Solemn Vows (21 page)

T
HREE DAYS WENT BY WITH NO WORD
from Danby’s Crossing. Marc sent Cobb back to his regular patrol, subject to instant recall should the need arise. Major Burns’s fingers stiffened
so much that his pen dropped between them. Marc buried himself in paperwork. Colin fumed and boiled by day and avoided Marc in the evenings by heading out somewhere every night. “The blast of his cologne would’ve brung a donkey to its knees,” Mrs. Standish informed Marc, who was grateful for such news, as it seemed that Colin had found some female company to help him cope with his bitter disappointment (as long as that company wasn’t the daughter of a possessive and vengeful receiver general). The day trip out to Streetsville had been particularly trying as Angeline’s second cousin proved to be an exact copy, and so poor Willoughby had had a giggler at each ear and was paraded about the town like a wooden soldier on display.

“I feel like a goddamn pimp!” he was heard raving to a defenceless duty- corporal.

As for Marc, he avoided Eliza’s company for as long as he could, and found more than one reason to pass by the dry- goods store and its adjacent millinery each day. But he didn’t go in, and no one he knew came out.

On Thursday evening, the governor’s cortège returned, and everything changed.

H
ILLIARD WAS BUG- EYED WITH EXCITEMENT
as he recounted to the staff of Government House the succession of triumphant speeches delivered by Sir Francis. Colonel MacNab was ecstatic. Receiver General Maxwell predicted a
Tory-Constitutionist landslide, with even Mackenzie going down to defeat in the second riding of York. There wasn’t the faintest rumour of a threat against the governor. Security had been tight, the crowds boisterous but non- violent. The governor’s message had sunk in, and its effect had been palpable.

So when Marc was asked to join Sir Francis in his office after supper that evening he was astonished to find him in high dudgeon. By the time Marc arrived, he had already worked himself into a crimson rage—with the ailing Major Burns as his sole witness. Marc had expected to be asked immediately for a report on Rumsey and another on Angeline and the accident, but the governor had already chosen his theme.

“I want that bastard’s name, do you hear?” he shouted at Marc across the room.

“Do calm yourself, sir,” Burns was saying. “You’ll do yourself some damage.”

“I do not intend to be upstaged by some anonymous coward calling himself by the ludicrous name of Farmer’s Friend. The people of Brantford and Woodstock and London heard for themselves who is really the farmer’s friend!”

“I’m sure they did, sir,” Burns soothed, and glanced at Marc imploringly.

“Damn right they did!” Sir Francis seemed for the moment to have lost sight of Marc. “But everywhere we went, everywhere, those damnable broadsheets preceded us. They
were even left on church pews, I was told, on the Sabbath! And supporters of that traitorous Yankee and so- called Reformer, Bidwell, had the nerve to move through the crowd in London handing them out like invitations to tea! Giving them out to the people who had come to hear their governor, not to have their minds polluted with that rot!”

“But, sir—”

“And don’t tell me to calm down, Titus!” Sir Francis brayed.

“Are you referring to the letters written by Farmer’s Friend, sir?” Marc said quietly.

Sir Francis wheeled and caught sight of Marc near the door. He heaved a huge sigh, and struggled to get his anger under control. When he spoke again his voice was low, but still tight. “It is, Lieutenant. And I’m glad you’re here. I want you to drop everything and follow this Clegg fellow from his house tomorrow morning. Don’t lose him. Let him lead you to the writer of these scurrilous, seditious letters. Find out his name. Then bring him here to me—by force if you must. And don’t tell Cobb. I don’t trust that man.”

“What about the investigation, sir?”

“Damn the investigation, Lieutenant! I want Farmer’s Friend in this office by noon tomorrow! You can tell me then why you haven’t caught Rumsey.”

“But, sir, I thought you wanted to speak to the letter- writer before you left for your tour of the hustings, to help you with—”

“I want those letters stopped, Lieutenant. I do not want anything disrupting what we have accomplished in the past four days. Is that clear? You are to find this traitor and put a stop to his democratic drivel!”

“Understood, sir.”

