by Ann Birch
“You are right, daughter, but it is not a laughing matter.” Annie put down her quill and turned to face Anne. “I shall make my offer to you again—for one last time. I shall give you money for the trip to England, but you must promise me that you will not go with the Robinsons—for whatever reason you give.”
There was a long silence during which they stared at each other. Can she actually be considering what I have said? Really? Really?
“Yes, I may agree to what you have asked. But I, too, make a request. I must have the money in my hands before I make my pledge not to join the Robinsons when they start their journey to New York and thence to England. Do you understand?”
“You do not trust me, girl?”
“I do not intend to get into another argument, Mama. Give me the money and I shall give you my consent.”
* * *
It was late afternoon. Annie walked through the front door of St. James Church to speak to Mr. Strachan. He was waiting for her at the steps leading up to the altar. With him was her son Grant whom she had also asked to be present.
“Why could we not have met you at your house, Mother?” Grant said. “It is so, pardon the expression, bloody cold here.”
“How am I to converse with you when Anne is perhaps listening at the head of the staircase? She does that, you know. I have caught her in the act several times.”
The frown on Mr. Strachan’s face deepened. “Excuse me, Mrs. Powell, but can we get on with the discussion? I have to pay two calls to my parishioners before the end of this afternoon.”
“I shall be brief. I have given Anne money for her trip to England as you suggested, sir. She has promised me that she will not go with the Robinsons. That is all very well, but I do not trust her. That is why I have a favour to ask of you. But before we get into all that, I have some money that I have just procured which I intend to give you as my contribution to the many worthy charities that this church supports.”
She produced some coins from her reticule, but Mr. Strachan did not take them.
“You know that I have no desire to be part of this, ma’am. Nor will I take any bribes you may give me.” The man sounded quite angry.
Oh, oh, I have been clumsy in my approach. I must start again.
“Listen to me, please. First of all, there is no bribery, as you call it. I shall give you this money whether you agree to help me or not.” She made another attempt to pass the money to the vicar. He looked at the coins for a long moment, then reached out and took them from her.
“One week from today, the Robinsons leave by carriage for the trip overland to New York. On that day, Anne may attempt to leave the house and follow them or join them. I need someone to keep an eye on the front door of the house at all times and prevent her from departing. I cannot always guarantee my presence on the scene. I thought perhaps you two gentlemen could sit in the withdrawing room for several hours on that day, seeming to play cards or otherwise conversing, but always watching to make sure the silly girl does not leave the house.”
“It all sounds fine to me, Mother, provided you leave us plenty of Father’s excellent brandy. What do you say, Reverend?”
“I shall think it over, sir.” He heaved a great sigh and jingled the coins in his hand.
“Whatever your decision,” Annie said, “keep that money and spend it on our poor and needy.” There, I think I got it right this time.
She nodded and smiled, then turned towards the church exit.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
February 2, 1822
This was the day that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were to leave for New York to take their passage on the Manhattan to England.
I had recently taken Mama’s money and promised not to go with them. Of course, I lied to her, but I needed the money desperately, and I was determined to leave this place by whatever means I could manage. And I intended to travel with the Robinsons, whatever happened. I had spent every spare moment considering how I could wreak revenge for their cruelty to me. What I had not foreseen, however, was Mama’s distrust of me.
Yesterday morning, I awoke to hammering on my bedchamber door. When I tried to open it, I could not.
Cook brought my breakfast up on a tray a half hour later. I heard her slide a bolt back. Then she entered. “Oh, Miss Powell,” she said in a whisper, “the missus has had a bolt put on the outside of the door. You will not be able to leave, she tells me, for several days.”
“What am I to do, Cook? Has this room become Newgate prison?”
“Do not worry,” she said, looking over her shoulder as she set the tray on the step stool beside the bed. “Lucy and I are on your side. We have a plan.” Then, hearing footsteps on the stairs, she departed. I heard her slide the bolt back into place.
A minute later, there was another movement of the bolt, and Mama and Eliza entered. The two of them stood in the doorway. They had been sharing a joke, it seemed, for both of them were smiling.
“I am to be imprisoned like some madwoman?” I asked.
Mama instantly became serious. “The Reverend Mr. Strachan and your brother Grant are now downstairs in the withdrawing room,” she said. “They are here to keep an eye on things all this day and evening. Eliza will sleep in your Papa’s bedchamber. You will stay here until the Robinsons leave. Eventually, the house will return to normal.”
“It is all so much like the plot of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels,” I said, not adding that the lady knew how to enact a happy ending, and that I intended the same for my own little drama.
They actually seemed disappointed that I had nothing more to say. They shrugged their shoulders and departed, leaving me in prison.
I began to plan my escape, but I soon had another shock in store. When I looked at the foot of the bed, I discovered that the captain’s trunk that had lain there for years had disappeared. At the same time, I heard the front door close. Going to the window, I saw Mr. Strachan’s servant on the footpath carrying that very trunk in the direction of the rectory that lay to the west of our house.
