Chapter 33 The Toronto Dinner Party
Toronto
Owen and Leslie had hired a new housekeeper after Owen made a little bit of money on his articles about the collapse at Four Winds Cave. Now, Owen doubted how long they would be able to afford her salary.
Owen wasn't too broken up about the thought. Her name was Sarah Miles. She was a widow. She possessed more self-confidence than Ingleside's Susan Baker displayed. She didn't tie her own self-importance to the social standing of Owen Ford's writing career, the way that Susan Baker tied hers to Gilbert Blythe's medical practice. Also, she wasn't as good of a cook as Susan Baker. In some ways, it was a relief that Sarah Miles was no Susan Baker. Sarah had not developed an obvious crush on Owen the way that Susan had developed one on Gilbert.
After a full afternoon of writing time in his study, Owen emerged to ask Mrs. Miles if there had been any messages for him. Mrs. Miles looked up from the mutton that she prepared for Kenneth and Persis' dinner and said, "My response is the same as my response last evening, Mr. Ford. No, there are no messages for you."
Owen could write for stretches at his home in Lawrence Park now if – and only if – he visited the American Hotel from time to time and wrote in Charles Dickens' room there. Owen realized early in this game that such a habit would hasten his bankruptcy. So, he chatted with the staff there until he discovered a night desk clerk with writing ambitions. He struck a deal with the desk clerk in question. He agreed to offer writing and editing advice to the clerk. The clerk now tipped Owen off on nights when the room was unreserved, unoccupied, and available to be used by Owen Ford payment-free. Everything depended on which night manager staffed the hotel and the extent of the manager's eagle eyes.
Since there were no messages for Owen this afternoon, the hotel room wasn't available to be used by Owen for free tonight.
Owen said, "Oh, hmm, thank you, Mrs. Miles."
Owen headed upstairs to dress for the dinner party that he and Leslie would attend that evening.
Upstairs, Leslie dressed in great care and pride in her blue grey satin dinner dress. Pink embroidered carnations adorned the dress' hem. Owen had insisted that Leslie hire her favorite dressmaker for this dress when he received his last commission check.
Though Leslie much preferred the comfort of her tea gown for casual dining at home, she welcomed special opportunities to wear the new dinner dress.
Leslie's hours spent peddling her bicycle had paid off. The skirt on the dinner dress fitted closely at the waist. Though Leslie embraced the new, modern opportunities for daytime active wear, she had no respite from the rigid bodice dictated for formal evening wear.
"You look divine, my love," Owen said.
Of course, this evening's dress preparations were only one part of Leslie's total beauty preparations.
Unfortunately, Leslie's years being married to Dick Moore – and the years spent bound to the man that Leslie believed to be Dick Moore – caused much damage to Leslie's skin. Long hours spent out in the sun tending geese or doing laundry for borders (such as one Owen Ford) did that to a woman. Now Leslie applied lemon juice to her skin every day. She nourished her face with a cold crème that she made from oil, water, and wax. Sometimes she splurged on a special crème made of arsenic or mercury.
She washed every night with rosewater.
For nights out, Leslie powdered her face. Of course, she had to powder her face so that the whole thing looked natural. Sometimes she did so with zinc oxide. Then she stained her cheeks with beetroot juice. Again, the whole thing had to look natural. Couldn't have society thinking that Owen Ford's wife used makeup like a woman of low morals or – or an actress.
Finally, Leslie applied lip salve slightly tinted with carmine.
Owen dressed in his tails.
Leslie tied Owen's cravat. She patted down Owen's muttonchops.
"Ugh, I wish that you would shave this thing off!"
The couple said their goodnights to Kenneth and Persis.
"Behave for Mrs. Miles. She is cooking your dinner right now."
"Oh, no, mutton again!" Kenneth protested. Leslie side-eyed Owen.
The Fords' hosts that evening were Marilyn and Hogarth Swale. Marilyn Swale was a railroad heiress with reform ideals. Hogarth Swale was an Anglican minister who also championed reforming living conditions for Toronto's most impoverished. The Fords had paid no head to the gossip about the Reverend Swale's marriage to the heiress. After all, they feared gossip about Leslie's own first marriage and her marriage to Owen.
The Fords had been the Swales' guests in the past, although never for dinner. All of Leslie's other visits had been for meetings of the ladies' book club. This would be the longest amount of time that the Fords would spend inside the Swale residence.
Leslie noted with each visit that although the hired help frequently changed, Marilyn Swale addressed all the female help as "Bridget." Owen explained to Leslie after one such visit that Mrs. Swale once had an Irish housekeeper named Bridget. After this servant left the Swale's employ, Mrs. Swale saw no reason to learn the actual names of her newer staff.
