December 27, 1799
John White has mixed feelings about the ball to be held at the local tavern. Subscription balls are à la mode these days, and he will have to contribute to the renting of a room as well as donating several bottles of wine and a meat dish to the festivities. But he decides to go to it nonetheless because he sees an opportunity that he intends to seize.
“Please do not worry about the food, sir,” Susannah says to him as she serves dinner to him and the boys. “I can cook something up at low cost. There are plenty of black squirrels in the back forty I can snare and cut up with mushrooms, onions, and—”
The boys make retching noises.
“No squirrels, Mrs. Page.”
“Plenty of rabbits too. How about a rabbit stew then?”
White sighs, thinking of the comments people like Chief Justice Elmsley would make when they found out—as they surely would—who had brought what. “Best get a fresh chicken from the market and roast it.”
“Or perhaps Miss Russell would let me have one from her poultry yard,” Susannah says. “I’ll ask.”
Russell has already told White that he and Miss Russell will not be going to the event. “It’s Hunter’s idea, the cheapskate, and he won’t charge it to the Colonial Office. Mind you, I don’t entirely blame him. I’m still waiting for them to send sixty-eight pounds, seven shillings, and nine pence for the ball I gave two winters ago. So why should I be out of pocket for this event as well?”
White groans in commiseration. He’s still lacking this year’s stipend. He’s had to make do with some income from private practice and the pittance he gets from his share in the issuing of the land grants.
* * *
The night of the ball, he dons the formal court attire he’s purchased for the occasion: a red velvet claw-hammer tailcoat over a striped silk waistcoat, and tight trousers tucked into what that devil of a German boot-maker calls “Hussar boots.” Perhaps the yellow kid gloves he’s carrying are an unnecessary added expense, but he wants to look his best for the evening ahead. It gives him confidence to know he will be the most stylish man in the room.
In the lower hall of the tavern, he hands Susannah’s fricasseed chicken and her pumpkin pie to a serving man and proceeds upstairs to the ballroom. Fiddlers from the garrison have already tuned up, and tonight there’s a caller for the growing fad called “square dancing.” He sees the Smalls and the Elmsleys and two other couples swinging about to a brisk beat. Not a sign anywhere of the Glengarry Fencible!
That officer, who from behind the oak tree overheard his conversation with Mrs. Small, challenged him to a duel two weeks ago. He has Elmsley to thank for coming to his aid on that one. He met White and the officer in a room at the court house, and after a spate of Latin which included his calling the lieutenant “pavo absolutus,” Elmsley ordered the “total turkey” to keep the peace for twelve months and post bonds totalling five hundred pounds. Though he hates feeling indebted to Elmsley, he recognizes the man’s wisdom in that thwarted affair.
Now White heads straight for the bar reminding himself he must not get tipsy tonight. But a few drinks will put him in a frame of mind to carry out the scheme that he has planned carefully with malice aforethought. A cup of rum punch in hand, he searches the crowd to find the person he wants. Ah, there he is.
“Smith, may I join you here against the wall?”
“By all means, White. Since my wife died, I find these events difficult. It’s always good to have a friend to talk to. And you yourself must feel lonely without your wife.”
The man is giving him an opportunity to talk about his and Marianne’s split, but White has no intention of giving out this information to the town’s most notorious gossip. “Let us drink and forget our problems,” he says, reaching for another glass of punch from the server who is making the rounds with a tray. He takes a glass for Smith as well.
Their position could not be more perfect. Directly in front of them is the square dance group that contains the Smalls and the Elmsleys.
As the dance ends, Mrs. Small takes Mrs. Elmsley’s arm, and steers her directly in front of him and Smith. Though Mrs. Elmsley is modestly dressed in a deep blue gown with a fichu at the neck, the Small woman wears the same pale yellow muslin dress she wore for her night of thwarted hanky panky. It has a low-cut neckline and as she catches White’s eye, she tugs up her gown just far enough to display those ankles of hers.
“Quite a vision,” Smith says, pulling out the diamond-rimmed quizzing glass that he always keeps on a gold chain on his waistcoat. He puts it up to his eye and stares at the women who have just passed, concentrating, it seems, on the hussy’s bare white shoulders. “I wonder if all the things I hear about the Small woman could be true?”
White has been waiting for this opening. “Absolutely. She is a whore,” he says in a low voice. “I had her as my own mistress when we lived in Niagara. I gave her up because I feared for my health.”
“Your health?” Smith says, leaning towards White, his face flushed and his eyes avid.
“Yes. The frequency of her amours with Mr. Tickell and the officers at Fort Niagara worried me. What is more, I had it on the best authority that . . .” Here White pauses strategically and takes another sip of his drink.
“You had it on the best authority that . . . ?” Smith prompts.
“That she was, while in England, the mistress of Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle. He was a good friend of Small, I understand, and he asked Small to . . .”
Here White makes a show of searching for his snuff box. He takes it from the pocket of his tailcoat and opens the lid.
“Come, come, man, out with it.” Smith is in a fidget of excitement now.
“You must promise to keep what I tell you to yourself,” White says, trying to show reluctance to say more. He inhales the snuff and sneezes.
“I swear. Not a word will pass my lips.”
Not bloody likely. Everyone in this place knows about your loose tongue. God bless you for that!
White has thought long and hard about the next tidbit. Whether it’s fact or fiction, he knows not, not does he care. “Lord Berkeley asked Small to take the woman off his hands. He was thoroughly sick of her, from what I hear. For this he paid his friend a substantial sum—enough to establish him in this new world—and he booked them an early passage to Niagara.”
“No!”
“Yes! But remember your promise to me. You must repeat none of this.”
Soon after this exchange, Smith excuses himself, “to find a loo,” he says. But White laughs to himself when he sees the man walk directly over to Chief Justice Elmsley and whisper at length in his ear.
By night’s end, Elmsley is sure to tell his wife. The friendship of the two women will be forever split asunder. And the whore will find herself a social pariah without a person in this little world to speak to.
His mission accomplished, White does not wait to have a slice of Susannah’s good pie. He takes another drink and downs it as he leaves the ballroom. It has been a successful evening. He doesn’t even mind the headache that has come on from snorting the snuff in that box he borrowed from Peter Russell.
He heads for home, savouring the small comfort that comes from knowing that he has vindicated his wife.
Silly as she is, she has deserved a better husband than I have been.