So Mama seemed to have covered every aspect of my intended escape. The captain’s trunk was to have been the repository of all my worldly goods that I intended to take to England. Now, if I did manage to get out of Newgate, it would be with the clothes on my back.
* * *
It was now the evening of the day of the Robinsons’ departure from York. I had spent the hours in solitary confinement except for the entrances and exits of Cook and Lucy to bring meals and empty the chamberpot. Each time they came, however, they reassured me that they had a plan in place for my escape. Heartening news, indeed!
Dear Cook, how little did I imagine that my small act of kindness in assisting her unfortunate niece in childbirth all those years ago would reap such benefits now! As for Lucy, I had always known that I could trust her to support me. I remembered how she had kept my secrets and helped my escape to Niagara on that day in 1813.
So I waited in hope to see what would evolve.
A few minutes later, I heard the bolt slide. The door opened. It was Lucy with my supper. She put a finger to her lips, came close to me and whispered the news I had been longing to hear.
Two of my gaolers—Grant and Mr. Strachan—were asleep in the withdrawing room. Mama was taking a hip bath in her bedchamber. Eliza was in Papa’s room, having retired early after spending the day stitching a new waistcoat for the man. There was a sleigh waiting for me in front of Frank’s Tavern with a driver whose name I recognized. Jacques Vallière, of course!
I knew I must act immediately. While Lucy stood at the door keeping watch, I went to the wardrobe and drew out my warm redingote with a shoulder cape and a matching wool turban. I pulled on leather, side-laced boots. Then I put a brooch, a gold ring, Mama’s money, and a small bottle of laudanum into the folds of a fur muff. I was ready. With Lucy’s footsteps shielding my own, I made my way down the staircase.
In an instant, I had passed the withdrawing room with its snoring occupants, opened and
closed the front door quietly, and was down the pathway towards freedom.
* * *
Jacques was waiting for me at the tavern. He had brought a pile of bearskins to keep me warm, and I climbed up behind him on the sleigh and snuggled beneath them. “You are not Guy this time,” he said, noting my long skirts. “You will be my sister, Angelique. That pleases you, oui?”
“Oui,” I said. “Bonne idée!”
A light touch of the whip on the horse’s back, and we took off along the Kingston Road. The trials of the last two days had overwhelmed me, and I soon fell asleep. When I woke up, the sun had already risen. Snow lay everywhere, though the runners of the sleigh coasted smoothly over the drifts, probably because just ahead of us was a fine carriage; in it, no doubt, were the Robinsons.
“Attention!” I called to Jacques. “Do not overtake them!” I in no way wanted to let them think that I was chasing them.
He pulled at the horse’s reins, and the animal came to a stop. “Et maintenant?” he asked.
I had to think of some way to keep us from moving on. An answer soon came to me. “Je dois pisser.” It was vulgar, I realized, but I did not know how to express myself more formally.
Jacques, ever courteous, pointed towards the forest to the left of the road. He helped me down from the sleigh, then made a point of moving to the other side where he could not observe my activity. Perhaps he, too, needed a forest “break.”
Mission accomplished, I came back. Though I’d worn my “Adelaides,” as my boots were called, my feet were cold, but the bearskins lent welcome warmth. Best of all, as I looked down the road ahead, I noted that the Robinsons’ carriage had disappeared.
We resumed our quick pace. A few miles farther, we passed an inn, where I saw with relief that the Robinsons’ carriage had pulled into the laneway. No doubt they were making a stop for breakfast or for Emma to use a chamberpot. No forest toilettes for that fine lady!
The hours passed. At the town of Kingston, just before nightfall, we stopped at a roadside hostelry. The horse was tired. Jacques was tired. I was tired. Jacques concocted a tale that seemed to convince the innkeeper. We were brother and sister, he said, and he was taking me to New York to meet our mother who was coming from France to join us on our farm on the shore of Rice Lake. He managed to get all this explained in his broken English, and when the innkeeper turned to me for affirmation, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Je ne comprends pas.”
A servant took us up a creaking wooden staircase to a small room with two narrow beds separated by a baize curtain. It was perfect. On my side of the curtain was a mirror, a washbasin and pitcher, and towels. In a moment, I rearranged my hair, washed my face, and wiped off my boots.
“Le souper, maintenant?” I called to Jacques whom I could hear clumping about on the other side of the divide.
We went down to the dining-room where several travellers had already seated themselves around the table. Jacques repeated his story, I kept up my pretence of understanding nothing of what was said, and in a very few moments we were all slurping down a hearty venison stew.
For the first time in several days, I enjoyed the meal. Already I was envisioning my entry into a new world. In Tolpuddle I could perhaps be of some use to Geoffrey Loveless in his campaign for decent wages. I could also lend my assistance to Uncle Henry and Aunt Jane and make a career for myself as a midwife.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Early March, 1822
Having left me at my Uncle George Murray’s house on Pearl Street in New York City, Jacques departed on his return trip to York. I paid him liberally for the care he had taken of me en route. Now I would spend a day or two with Uncle George and his wife Elizabeth before boarding the Manhattan. I had last seen my relatives in 1816 when Papa and I were waiting to board the Manchester for our trip to England. I knew them to be kind and generous hosts.
