A Daughter Rebels

by Ann Birch

“Now fold up that note and seal it,” I said, “and Lucy will deliver it to Mr. Strachan’s house. As for me, I am heading back upstairs where I shall sleep or read one of the books that my dear Uncle Henry gave to me upon my departure from Tolpuddle.”

  As I rushed out of the parlour and up the stairs to the bedchamber, I kept mouthing the word “Tolpuddle” over and over. In that little town, where all my cherished relatives and friends resided, lay my sole hope of happiness and fulfillment. After Mary’s confinement in March, I would find a way to return.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  March, 1821

  Annie liked the opportunity afforded by early breakfast with William. It had become the only time of the day when she could speak to him alone on matters of importance. The supper hour in the dining-room when Eliza and Anne were present had become a dangerous time when Anne or William or even Eliza might bring up a topic that would cause an eruption. To ward off possible arguments at supper, she had taken to communicating with Anne mainly through short sentences, the topics of which were chiefly the weather or whether she wanted more roast beef.

  Now as she waited for William to come downstairs to the breakfast-room, she checked the table. Everything seemed in place. She had ordered apple muffins again, knowing how much he liked them, and they sat in a pretty blue-and-white dish, warm and fragrant. Lucy had just put the coffee urn, filled with a fresh brew, on the side table, along with the Wedgwood cups and saucers. She had also lighted the fire in the hearth, and its warmth dissipated the chill of this cold March morning.

  When William arrived, he nodded and smiled at her as he seated himself in front of the muffins and helped himself to one. Annie poured him a cup of coffee, adding a dollop of the hot cream from the pitcher beside the urn.

  “Big case in the Court of King’s Bench today, my dear, and these muffins will sustain me, I hope.”

  Annie watched as William downed his coffee in several large gulps. She poured him a second cup from the urn. All the while, she was thinking of the letter from Mary that she had stashed under her breakfast plate. Seeing that William was enjoying his meal, she took a deep breath and pulled the letter out from its hiding place.

  “Dear Mary wrote this letter yesterday, William. I must read it to you. She’s getting prepared for the birth of her second child, as you know.”

  “Perhaps things will go better this time. I hope so. Don’t bother reading the whole thing to me. I haven’t time to listen. Just give me the gist of it.”

  “She says she would like Anne to accompany Eliza and me for the birthing. Anne mentioned an infusion that would help her with the pain, and Mary is anxious to try it.”

  William shook his head. “No, no, no. I want to hear no more about this midwifery bunkum. And consider this, how am I to afford to send three of you to Queenston? The ice in the lake has not broken yet. You will have to go by stagecoach to her home. There will be the expense of three nights in hostelries. You and Eliza can do all that is necessary for the girl. Childbirth is painful; Mary must learn the inevitability of it and adjust without complaint. It is God’s will.” He stood up and moved towards the door leading to the back hallway. “I must be on time for this day’s work. Write to Mary and tell her what I’ve said.”

  Then he grabbed his warm carrick coat from the rack in the front hall and was gone, slamming the door behind him.

  It was now Annie’s task to inform her daughters of their Papa’s dictum. She drank a second cup of coffee and composed herself for the ordeal. She could hear Anne and Eliza talking upstairs in their bedchamber, and in ten minutes, they were both at the breakfast-room table.

  “Papa has eaten all the muffins again, I see,” Anne said. “I shall press the bell for Lucy and ask her to bring up whatever there is in the kitchen. Cold toast is better than no toast, as they say. Now, Mama, tell us what is in that letter you are holding. More news from Mr. Strachan?”

  “It’s from my dear sister, isn’t it, Mama?” Eliza said, her face breaking into a smile. “Oh, I’m so excited that we’ll all soon be off to Queenston to see her and help her with her birthing.”

  “I shall get the dried meadowsweet flowers from Mr. Allan today and prepare the elixir to take with us. I’ve been looking forward so much to trying out some of the pain remedies I learned from Mrs. Sykes in Tolpuddle.”

