Chapter Six

 

 

Kingston Barracks, July 1792

John White finds the Officers’ Mess stuffy, but perhaps it’s William Jarvis’s conversation that’s bringing on one of his headaches. There must be twenty-five people crammed into this tiny space, and it’s impossible to escape from the man and his drivel.

“You are not aware, sir, that Lord Dorchester himself appointed me the Grand Master of Ancient Masons? He came to our London house as we were in the throes of packing, and sat down among us, quite as if he were a comrade and not His Majesty’s illustrious ruler of Upper and Lower Canada. In deference to the Governor, I have not tonight worn my chain of office, but I thought this adornment was appropriate for the occasion.” Jarvis pats a huge gold pin on his left breast, its circle containing two triangles, one of them upside down. There’s a gold ball in the centre of it all. “These triangles, as you may know, symbolize—”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to mention Lord Dorchester to the Gov,” White says. “According to the rumour mill, they don’t see eye to eye on anything.”

Just then there’s a burst of cannon fire from the wharf. The Governor and his lady have arrived, thank God. He turns away from Jarvis and heads with the crowd to the dining hall to welcome their hosts.

“Good evening, Mr. White. I’m happy to see you again.”

White turns. Just behind him in the line-up is Eliza Russell. She’s dressed in the same drab black garment she generally wears, but she has put a rather wilted bouquet of violets on her bodice and daubed some paint on her sallow cheeks. “Miss Russell,” he says, “I wanted so much to talk to you this evening. I have a gift for Mary.” He hands over the small package he’s been holding during his interminable conversation with Jarvis. “I had only a newspaper to wrap it in, my apologies.”

She opens it quickly as the line to the dining hall moves forward, pulling out the little buckskin moccasins with a beaded daisy on each toe. “Lovely,” she says. “Mary needs new shoes so bad. Her feet have grown a size since we left home, and I had no idea where to procure some. They are so pretty with the beading. Moccasins, are they called?”

“That’s the word. I bought them from an Indian woman on the wharf today. I noticed Mary limping, and I thought at first she had some sort of paralysis. But then I thought of my own daughter Ellen, how she limps when her shoes pinch.”

“I’m mighty pleased with them, Mr. White. And with you, too.” She smiles broadly at him, and folds the moccasins into her reticule.

The dining hall is a large room dominated by a long pine table pitted with marks from a thousand nights of spilled beer and ringed by at least two dozen wooden chairs, plain in structure, with stretchers holding the legs together. The sole picture on the walls is a portrait of Simcoe in the full dress regalia of the Queen’s Rangers. White is reminded that the Governor is a military man who will know little of legal parlance and governance. Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps he and Osgoode will have more freedom to set up the judiciary and establish policy. From what he hears, anyone who barks can be a lawyer.

He is happy to find himself seated midway down the long table, in a position to observe and hear both the Governor and his lady. The great man is tall with plump, flushed cheeks, and he controls the conversation in a deep, loud voice. He directs one of his first comments to White himself.

“So you are now a member of the Legislative Assembly for these counties, Mr. Attorney-General?”

“Thanks to your good offices, sir. You put my name forward and supported me throughout.” He does not bother to say he spent a week on horseback canvassing the back concessions about Kingston and has only this day got his walking legs back. The settlers are an ignorant bunch, concerned chiefly with the establishment of non-conformist churches and the problem of the Indians encroaching on their clearings. He wanted to tell them that the case was probably the reverse. Were they not building their miserable huts on Indian territory? But he remembered to keep his mouth shut. His stabbing back pains this evening serve to remind him of the day of his victory, when the settlers dragged him about on a chair to the diversion of the crowd and his own inconvenience. The physical pain also brought to his mind the pain of the expense he incurred to get elected: two barrels of porter and quantities of bread and cheese. But to be an elected member of Upper Canada’s First Parliament, surely that is an accomplishment to be proud of.

