Duelling in a New World Read online

  Perhaps it’s the man’s youthful face, his gentle voice, and smiling demeanour that reassure William. In a moment, the lad is spilling details about his sweats, chills, and headaches.

  Dr. Baldwin pulls at his hair with his fingers. It seems to be a gesture that accompanies thought. In a moment or two, he turns to White, “He has all the symptoms of ague.”

  “Miss Russell says it’s ague, doctor.”

  “And how did the lady come to that conclusion?”

  “I think it was the sweats that alerted her first. She’s had them herself over the years. And then, of course, she knows both my lads are regular visitors to the bay and the swamps.”

  “Ah, the swamps. That clinches it. These hot days—Indian summer, isn’t it called here?—mean those bloody mosquitoes are still about.” The man runs his fingers through his hair again. “So now we have to find a remedy.” He looks back at William. “I’ll just talk to your father in the hall for a moment while we discuss what we can do for you. But no leeches, remember that, my boy.”

  Once outside the door of the bedchamber, Mrs. Page moves down the hallway and Charles descends to the kitchen. Baldwin puts his hand on White’s shoulder and speaks quietly. “There are the opiates—”

  “Never.” White raises his voice. “Never.”

  “Let me finish, sir. There are the opiates, but I’ll have no part of them even though the quacks of this world recommend them as a cure-all. I spent a few months in the marshy fens of eastern England where every farmer in the countryside grows opium poppies and where every shop in the place sells pills and penny sticks. I saw those opium-eating children, some of them no older than your lad here, caved in and wizened, shrunken into little monkeys. No opiates for William.”

  “What, then? Berczy—he’s a German who did some building for me—suggested liquor, but . . .”

  “There’s far too much liquor drunk in this backwater.” Baldwin stops with that sentence, but the look he gives White speaks volumes. Again his fingers tear at his hair. “Bark tea, that should work. But where to get it in this place? I haven’t been here long enough to scout out sources.”

  Relief floods through White. “Miss Russell, she has some. She used to get it from a merchant in Queenston who brought it in from somewhere, I’ve forgotten where.”

  “Ah, this Miss Russell of yours is quite the physician. I must talk to her.” Dr. Baldwin pulls out his pocket watch. “It’s midnight. Hardly the time to disturb the lady in order to get the tea. But it’s urgent. Perhaps we should try—”

  Susannah hovers nearby. “We still have the jar Miss Russell left, sir. It’s in the pine cupboard in the kitchen, remember?”

  The stress of this evening, coupled with the beer he drank at the garrison, have so befuddled him that he’d completely forgotten.

  In a minute, Susannah has measured the powdered bark according to Dr. Baldwin’s instructions and poured boiling water over it. Charles, thank God, is already asleep in the rocking chair by the hearth and does not have to see what comes next.

  Back to the bedchamber the three of them go. White raises his son into a sitting position and puts a couple of pillows behind his head to hold him upright. “Now then, William,” he says, “you must drink this tea.”

  Dr. Baldwin sits on the bed close to the boy and pushes the steaming cup of tea towards him. “It’s vile,” he says, “but it will make you better.”

  William tries a sip and retches.

  “Try pinching your nose, lad,” the doctor says. “That way you won’t be able to smell it, and you can get it down.”

  It works. Bit by bit, it all goes down.

  Dr. Baldwin stands up. “One cup every two hours all night. You should notice a marked improvement in twenty-four hours. I’ll stop by to see how he is tomorrow afternoon.” He moves into the hallway, down the stairs, out the front door, and disappears into the darkness.

  White picks Charles up from the rocking chair in the kitchen and carries him along the hall and upstairs to his bedchamber. Best to keep him away from William. He goes back into the kitchen where Susannah has stirred up the fire in the hearth and set a kettle of water to boil.

  “Go to bed now,” she says. “I’ll keep watch over the boy until three o’clock, then I shall call you to take my place.”

