Janet Lunn - A Rebels Daughter: The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson

Dear Diary,

I have brought this wretched diary out from the drawer in my desk, a thing I never, ever thought I would do, but I shall not write to a book as though it were a human person. Definitely NOT. But I must write or I shall burst. (Ha! Mama cannot see what I have written. There, I will write it again, B-U-R-S-T.) Oh, but what has happened is worse than writing every last vulgar word in the entire English language worse than absolutely every last thing you could imagine in the entire world. Papa is in the gaol, Charlie has disappeared, and we are in disgrace and I have no friends and nothing is right at all. And that horrid Mr. Mackenzie has run away.

There! I wrote that name Mama said was never, ever, to be mentioned in our house. Mackenzie. WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE. I hate him. What happened is all his fault for writing those horrid things about the legislature in his Constitution newspaper and making good men like Papa agree with them. But I truly do not believe Papa agreed with them. I truly do not. It is a terrible mistake that Papa is in the gaol. Papa was NOT a rebel. He was a reformer. I heard him say that. The government men will soon find this out and Papa will be home.

Sophie says there is talk that none of the rebels will go free. She says them as dont get hanged, Miss Belle, are certain sure to be sent off to that prison island way down to the other side of the world. She does not know where it is or what it is called but there are gigantic birds there that feed on people. (The Saylors footman told her that.) Convicts are sent there. People who have stolen things and murdered people. Not barristers like Papa. This will NOT happen to Papa. Papa is NOT a rebel. He will soon be set free. I know he will be.

There has been a stupid rebellion against the government. Part of it was almost right here in Toronto. Just last week! A great mass of working men and backwoods farmers with rifles and pikes and clubs came marching towards us from north of the city. They almost got right into the city. We were all terrified. There were battles (but not right in the city). Some men were killed and houses were burned. The rebellion is over now (well, it is over in Toronto). The government men won and Papa is in the gaol but that is a mistake.

Dr. Strachan denounced the rebels from the pulpit in St. James yesterday but we were not there to hear him. I expect I should be glad we were not. I found out about it today in school. Mama refuses to leave the house. She has taken to her bed with a cart-load of smelling salts.

Now I have smudged the precious diary. I am NOT going to cry! I swore on Papas big Bible that I would not cry another tear and I will not!

I have had my supper. It was stewed mutton (from the roast at dinner, I expect) with potatoes and carrots, and apple tart for afterwards, but Mama did not come down, Charlie is not here and Papa oh, everything is so horrible!

There is no fire in the grate and it is very cold but I cannot sleep. Today in school was it was it was just horrible! Everyone was absolutely, completely, totally hateful. I wish I had stayed at home.

Oh, Arabella, it is too dreadful. Your own father. How you must suffer. Spiteful Maud Adams said that.

I was walking up the front steps behind her, hurrying because it was so cold, and she turned right around to say it. Then she sniffed and turned her head away and went into the school. Mary Spencer actually pulled her skirts away from me, but Mary always does absolutely everything Maud does. Neither of them spoke to me again all day.

Nor did anyone else. Not a single girl was willing to stand my friend. It is not that I was the most popular girl in school (I do not believe one can be popular if one is not precisely pretty AND is good at sums) but I did have friends. I thought I had friends, but not even Jane or Patty spoke to me yesterday. Patty slipped a note into my hand at closing time. She wrote, My mother will not permit me to speak to you. I am devastated. She signed it, Love, Patty and put a whole row of Xs and Os but that did not make me feel one bit better. I walked home alone and it was snowing. I did NOT cry.

Interruption. Dolly just jumped into my lap. She does not like it when I write or when I read. She plumps down on my lap and shoves herself between me and the book. She sits there like a tall grey shadow. Now she has stalked off twitching her tail because I pushed her away I had to, I need to write this.

I do not suppose it matters about the girls not speaking to me (except for Jane and Patty), as I am not going back to that school. This afternoon Miss St. Clair sent a horrid note around to Mama. It said: I think it would be best if Arabella were to withdraw from the Miss St. Clair School for Young Ladies.

I can hear her say it in her high, stuck-up English voice. Miss St. Clair thinks no one born in Upper Canada can be as fine as people born in England which, of course, is just as Mama thinks. So I do not find it difficult to conjecture what Miss St. Clair must think of a girl whose Papa is in the common gaol.

I will never return to that school, not even when Papa comes out of the gaol and everyone wishes to be my friend again. I could never have imagined this happening to me. How can I bear it? For once in my life I think as Mama thinks, What is to become of us?

Well, what is?

Dear Diary,

There, I have done what I said I would not do. I have written to you as though you were a person. I must talk to someone even if it is a bundle of blank pages. I wonder if I should give you a name. Perhaps Rosamond after the girl in the story about the purple jar? I like the name Rosamond even if I do not much like that story.

Dear Rosamond no, not Rosamond.

Perhaps Naomi after the good woman in the Bible?

Dear Naomi no, not Naomi.

Perhaps Mr. Great-Heart from The Pilgrims Progress, but I think of you as a girl, a girl to confide in.

Well, I suppose I must say Diary and consider that a proper name. I wonder if, the next time Dolly has kittens, I might call one of them Diary?

I did not wish to think of you this way because, when Aunt Parley in England sent this book to me last year at Christmas, a picture of Augusta Milroy hopped into my head. I could see her little yellow ringlets bobbing up and down, up and down, while she jabbered on about her DI-I-I-ARY with its ADO-O-O-RABLE tiny golden latch. Now here I am writing in a DI-I-I-ARY and it HAS a little gold latch. Just like Augustas (but I do NOT think it is adorable).

Well, Diary, if we are to be friends, since I know what you look like, I had better tell you what I look like. Then you will know my outsides as well as my insides (well, to be precise, my inside thoughts). To be honest, I do not truly wish to tell you what I look like because Mama says that my looks are the despair of her life. Charlie is handsome which, I presume, is why Mama prefers him (of course, he is a boy). He is tall, even for fifteen, and has fair, curling hair like her own, but he has brown eyes like Papas. And his face is long like Papas and mine.

I have dark hair like Papas, which I sometimes wear in a plait down my back. My eyes are grey and neither large nor small. My mouth is too wide (Mama says) and my face is pale. I am not well favoured, Diary, but, I am pleased to relate, neither am I especially ill favoured, and my voice is pleasing enough. I am short of stature for my age. (Did I tell you that I am twelve years old? I am. I became twelve last August the thirteenth.) I am only a trifle over four feet and seven inches and I fear that I am VERY thin.