Martha and Thaddeus walked back to the manse in complete silence.
Martha was profoundly embarrassed by the remarks the prosecutor had made about James Small and herself. She hoped that the newspapers would not report that part of Garrett’s address. She was almost certain that they would. But as she walked along she reflected that she had done nothing to cause any of it, and could protest as much should anyone remark on it. It was different for Thaddeus. He had behaved very oddly with respect to Ellen Howell, but the prosecutor had put the worst possible construction on his actions. He must be appalled.
The day had certainly been a triumph for Towns Ashby, though. Martha couldn’t help but feel glad for him, and proud of the role she had played in the case. She wondered if he would come to the manse that night, then decided that he probably wouldn’t. He would want to bask in congratulatory attention at the Globe or at one of the less salubrious establishments he frequented. Many people would want to buy him drinks and claim they knew him.
Tomorrow, perhaps. Yes, tomorrow, and probably some-time in the morning. She would slip out to the market and get a chicken. She would use her own money to buy it. And she should make a pie. They could have a celebration. And maybe it would go a little way toward cheering up her grandfather.
Digger barked as soon as they neared the house, but once inside he settled quite readily at Martha’s command.
“He’s getting used to us,” she remarked.
“I suppose I should take him out to the yard,” Thaddeus said. “He’s been inside all day.”
“I’ll do it,” Martha said, “if you’ll put the kettle on.”
She slipped the old piece of rope they used as a leash over the dog’s head and stepped outside the back door. Digger made a beeline for the yellow rose bush that grew beside the house and relieved himself, then put his nose to the ground and pulled her to the back of the garden. He was following Caroline’s scent, she realized, tracing the steps she had made the day before. Martha let him pull her along. He piddled twice more, to make his mark. She turned to pull him back to the house when a voice on the other side of the fence startled her.
“May I speak with you, Miss Renwell?”
It was James Small.
“Yes, I suppose.” She was in no mood for James, but she supposed he was owed his say. After all, he had been singled out in court as well.
“In light of today’s events, I think it’s wise for me to speak frankly. I hope you won’t think me presumptuous.”
He was at his most pompous, red in the face, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“By all means, please be frank.”
“I don’t think it can have escaped your notice that I may have had certain aspirations regarding yourself.”
“It was pretty much announced in open court,” she pointed out.
“Yes. Well. I have never been certain what your position is regarding me.”
Martha was very certain, but she decided to refrain from baldly stating it.
“I am currently in no position to entertain matrimony, and I know that you are still quite young,” he continued.
Oh dear Lord, she thought, where is he headed with this?
“I had, however, hoped to reach some sort of understanding with your grandfather so that at some future date I might press my suit.”
Martha had a wild mental image of James Small with a sadiron, pressing a crease into his baggy black trousers and managed to stifle a giggle only just before it escaped from her lips.
He drew himself up to his full gangly height, a disapproving look on his face. “Your grandfather’s reputation has been severely damaged by this whole Howell affair, as has yours by your association with Mr. Ashby. Given my position in this community, I regret that I must now inform you that I have set aside any intentions that I may have had, and that I will no longer seek any union between us.”
“I think that’s probably the wisest course, Mr. Small.”
“I hope this will not be too painful for you, but you must see that your own actions have influenced my decision.”
“Thank you, Mr. Small. I shall endeavour not to feel pain. Good day to you.”
“Good day.” And with that he strode back into his parents’ cottage with an air of great satisfaction at having done his duty.
“C’mon Digger,” she said, and tugged him back toward the house. Once inside, she began to laugh. She’d been annoyed with Ashby the night she chased him down on the streets of Cobourg, but if she’d known it would be enough to discourage James Small, she might have done it more than once.
“What are you laughing at?” Thaddeus was at the stove, fiddling around with the tea things.
“Apparently I am no longer the object of James Small’s affections.”
“What? No. Did he just tell you that in the back garden?”
“Yes. Over the fence. Apparently, we aren’t respectable enough for him.”
Thaddeus looked at her uncertainly. “Are you upset?”
