“Thank you to read it quick,” he says and curls his fingers to hide the ink stains upon them.
“We have time.”
“Ain’t that, it’s the way she talked, see.”
“Yes, of course.” She takes spectacles from a beaded purse and perches them on her nose, tells him that she wears them only to see the small matters of the world.
Boston shuts his eyes.
Madame Blanc reads: “We had a flat above the shop. Did I tell you that, Mr. Jim? Oh, it were small, two rooms only, but lovely. We had oval pictures of my Mother’s family and a chair with clawed feet and a sideboard with grapes all carved in it. Had a rug, too, that came from the Indies or somewheres and that Mother brought when she left her house to marry Father. And we had a real chimney piece. It was of the famous murderer, Jack Delane. He’s the one who murdered his wife and made her into a stew . . .”
“Your accent. Thank you to make it a London one.”
“But I am not a Londoner.”
“Know that. But you can do any kinda accent, can’t you?”
Madame Blanc looks sharply at Boston over the rim of her spectacles. “Ah, dear boy, no need to disrobe. We see through each other quite clearly, don’t we now? Where was I? Ah. On an evening we’d sit ’round the fire. It were always warm in the times before Father was hurt so. He’d point into the coals and tell us what was there—rubies and Turkish delight, villages with glowing windows and doors and step-ways, dragons, and trees with magic birds. I could see it all straight away. My sister and my brothers couldn’t so well. My sister even said it was a silly game, but I think she was jealous because, though he never said it, I know father loved me best of all his children. . . .”
≈ ≈ ≈
Boston shuts his eyes again and Madame Blanc begins anew. Her accent is not quite like Dora’s, but is passable. “It’s my favourite story, it is. It’s of how my father met my mother. He and his mates were putting on a play called The Widow’s Return. For charity, it was. In the cellar of a church. Father was the widow because he was the tallest and the most manly and so the most hilarious. They decked him out with crepe streamers and ornaments and covered him up with a thick veil. Oh, I don’t know how he could see a thing. You should have heard him wail! You should have seen the way he’d swoon into the men’s arms, and how the men would be falling over because of the weight. He, or she I should be saying, was right upset about his small inheritance, and he was upset, too, because this husband had the bad manners to die in bed “while they were in the midst of making an heir.” That’s what the line was. Oh, how the crowd laughed. After the play his mates dared him to go out in his widow’s weeds, and he did, too, because he couldn’t resist a lark, my father. They went into a right fine haberdashery near Regent Street and straight ’way he saw my mother Ethel sorting through buttons. He looked at her through his veil and it were like he was seeing her through a fairy mist. His mate said that this poor widow here has lost a button in a paroxysm of weeping and that she needed another like it, and then they pointed to his bodice that was stuffed up gigantic with a pillow. But my father, he lost the taste for the game. How could he be tricking this angel? He couldn’t lift his veil, she’d scream for sure. Or she’d think him mad, or worse, this big man out dressed as a woman.
Oh, how my mother searched for the perfect match. Finally she found one. And, you know, she didn’t charge him a farthing. She couldn’t, see, because she felt so sorry for this big, blundering widow. She just held out the button. Her fingers were like lily stems, my father said. Their fingers barely touched. Oh, but it were enough. He was her slave for ever after. That’s what he always said.”
Madame Blanc turns the paper over. “My mother didn’t find out till her wedding night that father was the widow who needed the button. Ah, well and so, she thought it was terrible funny. Oh, she was always telling us how father made her laugh and . . . are you awake, dear boy, shall I continue? The tale is not bad, though certain details could be added, yes indeed. Shall I embellish for you?”
Boston opens his eyes. Madame Blanc looks at him coyly.
It is not working. Perhaps if he turns the lamp lower. Perhaps if Madame Blanc were not Madame Blanc. He has not fallen into the Dora woman’s memories again. Has not stepped from the alley where he watched Dora and her mother and father embracing, has not gone further still and followed them up the stairs to their flat above the shop and sat quiet and unnoticed while her father told his tales and her mother looked on adoringly and Dora and her siblings grouped ’round, their cheeks reddened by the coal fire.
“Would you care to dress in women’s garments?” Madame Blanc asks when the silence lengthens. “Is that it? Most men will take any opportunity to do so. The fee will change, of course.”
“No, ma’am.” He takes the letters from her.
She begins talking of New Orleans. How she ran away from the orphanage and lived on her wits until she discovered “the way.” How she would charge ten dollars to wear a habit and pretend to be seduced. For many men like to believe their charms are that great.
≈ ≈ ≈
It is all amiss. The portents are part of it. Normally he takes no note of them. Finds it idiotic, in fact, that others imagine them in spiderwebs, entrails, teacups, in the weather, the stars, that they believe they are singled out from the multitude by that nameless power that moves the world. And thus he has ignored up till now the obvious signs that the balance is threatened. That so much depends upon his actions.
He thinks of the three-legged dog he saw just yesterday, of a tree splintered by lightning and still smouldering though there had been no storms for days. Of a one-eyed, white-Indian who stared at him from a hillock near Yale. And of Girl, certainly. She crossed between the worlds to show him that much depended upon his actions. A curious ache when he thinks of Girl, of pulling the lice from her hair, the pattern of blood on her foot. It is as if he should have somehow stopped her from returning to her realm. What of these damned females? Kloo-yah. The Dora woman. Girl. It is as if they hold him up on one of those children’s see-saws, each after their own fashion. It is as if they weigh more than he does, and thus he is high in the air, boots kicking futility in search of the ground.
