The Bishop's Pawn (6 page)

Cobb was looking around for a suitable
hat.

“An’ just think of the buzzin’ an’ backbitin’
that’ll be goin’ on
after
the service. It’ll be more fun
than fair day!”

***

It was still a half-hour before the service, but when
Cobb and Dora turned north onto Church Street, they were astonished
to see the broad intersection of Church and King jammed with
carriages, men on horseback, and dozens of pedestrians – more or
less impeding one another’s progress. The rumour concerning John
Strachan’s possible elevation (started, it was said, by the
gentleman himself) had spread far and wide, as had the certainty
that the great man had already booked passage for England and
Lambeth Palace. If so, then they were about to hear his valedictory
sermon as Archdeacon and Rector of York. A Strachan sermon at any
time was music to the ears of every Anglican, Tory, and royalist in
the province, many of them having been reprinted in pamphlet and
book form for the edification of Christians everywhere. Nor had the
good reverend been modest about veering in his homilies from
God’s
word to the
government’s.
It wasn’t his fault
if religion and politics were permanently entangled in the closed
world of Upper Canada, and since it was so, he would not flinch
from his responsibility to guide his flock to the right
conclusions. After all, there were as many of the Devil’s tricks
and snares in the prose of the
Durham Report
as there were
in an atheist’s tract. That the Archdeacon would take full
advantage of his captive audience and his (soon-to-be) enhanced
authority was not in doubt. It would take Christ’s resurrection
itself to trump the anticipated glories and satisfactions of
this
morning!

Cobb and Dora manoeuvred across the
intersection in the bright Sabbath sunshine, then paused to catch
their breath on the gravelled esplanade in front of the church.
They were surprised to see, nearby, Marc Edwards and a smartly
dressed young couple.

“Well, hello there, major!” Cobb said, using
his familiar if inaccurate epithet for his friend and sometime
associate in the investigation of serious crimes. “What’re you
doin’ here in the
real
church? Without yer better half?”

Marc laughed, as he was meant to, and tipped
his hat to Dora. “Beth was up most of the night with leg cramps
and, like all these good, overly curious citizens, I decided to
forgo the pleasures of the Congregational service in order to hear
the spit and thunder of the great man himself.”

“I couldn’t’ve said it any better,” Cobb
said, “but I’d’ve been a tad briefer.”

“I’ve got some balm I c’n rub on Beth’s
calves,” Dora said. “I’ll come ‘round after Church an’ give her a
massage.”

“That’s kind of you, Dora. Beth will be
grateful, and pleased to have someone else to talk to besides me or
Charlene.”

“An’ who are yer young friends?” Dora
said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marc said. “I forgot that
you haven’t met Brodie or Miss Ramsay.”

Cobb, of course, had met Brodie during the
investigation and trial the previous January, but Dora’s response
to him was not untypical: he was so fair-haired and white-skinned
that one expected his eyes to be as pink as a rabbit’s. But they
were an icy blue, translucent, and disconcerting. However, when he
smiled, as he did in shaking hands with Cobb and bowing to Dora,
you forgot any of the anomalies of his appearance.

“And this is my good friend, Diana Ramsay,”
Brodie Langford announced with a proprietorial air that prompted
her to blush.

“I’ve heard much about both of you,” Diana
said. “All of it flattering,” she added with an impish glance at
Brodie.

“Diana is governess to Robert’s four children
at Baldwin House,” Marc explained.

“And at Spadina when the older ones are at
school,” Brodie said.

“I’ve seen you in the back yard often,” Cobb
said, “whilst makin’ my rounds. And I noticed young Broderick here
comin’ in fer the odd bit of legal advice.”

Before Diana could blush again, Dora said
cheerfully, “I guess we’re all here fer the same show.”

“Sideshow’s more like it,” Cobb said as he
was elbowed by a middle-aged, overdressed woman of means.

They decided for their own safety to join the
throng pressing towards the tall oaken doors of the Anglican
church.

