Читать книгу Settlement - Ann Birch - Страница 8

ONE

Toronto, 1836

Sam Jarvis woke in the dark, stuffy pit of his four-poster bed. He drew back the curtains that encircled him. A pale half-moon shone through the lace curtains, illuminating the china drink-warmer on the table beside his bed. He took off the lid. The candle at the base had burnt out, but the tea laced with whiskey was still warm. He drank it down in one gulp, then lighted a candle and moved out into the hallway.

He tiptoed past the bedroom of his daughters, the chamber of his eldest sons, and the nursery with its three small inmates, and reached his wife’s room at the end of the hall. He lifted the latch, gave a slight push, and found resistance. He tapped his knuckles lightly against its smooth walnut surface. “Mary, Mary?”

No answer. He knocked again. “Mary, let me in!”

A door down the hallway opened, and a slim little figure in a pink nightdress appeared. “What is it, Papa?”

“Go back to bed, Ellen,” he said. “I just want to see how your mother is.”

As he said this, Mary’s door opened an inch. He glimpsed a strip of her white gown and her bare toes. “Come in if you must,” she whispered as he squeezed by her.

She stepped up onto the bed and moved over to the far side to make room for him. He pulled the curtains around them.

“Why was your door locked, Mary? You know I like to visit sometimes. Is it too much to ask you to let me in without waking up the children in the process?”

“Sam...” She moved towards him. He could smell the rosehip soap she used when she washed her hair. “I’m worn out. I cannot sleep with you again. I’m forty years old. If I found myself in the family way again, I don’t know what I might do.” He heard her sobs. “Men can’t understand.”

He put his hand on her breast and felt her pull away.

“I’ve tried to tell you before, but...I’d rather be left alone...” She rubbed her hot, wet cheek against his chest.

They’d married shortly after his trial for the murder of John Ridout. William Powell had been the judge. Murder among gentlemen—one joker’s definition of duelling—sometimes went unpunished, especially if one’s future father-in-law sat on King’s Bench. He and Mary had hoped for happiness, like any newlyweds. They had not reckoned on the tragedy that had occurred nine months after their union.

He, too, could not forget the screams from the bedchamber that went on hour after hour while he sat in the hallway. And then the silence, and the doctor calling him inside to look at a small blue-skinned corpse. He’d wanted to comfort Mary, but the sight of his dead son made him sick, and he’d had to puke into the basin with all the bloody cloths.

There had been nine more births within sixteen years of marriage. She said men couldn’t understand. But remembering that stillborn child, then the small son who died in the first year of his life, and all that terrible pain, those screams...well, yes, he could understand why Mary locked her bedroom door. He sighed, reached for her hand and held it. “Don’t worry, my dear, I will not come to your bedchamber again until I have seen Dr. Widmer. He can advise me. I hear there are devices a man can use.”

He could hear her intake of breath. “But surely, Sam, such... devices...are against God’s will.”

His head throbbed. Damn, damn. He’d offered to cover his prick with sheep’s gut, and she tried to give him a lecture on God’s will.

He listened to her sobs for a minute. “Sleep in your narrow bed without worry, my dear.” He climbed down and tiptoed back to his own room. She might come around in a few days. She usually did. He was off for his annual moose hunt tomorrow, anyway. And perhaps Dr. Widmer would have the sheep’s gut coverings by the time he got back. “They’re expensive,” he had told Sam. But Sam had so many debts, what was an extra bill? Widmer could always have another piece of Sam’s land if he desired.

He rose late the next morning. It mattered little when he got to the block of offices that flanked the new Parliament Building. No one cared. Deputy Provincial Secretary: an impressive title for a job that involved paper-shuffling. The pay was not bad, but not enough to cover his father’s debts and his own as well. Perhaps the new governor would come through with a promotion. He had an ego that could be stroked.

Mary was in the breakfast room. He got himself a cup of coffee from the sideboard and sat opposite her.

“Damn it, Mary—”

“Excuse me, sir.” The maid came into the breakfast room carrying a platter of poached eggs. She slipped three onto his plate, two onto Mary’s, and set the rest on the sideboard. While she was checking to see if there was still enough coffee in the urn, he dipped his bread in the eggs and put a large piece into his mouth.

“Disgusting,” he said and spat the dripping mess into his napkin. “Can a man not get a decent breakfast in his own house? These eggs are bad.” He threw the napkin onto the floor.

“If you please, sir, I tested them this morning in cold water. I did, sir. Cook says if they’re fresh, they sink to the bottom. If they’re rotten, they float. And sink they did, sir. I swear it.”

“Don’t argue. Take Mr. Jarvis’s plate to the kitchen and bring him some rashers of bacon.”

The maid picked up the napkin from the floor, set it on Sam’s plate, and hurried off with it.

He watched Mary pick at her eggs, then push them to the side of her plate. They drank their coffee in silence, listening to the sounds of their daughters and the little ones belowstairs, enjoying the attentions of Cook and their expensive but excellent new governess, Miss Siddons. The maid came in again with bacon and fresh-baked rolls, set them at his place, and clumped down the kitchen stairs.

Mary stared down at the uneaten eggs on her plate. The case clock chimed nine times. As if recalled to life, she rose, gathering her shawl around her. It was a cashmere shawl in a soft shade of green that set off her pink cheeks. He had bought it for her from a merchant on King Street, and the bloodsucker kept reminding him of its cost in the quarterly bills that arrived.

The maid came back into the room. She picked up Mary’s plate and headed for the door. Then she turned and came back to the table.

“What is it?”

“Please, sir. I need...”

“Need? What?”

“My wages.”

“You’ll get them, damn it. Now leave me in peace.”

He sat at the table for a few minutes after she left. The bacon grease congealed on his plate. He picked up his cup of coffee. The dregs were lukewarm and bitter.