Guy Vanderhaeghe - A Good Man

Books by
GUY VANDERHAEGHE

FICTION
Man Descending (1982)
The Trouble with Heroes (1983)
My Present Age (1984)
Homesick (1989)
Things As They Are? (1992)
The Englishmans Boy (1996)
The Last Crossing (2002)
A Good Man (2011) PLAYS
I Had a Job I Liked. Once . (1991)
Dancocks Dance (1995)

Copyright 2011 by Guy Vanderhaeghe

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Vanderhaeghe, Guy, 1951
A good man / Guy Vanderhaeghe.

eISBN: 978-0-7710-8612-0

I. Title.

PS8593.A5386G66 2011 C813.54 C2011-902101-3

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

Although a number of historical figures appear in this novel many of their actions have been invented and their motivations for others purely imagined. The rest of the characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction, not history.

Cover image: (horse) Matthias Clamer/getty images ;

(letter) photohouse/ shutterstock.com ;

(envelope) triff/ shutterstock.com

Cover design: Kelly Hill

McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
75 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9
www.mcclelland.com

v3.1

Contents

ONE

July 25, 1876

THOUGHTS OF MOTHER early this evening. She came back to me complete, the memory like a fist slammed to the heart. Father always called her the dragon without scales to diminish her, but he was like the wolf blowing on the brick house of the third little pig. She did not tumble or collapse under his scorn, not once. Even when he chose the little maid from Quebec, Solange, over her and decided to live as man and wife with his skivvy in the house in Ottawa, Mother maintained what Father mockingly described as her irrepressible dignity. That phrase was never a joke to me; her dignity was real, hard as diamonds. When she decamped to Toronto, it was not because she was fleeing scandal and sympathetic glances as everyone in Ottawa assumed, but because Toronto was where she was born, where she grew up, where she was wooed and won by the man whom the papers always identify as the lumber baron, Mr. Edwin Case, a man who, prosperous as he was even in those days, would never be rich enough for her parents to overlook his rough and ready ways, to forgive him for snatching her up and carrying her off. Philomena Case, ne Edwards, simply marched back home, head held high, and sunk her roots back down in the flinty soil of her family.

Grandmother Edwards was long dead by then. Grandfather lasted two more years after Mothers marriage fell apart. Grandfather Edwards did not trust the man who had disgraced his daughter to continue making payments to her once his father-in-laws watchful eye closed on the scene. Which means he did not know Edwin Case, who, tenuous as his sense of honour is, is still capable of twinges of bad conscience. Grandfather left Mother the old house in Toronto and a tidy sum to ensure she would be provided for until the end of her days.

The memory of the end of her days is what reared up its head and laid its basilisk eyes on me tonight. In the weeks before she confessed to me her foreboding of death, I noticed nothing except that she seemed a little pale, a little tired, but whenever I dared an observation on her health she said it was nothing but the oppressive summer heat. When the leaves changed, so would she. Or so she claimed.

Then came the afternoon I found her in her bedroom on the second floor, sitting by the open window, flicking bread crumbs to the birds on the lawn below. Nothing unusual in that, it was a daily ritual, but she happened to be wearing an old evening gown, and that was more than strange. Poor Mother. I once overhead a friend of hers say, Philomena is the only woman who can wear a silk dress and leave the impression it is a hair shirt. Perhaps putting on that dress was a signal to me of who she was, a lady long on character, short on style. Mother knew herself.

She held up a cheek to me and I brushed it with my lips. A woman chary of displays of physical affection, but this much was permitted. I stood at her side, watching the mob of sparrows quarrelling over the dry crumbs, hopping about, flapping their wings, pecking at one another.

Greedy beggars, I said.

The pot calling the kettle black. You, constantly dunning your father for money, she said, but fondly. She pointed to the dressing table. I have something for you there. Please bring it over.

I crossed the room. The item lay beside Fathers wedding gift to Mother, the silver comb and brush that he had had proprietarily engraved with P.C ., the initials of the new name he had bestowed upon her. Mothers present to me also had initials stamped on its red morocco cover: W.C . For the first time, I held the little book whose blank pages would chastise me for a decade. I christen them tonight with Mr. Turncliffes ink.

For your birthday, Mother explained.

It doesnt speak very well of me when my own mother cant recall the date of her only childs arrival in the world. My birthdays three months off.

There was no smile. Sit down, Wesley, she said.

You are being very mysterious. Why are you in that dress? Are you going out tonight?

No, I am not. She paused. I give you this today because in three months it may not be possible.

It was second nature for her to veil her feelings. She had raised me to do the same, but my hands began to tremble. I recalled Dr. Cowan had paid her a visit the day before. My voice faltered. What is it? What has that old quack said to you?

Her answer was no more emotional than it would have been if she were reporting gardener OReillys opinion on the condition of this years tea roses. It was not what Dr. Cowan said, but rather the manner in which he said it. He prescribed rest. That is the cure-all for what ails you when what ails you cannot be cured. She looked down at the sparrows. If your father were here, Dr. Cowan would have given him the diagnosis. With me, he thinks, Frailty, thy name is woman, and says nothing. I expect that you will soon be called to his consulting rooms and given the news. I thought you deserved a warning. She hesitated. Whatever he tells you, dont keep it from me.

My wits and tongue betrayed me. All I could offer was stumbling, anodyne drivel.

She turned from the window and threw me a look of warning. No cheerfully silly words. Keep them to yourself. I neither want nor require them. The late-afternoon sun was full in the window behind her, shaping her dark and solid in my eyes. But at the edges of Mothers silhouette, the streaming sunlight flared in her hair, glinted off her shoulders. She was sculpted by shafts of light, chiselled by radiance.

Mother would frown at that description. Tall for a woman, long-legged and long-armed, she towered over Father. It embarrassed him, her height. And then she was saddled with what she wryly referred to as the fleshly embodiment of the Edwards family motto first before all, a nose so salient it entered rooms well in advance of the rest of her. She thought of herself as homely, but in that moment, in my eyes, she trumped beautiful.

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