In more congenial circumstances, Marc might have appreciated the irony of her remark, but the first shock of arctic air numbed everything but his brain. Sheer panic kept it functioning. Marc jammed the hatch back into place and leaned against the cabin wall to get his bearings. The moon had risen, and he could see that he was at the rear of the house. Twenty yards to the side lay the barn and outbuildings. Halfway between, the staggering figure of Azel Stebbins aimed itself at hearth and home—towards the front door, a route that would take him mercifully out of sight and allow Marc to sprint unseen to the barn. Even if he made the barn undetected, Marc would still have to pass dangerously close to the cabin to leave by the lane and through the opening onto the sideroad. The impossible alternative was to take his chances on the drifts in the field, where, in the morning, the tracks of his departure would be stamped for all to see and interpret. He took a deep breath and jerked his unsuspendered trousers up to his waist. Stifling a cry with one hand, he reached down with the other and drew a splinter, agonizingly, out of his left buttock.
Azel was carolling a familiar sea shanty with some improvised taproom lyrics as he disappeared along the far side of the cabin. Seconds later, a door slammed. Marc took off for the stables, having the presence of mind to keep to the trodden path between woodpile and barn—no strange bootprints to be found at dawn by a jealous husband with a harquebus. Luckily, the latter had left the barn doors ajar, so Marc was able to slip quickly inside, out of the wind. With teeth chattering, and in the gleam of a sliver of moonlight pouring through the crack in the doorway, Marc trembled and stubbed his way into his remaining clothes. He had just buckled his belt when he felt a tickle of hot breath on the nape of his neck.
Bracing for a savage blow or the plunge of a dagger, Marc instinctively reached down for the sword he had left at the mill. But nothing happened. Slowly Marc forced himself to turn around and face his ambusher. It was Azel’s mare, unarmed and amorous.
Stebbins evidently had stumbled into the barn, flung the saddle off, tossed a hasty blanket over his mount, and left it to fend for itself. If he had walked it down to its stall, he would not have missed seeing Marc’s horse in the stall beside it. One nicker and the game would have been over.
Marc put his saddle loosely on his own horse, checked its shoeless hoof, and began leading it back towards the doorway. That’s when he heard a floor board creak somewhere above him in the region of the hayloft. This was followed by a kind of scritching sound, as if some nocturnal creature were hunkering down or squirming to get comfortable. A rat? A raccoon?
Slowly he made his way farther into the interior of the barn. He stopped and listened. There was nothing but the contented breathing of animals he could hear but not see. Then a creak sounded right over his head, heavily; it could only be a man’s footfall. Was someone up there hiding from Marc—or spying on him?
While he was trying to make up his mind whether to lie low or flush out the fellow, the decision was made for him. He heard the hayloft door swing open above him on the wall opposite. His man was on the run.
Marc moved silently along the dark corridor between the stalls. By the time he got outside and trotted around to the far side of the barn, all he could see was the hatch swinging on its hinges and a male figure disappearing into the woods fifty yards away. But he recognized the awkward gait: Ferris O’Hurley, without his donkey.
What would O’Hurley be doing hiding out in Azel Stebbins’s barn? Marc was sure it had something to do with the smuggling operation. The Irishmen from the States and their compatriot, Stebbins, were up to their Yankee ears in contraband spirits. But was that all? Connors had been carrying a sackful of brand-new American dollars last Tuesday. And Stebbins was always off hunting without bringing home a deer or a grouse. If it was this gang that Jesse Smallman had been mixed up with last year, it mattered little whether they were smuggling spirits, muskets, or seed money for seditionists: they and the Smallmans were connected in some significant way. Of that he was certain. So, despite the debacle back there in the cabin, Marc felt he had not completely frittered away the evening—if what had taken place in Lydia’s bed could be called frittering.
Marc peered over at the Stebbins household. It was dark and quiet. The moon had gone behind a cloud. A few flakes of camouflaging snow had begun to fall. Marc took a lung-chilling breath and began leading his horse along the regular path that led past the cabin and up the laneway to the sideroad. No musket boomed out behind him, no cuckold’s cry hailed him back. And O’Hurley was long gone.