M
ARC WALKED TOWARDS THE BOARDING HOUSE
through the soft darkness with a slow and troubled step. He had never seen Sir Francis so agitated, so lacking in control or perspective. Moreover, what he was contemplating was not legal. Even if Marc were to track down Farmer’s Friend tomorrow—presuming, of course, that Cobb had not been deliberately misleading them—there was no lawful means of stopping the flow of letters or coercing the author to visit Government House. That some kind of intimidation was being planned Marc found both distasteful and profoundly unsettling. And a good part of his unease had its roots in the unhappy exchange he had had with Beth Smallman just five days earlier.

He was a block away from home when he sensed that he was being followed. He turned quickly, but could see no one. Perhaps his nerves were more frayed than he thought. He had not slept well all week. Every time the duty- corporal or a courier moved through the hallway outside his office, he had jumped with the anticipation of sudden word about Rumsey from Cobb and the call to precipitate action. It had not come.

Marc felt the breeze of the club descending upon him just in time to duck, so that the savage blow glanced off his padded shoulder and merely grazed his shako cap, knocking it off. But the force of the attack spun him sideways and down. He struck the ground hard, and his bare forehead pitched into the root of a tree. The world swam. With blurred vision he saw a black figure raise the club above him, poised for the kill. He rolled away. The club must have missed him, for he found himself against the tree trunk, with his skull still intact.

It was several minutes, though, before his head cleared enough for him to struggle to his knees and peer anxiously about.

“Sorry, Major, I lost the bugger. Are you all right?”

“Yes, Constable. I think so.”

“That was no robber,” Cobb said as he knelt down and helped Marc to his feet. When Marc started to wobble, Cobb hung on to his elbow, and Marc could feel the tensile strength in the little man. “He was tryin’ to kill you, and there ain’t no doubt about it.”

“Then you saved my life, Constable.”

“Just doin’ my duty, Major.”

“But this area’s not on your patrol,” Marc said.

“So it ain’t,” Cobb replied, as his attention was diverted to an object on the ground. “What’s this, then?”

“It’s a button,” Marc said, “from a military uniform.”

“You got enemies in the service, Major?”

Before Marc could respond to this unexpected notion,
Cobb attended to the immediate need. “We need to stop jawin’ and get you home so’s the widow can have a good gander at yer skull. I can see a lump comin’ straight out.”

Marc was happy to let Cobb guide him the remaining few yards to the familiar veranda. “Did you get a good look at him?” he asked.

“Not really, Major. I was some ways off. I let out a holler and the bugger skedaddled in the dark. I had to stop and make sure you was all right before I set off after him. By then he’d got clean away.”

“What did you see of him?”

“Medium build, big overcoat, and a woolly sailor’s cap.”

“Not likely a soldier, then. Though that button is odd,” Marc said.

“And the fellow had a great bushy black beard on ’im.”

M
ARC SAT HUDDLED IN A CLUMP
of lilac a few yards from the house of Abner Clegg, with a thundering headache and a bruised shoulder, staring at the disc of sun just rising over the Don River and thinking about the attempt on his life the previous evening. According to Cobb—who surely must be trusted implicitly from now on—Rumsey had been seen in the Tinker’s Dam with a dark- capped man sporting a bushy beard. Could the person who had paid Rumsey to shoot Moncreiff have come after the man investigating the crime?

Cobb had explained that Rumsey himself was thin and more than six feet tall, so he could not have been the assailant. But why try to murder the investigator when anything he knew or surmised would have been passed along to his superiors? Murdering him would not stop the investigation. This was as far as Marc got with that conundrum, for the front door of Clegg’s shack swung open and the courier himself emerged. He looked carefully about him in all directions. But Marc, wearing a simple blue shirt with grey trousers, could not be seen. Feeling himself safe, Clegg—an angular, loping man—moved swiftly down Front Street towards the market.

Marc waited until Clegg was fifty yards ahead before he came out onto the roadside and sidled along, whistling nonchalantly. One advantage he held over Cobb’s effort last week was that the market on a Friday was only a quarter the size of the one on Saturday. It would be hard for Clegg to elude him there. When he saw Clegg nearing the market, Marc ducked between two houses and, as he had anticipated, his quarry took that moment to glance around for anyone following on his trail. Satisfied that he was home free, Clegg strolled in among the stalls.

