“Professional satisfaction.”
“Oh, I see,” he said dubiously. “Of course, the fact that Helen usually works on Saturdays would have nothing to do with it.”
“We can help each other out here, Will.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t quite see what the payoff is for me.”
“You make the proposal to Walter. You get the credit for bringing more business to the shop. He begins to recognize your true potential.”
He sucked the stem of his reading glasses, cautiously reassessing me. He never would have taken me for a hustler until then. “And if it bombs?”
“It won’t bomb,” I said. “You have my word.”
Even though I’d known Will for only a short time, I’d already figured out that he and I were alike in one very important respect: we both wanted to think the best of people.
“We can’t pay you,” he said.
“Understood,” I said, beaming like an idiot.
* * *
If I’d learned anything from studying the exploits of the Europeans who’d mapped the New World — and Franklin’s expedition, in particular — it was that the quickest way to an objective was not always a straight line. I had therefore decided that my initial efforts to win over Helen would be indirect but deliberate. In gaining Will’s trust, I’d secured an important guide for my personal little expedition, someone who I hoped knew better than I how to negotiate the perilous waters that awaited me on the first leg of my journey. In fact, he proved himself a more enthusiastic ally than I could have imagined. Once he wore down Walter’s resistance to my proposal, Will took the further step of shamelessly promoting my first appearance, reasoning, quite rightly, that our fortunes were now tied together.
“What do you think?” he asked, catching me in the school parking lot on my way home one day, two weeks before I was scheduled to make my first appearance. He passed me a promotional flyer that he’d made up and, he told me, already plastered all over town.
Exclusive to Donnelly’s Books
Irving Cruickshank brings history’s
heavyweights and lesser lights to life!
10:00-11:00 a.m., every second Saturday of the
month starting in April
“Irving’s in a class all his own. He’ll take you
places you’ve never been.” —Farley Mowat
“It has punch, don’t you think?” he said, admiring it over my shoulder as if it were some Impressionist masterpiece. “I especially like the testimonial.”
“Did Mowat actually say that about me?” I asked nervously.
“More or less,” he said, unconcerned. “You are a teacher, so being in a class all your own is hardly a stretch. And you did convince him to go to your school, a place he’d never been.”
I didn’t bother to remind him that it was Helen who actually got him there. I was more concerned that some indignant local friend of Mowat’s would tear down one of the flyers and mail the fraudulent endorsement to him.
“Don’t you think this is going a little overboard?” I asked.
“Hey, you’re the one who talked me into this,” he said, his hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you’re getting stage fright.”
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I couldn’t afford to lose him now, not when I was so close to my objective. “You’ve done a great job,” I said placatingly. “I suppose I’ll just have to make sure I live up to the billing.”
My early pangs of anxiety snowballed into unmitigated panic when, just two days before my appearance, the costume that I’d been counting on from my old boss in Penetang still hadn’t arrived. Three desperate phone calls and twenty-four hours later, it finally came, complete with a split in the breeches that some fat-assed student had made the previous summer. And so I spent the night before my grand opening relying on my non-existent sewing skills to mend the damage and thus save me from making a public spectacle of myself.
Fortunately, when the big morning finally did arrive, my nerves eased considerably the instant I donned the uniform. I cut an impressive, if somewhat anachronistic, figure in my bathroom mirror, looking every bit the ambitious nineteenth-century Royal Navy lieutenant in my blue coat, brass buttons, and tall, arched hat. This was a role I’d played many times before, one I could wrap myself in. I was yesterday’s man and proud of it.
I provoked many a stare as I ambled up Richmond Street that warm April morning. The last dregs of snow were gone; the grass in the park was reasserting its greenness after a long winter. I passed a florist who was doing a brisk business in tulips, daffodils, and Easter lilies. I tipped my hat to the patrons gawking at me as I went.
The bookshop was bustling with customers when I entered, no doubt a result of Will’s shameless publicity. Walter was standing on a wooden stepstool, retrieving a volume of Byron from a high shelf for a matronly looking woman who reminded me of my language arts teacher from grade five. His resting scowl slipped when he saw me, a fleeting, somewhat involuntary look of surprise taking its place. Although I was sure that Will had described the details of my proposed escapade, Walter clearly hadn’t anticipated the impact my uniform would have.
I doffed my hat and tucked it under my arm. “Greetings, sir,” I said to him, full of the audacity that comes from wearing such an outlandish yet imposing uniform. “Are you the proprietor of this establishment?” I was playing to the patrons, whose initial shock was now giving way to nervous smiles and tittering. Children whispered to their parents, asking them who the strange man in the blue coattails, short pants, and white stockings was.
For a moment, I thought Walter would refuse to play along. I’d heard through Will that his response to my Saturday morning show and tell had been lukewarm at best.
“We don’t much take to sailors here,” he said to me, his scowl reaffixed.
“I am no mere deckhand, sir,” I said, recognizing that there was no turning back now. “My name is Bayfield, Henry. Lieutenant of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I am embarking on a hydrographic survey of the Great Lakes and am in need of able seamen to assist me.”
“There’s a tavern up the road,” Walter said. “Maybe you’d have better luck there.” There was a hint of mischief in his growl. He was enjoying the verbal sparring, I could tell.
“Why do you attempt to deceive me, sir?” I said, approaching a group of giggling primary-schoolers. “This shop is filled with sailors.” I crouched down and smiled at a girl in pigtails. “Wouldn’t you like to help me?” I asked her. She looked at me saucer-eyed, then glanced up at her mom for guidance. Mom nodded that it was okay. I wasn’t a crazy man, just a silly one.
Within a minute, I’d assembled my recruits, a gaggle of children ranging in age from five to twelve. Some of the older kids in the crowd hung back, intrigued but not wanting to seem too eager. People passing by the store stopped and peered in through the front window, wondering what all the fuss was about. Some wandered in to investigate. Will squeezed his way through the throng and began ushering the newcomers in, making sure that younger children got a good view of the action. He gave me a thumbs-up as he nudged a nine-year-old forward to join my party of conscripts. Walter stood by the cash register, arms crossed, a bristly eyebrow cocked in grudging appreciation.
I explained to my recruits that the Royal Navy needed to have accurate charts of the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron in order to defend Upper Canada from the Americans, who only six years earlier had attempted to invade during the War of 1812. Wooden British warships could offer no defence if they wrecked against unseen jagged rocks and sank to the bottom of the lake. After verifying that there were no