CHAPTER II.
Lockwood.
“It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.”—Thackeray’s Book of Snobs.
Lockwood had been called “The Garden of Upper Canada.” This designation, which scarcely over-rated the beauty of the town, originated in the private correspondence of some of its earliest inhabitants. They were discerning people, mostly United Empire Loyalists, who, more than a century since, had selected it for its placid outlook. At Lockwood’s very feet moved the majestic St. Lawrence, that river of rivers. Behind it stood the thick forests of an unexplored hinterland inhabited by deer, bear and cariboo. Through the town, later on, trailed the long York Road with its stage-coaches.
A political friend of John Beverley Robinson had written in a letter: “I have built a home in Lockwood and here with Bessie (his wife), I hope to remain. My house stands on a cliff beside the river. We are almost surrounded by a small forest of pines—cozy and contented and away from the hot-heads.”
That Lockwood should have been chosen by aristocratic members of the Family Compact was not strange, for it furnished these worthy gentlemen with everything they might desire—boating, hunting, and above all, release from the trials of politics. “The Garden of Upper Canada” became an almost exclusive colony for the faithful adherents of Governors-General. They built themselves substantial residences, and founded a picturesque local society. They were the determined rulers of the state, the ultra-Loyalists, the enemies of Mackenzie, brothers in a just and elevated cause. Lockwood in all its beauty was theirs. Lockwood, in spite of its citizens of a different political faith, was solely theirs. They were the suffering, but anointed minority, and the democrats could like it or leave it.
The wealth and high influence of these early settlers gave Lockwood an aristocratic flavor which never quite left it. Their motto, “Keep down the underbrush,” still persisted; although the underbrush, a century later, constituted the prevailing vegetation. The original, exclusive set had long since either sailed for England in disgust at democracy’s progress, or died out. But scions of that early patrician strain remained. Their homes on Queen Street East were, in many cases, the very houses in which the Loyalists had gathered about friendly fireplaces to discuss death to the hot-heads, and “jobbery and snobbery,” for themselves. And even at the present time such fireside discussions were not unknown.
Freda MacDowell’s mother had been a Smith, a name adorned by aristocratic associations. Her great-grandfather had been a full colonel in the British army, active in the Rebellion of ’37, and one of the Family Compact group, who had settled in Lockwood. Mrs. MacDowell could never forget that she had been a Smith, for there were several things to remind her. The house on Queen Street East, where she lived with her husband, George MacDowell, was a very tangible token of her distinguished descent, and her excellent social rating in Lockwood—in spite of present poverty—was an equally pleasant reminder.
The large, square house finished in genuine stucco had aged to as rich a brown as an old meerschaum pipe. From the street only glimpses could be had through a thick screen of pines that filled the grounds and above a high stone wall that rose like the warding hand of the very Smiths, saying to the modern hot-heads and modern rabble: “Thus far, but no further may you come.” At one corner a large gate opened through the wall and a gravel road wound gracefully across the lawn to the house. On closer inspection the building was seen to be quite large, with its verandahed front facing westward, and a deeper verandah on its south side towards the river. As disdainfully as its original owners, it turned its back on the town to look away upon the river, where flowed that majestic peace and solace; while it retained its servant quarters (a long, low wing used now as a garage), next to the street. The southern verandah commanded a remarkable vista of the St. Lawrence, a cool, blue expanse, rimmed by the grey shore of the United States in the distance, and accentuated by a foreground of unhusbanded table-land, which stopped abruptly fifty feet above the water. Wooden steps had been engineered down the precipitous face of the cliff to the boathouse, a white frame building that rested on concrete walls.
The old Smith residence had nothing of the ostentatious magnificence characterizing the homes on either side of it. The latter belonged respectively to the Courtneys and the Beechers. By their ponderous architecture, their elaborate lawns, their marble statues, they stood forth, self-conscious, but awe-inspiring, to emphasize the plainness of their neighbor. But the older home was well-secluded behind the stone wall and pine grove, caring very little for opulent display. The Smith virtue had been blood. The Beechers and Courtneys were new people, who had arrived by wealth. The old aristocracy was rapidly disappearing, and being replaced by a cheap plutocracy—people unknown fifty years ago, who now sought to appropriate and maintain the customs, the very traditions and feelings of the older families.
At present the name “Courtney” and “Beecher” headed Lockwood’s social list. Both families were tremendously wealthy, and hated each other for that very reason. Edward Courtney, senior, who now slept with his fathers after a career doubtlessly tiring, had made his millions in Western Canada at a time when property was a golden investment. He had been a genial, big fellow of simple tastes, but with a sworn fidelity to the game of money-making. It was the game that interested him. At the stage in his career at which most men would have begun taking out life-insurance to cover loss from succession-dues he had started investing earnestly in steel, grain, and what not! Before he died, almost every important industry in Canada was, in some degree, dependent upon him.