Turncoat (22 page)

Azel was carolling a familiar sea shanty with some improvised taproom lyrics as he disappeared along the far side of the cabin. Seconds later, a door slammed. Marc took off for the stables, having the presence of mind to keep to the trodden path between woodpile and barn—no strange bootprints to be found at dawn by a jealous husband with a harquebus. Luckily, the latter had left the barn doors ajar, so Marc was able to slip quickly inside, out of the wind. With teeth chattering, and in the gleam of a sliver of moonlight pouring through the crack in the doorway, Marc trembled and stubbed his way into his remaining clothes. He had just buckled his belt when he felt a tickle of hot breath on the nape of his neck.

Bracing for a savage blow or the plunge of a dagger, Marc instinctively reached down for the sword he had left at the mill. But nothing happened. Slowly Marc forced himself to turn around and face his ambusher. It was Azel's mare, unarmed and amorous.

Stebbins evidently had stumbled into the barn, flung the saddle off, tossed a hasty blanket over his mount, and left it to fend for itself. If he had walked it down to its stall, he would not have missed seeing Marc's horse in the stall beside it. One nicker and the game would have been over.

Marc put his saddle loosely on his own horse, checked its shoeless hoof, and began leading it back towards the doorway. That's when he heard a floor board creak somewhere above him in the region of the hayloft. This was followed
by a kind of scritching sound, as if some nocturnal creature were hunkering down or squirming to get comfortable. A rat? A raccoon?

Slowly he made his way farther into the interior of the barn. He stopped and listened. There was nothing but the contented breathing of animals he could hear but not see. Then a creak sounded right over his head, heavily; it could only be a man's footfall. Was someone up there hiding from Marc—or spying on him?

While he was trying to make up his mind whether to lie low or flush out the fellow, the decision was made for him. He heard the hayloft door swing open above him on the wall opposite. His man was on the run.

Marc moved silently along the dark corridor between the stalls. By the time he got outside and trotted around to the far side of the barn, all he could see was the hatch swinging on its hinges and a male figure disappearing into the woods fifty yards away. But he recognized the awkward gait: Ferris O'Hurley, without his donkey.

What would O'Hurley be doing hiding out in Azel Stebbins's barn? Marc was sure it had something to do with the smuggling operation. The Irishmen from the States and their compatriot, Stebbins, were up to their Yankee ears in contraband spirits. But was that all? Connors had been carrying a sackful of brand-new American dollars last Tuesday. And Stebbins was always off hunting without bringing home a deer or a grouse. If it was this gang that Jesse Smallman
had been mixed up with last year, it mattered little whether they were smuggling spirits, muskets, or seed money for seditionists: they and the Smallmans were connected in some significant way. Of that he was certain. So, despite the debacle back there in the cabin, Marc felt he had not completely frittered away the evening—if what had taken place in Lydia's bed could be called frittering.

Marc peered over at the Stebbins household. It was dark and quiet. The moon had gone behind a cloud. A few flakes of camouflaging snow had begun to fall. Marc took a lung-chilling breath and began leading his horse along the regular path that led past the cabin and up the laneway to the sideroad. No musket boomed out behind him, no cuckold's cry hailed him back. And O'Hurley was long gone.

Once on the sideroad he was able to pick up the pace. His horse limped slightly but made no complaint. The snow thickened about them. Bruised, sated, dishevelled, splinter-riven, piss-splattered, he trudged homeward. As he turned eastward on the concession line, an ugly thought entered his head. Was it possible that he had been meant to remain in the Stebbins cabin? That Azel was not to be trailed under any circumstances? That someone had deliberately nobbled his horse? No. What had passed between him and Lydia could not have been faked.

Could it?

Marc missed breakfast (and any speculative remarks on the reasons for his absence from the table), but after an improvised meal of dry cheese, lukewarm bread, and cold tea, he was joined in the parlour by Hatch. Both men lit their pipes, and Marc provided him with an expurgated account of the fiasco at the Stebbins place. Hatch mercifully refrained from comment, then said, “You'll have to fix on exactly what you're going to tell Hamish MacLachlan this afternoon. Our sheriff's a man who appreciates facts.” He chuckled and added, “There's not much else he can appreciate.”

“Well,” Marc said, “we've got this much, I think: evidence
of a note or message calling a respectable Tory gentleman out of his own house and away from his own New Year's celebration into a near blizzard. The gentleman seems pleased about the prospects he's being called to. ‘I may have some news that could change our lives forever,' he tells his daughter-in-law, who swore to that under oath. The rendezvous with the summoner was to be at an isolated spot, but one we know now to have been a hideout or transfer point for smugglers, in particular two of their advance men, Connors and O'Hurley. Smallman dies in a freak accident on his way to the cave, said accident having been anticipated or, after the event, conveniently used to collude in the man's death. To wit: no assistance was offered and no report made to the constable of the township or the sheriff or magistrate of the county. Some evidence at the scene indicates that the summoner stood waiting for his victim only a few rods above the death trap.”

“My goodness, but you would have made a fine barrister. Perhaps your uncle Jabez was right after all.”

“Solicitor is what he had in mind, but I wasn't willing to wait five years while performing tasks an indentured servant would repudiate,” Marc said quietly.

“Well, if you go using words that big with MacLachlan, he'll have you clapped in irons on the first charge he can pronounce!”

“I'll tone it down a bit,” Marc said dryly, and carried on. “Having established a prima facie case for foul play, I'll lay out the two lines of enquiry we've been pursuing: the political and the contraband. All he needs to know is that
malcontents like Stebbins may have suspected that Joshua was an informer—given his past connections, recent arrival, and suspicious attendance at Reform rallies—or that he learned or surmised seditious information from his son while speculating on his activities and suicide.”

