Governing Passion (18 page)

Pettigrew talked a little more about his
sister, but after a while had said all that could be said on the
subject. The air was crisp and clear, and the two men soon fell
into a companionable silence. There was even a little light snow to
cover the ruts and blemishes on the much-used road. Twice they
passed sleighs coming west and received enthusiastic waves and
cheers. There was something inherently cheerful about a sleigh-ride
through the snow.

They had been travelling about an hour when
Marc spotted what appeared to be a sleigh parked sideways across
the road about fifty yards ahead.

“Looks like someone’s had trouble,” Pettigrew
said.

“Let’s see if we can help,” Marc said.

When they were about thirty yards from the
vehicle, someone stood up behind it. Marc reacted instantly. He
grabbed Pettigrew and pulled him down on the floor of the cutter. A
lead ball thudded into the seat just above them.

“Jesus, we’re being shot at!” Pettigrew
cried.

“We are. And we’re sitting ducks in
here.”

“But how did you know?”

“I was a soldier. I recognize a rifle when I
see one. Especially if it’s pointed at me.”

Marc peered around the side of the seat.
“They’re coming for us!” he cried. “We’ve got to make a run for the
woods.”

With Pettigrew just behind him, Marc leaped
out of the cutter and hit the ground running. A bullet whizzed past
him into the snow. He made it to the nearest clump of cedars and
turned to look back. Pettigrew was sprinting towards him. A shot
rang out and Pettigrew pitched into a drift. Marc did not hesitate.
He ran to his young friend and hauled him into the relative safety
of the cedars.

“Where are you hit?” he asked,
breathless.

“In the leg. It just grazed me. I’ll be all
right.”

“Can you run?”

“I think so.”

“Then we’d better skedaddle.”

The two men took off at full speed, straight
into the bush. They could hear the shouts of their pursuers, not
far behind.

“They think they’ve wounded you,” Marc said.
“They’ll keep coming, I’m afraid.”

“I’m all right. There’s just a little
bleeding here on my calf.”

“With all this snow they’ll be able to track
us easily. But we’ve got no choice. They’re armed with rifles. We
have nothing.”

“Well, let’s go, then. We’ve got to outrun
them, eh?”

They took off, in what direction they really
didn’t know, except that they seemed to be getting farther into the
woods and the snow was getting deeper.

“We’ll be exhausted in ten minutes at this
rate,” Marc said when they paused to catch their breath. They could
hear their pursuers in the near distance.

“And my leg is starting to really hurt,”
Pettigrew said.

“Our only hope is that they give up before we
do.”

“Unless they’re on snowshoes. Then we’ve had
it.”

The two men staggered forward. The drifts
were up to their knees, and each step was more painful than the
last. The snow had stopped but it was still cloudy and sunless
overhead. Pettigrew began limping.

“I can’t go much farther, Marc,” he said.

“What’s that just ahead?”

“It looks like a creek.”

“Then we may be in luck. Can you get that
far?”

“I think so.”

Grimacing with every step, Pettigrew followed
Marc to the creek. As Marc had hoped, the centre of the stream was
snow-free – an icy ribbon of frozen water. “Let’s get out there
quick!”

When they got out to the icy patch, Marc
hesitated. “That way is the way we came, I think. They’ll figure we
went the other way – ahead.”

He led the way along the icy surface, leaving
no bootprints of any kind. They had to get around the first bend,
though, before the pursuit reached the creek. They made it to the
bend, but did not stop for another five minutes.

“I don’t hear anything,” Marc said.

“Neither do I.”

Fortunately their would-be assassins had been
noisy, talking and shouting to one another as they tracked their
prey. Now there was no sign of them. They had come to the icy
centre of the creek and not known which direction their prey had
taken. Also where the creek bent – often -- the icy patch extended
to the banks, so that even if the pursuers split up, they would
have to slow down and inspect every bend for the possibility of
escape there. And although the ice was slippery, it was easier
going than the two- and three-foot drifts in the woods.

However, Pettigrew’s leg was now really
bothering him. Marc decided he had to help. He took Pettigrew’s
right arm and laid it over his shoulder. They hobbled forward,
three-legged.