  Annie took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, my dear, you will be unable to travel. Your Papa says that only Eliza and I must go.”

  “Only you and Eliza, Mama? Why am I to be deprived of this trip that I’ve looked forward to for so long?”

  “It is the cost, apparently. Since we cannot go across the lake, we must take a stagecoach and—”

  “Don’t bother telling me the rest, Mama. I can guess everything Papa said, including one of his pronouncements on the ‘bunkum’ of midwifery. I shall just stay here then. Perhaps Mr. Allan can offer me some foxglove from which I can make an infusion to add to Papa’s nightly tipple of whisky punch.” Anne laughed.

  “Foxglove, daughter? What is that?”

  “Also called ‘dead man’s bells.’ Taken internally, it slows the heart and eventually stops it all together.”

  “Oh, Anne, how can you say such terrible things about your father?”

  “And how can he arbitrarily deny me the chance to help my sister and at the same time get out of this hellhole called York? Oh, Mama, it is your husband who says terrible things. I merely respond to them in the only way I can.”

  At this point Lucy came in. “Cook and I set aside two extra muffins,” she said, placing them in front of Eliza and Anne. You won’t have to eat cold toast after all.”

  “Thank you, Lucy,” Anne said. “I am grateful to find decent people in this house.”

  It was plain to Annie that the girl did not include her or William in this assessment.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  June, 1821

  Since Mary’s lying-in earlier in the year, I endured wasted nights and days. Worse, I had taken to drowning my depression in laudanum. Once I found out that it was readily available at Mr.Allan’s store without authorization from my quack doctor-brother Grant, I no longer had to steal Mama’s stash.

  I had looked forward to getting away to Queenston for a few weeks and when that hope faded, I stupidly allowed myself to sink into a black hole. My mood was undoubtedly deepened by Papa’s ongoing comments that Mary’s successful birthing without my assistance showed that midwifery was indeed “bunkum.”

  I was far worse than Eliza. Though she had “submitted”—as she phrased it—to my parents’ ideas and wishes, she managed to stay pleasant and balanced. Nor was I able to achieve York’s standards of female “success” by emulating Mary, who had assumed the role of wife and mother. In these recent months I had gone—I do not think it was an exaggeration to say it—crazy.

  Laudanum temporarily banished my pain. It sank me into a mindless lethargy. But I knew that I had to conquer my reliance on it. I stole into Mama’s bedchamber from time to time and read her newly published copy of Thomas de Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater. I had no idea where she got the book. I only knew that she, too, must worry about her addiction—or perhaps mine. But it was not something I could discuss with her.

  How perceptive this de Quincy was about his addiction to laudanum. On the one hand, he called it “a panacea for all human woes . . . happiness may now be bought for a penny.” On the other hand, he admitted that at times it sent him sinking “into chasms and sunless abysses . . . amounting at last to utter darkness, as of some suicidal despondency.”

  Just last week I resolved to visit my brother John and his wife Isabella in their new brick home in Niagara. I thought that I could be of help with their two young sons and perhaps renew my acquaintance with Mrs. Dickson. Mama was in favour of this idea and even went so far as to offer to give me funds for the trip. This plan buoyed me through several days, and then the news broke.

  She read me a letter
from Isabella one morning at the breakfast table. It was a heart-breaker. Their small son had died. Broken by grief, John had become an alcoholic. Isabella had turned to religion—and not Mama’s religion. Her words in this letter destroyed my hopes. There was no way they would want me in their lives at this time. They had enough to contend with.

  * * *

  Late this morning I dragged myself out of bed and forced myself to look into the mirror on the wall above the bureau. My appearance appalled me: greasy hair, grey complexion, chapped lips. I made an instant resolve to take myself in hand.

  I had Lucy bring me up enough hot water to fill the bathtub in my bedchamber. I washed my hair and body, smoothed almond oil into my face, pinched my cheeks to bring back their colour, and then looked into the mirror again. A definite improvement! Next, I took the bottle of laudanum from the captain’s chest at the foot of the bed and dumped its contents out the window onto the rose bed below.

