The Burying Ground (5 page)

“Well … I'm sorry, what's your name?”

“Caleb.”

“Well, Caleb,” he said, “sometimes cold baths help. And lots of exercise, so that you're tired at night and fall asleep right away.” It was the standard advice given on the subject. There were some schools of thought that advocated complicated devices that would interrupt the urge with pain — rings with spikes to deter the swelling, heavy gloves designed to control the hands, electro-magnetic apparatuses that delivered a disruptive shock, but Luke thought these excessive. He couldn't imagine applying them to himself, and was reluctant to prescribe them for anyone else. “Sometimes I'm not sure it's so big a problem as they make it out to be,” he ventured. “It's so common that I expect it's probably pretty normal.”

Quackery. Blasphemy. Heretical advice of the worst sort
. But he couldn't bring himself to censure this boy so obsessed with his own failings that they concerned him even as his grandmother lay dying.

“Really?” The boy looked a little relieved. “But the church says it's a sin.”

“Well, you know, sometimes I wonder why God gave you those urges if he didn't intend you to do something about them.”

“I suppose.” He looked doubtful.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Then you'll soon find someone. Once you're married, your troubles will go away. Until then, I wouldn't worry about it too much.”

This seemed to be enough to set the boy's fears to rest. His face brightened. “Thanks. I didn't feel right asking Dr. Christie about it.”

Luke could well understand the reluctance. The crusty doctor's response would most likely be a call to have all self-abusers trotted off to the hangman.

They had reached the small house, and when Luke went in to the parlour it was immediately clear to him that the old woman had finally breathed her last. He went through the motions of listening for a heartbeat and looking for a pulse. Then he confirmed her death and left the family to mourn.

The whole encounter left him in an unsettled mind. There had been nothing he could do for the old woman, and she was probably happy enough to leave life behind, but it had reawakened the sense of impotence that had dogged him in Kingston, where nothing he did seemed able to slow the march of bodies to the burial pits. It also reminded him of his own mother's death, and his heart went out to the grieving family he had just left. Worst of all, his conversation with the boy had reminded him of his own frailties. Caleb would be all right eventually, Luke was sure of it, but without Ben, what was he himself going to do?

The next morning, Dr. Christie asked Luke if he would mind going into the city, to Lyman and Kneeshaw's, the apothecary shop on King Street. They had run low on antimonial powder, he said, and gauze for bandages.

“Oh, and while you're there,” he said, as if it were an afterthought, “could you also get five packets of magnesium carbonate?”

Luke found the last request puzzling. Although the compound was useful as an antacid and laxative, it was seldom required in any quantity. Most patients took care of their own digestive problems rather than bother a doctor with them. But as he was happy enough to get away from Christie's skeleton for a morning, and curious to see Toronto's commercial core, he cheerfully boarded the omnibus that trundled down Yonge Street from Yorkville to the new St. Lawrence Market.

King Street still showed the effects of the devastating fire that had engulfed nearly half the city in 1849, although many of the buildings that replaced the old market square were now completed. Their dignified facades were in stark contrast to the warehouses and mills farther south that crowded the waterfront and belched their fumes of sulphur and coal smoke over the entire city whenever there was an onshore breeze.

As he walked along, Luke was able to pick out the familiar lilt of Irish voices. Irish emigrants had settled mostly on the edges of the city, he knew, their temporary shelters becoming more permanent and gradually spreading out until they formed neighbourhoods of a sort. Some of the emigrants found work in the nearby manufactories; some of them migrated into the west in search of farm work, only to wander back to the city when the harvest was over. Luke wondered if he would meet any of the people who might remember him from Kingston, but no one spoke as he walked along. He didn't know how many Irish had found a home in Toronto. Too many, if some of the outraged citizens of Toronto were to be believed. Every issue of the newspapers featured an irate letter or two about the “drunken Irish” and their outlandish behaviour, including their practice of bathing in the Don River, their thin, pale bodies exposed for all to see. With no water available to the majority of the tenements and shacks that housed them, Luke wasn't sure what other option they had if they wanted to stay clean.

It was not only Irish accents he heard. The street scene was a veritable Babel of voices. Irish cadence warred with the guttural tones of German immigrants, the burr of Scottish brogues, and the starchy inflections of England, all of them sounding peculiarly foreign against the flattened accent of the Canadian-born.

He soon found Lyman and Kneeshaw's, guided by the brightly coloured glass globe in the front window, a beacon to the illiterate in search of relief. As soon as he entered the front door, he inhaled deeply, soaking up the spicy astringent smell that permeated the apothecary. Shelves on both sides of the shop were heaped with toiletries, infant feeding bottles and aids, razors and miscellaneous devices to aid the self-medicator, from enema boxes to comfort containers that could be filled with hot water or coals and placed in a bed to warm an invalid.