Once on the sideroad he was able to pick up the pace. His horse limped slightly but made no complaint. The snow thickened about them. Bruised, sated, dishevelled, splinter-riven, piss-splattered, he trudged homeward. As he turned eastward on the concession line, an ugly thought entered his head. Was it possible that he had been meant to remain in the Stebbins cabin? That Azel was not to be trailed under any circumstances? That someone had deliberately nobbled his horse? No. What had passed between him and Lydia could not have been faked.
Could it?
ELEVEN
Marc missed breakfast (and any speculative remarks on the reasons for his absence from the table), but after an improvised meal of dry cheese, lukewarm bread, and cold tea, he was joined in the parlour by Hatch. Both men lit their pipes, and Marc provided him with an expurgated account of the fiasco at the Stebbins place. Hatch mercifully refrained from comment, then said, “You’ll have to fix on exactly what you’re going to tell Hamish MacLachlan this afternoon. Our sheriff’s a man who appreciates facts.” He chuckled and added, “There’s not much else he can appreciate.”
“Well,” Marc said, “we’ve got this much, I think: evidence of a note or message calling a respectable Tory gentleman out of his own house and away from his own New Year’s celebration into a near blizzard. The gentleman seems pleased about the prospects he’s being called to. ‘I may have some news that could change our lives forever,’ he tells his daughter-in-law, who swore to that under oath. The rendezvous with the summoner was to be at an isolated spot, but one we know now to have been a hideout or transfer point for smugglers, in particular two of their advance men, Connors and O’Hurley. Smallman dies in a freak accident on his way to the cave, said accident having been anticipated or, after the event, conveniently used to collude in the man’s death. To wit: no assistance was offered and no report made to the constable of the township or the sheriff or magistrate of the county. Some evidence at the scene indicates that the summoner stood waiting for his victim only a few rods above the death trap.”
“My goodness, but you would have made a fine barrister. Perhaps your uncle Jabez was right after all.”
“Solicitor is what he had in mind, but I wasn’t willing to wait five years while performing tasks an indentured servant would repudiate,” Marc said quietly.
“Well, if you go using words that big with MacLachlan, he’ll have you clapped in irons on the first charge he can pronounce!”
“I’ll tone it down a bit,” Marc said dryly, and carried on. “Having established a prima facie case for foul play, I’ll lay out the two lines of enquiry we’ve been pursuing: the political and the contraband. All he needs to know is that malcontents like Stebbins may have suspected that Joshua was an informer—given his past connections, recent arrival, and suspicious attendance at Reform rallies—or that he learned or surmised seditious information from his son while speculating on his activities and suicide.”
“You’re not going to tell him that Joshua was a spy?”
“Even in telling you, Erastus, I’ve broken one of Sir John’s commandments to me.”
“You’ll have to tell the girl, sometime.”
“But not yet.” Marc relit his pipe. “The smuggling angle can be approached in a way similar to the political one. Physical evidence suggests young Jesse may have turned to smuggling to help stave off bankruptcy and the failure of his farm. Half the township appears to have purchased contraband spirits or acted as wholesaler
s, but only a few of these can be directly linked to Jesse—those who marched beside him at the protest rallies over the grievances and, in particular, those American immigrants whose property rights were endangered by the Alien Act. We can reasonably postulate that somehow Joshua came across information that threatened the smuggling operation. Some ruse was then used to lure him to his death, probably false hopes raised about the reasons for his son’s self-destruction. Certainly, the locale points strongly to the latter theory.”
“So far, all of this is circumstantial,” Hatch said gently, “even though it’s damn clever guesswork.”
“At any rate, all I want to do is report formally to the sheriff, show him Sir John’s instructions to me, and alert him to the fact that I’m going to start using the governor’s authority to compel or cow certain suspects into telling something closer to the truth. I’ve been given full policing powers in the matter. I can hale these renegade farmers, and even old Elijah, before the magistrate and interrogate them under oath. I’ve just about done with playing games.”