  When I went downstairs, I found Eliza already at work embroidering a pattern on a kneeling cushion for our church pew. “Put that away, dear sister,” I said, “and let us go to the market. If Lucy goes with us, Mama will surely not object. We shall tell her we’re going to get some fresh strawberries so that Cook can make shortcake for tonight’s meal.”

  * * *

  The market had been rebuilt about a year previously, a long, low wooden structure replacing the simple shack of earlier days. It was a meeting place for all of the townsfolk, and I spotted Jacques Vallière immediately, accompanied by a tall, pretty woman and a young boy whom I did not at first recognize. Also with them was Sancho, spit dog of yore, who forgot his advanced age and linked us by bounding towards me, tail wagging and mouth open in a wide doggy grin.

  I immediately set Eliza to looking over the strawberries, getting her out of the way so that I could talk to Jacques without her overhearing our conversation.

  “Bonjour, Guy,” he said to me, smiling at our little joke, and turning to introduce the woman with him. “This is my sister Marguerite, and her son Jean Paul.”

  “I remember you well, Miss Powell,” she said. “You helped me through a difficult time many years ago. Do you remember that time?”

  Well, it all came back to me then: the memory of that night when her brother and Lucy took me north to the Vallières’ one-room cabin and my first experience as a midwife. I remembered the squalor of the place—the stink of cabbage and unemptied chamberpots—and the pitiful wailing of Marguerite, the unfortunate amour of Quetton St. George, who had left York to return to his native France in 1815, his pockets lined with a good deal of money from his merchant life. And this Jean Paul, now a tall young boy, was undoubtedly the babe I had helped the old granny deliver.

  We talked for several minutes, Marguerite whispering in my ear that she had put aside her hatred for St. George. “Without him, I would not have this son who is now the centre of my universe.”

  It was all pleasant, but when Eliza returned with the strawberries, I had to say goodbye.

  “Who were those people to whom you were talking?” she asked. “And wasn’t that dog the one you exchanged for the clock jack?”

  “Just a family to whom Mr. Strachan and the ladies of his congregation gave some food and clothing recently, and the dog was certainly a look-alike of Sancho—but no relation,” I said, laughing. I had no intention of letting Eliza in on my secrets. She might blab everything to Mama.

  We headed home, passing the animal pens where cattle and sheep were sold live and slaughtered on site for freshness. The stink of blood was overpowering, but less upsetting than the cries of a man in the town square just a few feet west of the market. Eliza tugged at my sleeve. “Let’s just take a peek at what is going on,” she said.

  We joined a few shoppers who were gawking at a man of middle age suspended against a rectangular wooden frame, his outstretched arms tied to the top of the frame and his legs outspread and roped to the bottom. Blood streamed from his back as the sheriff’s man lashed him. Nearby the sheriff counted aloud the number of strokes being administered. “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven . . .”

  I could bear no more and turned away, Eliza following me. “He gets forty-five lashes, the bugger. He stole two chickens from a nearby farm,” someone said. I could think only of how Sam Jarvis who murdered John Ridout in a duel had gone free and was now a prosperous lawyer and my sister’s husband. Better in these so-called enlightened times to be a gentleman murderer than a petty common thief.

  The afternoon at the market provided me with another glimpse of a larger world far removed from my own narrow sphere. Once more I longed to escape and to be part of that world and to do what I could to better it. I would find a way.

  * * *

  Mama seemed pleased with the strawberries and set Cook to work at once to make scones on which we would later pile strawberries and whipped cream. “You must busy yourself, Anne,” she said. “Eliza is occupied with her embroidery, and you have done little to help out in any way.”

  She handed me a large whisk made of birch twigs. “Whip the cream.” A simple command that I carried out for the next half hour, almost dislocating my wrist in the process. Lucy chipped some sugar from the sugar cone, pulverized it with a pestle, and added it to the cream.

  “Yum,” we said, licking the sides of the mortar.