The items of particular interest to Luke were found at the rear of the shop, stacked on painted shelves that stretched from one side of the room to the other. At the top, large green carboys held bulk quantities of the most popular oils and tinctures. The shelves below them were filled with shop rounds, their distinctive shapes signalling their contents: narrow-necked bottles of liquid preparations, spouted stoppers for the pouring of oils, wide-necked jars for powdered substances. Along one shelf he saw the familiar labels for opium-based products, OPII, OPHO, RHOEA.

He approached the massive walnut counter with its brass scales and mortar and pestles and handed his list to one of the apothecary assistants. While he waited for his order to be filled, he idly scanned the labels of the multitude of pharmaceuticals available. Extract of belladonna, tincture of calumbra, arsenate of potassium.

When his order was completed, he directed the assistant to bill Dr. Christie's account, and after one last look around the jumble of proprietary formulations and medical paraphernalia that filled the store, he stepped back out onto King Street.

Luke found he was enjoying the crush of street vendors, newsboys, and housewives on their way to shop at the market. Yorkville had seemed very sleepy and small after his years in a city as big as Montreal. He would walk along King Street and take in the sights, he decided, before heading north. If he grew tired, he could simply board an omnibus that would take him home.

He had turned north when he saw the smoke, a thick, black spume spiralling up from a cluster of frame buildings three blocks away. At first he wasn't sure if it was a cause for concern or just a greasy emission from someone's chimney. Then he heard shouting and several men raced past him. He broke into a run and followed. He was a doctor, after all, and might be able to render some assistance should anyone have been caught by fire. Even if there were no casualties, he was willing to man a water pump or pass a bucket if needed. Indeed, he was probably obliged to. He assumed that Toronto, like every other city, had an ordinance that required passersby to assist firefighters when asked.

As he drew closer he could see that flames had engulfed a one-storey wooden building sandwiched between two brick houses. The water wagons arrived at nearly the same time he did — and not one cart, but two. Neither of the parties was happy to see the other.

“I've got this,” one of them growled to the other carter. “You go on.”

“I'm staying put. I'm not giving up the bonus for being here first.”

As Luke watched the carters argue, two pumper wagons arrived. He was surprised to see them respond so promptly. Both sets of firemen began to unload their hoses and axes, jostling each other and getting in the way of any effective response. Occasionally, one of them would shout at another. The fire and the altercation between the fire companies were drawing a crowd of curious onlookers, who only added to the tumult by shouting out insults. It was no way to fight a fire, and Luke could see that the flames were beginning to lick at the roofs of nearby buildings. Then, as the crowd of people pushed him closer to the burning building, he saw one of the carters throw a punch. Pandemonium erupted as men from the fire companies joined in the fray, the raging fire forgotten.

Whether there were any injuries or not, Luke needed to get away from the riot. He turned and began to push himself through the mass of people, although they were little inclined to give way. A judiciously applied elbow to a short, stout man in a butcher's apron finally parted a path in front of him.

Just then the police arrived. Luke heard shouting behind him, and pressed himself against the wall of a shop before he'd even ascertained who was arriving on the scene. The police waded into the skirmish, swinging clubs as they went. Slowly, Luke inched his way along the storefront, using the structure as a balance to keep himself from falling as people rushed past him, anxious to get closer to such an entertaining diversion.

He reached a winding alleyway, and debated whether or not he should go down it. It would get him off the street and away from trouble, but if he couldn't get out again at the other end he risked being trapped by the spreading flames. He thought he could just see daylight at the end of the narrow passage, so he took a chance and slipped into the shadowy space. It was full of garbage, rotting produce, and discarded articles, and, here and there, puddles of filth where slop jars had been emptied.

It was hard to see inside the alleyway until his eyes made the adjustment from the bright sun outside, and Luke had to pick his way carefully around the piles of muck. He was only ten paces down the length of the passage when he heard a muffled yell, and a mutter or two. He wasn't at all sure that the noises had come from inside the alleyway — they could just as easily be from the street — but then there was a scream, and he heard, quite clearly, a cry of “Leave me alone,” followed by a jeering laugh. “Shut up, nigger bitch,” someone said.

Luke rushed forward, no longer concerned about stains to his shoes and trouser cuffs, and close to where the passageway emptied into the street beyond, he could see a group of three people. One of them was a woman, who was huddled on the ground, hands over her head to protect it from the blackjacks wielded by the two burly men who stood over her. One of the men kicked at the fallen figure, while the other watched, the sound of his laughter drowning out any noise of Luke's approach.

