Solemn Vows Read online

  “Philo’s brothers’re in the army, though. They’re doin’ real good, I’m told.”

  My God, Marc thought, I’ve found the murderer or murderers in a single hour of careful investigation! He grinned from ear to ear, and the children, seeing this, joined him. Marc reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of pennies, then tossed them joyfully upwards. The children jumped up to grab them, giggling and hysterical with delight. Marc bowed to Margaret Rumsey and strode away through the bush towards the square.

  His heart sang. Then it sank. Suddenly he was shaken by a surge of helpless, nameless rage.

  DR. WITHERS AND MAXWELL MèRE AND FILLE were gone by the time Marc got back to the inn. Briefly he asked Garfield Danby to relay any news of Philo Rumsey’s reappearance in the township, bade good-bye to him and Mrs. Danby (who looked as if she had suffered shell shock at Waterloo), and made his way to the saloon.

  Seven of the young officers were gathered around the bar singing lustily with charged glasses. On Marc’s arrival they stopped singing in mid-phrase, until, at an approving nod from their commanding officer, they started up again and continued until the song was satisfyingly finished.

  Marc applauded theatrically, then said to the nearest man, “Ensign, please get the horses from the ostler. We’ve got to get back to Government House before dark.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Where’s Lieutenant Willoughby?” Marc asked.

  Hilliard blanched, then stepped aside so that Marc could see past the bar to one of the gloomy corners of the saloon beyond. Parker and Willoughby appeared to be slumped comatose across a table, their arms dangling like knackered eels. A quart of brandy—two-thirds empty—teetered between them. The rest of the men, feeling chipper, had wisely stuck to watered claret.

  “I wouldn’t get too close to Parker,” Hilliard warned. “He upchucked even before he started in on the brandy.”

  Marc went over to Willoughby and reached out to touch his shoulder. He was stopped, however, by a low droning that had been emanating from the two men all along but which he heard only now.

  “They’ve been crooning away like that for the last hour,” Hilliard said. “That’s why we started singing. It got on our nerves.”

  Marc leaned over and listened.

  “Innocent … innocent … no eyes … no eyes … innocent … innocent …” The words were thick-tongued and breathy but nonetheless distinct.

  “I guess they just saw today more than they bargained for,” Hilliard said helpfully. “Though Christ knows what either of them will do if we ever get into a real battle.”

  Marc let his hand rest on Willoughby’s shoulder. “None of us knows that, Ensign. And maybe it’s just as well.”

  The officer Marc had sent for the horses poked his head in the front door.

  “All right, men. Check your gear and get ready to ride,” Marc said.

  “What’ll we do with these fellows?” Hilliard said.

  “Tie them to their saddles. A good jarring might bring them around.” Marc smiled, and then helped Hilliard haul Willoughby upright. “It’s all right, Colin. Everything’s going to be fine—just as soon as we get you home.”

  At least, he hoped so.

  SIR FRANCIS HAD RENTED ROOMS for Marc and Colin at Mrs. Standish’s boarding house on Peter Street, where they would be at his beck and call. And Marc dropped Willoughby onto that good woman’s veranda before waving farewell to his troop as they continued towards the garrison. Then he rode up to King and Simcoe, where Government House stood in its six-acre park. He handed the chestnut mare to one of the waiting stableboys, and ran up the steps into the foyer. There was almost an hour of daylight left. With luck he would not have to wake up the governor. For although Marc knew that Head would be eager to hear what he had learned about who might have shot Moncreiff, he was acutely aware that first he’d have to tell the governor about the death of Crazy Dan. He didn’t relish reporting this news to a groggy, half-awake superior.

  He was met in the vestibule not by the duty-corporal but by Major Titus Burns, Sir Francis’s military secretary. The old fellow winced as he grasped Marc’s hand.

  “Don’t mind my rheumatism, old chap, it can’t be helped, and what can’t be cured must be endured.”

  “How is Sir Francis, Major? He’s had a horrific day.”

  “So I’ve heard. But I expect he’ll have worse before he has better.”

  “He commanded me to report on my day’s investigative work as soon as I returned,” Marc said.

