Don Gutteridge
Minor Corruption
ONE
Toronto: September 1840
“So you’re finally gonna let me have a peek at thelegendary Uncle Seamus?” Beth said to Marc as the brand-newbrougham veered off Brock Street north onto the bush-path thatmeandered its way up to Spadina House.
Marc gave eighteen-month-old Maggie an extradandle on his right knee and responded to his wife’s remark in asimilar bantering tone: “It’s not as if we’ve been hiding him undera bushel, and the dear fellow can’t help it if his antics have madehim notorious in the stuffy drawing-rooms of Tory Toronto, now canhe?”
“Would anyone be paying attention at all ifthe man wasn’t a Baldwin?” Brodie Langford called back from hisperch on the driver’s bench. He was able to turn only partwayaround, not because he felt obliged to keep an eye on the pair ofspirited horses in front of him but because he did not wish toremove his arm from the willing shoulder of his fiancée seatedbeside him.
“Possibly not,” Marc laughed as he heldMaggie up so she could see the forest flowing past them and marvelat the goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace that bloomed flamboyantlyalong the edge of the path and in the beaver meadows here and therealong their route. It was Maggie’s first trip out of town, and shewas wide-eyed with wonder.
“Well, he’s been here since July, hasn’t he?”Beth said without turning her own gaze away from the view on herside of the carriage or disturbing the baby asleep against herbreast. “And he hasn’t shown up at Baldwin House or anywhere elsethat I’ve heard.”
“Seamus Baldwin emigrated here for the solepurpose of retiring to the bosom of his family. Why should he wishto leave the company of his brother and nephew and his nephew’schildren and the delights of Spadina-in-the-woods and brave theurban ruckus of the city?”
“What I’d like to know,” Diana Ramsay saidfrom under Brodie’s left arm, “is what exactly makes himnotorious?”
Diana was governess to Robert Baldwin’s sonsand daughters, and although stationed in the Baldwin’s town-houseat Front and Bay Streets with her charges, she had accompanied themoften out to their country retreat, Spadina.
“But surely you of all people would know?”Marc teased. “You’ve seen the great man up close more than any ofus.”
“I have, and as far as I can see, he’s ajolly elf of an Irishman who loves a jig, a sentimental song and agood joke. What’s more, he’s become the darling of Mr. Baldwin’schildren, especially little Eliza.”
It was to celebrate nine-year-old Eliza’sbirthday that Marc, Beth, Maggie, baby Marcus Junior, Brodie andDiana were jogging along towards Spadina on an early Septembermorning in full sunshine under a cloudless sky. Brodie had justtaken possession of the brougham – with its elegant, retractableroof, Moroccan leather seats and oak trim – and although he couldafford to have several servants (and did), he had not yetrelinquished the reins to anyone but himself.
“Ah, but what songs! What jigs! What antics!”Brodie laughed as he gave Diana a discreet squeeze.
She gave him in return a gentle elbow in theribs. “You’ve only seen him once,” she chided, “and that was inJuly just after he came.”
“It’s you two who are going to be notorious,”Marc said with mock solemnity. “Perhaps you should shorten yourengagement, eh?”
The young couple laughed, as they were meantto, but the date set for their wedding, more than a year off, wasnot really a laughing matter. Although now a wealthy younggentleman and budding banker, Brodie was not yet twenty-one andDiana, several years older, had accepted his proposal only when hepromised to wait until all four of Robert Baldwin’s children werecomfortably settled in school and she could, in good conscience,leave them in the hands of another governess.
Maggie squealed and clapped her hands as ascarlet tanager flew up out of a pine tree ahead of them andfluttered in surprise over the horses’ heads.
Marc sat back with his daughter in his lapand let her excitement play itself out. How much more content coulda man get? he thought. Last April Beth had presented him with ason, Marcus Junior (now purring away in his mother’s arms). Soonafter, work began on the five-room addition to Briar Cottage, morethan doubling its size, and by midsummer it was completed. Maggiehad a nursery to herself, Marc a study and library, Beth asewing-room (also used as an office in her capacity as owner andmanager of Smallman’s ladies shop on fashionable KingStreet), and their new live-in servant, Etta Hogg, had a small butsatisfactory bedroom. And for all of them, a spacious parlour witha fieldstone fireplace. Their long-time servant, Charlene Huggan,had left them in June to marry Etta’s brother, Jasper. The coupletook up housekeeping next door in the Hogg family home, caring forJasper’s sickly mother and doing their best to expand the Hoggdynasty.
Whenever he was not supervising theconstruction – carried out by Jasper and his new business partner,Billy McNair – or keeping watch on an unpredictably mobile Maggie,Marc found some time to assist his friend Robert Baldwin in his lawchambers and to confer with Robert, Francis Hincks and other keymembers of the Reform party. Even politics, against all odds,seemed to be moving in their favour as both Reformers and Toriescontinued to lobby and plot in the run-up to the new order ofthings: the union of Upper and Lower Canada in a single colony witha common parliament. The Act of Union had been passed in theBritish Parliament in July, and it required only the Governor’sofficial declaration to become an irreversible reality, a movewidely expected early in the new year. After that, of course, freshelections would be held in each of the constituent provinces, andthen it would soon become apparent whether French and English,Catholic and Protestant, Tory and Reformer could resolve theiringrained differences and make the unified state prosper where itsindividual parts had so glaringly failed. Unbenownst to the Tories,however, the Upper Canadian Reformers, last February, had concludedan accord with the Quebec radicals, and their hopes were high thattogether they could effectively dominate the new parliament. Andthat alliance had held and been kept secret now for over sixmonths.
“You aren’t gonna talk politics today, areyou?” Beth said as they rounded a bend and came in sight ofSpadina. It was not really a question.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Marc said. “We’rehere to celebrate a little girl’s birthday, aren’t we?”
A skeptical tittering from the driver’s benchseemed the only comment required.
***
It was a glorious late-summer day, and thefestivities were organized to take full advantage of its blessings.A picnic luncheon was to be served on the broad, sweeping lawnbehind the grand Georgian manor-house that Dr. William WarrenBaldwin had designed and had had constructed out here northwest ofthe city proper. Extra servants had been commandeered just for theoccasion; the fruits of the season – snow-apples, melons, grapesand several species of sweet, ripe nuts – had been gathered andprepared; and three trestle-tables had been set out inwhite-clothed splendour beneath a towering elm. For Robert Baldwin,a widower now for four years, this birthday celebration was both ahomage to the absent Eliza and a joyous, grateful day ofthanksgiving for the one still alive and thriving.
Before being ushered onto the picnic grounds,Marc and his party were greeted at the front door by Robert and hisfather and mother, and seconds later Beth was introduced to, andtook a first impression of, the infamous Uncle Seamus. Before her,holding onto her gloved hand and kissing it lightly, was a short,wiry gentleman impeccably dressed in morning-coat and freshlypressed trousers. He sported a great shock of grey-white hair,which alone gave the illusion of bulk and height, but it had beenat least partly tamed by pomade. The face was angular and pixyish,completely unlike the strong, regular and handsome features of hisyounger brother William and his nephew Robert. But it was the eyesthat arrested Beth’s attention. They were large and a pale blue,their size and roundness exaggerated by the bony sockets thatattempted to contain them, as if a pair of moonstones had beeninadvertently dropped there and left to fend for themselves. Whenhe stepped back and straightened up, Beth noticed that his clothes,though covering his nimble limbs appropriately enough, seemedsomehow incongruous, as if his body had suddenly shrunk insidethem. Beth had the feeling that he had come out of the womb as afully-formed gnome and had grown older and marginally larger inslow, measured degrees.