Solemn Vows Page 11

  “But if they are not distorting the truth, sir—”

  The governor’s eyes tightened. “Dammit, man, they are telling only one part of the truth. I haven’t the slightest doubt that these ‘real-life’ tales are true—for that’s where their power to persuade lies—but to go on and on about the evils of the Clergy Reserves and the failure of the banking system to support the individual farmer or gripe about money being wasted on the Welland Canal that could have been used to improve roads is to ignore the good our policies have also done: we have to have money to support the established clergy, do we not? If they do not get it from the reserve lands, it will have to come from the farmer’s own pocket. And if our richest citizens did not selflessly put up their own capital to establish banks, there would be no banks at all!”

  “And you feel the letters from a single malcontent could be significant in the election?”

  “My task, Lieutenant, is to make certain that by every legal means possible the Crown and the justice it embodies prevails at the polls. I wish to overlook nothing that might be detrimental to our cause. At the moment, for example, the murder of Councillor Moncreiff is working in our favour. There is fear and outrage among people of all classes.”

  And a convenient Yankee scapegoat, Marc thought, but it was a thought that did not make him happy. “Do we not, sir, have to respect the right of citizens to send letters to the press anonymously, provided they are not libellous?”

  “Of course. And as I intimated briefly yesterday, I wish only to invite this person here to have a heart- to- heart talk. I feel that in doing so I may discover, shall we say, more subtle ways in which to frame my plain talk as we head into the London district next week. I have no wish to staunch the flow of the letters themselves.”

  “May I have copies of these letters, sir? There may be some clue or other in them that could lead eventually to identifying their author.”

  “Indeed you may. I had Major Burns clip them out for you.”

  WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT WAIT for Cobb’s report tomorrow evening and for any news from Buffalo, Marc sat in his office and read over the letters penned by Farmer’s Friend. As described by Sir Francis, they were written in simple, compelling prose. Each was in the form of a story, complete with touching dialogue and an ending pathetic enough to wring tears out of Diogenes. Each parable focused on one grievance and a single example of its devastating consequences.

  One letter dramatized the struggle of a farm couple to better their lot by investing their tiny store of hard- won capital in a gristmill. The mill, already serving their township, was owned by an elderly bachelor with no family in North America, who promised the couple that they could “buy him out” when he was ready to retire. When that day arrived last fall, he moved in with the couple and their five children and, on condition that they look after his simple needs until he should die—in addition to a cash payment equal to half of their life savings—he turned the operation over to them. The new miller and his eldest sons immediately spent the rest of their savings on needed improvements to the machinery. What they didn’t know until several months later was that there was a lien on the property. The original owner had taken out a mortgage with the Investment Bank of Toronto and had been paying it off in quarterly sums. He assumed this would be no burden to the enterprising couple, but what he hadn’t done was read the fine print of the contract he had signed.

  On January 1, 1836, the outstanding sum became due and payable in full within thirty days. All this usually meant was that the mortgage would be renegotiated at the current interest rate. But the bank, a well- known institution backed by a group of wealthy members of the Family Compact, refused to renew the mortgage and offered no explanation. The couple desperately tried to arrange a mortgage with the other two banks in the province but, again, were summarily and inexplicably rebuffed. A month later the Investment Bank foreclosed and took over the mill. Lo and behold, a nearby landowner, with direct links to the Tory faction in Toronto, bought the mill, appropriated the improvements, and set up a thriving business next door to the beleaguered couple. To no one’s surprise, the Investment Bank had provided the mortgage money for the transaction. The disenfranchised couple was left with no savings, no mill, and no intention of turning the old miller into the streets (refusing even to take a cent of the money he offered them).

  Other letters told similarly heart- wrenching stories, unvarnished by sentiment or anger. One recounted the familiar tale of a farmer whose pond had dried up and whose only alternative source of water now lay in an adjacent property designated as clergy- reserve land. The description of cattle nearly dying of thirst a hundred yards from fresh water—while a weary farmer and his wife carried buckets of stolen water in an effort to save them—was as touching as it was, sadly, true.

  The wretched state of the roads—which the province could not afford to maintain because of the hundreds of thousands of pounds that had gone into the corrupt management of the Welland Canal scheme—was painfully illustrated by the story of a sick child being driven in her parents’ donkey-cart to the doctor who lived not on some back-township concession but on Kingston Road. Necessary repairs on several sections had not been carried out because government subsidies had been delayed, in part, it appeared, because there was uncertainty over who was to receive the patronage money to do the actual work. Needless to say, the wagon bogged down, the child’s condition grew worse, and when a wheel broke off and the donkey collapsed under the strain, the father was forced to run on a shortcut route through swamp and bog—with his daughter whimpering in his arms—in a futile attempt to reach the doctor’s house. The child was dead on arrival.

