Read Online Baltimore's Mansion by Wayne Johnston - Free Book Online Page B

Canadians, but one’s time would more usefully be spent cataloguing in Latin every species of fly that has ever pitched on or sought entrance to the arsehole of a cow.”
    They laughed, then fell silent for a while.
    â€œI’ll tell you one thing I would love to know,” my father said. “And that is, what was in Brown’s Document?”
    â€œWouldn’t we all?” Aunt Eva said, as if a fierce desire to know the contents of Brown’s document was universal. I had never heard of Brown’s Document before.
    â€œOh yes, my God yes, Brown’s Document,” Uncle Harold said. “Yes, I remember that now, Brown’s Document. What was that all about now, Art?”
    Brown was Kenneth Brown, an ardent anti-confederate and elected member of the National Convention, the delegate for Bonavista South. Delegates to the National Convention sat in alphabetical order according to the names of their constituencies, so Brown sat next to Gordon Bradley, member for Bonavista East, the Convention chairman and a confederate, and next to Bradley sat Joe Smallwood, member for Bonavista Centre.
    At a crucial point in the Convention, Brown rose and, while making a passionate speech opposing Small wood’s motion to send a delegation to Ottawa to find out what Canada would offer a confederated Newfoundland, took from his pocket a“document” and, waving it about, declared that if he were to reveal its contents, not a single delegate or Newfoundlander would vote for Confederation. Just on the verge of revealing the contents of the document, Brown collapsed, all six feet four of him, onto the floor in front of his desk. He had a massive stroke. In the confusion that followed, as delegates rushed to his aid and ambulance attendants arrived, Brown’s Document somehow disappeared.
    â€œNo trace of it was ever found,” my father said, adding that Brown never did recover from his stroke to the point that he could think or speak clearly enough to make anyone understand what was in the document.
    My father seemed to think the disappearance of the document was no mystery, given that Smallwood and Bradley were sitting closest to Brown when he collapsed. But what
was
the document? What information did it contain? What could have had the effect that Brown predicted, could have caused all Newfoundlanders, even declared confederates like Smallwood, to turn their backs on Confederation? They speculated endlessly about it. The Home Office. Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Britain’s man in Newfoundland, Governor MacDonald. The “Commissioners Three,” as my father called the three British members of the Commission of Government appointed to rule Newfoundland after the country’s brush with bankruptcy in 1934. Joe Smallwood. All these names came up in their speculations. The document might have been part of some conspiracy-revealing correspondence between some or all of these.
    And there was the stroke itself, so eerily timed to cut Brown short just when he was on the brink of revelation. Onecould hardly blame the confederates for his stroke, but still… My father shook his head and everyone lapsed into silence as if in wonderment at what might have been had Brown not had his stroke and Brown’s Document not disappeared. I could just see the great figure of Brown falling with a kind of tragic grace, splendidly laid out on the floor still clutching the document that might have saved us, the document whose contents he alone was privy to and that somehow in the next few seconds disappeared.
    There were many possible explanations, of course, which they begrudgingly proposed and then discounted. Brown had merely been exaggerating for effect — the document was probably inconsequential. But Brown was not known for stooping to such tactics. And he was no fool. He would have known better than to discredit himself in such a manner. Was it possible, then, that just seconds