A Daughter Rebels

by Ann Birch

  “I am trying to seem normal, Grant, in order to avoid one of the remedies you may intend to wreak upon me. Mama seems to have told you that I was hysterical. Perhaps I was. I did slash that ghastly portrait she chose to hang in the bedchamber, but I do not need your interference in what is simply an altercation between her and me.”

  Annie yanked the dress from her daughter’s hands and threw it upon the floor. She turned to Grant. “I say, this girl needs your help, and she must have it.”

  “Blistering, I believe, is the best remedy for hysteria.” Grant picked up the sack that lay on the floor, set it on a side table, and opened it. “I have here an ointment made from Spanish fly, pepper, and mustard-seed which I shall apply to the skin on her head, the nape of her neck, and between her shoulders.” He turned towards Anne. “But you must come with me up to your bedchamber, sister, where I can apply it freely to your body away from the gaze of the rest of the family. After a few hours, the blisters will be fully raised; the blood will rise to the surface of your skin and lessen the irritation within your head. By next morning, you should be entirely free of hysteria.”

  “I will not move from this chair,” Anne replied. “I will not submit to your quackery. Drag me away by force, if you have the nerve to do it, but I warn you, I will resist.”

  She grasped the arms of the chair she was sitting in, prepared to do battle it seemed. What Annie observed next was a complete surprise. Her two granddaughters got up from their chairs and moved in close to their aunt. Mary stood up as well and placed herself in front of Anne as if to protect her from her brother. Only Eliza remained on the piano stool, but she was frowning deeply, and Annie could not readily assess her position in this melee.

  Grant shrugged and turned away. “I do not wish to be involved further in this matter. I am sorry, dear Mother, but if the silly girl refuses my treatment, I can do nothing.” He picked up his sack of equipment and left the room. In a minute, he had slammed the front door and disappeared.

  “What am I to do with you, daughter?” Annie asked, the palms of her hands turned upwards in a motion of despair. “And what am I to do with the rest of you? You side with a crazy woman, you who live free in this house and who pay not a penny for the room and board my husband and I offer you.”

  “Free room and board!” Mary screamed. “But it’s not free. It comes at a price. And that price is the counsel I must listen to, day and night! You want me to marry John Macdonell. You do not care that I do not love him. You and Papa cannot stop yapping about prudent marriages! But I will not marry him! No! No!” She pulled a ring from her finger and threw it at Annie. Then she ran from the room, heading for the back porch and the lawn beyond.

  And then it was the little granddaughters who turned on her. “Mama wants us to come back to her!” one of them said. “And we’ll go. Come on,” she said, pulling on her sister’s arm. “Let’s get out of this place. Go back home to Niagara with Mama.”

  “And how do you think you will get there, missy?”

  The other child stuck out her tongue at Annie. “We’ll get help, you’ll see. And Mama will not make us sit here and do this bloody stitching the whole bloody afternoon. No bloody way!” The two girls, hand in hand, ran after their aunt.

  “You observe the havoc you have caused, Anne,” Annie said. She could feel her face turning red and her breath growing constricted. Where had those children got that disgusting language? “What am I to do? What will your father say when he gets home?” She turned to Eliza who was still seated on the stool in front of the pianoforte. “May I count on your support?”

  “Support, Mama? Yes, you have my support. I do not think I have a choice.” Eliza rose from the stool and picked up the tumbler that was sitting on the pianoforte. Noticing that it was empty, she set it down again with a thud.

  Annie turned away and headed up the stairs. In a moment, she was in her bedchamber. She hastened to her mahogany bureau, pressed a button to open a hidden drawer, and took out a small bottle of laudanum and an accompanying spoon. Holding her nose, she downed two mouthfuls. Over then to her four-poster bed where she climbed up and lay down, pulling the quilt over her. Before oblivion set in, she had to plan the conversation she must have with her husband when he arrived home from his office in the Parliament Building. How in tarnation were they to deal with the wretched insubordination that her daughter Anne had fomented?

  Minutes passed. The case clock in the corner struck four o’clock. William might now be making his way towards their house. What was she to do? Calmer now, she began to reflect on the reason she had married the man long ago in Boston. Perhaps she had loved him—she could not truly remember much about those long-ago days of courtship—but her main goal had surely been to escape the humiliation and incompetency she had endured in her Aunt Elizabeth’s millinery shop.

  But the marital couch had not been strewn with roses. In the twenty years of her marriage before the turn of the new century, she had endured eight major changes of residence, four transatlantic voyages, and the birth of nine children.

  And four of those children were now dead. Baby Anne, the first girl after three boys, had lived only a few months. She remembered looking down at the little bald head suckling at her breast and the smile from the tiny creature as she laid it down to rest. Who could have foreseen the small grey face that met her one day as she picked up the babe for her morning feeding? There had been no close friend to whom she could turn, only that husband who had tried to comfort her by telling her that she would soon bear another child and that meantime he would pay for the cost of an itinerant artist to paint her and the dead babe so that she would forever have the memory.

