In addition to his successful legal practice Bernard was a writer, an activity that had caught the attention of John A. Macdonald, who in 1857 had decided he must have a private secretary to help him deal with his massive amount of paperwork and organize his life.
By 1857 John A. the lawyer had already been in the political arena for thirteen years and during that period had steadily climbed the beckoning steps of power and recognition. In 1844, after serving as an alderman in his beloved Kingston, he had been elected a member of the Parliament of Upper and Lower Canada, a parliament that had difficulty even in deciding where its capital should be as it moved back and forth between Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City.
By 1854, after many monumental battles with his political antagonist, Reformer George Brown, Macdonald of the Liberal-Conservative party had been named Attorney General for Upper Canada. By 1857 at the age of forty-two he was elected leader of his party, which had as its distinguished Quebec head his friend and colleague, George-Étienne Cartier. The team of Macdonald and Cartier had striven mightily to make confederation a reality.
The invitation to Hewitt Bernard to be John A. Macdonald’s private secretary was accepted without hesitation. In February 1858, accompanied by his mother Theodora and his sister Susan Agnes, who had earlier joined him from England, Hewitt moved to Toronto, where the private secretary took up his demanding new responsibilities.
Shortly after the family settled into their new lodgings in that impressive city of forty thousand souls with its modern gas street lighting, fine brick or stone houses, huge churches, and impressive edifices. Susan Agnes Bernard, aged twenty-one, first set eyes upon John Alexander Macdonald.
Hewitt had taken her to a concert at Shaftesbury Hall. As they took their seats before the program began, he saw his chief — as Hewitt called him — sitting in the front gallery with some ladies. There was no opportunity for an introduction but Hewitt was able to point out John A. to an impressed Agnes. Many years later she wrote how he appeared to her on that first occasion as he leaned on his elbows and looked down at the audience: a forceful yet changeable face, showing a mixture of strength and vivacity, topped by bushy, dark, peculiar hair.
When the Parliament of the Province of Canada had begun its sittings in the newly completed buildings in Ottawa in 1865, Hewitt, accompanied by the Bernard women, had moved with his chief to that remote town.
There the Bernards had shared quarters with John A. Macdonald in a residence known as the Quadrangle.
So it was that the widower Macdonald, who had lost his beloved, ever-sickly Isabella in 1857, had become familiar with the Bernards and they with him, including his attributes and idiosyncrasies. Not the least of those latter was his tendency to take refuge from pressure by imbibing whisky to the point of becoming “ill,” as the Canadian press sometimes generously described his alcoholic condition of the moment.
But Theodora would not tolerate the grubby, shanty-town atmosphere of primitive Ottawa. In late 1856 she and Agnes cross the Atlantic to the centre of British culture and society, the great city of London, England, where they could lead a civilized existence.
As Macdonald was aware, Hewitt had preceded him across the Atlantic, and was staying at the flat of Theodora and Agnes on Grosvenor Street.
Now Macdonald and Galt, loyal friends devoted to the cause of a united British confederation in North America, went down the stairs into the vast lobby of the Westminster Palace Hotel, elegant with its many columns and trees and plants. As they walked down the high ceilinged corridor toward the entrance to the Prince Albert Room where the luncheon part was gathering, Galt gave his friend some last words of advice. “Remember, John A., they’re all relieved and happy that you’re here, except for Wilmot. They’re all your friends, lad, even Wilmot, bless his pointed Maritime head.”
John A. entered the Prince Albert Room to tumultuous applause from all the delegates — except the dour-faced, heavily bearded Wilmot.
John A.’s quick eyes spotted him immediately. Wilmot was standing with his hands clasped behind the tails of his black frock coat, greying black brows furrowed, heavy-lidded squinting eyes fixed on the man he, Robert Wilmot, hated most in the world at the moment.
John A., the master conciliator and politician with years of parliamentary experience behind him, began to, as he called it, “work the room.” He shook the hand and looked without wavering into the eyes of each delegate, smiling apologizing in few words for his tardiness.
Finally there was but one man left to greet. Confront is a better word, Macdonald thought as he stepped toward the Honourable Robert Wilmot.
Macdonald held out his hand, saying, “I hope you will forgive me for not being able to be here sooner, Robert. I do apologize to you. It was not meant to be a slight to you or our colleagues.”
John A. thought for a moment that Wilmot might not accept his offered hand. Such a refusal would have been an unacceptable, irreversible loss of mutual political face. The ultimate public insult by Wilmot.
Two, perhaps three, lengthy seconds passed. Wilmot did not move. John A.’s eyes stared into those of his challenger. Then Wilmot’s lids blinked and his gaze briefly shifted from Macdonald’s face to some unseen object over John A’s right shoulder. Then the Maritimer’s slitted eyes went back to Macdonald’s as he reached out to limply accept the offered hand.
Wilmot spoke through gritted teeth. “Your arrogant refusal to join us when you were supposed to has cost me a fortune, Macdonald, a goddamn fortune. Three months in lost fees and my marriage. D’you understand that — my marriage!”
The man’s bitterness was visceral. Macdonald was momentarily at a loss for words. He dropped Wilmot’s lifeless hand and responded in hard tones: “Robert, I had no choice, none whatever. I’ll explain to your and everyone here what happened. The Fenian raids —”
“Bullshit!”
Macdonald didn’t flinch. “No more bullshit than your caterwauling about being stuck here at government expense in the lap of imperial bloody luxury with all your expenses looked after, including your wife’s if she’d chosen to join you.”
“She didn’t.”
“Believe me, Mr Wilmot, I can understand why she wouldn’t want to be with you. These past three months have probably been the best of her life as your wife.”
With that thrust firmly skewered in place, John A. turned on his heel and took the glass of Scotch whisky that George Cartier had at the ready for him. Lifting it high, he shouted, “Gentlemen!” And when he had their attention, “Gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you. My abject apologies for the delay, but if I may speak a few words to you after lunch ...”
There were jovial cries of “No, no. God save us,” and the like.
“If I may speak a few words I will explain the threat this summer, the threat and the attacks of the Fenians which prevented me from being with you earlier.”
There were shouts of “We believe you, John A.” and “Give the lad another whisky.”
John A., his long face lit by a broad smile, exclaimed, “I’ll drink to that and to the opening of our historic conference which George and Alex have informed me is to start in this very room the day after tomorrow.”
The next day, Monday, December 3, had been left open for John A. to recuperate from his long journey and to meet with Hewitt Bernard. During the Sunday luncheon he had arranged to have Bernard come to the hotel at two o’clock the next day to discuss with him, Cartier, Tilley, and Tupper the proposed agenda for the opening of the conference. The first item would quite properly be the selection of the conference chairman.
Monday morning John A. had reserved for himself. He would take a long, after-breakfast,