The Burying Ground (8 page)

The next morning, Luke, Thaddeus, and Dr. Christie were at the breakfast table when a knock came at the door. Christie heaved himself to his feet and plodded off to answer. He returned with a buff-coloured card, which he placed in front of Luke.

“What's that?” Thaddeus wanted to know.

“It's an invitation, apparently,” Luke said. He read it out: “Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Van Hansel request the pleasure of your company on the evening of Friday, July 11, commencing at 8:00 p.m., for an evening of musical entertainment featuring Miss Sadie Gleeson.”

“July 11?” Christie said. “The Van Hansels must be holding an Eleventh Night Party.”

“What's an Eleventh Night Party?” Luke asked.

“It's a party on the evening before the twelfth.”

Luke sighed. “What's the twelfth?” He was hopeless with these social references that everyone else seemed to navigate so easily.

“Why, the Glorious Twelfth of July,” Christie said. “When all the good Orangemen march down the street waving banners and singing. There'll be a crowd gathered to see them, that's for sure, what with the marching band and everything.”

“Load of nonsense,” Thaddeus said. He'd had run-ins with the Orange Lodge before and didn't think much of them.

Neither did Luke. He had spent weeks tending to typhus-stricken Irish and he had nothing but good wishes for those who had survived. But he knew the arrival of so many Irish Catholics had upset the already uneasy balance between the mostly French-speaking Catholics of Canada East and the mostly English-speaking Protestants of Canada West. With the priests of the eastern province openly preaching that government must bow to the authority of the Pope, the western Protestants assumed that the Irish would agree, and that without action, Canada would soon be ruled directly from Rome. It was this terrifying prospect that, in part, had helped fuel the rioting in Montreal.

The Orange Lodge positioned itself to provide a rallying point for that fear. An organization transplanted directly from the arguments of the Old World, the Lodge found favour not only with Irish Protestants, but with Scots and Loyalist families as well, and now Lodge members controlled nearly everything in the corporation that was Toronto. And they trumpeted that fact, loudly and forcefully, at the annual Orange Day Parade.

“It's a shame the government couldn't outlaw the marches when they wanted to,” Thaddeus observed. The very first legislatures of the Province of Canada, back in the early 1840s, attempted to suppress the lodge, along with other secret societies, and had been successful in passing legislation to that effect. Unfortunately, the bill also needed to be approved by England, and the English governor of Canada simply chose not to pass it along to them.

To Luke's surprise, Dr. Christie agreed with Thaddeus.

“Orangemen should all be hanged,” he said. “They'd be nice fat, overfed bodies for dissection, wouldn't they?”

“I would have thought that as a good Scotch Presbyterian you'd be all in favour of the Orange Lodge,” Thaddeus said.

“I don't hold with the Pope,” Christie said, “but I don't hold with a bunch of self-satisfied bigots running things either. If you ask me, the Orange Lodge in Toronto has less to do with anti-Catholicism and more to do with another group setting themselves up to control everything. Might just as well have left the old Tory class in charge.”

“Now you're starting to sound like an American. Every man equal to the next.”

Christie snorted. “Oh that's a high ideal, all right, but the Yanks are just as bad as anybody else when it comes to dealing with immigrants. Worse, probably. And just as anti-Catholic. ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' my foot. Only if you're one of those on top to begin with.”

“About this party,” Luke said, desperately hoping he could steer the conversation back to the issue at hand. Mealtime conversations had been spiralling off into political and philosophical discussions ever since Thaddeus first arrived. It was as well that his father had a circuit to ride; otherwise Luke felt he would never get a word in.

“Ah, yes, the soiree,” Christie said.

“There won't be dancing, will there?” Thaddeus asked. “Methodists don't dance.”

This was one of the questions that Luke had wanted to ask. If there was to be dancing, it was a good excuse to stay home.

“I doubt it,” Christie said. “The invitation says ‘musical entertainment.' More like a recital, I should think.”