  “Is this for Papa’s supper?” I asked as Mama came into the kitchen to see how we were faring.

  “No, I’m taking it to Governor Maitland’s picnic tomorrow on the lawn of Elmsley House. Have you forgotten all about that? Pull yourself together, Anne. Lady Sarah has asked you to open the event with a few words of welcome.”

  “And why, pray, was I not consulted about my role in this event?”

  “I considered it a great honour that the Governor’s wife would condescend to ask that you undertake this small task. Of course, I said ‘yes.’ You must choose that simple white dress you sometimes wear, flat shoes for the grass, and I shall lend you a gold necklace.” She paused to scrutinize me. “You look much better today, but for tomorrow I recommend a light surface of rouge. I very much regret the cutting-off of your hair, but what can we do?” She paused for a moment, obviously considering a solution to my cropped top. “I shall try to find a muslin cap for you,”

  “Forget it, Mama. I will not wear a cap under any circumstances. Nor will I wear rouge.” For a moment, there flashed into my mind a long-ago memory of my erstwhile “lover,” John Beverley Robinson, reading from “The Rape of the Lock” with its lines about Belinda readying herself for the ball, using all the “cosmetic pow’rs” available to her, including the rouge that called forth “a purer blush.” If he were present at this damned picnic tomorrow, how he would laugh if he saw my pitiful attempts to disguise the reality of my age and appearance.

  Mama sighed and turned away. Evidently, I had won this round.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Elmsley House was an impressive two-storey residence, built of brick covered with stucco, and surrounded by grassy lawns and huge oak trees. The Legislative Assembly had purchased it in 1815 as a residence for our lieutenant-governors, and it was a decided improvement over the former governors’ residence at the garrison. Now it was the home of Sir Peregrine Maitland and his wife, Lady Sarah Maitland, whom Mama fawned over daily. Having a woman friend who was the daughter of the Duke of Richmond was, for Mama, the pinnacle of social success.

  Naturally, she was over the moon to have me chosen to open this garden party. I could not get rid of her in the hours preceding our arrival at the event. She supervised every detail of my dress. “Of course, we are about five years behind English fashions, Lady Sarah tells me,” Mama said, “but kind woman that she is, she has resigned herself to our world. Now put on your white gown and let me see how it looks.”

  The best feature of the fashions in York at this time—five years out of date or not—was that corsets were completely absent, and the natural figure was on full display. A thin petticoat was the onl
y thing worn under dresses, and on this hot day, I was happy about that and about the low, strapped sandals I pulled from the stash of shoes in the wardrobe. Mama put her gold chain around my neck, stared at my figure for a full minute and declared that all was good. But alas, she then produced a straw hat which she put on my head with a silk scarf tied over the top and secured under my chin. The only positive thing about this “Gypsy hat” as she called it was that it was at least better than the muslin cap she had threatened the previous evening. I made no argument when she confined my head within it, knowing that when I arrived at the party, I would tear the thing off, and Mama would be unable to chastise me in front of a hundred assembled guests.

  Lucy packed the whipped cream in a bed of ice chips and the strawberries and scones in another bundle, and Mama and Eliza and I set off in our coach for Elmsley House. When we arrived, the guests were already assembling on the front lawn and the servants were setting out the food on long tables decorated with bouquets of roses. Our contribution soon joined the platters of salads and casseroles and puddings. No one could apparently start eating until I gave my little speech, but everyone was already imbibing cups of rum punch from crystal bowls that had been placed on a separate table. While Mama went about, gossiping with the gentry, I stowed the “Gypsy hat” under one of the tables where it was hidden from view by the hanging cloth.

  I then placed myself in front of the food tables, Lady Sarah rang a tiny copper bell, and everyone came to attention. In the front of the crowd, I could see Mr. John Beverley Robinson, stylishly attired in a bright green frock coat and tight-fitting pale yellow breeches. His wife Emma stood demurely beside him, her small stature enhanced by a gauze turban with an ostrich plume.