“My brother-in-law’s allegiance has been disturbed, shaken even, by the recent tragic events,” Brookner said to Pritchard in response to Sedgewick’s last snort of disapproval.
“Farmers fightin’ farmers,” Sedgewick said. “What’s the good of it?”
“Quite right,” Pritchard said amiably. “There’s nothing civil about a civil war. It’s like a family feud.”
Sedgewick gave him a half smile but did not add to the sentiment.
“There’ll be a few hangings and then folks’ll begin to see things straight again,” Brookner said loftily. “You mark my words. And a little war-quick and precise-isn’t a bad thing every once in a while. Like a belt on a delinquent’s backside.”
This aphorism seemed to stall the conversation, and the sudden arrival of snow fluttering past the windows in mesmerizing wavelets drew attention to the outdoors for a few minutes.
“I am not in the least concerned that these woods are crowded with vigilantes or foreign invaders,” Brookner said, staring up at the ceiling where a larger and more discriminating audience might lurk. “Why, when my grandfather and grandmother trekked five hundred miles from Virginia through forests like these in 1783-as their home burned behind them and they paid for their loyalty to King George with everything but their lives-these woods were infested with Indians: Senecas and Osage, as primitive and vicious as they come.”
“Mohawks and Onondagas,” Adelaide responded, to the astonishment of all. “And up here, Algonquins-Ottawa and Montagnais. And most of them were running, too.”
No-one could think of anything to say to such a mild but authoritative interjection. Marc saw Brookner’s body stiffen and his lower lip quiver.
“Addie was tops in her class,” Sedgewick said, ostensibly to Pritchard sitting opposite him. “Always.”
Brookner ignored the remark and said patronizingly, “That may well be, my dear-you are often correct about such minutiae-but what does it matter in terms of the point I was making? One savage is like another.”
“Oh, I trust, sir, that any of those remaining in the province are somewhat civilized by now,” Pritchard said with such obvious anxiety and sincerity that the conversation was brought, mercifully, back to more immediate and practical matters.
“Your scalp is safe here,” Marc said, looking out at the snow to hide his smile.
“Rest-stop up ahead!” Gander Todd called out.
And this time, as if to demonstrate how secure these woods were, Brookner did not approach the half-log grog-shop with his sword flashing.
Two hours later, without further incident or much meaningful chatter, the coach pulled up at an inn that sat on the river side of the road about a quarter of a mile from the village of Prescott. Marc got out of the carriage and surveyed the establishment, reputed to be the finest hostelry in these parts.
The Georgian Arms was a sprawling, two-storey clapboard edifice with a pillared verandah and false balcony above it and seven or eight chimney-pots, all of them issuing smoke. Barns and stables were set back discreetly in the rear. The village itself, on a clear day, would have been visible as there were working farms on either side of the road, dozing now under tender pillows of January snow. Just behind the outbuildings Marc could see, in blurred outline, a copse of evergreens and the telltale shadow where the banks of a creek meandered. Beyond the rim of the bush to the southwest, he knew, the St. Lawrence would be pouring blue and frigid underneath its carapace of ice.
“Well, this is more like it,” Pritchard said approvingly.
The interior offered little to change the Englishman’s mind. There was a spacious reception chamber that rose two storeys to a vaulted and timbered ceiling. All the guest-rooms apparently were on the second floor of the two-storey, in the rear section of the inn. Off the foyer, left and right, there were five or six good-sized rooms that served variously as smoker, waiting lounge for the coach service, public and private dining areas, and a taproom for travellers and local tipplers. Beneath the guest-rooms were the kitchen and probably the office and living quarters of the owner. Two strapping youths took their luggage and lugged it through the hall on the left and up a narrow set of stairs, while the honoured guests themselves were greeted effusively by the proprietor, Murdo Dingman.
Dingman looked as if he had been press-ganged into his clothes. Bulges of neck and waist leaked out at cuff and collar, accenting even more his globular head and a glowing pink scalp barely rescued from baldness by two grey tufts of hair standing above his ears like undotted exclamation marks. His berry-brown eyes were beady and hyperactive between beetle brow and bursting cheek, the only quick-moving parts of an otherwise phlegmatic physique. What he lacked in sprightliness, however, he compensated for by his enthusiastic patter.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he enthused, tumbling his fists like a baker kneading dough. “Your approach has been presaged by the governor’s courier, and hence we have made estimable preparations for your comfort and pleasure. We will brook no efforts to make your stay with us a memorial one.” He thrust out his chubby fingers and shook the hand of each of the gentlemen, catching and recording their names. He gave the captain an extra pump and, being informed that Marc was also a military officer, returned and pumped it again. So excited was he that he almost seized the lady’s hand in a male embrace, caught himself in time, and made a bow so curt he threatened to topple over and crush her.
“Barker!” he shrieked at a wretched lad struggling towards the stairs with Marc’s big trunk. “Be careful! Use both the hands God gave you!”
It being only two hours till supper-time at six, the party decided to go to their rooms, perform their ablutions (there was a bathroom at the far end of the upstairs hall and tons of hot water to be fetched at a whim), and then drift down for a pre-meal sherry in the plush chairs of the lounge. “Where you will be unperturbed till dinner be serviced,” their host confided, with a trumpeting chortle that had no evident purpose.
Still aware that he must act prudently, Marc lingered behind the others a little to survey the layout. As he stood in the cavernous foyer looking towards the rear of the inn, the lounge or smoker lay to his left, and to his right was a tavern, abuzz with local barflies. Straight ahead and running underneath the second storey, where the guest-rooms were, was a long hallway ending in a rear exit. Off this hall were doors left and right, leading, Marc assumed, to various parts of the proprietor’s living quarters or those of his hirelings, and next to the exit itself Murdo Dingman’s office. Just to Marc’s left, around the corner from the lounge, a short hall brought one to the stairs leading up to the rooms above or, alternatively, to a side exit on the ground floor. Over to the right, below the arching beams strung with coloured candle-lamps, was the open dining-room set with generous round tables draped in white linen cloth. A clattering of pans somewhere beyond it suggested an adjoining kitchen.
Marc started for the hallway to his left and the stairs to his room. But Murdo Dingman came trundelling up the hall from his office and across the foyer, waving a letter in one hand. Marc stopped and waited politely for his arrival. Dingman came to a rolling stop in front of him, glanced warily over at the open tavern-door, slipped the letter into Marc’s hand with a deft gesture, and said, “Private communicado for your eyes only. From the currier at twelve hundred hours.” And he scuttled furtively back towards his office.
It was another note from Owen Jenkin in Montreal.
Dear Marc:
More disquieting news. One of Sir John Colborne’s spies has supplied information that Charles Lambert is actually Sharles Lam-bear (French pronunciation for both words), born in St. Denis but raised in Vermont across the border. Many relatives still in the area. Spent the past two weeks near the village, but his purpose is not yet known. His wife is English-speaking and, we believe, still in Cobourg. Watch your back. More news as it comes to me.