August 1795
A loud voice awakens White the next morning. Not Yvette’s gentle greetings. It’s the bellow of an angry man. He looks around, tries to assess his surroundings. Where is he? There’s nothing familiar about this room. He’s in a comfortable bed: surely the mattress under him is stuffed with feathers not straw. And the sun streams in through a large window. Not his house. Whose?
His head aches . . . aches . . . the bile in his throat . . . He sees a chamberpot, scrambles out of bed, and pukes into it. But in the process of tumbling down, he wrenches his back.
He crawls back into bed and pulls the linen coverlet over his head. He notices then that it’s monogrammed: an R is set squarely in the middle of a delicately stitched border. That’s the clue. The Russells’ house on the commons, that’s where he is. But he has no memory of how he got here. But he does remember, yes, he remembers the horrors of that supper.
The voice he hears now, coming from a downstairs room, echoes that horror. “I’m not moving, bloody not moving,” the speaker is shouting, “I’ve spent my wife’s fortune on building that house.”
Ah, yes. It’s David Smith. White forces himself to sit upright, plants his feet on the stool by the bedside, and steps down carefully onto the wide-planked pine floor. Someone has dressed him in a comfortable nightshirt, but where are his clothes?
There comes a soft knock at the door of the bedchamber, and Job, the Russells’ black servant, enters carrying the breeches and dress coat he’d worn to that damnable supper. He sets them on a chair and departs without saying a word, though White can see his frown plainly. He realizes now he must have been in a sad condition if the Russells had to take him here instead of depositing him on his own doorstep, and Job may have borne the brunt of it. Looking at his clothes, he sees they’ve been newly sponged and brushed, with one dark stain still apparent. His puke?
He dresses and finds his way to the staircase, grasps the balustrade, and descends. The voices are coming from the kitchen, and he stumbles in that direction.
“Mr. White, good morning.” Miss Russell, always kind and vigilant, pulls out a chair for him and plants a cup of thick syllabub on the table in front of him. He takes a moment to savour it: the whipped egg whites and cream with the sweet underlay of wine and sugar are exactly what he needs to soothe the pain in his head and the ache in his back.
At the other end of the long pine table, Russell and Smith are deep in a loud dialogue. They stop to acknowledge his presence with a nod, then resume their discussion.
“He’s written to the homeland to ask for a leave of absence. Gout’s got to him, I’m thinking,” Smith says.
“Who?” White interjects, wiping foam from his chin.
“Who? Who’d you think? Our Governor, that’s who.”
“I’m afraid it’s true, White,” Russell says. “He told me last night that I am to administrate the province in his absence.”
“You’ll do that well.” Stupid comment. But he does not know what else to say.
“Perhaps, but it will mean removing to the new capital of York, and the Governor has given us his marching orders for the summer of next year, latest. I must from this point onwards consider what am I to do with this commodious house I’ve just built and furnished at great personal expense.”
Now Smith starts his rant again. “I’m bloody not moving. My house is the best in town, better even than yours, Russell, if I may say so. Two storeys with a widow’s walk, constructed, embellished, and painted in the best style. And in the best location in town to boot. I’ve spent a fortune on it.”
Everything the man says is true, but his superior tone is infuriating. “Your wife’s fortune, did I hear you say?” White asks.
Miss Russell picks up a sheet of paper from a small table near the kitchen window. “I have just this morning wrote to my dear friend Lizzie saying that I am not a-going anywhere until there be a comfortable place in York to receive me. Never again do I expose myself and Mary to what we suffered when first we moved to this place. Poor child, I know that wretched cabin where we once lived for certain brought on her ill health.”
There’s a pause while they all listen to the coughing sounds that issue from a room upstairs.
Now they’re all staring at me. What am I to say? Time to take a stand.
“Toronto or York—whatever its name—is a savage place from all I’ve heard. They say it is crushed against the lake by vast forests to the north, and entirely cut off from adjacent settlements, except in the late spring and summer. Never mind that I too have gone to the expense of building and furnishing a house here. The Gov in his arrogance does not consider such trifles.”
“Hear, hear!” This from Smith, accompanied by small bleating noises from Miss Russell. Only her brother is silent.
Then Russell clears his throat and makes one of those pronouncements that White has so often heard him utter from his unwarranted position on King’s Bench. “This bravado is all very well, but it has no substance. We must all go to York. We must face our future and embrace it.”
“Bloody embrace what you like, Russell. Kiss the Governor’s ass, too, if that makes you feel good. Excuse my language, Miss Russell.” Smith rises, moves to the kitchen door, and slams it shut behind him with a bang that starts White’s head throbbing like an Indian tom-tom. His nose begins to bleed. He pulls out a handkerchief.
“Dear Mr. White,” Miss Russell says, “Job will drive you home in our carriage.” She pours the remaining syllabub from a bowl into a pitcher. “Take this with you and get right into your bed. I shall call later this afternoon and give your cook a remedy for your nosebleed. Try not to think too hard about the move. We still have time to ready ourselves.”
As the horse and cart bump their way along the forest path to his house, White holds the handkerchief to his nose and watches the blood seep into it.
There’s a metaphor somewhere here. Try to remember . . . yes, something Shakespeare said . . . Macbeth maybe . . . yes . . . ‘I am in blood stepp’d in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er’. . .
“Say something, sir?”
“Nothing, Job. Drive on.”
I do not deserve this treatment. But what can I do about it? I made a brave speech this morning, but Russell is right. It’s all bravado. I must move if I am to keep my position. But where can I find money right now? Maybe Sam Shepherd will come through for me again. And I’ve got to make a decision about Marianne and the children. Oh Lord.
Inside his house, he pours Miss Russell’s syllabub into his large pewter mug and ascends with it to his loft.