Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

There was a rustling sound just outside the door. “Are you ready, Mr. Lambert? Our sleigh is waiting. Shall I send the lad up for your bags?” It was Pritchard.

“Give us fifteen minutes!” Marc barked, and something in his voice got through to Pritchard, for he mumbled “All right” and shuffled off.

“So we come to your penultimate act. In the middle of the night, with snow conveniently falling, you went out onto the fire-stairs, shuffled along the ledge past the Brookners’ room, then climbed into mine and drove a knife into the body on the bed. But it was a dummy you stabbed. You may even have realized it at the time and decided to get out while you could. If not, your calm reaction to my appearance at breakfast would have made an Old Bailey hack proud. By now you were, despite your icy demeanour, frustrated and enraged. If you couldn’t kill me, then you’d damn well kill somebody in uniform before the trip was over.”

“I been sent up fer the bags,” a tremulous, adolescent voice called out from the hall.

“Go away!”

A hasty scampering ensued, then silence.

Marc wheeled around and stepped closer to Lambert. “This morning at breakfast, you watched Brookner go out that side door, and when Dingman arrived a few minutes later, you saw a last chance present itself. You knew all about the rear doors and the fire-stairs. It was you who suggested that you and Dingman go to his office. You followed him into the back hall, then excused yourself on the pretext of getting a law book. You hurried outside and trailed Brookner down the scenic path you knew he’d just taken. You had your pistol on you, as I suspect you have at this moment. You crept up behind and fired into the back of his head.

“As you rushed back along the path, you likely had to sidestep Pritchard and Sedgewick-they must have given you a bit of a fright coming up to the scene so soon after the event. But you found cover and returned unseen to Dingman’s office where you made some excuse about not finding or needing the law book after all. If Dingman, whom you knew to be an addled soul, were to testify that you were gone overly long, you could calmly dispute his claim. And, more important, you had no apparent motive for killing Brookner, while the notorious Miles Scanlon did. You couldn’t murder me, but you did manage to take some measure of revenge for the depredations of General Colborne’s troops. I will not be surprised even now if you were to pull out your pistol and try to finish the job, though I wouldn’t advise it.”

To Marc’s great relief, Lambert did not draw his pistol. The trembling of his lips had reached a crisis point, and his mouth opened wide. Then he clutched both hands to his belly, rolled back onto the bed, and shook with helpless mirth. It took him fully a minute to stop laughing and regain control of his voice. Marc looked on, incredulous: Had Lambert gone mad, broken under the relentless pressure of Marc’s accusations?

“You find all this amusing?”

“You’ve just told the funniest, wildest, most preposterous tale I’ve ever heard. In fact, you’ve managed to get most of it completely backwards.”

“What on earth do you mean? Don’t try lawyer’s tricks on me. They won’t wash.” But Marc was suddenly not as certain as he sounded.

“Now it’s your turn to sit down while I tell you a story,” Lambert said, wiping his eyes. Cautiously, Marc sat in a nearby chair, but kept a wary eye on Lambert’s right hand.

“I am what you see, Lieutenant: no more, no less. I speak both languages fluently, and I am, in a real sense, both English and French. I was born and spent my childhood on a farm near St. Denis. But unlike most Quebec families, my parents had but two children, my sister Sophie and me. When I was six, my father inherited money and land from an uncle in Vermont. We moved there. My father sold the farm and became a merchant. I was sent to the best English schools. My sister spent her summers in St. Denis with our cousins, but I soon became as English as I was French. I apprenticed law in New York City. It is English law I know, not the Code Napoleon . My sister fell in love with a local boy in the Richelieu Valley, married him, and moved back there to farm. When I was on business in Buffalo last year, I met my wife, Marie. She was visiting her aunt, but her home was in Kingston. She was of Scots Irish stock. Although I was raised Catholic, I had long ago fallen away from the Church. We were married last spring in a Presbyterian ceremony in Kingston. I was offered a junior partnership in the Cobourg law firm of Denfield and Potter. We arrived there early in October.”

Marc, who had been listening with increasing interest and much chagrin, finally found voice to say, “But you can’t have known so little about-”

“That is easily explained. Marie fell ill with a fever the day after we arrived. Our house was a mile east of the town. I was the one who nursed her. A doctor did come to see her and left medicines, but I was in the village then, informing my new employers that it would be some weeks before I could safely take up my post. Marie may have mentioned the doctor’s name, but if so, I must have forgotten it. We had a girl from town to help out, but I still refused to leave Marie’s side.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this? Why were you so secretive?”

Lambert coloured slightly. “I do apologize. But you were correct about one thing. I had been to the Richelieu Valley, and what I saw there appalled and sickened me. I have not been fit human company since. I just did not feel like talking to anyone, even though my fellow travellers were congenial.”

“But surely you must have harboured some resentment against me, an officer who was present at both assaults on the town.”

Lambert smiled, and some of the personality he might have exhibited under more sanguine circumstances peeped through. “I’m afraid you got all that backwards as well.”

“How so?”

“Just as Marie was nearing a full recovery, I got a letter from my sister in St. Denis. A desperate letter. The rebellion had failed, but reprisals and acts of vengeance continued unchecked. My sister’s barn was destroyed and the few harvested crops looted. Even their cows had been shot and their horses’ tails cropped.”

“You must believe me, Mr. Lambert, when I say that I was nearly as appalled as you at the behaviour of our troops. Sir John himself ordered-”

“It wasn’t the troops or even the loyalists who burned Sophie and her husband out,” Lambert said sombrely. “It was her own cousins.”

“My God!”

“Incredible, eh? But Sophie and Guy had tried to remain neutral. They had friends and neighbours on both sides of the issue. But when the British army prevailed, the English began their barn-burning campaign, and the French, when they could, played turnabout. Either side might have gone after Sophie and Guy, but it was definitely her own kind who did the damage. They made a point of letting her know.”

“What could you do to help?”

“Not much. But I had some cash, a wedding gift from our father. I put it in a satchel and headed straight into the chaos of Quebec in the aftermath of the failed revolt and the aborted invasion. I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut and to adopt the manners and language most convenient to the situation. I was Lambert one day and Lam-bear the next.”

“You could have been discovered and dealt with harshly by either side.”

“Yes. But I did manage to reach my sister. The cash would prevent them from starving to death and would go a long way towards purchasing seed and replacing livestock, if and when things settled down. I stayed as long as I could. But I had to get back to Cobourg: the firm had granted me an extension to the end of this month only. That’s why I’m eager to be off this evening. And I want to embrace my dear Marie once more.”