York (now Toronto)
July 1797
In an effort to keep his mind off the letter he received this morning, John White has walked from his new house down to the bay. This bay at York is a place he has come to love. Dense forests line its margins, and he stops on the shoreline to enjoy the images of the trees reflected in the still surface of the water. His presence stirs the calm of early evening, and wild geese and cranes take flight.
He sees, farther along the shore, the tents of the Mississauga Indian band. He remembers how Mrs. Simcoe called them a dirty, drunken, idle people, compared with the handsome, colourfully dressed Ojibway bands from Lake Huron and the tall, well-built Mohawks who occasionally attended the Simcoes’ dances at Fort Niagara. But he has some sympathy for these Indians. When he first came to this place, he heard how they had given the Gov the appellation of “He Who Changes Names.” He can only imagine how they must feel to find the home they once called Toronto now metamorphosed into York. As well, they must watch the incoming flux of settlers from Niagara, all of whom will occupy the land they looked upon as their own. “Park lots,” the Gov called them, which extend north into the wilderness from the street now called Queen, and “town lots” which go down to the waterfront. In no time, these Mississaugas will undoubtedly have white men chasing them away with muskets.
Despite the tranquillity of the bay, the letter from Sam Shepherd ripples his peace. He pulls it from his frock coat to read again. Its message is short. Marianne, his daughter, and two sons will arrive at Quebec on a sailing vessel sometime in early August. No doubt Marianne was burdensome to his brother-in-law, but surely he could have kept them in London for a few months more. Now White must travel all the way to Quebec and bring them safely to York.
And what is he to do with them when they arrive? He can imagine Marianne’s reaction when she sees the house he is currently building. Eventually it will be a decent dwelling of two storeys made of squared logs and covered in clapboard. But at present he has only three rooms covered in, and they have already cost him more than three hundred pounds. House-building in this backwoods is expensive, even with the prevalent use of unseasoned wood and a total ignorance on the part of his builder of the necessity for a solid foundation of stone.
He has, moreover, not yet received pay for the past six months in His Majesty’s service, though Peter Russell has written to the Treasurer at Whitehall petitioning on his behalf.
Marianne was out of control even in the centre of London society, and he cannot imagine her coping with anything here in this backwater. Everything, except for basic food staples like milk and flour and beef and pork, has to be imported from rich merchants in Montreal and New York, after being shipped to them from England. How is he to feed a family at such prohibitive expense? He does not yet have a permanent cook, merely a slattern who comes in to prepare his meals by the day. He must put up with her wretched cooking and damnable incivility. He cannot fire her. Household servants are nearly impossible to find.
He remembers his chagrin at leaving Yvette LaCroix behind in Niagara. She had not wanted to leave her Indian relatives. But she made him quantities of dandelion wine from the new spring crops in their backyard.
He tried to reciprocate with a gesture he had long thought about. He dug up the small box containing the body of her infant and together they buried it near a clump of birch trees in Paradise Grove at the edge of the commons. There, he hoped, Yvette would be able to visit the gravesite unimpeded by the new owner of his house, a Yankee just arrived from across the river. Then he and Yvette had parted. She had wept as she shook his hand, and he had felt his own tears trickle down his cheeks.
The headache begins again. Time to start home and take some whisky punch. He has already finished drinking Yvette’s dandelion wine. As he passes the Indian fires, he nods to the natives. But now he feels blood trickling down his face, and he fumbles in his waistcoat pocket for a handkerchief. Damn. Nothing. Best to get home and apply Miss Russell’s remedy: cotton soaked in vinegar, stuffed up each nostril. He starts to walk faster.
“You take this, white man,” a voice calls. He turns. A young Indian has risen from his evening meal and beckons to him. The man yanks a handful of lichen off a stone in front of his tepee and hands it to White. White buries his bloody nose in the grey-green wad. It’s a bit scratchy, but quite soft and absorbent, and he feels grateful to the Indian. But it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Here I am, the first Attorney-General of Upper Canada, wiping my face with a moss handkerchief provided by an almost naked native, his skin covered with some malodorous grease to ward off the mosquitoes. I have come to this. I must only be thankful that Marianne is not yet here to see it all.