A serving-wench has just dumped two carcasses onto his plate. He cannot identify them. Too small to be rabbits. He pokes at them with his fork. My God, can they be rats?

“Black squirrels,” Mrs. Simcoe says from the bottom of the table, no doubt observing the horror on his face. “As good to eat as a young hare, especially with lots of mint sauce.” White reaches into the centre of the table and dumps half the pitcher of sauce onto the corpses. He begins to understand Marianne’s longing for a meal of sucking-pig. When he gets back to the small room at the inn which he shares with Osgoode, he must remember to take a strong emetic.

Mrs. Simcoe is tiny with a sharp nose and thin lips, not at all his idea of feminine beauty. She appears to be a woman of great—though strange—enthusiasms. During the serving of a blueberry tart, which proves an excellent antidote to the squirrels, she rises and goes to a corner of the room. There, in a slatted wooden box he had not at first noticed, is a large grey snake with white markings. She picks up a stick beside the box and pokes at the reptile which shows a pair of long fangs and issues forth a sinister rattle.

“Is it not amusing?” She laughs, turning to her guests. “A Mississauga Indian came this morning to our lodgings and presented me with it.” She takes one of the squirrel corpses from a platter on the sideboard and throws it into the box.

The Governor smiles indulgently. “Give it a little mint sauce as well, my dear.” Then he turns to Osgoode who is seated next to him. “We go in three days’ time to Newark,” he says.

Osgoode looks bewildered. “Newark, Governor?”

“Yes, I have renamed Niagara after a town I love in England. You undoubtedly know it, Mr. Chief Justice, Newark-on-Trent. I intend to give English names to replace all these strange Indian appellations. Indeed, my entire mission here is to establish a bit of old England in this young land.”

White looks down at the last crumbs of his tart. Did this young land and its native inhabitants not provide the blueberries for the tasty dessert? Even the squirrels for the main course? And the reptile that provides such fun for the lady? Well, those are paltry things. But what of the judiciary? Does the Gov envisage planting the entire legal system of England in this land without pruning? Does he not realize that Indians, if they are to act as jurors, may not wish to swear on the Christian Bible?

His thoughts are diverted by the shrill voice of Mrs. Simcoe, deep into one of her strange enthusiasms. “Last evening, I walked in a wood set alight by some bonfires left unextinguished in an encampment. You may have no idea of the pleasure of walking in a burning bush. The smoke keeps the mosquitoes at a distance and when the fire catches in the hollow of a tall tree, the flame makes a fine leap into the sky.” She throws up her hands to illustrate. “And where there are only small sparks, they look like the stars in the heavens. It is all so beautiful. Tomorrow I think I shall have some woods set on fire for my evening walk.”

While most of the invited guests make their sycophantic murmurs of approval, White watches the dismay on the face of the serving-wench who, across the table, is just removing a plate from in front of Eliza Russell. Perhaps the girl lives in one of the pitiful log cabins close to that wood Mrs. Simcoe intends to set afire.

 

* * *

 

Back at the inn, he hopes to engage his friend Osgoode in a discussion of the evening. But by the time he has a tankard of beer with the friendly innkeeper and climbs up to the small rented room, Osgoode has settled himself to read in the only comfortable chair. A candle flickers on the rough-carved table beside him, and he is deep into an ancient tome, Coke’s Reports, and looks up only when White moves to the washstand.

“You at last, White. Pack your baggage. The Governor told me that we are to s..s..sail with them on the Onandaga to Niagara tomorrow morning.”

“Newark, man, Newark.”

Osgoode snorts. “The bloodiest boring place I’ve ever been. King John died of dysentery there. Doesn’t that s..s..say it all?”

“Why now? I thought he said in three days’ time.”

“I think we must accustom ourselves to the man’s whims.”

Well, no time for the emetic. He’ll just have to hope he hasn’t contracted a terminal disease from those damned squirrels.