  When Marc finished the last letter, he leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe. His hand was trembling, but not because of the obvious tragedies related in these stories and so witheringly told by Farmer’s Friend—after all, dreadful deaths among the poor and the abandoned were commonplace everywhere on Earth, it seemed, and were, everyone said, the result of God’s will. Few people really expected justice from the world. But these tragedies and injustices were preventable, not inevitable: they were the direct consequence of greed, mismanagement, malfeasance, and criminal negligence. And these themes were the flashpoints of the current election. Moreover, the parable- like format made these accounts accessible to anyone who could read, and that included most of the property owners eligible to vote. These letters could be mass produced, and distributed as broadsheets at political rallies and picnics and at the many church socials held during the fine- weather month of June.

  It was little wonder that Sir Francis was worried.

  MARC’S SLEEP THAT NIGHT WAS INTERRUPTED TWICE: first by a nightmare in which the scene of Moncreiff’s murder was replayed with horrifying verisimilitude, except that the assassin’s bullet travelled through the bent neck of the governor before striking Councillor Moncreiff. The second interruption was less fantastic but more disruptive, as a noisy (drunken?) Lieutenant Willoughby clattered and thumped his way down the hall, crashed against the door to his room (next to Marc’s), and finally pitched inward to the accompaniment of muted curses and breaking porcelain. After that, there was silence. Widow Standish had, mercifully, slept through the commotion. Then, surprisingly, there came a soft whistling from Willoughby’s room: a sprightly air of some kind, lyrical and longing.

  WILLOUGHBY’S MOOD HAD SOURED CONSIDERABLY by morning. Marc met him coming out of his room on the way to breakfast. Colin was understandably bleary- eyed and out of sorts, but the look he gave Marc as they almost collided was quite hostile.

  “Sorry, Colin, I’m still half-asleep,” Marc lied amiably.

  “You’re never half- asleep, so don’t go pretending you are!”

  “Hey, don’t take your hangover out on me! I’m an ally.”

  “You’re like all the others,” Willoughby said, some un-spoken resentment seething though his clenched teeth. “You’re looking out for number one. You want everything: advancement, women, glory—”


  “If I remember rightly, it was you whom the governor chose to take with him to the London district,” Marc said, more puzzled than hurt by Colin’s words.

  Willoughby’s jaw dropped, and whatever he had intended to say was left unuttered. He looked at Marc now as if he were seeing him from another angle. A boyish grin broke across his face. “I’m sorry, Marc. You know I have trouble sometimes controlling my anger. I’m doing my best to forget what happened back in England with my dear Rosy, but every once in a while, all the frustration boils up inside me.”

  “Apology accepted,” Marc said with evident relief. “But you’ll need to keep your wits about you around Sir Francis.”

  “You’re right. I think I’ll go straight up there now and get the day started.”

  By the time Willoughby got to the end of the hall, he was whistling.

  MARC HIMSELF WAS IN NO HURRY. He had thought of offering to help with the governor’s correspondence but decided against it because he wanted Colin to feel fully in charge. As it turned out, Marc did not have to twiddle his thumbs for too long. Before noon, Sir Francis summoned him to his office.

  They were alone.

  “I’ve just received a written report by courier from Fort George,” the governor said. Nothing in his face indicated the nature of the news. When he wished to, Sir Francis could play poker with the best. “Major Emery has outdone himself. I must recommend him for an official commendation.”

  “They’ve unearthed Rumsey?”

  “Not exactly. But in less than a day and a half they have gathered several bits of important information.”

  Marc simply sat back and waited.

  “First, the story from Mrs. Rumsey about her husband’s mother being gravely ill was true. The family is well known in Buffalo, and the people over there are, fortunately for us, loquacious busybodies. A cousin of Rumsey’s assured our agent, who was accompanied on his rounds by one of the New York sheriffs, that Philo had arrived the previous Thursday and stayed at his mother’s bedside until her death on Saturday. She was buried on Tuesday in a private funeral attended only by family members. They all swear that Rumsey was present.”

  “And if he were in Buffalo then, he couldn’t simultaneously be a hundred miles north in Danby’s Crossing.”

  “But he wasn’t at the funeral. A neighbour, who is not particularly friendly with the clan Rumsey, told our agent that Rumsey was seen leaving the house on Monday morning—with a packsack on one shoulder and a large rifle on the other.”

  “A U.S. army rifle—a gift from one of his brothers, no doubt,” Marc said with mounting excitement.

  “We won’t know that for sure until we catch up with him.”

  “But if we’re now pretty certain that he set out last Monday morning for Canada, how could he have reached Danby’s Crossing by midafternoon on Tuesday? A courier could do it in seven or eight hours, but only with fresh horses every twenty miles. Do you think he had that kind of help? Are we possibly looking at a larger conspiracy?”

  “I think not,” Sir Francis said with more confidence than seemed warranted. “He could have ridden up to Fort Niagara and taken a boat across the lake. Fishing vessels and smugglers abound on the lake, as you know from your Cobourg investigation. A small bribe would bring him across in three or four hours—probably on Monday night. That would give him ample time to reach Danby’s and plot his strategy.”

  “If so, it looks more and more as if the harness- maker Kimble was in on the murder. Rumsey is not going to miss his mother’s funeral on the off chance that he might be able to take a potshot at Moncreiff.”

  “Well, he was happy enough to use her as his alibi. And he couldn’t have known precisely when she would die.”