No matter. Mrs. Swale's cook could decently cook. Leslie noted that the dinner followed the specific instructions laid out in Godey's Ladies Book: Bread cut in thin slices, laid on a napkin on the left of each plate. (Check. Also, Leslie noted the delicate gold leaf pattern on the table's bone china.) Glasses at the right of each plate. (Check.) Commence dinner with raw oysters. (Check.) Then a choice of one or two soups. (Check. In this instance, the soups choices were Julienne or Vermicelli.) Follow the soup with fish (Whitefish), then the meat entrée (Braised Beef) and the salad last. Cheese, bread, and butter may be served with the salad course. Then comes dessert and / or fruits and bonbons. (All check. The Swales provided fruits AND bonbons.) Coffee was served in the parlor AFTER dinner, just as outlined in Godey's.
Leslie begged Owen with her eyes not to drink too much Madeira wine.
The group chatted first about Toronto's St. John's Ward, a working-class neighborhood formed by the boundaries of Queen, College, Yonge, and University. The Ward's first non-indigenous settlers were Irish immigrants and black Toronto residents who escaped from slavery in the south in the early 1800's.
By the 1890's, the Ward's residents included immigrants from Italy, Eastern Europe, and China. As demand to live in the Ward increased, so did the rents on the Ward's substandard housing.
"It's a shame," said Marilyn Swale. "Many of the poor cannot afford to live in the Ward, and yet they cannot afford to live anywhere else in Toronto either. The place is in such disarray. If one is lucky, one may find respite in a crumbling fire trap of an apartment building. But many get by living in shacks. Just the very thought of sleeping in one of those things through a Toronto winter. Oh, my! And don't get me started on litter-filled alleys. Oh, the filth in that place!"
"Toronto desperately needs safe, affordable housing," Reverend Swale added, completely oblivious that the Swale residence's carriage house was larger and more insulated than some of the "shacks" where immigrants lived in St. John's Ward.
Leslie said, "Well, yes, that is all quite distressing. It is my understanding that the settlement house does what it can. A family friend teaches English there."
Leslie knew, as did Owen, about at least some of the Ward's plight. One of Owen's newspaper friends recently wrote in the Globe about the Ward's "influx of a large population foreign in race, speech, and customs."
Leslie did not say aloud that her friend who taught English at the settlement house also decried the frequency of black "freedmen" and Chinese immigrants who "shamelessly fraternized" in the Ward.
Also, Leslie admitted to herself that this "friend" – okay, this was more of an acquaintance than a friend, really – purposely avoided the York Street – Wellington Street area because many of the Chinese immigrants settled there in residences recently vacated by newly-prosperous Jewish residents.
Leslie made a mental note to keep Kenneth and Persis from overhearing the stuff that her acquaintance who taught at the settlement house said about immigrants.
The dinner conversation shifted.
Reverend Swale said, "So what trapped you in the literary world, Ford? Did you always know that you were destined to be a man of the pen?"
Owen said, "Well, I often claim that my late mother's love of reading led me down this path. Truthfully, though, I have an ancestor who appears quite frequently as a villain in historical fiction."
"Well, you cannot just leave us hanging, Owen Ford! Tell us more," said Marilyn Swale.
And so, Owen Ford, ever the storyteller, shared one of his own family's most infamous stories.
Simon Girty was born in 1741 in colonial Pennsylvania to Protestant Irish parents. His family squatted on their homestead along the Susquehanna River. The colonial government at that time recognized that indigenous tribes claimed that land. The local sheriff arrested all the squatters in that area and burned down their farms to prevent future uprisings from the local Iroquois who had already most much of their territory to white settlers. In 1750, Girty's father was killed in a brawl with another settler. Girty's mother then re-married, to Girty's father's half-brother.
Girty's father had cultivated a trading relationship with a local Lenape tribe. Thus, the local Lenape held some loyalty to the elder Girty. When Girty's mother re-married, the Lenape killed Girty's new stepfather and captured the rest of the family.
The local indigenous men of the area took fifteen-year-old Simon to be raised by Guyasuta, a Seneca (Mingo) chief, at a village along the southern shore of Lake Erie.
Young Simon Girty learned multiple indigenous languages during his teen years. As a man, he worked as a guide and an interpreter for the Pennsylvania colonists who traded with the Native Americans. He also worked as a guide and interpreter for armies and militias. By 1778, the Revolutionary War was in full swing between the newly formed United States of America and Great Britain. Girty lived at Fort Pitt (present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). He sided with the American colonists.
However, after Girty personally witnessed acts of brutality by American colonists against local indigenous women, Girty forfeited his allegiance to the American colonists. Some of the acts that Girty witnessed were committed by men led by Colonel William Crawford.
Girty defected with several other influential Pittsburgh colonists to the British. He fled through Ohio to British-held Detroit.