Uncle George was ten years younger than Mama and though there was certainly a family resemblance, he did not have her pursed lips and gimlet eyes. His eyes were large and gentle, and his wavy hair spread onto his collar, unlike her tight little curls achieved by nightly curl papers. He had suffered some setbacks in his banking ventures, and he and Aunt Elizabeth lived in genteel poverty in a two-storey frame house in a section of the city distinguished by large brick mansions.
They set out tea for me when I arrived, and we sat down to excellent scones and strawberry jam that my aunt had made—“with my own hands,” she said. Along with these delicacies were pickled herrings (which I politely declined).
Uncle told me that he had just the day before received a letter from Mama.
“No doubt it has explained what she calls my ‘deplorable’ behaviour,” I said.
“We shall discuss it at some other time, my dear. For now, rest and refresh, that’s what you must do.”
It was a relief to hear those words. Though the house was cold and drafty whenever one moved several feet away from the hearth, my relatives had provided me with a small bed pushed close to the fire and heaped with quilts. I retired early that night. I did indeed need to “rest and refresh.” Before I settled into bed, I counted the money that Mama had given me. It was half gone already. I still had to pay for my voyage and for getting settled in Tolpuddle or whatever destination I chose. But for the moment I put my worries aside, climbed into my little bed, and was soon asleep.
* * *
The next morning, over breakfast, which consisted of coffee cake and beer, Uncle George informed me that I had just missed seeing my nieces. They had finished their education in New York, he told me, and had left two days before for their home in York. They were now young women, versed in French and Italian, music, geography, history, writing, and grammar. Papa had found money to spend on their education, it seemed, but not on mine.
“You have been such a help to our family,” I said to Uncle George, as I declined the beer that the servant was about to pour for me. “You have given my nieces lodging for several years and enabled them to have an education that Papa would not give his daughters. I overheard Mama one time say to Eliza that nothing but your affection could make her life bearable. I have often thought about that. I knew there were difficulties in her marriage with Papa, but I did not think she was unhappy.”
Aunt Elizabeth came in from the belowstairs kitchen at that point and settled across from me. “I believe it was the insecurity of life in her early days with William,” she said. “There was that constant moving about—from Boston to England to Quebec to Detroit—really, we could scarce keep track of it.”
“Now, what would you like to do today?” Uncle George asked, in an effort—so I guessed—to divert the conversation away from Mama’s problems and towards mine.
“Oh, please, take me to the harbour. I want to see the sailing ships.” I was not sure what Mama had told my uncle, and I did not want to say more until we had a few minutes’ private time together.
“I shall get the coachman at the corner livery stable to bring a carriage for us,” Uncle George said, “and we can be ready to depart within an hour.”
* * *
Though it was a sunny day, Uncle George cautioned me about the wind that blew from the river he called “the Hudson.” Aunt Elizabeth lent me a pair of gaiters that buttoned up the side and protected my legs from the cold. Uncle put on a fur-lined greatcoat, and we stepped up into the carriage and covered ourselves in some rather smelly fur coverings that the hired coachman provided.
The odours got worse once we turned the corner onto a main road. As I had noticed in my previous visits to New York, servants were busy emptying the contents of chamberpots from upper-storey windows onto the yards below. As well, large workhorses were pulling huge wagons of goods from the harbour, and the stink of piss and manure was overwhelming. Uncle passed me a clean handkerchief. “Breathe into it,” he said.
Our carriage made a sudden lurch into the centre of the road, and I yelped.
“It’s only a dead horse,” Uncle said. “We ha
d to get around it. Stay calm.”
“Only a dead horse?” I could not keep the dismay from my voice.
“Yes, the horses that pull those wagons often last no more than two or three years. They work very hard, and sometimes they die right here in the street. Many of them weigh two thousand pounds, however, and their carcasses get left on the roadway until they disintegrate enough for a workman to pick up the pieces.”
Well, this was my view of a wider world, and I made up my mind to get used to it. I did my best not to gag, but Uncle George saw my effort. He laughed and put his arm around me.
Soon we were at the mouth of the Hudson River. “We call this New York Harbour,” Uncle George said, directing the driver to the edge of a hill where we could look down on the pier. A large sailing ship was in port. I stretched forward to look at it more closely.
“It’s the Manhattan,” I cried. “It’s the ship that I must board. How long will it be in the harbour? We must go back home, Uncle George. I must pack my things and get ready to board. Please. Please.”
“Your Mama has told me your wishes, Anne. I do not believe her when she writes that you are chasing after a bygone lover. But I do understand completely your desire for a new life. I hope you will not board the Manhattan, however. It is all too much of a rush, and the gossips in York would surely draw the wrong conclusions, though I doubt that you care about that. Elizabeth and I would like to have more time to spend with you before you depart. There will be another ship in the harbour within four days. Its name is the Albion. If you agree to go on that ship, I can speak to the captain whom I know from long ago when we were both in school together. He will see to your welfare, and I shall give you enough money for a comfortable cabin. I know you must be in need of money by now.”
