Settlement. Ann Birch
sat in the hallway. And then the silence, and the doctor calling him inside to look at a small blue-skinned corpse. He’d wanted to comfort Mary, but the sight of his dead son made him sick, and he’d had to puke into the basin with all the bloody cloths.
There had been nine more births within sixteen years of marriage. She said men couldn’t understand. But remembering that stillborn child, then the small son who died in the first year of his life, and all that terrible pain, those screams...well, yes, he could understand why Mary locked her bedroom door. He sighed, reached for her hand and held it. “Don’t worry, my dear, I will not come to your bedchamber again until I have seen Dr. Widmer. He can advise me. I hear there are devices a man can use.”
He could hear her intake of breath. “But surely, Sam, such... devices...are against God’s will.”
His head throbbed. Damn, damn. He’d offered to cover his prick with sheep’s gut, and she tried to give him a lecture on God’s will.
He listened to her sobs for a minute. “Sleep in your narrow bed without worry, my dear.” He climbed down and tiptoed back to his own room. She might come around in a few days. She usually did. He was off for his annual moose hunt tomorrow, anyway. And perhaps Dr. Widmer would have the sheep’s gut coverings by the time he got back. “They’re expensive,” he had told Sam. But Sam had so many debts, what was an extra bill? Widmer could always have another piece of Sam’s land if he desired.
He rose late the next morning. It mattered little when he got to the block of offices that flanked the new Parliament Building. No one cared. Deputy Provincial Secretary: an impressive title for a job that involved paper-shuffling. The pay was not bad, but not enough to cover his father’s debts and his own as well. Perhaps the new governor would come through with a promotion. He had an ego that could be stroked.
Mary was in the breakfast room. He got himself a cup of coffee from the sideboard and sat opposite her.
“Damn it, Mary—”
“Excuse me, sir.” The maid came into the breakfast room carrying a platter of poached eggs. She slipped three onto his plate, two onto Mary’s, and set the rest on the sideboard. While she was checking to see if there was still enough coffee in the urn, he dipped his bread in the eggs and put a large piece into his mouth.
“Disgusting,” he said and spat the dripping mess into his napkin. “Can a man not get a decent breakfast in his own house? These eggs are bad.” He threw the napkin onto the floor.
“If you please, sir, I tested them this morning in cold water. I did, sir. Cook says if they’re fresh, they sink to the bottom. If they’re rotten, they float. And sink they did, sir. I swear it.”
“Don’t argue. Take Mr. Jarvis’s plate to the kitchen and bring him some rashers of bacon.”
The maid picked up the napkin from the floor, set it on Sam’s plate, and hurried off with it.
He watched Mary pick at her eggs, then push them to the side of her plate. They drank their coffee in silence, listening to the sounds of their daughters and the little ones belowstairs, enjoying the attentions of Cook and their expensive but excellent new governess, Miss Siddons. The maid came in again with bacon and fresh-baked rolls, set them at his place, and clumped down the kitchen stairs.
Mary stared down at the uneaten eggs on her plate. The case clock chimed nine times. As if recalled to life, she rose, gathering her shawl around her. It was a cashmere shawl in a soft shade of green that set off her pink cheeks. He had bought it for her from a merchant on King Street, and the bloodsucker kept reminding him of its cost in the quarterly bills that arrived.
The maid came back into the room. She picked up Mary’s plate and headed for the door. Then she turned and came back to the table.
“What is it?”
“Please, sir. I need...”
“Need? What?”
“My wages.”
“You’ll get them, damn it. Now leave me in peace.”
He sat at the table for a few minutes after she left. The bacon grease congealed on his plate. He picked up his cup of coffee. The dregs were lukewarm and bitter.
Sam and Jacob Snake portaged past the Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching, where the Indians had driven stakes into the water to trap fish. Carrying the eighty-pound canoe and their gear, they walked along the bank for a half a mile.
At a turn in the well-worn path, they came upon Sir Francis Bond Head and his official entourage. They were making an inspection of the huge Indian encampment which the previous governor had established. The new man was small in stature with a large head of pretty grey curls. Sam had met him twice before at official functions in Toronto.
“Surprised to see you in such a godforsaken spot, Jarvis,” he said. “Colborne left me with a mess here which I’ll have to sort out. Too many savages in one place. Bound to be trouble.”
“May I present my friend and guide, Jacob Snake?”
No response from Sir Francis. He looked down, seemingly more interested in counting the coloured studs on his frilly shirt than in acknowledging the introduction.
After a pause, Sam said, “Please excuse us, sir. You have much on your mind, and Jacob and I have a trek to accomplish before we make camp. Tomorrow we go moose hunting.”
They tipped the canoe over their heads again and trudged onwards until they were able to put their craft into Lake Couchiching, north of the Narrows. They reached their campsite just after sunset.
“Sorry about the Governor,” Sam said, as they pulled the canoe up on shore. Actually, he was more embarrassed and angry than sorry. “Savages” indeed. The nerve of the man. Why did these British upstarts have such a sense of superiority?
Jacob laughed. “Perhaps he is afraid of losing his buttons.”
“Probably wanted to show us he can count to ten.”
They lugged their gear to an open spot in the bush and threw down the fish they had caught en route.
“I start the fire, Nehkik. You gut the fish. We have a good supper.” Jacob took out his tinder-box and with one deft swipe of the metal pieces, he got a spark going to light the tiny shreds of paper in the bottom of the box. Then he dipped a spill into the burning bits and transferred the flame to the dried moss heaped on the logs he’d already prepared. Sam had watched this procedure many times in his fishing and hunting expeditions with Jacob and was always amazed at the Indian’s dexterity. He had tried to use the tinder-box himself but never achieved anything beyond scraped knuckles.
Sam turned to his own task and soon had several bass ready for the pan. Jacob made strong tea and bannock, and they settled down with tin plates and bone cutlery to an excellent meal.
“You know, Jacob, sometimes when I’m at the Governor’s banquets in Toronto, sawing my way through a tough steak and talking to a corseted matron, I yearn for a meal of fish with you, taken in the peace of a fall evening like this one.” He gestured at the harvest moon rising behind his friend.
“Pardon me, Nehkik, what is this ‘corseted matron’ you speak of?”
“A fat white woman who pulls in her waist with...” Sam found himself unable to describe the heavy material stiffened with whalebones and tied together with laces. “Imagine a wide band of deerskin so tight around your middle that you cannot breathe. Then you will understand ‘corset’.”
“So because the lady cannot breathe, you must do all the talking.”
“That’s about it, Jacob, though I never before realized this was why white women have no conversation.”
After rinsing their plates in the lake water, they sat in silence, smoking their pipes. They