feathers around her face. She was in the exact pose of one of the paintings King had commissioned of her.
“Now Mother, is that book Morley’s The Life of Gladstone: The Prime Minister, the one you have in your portrait?” her son teased. “If that’s the one you’re reading I’ll think you’re posing for your painting again.”
“But you will be a regular Gladstone!” Isabel laughed, a frequent and pleasant sound. “Aren’t we in high spirits today, Billy?”
“Why not! My family is with me and it’s a lovely day. Hardly any need for a fire.”
“You know how easily I feel a chill these days. Besides it is such a lovely fireplace with a fire in it.”
“It’s a copy of the one Shakespeare had at Stratford-on-Avon and I’ve dedicated it to Bert,” he said quietly. “Although I’m not so sure dear Bert’s spirit hasn’t become quite mischievous. It smokes a lot at times! Now Mother, are you coming out on the lake?”
“You go ahead, but be careful,” she warned. “Sir Wilfrid doesn’t want to lose his minister of labour. Oh Willie, Father and I were so proud. We were looking down from the galleries as Sir Wilfrid introduced you to the house. “William Lyon Mackenzie King. The name rang out across the room.”
“I was proud of you Mother. The press had so many things to say about you – how distinguished and witty you are, how much you look like Grandfather. I was so happy to see you and Father there. If only Grandfather could have been present to see me carrying on his work, my happiness would have been complete.”
Willie put a poker in the fire and stirred the flame brighter.
“It’s all been so wonderful, Mother, the dream of my life. It’s as if an unseen hand guides me in the direction of my life’s work. One step after the other I have been led up to this height. College, settlement life, post-graduate study, the Bill, the recognition from the Crown, my doctorate from Harvard for my work on Oriental Immigration, all come as if Fate or Destiny was guiding me in the direction of a living. Now, with the election, the voice of the people is calling me to come as their champion in the fight for a greater liberty.” King thrust the poker back into the stand and turned to look directly at her, his cheeks flushed. “Surely my success can erase the blot of the rebellion, if ever a blot it was!”
“I cannot but feel that you are going on with a work that your grandfather strove hard to throw the best part of his life into, and now you will too. But Willie,” she continued in a confidential tone, “you are thirty-five years of age. Don’t you think that it might be time to settle down?”
“Are you plotting with Sir Wilfrid and Lady Zoë?” Willie asked her, chuckling. “They’ve been asking me to dine with them and a number of young ladies, all of them wealthy. I think of them as skirmishing expeditions. Laurier thinks that such a wife is what I’ll need to secure a foothold with my public career.”
“Sir Wilfrid is a wise man!” Isabel enthused.
“Mother,” he said, taking up one of her hands, “what Sir Wilfrid does not know is that until I find a young lady who is even half as good as you, I will not be content. I will not let wealth, position, or aught else tempt me.”
“Willleeeee!” a screech was heard from towards the docks.
“That lovely voice would be Bella. Come for a paddle, Mother,” Willie urged, “for I won’t hear anything different.”
“Tell me more of what happened,” King gently urged the woman.
“The phosphorous from the matches in the factory where she worked. The doctor says phosphorous poisoning made my daughter die. It was horrible to watch her swell up and suffer, all because she wanted to help feed us.” The woman bowed her head.
“When did she begin work in the factory?”
“She started at age fourteen and she was there for seven years. When she died she was only just turned twenty,” the grieving mother whispered.
“Mrs. LeBlanc, what wages did Thérèse earn?”
“They paid her $1.25 per day.”
“Tell me about her illness.” King felt himself shuddering inwardly. He hoped it wasn’t as bad as some of the stories he’d been told about disintegrating jawbones from the long-term contact with phosphorous. One woman had choked to death from the puss of her abscesses. Another he had talked to had no lower jaw and told King that she’d pulled out her own jawbone – that’s how bad the infection had been.
“Well, first she had a toothache and then her jaws began to ache and finally her whole face was swelled up like!” The woman showed with her hands how big the swelling had been. “She went to the hospitals for two operations, but it did no good. In the end she was blind. And then, she d… d… d… ” the woman faltered and could no longer speak.
King wrote everything down. He knew that white phosphorous caused painful and horrible death through phosphorus necrosis. Permitting such industrial conditions was intolerable. His report and subsequent bill would make a difference.
Office of the Minister
Department of Labour, Ottawa
September 22, 1911
King picked up the human jawbone of one of the victims and prepared to pack it into box along with the other items that had been on his desk.
“Hideous,” he muttered.
The Act to Prohibit the Manufacture, Importation and Sale of Matches Made With White Phosphorous would not be passed in 1911. On September 21, 1911, the Laurier government had lost the election and so had King. These and other bills would have to remain dreams – for the time being.
“But they will happen,” he promised.
King (with cane) and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1915.
4
Duty, Death
Colorado, United States
April 3, 1915
“No, no, don’t get up.” Willie protested. His brother Max sank down on the sofa. “You’re looking much better,” Willie noted. Max had moved to Colorado in an attempt to recover from tuberculosis – a dreaded and often fatal disease. “How’s the book coming?” King cheerfully asked the ill man.
“Wonderfully well,” Max replied. “I’m so glad, Billy, that you encouraged me. There is so much people can learn about how to beat TB.”
Max’s wife, May, came into the room, two boys, twins, toddling beside
