Beside him, Brodie said, “It’s not thisbeautiful close-up.”
***
Their journey along the Erie Canal had been long andarduous, but nonetheless had produced its own share of wonders.Marc and Brodie had reached Buffalo just past noon on Thursday.They were assured that, if they wished to wait for a few hours, acraft with accommodation suitable for two gentlemen could be had -for ready cash. But as every hour was critical to their plans, theytook passage on the first available vessel, a well-travelled bargehauling cowhides that had originated in Chicago and were destinedfor France. The single cabin in the middle of the barge had severalcompartments, and one of these was assigned to the payingpassengers. Food and refreshment could be picked up on the go.Drawn along the twenty-foot width of this engineering marvel bymules and horses – changed at intervals – the barge made all offive miles per hour. But it never stopped, except to be loweredlike a de-levitating table down one of the several dozen locks onroute to the Hudson River three hundred and seventy-five meanderingmiles away. Marc and Brodie slept in the cabin, bought their mealsat a makeshift inn or tavern beside a lock, and took their exerciseby occasionally getting off and treading the muddy towpath, oftenat a faster pace than that of the pitiable beasts of burden.
Beth had given Marc her copy of ThePickwick Papers to amuse him, with instructions to read thechapters on the behaviour of barristers in Mr. Pickwick’s trial forbreach of promise. But Marc had found little time for reading. Thescenery on either side of him was awe-inspiring and ever-changing.Virgin forests, rolling hills, near-mountains, impressively-clearedfarms, dazzling lakes, and burgeoning towns sprung up to feed onthe wealth that DeWitt Clinton’s canal had wrought: Syracuse, Rome,Utica, Troy. Here, rugged woodlands and pastoral farms abruptlygave way to smokestacks and warehouses and shantytowns and thehilltop mansions of the freshly, deservedly rich. For the firsttime Marc was seeing the miracle that was America: the fruits ofits republican fervour, its jettison of the cumbersome andcrippling past.
And over the course of thethree-and-a-half-day journey, Marc and Brodie exchangedconfidences.
With utmost tact, Marc had asked Brodie whathe remembered of his guardian’s public life in New York City. Hehad been just seventeen at the time of the sudden decampment, theyoung man replied readily, even enthusiastically. He wanted, itseemed, to keep his uncle alive in his life by talking about him.Uncle was scrupulous, Brodie said, about keeping his courtroomantics, with their attendant notoriety, separate from the quiet,domestic life he led at home – with them. When Dennis Langford’swife had died giving birth to Celia, Langford invited his lawpartner to live with him and his children. A new wing was added tothe family home on the corner of Broome and Mercer Streets, a blockaway from Broadway. The barristers’ offices comprised the threerooms facing Broome Street, but Celia and Brodie rarely set foot inthem. The law practice of Langford and Dougherty began to thrive asnever before.
Langford was the researcher parexcellence, who pored over legal tomes to mine the nuggets thatthe theatrical and brilliant Dougherty could deploy in the criminaland civil courts of the city and state. Paradoxically, once out ofcourt Dougherty was awkward with people, shy even, disabled as itwere by his overweening intellect and his searing insight into thefoibles and casual cruelties of his clients and their “enemies.” Onthe other hand, Dennis Langford, bookworm that he was, foundhimself at ease in social situations. Some of this natural,disarming charm had obviously been handed on to his son and helpedto explain, for Marc, Brodie’s success at the Commercial Bank,where callow Yankee scions were not exactly embraced.
Celia and Brodie had been raised by a nannyand tutored at home before being sent to private school as theyapproached puberty. Dougherty, whom they saw every day at mealtimesand who accompanied them on picnics and promenades, encouraged themto call him “uncle.” But four years ago, in 1835, Dennis Langfordhad died of pneumonia, and an idyllic childhood ended withoutwarning.
“That’s when your uncle became your officialguardian?” Marc said.
“Yes. My father wished it, and I don’t thinkCelia and I could have survived without him there in our lives – ashe had been as long as we could remember. Uncle inherited thebusiness and was made trustee of our legacy. Now we have it all.But not him.”
Some time later, Marc nudged the story backtowards Dougherty’s career. “Did your uncle make enemies? Peoplewho might wish him harm?”
Brodie gave Marc a wry smile. “He was alawyer in New York.”
Brodie then answered the question indirectlyby filling Marc in on the fractious politics of that great city.After his father’s death, Brodie was sent to an up-state prepschool. There he hobnobbed willy-nilly with the sons of thearistocracy and the nouveau riche. The former, Brodieexplained, were known as Whigs or Federalists, and were tantamountto English Tories, bent on perpetuating their privileges andmaintaining centralized control in government. The new middle classcalled themselves Republicans or Republican-Democrats, and demandedstates’ supremacy, local control, and the unfettered right to makethemselves rich.
But in New York City itself, he said,candidates for Congress, the State Legislature or the CommonCouncil of the municipality were predetermined and guaranteedelection by the powerful members of Tammany Hall. The latter wasnominally a fraternal organization – the Society of St. Tammany orthe Columbian Order – but had evolved into the ruling clique of themiddle class, championing the worker in public forums but in factexploiting him privately for their own ends. Their corruption waslegion. Even though he had been only fifteen years old, Brodielearned of these sad truths by listening to the boasts andarguments of his classmates. He heard tales of men whose careershad been crushed because they had defied Tammany Hall, theirproperty auctioned off and their families thrown into the poorhouseor debtor’s prison. This was the dangerous and unpredictable worldthat his father and uncle had taken such pains to shield himfrom.
“Did your uncle defy Tammany Hall?”
“He stayed clear of politics as far as hecould. He revered the law. And after we came to Toronto, he did,despite his near-withdrawal from the society of his fellow man,keep up with the affairs of the city that expelled him.”
“But how?”
“He had the newspapers from Buffalo andSyracuse mailed to him every week. When I saw him reading them andgrumbling away, I took the opportunity to engage him in aconversation which I felt was long overdue. He would not tell memuch, mind you – he just seemed too tired sometimes to move hislips, though that brain of his never rested. But I do know that hewas appalled at the way Tammany members rigged elections,bamboozled citizens with their high-flown, jingoistic rhetoric,wrapped themselves in Jefferson’s cloak and, worst of all, abusedand corrupted the very laws they proclaimed sacred.”