  “That would be inconvenient in the extreme.” Burns chuckled. “He’s gone off to an emergency meeting of the Executive Council.”

  “Then I’ll wait here in my office,” Marc said. “I have most urgent news for his ears only.”

  “I’m afraid the walls have ears in this house,” Burns said. “But there’s no need for you to wait. Sir Francis explicitly instructed me to send you home to a warm supper and a feather bed. Dr. Withers gave him and me an account of your abortive expedition following the tragic shooting of Councillor Moncreiff. He will want your first-hand version, of course. But there is an election pending, and tomorrow he will be tied up in meetings until eleven in the morning. He wants to see you in the inner sanctum at that hour precisely.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “So will I, Lieutenant. I’m never anywhere else.”

  THE WIDOW STANDISH LET her parlour curtain drop discreetly and opened the front door of her respectable boarding house. (“My husband, Chalmers, wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said more than once, “as he was a very particular gentleman, especially when it concerned the creature comforts of his beloved, God rest his soul.” The dear departed had left her a well-built frame residence eminently suited to respectable boarders.)

  “Oh, Lieutenant Edwards, it is you,” she said, feigning surprise. “I was just putting the cat out for the night.”

  “Good evening, Mrs. Standish.”

  “My heavens, but you do look tuckered out.”

  The cat was nowhere to be seen. “It’s been a very long day.”

  “Your walk from Government House was a pleasant one?” Widow Standish liked to work Government House and any of its doings, however peripheral, into any conversation.

  “It’s a beautiful June evening,” Marc said, following his landlady and self-appointed guardian into the carpeted hallway.

  “I’ve saved you some supper. It’s on the hutch in the dining room. Just some cold beef and bread with a bit of cheese.”

  “I’ll nibble at it later, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, I see,” she replied, lowering her voice and whispering, “He’s still on his bed where I left him.”

  “He saw his first dead man today, I’m afraid, and it was not a pretty sight.”

  “Oh, I see,” clucked Widow Standish. She looked relieved. “I thought it might’ve been just the drink.”

  USING A COTTON CLOTH AND FRESH WATER from the dry sink, Marc managed to clean up Willoughby’s face, and then he got him out of his uniform (which looked beyond rejuvenation, even by Maisie, Mrs. Standish’s very dedicated maid-cook-and-launderer). Willoughby moaned now and again, but his eyes remained resolutely shut. Marc tugged a nightshirt over the young man’s lean, well-muscled body and let him flop back on the bed. The night air was humid and still: he would need no covers.

  As Willoughby’s head hit the pillow, his eyes popped open, then closed again. But in the second or so that they remained open, they took in Marc bending over and the darkening room behind him. And what Marc thought he saw in Willoughby’s face was fear.

  “My God, old chum, but you’ve had one hell of a fright this day,” Marc whispered.

  Willoughby, blind and deaf to the world once more, began to breathe regularly and, from the outside at least, peacefully. His was an aesthetic face, fine-boned with fair skin as smooth as a debutante’s. The brow was high and delicately veined, the hair—now matted and repulsive—was blond and curly, as his be
ard would be if he could grow one. Like this, with his eyes closed, he might have been mistaken for an adolescent, all promise and possibility. But when those grey eyes were open, Willoughby looked more like he had seen too much too soon, and Marc was never sure whether his suffering would erupt in words or action, or turn in upon itself.

  Marc knew that Colin Willoughby had not begun his manhood years auspiciously. As the second son of a wealthy Buckinghamshire landowner, he was destined for the army or the church, but chose instead a more hedonistic life in the gambling dens and whorehouses of London. Papa Willoughby promptly had him hog-tied and returned to the family castle, and after a good talking-to, he was shipped off to military school at Sandhurst. After which Willoughby père purchased a lieutenant’s commission for him in the army, where fils was pleased to discover that dicing and wenching were neither uncommon nor unappreciated.

