Minor Corruption (5 page)

“Molasses!” Robert sputtered at Marc. “He’s
stuck my macaroons to the bowl and poured molasses around them!
They’re ruined!”

“It’s just a jest,” Uncle Seamus said when
his laughter had subsided somewhat. “How many times have I seen you
reach into your bowl blindly with your left hand? The temptation
was just too great, nephew. You’ll have to excuse an old man’s
fancy, eh?”

“I’ll have one of the girls bring you a towel
and some water,” Marc said.

“Thanks, Marc. Otherwise I’d have to go next
door and clean up.”

“
You
can see the humour of it, can’t
you, Edwards?”

Marc could, but felt it impolitic to say
so.

“Was that a cry of woe and despair I heard
coming from Solicitor Peachey’s abode?” Uncle Seamus said, the
impish grin unfaded.

“I’m afraid that Clement did not see the
humour in the defacement of his seal,” Marc said.

“Good grief, Uncle, what have you done to
Peachey?”

“More macaroons, I’m afraid,” Marc said.

“Spare me the details.” Robert looked up
severely at Uncle Seamus. “You promised father you’d behave,” he
said as if he were speaking to a mischievous child. “We do need
your expertise in Clement’s office, you know. And your
experience.”

“Ah, don’t fret, Robbie. ‘Tis only the first
day. I thought I’d introduce myself with a parlour trick or two.
And you’ve got to admit, I pulled them off splendidly.”

“I’d better be careful where I put my
fingers,” Marc said, letting his amusement show.

Uncle Seamus laughed, “I never repeat myself,
lad.”

“I want you to promise, Uncle, that there
will be no repeats of any sort.”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep. But I
did promise to shoulder my weight in here, and I shall.”

“That’s all I can ask of you, then,” Robert
said. Having removed the bowl from his fingertips, he was now
holding his sticky digits aloft and brushing the air with them.

“I’ll escort you down to meet Mr. Peachey,”
Marc said. “You may need my protection.”

“I heard you were once a dashing young
soldier,” Uncle Seamus said, “so I’ll feel more than safe with you
at my side.”

“Off with you, then,” Robert said
affectionately. “I’ve got to get ready for a trip to
Brantford.”

Fifteen minutes later, Marc sat at his desk
and prepared to begin his own day’s work. He had engineered a
successful meeting between Clement and Uncle Seamus, with the
latter offering something that might have been interpreted as an
apology, enough of one at any rate to effect a détente. Marc
himself was careful not to rush blindly into any drawers or
crevices, but he seemed to have been spared the pleasure of another
parlour trick. Perhaps Uncle Seamus would settle down. As far as
his family were concerned, this high-humoured impishness was
preferable to the depression he had suffered after his retirement
and brought with him to the New World. And indeed these high jinks
might prove to be a necessary precursor to a healthier, more
balanced outlook on life. Certainly he would be loved here by those
around him, and children obviously adored him.

Marc heard the housemaid who had brought
towels and hot water to Robert five minutes ago now retreating down
the hall towards the vestibule.

“Ow!” A squeal and then a giggle.

And then a guffaw.

My word, Marc thought, what have I gotten
myself into?

***

When Cobb got home shortly after seven that evening,
Dora had a hot supper waiting for him. She and the children had
eaten theirs earlier. Delia was in the front room reading and
Fabian was outdoors playing in the last of the autumn light. Which
suited Cobb just fine. He was bubbling with excitement over the
possibilities held out to him this morning by the Chief Constable,
and although he took great pains to hide it, he was dying to report
the good news. He had just finished his baked apple and was
clearing his throat to speak when Dora said:

“Hurry up and finish, Mister Cobb. I got
somethin’ important to tell you.”

“It can wait, can’t it?”

“If it could, I wouldna said otherwise, now
would I?”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, you suppose correct.”

Cobb sighed, and gave up. “What is it, then?
I hope you ain’t gonna tell me no gory
dee-tales
about yer
baby business! You know the rules!”

Cobb and Dora had agreed not to discuss each
other’s work unless it was absolutely necessary. Dora didn’t
appreciate his descriptions of barroom brawls he had broken up, and
he found any reference to the messier aspects of her midwifery
revolting. But there were exceptions, and Cobb suspected he was
about to hear one of them.

“This could be police
busy-ness
,” Dora
said cryptically. “So listen up.”