***

The bells of St. James had just finished tolling for
the eleven o’clock service when Joseph Brenner and Lawrence
Tallman, following the precise directions provided by the
night-manager of The American Hotel, walked up a stone path to the
stoop of a cottage on the west side of Bay Street just above King.
They did not pause to admire the snowdrops that peeped bravely up
through clumps of grass on the lawn. But the curious wooden shingle
above the lintel, and its inscription, did arrest their attention
for a moment, before they rapped politely on the door.

An attractive, blond-haired young woman
answered their knock immediately, and flashed them a pretty smile.
“May I help you, gentlemen?”

“Is this the Dougherty residence, ma’am?”
said one of the two, though both of them were eyeing her
curiously.

“It is. Who would you like to see?”

“Doubtful Dick, if he’s at home.”

Celia smiled again. “Who shall I say is
calling?”

“Ah . . . two old . . . associates – from New
York.”

The smile vanished from her face.

***

The ringing of these same bells was duly noted in the
cluttered and shuttered workshop at the rear of
Bartholomew
Burchill: Silversmith
on King Street at Jarvis, a mere block
away from St. James. When it stopped, Matthew Burchill said “Eleven
o’clock” under his breath, like an amen at the end of a prayer. His
father would now be safely inside at the family pew. With the
bishop-in-waiting about to deliver the gospel in the flesh, nothing
short of a fire would drive him or any other parishioner out into
the sunshine. Matthew had one hour.
They
would have one hour
– together. It wasn’t much, but when you had a father with the
passions and prejudices of Bartholomew Burchill, it was as much as
one could hope for. All of which made Matthew adore Celia Langford
even more, if that were possible.

He stood back and examined the silver teapot
he had spent part of the night repairing so that he could slip away
to their morning assignation. Father expected it would occupy the
hour he was away and unable to supervise his son, idle hands being
the Devil’s workshop. The mend was perfect. In spite of his
father’s severe appraisal, Matthew knew that he was talented and
that, given a chance, he could go into business for himself and
make a go of it. Celia said that she had money, an inheritance from
her dead father (she fatherless and he motherless) and that
someday, when she finished school and they could think about
marrying, they could open their own silversmith shop. Alas, what
Celia, in her lovable naiveté, did not understand was that his
father would never relent, would never change his mind about her
guardian, Dick Dougherty – pervert, Anti-Christ, Yankee.

“He’s not anything like they say,” she had
told Matthew earnestly. “I’ve heard all the stories, especially
since I’ve been attending Miss Tyson’s Academy. They’re all lies!”
Brave, hopelessly infatuated, foolish perhaps, he had asked to be
introduced to the notorious barrister and recluse, who after all
had
done the state some service in his brilliant defense of
Billy McNair in January. “Not yet,” Celia had replied. “It’s not
that he wouldn’t agree to see you. It’s just that I haven’t yet got
up the courage to tell him about our love. So much has happened to
us – all of it good – since the trial, and as soon as this awful
business with the Law Society is over, I think he’ll be ready to
absorb the shock of my having fallen in love with the son of a man
who has libelled him in print.”

Just the week before, a letter had appeared
in the
Upper Canada Gazette
, signed by Bartholomew Burchill,
in which the scourge of Yankeeism and its malevolent consequences
upon the province – upon its politics and its morals – were
exposed, detailed, and then pitilessly damned. Although the
outraged silversmith for the most part kept to generalities –
preferring to tar every interloper, émigré and republican
blackguard with a single brush – he did, towards the end, veer
dangerously close to naming names. He could not, he averred, in
good conscience conclude his exposé without especial reference to
certain hellish abominations, so repellent that even the
Holy
Bible
could not bring itself to put a label on them, and which
were being committed under their very noses by a disbarred lawyer
from a neighbouring state. That such a reprehensible creature
should be allowed not only to carry on his unspeakable perversions
in the godly city of Toronto but also to contemplate practising his
own dubious profession in the province and prosper at its expense –
well, no words could adequately describe the writer’s indignation
(though the previous four hundred had come close to doing so).

