Solemn Vows by Don Gutteridge Page A

Sandhurst. After which Willoughby père purchased a lieutenant’s commission for him in the army, where fils was pleased to discover that dicing and wenching were neither uncommon nor unappreciated.
    However, this happy state of affairs was spoiled by the catastrophe of his falling in love with a respectable young woman of high virtue, ample fortune, and great beauty. As Willoughby told the story whenever he’d had three mugs of whisky, his beautifully affluent Rosy (“pretty as a primrose, she was!”) had placed unwarranted restrictions on the recreational habits of her fiancé (it had gotten that far, he insisted), and then despite his repeated vows to be forever faithful to her after the nuptials, she had jilted him without cause, explanation, or remorse—after the second reading of the banns! And his father, fearing the worst, wrote to his good friend Sir Francis Bond Head and—presto!—four months later, Willoughby found himself in Toronto, where, he had been assured, the climate was a sure cure for romance.
    Sir Francis had realized the need to keep young Willoughby from the temptations of barracks life, and so, having made Marc his chief aide-de-camp on the recommendationof his predecessor, he had hit upon the strategy of appointing Willoughby as Marc’s assistant, and renting rooms for the two of them nearby.
    From that day late in January of this year, Marc had taken Willoughby under wing, playing the role of older brother and guardian. This arrangement had worked to the benefit of both. So far Willoughby had fallen off the wagon only once—at the governor’s Winter Gala when the sight of all those beautiful bare-shouldered young women dancing had reminded him painfully of what he had almost won and then thrown away. He had poured whisky into wine goblets and got himself belligerently drunk before the ball had ended, and it had taken Marc, Hilliard, and two other burly officers to lug him to a carriage and haul him back to Mrs. Standish’s, where he further humiliated himself by swinging wildly at Marc in front of their landlady and uttering a lot of gibberish—the only decipherable parts of which were oaths. Fortunately for Willoughby, the next day he had recalled none of the night’s more memorable events. Since then, while he was occasionally sullen about the menial tasks given him around Government House (who wasn’t?), his youthful high spirits and keen intelligence had made him an enjoyable addition to the tiny complement of officers at the governor’s residence. As for Marc, he was beginning to realize that he had found something he had not expected after a year in Upper Canada: a male friend his own age, a kind of brother.
    “But I don’t know whether you’ll make it as a soldier, old chum,” Marc sighed and left the room quietly.

FOUR
     

     
    T he lieutenant-governor rose to greet Marc as he was shown into his office by a shuffling, sober-faced Major Burns. “Do come in, Marc. And take a seat. We have much to discuss, and I have given orders that we not be interrupted for at least the next hour, barring a catastrophe.”
    “I think we may have already had one, sir,” Marc said as he sat down on the edge of a high-backed brocaded chair and let his boots settle into the thick carpet.
    “I was thinking more along the lines of Fort York being blown up—again,” Sir Francis quipped, indicating his knowledge of that disastrous event in the War of 1812.
    Major Burns smiled at the witticism despite therheumatic pain that had squeezed his numerous wrinkles into rigid parallels. He turned to go.
    “Stay, please, Major. I may have need of your sage advice, and I wish you to take notes.” Head sat down across from Marc at a gleaming cherrywood desk that occupied fully a third of the room. Upon it were scattered a dozen thick tomes punctuated by leather bookmarks and innumerable papers, graphs, and maps. Marc recognized the one book that lay open: the blue- bound, 350- page Seventh Report on