The Bishop's Pawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

his side – with his
coat-lapels besmirched and malodorous – did not help matters. Marc
steered Dougherty to the stairway that led up to the spectator’s
gallery. With Dick gripping the handrail in all ten digits and Marc
heaving and pushing against various portions of the big man’s
anterior, they managed to reach the upper landing. Marc spotted a
space on the front bench, and they coasted down to it. Dougherty
collapsed there with a Falstaffian wheeze, and proceeded to pant
like a hound at the end of the day’s hunt. The gentleman next to
him rose quietly and found a seat elsewhere.
    “Well, what do you think?” Marc said when
Dougherty’s breathing had settled down and a little colour had
returned to his cheeks.
    “Impressive, I must admit,” he replied. “It
looks like the House of Commons I have always pictured in my mind
whenever I think of the English Parliament and that centuries-long
struggle against the tyranny of monarchs and their blue-blooded
henchmen.”
    Marc smiled, knowing that when this chamber –
and its counterpart next door, where the Legislative Council or
Upper House met – was built in 1828, no expense had been spared in
making it a worthy extension of the Mother Parliament in London.
The thick-carpeted aisle, the Moroccan-leather chairs on either
side of it, the gleaming banisters and polished railings, the
raised and ornate speaker’s throne, the cathedral-like windows
gracing the tall walls – these were not merely lavish or
ostentatious: they were charged with historical meaning, with
tradition that stretched back to King John and Runnymede. Doubtful
Dick Dougherty might well boast of the boldest experiment in
democracy since the Athenians, of the inalienable logic of the
American Constitution, but he was also aware of exactly how much
his British forebears had contributed to the making of laws and the
institutions that buttressed them. Marc felt honoured to have met
this man, and to be seated here beside him.
    The session was already in progress. A Tory
member was speaking to the question: the debate on the committee
report just received. The report contained the members’ response to
Lord Durham’s principal recommendations: a union of the two
Canadas, a unicameral or single legislature, and responsible
government. Marc had assumed that the Tory group would assign their
star performer the task of leading off the debate and setting the
tone for the rest of the evening. But not only was Mowbray McDowell
not on his feet dazzling the Assembly, he was not, as far as Marc
could see, anywhere in the chamber.
    “And just where is this reincarnation of
Aaron Burr?” Dougherty rumbled, his tiny, pig-like eyes darting
about at the scene below him.
    “I don’t see him anywhere. There’s an empty
chair down there next to Ignatius Maxwell, the Receiver-General. I
suspect that’s where he’ll be sitting.”
    Dougherty suppressed a yawn. “Christ, I may
have had one or two glasses too many of Baldwin’s excellent port.”
Someone behind him tut-tutted, and a woman coughed into her
hand.
    “I’m sure they won’t hold him back too much
longer,” Marc said. “This gallery is packed, and I’ve rarely seen
this many members present.”
    “Well, they certainly didn’t come to hear the
fellow droning away down there. He’s an insomniac’s delight!”
    “Shh!”
    Dougherty swivelled around as far as his
corpulence would permit. “I am deeply sorry, ma’am, if I have
interrupted your slumber.”
    This riposte earned him a full-throated
“harrumph!”
    Fortunately the speaking member had finished
his oration, though it was a minute or more before anyone realized
it. Every head in the gallery now tilted forward in expectation.
Would Mowbray McDowell make a dramatic entrance, stride down the
aisle under the blazing candelabras, bow to the Speaker, and take
his rightful place in the front row?
    He did not. A barely suppressed groan
shuddered through the gallery as a well-known