“How long can we stay on this creek?”
Pettigrew asked between gasps. “Aren’t we lost? If we do go back
into the bush, we’ll just wander around till we freeze.”

“We’ve got no compass and no sun. But I
recall crossing a creek about a mile before we were attacked. If
this is the same creek, then eventually we’ll end up back on the
Kingston Road.”

“If.”

“That’s the operative word. But it’s our only
chance.”

They continued on. Pettigrew’s breathing was
becoming more laboured.

“Who do you think they were?” he asked when
they had stopped to rest.

“Someone who knew our plans or suspected
them.”

“But how could they know?”

“Perhaps Thériault let something slip at his
end. Whatever happened, there are people willing to kill to keep us
from bringing Thériault over to our camp.”

“I hope Thériault’s all right.”

“They wouldn’t touch him. He’s a hero, like
LaFontaine. No, it’s us they’re after.”

“Maybe they’ll assume we froze to death out
here.”

“Or at least turned back for home,” Marc
said, getting up.

Fifteen minutes later the creek led them to
the Kingston Road.

“What now?” Pettigrew asked. “I’m feeling
faint.”

“Well, we can’t go back to the cutter. They
could have left someone there. We’ll just wait here under cover
until we hear someone coming along the road.”

It was growing dark when they heard a sleigh
coming towards them from Kingston. “We’ve got to take a chance on
this,” Marc said. “You need a doctor – soon. And I’m freezing to
death.”

Pettigrew, who had been drifting in and out
of consciousness, replied, “Yes, soon.”

Marc stepped out onto the road, and held his
breath. The sleigh, a big one with two horses, drew up in front of
him.

“Need a ride, stranger?” a portly man called
from the driver’s seat. A woman, bundled up, sat beside him.

“Yes, we do,” Marc said. “I’ve got an injured
man who needs medical attention. How far are you going?”

“Brockville. But there’s a doctor there. I’ll
take you to him.”

Marc thanked the man and got Pettigrew into
the back seat of the sleigh. Marc introduced himself, but said only
that he and his friend were on their way to Cornwall on business
when their team bolted and his friend had injured his leg. When
they came to the place where the attack had occurred, Marc saw the
cutter by the side of the road, without its horses. The assassins
had cut them loose.

“There’s your sleigh all right,” their
rescuer said. “But no sign of your horses. I suppose they’ll head
home eventually.”

Marc agreed, but what he was thinking was
that they were fortunate themselves to be able to head home –
eventually.

***

It was noon the next day before Marc and a
patched-up Pettigrew reached Cornwall and the Roadside inn. The
horses had been picked up by a traveller and brought to Brockville.
Marc found them when he checked the livery stable there. He
arranged for someone to go and fetch the cutter, and said he would
take cutter and horses back to Kingston on his return trip.
Meantime he hired another sleigh and team to take them to
Cornwall.

At the Roadside Inn they were welcomed, but
not by Henri Thériault. They spent the evening in their rooms,
reading and trying not to appear anxious. But time moved slowly.
The next day Christopher Pettigrew went for a walk and managed to
open up his wound again.

“I’ll send for the doctor, Christopher,” Marc
said. “We want you to be in top form if your friend shows up.”

“It’s looking less and less likely,”
Pettigrew said. “He’s only half a day from here.”

They were sitting in the lounge when the
front door of hotel opened.

“Ah, it’s the doctor,” Marc said.

“No,” Pettigrew said, “it’s Henri.”

***

“You don’t know how my heart sank that night when
the door opened and I looked up to find an English fellow staring
down at me,” Henri Thériault was saying. He and Pettigrew were in
the lounge, after a good supper, sipping brandy and reminiscing.
Marc was seated a little ways away, discreetly listening to the
conversation in French. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ve landed in the
Devil’s parlour.’”

“And I wondered who on earth had landed on my
doorstep,” Pettigrew laughed.

Henri Thériault was an intense little man,
dark complexioned, and with eyes so fiercely intelligent they were
painful to look at. At the moment, though, they were as relaxed and
amiable as they were ever likely to get.

“But you didn’t hesitate. You asked me
in.”

“You were injured. Stranger or not, I
couldn’t turn you away, could I?”