  However, this happy state of affairs was spoiled by the catastrophe of his falling in love with a respectable young woman of high virtue, ample fortune, and great beauty. As Willoughby told the story whenever he’d had three mugs of whisky, his beautifully affluent Rosy (“pretty as a primrose, she was!”) had placed unwarranted restrictions on the recreational habits of her fiancé (it had gotten that far, he insisted), and then despite his repeated vows to be forever faithful to her after the nuptials, she had jilted him without cause, explanation, or remorse—after the second reading of the banns! And his father, fearing the worst, wrote to his good friend Sir Francis Bond Head and—presto!—four months later, Willoughby found himself in Toronto, where, he had been assured, the climate was a sure cure for romance.

  Sir Francis had realized the need to keep young Willoughby from the temptations of barracks life, and so, having made Marc his chief aide-de-camp on the recommendation of his predecessor, he had hit upon the strategy of appointing Willoughby as Marc’s assistant, and renting rooms for the two of them nearby.

  From that day late in January of this year, Marc had taken Willoughby under wing, playing the role of older brother and guardian. This arrangement had worked to the benefit of both. So far Willoughby had fallen off the wagon only once—at the governor’s Winter Gala when the sight of all those beautiful bare-shouldered young women dancing had reminded him painfully of what he had almost won and then thrown away. He had poured whisky into wine goblets and got himself belligerently drunk before the ball had ended, and it had taken Marc, Hilliard, and two other burly officers to lug him to a carriage and haul him back to Mrs. Standish’s, where he further humiliated himself by swinging wildly at Marc in front of their landlady and uttering a lot of gibberish—the only decipherable parts of which were oaths. Fortunately for Willoughby, the next day he had recalled none of the night’s more memorable events. Since then, while he was occasionally sullen about the menial tasks given him around Government House (who wasn’t?), his youthful high spirits and keen intelligence had made him an enjoyable addition to the tiny complement of officers at the governor’s residence. As for Marc, he was beginning to realize that he had found something he had not expected after a year in Upper Canada: a male friend his own age, a kind of brother.

  “But I don’t know whether you’ll make it as a soldier, old chum,” Marc sighed and left the room quietly.

  FOUR

  The lieutenant-governor rose to greet Marc as he was shown into his office by a shuffling, sober-faced Major Burns. “Do come in, Marc. And take a seat. We have much to discuss, and I have given orders that we not be interrupted for at least the next hour, barring a catastrophe.”

  “I think we may have already had one, sir,” Marc said as he sat down on the edge of a high-backed brocaded chair and let his boots settle into the thick carpet.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Fort York being blown up—again,” Sir Francis quipped, indicating his knowledge of that disastrous event in the War of 1812.

  Major Burns smiled at the witticism despite the rheumatic pain that had squeezed his numerous wrinkles into rigid parallels. He turned to go.

  “Stay, please, Major. I may have need of your sage advice, and I wish you to take notes.” Head sat down across from Marc at a gleaming cherrywood desk that occupied fully a third of the room. Upon it were scattered a dozen thick tomes punctuated by leather bookmarks and innumerable papers, graphs, and maps. Marc recognized the one book that lay open: the blue- bound, 350- page Seventh Report on Grievances, an anti- government tirade written by a committee of the Reform- dominated Legislative Assembly. Major Burns took a seat off to one side beneath a mullioned window that caught the full force of the midmorning sun.

  “As for this business about Crazy Don—”

  “Dan, sir,” said the major.

  Sir Francis hid his irritation in a tight smile. “Crazy Dan, then—”

  “Would you like me to go over the events, sir?” Marc asked, as several beads of sweat formed between his shoulder blades and began to trickle down his back. “I made notes on them before I arrived here this morning.”

  “Not necessary, lad. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed on that unhappy adventure.”

  “But, sir, you have not yet heard my version of the story—”

  At that moment there came a discreet tapping at the door and, before anyone could protest, the governor’s personal servant, in full livery, slipped silently into the room, slid a silver tea tray on the desk before Sir Francis, and stepped silently away again.

  “Coffee, Major?” Burns nodded. “Marc?”

  Marc was about to decline when Sir Francis said, “Of course, you will. I hear that Mrs. Standish serves only weak tea for breakfast.” He poured three cups of coffee and placed on each saucer a tiny, jam-topped scone.

