Annie Powell plunged up the staircase, took a deep breath, and pounded on her daughter Anne’s door. “Get up, get up,” she cried. “Did you not hear that noise? It seems to come from the garrison. What is happening?”
“What can I do about it, Mama?” Her daughter’s voice was muffled. That meant she was probably still lying in bed, quilt pulled up over her head.
“You must come out on the verandah and look towards the garrison. Something bad is going on. I need you to help me understand it.”
Annie waited. At last her daughter appeared, her face grey and her hair in greasy, uncombed strands. She had put a dirty shawl around her nightdress. Annie opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. She needed the girl’s opinion. Her other daughters, Eliza and Mary, would be useless in coping with whatever was happening. Together, from the second-storey porch railing, she and Anne looked towards the garrison. Flames leapt into the air, and timber and stones seemed to fall from the sky. As they stood there, the bell of St. James Church tolled behind them. And all the while, the windows in the house rattled.
Anne suddenly came alive. She pulled back her strands of hair and threw off the shawl. “God, I think someone must have ignited the powder magazine. People will be blown to bits. We must all go at once and see if we can help.” She grabbed Annie’s hand and pulled her away from the railing.
“You must go, Anne. Your sisters cannot help. They are fearful of what will happen. At the moment, they are hiding belowstairs with Cook, all of them whimpering and moaning. Totally useless they are.”
“You will come with me, Mama?”
“No, Anne, I must stay here and guard the house. Papa is away on the circuit for a few days. I suspect the Yankees have landed at the garrison and have caused this chaos. They may soon come to pillage the town. I must find your Papa’s pistol. Get yourself dressed, go out and find out what’s going on.”
“The Yankees, Mama? Surely not. They would not dare—”
“But I think they have . . . Your father told me before he left this morning that there were more than a dozen armed Yankee vessels in the harbour. They came yesterday and—”
“Yesterday! Why did not General Sheaffe make a move then? He is out at the garrison and surely he could have—”
“At the garrison, yes, but the man apparently did nothing to stop the invasion. Your father was at supper at Government House yesterday with eight or ten other men. They could all see the Yankee gunboats in the harbour waiting for daylight, and your father assumed that supper would be cut short so that Sheaffe could draw up battle plans with his officers.”
“And . . . ?”
“Nothing of that sort happened. Sheaffe poured whisky for his guests and strutted around in a new scarlet coat with gold embroidery, bragging that it had cost more than two hundred pounds.”
Annie’s daughter made a noise that sounded like a snort. “Perfect for the battlefield, Mama, especially when accompanied by a fine white horse.”
“And your father told me that by the time they all sat down for the soup, most of the guests were tipsy, and their host was perhaps the most befuddled of all.”
“Mama, I cannot believe the man could be such an ass.”
“I shall not presume to chastise you about your language, my dear. The man is an ass. Besides being inebriated, he apparently kept taking snuff and passing his box around so that the others could have a pinch. Your father said that the snuffbox played a tune when the lid was raised. He did not recognize the tune, but judging from the guffaws of the supper guests, he feared it was ribald. Not once, at least in those hours before your father could make his escape, did Sheaffe mention confronting the Yankees.”
“I shall get dressed at once and go to the garrison. There must be wounded people there, and I can help.” Annie followed her daughter as she ran back to her bedchamber. She watched as Anne scooped up her hair into a knot at the top of her head and scrambled into a dress, boots, and a cloak. In five minutes, she was ready.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back, Mama,” she said as she ran down the staircase towards the front door. “I’ll send a message if I can find someone to deliver it.”
The door banged shut, letting in a puff of cold air that was soon followed by a banging on the doorknocker. Annie was still in the front hall and answered the summons just as the maid Lucy came rushing up from belowstairs.
Mrs. Strachan, wife of the new rector and chaplain of the garrison, stood on the threshold. “Quick, quick, Mrs. Powell,” she said, “gather together a few necessaries and join me and the children in our carriage there in the lane. My dear husband is sending me north of the town to a friend’s house. He says we must not stay a moment longer in this place.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I must remain here.”
“Why, oh why? The American scoundrels may be upon us at any moment.”
“All the more reason to remain in place. I have my daughters to think of and this house to protect.”
“Very well, Mrs. Powell. But your ignorance of the dangers before us compels me to say that you are either stupid or foolhardy.”
Annie closed the door in the woman’s face. Stupid? No. Foolhardy? Perhaps. No matter. Right now, she had to find her husband’s flintlock pistol. Where in tarnation was it? Where? Perhaps in his bedchamber, in the chest at the foot of the bed.
She ran up the stairs. There at the bottom of a pile of old clothes in the trunk, she found the pistol. It was huge—about sixteen inches in length—and heavy and cumbersome in her hands. Quite a beautiful weapon of destruction, though, with its stock of polished wood and embossed silver barrel. And then she realized that she had not the remotest idea of how to work the thing. What would she do if the Yankees burst through her front door? She had spent a good many years in America, it was true, but she now considered herself a British Canadian. If necessary, she would defend her house and family here in York, but oh Lord, how was she to do it?