Death in the Age of Steam (2 page)

About some things Harris was hypothesizing, but of Theresa's youthful vitality he could not have been more certain were she standing before him on the stove-hot gravel of Trinity Square. He could visualize her wild with grief. He could not begin to imagine her too overcome to see her Papa to his grave. Never. Crane could say what he liked.

The coffin was at last being carried from the church. Among the pallbearers, Harris recognized a granite-faced former mayor of Toronto, a Superior Court judge, two Reform Members of Parliament, and even one Conservative—as well as Sheridan's young law partner, Jasper Small, whose blank expression suggested that he was numbed by his loss and was there in body only. Crane supported the right rear corner.

There was an awkward moment when, possibly owing to pressure from behind, the forward bearers seemed to lose control of the steering. The ornate casket, which from what he had seen of its finish Harris had supposed to be rosewood, clanged metallically when it touched one of the hearse's steel tires. The onlookers gasped.

Aware of a rustle at his flank, Harris turned to find that a pert, round-faced young woman in a plain but neatly stitched black dress was straining to see past him. Straining perhaps to see Crane, the living son-in-law, rather than the resonant box of Sheridan's remains. Thick, jet-black curls seemed to push the mourning bonnet back off her head. There was something familiar about the avidity of her gaze, the jut of her elbow, the moustache of perspiration above her full upper lip.

“Come in front of me, miss,” he suggested, “for a better view.”

She did so with noisy thanks. Suddenly he thought he could place her.

“Did I not see you at the Peninsula Hotel on Saturday night?”

“My parents are in service there,” she threw back over her shoulder. “But I don't remember you there, sir. You can't have stayed long.”

Three evenings ago, Harris had attended a July 12 dance on the far side of the bay, and the service was as assiduous as Orange Toronto could have required. He had indeed left early, however. He had no particular reason to celebrate the rout of Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne. He endured quite as many toasts to “Our Protestant Sovereign” as any freethinker could endure. The best of the evening was standing with a cheroot on the deck of the steam ferry that carried him home across the malodorous harbour and watching the city draw near.

“Not long,” he said.

While the young woman returned her full attention to the movements of Henry Crane, Harris lingered with the memory of that ferry crossing—of the last moments before the hammer fell.

Twenty years earlier, when his father had first brought him
here as a boy of eight, Toronto had been a city only in name. No longer York, but still muddy. Still lit by smoky tallow. Twenty years from now, the community might well be choking on the soot from factory chimneys, the first of which were just making their appearance.

But on this summer Saturday in 1856, Toronto was a string of pearls reflected in the still water. Gas jets shone from the docks, from the new Union Station, from the luxurious American Hotel, and from the Georgian-style villas along Front Street, dwellings which for the most part still enjoyed an unobstructed view of the bay. Harris's delight was enhanced by the thought that two of these brightly illuminated residences belonged to Robert Baldwin, although he no longer lived there, and to William Sheridan.

On disembarking from the ferry after the dance, he had found that William Sheridan no longer lived there either. There was black crape on his door.

A cast iron coffin was still a costly rarity—Crane's taste again. Once it was securely stowed, the double glass doors at the back of the hearse were closed upon it, and the funeral procession began forming up. Two attendants wearing black capes and carrying black-dyed ostrich plumes were to walk ahead of Sheridan's remains. From James Street, plumed coaches and fours inched into the crowded square. The dignitaries took their time climbing aboard.

“Get on with it,” exclaimed the round-faced woman. Then, aware she had been overheard, she turned to Harris and asked if he could see all right.

“Perfectly.”

He too was impatient. Fear for Theresa had powerfully seized upon him. He itched to know also what Crane wanted.

“Were you acquainted with the deceased, miss?” he added, conscious of having answered her rather curtly.

“I did some sewing for him. I knew his daughter better.”

“Knew or know?” Harris's interest was now more than polite.

“I made all Mrs. Crane's clothes. Everything she had new in
the past year was stitched by Marion Webster.” There was pride in her voice, and she evidently hoped for Harris's commendation, which he had not seen Theresa recently enough to give in any but the most general terms.