  She had hated that painting, but she could not tell William. She had conceived the idea of removing it from her bedchamber and putting it in another room where it would be out of her sight. And when her sixth child was born—another girl—she had thought immediately of calling her Anne Murray, her own name. That this was also, in part at least, the name of the dead baby had not then been a reckoning.

  Well, the painting was now in shreds, and she could not mourn its loss. Nor could she in conscience blame the second Anne for her horror at discovering the identity of the infant displayed in it.

  Why then had she gone for help to Grant?

  It had been a moment’s response to the anger that her daughter often aroused within her. The girl would not bow to the demands of propriety, but perhaps her insubordination had its source in William’s ever-constant refusal to educate his daughters, though he spared not a thought to the money he had spent in educating his sons and paying their debts.

  And now even Eliza had shown a degree of rebellion against her. She had not failed to notice her daughter’s growing dependence on spirituous liquors, perhaps a passive resistance to the discord within the household.

  Annie could hear crying now from her granddaughters’ bedchamber and sobs from Mary in the next room. She tiptoed to the head of the staircase. Soft voices came from the withdrawing room. Anne and Eliza were talking, perhaps even now plotting some means of retaliation against her.

  She heard the case clock strike the quarter hour. She had time to try to right things if she got to it now. She ran back to her bedchamber, looked in the pier glass, and made quick adjustments to her disheveled hair. Mary first, then the little girls, then . . . well, she wouldn’t apologize to Anne, but she could say something kind to Eliza. What would she do without that daughter’s obedience, however reluctant?

  And if her attempts at reconciliation were successful, she would tell William nothing about the events of the afternoon.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  October, 1811

  “They are leaving, bloody Hell!” From my bedchamber I heard Papa’s voice. It came from the breakfast-room where he and Mama always had an early meal together. Their conversations were often loud, and I usually tried to shut them out by putting a pillow over my head. But this one was probably worth hearing.

  I looked over
at Mary who was sleeping beside me. I did not want to disturb her. It was only recently that she had been able to sleep through the night without tears. Since that summer day when Mama and Grant brought down the household around our ears, things had actually improved. My parents had stopped assaulting Mary’s ears with the name of her erstwhile lover. Better still, Mama had committed herself to sending my nieces to the Home District School, and when Papa went into his usual tirade against education for “the weaker sex,” she had told him the money would come from her own annuity from an aunt in Boston. Nothing, it may be said, had changed for me, but I was happy for the others in my family.

  It had been a cold night, and Mary and I had spread three large newspapers between the blankets on our bed for additional warmth. Now I was afraid that the rustle of papers might awake her, but still she snored gently onwards as I crept down the side of the bed and headed for the staircase. I sat down on the top step and listened to the voices below.

  “Though I’m thankful for the emolument Gore has given me for my position on the Executive Council, I look upon his retreat back to England at this time as an act of cowardice.”

  “What do you mean, husband?”

  “Cowardice, you know the word, surely.”

  Mama’s voice rose. “I know the word. I want to know why you are branding our Governor as a coward.”

  “It’s the damn Yankees, woman. They are heating up now that England is totally involved in the Napoleonic Wars and has no money or arms available to protect their colonies. Us, I mean. I read in The Gazette that the scoundrel Jefferson has said that conquering Upper Canada will be ‘a mere matter of marching.’ And Gore, who should stay here and do something to protect us, is going back to England any day now. And someone called Isaac Brock is to be the new Lieutenant-Governor. That’s the news.”

  Over Mama’s outburst of panicked words, I could hear Papa’s footsteps heading towards the front hall where his coat hung. It was time for me to get out of sight. I scuttled back down the hall and into bed again. Mary stirred as I got in beside her, but soon she was breathing deeply again.

  Although Mama seemed overwhelmed by Papa’s news, I myself was not exactly surprised. Well, I was shocked at the Gores’ imminent departure. And amazed to hear that Major-General Brock would take their place! As for war with the Yankees, well certainly that had been simmering on the stove for some time now. Everyone in my brother John’s circle had talked of it. He was a captain in the militia and a good friend of this man Isaac Brock who had been sent to Niagara to keep an eye on the Yankee goings-on across the river. He had often come to dinner with John and Isabella. I’d have to tell Mama what I knew about the situation. But it was only seven o’clock and the breakfast hour for the female members in this house—Mama being the exception—was set at nine, not a minute sooner or later. I’d have to wait.

  * * *

  Once the Gores had departed for England, Mama decided to “get in first” with the new Governor, Isaac Brock. “That way I’ll be able to assess him and determine his place in our little society here in York. Our friends depend on me to lead them.” Those were her words, followed by her sending our footman Henry about town with invitations to an evening party at our house.

  It was to be a party for gentlemen only, for the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils along with some of the important people from the garrison, and our new rector, a Scotsman named John Strachan. Mama would of course preside over the whole affair from the sidelines.

  Though my sisters and I and my nieces were to be excluded from the party, we were forced to exhaust ourselves in its preparation. Mama delegated Eliza to embroider new covers for some of the pillows for the sofa. She asked Mary to make wall protectors for the greasy heads that might lean against the parlour walls. She gave me the task of writing out the thirty-five invitations to the party. “At least your penmanship is good,” she said. Nice to know that I had one accomplishment!

