Don Gutteridge - Desperate Acts

“So, tell me about this Shakespeare Club,” MarcEdwards said to Brodie Langford as they left Sherbourne Street andturned west onto Front. “Why not simply take up with the amateurplayers who hang about Ogden Frank’s theatre?”

Brodie grinned before answering – to let Marcknow that he was aware of the deliberate naiveté of the remark.They had become fast friends over the preceding seven months, andenjoyed the kind of gentle teasing which that sort of bondencourages. “We are as fine wine to plain vinegar,” he said,squinting into the October sunset that bathed the broad lakesideavenue in shimmering waves of gold and vermilion. “Our sole purposeis to read, discuss and otherwise venerate the Bard, and only theBard.”

“I suspect the great man himself would feelmore comfortable among a troupe of actors, however sweaty andthick-tongued,” Marc said.

“Very true. But we do occasionally stoop toacting out a scene or two – by way of illustration, of course.”

“Of course. You wouldn’t want to tear a sceneto tatters, not with the likes of Sir Peregrine Shuttleworthkeeping a close watch on the proceedings.”

Brodie laughed. “I find my membership in theclub about as amusing as you do. And just as incongruous andunexpected. But, then, if you had told me a year ago that I wouldbe where I am today, I would have called the asylum-keepers to comeand get you.”

“You’ve come a long way in a short time,”Marc said, his tone now as serious as it was full of admiration forthis remarkable young man of nineteen years.

Orphaned at the age of thirteen andsubsequently raised by his dead father’s law partner in New YorkCity, Brodie Langford had, in the past two years, suffered anabrupt and scandal-ridden uprooting from his native land, followedby a constrained and circumscribed existence here in Toronto withhis young sister and their beloved guardian, Dick Dougherty. Brodiehad idolized Dougherty – in spite of the man’s questionable past inNew York – and had felt more and more responsible as the health ofhis “uncle” had deteriorated under the strain of exile andostracism. Even so, Brodie had managed to secure a position at theCommercial Bank, where he had impressed his skeptical superiors andthrived. Then, just when life had begun to offer him a glimmer ofhope, he and Celia had been orphaned once again – in the mostsordid and tragic circumstances.

“You know, don’t you,” Marc said, “that Iheartily approve of everything you’ve done since your Uncle’sdeath, the manner in which you’ve conducted yourself and the wisedecisions you’ve made for you and your sister?”

“Much of which has been the result of your avuncular advice,” Brodie said, only half-teasing. Marc wasnot yet twenty-nine, and, while recently made a father, he was notquite ready to accept the more senior role of elderly advisor.

“Well, you look every inch the gentlemantonight,” Marc said. “If a young man with a New York twang can everpass for such in Her Majesty’s colonies.”

Brodie was wearing a dark frock coat cut inthe latest style and a matching top-hat that served not only asproof of his affluence and taste but also as a startling contrastto his blond hair, pale complexion and almost transparently blueeyes. In his right hand he swung a silver-tipped walking-stick witha handle carved like a wolf-s head, as if he disdained in thevigour and pride of his youth to have it touch the rotting sidewalkor assist his striding in any discernible manner.

“I hope you don’t think me too forward orpresumptuous in agreeing to take part in the club’s activities?”Brodie said as they strolled past the City Hall, which faced FrontStreet at the foot of the market. “It was Mr. Fullarton’s idea. Hethinks it’s time for me to move out into society and make mymark.”

Horace Fullarton was the manager of theCommercial Bank, Brodie’s superior, and very much the young man’schampion. In fact, Marc had heard elsewhere, Brodie was beinggroomed as Fullarton’s right-hand man. With the death of hisguardian and the subsequent inheritance of both his father’s estateand his guardian’s (to be shared equally with Celia when she cameof age next year), Brodie had become suddenly rich, with plenty ofmoney to live sumptuously for the rest of his life – withoutworking a single day. And although he was now wealthy andindependent enough to move back to the United States (anywhere butNew York, that is), he and Celia had decided to remain in the citytheir guardian had chosen for their exile after his ignominiousbanishment. And, more compellingly, Richard Dougherty, the “uncle”they had worshipped since childhood and who had become a secondfather to them, was buried here. Who else was there to placeflowers upon his wide and lonesome grave?

Nonetheless, here or abroad, money was money,and oodles of it generally seduced its possessor into a life ofleisure and moderate debauchery. But Brodie was American, notBritish. He saw himself becoming a man who would do something inthe world. With his father’s charm and a mind keen for business, hehad cared not that he had begun as a lowly bank clerk. He believedin his own abilities, and was Yankee enough to think that socialclass was something you chose. Nor did his unexpected wealth alterhis determination to succeed on his own in the financial arena. (Ithad not yet occurred to him that he had the wherewithal to foundhis own bank.) His principal concession to wealth had been to movehim and Celia out of their rented cottage on Bay Street into atwo-storey brick residence on Sherbourne Street north, in a areawhere houses with spacious parkland about them were beingconstructed as quickly as the new middle-class itself. Their cookand butler, who had been Dougherty’s day-servants, followed themfaithfully, and settled into the servants’ quarters of HarlemPlace, as they had named their new home.

“By rights, I should really be tagging alongwith you to Robert’s place,” Brodie said as they crossed YongeStreet and paused to admire the play of sunlight and shadow on theperfectly still waters of Toronto Bay, framed by the island-spitthat gave the city its splendid harbour. There were no houses ofany kind on the south side of Front Street to block the view orsuggest that the bustling capital was anything but comfortable withbeing a “seaside” port or otherwise concerned that its parliamentbuildings, its most prestigious domiciles and its commercial heartwas thus visible and vulnerable. “I must admit, Marc, that while Iunderstand the significance of the current political debate – howcould I not, knowing you and Robert as I do? – I am neverthelessunable to sustain a proper interest in it.”

“There are, of course, other reasons for abright and not unhandsome fellow to visit Baldwin House with me,”Marc said. Such an allusion to Brodie’s love life might have drawna blush a few months ago, but the young man’s obvious success atwinning over Diana Ramsay had left him immune to the older man’steasing.

“Diana has taken her charges out to Spadinafor a few days – to enjoy the country air while this Indian summerlasts,” Brodie said.

Miss Ramsay was governess to Robert Baldwin’sfour motherless children. Robert shared one half of Baldwin Housewith his famous father, Dr. William Warren Baldwin, and ran hislegal practice, Baldwin and Sullivan, from the other half. Spadinawas their country residence. Robert was slowly becoming aswell-known as his father, both of them heavily involved inpromoting political and social change that the conservative cliquewho had ruled the province for thirty years labelled “radical,”“subversive,” and “anti-British.” Marc was headed for the Baldwins’parlour for an evening meeting of half a dozen Reform-partystalwarts, during which a critical strategy for the fall session ofthe Legislative Assembly was to be hammered out.