Annie Powell enjoyed her morning sleep-ins at her son John’s house. She had come over the lake from York to help with Isabella’s lying in, but she had been superfluous. Her daughter Anne, who seemed to have forged a special friendship with Isabella, had been the one who attended on the birth of the baby boy. She had actually been glad to hand over the duties to Anne. The cries and bloody emissions that came with childbirth brought back her own sufferings. She had borne nine children, four of whom had already passed into the Lord’s hands. Though it was necessary in this world for women to marry and procreate, the process was fraught with hardship and pain, the only comfort coming from the help of sympathetic relatives who often knew little about how to relieve the fever that inevitably followed childbirth. Annie herself had been thankful for the help of an experienced midwife during her own travails. Her own daughter Anne was now obviously skilled at easing the birthing process. She had no idea how the girl had acquired a knowledge of childbirth. Whatever its source, however, she had no intention of encouraging Anne in this pursuit.
Annie climbed down from her comfortable bed and pulled back the curtains to let in the light of another glorious fall day. She looked in the captain’s chest at the foot of her bed and pulled out the garments she would wear. Since there was no maidservant at John’s house to pull the strings on her whalebone corset tight, she had abandoned stays. How pleasant it was to put on only a long petticoat and a plain gray dress with a white fichu. Here in Niagara she felt no need to set a standard for the lower orders. Even though she was to have lunch today with the crème de la crème of this small world, she felt sure that her casual apparel would suffice.
Down the stairs she went to find her daughter and daughter-in-law seated at the breakfast table drinking coffee. Isabella was nursing her infant son and made no attempt to hide her breast when she approached. Immodest as this was, Annie chose to say nothing. The smell of coffee—real coffee—has clouded my judgment, may the Lord forgive me. She poured herself a cupful, took a warm buttered scone from the hearth, and sat down across from the two young women.
“I am visiting Mrs. Hamilton at her fine home in Queenston today,” she said. “It will be too long a walk for me, I fear, and I hope I may borrow your carriage for the morning.”
“Of course, you are welcome to it. But you will be with us this afternoon, I hope,” Isabella said. “The Reverend Mr. Warner is visiting us to baptize John.”
The coffee in Annie’s mouth sputtered forth. She put a napkin to her lips just in time. “Baptism? Here? John? Who is John?”
Isabella laughed. “Your grandson, of course, dear Mother. Whom did you think I was speaking of?”
“But you have not told me any of this before. I assumed the child would be named William after his grandfather. I assumed he would be baptised in the Anglican faith by the Reverend Mr. Addison. I cannot allow—”
“You must not make decisions for my dear husband and me.” Isabella tucked her breast into her bodice and put the babe on her shoulder. “Why should we not call our beloved son after his father? And is the Methodist faith less Christian than the Anglican?” The girl sounded angry.
But it is I who should be the aggrieved one. “Why did you not discuss this with me?”
“Surely it is not your affair,” Isabella said. “Excuse me now, I must put John to bed.” She rose then, and without another word turned her back and headed out of the kitchen.
Annie’s daughter sighed. “Well, Mama, you’ve upset Isabella for no good reason. Why, oh why, must you meddle in matters that don’t concern you?”
“I liked the girl. I thought she liked me. I cannot understand why she and my son excluded me from all these plans.”
“Perhaps because they knew what you’d say.”
“This itinerant preacher, this Warner she talks about, I’ve heard all about him from Mrs. Hamilton. He apparently eschews all the rites of a proper service—”
“Please, Mama, spare me these details.”
“No. Listen. She says he preaches weekly on a flat rock in the dense forest near the mountain. He shrieks at the top of his voice. The neighbours declare that they can hear him from two miles away.”
“Good. We shall be spared the unintelligible rasp of the Reverend Mr. Addison.”
“Stupid girl, is it too much to expect a modicum of respect from you, my daughter? But no mind, I shall go now and prepare for my visit to Mrs. Hamilton. I shall arrange to stay for lunch, and I shall arrive back in this place in the later afternoon after the shenanigans are over.”
“If you are to be so discourteous to your host and hostess, I would suggest that tomorrow morning you take the boat back across the lake to York. You can no longer stay here and abuse their hospitality.”
“How am I to explain all this to your father, wretched girl? You have no understanding of the anger that all this kerfuffle will stir up in him.”
“If that is what is worrying you, you have my sympathy. I know how difficult Papa can be. But since you have managed the man for all these years, I am certain you can find a way around his ignorance and pig-headedness.”