He heads north away from the bay towards his “park lot” which the Gov had laid out with his surveyors before flying the coop back to England. It’s a huge block of land, and its size keeps him from contact with the John and Betsy Small, owners of the dwelling on the lot beside his. “Berkeley House” is the ridiculous name of this residence.
He has not yet had to face his former paramour. From what he has heard from the never-ending gossip of David Smith, she is trying hard to erase the doubtful reputation she acquired at Niagara.
Smith himself has built an impressive house he calls Maryville. “Being land-rich is not much use if you are cash-poor,” he has said to White. But in the next breath, he always goes on to brag about its startling bright yellow paint and the buildings that make up what he calls his “service court”: “my stable, my coach-house, my wagon shed, my root-house, my summerhouse . . . ”
White passes Peter Russell’s house which faces the bay. The first house Russell purchased in this new capital burned to the ground during the winter, and he had to hire a German immigrant named William Berczy to build this one. It’s quite the place, a U-shaped building in what his friend boasts is “the neo-classical style.” It is surrounded by fine elm trees and a picket fence set upon bricks. It has eleven large shuttered windows, as Russell has mentioned a hundred times, and has cost him a “crushing one thousand pounds.”
He assumes his friend is now in Niagara with his sister, and he hurries past, promising himself to stop the next time when he’s calmer and count the windows to see if there really are eleven. But he has just turned the corner onto Princess Street when he hears a voice calling him. Russell emerges from his fine panelled front door and comes down to the gate. Dammit. I can’t shed the lichen without his seeing it. He tries to hide the bloody “handkerchief” behind his back.
“What’s wrong, White? Your face is a bloody mess.”
“The usual nosebleeds. Nothing to worry about.”
“What’s that you have in your hand, man? Throw away that moss, for God’s sake. Take my handkerchief. We’re all up to our eyebrows in debt in this place, but I can afford a piece of linen.”
“I thought you’d be in Niagara now, getting Miss Russell packed up ready to move over.”
“The inside is not finished, and she’s bound and determined to stay there on the commons until all is ready here. I’m trying to find some servants, got in mind three who’ve come over the border to freedom, and with Job, that should be plenty.” He turns back to look at the house. “She’ll be pleased when she sees it, I warrant. The neo-classic style is the latest craze in Europe, so Berczy tells me, and all those windows let in so much light.”
“Eight windows, are there?” Why am I taunting him in this stupid way?
“Eleven. Have I not told you?”
Let it pass. Change the subject. He spits on the handkerchief Russell has given him and mops at his face. “I trust you will be in Niagara on the seventeenth of this month, my friend?”
“Ah, yes, the date of the formation of the Law Society of Upper Canada. I must commend you, White, on the part you have played in regulating the profession of law in this new country.”
“It is the one most important achievement of my life.” Tears spring unbidden and mix with the bloody mess on his face. He feels Russell’s arm on his shoulder. “I could not have done it, sir, without your support here at our first meeting of the Legislature. You passed the Act that has made it all possible.” Yes, the man annoys me, but he has proven to be a staunch friend. He leans forward and clasps Russell in a close embrace.
“And I shall be with you at Wilson’s Tavern to see it all unfold. What’s more, I shall invite all the gentlemen licensed to practise law on that day to join Eliza and me for a celebration—perhaps the last—at our commodious house on the commons.”
For a moment, as White turns again in the warm summer evening towards his unfinished home, he forgets the impending doom of Marianne and seeks solace in thinking of the greatest accomplishment of his legal career. I have insured that all persons who practise law in this province are competent, follow proper procedures, and behave ethically. From this month forward, there will be no more asses and apes popping up from God-knows-where and calling themselves lawyers. Surely I have, like Mackenzie, achieved a quest to be proud of.
Bring on Marianne. I can stand her. Bring on my children to love and cherish and to walk beside me in the years to come.