Settlement. Ann Birch
to Mary, who no longer wanted him in her bed. And goodbye to promotion now that the new Gov had seen him consorting with a “savage”.
They made themselves comfortable beds of dried bracken and tender balsam tips and lay down for a sound sleep. They rose at dawn and loaded their canoe in preparation for the trip.
“I’m going for a swim,” Sam said. “Just a few minutes’ more respite before we launch the canoe.”
Taking off his clothes, he swam out into the cool lake waters, his destination a small island a few hundred yards off shore. “You swim like an otter,” Jacob had told him once long ago. “So I call you ‘Nehkik’.” It was one of the few compliments he had ever received from his Indian friend, though they had known each other from childhood, when his parents had struck a friendship with Jacob’s Chippewa grandparents.
He climbed up on the rocks of the little island and looked back at Jacob, who waved to him from the shore, then disappeared into the bush.
His fingers cupped around his mouth, Sam called out, “WOOOOO!” And again, “WOOOO!”
A few minutes elapsed. He called again, “WOOOO!”
Then Jacob reappeared on the shore. He’d strapped the moose antlers to his head somehow, perhaps with the beaded sash he wore on his buckskin jacket. “WOOOO!” he called back.
Laughing, Sam dived from a rock back into the chill waters and headed for shore.
Anna’s husband must have known that she had arrived in Toronto. At this time of year, there was but one steamboat a day from Niagara, and this vessel had been the last to make the crossing till spring. But he had not come to meet her. She stood alone on the dock, her trunk and portmanteau beside her on the slush-covered planks. The bay had nearly frozen over, and three feet of snow lined the shore, blowing into her face. The other passengers had already commandeered cabs or rushed into the waiting arms of family and friends. What to do next?
In the one letter she had received from Robert weeks ago, he had mentioned a pretty little house he was building with a view of the lake. Where was it? Would it have a hot fire? An obliging maid to serve a tasty dinner? She looked up towards the town, a dingy place of frame and log buildings against the dark gleam of a pine forest.
On the street facing the bay was a tavern towards which a man in a greatcoat and top hat appeared to be heading. She saw him pause to look out towards the lake and the departing steamboat. Then, seeing her alone on the wharf, he moved towards her.
“Help you, ma’am?” He removed his hat and bowed.
He had friendly blue eyes that looked straight at her. Not a young man, middle-aged like herself. Up close, she could see that his coat was well-cut superfine and his gloves, good leather. Evidently a man of stature.
“I’m Anna Jameson. I expected my husband to meet me here, but something must have delayed him.”
“Mrs. Jameson? Ah, you are the Attorney-General’s wife. Welcome to Toronto. The town has been expecting you to arrive.” He smiled. “Do not look surprised. You will soon find that there are no secrets in this place. I’m Sam Jarvis. At your service, ma’am.”
In an instant he had hailed a two-horse wagon on runners, driven by a red-cheeked yokel who made no effort to help. Two swings of Mr. Jarvis’s arm, and her luggage was aboard. Then he steadied her up the step to a wooden plank which served as a seat.
“No. 1, Bishop’s Block, Newgate Street,” he said to the driver, slipping a coin into his outstretched hand. And to Anna, “He’ll get you there safely. Good day to you. Undoubtedly we shall meet again soon. I look forward to it.”
They went west along the street bordering the harbour. It was called Palace Street. What a misnomer! She saw one ugly church, St. James by name, without tower or steeple, and some low government offices of red brick. There seemed to be taverns everywhere, but not a single bookseller’s shop. The snow pelted into her face as they moved through dreary, miry ways, largely solitary because of the storm. It was strangely quiet, the horses’ hooves muffled in the falling snow. Eventually, the wagon stopped—not in front of a pretty little house—but beside one of five forlorn-looking brick row houses, on a desolate street.
The driver set Anna’s luggage by the front door, leaving her to climb down from the seat by herself. She watched him drive off. Across the road she noticed a wretched little shanty and a poor half-starved cow, up to its knees in a snowdrift. She ploughed through the snow and banged on the knocker of the brick house.
The sturdy, grey-haired woman who opened the door looked half surprised, half alarmed to see her. But she straightened her apron and curtsied.
“Come in, ma’am. I be Mrs. Hawkins. I fear we have not finished redding up for your arrival. We supposed the boat might be slow coming through that slushy water.” She led Anna up a creaking, uncarpeted staircase. At the top she called out to a small wiry man, evidently her husband. He lugged Anna’s baggage up the stairs and slung it into a room where the bed was unmade, and the bedding and towels were piled upon the mattress. The fires were out. Everything was as cold and comfortless as the outdoors.
Anna looked into another room made dingy by hideous wallpaper of creeping vines. There was a pine dining table, six chairs and a buffet. She tried to envisage a fine supper party in this room. There was a Coalport dinner service that looked usable on the buffet, and perhaps Robert would spend money to repaper the walls. She lost herself for a moment in reverie; then she noticed that Mrs. Hawkins was concealing something behind her apron. She smelled spirits on the woman’s breath.
“Has Mr. Jameson said when he will arrive home?”
“No, ma’am. It be eight o’clock most days, though he never do say for sure.”
She suspected that the manservant had also been drinking. The decanter of brandy on the buffet was half empty and had no stopper. Tired as she was, she held out her hand to the woman.
“Give me the stopper. Better still, put it back where it belongs. Make your husband and yourself a strong cup of tea and bring one to the bedchamber for me also. Then I expect you to get the fires lighted, these rooms made ready, and the meal preparation under way. When I’ve had my tea, I will go for a walk. I expect everything to be in order when I come back.”
The tea was scalding, and she felt better after drinking it. It was now the middle of the afternoon, and already the light through the dirty windows seemed darker. She made haste to put on her heavy outerwear and went down the stairs, but as she moved towards the door, the servant came running with gaiters and two strange-looking wooden soles mounted on iron oval rings. “These be for the outdoors, ma’am.”
Anna put on the canvas gaiters. She could see that they would provide warmth and protection from the slush. Then Mrs. Hawkins showed her how to put on the things she called “pattens”. They raised Anna’s shoes an inch from the ground, and they made a clanking sound when she moved forward. “You’ll not be noticing it in the snow, ma’am,” the woman assured her.
But when Anna tried to walk down the street, she found it necessary to adopt a kind of waddle, feet far apart, to compensate for the extra width of the pattens. An urchin pointed at her and laughed. Suddenly she was tired, more tired than she had ever been in her life. She turned back to the house, shook off the pattens in the front hall and removed the gaiters. She took her coat and went upstairs.
In the drawing room across the hall from the dining room, she found one comfortable armchair beside a Pembroke table piled high with newspapers. Perhaps it might be a good idea to find out the news in this wretched place, she thought, and took the top paper from the pile. But the headlines blurred in front of her, and her eyes closed.
As she drifted into sleep, she could hear the servants’ voices.
“Thought we’d say good riddance to her for an hour.”
“At