“I’m all ears.”

Dora glared at her husband as she invariably
did when her radar detected the slightest hint of irony. “It’s
about Mrs. Trigger,” she said.

Cobb’s heavy brows shot up. “That old witch
still at it, is she?”

“You know very well she is. There’s a lot of
folks north of Hospital Street who can’t afford anybody else. And
at one time, Elsie knew what she was doin’.”

Elsie Trigger had acted as midwife for the
poorest families in the northwest section of the city where it had
begun to sprawl indiscriminately. Dora did much of the older east
end, while several newcomers had set up in the wealthier
south-western part of town.

“Maybe so,” Cobb said, “but since she moved
her own carcase inta Irishtown she’s gone straight downhill,
eh?”

“Taken to the drink, she has.”

“So what’s so new about the old bat that you
gotta break our rules?”

Dora sighed, a gesture that made her large
bosom undulate alarmingly under the bib of her apron. “Two dead
babes, that’s what.”

Cobb tried to look sympathetic. “There’s dead
babes all over the city.”

“These two shouldn’t’ve died. I got called
out this afternoon to a shack up on Brock Street. I told the fella
who come fer me that I didn’t service the northwest, but he was
desperate. He said Mrs. Trigger had been tendin’ his wife in her
confinement, but when the babe started comin’ out crooked, she
threw up her hands and skedadelled. He couldn’t afford a doctor, so
he come lookin’ fer me.”

“What happened then?”

“He drove me to his shack. The poor girl, not
twenty, was near death. The babe was big and comin’ out posterior.
Elsie could’ve turned it easy, I figure, or pulled it out by hand,
but she was too drunk to do anythin’ sensible.”

“Jesus!”

While Dora was the strongest and most stoic
person Cobb knew, male or female, on rare occasions she let her
feelings show. A single plump tear slid down her right cheek. “I
couldn’t save the babe, but the mother survived. Barely.”

Cobb patted a pocket in search of his
tobacco. “You said there was two.”

“That’s right. I didn’t tell you, but last
week I went up near Irishtown and found a woman bleedin’ to death.
Elsie’d been tendin’ her and fell asleep beside her. The husband
threw her out and come fer me. The lass may’ve bled to death
anyway, at least Dr. Smollett thought so when he come later.”

“Both mother and babe died?”

“Yes.”

“And you think Elsie might’ve been
responsible?”

Dora reached over and grasped Cobb’s hand.
“Mister Cobb, that woman’s gotta be stopped.”

“But how c’n I – ”

“I want you to go inta Irishtown, find her,
and warn her off. Tell her you’ll toss her inta jail if she don’t
give up bein’ a midwife.”

Cobb found his tobacco but couldn’t remember
where he left his pipe. “All right, then, I’ll do it. But just fer
you. I’ll haveta take Wilkie with me ‘cause it’s gettin’ too
dangerous fer a patrolman to go into that rat’s nest alone. But
I’ll find her and put the fear of the Lord into her.”

Dora smiled through her tears. “Fear of Cobb
will do,” she said.

***

Cobb never got a chance to warn Elsie Trigger off.
About eleven o’clock that night, both Cobb and Dora were awakened
by a frantic pounding on the front door. Delia and Fabian were so
used to this phenomenon that they seldom were disturbed. But Dora
would waken instantly, as she used to when her own babies would
call out to her in the dark. And Dora’s near three-hundred pounds
rolling over in bed invariably woke up her husband. As soon as Cobb
felt Dora abandon their warm cocoon, however, he would slump back
into it and, seconds later, would be snoring anew. It was the only
way he could cope with her unpredictable comings and goings, and
not be perpetually sleep-deprived.

He was just drifting back off this night when
he felt her fingers poking him awake.

“I gotta go off with the lad at the door,”
she whispered.

“Why are you tellin’
me
, then?” Cobb
complained.

“’Cause it may be about Mrs. Trigger
again.”

Cobb sat up, blinking in the moonlight.
“What’s she done now?”

“Maybe nothin’, but the lad lives next door
to the girl in trouble and was sent here by her father to fetch me.
It’s up north, past Brock Street. I told him I don’t go outta town,
but the lad says they’re desperate fer a midwife.”

“And that’s Elsie’s territory, ain’t it?”

“Uh huh. The lad says it’s past Spadina.
There’s a bunch of houses near the mill up there. Where the
mill-hands live.”