Western Pennsylvania's white settlers were outraged. Girty was known regionally for having a strong understanding of indigenous language and culture. He had strong relationships with the local indigenous tribes, including his relationship with Chief Guyasuta. As a guide, he deeply understood the geography and trails of Western Pennsylvania. He had spent much time inside the American colonist-occupied Fort Pitt. Girty possessed a great deal of "internal intelligence" about Pennsylvania to share with the British.
Western Pennsylvania's white settlers feared attacks by the British, and now they also feared Simon Girty.
Though historians later conceded that Girty made a moral judgement call in his defection to the British, Western Pennsylvania never forgave him for the betrayal. They blamed him for having a key role in the ambush of the Crawford expedition in 1782 in Ohio and the subsequent burning at the stake of Colonel William Crawford. Folks who brought this up declined to mention that the Pennsylvania militiamen who comprised the Crawford expedition intended to attack indigenous settlements along the Sandusky River.
In 1791, after the Revolutionary War ended, the United States invaded Western Ohio to attack Wyandot settlements. Girty fought alongside the Wyandots and defeated General Arthur St. Clair. It was the United States' greatest military defeat ever. And Simon Girty played a role in it. General St. Clair resigned his commission and died in disgrace and financial ruin at his daughter's home in Western Pennsylvania.
By the early 1800's, the United States held control of Detroit. Girty retired to Ontario, where the British Crown granted him land in recognition of his service against the United States. Girty's son died fighting against the United States in the War of 1812. Girty completely lost his eyesight and later died on his Ontario farm. Canadian historians classified Girty among Canada's folk heroes.
One of Girty's daughters married into the Ford family of Toronto.
"And that," Owen concluded, "Is the story of my ancestor, Simon Girty. Down south, the locals still churn out pages and pages of poorly written historical fiction about the man. Even some almost decent fiction mentions him by name. In fact, Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" references Girty watching Colonel Crawford burn at the stake. I concede that Hawthorne was not a completely terrible writer."
"Fascinating," said Marilyn Swale. "I often wonder if I myself will one day end up in somebody else's fiction story."
Owen added, "There are a bunch of ghost stories about Girty as well. Fascinating stuff if you're into that sort of thing."
Leslie said, "Mr. Ford here won't admit it, but he is into that sort of thing. He went and got our son Kenneth all worked up about a witch in a cave."
Reverend Swale said, "Speaking of caves, how is your cave book coming along, Ford?"
Owen said, "Wonderfully. I'm excited about how magically the words come to me."
The chatter turned again. Reverend Swale mentioned some recent drama at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, of which he was a member. Then Reverend Swale made a wisecrack about the financial difficulties of the Toronto Athletic Club. Marilyn Swale complimented the architecture at the newly built Queen's Park campus of Victoria University. Owen commented on the City of Toronto's plans to build a new public marketplace where the City Hall currently sat. Reverend Swale mentioned some lecture or concert or something that he heard at Massey Hall.
Reverend Swale said something about the British government's need to protect Cape Colony in South Africa from the Boers. Leslie didn't pay very much attention to the conversation. She knew that she was being rude. Leslie didn't care very much for talk about sending Canadian boys to fight in Britain's overseas wars.
Marilyn Swale said to Leslie, "Have you ever been to Oberammergau?"
No, Leslie had never been there. She knew several women – including Christine Dawson nee Stuart - who had travelled there and seen the Passion Play. The residents of that Bavarian village performed it at ten-year intervals to keep away the Plague, ever since the 1600's.
"It's quite a spectacle to view," Marilyn Swale said. "The entire town – thousands of people – participates in it."
On the way home, Leslie said to Owen "They have a solarium, Owen! A solarium!"
"Yes," Owen said. "The Swales do indeed have a very fine house."
Leslie continued, "They have a phonograph with a flat disc. And, Owen, they have gas AND electric lighting! In the same room!"
Leslie struggled not to laugh. She sounded just like Anne Blythe. Leslie pictured Anne saying to her Gilbert something to the effect of "Oh, Gilbert, they have gas AND electric lighting!"
Leslie imagined Gilbert's response: "When I discover gold in the Klondike, Anne-girl, there will be gas AND electric lighting at Ingleside. In the same room!"
Owen said, "Leslie, darling, when I write the next Great Canadian Novel, I will install gas and electric lighting in the same room."
Leslie said, "Owen Ford, you think very highly of yourself. You really intend to write TWO Great Canadian Novels?" Leslie's eyes twinkled.
Owen said, "Hey, babe, it's hard work being the descendant of a Canadian folk hero. I have some big shoes to fill."
When the Fords returned home, Mrs. Miles announced that a courier had brought a message for Mr. Ford.
Owen read his message, then turned to Leslie.
"Darling, I must go out. I have a last-minute witness to interview. Don't wait up. I love you."
Leslie sighed. She undressed and went to check on her sleeping children. Who was the mysterious stranger who Owen had to meet for his late-night tryst?
Unbeknownst to Leslie, Owen had a midnight tryst with the ghost of Charles Dickens.