At their next secret rendezvous, Celia had
assured her distraught suitor that her guardian had been irritated
by the letter, but only because he felt it might prejudice his
request to be admitted to the Bar. As a controversial trial lawyer
in New York City who had routinely got acquitted accused murderers
and wealthy embezzlers, he was used to adverse public reaction and
character assassination. And before Matthew could dredge up the
courage to ask the question that had to be asked, Celia – bless her
– had said with amazing calm, “No, he did not do
any
of the
terrible things he’s been accused of.” After an awkward pause,
Matthew had said, “Or the things they say he did that got him
kicked out of New York?” “None of them,” she’d replied, looking him
straight in the eye. After another, longer pause, he said with his
heart thudding in his chest, “How do you know for sure?” Hurt but
undaunted, Celia said, “Because he was my father’s law partner and
friend for all the years of my life. Brodie and I called him
‘uncle.’ And still do.” Then, miraculously, she leaned over and
kissed him on the cheek. “Now we don’t have to discuss my guardian
or your father any more.”

Matthew removed his apron, washed his hands,
combed his hair, pulled on a sweater, and slipped out the back door
of the shop. He went along the service lane to Jarvis Street,
checked to see that the roadway was clear of people who might
recognize him, and headed north. Five minutes later found him
treading past a silent foundry and on towards a small shed behind
it. He gave the coded knock, and entered.

Celia wasn’t there. The discarded cushions
that they had found here and arranged for their comfort among the
foundry’s detritus were still in place. No-one had been inside
since their last meeting three days ago. Perhaps something had
delayed her. With a sigh, he sat down to wait. He hated losing even
a minute of their time together. It had been only a month since he
had met her and they had known that they must meet again, despite
the odds against them. Matthew’s father never let him leave the
shop unsupervised except on occasion to deliver packages, of new or
repaired pieces, to demanding customers. Even then, old Burchill
knew how long it should take his son to get there and back. When
Matthew pointed out that he was almost nineteen and needed a social
life outside of church and guild meetings, he was sent back into
the repair shop and given double his usual quota. However, one of
his rare deliveries had been to Miss Tyson’s Academy, and it was
Celia who had received him and asked him ever so politely to wait
until the headmistress could come from her junior class to check
the parcel. In the meantime, would the gentleman like a cup of
tea?

The knock came, jarring him out of his
reverie. The door opened, and Celia came in. His heart leapt at the
sight of her golden hair – wantonly free – her pale perfect skin,
and her tiny figure dwarfed by the cloth coat she always wore. Then
he spotted the worry in her blue, blue eyes, and his heart
sank.

“What’s happened?”

She scooted down beside him. “I was just
about to leave the house,” she said, out of breath, “when I heard
someone at the front door. The servants don’t come on Sunday,
Brodie went off to St. James, and Uncle was feeling poorly from his
exertions at the legislature last night.”

“Take your time,” Matthew said, alarmed and
aroused by the pretty heavings of her chest beneath the coat.

“So
I
had to answer it.”

“And?”

“There were two well-dressed gentlemen,
lawyers, I’m sure, from back home. They looked vaguely familiar.
They asked to see Uncle. I woke him up from his nap, and he said to
show them in.”

“Did he look worried?”

Celia paused, thinking. “Not really. But then
he’s a barrister. He made his living acting out the parts he had to
play in court. So I’m not sure. I felt I ought to stay, even though
I was desperate to see you.”

“Dearest Celia,” Matthew stammered, uncertain
of the protocol and niceties of lovemaking.

“But he ordered me out of the house, quietly
but firmly. He told me not to come back until noon.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about, is
there?” Matthew said hopefully.

Celia teetered against him, and let herself
be consoled.

FIVE

The Reverend John Strachan – D.D., Rector of York
County, Archdeacon responsible for the Established Church in Upper
Canada, arch-Tory, and Defender of the Queen’s faith – was in full
flight. His church (soon to be a cathedral?) was packed with the
faithful, the near-faithful and the merely curious – a thousand
strong, a quarter of the adult population of Toronto! The
beleaguered verger, Reuben Epp, had had to damp down the fires that
normally kept the hallowed space comfortably warm on a crisp March
day, for the body-heat of enthusiasm and anticipation proved to be
more than sufficient. The earlier parts of the service seemed to
some onlookers to have been mysteriously hurried and perfunctory,
almost as if the Lord Himself were urging them on to the main
event. And when Archdeacon Strachan ascended to the pulpit, the
silence was as deep as the instant of Communion itself.