came immediately when he was needed,” Marc said with feeling, “and he stayed.”

  “Yes.”

  “And gave up dry goods to become a farmer.”

  Her “yes” was just audible.

  Marc was grateful for the sudden arrival of Mary Huggan through the kitchen door.

  “Oh,” she said to Beth, “I didn’t know anybody was with you.” Mary seemed to have arrived in a state of so
me turmoil, but when she saw Beth’s face, she looked bewildered and began backing away. “I’m sorry, I’ve come at a bad time.”

  “It’s all right, Mary. Ensign Edwards and I have some distressing but necessary things to talk over.”

  “Of course,” Mary said, then whirled and fled.

  Beth called out, “Come over after you’ve served dinner!” She had drawn a cotton handkerchief from her apron pocket. “I’m ready to go on now.”

  “If your father-in-law made an enemy, even one he didn’t know he’d made, I need to find that person—or group.”

  “As in political party.”

  “Or faction. Erastus Hatch and others have given me a rough sketch of the various parties and factions contending in the county. He also mentioned that—”

  “I dragged my Tory father-in-law off to Reform rallies in five different townships when I’d be servin’ my monarch better by mindin’ the house, lookin’ for a husband who could give me babies, and helpin’ to raise enough corn to keep the bailiffs out of the barn.”

  “Something of that order,” Marc managed to reply.

  “I also read newspapers, and I helped Jess write two of his petitions to the Assembly.”

  “I’ve been led to believe that Joshua accompanied you to Reform rallies as a means merely of seeing you properly chaperoned.”

  “He was a gentleman.”

  “Was he not in danger of being … embarrassed or otherwise discomfited? After all, his Tory leanings, his former business in the capital, the friends he selected here upon his return—these would be well-known.”

  “Everything is eventually well-known in Northumberland County.”

  “Did he participate in any way when he accompanied you?”

  Again the indulgent smile, with just a touch of scorn in it. “I see you haven’t attended the hustings or any of our infamous political picnics.”

  “As a soldier I have other pressing duties.”

  “So I’ve been told.” This time her smile was warm, accepting. “But if you had, you’d know that opponents of every stripe show up and pipe up at every opportunity. The give and take of public debate is another way of describin’ the shoutin’ matches and general mayhem. Sometimes it takes fisticuffs or a donnybrook to settle on a winner.”

  “No place for an unescorted lady, then.” For a brief moment he pictured her dependent upon his strong, soldier’s arm.

  “You want to know, I think, but are too polite to ask, if Father became embroiled in the debates? The answer is no. He was a friendly but reserved man.” She paused. “He was that rare thing among men: a listener.”

  Marc got up and walked to the window. He drew out his pipe and, receiving silent permission from his hostess, began stuffing it with tobacco from the pouch on his belt. When he turned back, Beth was beside him, a lit tinder stick in her hand. She watched him closely—with the same kind of marvelling intensity he himself had once used when observing his uncle Jabez shaving—as he got the plug going. With a start he realized she had done this many times.

  “My feeling from what Sir John told me of Joshua, and what I’ve learned here thus far, is that there is more likelihood of his listening to what was being said, of taking it in—”

  “Than bein’ taken in by it?” she said quickly.

  “That too.”

  “Well, I can say one thing for sure: he began more and more to understand what it was like—is like—to try and eke out a livin’ from the land when so much of the province’s affairs are run from Toronto by gentlemen who’ve never hoed a row of Indian corn and who think every person with a rightful grievance is an insurrectionist.”

  “You said a moment ago that some folks thought you should stay put on the farm to help keep the bailiffs away. Did you mean that literally?”

  “Almost. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Child extendin’ us a mortgage, Jess and me might well’ve lost everything.”

  “Philander Child holds your mortgage?”

  “He did. And when the second drought brought us to our knees, he kindly offered to buy the farm from us, for a lot more than it was worth.”

  “He doesn’t look like a farmer to me.”

  Beth smiled indulgently. “You can be interested in agricultural land without wantin’ to hoe beans or muck out stalls.”

  “Point taken. But you were not tempted by his offer.”

  “I was. But not Jess. He was not about to admit failure to his father.”

  “But then—”

  “Then he died. And it was me that vowed never to sell. Then Father arrived and paid off the mortgage.”

  “I see.”

  “Mr. Child also arranged for Elijah to help Jess and me out that last year.” She caught Marc’s wince of disbelief. “Elijah’s a miserable old coot till you get to know him, but he worked for his board and what little we could pay him at harvest time. He’s got no family.”