  * * *

  Two days later, William sits up in bed, rosy-faced and ready to eat the chops which Susannah has cut up into small pieces for him. After he has devoured them, along with a slice of his favourite bread pudding, White brings in Noah Webster’s spelling book and sits down beside the child’s bed.

  “Time now to get caught up with some of the work you have been missing at school.”

  “Oh Papa,” William says, “I feel so sweaty.” He puts a small hand on his forehead. “My headache is so bad. I have pains in my—”

  “Very well, my boy, we’ll let you have more time. But the day after tomorrow, you must start your schoolwork again.”

  White takes the speller and the dirty plates down to the kitchen where Susannah, her two little girls, and Charles are just finishing their supper.

  “Why are you smiling, Papa?” Charles asks.

  “Because William has completely recovered.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  November 1799

  Indian summer has passed, and crisp evening air smacks John White’s face and soothes the headache that has plagued him all day. He’s been stuck in the court house for hours, and he sets out now to enjoy fresh air and exercise. At the end of the path to his house he turns west, away from the Don River, wishing to avoid a possible encounter with his neighbours to the east, Betsy and John Small.

  The path in front of the park lot houses is now more of a roadway than a path. In the time he has been in York, the original Indian trail has packed down to a comfortable width. Though the Indians still walk along it in single file, the white settlers often walk in twos or threes.

  It would be pleasant if he had someone congenial to walk beside him this evening, but the Russells are entertaining Peter Hunter again, and the local gossips would have a good “tongue-wag” (as Miss Russell would say) if he appeared arm-in-arm with Susannah. She is at his house this evening, supervising some sort of improvised cricket game with the boys and her small daughters. The shrieks from the rear yard did nothing to help his headache, though he’s happy to see William running about again and enjoying life.

  Of course the choice he has made to turn west will take him past William Jarvis’s house, but he hopes that at this time of day, the lazy dolt and his bitch of a wife are having a late supper in the depths of their dwelling.

  The Jarvis house is a two-storey structure with an attic. Its squared-log construction has been covered with white clapboard, and the effect, White must concede, is attractive. He’s heard from Surveyor-General Smith about the impressive flight of winding stairs that leads from the main hall. “Must have cost the bugger plenty,” his former student tells him, adding, “in fact, more than a thousand pounds from the common gossip I hear.”

  But Jarvis can undoubtedly recoup some of that outlay through being able to feed his family without much expense. He has fruit trees that he’s brought across the lake from Niagara. White notices some marauding pigs snuffling at the windfall apples and pears. He also catches a glimpse of two cows and some sheep. Incompetent though Jarvis undoubtedly is, he does know how to take care of his wife and children.

  At the Jarvis residence, White turns towards the lake and his favourite walk along the bay. There are several creeks running into the bay, and he plans to walk west briskly and to get as far as the one the local folk call Russell’s Creek before turning back. By then darkness will have settled, but he always enjoys the moon and the stars and the utter peace of the place, broken only by the drone of cicadas and the occasional hoot of an owl. If he’s lucky, he’ll be able to avoid having to speak with anyone, except perhaps the Indians with whom he’s become friendly. Unlike the white settlers in this place, they
don’t chatter. The Mississauga band has now largely dispersed, their land having been usurped by the newcomers. Most of them have moved westward towards the garrison. But there are still a few tepees here close to the shore.

  “Good evening, White man,” Abel Crowfoot calls from his campfire. He’s the native who gave White the moss handkerchief for his nosebleed when he first came to York. They meet in this place often, and the salutation has become a joke between them.

  White sits by the fire and takes a tin cup of lemon-balm tea that Abel pours for him. In anticipation of meeting his Indian friend, White has bought a packet of Susannah’s oatmeal cakes and he passes it to Abel who hesitates for a moment and then takes one. White dips his into his tea, and he observes that Abel, watching him closely, copies his action.

  They sit in companionable silence enjoying the sunset and the flapping of lowering sails at a nearby dock. As dusk falls, White rises to take leave of his friend. As he is about to shake hands, he is distracted by a movement to the right of the campfire. He turns to look. On the path by the water a woman is scurrying along. She’s wearing a spencer jacket with fur-trimmed collar over her gown, and she’s holding a large kerchief to her face. Though her features are covered, he has no trouble recognizing the woman’s figure and her walk.

