Settlement. Ann Birch
could hear the curses of the two men below—even over the snorting of the pigs. Eventually they found an empty stall and banged the door shut. The barn grew dark. There was no moon, and the pelting rain leaked through the boards overhead, making an incessant pinging sound on the bare floor in a corner of the loft. Sam lay awake, his nostrils filled with the stink of pig shit, his ears assailed by the rain and Boulton’s snores. Finally, just before dawn, he climbed down the ladder and went into the barnyard.
It would all be over before Elmsley’s farmhand made his morning rounds. Boulton and Small had checked that out. Nevertheless, Sam upturned a pail over the head of a rooster he noticed strutting about the yard. If it couldn’t get its neck up to crow, it couldn’t give off alarms to wake the man up.
Too bad someone had not put a pail over Ridout’s head the day he’d burst into Sam’s father’s office and accused the old man of evading his creditors. “Transferred all your land holdings to that son of yours,” he’d said, pointing to Sam, who had come into the office to help his father. “Now my family will never get back the money you owe us.” Sam’s father, who had gout, hobbled towards Ridout, supporting himself on a crutch the family carpenter had made for him.
“You’ve got an almighty nerve,” Ridout said and shook his fist in the old man’s face. The lout seemed ignorant of the fact that Sam’s father had unloaded on him all the huge debts charged against those land holdings. “You’ll pay them off, son,” he’d said as they signed the papers, “and I can die in peace.”
The clerks in the office were witnesses to the elder Jarvis’s humiliation.
Boulton was right. Any decent man would protect a father’s reputation: that was duty. And duty was the fabric of decency. Sam had grabbed Ridout by the back of his coat and booted him out the door.
Later that day, in full view of everyone on King Street, including the drunks in front of the taverns, Ridout had hit Sam with a cane and injured his hand. Then the scoundrel had sent his friend, Small, to Sam’s house with a challenge to a duel.
Sam walked over the field where the duel was to take place, whacking at the burdocks with his walking stick. Where was his blame in all this? He had done what any good son would have done, damn it.
At daybreak, the other three men emerged into the drizzle. Sam went back to the barn to get his pistol from the loft. Then they counted off eight paces in opposite directions, so that when Sam and Ridout turned to face each other, they were only fifty feet apart. Because Ridout was short-sighted, the four of them had previously agreed to this concession, the usual distance being twelve paces. Then Sam noticed that they were between two large tree stumps. He shouted, “We must pick a new spot!”
Small shook his head in disbelief. “A new spot? What are you talking about?”
“Getting cold feet, are you?” Ridout said.
“Because the stumps make it too easy to sight my pistol quickly.”
Well, he’d done the decent thing. If he died on this miserable morning, people would at least have to acknowledge his fair play.
They chose another field that was clear of stumps and once more took their eight paces. “I’ll give the count,” Henry Boulton said. “It will be ‘one...two... three... fire’!”
The duellists turned, raised their pistols to shoulder height, and waited. Boulton called out from a safe distance. Sam could hear him clearly. “One...two—”
But he got no further.
John Ridout fired on the count of two.
His bullet missed Sam. The boy did not seem to know what he had done. He stood there, his pistol smoking, crying over and over, “Have I hurt you, Jarvis?”
Sam could not answer. He had dropped to his knees in response to the sound of the shot, and his heart was pounding so hard he thought it would break through his chest. He could not believe he was still alive. Then came an anger so huge he could not contain it. Kill the bastard. Kill him.
Small and Boulton rushed from opposite sides of the field to huddle together in the rain.
“Jarvis, you must comply with the duelling code and return the fire,” Small said finally.
“And Ridout must not have the chance to reload,” Boulton said. “The scum has broken all the rules of fair play.”
“Agreed.” This comment came from Small, who seemed ashamed now to be his friend’s second.
So Sam and Ridout marked out their paces for the third time. Turned. Faced each other. Ridout raised his empty pistol to shoulder level. Perhaps it was a pitiful attempt at bravado, but the gesture renewed Sam’s fading rage. He remembered his terror. He fired.
The bullet tore into Ridout’s right shoulder, knocking him backwards. Sam threw his pistol to the ground and ran towards him. The jugular vein had burst open. Blood was everywhere. Pools of it leaked onto Ridout’s waistcoat, spattered onto the weeds, soaked the ground under him. “What have I done? What have I done?” cried Sam, his rage spent. The only response was a moan. Then silence.
“He’s dead, Jarvis. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Boulton pulled him away. “Nothing to be done. We’ve got to get out. Now.”
The three men ran. Like rats. And all the way through the bush back into town, Sam said, over and over, “I fired on an unarmed boy. May God forgive me.”
Toronto, 1836
Sam Jarvis woke in the dark, stuffy pit of his four-poster bed. He drew back the curtains that encircled him. A pale half-moon shone through the lace curtains, illuminating the china drink-warmer on the table beside his bed. He took off the lid. The candle at the base had burnt out, but the tea laced with whiskey was still warm. He drank it down in one gulp, then lighted a candle and moved out into the hallway.
He tiptoed past the bedroom of his daughters, the chamber of his eldest sons, and the nursery with its three small inmates, and reached his wife’s room at the end of the hall. He lifted the latch, gave a slight push, and found resistance. He tapped his knuckles lightly against its smooth walnut surface. “Mary, Mary?”
No answer. He knocked again. “Mary, let me in!”
A door down the hallway opened, and a slim little figure in a pink nightdress appeared. “What is it, Papa?”
“Go back to bed, Ellen,” he said. “I just want to see how your mother is.”
As he said this, Mary’s door opened an inch. He glimpsed a strip of her white gown and her bare toes. “Come in if you must,” she whispered as he squeezed by her.
She stepped up onto the bed and moved over to the far side to make room for him. He pulled the curtains around them.
“Why was your door locked, Mary? You know I like to visit sometimes. Is it too much to ask you to let me in without waking up the children in the process?”
“Sam...” She moved towards him. He could smell the rosehip soap she used when she washed her hair. “I’m worn out. I cannot sleep with you again. I’m forty years old. If I found myself in the family way again, I don’t know what I might do.” He heard her sobs. “Men can’t understand.”
He put his hand on her breast and felt her pull away.
“I’ve tried to tell you before, but...I’d rather be left alone...” She rubbed her hot, wet cheek against his chest.
They’d married shortly after his trial for the murder of John Ridout. William Powell had been the judge. Murder among gentlemen—one joker’s definition of duelling—sometimes went unpunished, especially if one’s future father-in-law sat on King’s Bench. He and Mary had hoped for happiness, like any newlyweds. They had not reckoned on the tragedy that had