“Do I look upset? I’ve never been so relieved in my life.”
“Oh. Well. I guess that’s all right then, isn’t it?” Then he stopped and frowned. “This may be a problem, you know. I expect I’m the talk of the town.”
Martha had never seen her grandfather so tentative. “I don’t care,” she said. “Is there tea yet?”
The dog spent the night in the kitchen, jammed up against the back door, his head drooped over his paws. Occasionally he sighed deeply and whined.
“I’ll take him over to the Anglican rectory in the morning,” Thaddeus said. “The Howells will no doubt be heading back to the farm and will want him.”
But before they’d finished breakfast there was a knock on the front door. Martha rushed to answer it. It would be just like Ashby, she thought, to turn up unannounced first thing in the morning. But when she opened the door she found a boy, who shoved a piece of paper at her and left. She handed it to Thaddeus and read it over his shoulder. It was from Ashby. As usual, he went straight to the point:
Howells leaving Cobourg dock ten o’clock.
Thaddeus seemed hardly to know what to do with the news. He sat staring at the note until Martha finally said, “Maybe you should take the dog to them?”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. “Yes. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.”
Thaddeus was about to leave the house when he remembered the leather satchel that Caroline had clutched so closely. He was sure that the notes and bonds it contained were counterfeit, and in the normal course of events he would have taken them all into the back garden and burned them. Or turned them in at the bank. Or something other than what he was now considering. Ashby’s message hadn’t indicated where the Howells were going, only that they were leaving. Ellen Howell had no money. The Anglican minister, or maybe even Ashby himself, must have advanced her the funds for steamer passage. She would arrive at her destination penniless. Would Thaddeus be an accomplice to her husband’s crimes if he gave her the satchel full of notes to use as she saw fit? Or could he claim that he was simply returning her property and whatever was in the satchel was none of his concern? It didn’t matter. He walked upstairs and fetched it from the room Caroline had used.
“Tell Caroline she’s welcome to keep the dress,” Martha said. “Her old one isn’t fit for anything but rags. And if you see Mr. Ashby, tell him he’s invited for dinner. At noon.”
Thaddeus looped the rope around Digger’s neck and set off. As he walked toward the harbour he was acutely aware of the stares coming from the people he passed, at first certain that it was because of the trial and convinced that they whispered to one another after he’d gone by, but after a few minutes he realized that it was more likely because of the dog, who was leaping ahead and pulling him along at a frantic pace. At the foot of the pier, he pulled the rope out of Thaddeus’s hand altogether and went racing down the dock to where the Howells were waiting. He leaped at Caroline, nearly knocking her over in his enthusiasm.
Ashby was there to shepherd them aboard the steamer, which was already approaching the dock.
“Thaddeus!” he called. “I thought you might come.”
Ellen Howell said nothing at all, but walked a few paces farther down the pier.
“We thought it best to go this morning,” Ashby said. “The reporters are still scribbling away at their reports of the trial, but it won’t be long before they’ll be looking for something more to write about. I didn’t want Mrs. Howell pestered.”
Thaddeus nodded and walked up to stand beside her.
“I can’t begin to thank you for what you did,” she said when he reached her side.
“It was only right,” he said.
“But not many would have bothered.”
Whatever he’d thought he was going to say to her died on his lips at the constraint in her manner. He could never, he realized, tell this woman that the prosecutor had been correct, that he had acted as he did in order to gain her good opinion. Her slip of expression in that one unguarded moment in the courtroom had made Thaddeus see himself as she must — as a wild-eyed country preacher of an unsophisticated creed, dusty from the road in his rusty black coat, an aging fanatic in a backwater colony with nothing to offer but the conviction of his own importance. How foolish he had been. How mad.
The silence stretched out between them.
“Will you ever finish Mansfield Park?” she finally asked.
“No. I don’t think I will now. I may never know how it ends.”
“Happily for some, not so happily for others.”
“You’d read it before?”
“Several times,” she admitted. “It was still the perfect choice, and there’s a paragraph at the end that reminds me of you: When I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into foreign parts.