“I can't possibly go,” Luke said. “I have nothing suitable to wear.”

“Oh, just brush off your frock coat and shine your shoes,” Christie said.

“I'll starch a collar for you,” Mrs. Dunphy offered. Luke was startled. She so seldom said anything during meals that he hadn't been sure she was listening at all.

“You see,” Christie said. “You'll be fine. And of course you're going. You need to make the most of this chance encounter. It could do you no end of good to hobnob with moneyed people.”

“I thought you didn't approve of a privileged class,” Thaddeus said.

“I don't,” Christie replied. “That doesn't mean I have to spend my days grovelling in the dust with the poor and the ignorant.”

And they were off again, one comment igniting another, while Luke sat and worried about what might be expected of him at something as exotic as a soiree.

The day that Luke had been dreading for two weeks finally arrived, and he was still unsettled in his mind about attending the Van Hansel party. He kept hoping that some medical emergency might intervene — an outbreak of measles, perhaps, or an accident with a runaway wagon. Anything that would keep him in Yorkville without offending either Christie or Mrs. Van Hansel.

However, it turned out to be a singularly uneventful day. Old Mrs. Cory had an attack of heart palpitations, for which Luke prescribed a glass of brandy at bedtime; a four-year-old girl broke her arm when she took up her older brother's challenge of jumping off the shed roof; Mr. Frederick needed a bottle of laudanum mixture for his rheumatism. Except for those three cases, Luke had nothing to do but stare glumly at Mul-Sack and wonder if he should practice making polite conversation with the skeleton.

At four o'clock he left the office and went up the stairs to his rooms. He removed his coat and brushed it down as well as he could and selected the newer of his neckties. Mrs. Dunphy consented to iron his best shirt, and while she was doing this, Luke wiped the mud from his boots and gave them a polish. When he was as presentable as he felt he could make himself, he went looking for Dr. Christie, to remind him that he would be out for the evening.

Christie was sitting in the dining room, having become immersed in reading the newspapers. He looked up, dumbfounded, when Luke announced that he was on his way.

“On your way? To where?”

“This is the day that Mrs. Van Hansel is having her party.”

Comprehension dawned on the doctor's face. “Oh yes, of course. My goodness me, it's Friday already, is it? Well, off you go then. Do give my regards to the fine lady and, of course, the lovely Cherub.”

Luke boarded an omnibus in front of the Red Lion Tavern with a handful of other passengers. He was relieved that the bus was not crowded, and that he did not have to share a seat, which helped to keep his coat from getting creased. Nor did he have to engage in conversation with anyone. The traffic would be going the other way, he realized, as workers and shoppers left the city after their day's activities.

Lavinia Van Hansel's house was located in a respectable-seeming neighbourhood of similar-looking three-storey brick houses, although a little farther along the street Luke could see newly built row houses, it having become fashionable to forego a front garden in favour of a good address.

The front door of the Van Hansel house had a huge brass knocker and was opened by a maid as soon as he let it fall. He was ushered into a drawing room, which appeared to be full of flounced dresses and paisley shawls, the young women and their fussing mothers reflected and multiplied by the large mirrors that hung around the room. Here and there knots of men stood huddled in discussion. Luke was relieved that none of them was wearing anything but a simple frock coat. He would not stand out too much after all.

Mrs. Van Hansel rose from her chair when he entered and came over to greet him, signalling that he was a guest of some importance. The young women certainly thought so, for they rushed over to him, jockeying for an introduction. Luke was soon lost in a sea of Isabels and Harriets and Georginas, all of whom ventured polite remarks about the weather. He looked around the room for Cherub, as someone he already knew, and if they could find no other topic of conversation, he could at least inquire as to whether she had recovered from the attempted abduction. But she was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, after an excruciating half-hour of agreeing that the weather was indeed fine, Mrs. Van Hansel signalled that the entertainment portion of the evening was about to begin. A clean-shaven young man languidly made his way to the piano that stood in one corner of the room. He was soon joined by a plain and somewhat overweight young woman, who positioned herself with one hand resting on the tasselled throw that covered the piano top. When all conversation ceased and everyone's attention was focused, she took a deep breath and nodded at the pianist.

