Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“I will do nicely on my own, lad.”

“Sir, I must protest-”

“Marc, my boy, you have unfinished business here in Crawford’s Corners, not a hundred yards from where we are presently stalled.”

My God, Marc thought, was there anyone left in Toronto who did not know about his on-again, off-again romance with Beth Smallman?

“If the lady’s answer is no,” Jenkin continued, “you can always catch me up.”

“Is that an order, sir?”

“It’s the true reason I asked you along. Now go.”

With that curt command, the major wheeled his horse to the right and trotted off towards Durfee’s Inn, leaving Marc alone in the intersection.

Very slowly he made his way north along Miller Sideroad.

Marc realized that he dare not arrive unannounced at Beth Smallman’s door at seven o’clock in the evening, when the entire household would be present: Beth and her brother Aaron, Winnifred, and Thomas Goodall, her tenants, and probably a servant girl. He found himself quite relieved at the thought. Although he had been mulling over in his mind how he might arrange matters so that a brief encounter with Beth would be both possible and plausible (to Major Jenkin), the quartermaster had preempted him most unexpectedly and, incredible as it seemed, with a generosity of spirit that now left Marc feeling almost ashamed. The major had given him a week, free of any commitment or duty, to put his personal affairs in order, to “woo the lady” as the amateur thespians among his fellow officers might have put it.

But he was no Galahad and Beth was certainly no fawning princess. She and her late husband had hacked a farm out of this unforgiving bush, working side by side in the fields and in the barn. She had suffered the violent deaths of two men she adored: husband and father-in-law. She had taken an active part in local politics as a staunch Reformer, and after her husband’s death had become more radical and more vocal, risking her status as a “respectable” woman and widow in a society where men were likely to see her more as a threat than as a suffering soul in need of understanding and sympathy.

Unable to run the farm on her own, and with an inheritance from her father-in-law, she had pulled up stakes and moved to Toronto to start a new life as proprietress of a millinery shop on King Street. She had been joined in that venture by her aunt Catherine from the United States. In fact, ever since Beth’s rejection of him last June, Aunt Catherine had been his ally, lobbying on his behalf and sending him encouraging notes from time to time during the fall.

Marc dismounted and led the mare up the lane to the miller’s house, planning to put the horse in Erastus Hatch’s barn and settle her down for the night before approaching the back door. But that door suddenly swung open, and Erastus himself emerged, coatless and excited.

“By the Lord, it is you!” he cried, striding through the drifts in his slippers. “I saw you turn into the lane, and when I recognized the uniform, I said to Mary, ‘There’s only one soldier I know who’s six feet tall and walks like a duke!’”

Marc reached out and grasped the hand of his friend, who had been so helpful in the Cobourg investigation and had put in more than one good word for him with Beth Smallman. “Yes, it is me, sir, and I’ve come to stay for a few days, if you’ve got room for me.”

“You shan’t get past the doorway, Marc, unless you quit calling me ‘sir.’ I’m Rastus to my friends, and I number you among them.”

“Rastus it is, then.”

“What’s brought you all the way out here?” Hatch said, clutching his loose sweater more tightly about him. It was a straightforward question with no hint of suspicion or concern, but that was typical of the man.

“I’ll explain the whole thing as soon as I’ve bedded down the mare here for the night. And if you don’t get back inside, you’ll catch your death.”

“Well, son, you know your way about in the barn, eh? There’s enough moonlight to work by if you use one of the stalls on the south wall. Meantime, I’ll go tell Mary to put the kettle on and rouse Susie and the little one.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“By the Christ, but it’s good to see you!” Hatch cried, then began to brush the snow off his slippers, gave up with a chuckle, and turned back towards the house. “And I’m not the only one who’ll think so!”

The miller glanced to the north, towards the log house of Beth Smallman.

Marc and Erastus Hatch sat in the two padded chairs before the fieldstone fireplace and a blaze whose roaring had just begun to die down to a steady, amiable murmur. Two tendrils of pipe-smoke rose drowsily and intermittently into the warm ambience of the miller’s parlour. It was nearly ten o’clock. Mary Hatch-who, as Mary Huggan, had served the miller as cook and housekeeper long before she married him-had cobbled together a supper for their guest of cold beef, bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes. Her sister Susie, a carbon copy of her older sibling (red hair, translucent Irish skin, freckles, a wisp of a figure), then brought tiny Eustace Hatch out of the nursery to be admired and cooed at. Marc, of course, said all the appropriate things, but inside he felt an uncharacteristic pang of envy and a sudden intimation of the inexorable passing of time. Then, with the babe returned to its slumber and Mary excusing herself, the two men settled into their port and pipes.

Although considered by the local farmers he served to be a “merchant,” Hatch still helped his hired hands with every aspect of the mill’s functioning and the working of the land surrounding it. His large, peasant fingers were callused, his face had the red, raw look of the active yeoman, and his modest paunch was well muscled. For a while they traded harmless bits of gossip about their different locales, reminisced about Marc’s investigation here fourteen months earlier, then lapsed into a silence that was not uncomfortable.

“So you’ve given up being a supernumerary constable,” Marc said. a

“That was not a hard decision in the least. After what happened here last winter, I kind of soured on the law. I try now to mind my own business, do an honest day’s work, and treat my customers fairly. Of course, with Mary and the little one, all that’s been made much easier.”

“You look like a man blessed.”

“That I am, though I’d be hard-pressed to say why the Lord’s chosen me,” Hatch said solemnly, then added quickly, “But I’m not fool enough to keep on asking Him why!”

“Wisely said.”

“But I’ll tell you truthfully, Marc, I’m one of the few souls in this county who is happy.”

“It’s been a grim year everywhere in the province,” Marc said. “Bad weather, lean crops, falling prices, paper money losing value by the month, the banks reeling. Made all the worse, I suspect, because so much was expected after the Tory victory in the election last spring and the governor’s promise to bring about real change.”

“I’ve given up on that, too.” Hatch turned and looked directly at Marc.

“Being a Tory?”

“Not quite as blunt as that, but something close to it.” He leaned back again and spoke between hefty puffs on the pipe. “I’ve given up on politics, at least for the time being, and I used to make all the right noises whenever asked to, as you know.”

“Noises in favor of the governor, you mean?”

“Exactly. I believed in the rule of law and I still do. But what has happened around here since last June is downright frightening.”

“How so?”

“The ordinary folk-who are suffering the most, as they always have since the beginning of things-have begun to give up on the political process, too. Myself, I’ve decided to do what I can in my own bailiwick. I’ve extended credit where I shouldn’t, ground grain for free when there was no other remedy, and doled out my own flour so some of the kids in the township won’t starve. But many of the others, with no resources to fall back on, are growing desperate. And to make matters worse, many of my Tory acquaintances, who wouldn’t ordinarily tip their hat to an Orangeman, are starting to spout their fanatic heresies. Both sides have hardened their positions since the election. It’s almost impossible to stand anywhere in the middle, or be nonpartisan or even a simple, caring Christian.”