“No, I think maybe that part of my life is behind me.”
She continued to look out across the lake, her eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun on the water, her face in perfect profile. He watched her sidelong, but closely, trying to etch the look of her into his memory.
“Where are you going?”
“For now, to Rochester. My husband has connections there. I expect that’s the easiest place to start looking for him.”
“You still want to find him? After everything that’s happened?”
“What would you have me do, Mr. Lewis?” She turned to fully look at him for the first time. “Whether I like it or not, my fortunes are tied to his. And he’s not a bad man. He loves his daughter.”
Thaddeus suddenly remembered the satchel he had under his arm. Without a word, he handed it to her.
He could tell that she knew what it contained. Her eyes were full of question as she took it from him.
“It really is over for you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
As the steamer tied up at the dock, Digger barked furiously, running up and down with Caroline in pursuit. Ellen turned to watch them, a frown on her face.
“I don’t know what to do about the dog. We can’t take him with us.”
“I’ll keep him. Until you want him.”
She nodded. “Goodbye, Mr. Lewis.”
She intercepted Caroline, and after a huddled discussion the girl dropped to her knees in front of Digger. He licked her face and wagged his tail furiously. Then she grabbed the rope still dangling from his neck and walked him to where Thaddeus stood.
“Will you take care of him?” she asked, her face streaked with tears.
“Of course I will. And when you’re ready to take him back, you have only to ask.”
She gave the dog one last lingering pat, then ran up the gangplank without looking back.
Ashby walked up to stand by Thaddeus. Together they watched while the steamer pulled out into the harbour.
“That all turned out rather well, didn’t it?” he remarked cheerfully.
Martha said she found Ashby “exasperating,” and at that moment Thaddeus knew exactly what she meant. “Will they ever come back, do you think?”
“I doubt it,” Ashby said. “Unless Donald Dafoe is indicted, George Howell is still technically wanted for murder. I gave Warren Garrett the agreement, by the way, so that may well happen. But then there would still be fraud and counterfeiting charges for Howell to answer to. No, if she finds him, they’ll stay in the States. It’s safer. And I don’t think there’s much of anything here for them now.”
“What about the farm? That’s worth something, isn’t it?”
“I should think so, because of the railway. Mrs. Howell asked me to arrange a sale. She promised to write from time to time to provide instructions.”
“And you? Where do you go from here, Mr. Ashby?”
“Back to Toronto. I’m leaving on the one o’clock steamer, actually.”
“Oh. Martha was hoping you might come for dinner.”
“Please thank her for me. I’ll be sorry to miss one of her meals. But business calls.” He began to walk back toward shore. Thaddeus fell into step beside him. Had Ashby at that moment suggested that they walk back to the Globe Hotel to settle in leather chairs and order up brandy and whiskey, Thaddeus would have gladly followed him.
Fortunately, Ashby stopped at the foot of the pier and held out his hand. “Until we meet again,” he said. “You’ve been a wonderful partner. I couldn’t have hoped for better help with all this.”
“So who actually fired the shot, do you figure? Dafoe? Plews? Another one of the Palmer clan?”
Ashby laughed. “I keep telling you, Thaddeus, it doesn’t matter.”
He could smell roast chicken as soon as he walked in the back door of the manse. Martha was just putting the top crust on a pie, a smear of flour across one cheek. She looked up and smiled at him, then frowned when she saw the dog.
“Couldn’t you find them?” she asked.
“I found them. They couldn’t take the dog. I said I’d keep him until they could.”
“Where have they gone?”
“Rochester. To look for Mr. Howell.”
“Oh. I suppose we’ll manage, but Digger won’t be happy.” She crimped the edge of the pastry, then set it in the oven. “When is Mr. Ashby coming?”
“He isn’t. He’s leaving for Toronto at one.”
“Oh … well … we’ll have to have our own celebration then, I guess. Just you and me.” But Thaddeus could see that she was upset.
It was a glum meal. Neither had much of an appetite, and neither of them seemed able to think of anything to say that wouldn’t open a floodgate of difficult conversation.