  Marc nodded in sad agreement. “But he definitely has not returned to Buffalo since Tuesday?”

  “Not to the family home, according to the nosy neigh-bours, but it’s not likely he would go back there, unless he feels he has been targeted as a suspect.”

  “Well, let’s hope he’s still in the province and not yet aware he’s a fugitive.” Marc considered the latter possibility doubtful, thanks to the governor’s hasty decision to broadcast the notion that an American malcontent was the likely culprit, but he said nothing further on the matter.

  “At any rate, we’re making progress,” Sir Francis said amiably. “And Willoughby and Hilliard are fine- tuning our travel plans for Monday.”

  “Yes,” Marc said, “Willoughby has even taken up whistling.”

  THE FUNERAL FOR LANGDON MONCREIFF—one-time major in the local militia, privy councillor, businessman, husband, uncle, and father—was as solemn and dignified as the rutted streets and intermittent rain would allow. There was much pomp and ceremony, and a sea of crêpe and sackcloth stretched for three city blocks, according to later reports in the Tory newspaper, the Patriot. Sir Francis rode at the front of the procession, as befitted his station and dignity—proud, grieving, unafraid: “A man of imperial demeanour with the common touch,” enthused the Cobourg Star. What Langdon Moncreiff might have made of all this hoopla was not cause for speculation in the press, liberal or conservative.

  MARC RECEIVED A WRITTEN INVITATION to have supper with Eliza and her uncle at seven- thirty that evening. If Sebastian had read the riot act to his niece, it had been a mild reading—though Marc had little doubt that he and Eliza would be chaperoned for the duration. Was it possible that her uncle had relayed to her, however garbled in the translation, the nature of her lover’s “intentions”? He hoped not. Meanwhile, there was the appointment with Cobb.

  The rain had stopped and the sun was shining by the time Marc left Jarvis Street north and nudged the chestnut mare onto the muddy lane that he had been told would take him to the Tinker’s Dam. For a moment he thought he was heading straight into the bush, but the thicket of scrub alder and hawthorn was short-lived. Beyond it, helter-skelter on either side of what was now merely a mud path, lay improvised huts and hovels that had never felt a carpenter’s square or an iron nail. Nor was there a level spot of green ground anywhere, just middens and cesspools. A few puffs of tired smoke were the only indication that these grim buildings were inhabited. Marc could see no one around except a blackened pig or hairless dog rooting in a garbage dump between two huts. Marc was glad he had buckled on his sabre at the last minute.

  Rounding a twist in the pathway, Marc spotted the Tinker’s Dam. There was no sign outside, but the fact that it was the most substantial building on the “street” left no doubt. Nor did the blast of raised voices Marc could hear pouring from its paneless windows and one- hinged door. What on earth was Cobb up to, Marc wondered, as he tethered the mare to a tree stump where she could be seen from inside the tavern.

  In this establishment, there was no tapster primed to point out Constable Cobb, nor was there a bar or table: a wooden plank on two trestles served as the former and three or four tilting stumps provided the latter. The proprietor stood beside an open barrel of whisky, collecting pennies from the customers before they dipped a battered tin cup into the raw liquid. The clientele was a motley collection of men who—from their ragged clothing, slumped posture, and deep-set, sad eyes—looked to be unemployed, unemployable, or simply so far down on their luck that nothing much mattered except the solace of alcohol.

  The din of their conversation—vibrant with anger, bravado, pathetic threat—suddenly died. Every eye in the place was fastened upon the uniformed intruder. Marc smiled but kept one hand on the haft of his sabre.

  “It’s okay, gentlemen, the lieutenant’s a colleague of mine. Go back to your business.” It was Cobb, perched on a stump- stool, puffing on his pipe, and back in his constable’s attire. Several of the barflies made grudging way for Marc.

  “Pull up a stump, Major,” Cobb said heartily, as if they were in the governor’s parlour sampling brandy. “Care fer a dram?”

  Cobb’s wife must have taken advantage of his absence to clean and buff up his uniform, for the stains had been rem
oved from the coat and a fresh shirt peeked out from under it.

  Marc eased himself onto a sawtoothed stool and asked, “What were you thinking of, calling me out to a place like this? We stick out like a pair of roosters in a fox’s den!”

  “Now, Major, don’t get yer scabbard in a curdle. These chaps may look dangerous, but they’d only stab you if you was alone in an alley with yer back turned, yer flies undone, an’ both legs wobbly with the drink.”

  “But I have to shout to hear what I have to say!” Marc yelled into the general roar.

  “May be, Major,” Cobb shouted back, “but who’s likely to be listenin’, eh?”

  “Couldn’t we go for a walk?”

  “An’ how then would I be gettin’ my cup refilled?”

  Marc gave in, but only because he realized that he had adjusted to the noise level and that Cobb would, strangely enough, function better here than elsewhere.

  “You may find it hard to reckon with, Major, but it’s in this dive and in the Blue Ox—where I dined—that I come up with the details I think you’ll find interestin’.”

  “Be that as it may, Constable, I am most anxious to know what you found out about Philo Rumsey up at Danby’s.”