  “I do intend to hear all about what happened yesterday from your own lips,” Sir Francis said to Marc between nibbles on his scone. “From all accounts, it was an exploit worth the telling.”

  “And there is a perfectly logical explanation for the tragic consequences—”

  “That is true. And you will perhaps be surprised to learn that I already know all I need to know about how and why Crazy Dan was shot.”

  Major Burns, his fingers stiffened by pain, spilled his coffee into the saucer.

  “Major Burns and I—who rise with the sun—have been in this office since eight o’clock this morning, closeted with two sleepy magistrates and a clerk who took depositions from each of the ensigns involved. They were hauled from their quarters one at a time and thoroughly interrogated here. Each of them signed a sworn statement relating his version of the events. We had hoped to include Lieutenant Willoughby, but Mrs. Standish told my messenger that he was indisposed.” Sir Francis frowned over the word, attempted a rueful smile.

  Marc was about to explain the cause of Willoughby’s indisposition but saw that Sir Francis considered it of no immediate relevance.

  “The upshot of those interviews and affidavits is that the magistrates came to the conclusion that the death of this wretched creature was unfortunate but, in the circumstances, justified. No blame is to be assigned, and there is no need to drag Dr. Withers in for a formal inquest.”

  “Is that wise, sir?”

  For a moment Sir Francis looked nonplussed, then said, “It is not a question of wisdom, Lieutenant, but of justice. A man fled a murder scene brandishing a gun. He had more than ample opportunity to stop and explain himself if he knew himself to be innocent. Upper Canada is not the republic to the south of us, where lynching and vigilante action are commonplace and condoned. This same man, as attested to by eight loyal officers, pointed a musket at you from ten paces. Were they to let him shoot you first, then release their volley? Especi ally when they swore upon this Bible that the order they heard was ‘Fire!’”

  “I think the young man is referring to the possible political fallout,” Major Burns said quietly as soon as he was certain that Sir Francis had finished.

  Sir Francis feigned astonishment, though his features were so nondescript that a casual observer cou
ld see only extreme shifts in emotion. Marc had already noted that Sir Francis used the natural calmness of his face and demeanour to telling effect in heated discussions. You had to watch his eyes carefully. “And what political fallout might that be? It was the magistrates who did the questioning, as is proper and customary. The affidavits are public court documents. Later today or tomorrow, you will add your sworn statement to the docket.”

  “The lieutenant has studied law at the Inns of Court,” Major Burns said.

  “What I meant, sir,” Marc said, “was that the farmers who followed us, and were in a way witnesses to most of the events under question, might wish to have their say at a formal inquest, even though I am fully confident, as you are, that no other conclusion would be reached than the one made here this morning.”

  “Purely a waste of time,” Sir Francis declared with some vehemence, “and you know from our previous conversations and my reports to Lord Glenelg in London that the time wasted here in the past eight years on committees and commissions and grievance petitions and the naming of this member and that in the Assembly has been the principal cause of the current deadlock and the hardening of positions on either side of every issue—petty or important.”

  “I agree, sir, but my hunch is that these men are supporters of the Reform party, and that they are quite capable of suggesting to all and sundry in York County that the magistrates, as instruments of the Executive, simply protected their own by denying an inquest and aborting their right to testify.”

  “Let them feed whatever rumour mill they like! You’ve seen for yourself over the past week the effectiveness of my strategy of following the politicians of both parties onto the hustings no more than two days after their own nomination speeches or public debates. Grit or Tory, the voters are getting a chance to see the vast difference between, on one side, a politician with all his rant and thunder and, on the other, a statesman who takes no partisan position but, rather, occupies the same wide ground that King William himself would, were he to voyage to this colony—which is, after all, the surrogate terrain of Britain herself. You have seen first- hand how efficacious my direct appeal for loyalty, patience, and trust in their sovereign has been and how well my calm denunciation of all extremism has been received. The fact that most of the extremists are republican and that in that quarter also lies the greatest threat to the Crown does not have to be spoken aloud. Nor would it be proper for me as the King’s representative to do so.”