  That seemed simple enough, but I knew it would not be the end of my responsibilities. I soon found out about the additional task allotted to me. “You must assist Cook belowstairs,” Mama said in her sternest voice. “She cannot possibly prepare all that food and get it served on time without some help.” Though Mama tried to pass this off as a kindness to her servant, I had overheard Cook threaten to leave unless my parents hired some extra help for the occasion. Well, there was a simple solution to that problem. The wayward daughter—me—would need no wages.

  So there I was on the evening of the party, swathed in one of Cook’s aprons, making the curried chicken, slicing up apple pies, and pouring the rum punch into bowls. The kitchen was unbearably hot, and I had to stop several times to wipe away the sweat that dripped down my nose. My sisters and nieces were tucked away upstairs far from the fray.

  Just as I had finished scraping plates and washing them in a basin in the dry sink, Mama came downstairs. Her face was flushed and one of her corkscrew curls lay limply on her forehead.

  “Get upstairs at once,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. The new Governor wants to see you. Only God knows why. Take off that apron, make yourself presentable, and be in the parlour in five minutes.” In an instant, Mama was gone, her footsteps thudding on the staircase.

  “Sorry,” I said to Cook. “I have no idea what this is all about. I’ll be back in a few minutes, that I guarantee.”

  I took a hasty swipe at the sweat on my face, got rid of the apron, and went upstairs into the parlour. When I got there, I thought how silly it had been for Mama to worry about my appearance. What I saw before me as I came through the entrance to the parlour made me laugh out loud. The guests were playing the feather game. Someone had launched a duck’s feather into the air, and the game required its participants to keep the feather afloat by huffing and puffing. My eye lighted on Papa. He was perhaps the most ridiculous of the lot of them. He has round cheeks and is completely bald except for a fringe of white hair around his fat face, and now his entire countenance was subsumed in one vast puff.

  My laughter attracted the attention of the guest of honour who stood aloof at the back of the room, evidently choosing not to partake in the silliness. He came forward immediately to greet me, passing the gasping throng of open-mouthed idiots. “Dear Miss Powell,” he said, “how glad I am to see you. May we perhaps withdraw to another part of the room where we can have a few minutes of quiet conversation together? Though it was kind of your parents to have this party for me, I must say that these ridiculous parlour games are completely foreign to me.”

  As I was about to answer, I became aware that Papa had stopped puffing to stare at me and Major-General Brock. The feather drifted to the floor and the game ended. “Charades, charades,” someone then shouted. “Let’s try charades.”

  Papa turned to Brock. “I must apologize for my daughter’s intrusion,” he said. “Perhaps she will now leave us and return to her womanly duties belowstairs. And you, Governor, will you honour us by being the first participant in our new game?”

  “I am happy to oblige, sir, but I must ask Miss Powell to stay for at least a few minutes more. I did request her presence, you know.” Then, turning his back to the rest of the audience in the room, he winked at me and escorted me to a place near the wall at the front of the room.

  I ignored Papa’s glare, confident that he could not contradict the wishes of our new Governor who then turned towards his audience and began the pantomime.

  First, he spread his large hands upside down in front of him, looked down at them, and moved his head from side to side as if he were reading a book with great interest. Then he put his hands around the top of his head to form a gesture that, to me at least, was clearly a crown. Next, he assumed a haughty look of disdain that went well with his tall, impressive form that towered above the seated audience. I looked about. There seemed to be total ignorance of what he was portraying in spite of the fact that he had given quotations from the book in a recent interview in P
apa’s favourite paper, The Gazette. My friend then marched back and forth across the room, pointing imperiously at one person, then another. It was all clear to me, but I waited, hopeful that one of the guests would break the silence. No one did.

  Finally, after my friend had repeated the motions five times, my reply burst from me. “The Prince!”

  Everyone stared at me. “What?” “What?”

  “Niccolò Machiavelli’s book, of course. I knew Miss Powell would recognize it. She and I discussed it several times at Major Powell’s house in Niagara. It is one of my favourite books, especially now that war seems imminent.” The Governor smiled at me. “Miss Powell has always agreed with Machiavelli’s views on how to conduct a good war.”

  I rose and curtseyed—demureness and propriety rolled into one dip of my knees—or so I hoped. Then I said, “And now, sir, I must return to my ‘womanly duties’ as my dear father has requested.” In a moment I was on the stairs leading to the kitchen. This had surely been one of my finest hours.

  * * *

  Of course, Papa accosted me the next evening as we dined. He licked his knife—the leftover curried chicken had been particularly tasty—and set it down with a clatter on his plate. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin before saying in his most portentous voice, “You realize, girl, that you embarrassed the entire Legislative and Executive Councils with your unseemly performance at our party for the Governor.”

  “What was I to do, Papa? No one seemed to know the answer to the charade, and I could not embarrass the Governor by pretending not to know what his gestures portrayed.”

  “Everyone talked of it afterwards. I scarce knew what to say.”

  “And what did you say, Papa?”