Marc went upstairs while Winnifred waited below with the baby. It was too risky to try to inform Thomas just yet. Marc wrote a compelling note to the Yates family of Waddington, to brothers Eugene and Stephen, and the latter’s wife, Callie. Then he got his uniform out of his trunk and put it on-boots, shako cap, sabre, and all. He figured that Thomas in disguise, plus the sanctioning of the procedure by a uniformed officer, should be enough to deceive or intimidate someone as wily as Clark Cooper. At the very bottom of the trunk holding his gentleman’s finery he found the last item he needed: a periwig. He tucked it under his jacket, pulled on his green greatcoat, and headed for the stairs.
“Well, Lieutenant, it is wonderful to see you at last in your full splendour.”
It was Brookner, leading his troupe out of the dining-room.
“Thank you, sir. I thought I should give it a bit of an airing before Toronto.”
“You’re going out?”
“Just for a short walk.”
“Splendid. Enjoy yourself. You deserve to.”
Marc watched the others trail after him up the stairs, Adelaide bringing up the rear and whispering something urgent at her brother, who was more than a little tipsy. When they disappeared, Marc went into the lounge.
“Have you got a suitable dress?” he asked Winnifred, who had baby Mary tucked back into her embrace. “And a winter hat with a veil on it?”
“Yes. But he hasn’t shaved for seven days.”
“I hope he has a razor, then. He’ll love this.” Marc held up the grey barrister’s wig.
Winnifred giggled. “And you’re back in uniform!”
Marc explained why. “Can that window be opened?” he asked.
“Of course. I served the sandwiches through it.”
“We’re going out that way, then. Jones is busy cleaning up after supper. He’ll assume you’ve gone to your room. I’ve told the others I’m out for a walk.”
As Marc gently handed the still-sleeping baby through the window to Winnifred, her eyes lit up, as of old. “Are we really doing this?” she asked excitedly.
There was no time to fill Thomas in on the details of Marc’s plan. But the man’s absolute trust in his wife’s judgement was both sad and wondrous to behold. In the darkened barn, he shook Marc’s hand over and over, unable to stop shuffling and moving his arms about: he seemed a man on the brink. His craggy features and sturdy yeoman’s body were ready to crumple. Still, he scrabbled through his kit for his razor, and Marc helped him use it as best he could with cold water and a dull edge. Thomas made no complaint when they stripped him to his long johns and began pulling a taffeta dress over his head. Its skirt was long enough to cover his work-boots. Winnifred had brought only one overcoat, so they draped “Thomasina” with shawls and scarves, and crowned the effort with the wig and a winter cap that covered most of it and held it in place. A fur muff would camouflage the unmistakably male hands.
“Now remember, you’re Thomasina. You’ve got a cold and lost your voice. So just nod and shake your head to any questions. Winn and I will do the talking. You’re the Hatch sisters, all right? And the baby belongs to Winnifred.”
Winnifred had turned away to muffle her giggle when Thomas took a ploughman’s mighty step, caught his toe in the hem of the skirt, and pitched into the hay.
“We’ll try a little practice first,” Marc suggested.
Fifteen minutes later they came out of the woods and spotted, in the bright moonlight, Clark Cooper’s log cabin. There was a candle in the window, but before Marc could reach the door, it opened and the ferryman emerged to greet them.
“Evenin’, folks. You lookin’ fer a sail across the ice?” He had a leprechaun’s body, the head of a wrestler, and a voice like a mallard’s on a windy day. His eyes flicked across the officer, the woman with the baby, and the creature behind her.
“Yes, we are. This is Winnifred and Thomasina Hatch, acquaintances of mine from Cobourg. They wish to go to Waddington tonight en route to Montreal because the roads east of here have become too dangerous for two women to travel unescorted. I met them by chance at the hotel-I’m on my way back to my regiment in Toronto-and offered to see them safely across to New York.”
“You comin’, too, are ye?”
“No, but I’ll stand here and watch till you’re on your way. I doubt you’ll fail to reach the other side if Mr. Jones’s account of your work is true.”
“I ain’t drownded nobody yet.”
“How much?”
“A pound apiece.”
“But that’s-”
“And a shillin’ fer the littl’un.”
He peered warily at Mary. “That babe won’t cry, will it?” he asked Winnifred.
“Not if you give us a ride worth a pound,” she replied.
He chuckled throatily. “Yer elderly sister looks a bit frail to be tryin’ such a trip on a night like this. How old are ya, anyway, old gal?”
Thomasina uttered a hollow rasping sound they had rehearsed.
“She’s got laryngitis and hasn’t been able to say a word for two days,” Winnifred explained. “And she’s not yet forty.”
Marc had produced the money to cover the exorbitant charge.
“Well, I guess I can take ya. Them militia fellas has been pesterin’ me to death about rebels runnin’ this way an’ that. They even threatened to put me in jail if I was to take one of ’em across.”
“Well, Mr. Cooper, I am more than a militiaman. And I am vouching for these people.”
“You got a name?”
Marc realized he had been wise not to underestimate Clark Cooper.
“Lieutenant Marc Edwards, 24th Light Infantry, Fort York. If there’s any trouble, you just refer the matter to me.”
Marc helped the Hatch sisters and the baby into the skiff while Cooper fiddled with the ropes holding it to shore.
Thomas looked up, shook his head, and whispered to Marc, “All I ever wanted to do was be a good farmer an’ tend to my own business.”
Winnifred asked only that Marc report their flight to her father and to Beth, then became too overwhelmed to say anything more. She waved farewell as the sail caught the breeze and the ice-sled skittered out onto the black ice, shorn of snow and buffed ebony by the constant wind. It seemed to Marc as if they were sailing off the edge of some soulless moon. He might never see them again, and his heart clenched at the thought. Oddly enough, it never occurred to him that he had just assisted a fugitive to escape the justice he had sworn to uphold. And given his name as guarantor.
He watched the triangular white sail till he could see it no more.
The foyer was empty and the dining-room dark when he came back in through the front door of the inn. The others had retired to their rooms. The only activity still in progress was the washing up. He could hear the maid singing a song he could not quite place, melodious and youthful. He stopped to listen. It was an old French folk song, one that his own French instructress had sung to him many years before. He found it both sorrowful and soothing.
The girl, whose tiny figure he could see moving across the opening in the kitchen door, was suddenly joined in midchorus by a male voice. They harmonized beautifully. Marc was unhappy that the duet had to end. When it did, he turned to go upstairs. Male and female were now conversing rapidly in French, but he understood little for it was in the local dialect. However, it was the male’s voice that caught Marc’s attention and drew him out of his reverie. It was Charles Lambert, speaking perfectly inflected joual.
Marc did not want to think about anything tonight except the Goodalls and the Hatches, and those at Crawford’s Corners who had, he realized with a pleasurable start, become his friends. His adoptive father, Jabez, was dead. The land he had been raised on would soon pass into the hands of cousins he had never met. England seemed an eon away. So he pushed his bed up against the door, removed his uniform, tucked it carefully back into his trunk, and lay down on the bed to let the floodtide of memory have its way.