  It’s Betsy Small.

  “My God,” he says.

  “You know this woman, White man?”

  “Yes.”

  “She comes here along bay often. She meets soldier from garrison. Up to—how you say it—hanky panky.” Abel laughs, evidently pleased with the phrase. It’s probably something he’s heard from a Yankee settler. White himself has not heard it before, but he likes it, and the meaning is clear.

  So the woman has not changed her ways in spite of the spotless demeanour she now exhibits in York society. Dammit, I’m going to confront her.

  He moves away from the campfire and places himself in the middle of the path along the bay. She sees him—no way she can avoid him—and he relishes her discomfiture.

  “Mr. White,” she says, pulling the kerchief away from her face and trying, obviously, to brazen things out. “It’s a pleasant surprise to see you here.”

  “And you, Mrs. Small.”

  “I come here often for the fresh air and exercise.”

  “I do remember,” he says, “how you enjoyed the woods at Newark.” Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of a man in a dark green uniform with black facings who is trying to hide himself behind the trunk of a huge oak tree near the water. White recognizes the uniform. He’s met these men at the garrison, Glengarry Fencibles they’re called.

  Ah, hanky panky indeed. He decides to have it out with her. “Who is that man behind the tree? From the garrison, isn’t he? I know I have met him before.” This is not exactly true, but he wants to see what she’ll come up with in the way of an answer. He wants her to know that he’s aware of what she’s up to.

  She looks around and shrugs. “I have not the faintest idea. The soldiers often come along the bay in the evenings. It must be respite from their toil at the barracks. I frequently see them on my walks.” It’s almost convincing, but White notices, even in the twilight, the blush that extends from her tits to her forehead.

  “I’m so happy to have a chance for a moment of private conversation,” she says. “I’ve wanted to warn you about a couple of things that are affecting your social standing here in this new capital. But first I must ask you about your good wife. I have not had a chance to speak to you about her return to England. A permanent separation, is it? I am aware that she was not entirely happy here.”

  So she’s decided to slug it out, the slut. Well we’ll see who wins this round.

  She waits for an answer, but he says nothing.

  “Well, I can understand if you don’t want to talk about your dear wife,” she says. “But if you will permit me, now that I have your ear, I must impart a cautionary message as well. Pray do not consort with Mr. Willcocks. He is, I understand, a low Irishman, with none of the proper regard for His Majesty’s traditions. And no doubt his relative, that young man who calls himself a doctor, is an ill-bred Irishman as well. We English must maintain standards.”

  White feels a blush of rage suffusing his own face. He leans in close to her so that he can taste the delight of watching her brown eyes trying to evade his gaze. He spits on the ground beside her, purposely hitting the hem of her flimsy muslin gown that reveals all too much of the figure he once yearned for. “You of all people, woman, to talk of propriety and standards. I hope that man waiting for you there behind those trees is a proper Englishman.” He turns on his heel and leaves her standing on the pathway. He returns to the campfire.

  “You know hanky panky woman, White man?” Abel asks.

  “Yes. Let us sit and watch what happens next.”

  The woman Small fiddles with her reticule for a moment, then turns and walks east, not deigning to glance towards Abel’s campfire. There is a hiatus of perhaps five minutes while White and Abel finish off the tea and biscuits and wait. Then the soldier comes out behind the oak tree and looks eastward, no doubt at the vanishing pleasure of his evening. He shakes his fist at White, uttering a curse, and slouches off to the west in the direction of the garrison.

  Abel makes some comment about hanky panky which White scarcely hears, so busy is he trying to sort out the rush of emotion that has engulfed him. He says goodnight to the Indian and heads north towards home. What do I feel? Triumph? No. Anger? Yes. But more, much more. Disgust and shame, that’s what.