“I will listen no longer. You heap abuse on a decent man. Surely you remember that he was responsible for procuring John’s position as Clerk of the Legislative Council. All I ask of John and his wife is that they show respect and gratitude by naming their son after his grandfather and having him baptized in a proper Anglican service.”
“‘Proper,’ I knew that word would pop out of your mouth sooner or later. I think I’ll drink the rest of this coffee on the back stoop where I can watch Cook in the garden and enjoy air that is free from the vitriol in this room.”
Annie watched as her daughter picked up her cup and saucer and moved out the back door into the garden. In a minute or two, she heard the girl chatting with Cook in a manner that broke all the rules of propriety that keep the upper echelons of society apart from the serving classes. Ah well, at least there’s no one here to report back to my circle at York.
* * *
Her son’s carriage deposited her at the top of the Queenston hill where the widow Hamilton still resided in the imposing two-storey stone house that her late husband had constructed during his heyday as chief merchant of a vast area of Upper Canada. It was a relief to absent herself from the acrimony of her daughter and her daughter-in-law and to settle herself in a comfortable chair on Mrs. Hamilton’s spacious covered verandah overlooking the Niagara River. The view down the hill to the pier and all the log cabins below somehow restored her to a sense of her rank in the world she inhabited.
Though she had once known the Queenston area well during the days of Governor Simcoe’s rule, she had never visited Mrs. Hamilton then. In those days, she had been conscious of the Governor’s dismissive view of the woman’s husband and had herself not wished to seem friendly with the merchant classes. But now that the best of society lived in York, she had been curious to see the Hamilton’s fine Georgian home and to meet Mrs. Hamilton who had been a special friend of Mrs. Simcoe in spite of the Governor’s views.
Mrs. Hamilton had been a bit of a surprise. Slight in build with a lined face, and a nervous habit of rubbing her hands together, she dressed in the outmoded fashions of a decade ago. Today—as if in dismissal of her great wealth— she greeted Annie in a dowdy, faded blue gown with a capacious apron.
“I have just taken these cheese scones from the hearth,” she said, passing them to Annie from the low table in front of the verandah window. “Please try one. I do not allow my cook to make them. They are from my private recipe, and I do not wish the rest of the world to know its ingredients.”
Annie took one and bit into it. The heat of some strange spice overpowered her. She put her napkin to her mouth.
“Ah, you have not tried cayenne before? Mr. Hamilton received a packet of it from the West Indies last summer. Delicious, is it not?”
Just then the sound of cannon from across the river sent the woman leaping upright from her chair to run to the edge of the verandah to look out over the woods to the water beyond. Still seated on her chair and momentarily free from her hostess’s surveillance, Annie managed to stuff the scone into her reticule.
“Something alarms you, Mrs. Hamilton?”
“War with the Americans will soon be upon us. My husband predicted that long before he died. Even Governor Simcoe knew it would be inevitable.”
“But that was just some sort of salute at Fort Niagara, was it not? Perhaps there is a special visitor? Surely there is nothing to worry you?”
Mrs. Hamilton took her seat again. Her hands in constant washing motion, she said, “Have you have not heard that the American garrison fired upon merchant boats last summer? Surely you have read the account that the British commander Isaac Brock sent to The Upper Canada Guardian from Montreal? Surely you—”
“Do not upset yourself, ma’am,” Annie interjected, wishing to stop the woman’s mocking of her ignorance. Why did William not tell me of this? Why does he subscribe only to The Gazette?
“I should not be nervous, I know. My dear Robert did his best to be conciliatory to the Americans. He furnished their garrison with supplies—”
“That, I am sure, also worked to his monetary advantage, did it not?” That should shut the woman up.
“I see you have finished your scone, Mrs. Powell. Please take another one.” The woman dumped one of the wretched things onto the plate Annie held in her lap. “Now please excuse me for a moment while I see how Cook is progressing with our lunch. You will enjoy the view, I know. Dear Mrs. Simcoe loved to sit here. I was such friends with her.”
“My dearest friend, you know, is Mrs. Gore. She and I . . .” But Annie realized she was talking to the wind. Mrs. Hamilton had departed.
Really, no one in this place seemed interested in her exalted position in York society. Isabella had paid no attention to her admonitions this morning, and now the wife of a mere merchant found congress with “Cook” more important than listening to her conversation.