A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [378]
Lyons roused himself for an excursion to Chaudière Falls, but he remained apart from the group and left them wondering when he failed to appear at the picnic lunch. Their suspicion that he was avoiding them was close to the mark. He would have stayed away from dinner, too, if he could have done so without offense. Just before the gong, there was a savage encounter between a house cat and a lapdog belonging to one of the guests. “With difficulty the animals were quieted, and we went in to dinner,” recorded Lord Monck’s sister-in-law, Frances Monck, whose husband, Colonel the Hon. Richard Monck, was the governor-general’s brother and military secretary. “Lord L.’s amusement was great; he went on all the evening alluding to the battle.”13
Feo Monck, as she was always known, was a force of nature, though a gentle one, who was perpetually missing trains, losing hats, and spilling anything hot and full to the brim. She was intelligent, too, though it could be difficult to tell behind the endless little dramas that punctuated her day. Feo and Lyons soon discovered that they shared the same dislike of hot weather, cold weather, exercise, and boats, and thereafter, as his attachés observed, he was a changed man. Sheffield and Malet had always assumed that Lord Lyons disliked women, but around Feo he revealed a hitherto unknown repertoire of after-dinner songs and became a tireless raconteur of hilarious anecdotes from the annals of diplomatic history. The more Feo laughed at his puckish comments, the wittier he became. “If you could hear Lord L.’s odd, grave, inquiring way of saying these things you would laugh as much as I am now laughing,” she wrote in her letter journal after they had spent a week exploring the majestic rivers of Quebec.
By the time the house party visited Shawinigan Falls, the second-highest waterfall in Canada after Niagara, Lyons had thrown off the last traces of reserve, removing his boots and stockings and splashing about the shallow rocks like a child. “Lord L. has travelled much, but he says he never saw a more exquisite view than that day,” recorded Feo. “When we had feasted our eyes on the Falls, and picked leaves, we went to our grand lunch laid on a table made with boards by the servants and boatmen. The sun was burning hot and the day perfection.” During the long journey home “we talked and sang, and Lord L. repeated poetry.”14
Lyons could not be so free when they visited Montreal and Niagara Falls. “We are to go to Cataract House at Niagara on the American side,” wrote Feo, “as the Confederate people are met at the Clifton House [on the Canadian side], and Lord L. does not wish to seem to watch them.”15 For once, Lyons’s caution made things worse; it would have been better if he had made a great show of watching them, thus sending a clear message to Jacob Thompson and his cohorts that their illegal operations in Canada would not be tolerated. But he was struggling both physically and mentally; only Feo Monck and the attachés knew how much he had dreaded his return to Washington. During one of their final excursions, he persuaded her to hide with him instead of meeting a deputation of local worthies who had gathered to greet their boat. “He gave me his arm,” wrote Feo, “and we ran off out of the ship, and got into a cab without waiting for any of them,” leaving the mayor standing disconsolately on the wharf. As the date of his departure on October 12 drew near, Lord Lyons became increasingly reckless and led Feo into all sorts of scrapes. On an outing to Lake Ontario they climbed up a steep ledge