  “Is he a local?”

  “No. Some crony of Mr. Child’s in Toronto was lookin’ for a safe home for him and he ended up here.”

  “But the land around here appears to be extremely fertile,” Marc said. “And you’ve already cleared most of your acreage by the look of it.”

  Beth took hold of his arm. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s time you learned somethin’ about farming in this province.”

  As they made their way to the door, Marc caught sight of a brass bedstead behind partly drawn curtains. On either side of the bed, a pair of tall shelves listed under the weight of books. The title of one leapt out at him: Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.

  Following the direction of his gaze, Beth said, “My own father’s bed—his legacy, along with his library. I left the religious tomes back in Cobourg, for the Reverend Hay-don.” When Marc continued to stare, she said, “You enjoy readin’?”

  “Very much,” he replied, uncertain of the question’s intent. “I spent two years as a law clerk.”

  She smiled. “I guess that counts.”

  Outside, the sunshine and cold air made walking a pleasant exercise. As they passed the barn to veer southwest towards the farm’s fields and pastures, they could hear Elijah mucking out the pigpens and singing vigorously. No recognizable word emerged from his song, though the hogs joined in as they were able.

  “Does Elijah have a last name?” Marc said.

  “I suppose so,” Beth said. “But he’s never said and I’ve never asked.”

  A few yards beyond the barn Beth began to point out to Marc the location of fields, all alike now under two feet of snow, and their pertinent features: this one already bursting with winter wheat though you couldn’t yet see its green sprouts; that one to be seeded with maize in April; this one lying fallow; that one an alfalfa field waiting for spring rains. The snow-packed trail they were following appeared to Marc to be shadowing Crawford Creek but at a consistent distance of thirty yards or so.

  “Wouldn’t this path be more scenic if it were closer to the creek?” he asked when they stopped at a field where tree stumps and random branches jutted brutally through the snow—a familiar sight, even to a newcomer like Marc, in a country whose arable land was still nine-tenths forest.

  “It would,” Beth said, her gaze upon the stump-scarred field in front of them, “if we owned the land next to it.”

  “Where we’ve been walking is your property line, then?”

  Beth murmured assent. “This was the last of our fields to be cleared. We worked on it all one summer and fall. It was the last thing Jess and I did together.”

  Marc offered his arm in a comforting gesture. She did not lean upon it, but he could feel the pressure of her fingers and found it pleasantly disconcerting.

  “From what you’ve just told me and from what I’ve seen of your livestock, you appear to have a prospering operation here.”

  “It must look that way now,” she said, staring ahead. “The land was cheap so long as we cleared our quota and did our bit on the roads. The mortgage was mostly for the new barn, the cows and p
igs, and some machinery that needed replacin’. We even had a team of oxen once.”

  “Surely two or three good crops would have seen you solvent,” Marc said, as if he actually knew what he was talking about.

  “True. But just as we needed them, as I said earlier, the drought struck.”

  “But you’ve got a creek over there twice the size of most rivers in England!”

  “I’m not talkin’ about the kind of drought you get in a desert or the kind that drove Joseph into Egypt. It only takes three or four weeks of little or no rain in June or July to weaken a crop. The thistles and blight get in, and the kernels shrivel up so you’re lucky to get ten bushels to the acre.”

  “And that happened three summers ago?”

  “And the summer before last, too. If you look back towards the barn from this high point where we’re standin’, you can see that the main section of growing land is very low. In the spring, it’s actually swampy, and difficult to plough and seed. We had two wet springs in a row.”

  She said this as if rain and drought were the whims of a fate determined to tease and madden, the kind that brought plagues to the pharaoh and mindless ordeals to Job.

  “The squire next to us back home had swamp ground like that, and he drained it with tile,” Marc said.

  “But we don’t own the land next to the creek,” Beth said.

  “But the creek is right there,” Marc persisted. “There’s nothing but bush on either side of it, no one is using it. It’s the same creek that drives Hatch’s mill and feeds half the wells of the township.” He was trying to keep the note of impatience out of his voice, any sense that he was instructing the naive or the unreasonably discouraged. “Nobody’d give a tinker’s dam if you drained your swamp into it or drew water out of it for irrigation. Hatch says a quarter of the farmers here are still squatters, and no one pays the slightest bit of attention.”

  “That’s exactly how Jess used to talk,” Beth said. She turned and trod through the snow towards Crawford Creek. Marc floundered behind her. When he caught up, she gestured towards the frozen ribbon of water and the hardwood forest fringing its banks.