“You must do good work then, Miss Webster,” he said and mentioned his own name. “Has she ordered mourning wear from you?”

“Not a stitch.” The seamstress met his eyes boldly. “Do you think it's true she's in the hospital?”

“Hospital?” Harris repeated in astonishment. “Who says so?”

“Her husband, Mr. Crane. I've seen she's not at home, at least.”

“I know nothing about it. Her condition . . . ?”

“Bad, I suppose.”

Harris knew of no condition bad enough to warrant placing a woman of Theresa's means in such an institution, but he didn't get to pursue the subject. Just then a red-haired man, dressed rather for a country auction than for a funeral, pushed through the crowd and took Marion Webster by the upper arm. Between the frayed cuff of his coarse-weave jacket and his dirt-caked nails, his thick fingers pressed lightly into the flesh beneath her black bombazine sleeve. Without freeing herself, as she easily might have done, the young woman directed towards him a frosty look, which seemed not to displease him. His hooded eyes twinkled. His warty, oval face broke into a sardonic grin.

“You have something for me,” he said. “Let's go where we can talk.”

“Miss Webster is favouring
me
with her conversation at present,” said Harris, betraying less resentment than he felt—both at the interruption and at the rude handling of the young woman.

“That's all right, Mr. Harris,” said Marion Webster. “I'll go with Mr. Vandervoort.”

“John Vandervoort, Mr. Harris. Procurement officer for the Garrison. I must speak to Miss Webster concerning the . . . ah . . . the new battle colours she is stitching for the Wiltshire Grenadiers.”

Harris knew for a fact there was no such regiment at the Toronto Garrison, or for that matter in the British army.

He assessed Vandervoort as muscular enough to cause even a strong girl much annoyance if he chose, but past the height of his vigour. Fond of his comforts. His nose was brightly veined, and a tin flask protruded from a side pocket of his check jacket. Harris saw no reason to cringe before him.

“You're sure, Miss Webster, you don't require assistance?”

“Oh, quite. I'm in no danger. Excuse me.”

Vandervoort, his hand now at the back of her waist, ushered Marion Webster out of the square. Powerless to detain her, Harris watched with misgiving until they were lost to view, then made his way to Crane's side.

“So, there you are, Isaac. We're next. That's all right, Oscar.” Brisk now as Harris could desire, Crane opened the door to his brougham before the coachman had time to jump down.

Mystery seemed to be piling on mystery. As Harris settled into the plush, pearl-grey upholstery, he wondered why Crane—always so avid for the ear of politicians—should choose on this occasion to send them on ahead in the coaches reserved for the chief mourners and himself ride to the cemetery in his own conveyance with no better company than a bank cashier.

Crane settled into the seat beside Harris and pulled the door shut. The confined space smelled of new leather and of Crane's soap. What was it? Something oriental, Harris thought—sandalwood perhaps.

“It's a warm day for a closed carriage,” said Crane, mopping his forehead with a black-bordered handkerchief, “but it gives us a chance to be by ourselves for a bit.”

Through the front window, the coachman up on the box could be seen flicking the horse into motion with his reins. Four well-oiled wheels rolled smoothly forward.

“Mrs. Crane is rumoured to be in the General Hospital,” said Harris. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I really should have thought of something better,” Crane replied. “The fact of the matter is she has disappeared.”

The word shocked Harris. His entire body seemed to clench. Even the gentle forward motion of the carriage became oppressive, and he would have had the driver stop had they not been in the middle of a funeral procession. Doubly oppressive was the presence of the other man, Theresa's husband. His voice was so even that he might have been making a heartless joke, or merely putting out another lie for public consumption.

Harris forced himself to study Crane's pink, clean-shaven face. It was firmly fleshed, smoothly handsome, dignified, amiable despite small eyes, and otherwise unexpressive. Harris remembered, though, an incident during the funeral service.