“But you must have had your doubts, eh, when
I told you who I was and how I got wounded.”

“I admit I did. And I’ve never told you this,
but when the soldiers came knocking on my door, I had a moment of
panic and indecision. I was a Reformer and a sympathizer, but I was
also a law-abiding citizen articling for the law, who believed in
right and wrong. I didn’t know then what you told me later about
the barn-razing and church-burning. But it was more instinct than
reason that made me tell the soldiers you’d been there but had gone
on to downtown Montreal.”

“And I’ve never told you this,” Thériault
said gravely, “but I had my pistol loaded and pointed at you,
though I was probably too groggy to pull the trigger. But then I
heard the soldiers leaving, and I thought: this is a strange
Englishman. I didn’t know then the difference between an Englishman
and a native-born Upper Canadian.”

“But you do now.”

“Yes. And your letters have moved me
deeply.”

Pettigrew signalled for Marc to join
them.

“And Marc here is not native-born, but he has
become a true Upper Canadian. He’s a close friend and confidante of
Robert Baldwin.”

“And this Robert Baldwin has a plan to
benefit both our peoples?” Thériault said to Marc.

“He does,” Marc said. “I gave you the outline
in one of the letters that Christopher sent to you, but I’m here to
flesh it out and answer any questions you might have.”

So, for the next hour Marc expounded Robert’s
theory of responsible government, the governing passion of his
life. He emphasized that the Governor’s cabinet must have the
confidence of the majority party in the Assembly, and that it must
act cohesively to promote the policies of the majority party. And,
of course, the majority party was elected, not appointed. If this
were accomplished – and there was every reason to believe it would
be under Governor Poulett Thomson – then no longer could the
appointed Legislative Council or the Governor himself veto or
indefinitely delay laws favoured by the Assembly. Moreover, if that
Assembly were in control of a united party of the left, comprising
both moderate French
rouge
and moderate English Reformers,
then the agenda of both races could be advanced simultaneously.

“But French is not an official language of
the Assembly,” Thériault pointed out.

“True, but a majority party in the Assembly
can make it so.”

“The capital is in Upper Canada, a very
English city,” Thériault said.

“But that too can be altered. Both Baldwin
and LaFontaine favour moving it to Montreal as soon as
possible.”

“I see. But how do we know the English will
not use us until it is convenient to drop us?”

“For two reasons,” Marc said. “First, without
Louis’ group, there will be no majority. The Reformers are split
and can never hope to make up a majority by themselves. You see,
the key point here is that the racial division is really moot.
LaFontaine and Baldwin, French and English, have more policies in
common than they do differences because of race. That’s the genius
of the arrangement.”

“And the second reason?”

“The leader of the combined Reform group is
not to be Robert Baldwin but Louis LaFontaine.”

That took Thériault by surprise. “This is
agreed?”

“It is. They hope eventually to form a
LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry.”

“And what are these common policies?”

Again, Marc spent time going over the
progressive platform that had been hammered out between Baldwin and
LaFontaine the previous year: the improvement of commerce, new
canal construction, the revamping of the banking system, the
formation of a permanent civil service, and the end of nepotism in
government. Thériault asked searching questions about each point,
and seemed both surprised and pleased with Marc’s answers.
Pettigrew simply sat and marvelled at the depth and range of the
discussion.

Finally, Thériault reached over and shook
Marc’s hand.

“You have convinced me, sir. I shall throw in
with LaFontaine and Baldwin and do my best to persuade others.”

Marc sighed with relief. They were one more
step on the road to responsible government.

ELEVEN

Cobb spent a miserable night sitting in a
dining-room chair in Birch Grove trying, unsuccessfully, to stay
awake. No screams of terror disturbed him unless they were in one
of his many nightmares. When Christine Pettigrew had retired at ten
o’clock, Cobb had been allowed upstairs. Mrs. Baldridge then sat
sentinel outside her mistress’s bedroom door, in the room next to
Cobb, and proceeded to knit. No-one was apparently to disturb
Christine once she went to her own suite. At about eleven o’clock,
Mrs. Baldridge had left for her room and Cobb remained alone – with
nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs. And doze.