  Marianne is silly and she’s had her share of addiction. But not to sex, not like the Small woman who seems to love cock of any size or origin. And, dammit, I once provided an outlet for her lust. For a while in Niagara I even convinced myself that she found me attractive and special. What a fool I was.

  And now the slut has the nerve to ask after my “dear departed wife” whom she called “Cinderella,” she, who herself, lies in the ashes of her bespoiled reputation.

  What’s more, there was the advice I had to listen to this evening. Advice from a whore, telling me to uphold English standards.

  He kicks at one of the hens that is scuttling in the bushes at the edge of Jarvis’s property. Its squawk restores him to a portion of his senses. He smooths back his hair and tugs down his waistcoat before he passes the house which sits close to the path. No point giving Mrs. Jarvis anything to speculate on if she’s peeking out the window.

  By the time he turns up the path to his own house, anger and disgust have left him. There is now only the shame of confronting his own stupidity. As a younger man, he was always attracted to a pretty face, a bounteous bosom, and slender ankles. Why could he not have looked for intelligence and devotion in the women he loved?

  He settles in an armchair in his withdrawing room and tries to shake out the confusion of his thoughts. Susannah has lighted the candles in their sconces and left his newspaper folded on the Pembroke table. Beside it, she has put a pitcher of syllabub and a glass. Ah, Miss Russell’s offering, no doubt. And she must have brought it over after she got rid of Peter Hunter.

  These decent, wonderful women—Mrs. Page and Miss Russell—why could he not have married someone like them?

  He sits, drinking the syllabub and thinking. Six years of the prime of his life given over to this place. What has he to show for it? Heavy debt, intolerable headaches, lost wife and daughter, a whore who gives him advice on propriety, two or three friends only on whom he can depend for succour . . .

  An hour passes. He stumbles off to bed, soothed somewhat by the frothy curd of whipped cream and sweet white wine. In the course of that hour in the withdrawing room, he has made a decision.

  “What’s wrong, Papa?” Charles asks, coming out into the hall in his nightshirt and rubbing his eyes.

  “Sorry, my boy, I must have been talking out loud. Back to bed now.”

  Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And mine, too, saith John White.

 
Chapter Forty-Six

  December 27, 1799

  John White has mixed feelings about the ball to be held at the local tavern. Subscription balls are à la mode these days, and he will have to contribute to the renting of a room as well as donating several bottles of wine and a meat dish to the festivities. But he decides to go to it nonetheless because he sees an opportunity that he intends to seize.

  “Please do not worry about the food, sir,” Susannah says to him as she serves dinner to him and the boys. “I can cook something up at low cost. There are plenty of black squirrels in the back forty I can snare and cut up with mushrooms, onions, and—”

  The boys make retching noises.

  “No squirrels, Mrs. Page.”

  “Plenty of rabbits too. How about a rabbit stew then?”

  White sighs, thinking of the comments people like Chief Justice Elmsley would make when they found out—as they surely would—who had brought what. “Best get a fresh chicken from the market and roast it.”

  “Or perhaps Miss Russell would let me have one from her poultry yard,” Susannah says. “I’ll ask.”

  Russell has already told White that he and Miss Russell will not be going to the event. “It’s Hunter’s idea, the cheapskate, and he won’t charge it to the Colonial Office. Mind you, I don’t entirely blame him. I’m still waiting for them to send sixty-eight pounds, seven shillings, and nine pence for the ball I gave two winters ago. So why should I be out of pocket for this event as well?”

  White groans in commiseration. He’s still lacking this year’s stipend. He’s had to make do with some income from private practice and the pittance he gets from his share in the issuing of the land grants.

  * * *

  The night of the ball, he dons the formal court attire he’s purchased for the occasion: a red velvet claw-hammer tailcoat over a striped silk waistcoat, and tight trousers tucked into what that devil of a German boot-maker calls “Hussar boots.” Perhaps the yellow kid gloves he’s carrying are an unnecessary added expense, but he wants to look his best for the evening ahead. It gives him confidence to know he will be the most stylish man in the room.