“On the positive side,” Hatch said, “most of your suspects’ll be at the Township Hall in Cobourg later today to hear William Lyon Mackenzie rant and rave. You’ll be able to watch ’em close up, stirring their own soup.” He got up slowly and added, with the customary twinkle in his eye, “You can hardly see the mend in your trousers, but Winnie was wondering if you’d been reconnoitring grain in a sawmill.”
MARC STROLLED UP TO BETH’S PLACE, not only because he needed some bracing air to clear his head, but because he wanted to convey to her personally the arrangements that had been made for the journey into Cobourg and to make sure she would agree to them. No persuasion was needed, however: Beth Smallman wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to be roused once more by Mackenzie’s fiery rhetoric, even when it meant accepting the charity of a ride with a neighbour and the company of a red-coated infantry officer from the Tory capital.
The Durfees had offered the best seats in their cutter to Beth and her escort, Ensign Edwards. Erastus, Winnifred, Mary, and one of her sisters would be driven by Thomas Goodall in the miller’s four-seater. Another of Mary’s sisters would stay with Aaron. The women, with the exception of Beth, would do some shopping in Cobourg, then attend a church committee meeting at St. Peter’s, followed by a sleigh picnic. They would all go along to the rally out of curiosity, though Beth was the only declared supporter.
“You don’t need to chaperone me, you know,” Beth said to Marc at the door. “Mr. Durfee will do nicely.”
“Ah, but I want to,” Marc said.
HATCH WAS NOT IN THE MILL, but sometimes, Marc had learned, he could be found in the small office attached to it. Winnifred had gone down to Durfee’s for the mail and a visit with Emma. Goodall was in the drive shed behind the barn making some minor repairs to the sleigh. The little window in the outer wall of the office was begrimed and frosted over, so Marc just pushed gently on the unlatched door and opened his lips to halloo the miller. No syllable emerged. Through the gap in the doorway, Marc saw a woman’s oval face, eyes seized shut, cheeks inflamed with no maiden’s blush.
Marc backed away. He didn’t pause to close the door.
TEN MINUTES LATER, HATCH SAT DOWN opposite Marc in the parlour. He fiddled with his pipe but didn’t bother poking the fire into life.
“It’s not what you think, lad,” he said.
Marc did not reply, but he was listening with intense expectation.
“I would never take advantage of a servant girl, whatever other sins I may be charged with before my Maker.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to do so,” Marc said, remembering the rumours and whispered gossip that had titillated and scandalized the residents of Hartfield Downs.
“Two months ago she came to me. To my room. It took all my powers and the vow I’d made to my beloved Isobel to push her away. I’d not had a woman since Isobel passed on. I told Mary she didn’t have to do this, that it was wrong, that I considered her to be a fine, chaste young woman who would marry soon and raise her own family. She wept, but she did go.”
“Why do you think she came to you like that?”
“She was afraid I might send her home. You see, I have a niece in Kingston, and Winnifred’s talked about bringing her here, for company and to help out with the chores.”
“Mary could get other work, surely.” Marc was thinking of the desperate need for decent servants in Toronto.
“Easily. But still, it would mean returning home, even for a little while.”
“She was maltreated?”
Hatch grimaced. It was the first anger Marc had seen in the miller’s jovial, kindly face. “The father’s a drunken brute. He’s been in the public stocks half a dozen times. Nothing short of a bullwhip could cure him.”
“And if your niece did come, Mary would have to go?”
Hatch sighed. “She came to me again two nights later. This time she slipped in beside me, already … unclothed. I promised her she could stay on here as long as she wanted, or else see that she never had to go back to the brute that begot her.”
“And?”
“I gave in to my urges. I know it was a terrible thing to do. A wicked thing. She’s the same age as my own daughter. And the worse thing of all is, she really seems to like me. And now, though I pray every night for strength to resist, I’ve gradually, and alas gratefully, come to accept her … presence. She’s a loving little thing.” It took a great effort for him to hold back the tears that were threatening.