Luke chose to barrel into the laughing man at full speed. The man fell, the club in his hand making a graceful arc as it flew out of his hand. One kick to the body, and he rolled into a defensive ball, his head tucked and his legs pulled up. Luke turned in the direction of the other assailant, arm raised to ward off the anticipated blow of the blackjack, but to his surprise the woman on the ground leapt up and took advantage of the second man's surprise to land a hard kick between his legs. The man doubled over, and Luke was able to step forward and rip the club out of his grasp. Then he scurried back a few paces, out of reach of either of the attackers. He stood, club at the ready.

The man who had been kicked was in no condition to offer any resistance. He was moaning, his hands cupped over his injured genitals. The man Luke had tackled, however, uncurled himself, reached down into his boot, and pulled out a long, lethal-looking knife. Luke's club would be no match for it.

“Run,” he said to the woman, and when she hesitated, he was more insistent. “Go on, run and get help.” She turned then and ran toward the end of the alley, but before she could reach the street the yells from the crowd watching the fire grew suddenly louder and echoed down the low-roofed alley. It was enough to distract the man with the knife for just a moment, and in that time Luke let loose a swinging blow at his hand. The woman ran back, and between them she and Luke pulled the knife out the man's grasp.

They backed out of the alleyway, wary of another attack, but the man made no move to follow them. When they reached the street, Luke shoved the knife under his jacket and slid the club into his pocket, but there was no one to see them anyway. The street was deserted. Everyone had gone to watch the fire over on the next block.

Now that he could see her in the light, Luke realized that the woman he had rescued was younger than he thought, a girl really, no more than eighteen or twenty, he judged. She was tall — almost as tall as he was — and slim, and her coffee-coloured skin stretched over high cheekbones below enormous brown eyes. She was, he thought, extraordinarily striking. She was also far more finely dressed than Luke, her dress beautifully cut and her boots made of fine leather.

“Oh,” she said, her hand patting her head,” I've lost my hat.” She took a step back toward the alley, but Luke stopped her.

“Wait a few minutes to make sure the alley is clear,” he said, “then I'll go back and get it. I've left something behind, as well.” He had dropped Dr. Christie's package of powders and bandages when he leapt to the rescue. “Who were those men anyway?”

“Catchers,” she said, “from the States. They were trying to grab me so they could take me over the border and claim a bounty.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because of the new law there. They claimed I was a runaway slave, and men like that are paid to track down runaways and take them back to their owners.”

“But this is Canada,” Luke protested. “They have no call to be here.”

“Nevertheless, they are,” she said, “and they aren't fussy about who they grab up. Any old African will do, whether they're freeborn or not. Thank you for your assistance. I'm Cherub, by the way.” She held out her hand.

It was an odd name, Luke thought, but strangely appropriate for so beautiful a woman. He took the hand and shook it. “Lewis. Luke Lewis.”

She nodded, but said nothing more as they waited until Luke judged it was safe to return to the alleyway. There was no sign of Cherub's attackers. Her hat was on the ground close to the entrance, the brim lying in a puddle of muck. He found the package from Lyman and Kneeshaw's a little farther down the alley, none the worse for wear.

He emerged into the street, Cherub's hat held at arm's length. “I'm afraid it might be ruined,” he said, handing it to her.

She sighed. “I'm afraid you might be right. I don't know if this will clean up or not.”

She began walking north. Luke fell into step beside her. After they had walked two blocks, she stopped at a handsome, gaily-painted buggy. “This is my carriage. Thank you again, Mr. Lewis.”

“My goodness, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, Cherub?” said a voice from under the vehicle's leather canopy. It was a deep, velvety voice that made Luke immediately want to see the person it belonged to. He ducked his head into the confines of the covered buggy.

“How do you do, ma'am,” he said.

“A pleasure.” A gloved hand was held out for him to take, but he still couldn't see the woman clearly. She sat back in the padded seat, her face shadowed by the deep brim of her straw hat.

“Mrs. Van Hansel, this is apparently Mr. Lewis,” Cherub said. “He saved me from a very unpleasant situation.”

“Unpleasant in what way?”

“Yankees looking for runaways.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Cherub said. “But they very nearly had me.”

“Then we owe Mr. Lewis a very great debt,” Mrs. Van Hansel said. “And at the very least a ride home. Do you live near here, Mr. Lewis?”

“I'm much obliged, ma'am,” Luke replied. “But that's not necessary. I'm a long way from home.”

“And where exactly is home?”

“Yorkville.”

Mrs. Van Hansel laughed. “Why, Mr. Lewis, that's not a long way at all, unless you came down Yonge Street on foot. It will take us no time at all to get there. Cherub can ride in the jump seat. You climb up here beside me.” She patted the seat beside her.