“You're not going to tell him that Joshua was a spy?”

“Even in telling you, Erastus, I've broken one of Sir John's commandments to me.”

“You'll have to tell the girl, sometime.”

“But not yet.” Marc relit his pipe. “The smuggling angle can be approached in a way similar to the political one. Physical evidence suggests young Jesse may have turned to smuggling to help stave off bankruptcy and the failure of his farm. Half the township appears to have purchased contraband spirits or acted as wholesalers, but only a few of these can be directly linked to Jesse—those who marched beside him at the protest rallies over the grievances and, in particular, those American immigrants whose property rights were endangered by the Alien Act. We can reasonably postulate that somehow Joshua came across information that threatened the smuggling operation. Some ruse was then used to lure him to his death, probably false hopes raised about the reasons for his son's self-destruction. Certainly, the locale points strongly to the latter theory.”

“So far, all of this is circumstantial,” Hatch said gently, “even though it's damn clever guesswork.”

“At any rate, all I want to do is report formally to the sheriff, show him Sir John's instructions to me, and alert
him to the fact that I'm going to start using the governor's authority to compel or cow certain suspects into telling something closer to the truth. I've been given full policing powers in the matter. I can hale these renegade farmers, and even old Elijah, before the magistrate and interrogate them under oath. I've just about done with playing games.”

“On the positive side,” Hatch said, “most of your suspects'll be at the Township Hall in Cobourg later today to hear William Lyon Mackenzie rant and rave. You'll be able to watch 'em close up, stirring their own soup.” He got up slowly and added, with the customary twinkle in his eye, “You can hardly see the mend in your trousers, but Winnie was wondering if you'd been reconnoitring grain in a sawmill.”

M
ARC STROLLED UP TO BETH'S PLACE
, not only because he needed some bracing air to clear his head, but because he wanted to convey to her personally the arrangements that had been made for the journey into Cobourg and to make sure she would agree to them. No persuasion was needed, however: Beth Smallman wasn't about to miss the opportunity to be roused once more by Mackenzie's fiery rhetoric, even when it meant accepting the charity of a ride with a neighbour and the company of a red-coated infantry officer from the Tory capital.

The Durfees had offered the best seats in their cutter to Beth and her escort, Ensign Edwards. Erastus, Winnifred, Mary, and one of her sisters would be driven by Thomas
Goodall in the miller's four-seater. Another of Mary's sisters would stay with Aaron. The women, with the exception of Beth, would do some shopping in Cobourg, then attend a church committee meeting at St. Peter's, followed by a sleigh picnic. They would all go along to the rally out of curiosity, though Beth was the only declared supporter.

“You don't need to chaperone me, you know,” Beth said to Marc at the door. “Mr. Durfee will do nicely.”

“Ah, but I want to,” Marc said.

H
ATCH WAS NOT IN THE MILL
, but sometimes, Marc had learned, he could be found in the small office attached to it. Winnifred had gone down to Durfee's for the mail and a visit with Emma. Goodall was in the drive shed behind the barn making some minor repairs to the sleigh. The little window in the outer wall of the office was begrimed and frosted over, so Marc just pushed gently on the unlatched door and opened his lips to halloo the miller. No syllable emerged. Through the gap in the doorway, Marc saw a woman's oval face, eyes seized shut, cheeks inflamed with no maiden's blush.

Marc backed away. He didn't pause to close the door.

T
EN MINUTES
L
ATER
, H
ATCH SAT DOWN
opposite Marc in the parlour. He fiddled with his pipe but didn't bother poking the fire into life.

“It's not what you think, lad,” he said.

Marc did not reply, but he was listening with intense expectation.

“I would never take advantage of a servant girl, whatever other sins I may be charged with before my Maker.”

“You wouldn't be the first to do so,” Marc said, remembering the rumours and whispered gossip that had titillated and scandalized the residents of Hartfield Downs.

“Two months ago she came to me. To my room. It took all my powers and the vow I'd made to my beloved Isobel to push her away. I'd not had a woman since Isobel passed on. I told Mary she didn't have to do this, that it was wrong, that I considered her to be a fine, chaste young woman who would marry soon and raise her own family. She wept, but she did go.”

“Why do you think she came to you like that?”

“She was afraid I might send her home. You see, I have a niece in Kingston, and Winnifred's talked about bringing her here, for company and to help out with the chores.”

“Mary could get other work, surely.” Marc was thinking of the desperate need for decent servants in Toronto.

“Easily. But still, it would mean returning home, even for a little while.”

“She was maltreated?”

Hatch grimaced. It was the first anger Marc had seen in the miller's jovial, kindly face. “The father's a drunken brute. He's been in the public stocks half a dozen times. Nothing short of a bullwhip could cure him.”

“And if your niece did come, Mary would have to go?”

Hatch sighed. “She came to me again two nights later. This time she slipped in beside me, already … unclothed. I promised her she could stay on here as long as she wanted, or else see that she never had to go back to the brute that begot her.”

“And?”

“I gave in to my urges. I know it was a terrible thing to do. A wicked thing. She's the same age as my own daughter. And the worse thing of all is, she really seems to like me. And now, though I pray every night for strength to resist, I've gradually, and alas gratefully, come to accept her … presence. She's a loving little thing.” It took a great effort for him to hold back the tears that were threatening.

“Have you considered marrying her?” Marc knew full well that, in both the old world and the new, older men not nearly as robust and honourable as Hatch married girls half their age in their need for heirs or to satisfy the lusts that were expected to wane with age but didn't.