Chapter 76

From the Journal of Honey Sutton October 22, 1938

Henry is very impressed with Sgt. Stoneman's detective work. I think he has a new hero. I have to admit that Stoneman did a first-rate job of finding out who smashed into Grace's roadster last Tuesday night. According to today's Chronicle, he questioned Myrt Dumphry who was in the box office at the time and saw an old Dodge truck roar past immediately afterwards. She was sure that the driver gunned the engine just before the collision.

Stoneman immediately suspected who the culprit might be. Sure enough, when he examined Mark Sawyer's Dodge truck later that night, it had a freshly scratched and dented front bumper with traces of the same green paint that coats Grace's roadster. Sawyer tried to lie to Stoneman, according to what Henry told me about Stoneman's testimony at the trial. He claimed to have been at home all evening.

Unfortunately for him, Stoneman threatened to ask the neighbors at what time he actually got in. Not surprisingly, he confessed. Sawyer has to pay a hefty fine for leaving the scene of an accident and reimburse Grace for the cost of repairs to her roadster.

Nobody really believes his story that he was in a hurry to get home after spending longer at the roadhouse than he promised his wife. He hasn't shown consideration for her feelings or anyone else's for as long as anyone in New Bedford can remember. I don't doubt that he smashed into Grace's roadster deliberately after he recognized it as hers because he resents her friendship with Will Lane.

Stoneman confided to Mother Bailey that he had a very serious talk with him after the trial. He warned him that the only reason he isn't going to prison is because he has had the unaccountable luck to have avoided being nabbed for a serious charge before. However, if he threatens or harms Will, Grace, or any of their friends or family again, that could change. According to Ida, his fellow miners had a few hard words of their own to say to him when he returned to work. They made it clear that they expect him to avoid bad behavior toward Grace, Will or any of their family members in the future.

Grace Mainwaring to Sally Henry Oct. 22, 1938

Hub brought a fellow student of his from the University of Toronto to Bob and Diana's for lunch today, a lovely Austrian girl named Anna Schiller who is studying music. They are both bewildered by the refusal of Immigration Branch and its self-satisfied head, Frederick Blair, to allow more than a bare handful of Jewish refugees into Canada. As a Canadian, it was painful to hear Anna remark that surely a nation as civilized as this one should be eager to provide refuge to the downtrodden and the persecuted. She confirms Lionel's conviction that the Jews of Austria are certainly both and that many of them are desperate to leave. Hub added that Canadians need to follow the words of the Bible, Isaiah 58-7. "Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harbourless into thy house: …"

Afterwards, Hub and Anna took me on a tour of the University of Toronto. To see such a stately and dignified place of learning in the center of an otherwise bustling modern city and hear the excitement in my companions' voices as they talked about all the wonderful new things they were learning was a pleasure. It took me back to the days when you and I planned to go to university together.

We had such bright dreams. We were going to be brilliant scholars and have wildly successful careers. Now, you support your husband's career and I have turned my hand to any job anyone would let me do from telephone operator to executive secretary. Soon, I will be the vice president of my husband's lumber company. Maybe you should go to law school and become Mark's partner when he finally has his own firm.

Hub and Anna had a pleasant surprise for me. When we finished the tour of the main campus, we drove south of Queen's Park so that Anna could show me where she studied the cello at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. Laura Bridgeman was waiting for us on the front steps. She was very grown up and fetching in a stylish peach day dress and a wide brimmed hat. She looked every inch the fashionable debutante, although she admitted that for all the fun she was having in the social whirl, she hadn't met anyone she wanted to settle down with yet.

She certainly didn't want to give up her art studies. The portfolio she showed me made it clear that some of her ideas remain far less fashionable than her father would like. Her drawing of weary, ragged Spanish working people standing in line for bread was impressive. There was no signature, just a stylized maple leaf in the lower right-hand corner.

Hub and Anna and some of their fellow antifascist students used it for a handbill for a student rally to support the Committee to Defend Spanish Democracy nearly two months earlier. The rally was in aid of the organization's nationwide campaign urging Canadians to donate soap, clothes, food, and medical supplies to be shipped to Spain. The response was heartening nationwide. Canada raised 2,000 tons of supplies and I have to admit that I was more than a little proud that New Bedford did its part.

Laura also showed me sketches of animals, people and Toronto cityscapes having nothing to do with war. She was obviously dazzled by having so many new subjects for her talent. I could see definite improvement in her line and perspective. She tried to whisk her last sketch away from me after allowing me the briefest look she could manage, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her.

The scene was what looked like an open-air meeting in Queen's Park. Then, I put two and two together and realized what she was trying to conceal from me. She confessed that she had sneaked out of her grandparents' house back in July so that she and a couple of friends could attend my speech at the CCF rally at Queen's Park. The speaker, looking like a smear of flame on the stage above the crowd in the foreground, was me.

Laura actually called my speech that day magnificent which is probably more flattering than it deserves. If not for my broadcasting experience steadying my nerves, it could have been a humiliating disaster. Laura then asked me not to tell her father about her Queens Park sketch and its origin or about the handbill art. I answered, "I won't. Your father insists that I not stick my nose into your life anymore. I think I'll take him at his word."

After Anna and Laura left for afternoon classes, Hub and I had a little time to talk before I had to meet Bob and Diana for supper. His studies have given him much to think about. Fr. Fitzroy at St. Augustine's Seminary has been just as wise a mentor as his cousin in New Bedford. Sometimes, however, the answers he gives are just as challenging as the questions, especially his insistence that obedience means absolute obedience to his superiors in the church.

Hub's faith in God has only been strengthened by his studies, but he isn't as certain as he was that being a priest is what God wants him to do. He doesn't mind poverty. He's never been rich. He believes that he can live with chastity. However, a vow of obedience could be a problem. He could be ordered to stop working against fascism or even to preach support for Franco like most of the Catholic press does. There are more than a few reactionaries in the church who would do that.

Also, in the event of war, he wonders if he wouldn't be of more use in the armed forces than in a seminary. I can't help wondering about the warm glances he and Anna kept exchanging. It's obvious that they like each other very much. Perhaps too much for the good of Hub's vocation and Maisie's heart.

Certainly, broad hints about what a wonderful girl Maisie is and telling him straight out that she misses him and is really looking forward to his return home for Christmas went right over his head, although possibly not over Anna's. I hate that Hub's inability to see the love right in front of his face is causing Maisie such heartache and that there is nothing I can do about it.

I suppose that sometimes all you can do with young people when it comes to love is to let them make their mistakes and be there to help pick up the pieces afterwards. Oh dear! Did I actually use the phrase young people? I think I'm turning into the proverbial wise old aunt. When I finish this letter, I should probably check in the mirror for grey hairs. …

Next Week: Memorial for a hero. The firebrand. The last parade.