“I don’t want you goin’ on yer own away up
there.”

“I know, but the lad said he was sent
specially to fetch
me
, not Mrs. Trigger. The father told him
Mrs. Trigger was unavailable. Drunk, I reckon. So I’ll haveta
go.”

Cobb grunted his assent. “The lad’s got a
buggy?” he said.

“Borrowed from the mill. We’ll get there
pretty quick. And I ain’t worried. Nobody’s ever bothered a midwife
in this town. At least not yet.”

“Did the lad say who the girl was?”

“Daughter of a mill-hand, one Thomas Thurgood
– name of Betsy.”

They drove at a brisk trot west along King Street,
Dora and the twelve-year-old messenger. Fortunately a near full
moon provided sufficient light for them to keep to the middle of
the wide, rutted street. On either side the houses and shops rose
up dark and inhospitable. It was October and there was a chill in
the air, but Dora was accustomed to night travel. Her capacious
wool shawl was gathered around her, and the lad kindly placed a
buffalo-robe over her knees. He said nothing, however, and Dora
refrained from probing him for any further information because she
knew from experience that those involved in these emergency runs,
however peripheral, were anxious and often confused. She would, as
usual, wait for her arrival at the scene to assess the situation as
she found it.

They turned north up Yonge Street and passed
the British-American coffee house, where the eerie moon-shadows now
changed shape. At Newgate they swung west again. Dora could smell
the stink from the tannery there, and farther along she could see
the red glow from a foundry furnace. At Brock Street they turned
north. The pony was panting now, exhaling huge skeins of visible
breath. The boy brushed him with a whip, and he stepped up the pace
once more. Where Brock Street ended at Queen (formerly Lot Street),
they met the bush road that led northwest to Spadina. Here they
entered the forest, and if it had not been for the moon, they would
have had to have moved at a snail’s pace and, even then, have
relied on the pony’s instincts to keep them on track.

Soon they began to jounce and lurch as the
roadbed roughened, but Dora, who often boasted of it, had been
supplied by her Maker with a pair of comfortable rear-side cushions
for the sole purpose of absorbing such shocks on missions of mercy
in His name. Still, she was glad when, about a quarter-mile from
Spadina, they veered to the right onto a washboard path just wide
enough to accommodate the buggy. Several bumpy minutes later they
rumbled across the log-bridge that spanned the stream used by the
miller to power his machinery (Trout Creek the locals called it).
They rattled past a distant, shadowy farmstead, then the tall,
moonlit mill and the mill-race. Soon they were on open ground,
where they had to move at a walk to avoid being upset. Fortunately
a straggle of workers’ shanties was soon silhouetted against the
northwest sky.

“It’s the first house,” said the boy. “Mr.
Thurgood’s.”

“I’ll walk from here, laddie. Here’s a
thrupenny piece fer yer good work. May the Lord bless you.”

“Thank you, mum,” the boy said. Then he
slumped forward and began sobbing. “Oh, poor, poor Betsy.”

“I’ll see she’s all right,” Dora said,
stepping down and reaching back for her bag. “You wait here, will
ya? ‘Least fer a little while.”

The boy nodded, wiping his cheek with his
sleeve.

She left him there and stepped towards the
house, trying not to shudder at what she might be facing.

***

“Oh, thank God you’ve come!” cried Auleen Thurgood
as Dora pushed her way into the kitchen. “Betsy’s bad. Real
bad.”

“You took yer time, woman,” was Burton
Thurgood’s opening remark.

Before saying a word, Dora took a quick look
at the Thurgoods. She liked to size up the home situation before
she went to the patient, mainly to get a sense of whether they
would be a help or a hindrance. Auleen would be of little use, Dora
could see right away. She was a scrawny woman with big, frightened
eyes who resembled nothing more than a mouse trying to shrivel
itself into a corner where it might find a moment’s safety. Pale,
almost sickly, she was wringing a pair of bony hands in her filthy
apron. Thurgood himself was another matter. He was neither tall nor
burly, but rather had the physique of many mill-hands: strong and
wiry with outsized hands and bunched muscles – like a lynx
preparing to spring. But where many a mill-hand effected the
downcast expression of one destined to follow orders, Thurgood had
bold, black eyes and a mass of curly, black hair that dared anyone,
boss or toff, to knock the chip off his shoulder.