“You have a scheme of your own?” Durham asked, leaning forward.
“Yes. It is not mine but rather one that has wide support in the current assembly and is endorsed by many of the community leaders.”
“Then perhaps I heard it proposed last evening,” Durham said dryly.
“The solution we offer is straightforward,” O’Driscoll continued, and Marc noted the nods of assent from the other three whist players. “Upper Canada is to annex that part of Quebec that includes the island of Montreal. That will bring into the new state the mercantile and financial powers of the English minority there, leaving the French with the rest of the province, with their rural economy and ancient capital. They will be governed by the Queen’s envoy and his appointed executive, though it would seem prudent in the long run to leave them to their own quaint ways and devices. In the meantime an expanded Upper Canada can get on with the business of prospering and maintaining its British and nonrepublican character.”
“With a conservative assembly as you have now,” Durham said, straight-faced, “and a strong lieutenant-governor like Sir George Arthur.”
“You see our point precisely,” Harris said, missing Durham’s entirely. “My dear wife is from Quebec, but even she realizes that without economic prosperity and a strong monarchist hand at the tiller, no race or religion is secure from the twin tyrannies of poverty and secular republicanism. Since the French in Quebec have found our ways intolerable, why not give them back their farms and parishes, and leave them to fend for themselves. Any of them who wish to better their lot by joining the nineteenth century may emigrate here, and be welcomed.”
“Are you saying, then, that you find any suggestion for a unified Canadian province or an equitable federated state intolerable?” Durham said, surveying the assembled grandees.
“We are,” Finney said. “We do not wish to share power with the French in an elected assembly unless the balance is weighted in our favour. And we don’t envision a governor appointing them to his Executive Council or acknowledging their eccentric whims.”
“Nor do we wish any form of responsible government that would curtail the governor’s absolute right to choose his own advisers and execute the Queen’s will,” O’Driscoll added, as if that salient point had been overlooked.
“We haven’t heard from you, Mr. Baldwin,” Durham said.
“I’ve been listening, Your Lordship,” Robert Baldwin said. “My views are well known: without genuine responsible government, whether we are placed in a united legislature with the French or not, none of the issues that prompted the revolt will be resolved.”
“Poppycock!” O’Driscoll snorted. “Responsible government is the one concession that must never-never-be made! It is a direct threat to the monarchy.”
“It’ll turn this province into a republic with all the horrors we’ve watched with dismay in the United States,” Finney added.
“There’ll be anarchy in the streets,” Harris averred. “Commerce will grind to a halt. We’ll be ruled by the rabble!”
“I take your point, gentlemen,” Durham said. “But I should mention that despite the warnings given me by Sir John Colborne and Sir George Arthur that my life was certain to be in danger, Lady Durham and I travelled to New York State and found the natives both civilized and uninterested in regicide.”
“Do not make light of our concern, sir,” O’Driscoll said darkly.
“I believe you had not finished your commentary, Mr. Baldwin. Would you be so good as to resume?”
“What I wished to add to my initial comment,” Baldwin said, “is a warning to Your Lordship not to expect all the English and the French to line up with their own kind. The Rouge party in Quebec has more in common with English Reformers like me than with the Bleus, who speak their language. Nor are they likely to fade away in the near or distant future.”
O’Driscoll was about to disagree when Charles Buller interjected from his corner, “Time to break, milord?”
“Ah, so it is,” Durham said affably. “We shall resume after the luncheon that Sir George has laid on for us in his quarters. Mr. Buller will show you to your places. Thank you for your contributions thus far. After noon I’d like to focus on specific issues like the Clergy Reserves, the university question, the banking system, and the state of the public service.”
As the others dutifully followed Charles Buller towards the other section of Government House, Durham lingered in the foyer to talk to Marc.
“Well, there they are,” he said. “They seem to be united chiefly by their adherence to the extreme solution, as I term it: enlightened partition or divide and abandon.”
“That could well be the grounds for a conspiracy against you,” Marc said. “It’s the one plan you would never endorse. That and their implacable opposition to responsible government.” Marc didn’t add that he believed the chances of Lord Melbourne’s administration’s approving the latter recommendation were slight.
“If you had to choose one of them as the instigator and perhaps as the nemesis of my nephew, whom would you select?”
Marc did not hesitate: “Alasdair Hepburn.”
“But he spoke little and acted as a moderating influence.”
“That’s precisely why I suspect him. He seemed capable of subtlety.”
Durham smiled broadly. “He was my choice, too-for the same reason.”
“How do you propose to raise the topic of your nephew and their time with him in the card room on Monday?”
“Ah. Over port and cigars I shall mention that Handford, who has been ‘ill’ since the gala, is worried that he has lost a monogrammed, silver snuffbox given him by Lady Durham, and thinks that one of the whist-playing gentlemen may have picked it up by mistake. This will give me the opportunity to ask each of them when and where they last saw Handford and when and how they left that room. They don’t know that Wakefield has already mapped their movements for us.”
“You hope to catch them in an inconsistency?”
“In a lie, you mean. Indeed. And while I’m entertaining them and continuing our dialogue, I’d like you to visit each of their residences with a view to interrogating their wives.”
“Their wives?”
“Yes. Each of them brought a spouse to Spadina, which means that each of them either left with said spouse or made alternative arrangements.”
“I see. If Mr. Ellice rode in one of their carriages, then one of the wives is bound to know.”
“Or will remember being asked to arrange a ride with others while our villain went off with Handford on his own.”
“The trick will be to question them without letting them know about the murder and Mr. Ellice’s involvement. I take it that no word has yet leaked out?”
“Not yet. Only Withers, Sir George, Cobb, and Sturges are in the know, besides Lady Durham and us. I’m leaving it to you to find a way to approach the wives without giving the show away.”
“I’ll start immediately.”
He thanked Durham for the rare privilege of sitting in on one of his colloquies, then whirled and left Government House.
By the time he reached the King Street exit, he had already thought of a plan to win the confidence of the whist players’ long-suffering wives.
NINE
Cobb had contacted the last of his snitches by eleven o’clock and then stopped for refreshment at the Cock and Bull. The tapster there mentioned that Nestor Peck would not likely be available for a day or two as he had been spotted staggering in last night with a bump on his noggin “the size of his brain.”
“That tiny, eh?” Cobb replied, and ordered another flagon. With both his thirst and his curiosity sated, he set out for Irishtown and some real investigating.
While too polite to say so, he felt deep down that Marc Edwards was out of his depth in a place like Irishtown. The people there were con artists and natural liars: without such finely tuned capacities they would not survive a month. A part of Cobb admired them, especially the ones who were supporting a family by eking out a livelihood in the only ways left to them by the ruling clique, the grasping merchants, the hypocritical church, and the customary cruelties of fate. But someone at Madame Renée’s had stepped over the line. A young woman had been brutally murdered with “all her sins upon her head.” And a very important person had been implicated.