Part I
Hallowell 1838
I
It happened again as he rode into Demorestville —the heart-stopping moment of recognition that blindsided him whenever he saw anyone who looked even remotely like Sarah.
It had been three months since he and Betsy had found their daughter’s lifeless body. You would think the grief would begin to ebb, but a mere glimpse of chestnut hair was still enough to set his hands shaking.
The girl was standing with a cluster of people, most of them young men, but he noted that there were two other girls, as well. Just enough extraneous female presence to satisfy propriety, he figured. She was bidding farewell, face turned toward her friends, as she backed into the street. He had to rein his horse hard to avoid riding straight into her.
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” she said, stifling a giggle with her hand.
Her hair curled out from under her cap in a familiar way, and her grey eyes met his directly. Even the way she held herself was like Sarah, he thought, though he could see now that she was not as tall, nor did her nose possess that slightly aquiline curve.
“Good day, Preacher,” she went on. “At least that’s who I think you are. You have the look of a man of God.”
Her voice didn’t come out edged in the familiar low rich timbre, but rather silvered along the upper registers and made him think of chimes and bells. His heart started beating again. One long intake of breath and he was able to recover his wits in time to respond.
“Now I’m curious,” he said. “What precisely do you figure a man of God looks like?”
“Well, now,” she said, her eyes flitting over him. “You don’t look dour enough to be a Presbyterian — there are too many laugh-lines around your eyes for that. Yet there’s a certain authority in the way you hold yourself. I’d almost think you were an Anglican, except that your cloak is so worn and dusty.” The corner of her mouth twitched as she continued. “It’s not nearly plain enough for Quaker, though, so I’d guess … Methodist?”
This was so much like something Sarah might have said that he had to chuckle a bit in spite of the fact that it rattled him anew.
“There, you see? Laugh-lines.”
“Well reasoned and absolutely correct. Thaddeus Lewis.” He tipped his hat to her. “Methodist Episcopal. New to the district.”
“I thought the Methodists were all one now?”
“That’s what they say. It’s not what I believe.” He was not about to start a street-corner debate on the pros and cons of Methodist union, however, so he proffered an invitation instead. “I’m presiding at services on Tuesday evening. Perhaps I’ll see you there?”
“Tuesday evening? I may come along. We’ll see.” She smiled a goodbye, and hopped over one of the mounds of frozen horse manure that littered the roadway. When she reached the other side of the street she joined a small, pale woman and a large man who had the telltale bulk of someone who earned his living at heavy labour. As she walked away, he noted that not only the group of boys she had been standing with, but all the other men on the street, as well, watched her departure.
They had all been watching him until then. As he had ridden into the village he had marvelled at how busy everyone seemed to be. Everywhere he looked there were workmen — carpenters, bricklayers, masons. Most of the buildings they were working on were frame — appropriate for a village that had grown up around a sawmill — but here and there some ambitious citizen had decided to build in brick.
Demorestville was an old village by Upper Canadian standards, a village founded in the first-settled townships along the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario — the “front” they called it, or sometimes the “cash.” These terms implied that life was easier here, not like it was in the clearings to the north and west where back-breaking labour had so far produced little more than tree stumps that dotted the fields and shanties that leaned drunkenly against the forest. In contrast, the fields around Demorestville were cleared and neatly fenced with rails, the trees tamed into windbreaks along the road, the stumps piled up into fences, and the village itself bustling with self-important activity and people who were prepared to spend hard-earned money so the world could see just how prosperous they were.
As busy as everyone seemed to be, still they looked up and took note as he rode by. Carpenters stopped sawing and nailing; bricklayers paused with trowel in hand; even the people clustered at the street corner and in front of the inn huddled together a little closer and took sly, sideways glances at him. It took him aback at first. As a man of the cloth he was used to being welcomed wherever he went. The whole colony was in turmoil, he reflected, and with the militia called out, everyone was in an unsettled frame of mind. Strangers were to be viewed with suspicion until their motives were clear.
He rode on, looking for the general store that he had been told was halfway along the main street — “the Broadway” as he later learned it was called. The store was owned by a man named Varney.
The Bay of Quinte area was where Methodism had first come to Canada, and Lewis had been told that there was still a solid base of supporters here who could be counted on to ease a new preacher into the community. Varney was one of these, and apparently offered his premises for meetings when the church was unavailable.
Lewis found the store without difficulty and as he pushed open the front door he was assailed by the sweet smell of over-ripe apples warring with the sour smell of the pickle barrel. The shelves seemed well stocked, even for January, a time when little cargo could make its way down the frozen St. Lawrence River from Montreal.
“You must be Mr. Lewis.” A plump red-cheeked man strode out from behind the counter and held out his hand. “I was told to watch for a tall clean-shaven man with darkish hair. Besides, I’m fairly certain I know everybody else around here. I’m Varney. Griffith Varney. Come in, come in.”
Varney’s enthusiasm more than made up for the suspicious looks that had greeted Lewis as he rode into town.
He was ushered through a doorway at the back of the store. The Varneys had their living quarters in the rear of the building and he was invited to take a seat at a round table that had been set up by the parlour window.
“Elsie! Elsie! He’s here!”
Mrs. Varney bustled in with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits.
“We have a little time before the meeting,” she said. “You can rest up a bit before you speak. That’s the best spot.” She pointed to a comfortable-looking horsehair chair. “You sit there.”
“It’s too bad your first meeting has to be here,” Mr. Varney said, “but the Presbyterians are using the church today.”
“There’s only the one, then?” Lewis asked, taking his seat in the comfortable chair. “And everyone shares in?”
“Aye, the mill owner, old Demorest, built the first church here, with the proviso that everybody could use it regardless of persuasion. Now he’s given some land to the Presbyterians so they can have their own place, and he says he’s prepared to donate some property to the Episcopal Methodists as well, but it will be some time before either group can put a building up. It can’t come too fast to my mind. The Wesleyans act like the church is theirs already and they make it difficult for the rest of us.”
“The mill owner is prepared to support us all?” This was unusual. Generally men of influence threw their support to one church or another and gave short shrift to the rest.
“Oh, aye. He’s a good man, and I think he welcomes anything that will have a civilizing influence on the place.”
Demorestville, like so many of the early settlements, had built its fortunes on lumber — one of the few commodities that would fetch hard cash in those first desperate years. Logging, however, brings loggers, and loggers cause problems when they leave the woods and come into town.