“Pie?” Martha asked, after they had picked at the chicken.
“Maybe later.”
She cleared the dishes away. Then Thaddeus heard her go out the back door. He followed. She’d tied Digger to the fence and was sitting on the back stoop watching him. He sat down beside her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. She was crying a little.
“Yes … No. I’m just being silly.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I’m not even sure I like him. But I did think that he would at least come and say goodbye.”
“He is, as you pointed out to me, a most exasperating man.”
“Yes, he is.” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “There, I’m done.”
“No, you’re not. But you will be.”
He leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. The wind was chilly, a promise of the winter to come, but he could feel the heat of the afternoon sun on his face, and it soothed him.
“What about you? Are you all right?”
“No. But like you, I expect I will be someday.” Then a thought struck him. “Did you ever finish the book?”
“Mansfield Park? Yes. It’s rather silly. Girls with nothing on their minds but finding a husband.”
“But what else could they do? It’s been pointed out to me that women don’t have many choices.”
She thought about this for a moment. “I don’t know. You’re right, of course; there isn’t much else for women to do. But I’d never turn anyone down because he doesn’t have enough money, like the girl in the book did. She decides she can’t marry him because he’s going to be a minister, you know.” She eyed him closely, watching for his reaction to this.
“Really? That explains something someone said to me today.”
He was grateful that she didn’t ask him to clarify. She really was very like her grandmother, he thought — she knew when to speak and when to let things lie. They sat in silence for a few moments, and then Thaddeus said, “I’m going to give up preaching. I have no right to do it anymore.”
She didn’t argue the point with him. “What are you going to do instead?”
“I don’t know. I’ll finish out my year here, only because the church would find it difficult to fill the position on short notice. But I won’t take another appointment.”
“But where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“So where will I go?”
He hadn’t taken Martha into account in his decision. “Back to Wellington, I suppose. You always have a home with your father.”
“But I only just got the manse arranged the way I want it.” She jumped to her feet and went to pat Digger’s head.
“What’s the matter? Do you like it here that much?”
“Yes!” She shouted it at him. Digger looked at her and whined.
“So what is it you want to do?”
“I don’t know! Anything but go back home again. I want to see different places. Meet different people. Have an adventure.”
“You just had an adventure,” he pointed out. “It left you crying on the back doorstep.”
“Yes, it did. And it was the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.” She began to pace up and down in front of him. He stayed silent until she was ready to speak.
“If I go back to Wellington, all I’ll do is cook and clean and look after until I get married, and then I’ll cook and I’ll clean and I’ll look after until I’m an old lady and so worn out with scrubbing that there’s nothing left to do but lie down and die. And all the while I’d be wondering what I missed.”
She stopped pacing and stood in front of him. “Do you see? I just want a chance to find out what the rest of the world looks like.”
“You’d rather come with me?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t know where I’ll end up.”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Not knowing where you’re going to end up?”
He had to admit that he liked having her around. She was the last of his girls. Over the years he’d lost his daughters, one by one. Then his wife. Martha was oddly like all of them. There were moments when he thought she was the spit and image of her mother. At other times she reminded him so much of Betsy that he would be taken aback. But the ghosts of the little ones — Grace and Ruth and Anna and Mary — they were there, too, and whispered to him in unexpected ways.
He had promised Martha once, when she was very small, that he would never go far from her. He was sure she didn’t remember it, but the words came back to him now. Maybe it was time to keep his promise. Maybe he could begin to set himself right again if he did.
He looked at her sternly. “I’d still want you to wash my socks.”
“I’ll make them soft as a lamb’s fleece.”
“And you’ve got to stop moving the furniture around. If I ever stumble home in the dark, I’ll break my neck.”
“I can do that.”
“All right.”
She gave a little shriek and threw herself at him in an exuberant hug that nearly knocked him over.
“Careful,” he said. “I’m old bones, you know,” but he was grateful to her. He had no idea what he was going to do with his life, but apparently he wasn’t going to be doing it alone.