Theresa's husband had read from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. Harris thought of Henry Crane as having a glib tongue and heart, but nothing could have been less glib than his performance on this occasion. From the moment he had stood up, the substantial man of business had shown untypical diffidence. He had moved slowly to the reading desk.

A lamp there had already been lit to supplement the daylight slanting into the church through plain glass windows. The gas flame shone off the pink bald patch in the middle of Crane's head as he inclined it over the Bible. Around the ears, his straight sandy hair was clipped short. This habitual if unfashionable cut appeared in the context almost monkish.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” His toneless voice reached to the farthest member of the hushed congregation. “A time to be born—”

Here Crane stopped as if paralyzed. The mourners held their breath. The silence lasted too long to be a mere rhetorical flourish. If Crane had at this moment wiped his eye or sat down or given any other sign of incapacity to continue, Harris would have doubted his sincerity instantly. But the voice at last continued in the same steady key: “—and a time to die.” Crane completed the reading without further interruptions, then walked quietly back to to his seat.

Harris thought of that halting reading and wondered what more was behind Crane's show of emotion than had appeared at the
time. Again the industrialist seemed hesitant.

“Disappeared?” said Harris, finding his own voice with difficulty. “How can she have?”

“She'll likely turn up safe,” said Crane. “What happened is she went for a ride Sunday afternoon and didn't come back.”

“She went alone?”

“Yes. I was busy with funeral arrangements, but she said she needed air and exercise. I thought they would do her good considering the heavy blow of her father's death.”

“Please continue.”

Crane continued, calmly reasonable. “She often rode alone. My wife is an excellent horsewoman—as you know. I was concerned, but didn't overrule her.”

“And her horse?” said Harris. “I take it she was riding Spat. Has the animal not found its way home?”

“No, Isaac. Look, I wanted to ask you whether she has communicated with you in any way.
Has she?
” Crane's voice sharpened suddenly, as if he suspected Harris's surprise might be feigned.

“She has not.”

“Neither before Sunday nor since?”

“There's been no communication between us,” Harris flatly declared, “direct or indirect, since before her marriage.”

His hazel-brown eyes becoming even smaller, Crane held Harris's gaze. The question still hung between them.

This was not the Henry Crane who—with never a look behind—had wooed Theresa away from the disastrously diffident Harris. Rolling up Yonge Street past the many crape-hung shop windows, Harris reflected on the change.

He had been quiet and respectful as a suitor, Crane voluble and relentless. Harris had shared recreative and scientific interests with Theresa for years, but it was only when offered the cashier's post that he had felt in a position to contemplate marriage. That happened to be the moment Crane began frequenting William Sheridan's table.

Crane had been both older and newer, fresher and more
seasoned. Harris didn't really believe Crane's money had swayed Theresa, but understood that Crane was all the more dashing for never having to think twice about his means. Harris had three or four investments, but Crane had projects. He made things happen. And he wasn't the least bit reticent around women.

The brougham turned east on Carlton, a residential street. Harris's recollection skirted around the snowy afternoon in Sheridan's Front Street drawing room, when Theresa had innocently told him of her decision. Harris had been unable—had she noticed?—to lift his eyes from one green on yellow arabesque in the Tabriz Persian carpet, a writhing curl that from the intense scrutiny of that half hour in the fading light had become for him the very image of pain. His pain. At no time had he wanted her to suffer.

For her sake, it was to be hoped that Crane loved her more sincerely than appeared, or that he would come to do so. Harris still had his doubts. Whatever the present state of his affections, though, Crane had plainly lost his former confidence regarding Theresa's.

Seeming to read Harris's mind, Crane relaxed his wary squint and glanced away into the leafy green of Allan Park, where two squirrels were chasing each other around the trunk of an oak. Having apparently satisfied himself that Harris had indeed taken no part in his wife's disappearance, Crane would have dismissed him had circumstances permitted. Harris, for his part, was glad they were stuck with each other for the eight or ten more blocks it would take them to reach St. James's Cemetery. He had questions of his own.