Settlement. Ann Birch

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      The driver set Anna’s luggage by the front door, leaving her to climb down from the seat by herself. She watched him drive off. Across the road she noticed a wretched little shanty and a poor half-starved cow, up to its knees in a snowdrift. She ploughed through the snow and banged on the knocker of the brick house.

      The sturdy, grey-haired woman who opened the door looked half surprised, half alarmed to see her. But she straightened her apron and curtsied.

      “Come in, ma’am. I be Mrs. Hawkins. I fear we have not finished redding up for your arrival. We supposed the boat might be slow coming through that slushy water.” She led Anna up a creaking, uncarpeted staircase. At the top she called out to a small wiry man, evidently her husband. He lugged Anna’s baggage up the stairs and slung it into a room where the bed was unmade, and the bedding and towels were piled upon the mattress. The fires were out. Everything was as cold and comfortless as the outdoors.

      Anna looked into another room made dingy by hideous wallpaper of creeping vines. There was a pine dining table, six chairs and a buffet. She tried to envisage a fine supper party in this room. There was a Coalport dinner service that looked usable on the buffet, and perhaps Robert would spend money to repaper the walls. She lost herself for a moment in reverie; then she noticed that Mrs. Hawkins was concealing something behind her apron. She smelled spirits on the woman’s breath.

      “Has Mr. Jameson said when he will arrive home?”

      “No, ma’am. It be eight o’clock most days, though he never do say for sure.”

      She suspected that the manservant had also been drinking. The decanter of brandy on the buffet was half empty and had no stopper. Tired as she was, she held out her hand to the woman.

      “Give me the stopper. Better still, put it back where it belongs. Make your husband and yourself a strong cup of tea and bring one to the bedchamber for me also. Then I expect you to get the fires lighted, these rooms made ready, and the meal preparation under way. When I’ve had my tea, I will go for a walk. I expect everything to be in order when I come back.”

      The tea was scalding, and she felt better after drinking it. It was now the middle of the afternoon, and already the light through the dirty windows seemed darker. She made haste to put on her heavy outerwear and went down the stairs, but as she moved towards the door, the servant came running with gaiters and two strange-looking wooden soles mounted on iron oval rings. “These be for the outdoors, ma’am.”

      Anna put on the canvas gaiters. She could see that they would provide warmth and protection from the slush. Then Mrs. Hawkins showed her how to put on the things she called “pattens”. They raised Anna’s shoes an inch from the ground, and they made a clanking sound when she moved forward. “You’ll not be noticing it in the snow, ma’am,” the woman assured her.

      But when Anna tried to walk down the street, she found it necessary to adopt a kind of waddle, feet far apart, to compensate for the extra width of the pattens. An urchin pointed at her and laughed. Suddenly she was tired, more tired than she had ever been in her life. She turned back to the house, shook off the pattens in the front hall and removed the gaiters. She took her coat and went upstairs.

      In the drawing room across the hall from the dining room, she found one comfortable armchair beside a Pembroke table piled high with newspapers. Perhaps it might be a good idea to find out the news in this wretched place, she thought, and took the top paper from the pile. But the headlines blurred in front of her, and her eyes closed.

      As she drifted into sleep, she could hear the servants’ voices.

      “Thought we’d say good riddance to her for an hour.”

      “At least she be asleep. But not for long, I’ll warrant. ‘Meal preparation’, that’s a new one. I’ve got to be finding my recipe book.”

      “Shake a leg, woman. Or we’ll have our walking papers.”

      A striking clock woke Anna up. She felt much warmer, almost too warm under her coat. The housekeeper and her husband had evidently applied themselves to their labours while she slept. Fires had been lit in each of the fireplaces, and her bedchamber was in order, though there was little in the way of real comfort. Perhaps there were merchants who would supply comfortable chairs or bookcases for her volumes.

      The woman brought hot water to Anna’s room, set the pitcher down with a thump, and left, muttering something about recipes. Anna removed her travel-stained clothing and washed herself in the basin. She had kept a new silk dress for the reunion with her husband, and she took it from her trunk. It was of two pieces, with a close-fitting bodice and a full, pleated skirt. The sleeves were narrow at the shoulders and wide at the wrists, and when she raised her arms, the sleeves fell back to show to advantage her white wrists and arms.

      While she waited for Robert, she looked around the house. She found a rough pine table in an unused bedchamber and had the manservant put it in her room. At least she now had a desk of sorts. She unpacked some of her books and her drawing materials and spread them out on its surface.

      The case clock in the drawing room struck eight, then eight thirty. The door opened. Anna moved into the hallway to greet her spouse. For a moment she stood, unable to speak, seeing afresh after three years’ separation his tall, elegant form, his curly hair and large brown eyes, the right one with a slight strabismus.

      “My dear,” he said, extending his fingers so that they brushed her sleeve. “I am happy to see you looking so well.” He smiled.

      “I am glad to see you in evident health and good spirits, too, Robert.” She raised her arms to embrace him, but he was already removing his coat with the help of Hawkins. There was a long pause. The servants hovered. “Go belowstairs,” Anna said to them, “and bring up our dinner.”

      “I see you have already taken charge, Anna. I fear I am too tired at the end of the day to give instructions. Hawkins and his wife provide a dish of gruel and a decanter of wine.” Robert threw his coat onto a chair. “Let us move into the drawing room.”

      He took the comfortable armchair for himself, and she perched opposite him in a straight-backed Windsor chair. He looked her over. “How strange it seems to have you with me again, Anna.”

      “If I may borrow a phrase I overheard from one of the boat passengers today, ‘Where the deuce were you when I was freezing my balls off on that blasted wharf?’”

      “I am sorry, my dear. I had hoped to be there. But at the last moment, His Majesty’s representative, Sir Francis Bond Head, requested my presence at Government House for coffee. I foresee an opportunity for advancement to Vice-Chancellor of the Province—if the winds are favourable. If one hopes for promotion, one cannot be too assiduous in attendance when the Governor summons. Such are the realities of life in this place.” He paused, his attention diverted by a newspaper beside his chair.

      “But why did you not send someone to meet me? Why did you leave me to stand on that freezing wharf dependent on the kindness of a stranger?”

      “Ah, that was an oversight for which I must beg your pardon. But apart from my dereliction of duty, I trust your voyage was satisfactory? Not too many impediments to your comfort?”

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