“Oh the sky was clear, the morn was fair

No breath came o'er the sea

When Mary left her Highland home

And wandered forth with me …”

Luke was no connoisseur of music, having grown up with only the thump of Methodist hymns, but even he could tell that the young woman had a sweet voice and that it had been trained to sustain a repertoire. He was equally impressed with the young man at the piano, who augmented the accompaniment with well-placed flourishes.

“Sweet rose of Allendale

Sweet rose of Allendale

By far the sweetest flower there

Was the rose of Allendale.”

At the end of the song, there was nothing more than polite applause, and Luke felt mildly offended on behalf of the musicians. He thought the rendition had been remarkable. Perhaps the assembled guests would warm as the concert continued. The next piece had a long introduction and showcased the pianist, whose fingers flew across the keys in complicated arpeggios. Finally, the melody settled in and the singer began.

“Sleeping, I dream'd love — dream'd love of thee

O'er the bright waves, love, floating were we …”

On through a song about a willow tree, several waltzes that had everyone swaying with the tempo, some more sentimental ballads, and then the singer finished with “Oh, Susannah,” a popular song whose lyrics seemed to be known by everyone except Luke, and to which everyone else joined in. The chorus was repeated three times, to the delight of the audience, and at the end of the song there was enthusiastic applause.

Afterward, Mrs. Van Hansel led the way to the dining room, the gentlemen waiting politely until the ladies were through the door. Then they followed, one man standing aside to usher them through: their host, Mr. Van Hansel, presumably. He was rather an ordinary-looking man. Medium height. Medium brown hair. A medium build. Altogether rather nondescript except for one arm that hung at an odd angle. As Luke watched him, he realized that the arm did not move from its dangling position. It just hung, useless. And suddenly Luke knew exactly who this man was — and he knew exactly what had happened to his arm. Luke remembered back to the night that a furious Irish emigrant girl had fired a small brown pepperbox pistol across a local cabinetmaker's yard. The bullet had struck this man in the shoulder. There had been three people killed that night, but Luke and Thaddeus hadn't waited around to find out if there would be a fourth. They had rushed out of the yard with a burly thug in pursuit.

They had known this man only as “Hands.” Hands because “he has his hands in everything,” the Irish girl had told them. Now Luke realized that the nickname was a far cleverer play on words than that — it was obviously short for Van Hansel, as well.

“Hands” Van Hansel, whose flunkies had lurked around Toronto's waterfront in 1847, ready to pick off stray girls for the brothels. Who stuffed extra bodies into coffins in order to defraud the city. Who siphoned profits from the brandy provided for fevered immigrants, and who didn't like it when there were mistakes. Luke had been invited to the one house in Toronto where he was sure to find an enemy.

The ladies had all crowded through the door and now the gentlemen were moving forward. Luke didn't know if Hands would recognize him or not. It had been nearly dark in the yard that night, and so much had happened so quickly. Luke had been covered in blood and dishevelled from hard travel. Still, it would be foolish to take a chance that the man wouldn't remember.

He slipped to the side of a portly gentleman with bushy side whiskers and did his best to keep the man between himself and Hands as they entered the dining room. When he was safely through the door he made for a set of heavy tapestry curtains that were swagged over French doors at one side of the room and made a great pretence of stepping behind them to peer through into the garden. As soon as he possibly could, he decided, he would work his way back to the drawing room and out the front door.

“We should stick together, you and I, or we'll be married off before we know it,” said a voice in his ear.

He turned to find the pianist at his side. “You're much safer here,” he said. “The girls will be occupied for a time with trying to stuff down as much cream cake as they can eat while protesting that they have the appetites of birds, but sooner or later they'll zero in on you.”