Meantime, Marc raced up George Street to the lane that ran behind the row of houses on the north side of Front Street, then wheeled west onto it and reached the market in time to see that Clegg had similar notions—except that he had sprinted past Colborne Street and then deked into the
lane that backed the stores on the south side of King Street. Marc followed. But when he turned into the lane, no one was in sight. Stacks of boxes and crates and rotting refuse lay everywhere. A rat waddled from one pile to the next. Then Marc heard the crack of wood breaking, about thirty yards ahead and to his left. Clegg had slipped into an alley and was headed south back towards Colborne. Marc decided to take a narrower alley to the same destination. Stumbling over debris and scattering rats as he went, Marc emerged not on Colborne but farther south on Market Street. As he peered around the building at the end of the alley, he saw Clegg gazing his way, scrutinizing every bump in the road. Again satisfied, the courier began a more leisurely pace west on Market.

By now Marc knew exactly when Clegg was most likely to turn and stare back behind him. What puzzled him still, though, was the motive behind all this clandestine movement. Despite the governor’s intemperate ranting, there was nothing in any way seditious about the letters. If anything, they were muted and rational in comparison with the regular press on either the left or the right. Why, then, would Farmer’s Friend go to such melodramatic lengths to maintain his anonymity? He felt he was very close to finding that out.

Marc trailed Clegg west along Market, across Yonge, and then north to the tradesman’s lane that again backed the businesses on the south side of King. The courier suddenly
slowed down, and Marc slipped behind a tall packing crate. There was no one else in the lane at this time of day. Few people would be up yet, and no business opened before eight, if then. It was just Marc and Clegg and the empty lane.

Marc watched with some amusement as the courier flattened himself against the wall of a brick building, then edged along towards a door at the back of one of the businesses. He eased one hand around the jamb and rapped—once. A few seconds later, the door was opened slightly, a beige envelope appeared and was grasped, then a large coin followed suit. Clegg tucked the envelope inside his shirt, scoured the lane both ways for the enemy, then moved past Marc at a brisk trot—heading no doubt for Church Street and the
Constitution
.

Marc did not follow. With his heart now thumping more vigorously than his head, he walked up to the door and knocked quietly. When it opened, he merely said, “Hello, Beth.”

“Y
OU MUSTN’T BLAME ABNER CLEGG
for leading me here,” Marc said. “He did everything to lose me but turn himself inside out.”

They were in the small back room again, but this time there was no tea or scones, and they had to keep their voices low because Aunt Catherine was still asleep and unaware of the identity of Farmer’s Friend.

“My letters must be having more influence than I thought,” Beth said. “The governor’s put his top investigator on the trail.”

“I didn’t ask for this assignment. And I had no inkling that you could have been the author. I still can’t believe it.”

“Thanks very much.”

“No, I didn’t mean to imply that—”

“—a woman isn’t smart enough to write letters like that?”

“I don’t know what I thought when I realized Clegg was at your door,” Marc said lamely, as a stab of pain struck him between the eyes.

“You’ve been hurt,” Beth said with concern.

“It’s part of being a soldier. But this bump had nothing to do with you or Clegg. Besides, I’ve been told I’ve got a thick skull.” He smiled warily.

“Tell me more about my letters. Please.”

“Well, they’ve stirred up quite a lot of admiration and an equal dram of umbrage and condemnation.”

“I think that’s about right, don’t you?”

“When the governor got to London, Mackenzie’s people had printed your individual letters as broadsheets and sprinkled them like hailstones all over the political landscape. Sir Francis was not amused.”

“Well, that is praise enough, is it not?”

“He was enraged, actually, and ordered me to bring him the name of Farmer’s Friend or the perpetrator himself by noon today.”

“Have you read them?” Beth said softly.

“Yes, I have.”

“And?”

“And I think they are telling and true and written from the heart.”

Beth caught her breath, and looked up at Marc for a long moment. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.” Then in a different voice, she added, “So what are we to do now? Are you duty bound to turn me in?”

Marc did not answer right away. The question had been clawing at his heart. “Why not let the world out there know who you are? Let them be astounded to learn that the author is a woman who was also a farmer, who suffered exactly as those in her stories suffered, or whose sufferings she took on, on their behalf? Don’t you see how much more power and authority could be gained?”