“Have you considered marrying her?” Marc knew full well that, in both the old world and the new, older men not nearly as robust and honourable as Hatch married girls half their age in their need for heirs or to satisfy the lusts that were expected to wane with age but didn’t.
“I can’t find the courage to.” Hatch jabbed at the fire as if he might conjure in its flames some image of Isobel that would tender absolution. “And after all, Winnifred has devoted her life to me and our business since her mother died, giving up her own chances for happiness.”
“She looks like a young woman who makes her own decisions, for her own reasons,” Marc said.
Hatch sighed. “You know, I’ve even prayed that Mary would get in the family way, then I’d have to find the courage, wouldn’t I?”
That was a wish, Marc thought, that a benevolent Deity might easily grant.
MARC AND BETH SAT IN THE cutter’s seat among buffalo robes, and James and Emma Durfee snuggled together on the driver’s bench as the team of Belgians followed the familiar road to town more or less on their own. The afternoon was clear and cold, making the runners sing on the snow and sharpening the tinkle of the bells on the horses’ harness. Emma Durfee had peremptorily refused to ride in the back with Beth, claiming, with just a hint of humour, that a woman’s place was beside her man. Forty minutes of steady progress would see them in Cobourg.
“You’ve spent most of your time here firin’ questions at me,” Beth said, drawing one of her furs more closely about her throat, “but you haven’t exactly told any of us your own life story.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Marc said. Their shoulders were touching fraternally through several layers of animal skin. “I was orphaned at five years and adopted by my father’s … patron.”
Beth looked puzzled by the word “patron” but continued to nod encouragingly.
“I soon learned to call him Uncle Jabez. He was unmarried, so I became the son he never had. I was raised on his modest estate in Kent, among gardens and hedgerows and thatched cottages. Next to us resided the shire’s grandest squire, who befriended my uncle and me. Hartfield Downs was magnificent, both the Elizabethan house and the vast farmland surrounding it. I was permitted to play with the Trelawney children, who thought themselves the equivalent of princes and princesses.”
“Which kept you humble,” Beth said dryly.
“Uncle Jabez brought in private tutors who saw that I learned even when I didn’t particularly
want to.”
“The distraction of all those princesses?”
“Horses, mainly. I loved to ride and be outdoors. I worshipped my uncle Frederick, my adoptive father’s younger brother. He was a retired army officer who had fought with Sir John Colborne and the 52nd on the Spanish Peninsula.” When Beth made no response to this news, he continued. “Uncle Jabez had been a solicitor in London, but when he inherited his father’s estate, he moved back to the country and took up the role of gentrified landowner. He sent me to London to article at law in the Inn of Chancery, which means six days a week with your head buried in conveyancing papers. But I spent all my free time at the Old Bailey envying the barristers in their grand wigs and robes—strutting about the court like tragedians on a stage.”
“And poor you with no horses to ride or foxes to assassinate?”
“More or less. What I secretly longed for was action, excitement, some challenge to the manly virtues I fancied I possessed in more than moderate measure.”
“Your drudgery left you little time for dalliance, then?”
Marc tried to catch the look that underlined this remark, but failed. “I have seldom found women unattractive,” he said.
Beth laughed. “Nor they you,” she said.
Emma turned around and, for several minutes, engaged Beth in conversation about a proposed shopping venture and plans for a joint charity clothing drive among the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and, surprisingly, the Anglicans. This interlude gave Marc time to reflect on how he was going to reopen the interrogation of the woman sitting close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath.
“It must have been hard for an upright, honourable, and religious man like your Joshua to have accepted his son’s suicide,” he said as soon as Emma had turned back to her husband and the road ahead.
Beth shifted ever so slightly away from him. “Of course it was. He loved Jess, even though they weren’t together much after we got married. And Jess was no weakling. He was strong and independent, or else he couldn’t’ve left home like he did or started the farm without a lick of help from anybody.”
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