He crumples the paper in his fist. He prefers the life he had before. Part of the landscape, part of the air, passing his time before the grave. He is strange. He knows that. But never had he imagined that this strangeness might have some purpose.
“Are you feeling badly?” Madame Blanc asks, without much interest.
Boston shakes his head.
“Then, dear boy, if you no longer want the pleasure of Madame Blanc’s reading voice . . .”
He pays the agreed price. Madame Blanc counts it out discreetly then assures him that on another occasion she would be happy to accommodate him in any way he pleases.
Thirty-One
“It shall be called Humeville. The square shall be named for Dora, the streets for their children. Likely there will be a statue in time. Nothing ostentatious, no horse or grand uniform, merely him standing top-hatted, gazing benevolently down. Travellers arriving by coach and train will exclaim: “Here I am in Humeville, at long last! Do you know that it is famed across the continent for its sumptuous hotels, its racetracks, its fine spirits? It is said that fortune flows over the gabled roofs, the canals and cathedrals, over the stone bridges, the splendid shops. It is said that at dawn the light is such that the entire town seems wrought from the very gold that begat it.”
≈ ≈ ≈
Lorn and Napoleon opt to stay and guard the claim.
“Do not be disappointed, friends,” Eugene says. “There will be many nights such as this. We shall return with champagne!”
“And cakes!” George says.
“Women!” Langstrom says.
“Just bring yourselves back in one piece and whatnot,” Lorn says. “And don’t let on what happened, you hear?” His leg is still splintered. He will not be working below for the duration
of the season, though he is quite capable of working the rocker. Was, indeed, the first to see the shimmer, the first to raise a shout. Good that the new drift proved up so quickly. Building it had taken the last of their pooled resources as well as the last of Eugene’s unsold supplies: his pocket watch, his good suit, and the flask inscribed with his name, all of which was now the property of the local pawn shop. If the new drift had not proved, they might even now be stumbling back to Victoria, skedaddling on their debts, eating grass, begging charity. Eugene shudders at these thoughts, real as any nightmare. Heaves in a great breath. “Are we prepared then?”
Napoleon hands Eugene a scrap of paper. “Give this to Mr. Lee. It is for some herbs the Chinamen use.”
“That is all? Not a new waistcoat, a bottle of claret, porter?”
“How about cake, sirs?” George asks again.
“Yes, Young George, let them eat cake,” Eugene says.
“Pardon?”
“Ah, never mind. A jest.”
“The herbs will suffice for now.”
Eugene looks to George, Langstrom, and Lorn. “Quite so, it has yet to sink in, I would say. For Mr. Beauville can buy whatever remedy he chooses—balms and purgatives, even a magneto-electric machine. I am sure one could be ordered.”
“Oh, it has ‘sunk in’ Mr. Hume,” Napoleon says and looks at him with an expression that Eugene would have called anxious on another man.
≈ ≈ ≈
They walk through Camerontown and then into Barkerville. They are not hollering out. They are not even whistling. They are as nonchalant as you please and still heads turn. It is as if they have the odour of fortune, the aura, as if the others can see clear through their pockets to the sachets that are the size of a chicken’s egg, though a great deal more weighty. The gold inside was a mere afternoon’s work.
≈ ≈ ≈
First to Wake Up Jake’s where they order steaks with potatoes, eggs and beans, and with George in mind, apple cake and molasses cake, where they plan for their spree with the thoroughness of explorers in search of the pole. When Pleasance brings the champagne Eugene presses into her palm a nugget the size of an infant’s nail. “A new dress, dear lady. A garland for your hair.”
Her cheeks flush; her eyes sparkle. In her gratitude she is almost pretty. The men at the other tables stare as Pleasance half-curtsies.
“A toast, gentlemen!” Eugene calls.
“I promised mother I wouldn’t touch the spirits,” George says uncertainly.
“Ah, but champagne is not truly a spirit. It a celebratory tonic. A child’s draft. A glass of stars.”
“Star! Lucky!” roars Langstrom. He downs his glass in one gulp.
Eugene pours for George with a liberal hand. “Just one. None of us will inform your dear Mother. In any case, she is far, far from here.”
George considers this. “Gosh, all right then. Just one.”
Here’s to luck. Here’s to the Dora Dear. Here’s to Cussy Oswald, that goblin. Here’s to Herr Boots. Here’s to those good men, Napoleon and Lorn. Here’s to Lieutenant Olsen from their road building days, he who needs not a toast, but a humping from a good, experienced whore.
George, cheeks ablaze, stares at the empty bottles with something akin to awe.
Langstrom gives a gap-toothed grin. “Lucky Hume!” he shouts.
“To Lucky Hume,” Eugene says. What a splendid evening this will be! He has not a doubt of it. Senses it more clearly than he has ever sensed the course of an evening before.
≈ ≈ ≈
At the tobacconist George mutters about the devil’s temptations, inspects a snuff box.
Eugene asks the proprietor, an Italian, if he has Turkish smokes. “They are the latest invention. They are the most convenient little cylinders.”
The Italian confesses he does not. Directs Eugene’s attention to the cigars. “Good for celebrating. For handing out,” he says, smiling at them, as everyone seems to be.
“I didn’t know you smoked, Doc.”
“I do not. But it does one good to try everything once or twice. For how can one devise a method of critical analysis based on hearsay and assumption?”
“Gosh, I never thought of that. It makes sense though, don’t it?” George is speaking slowly, carefully. Sweat trickles into his reddened eyes.
Eugene decides upon a box of good Cuban cigars and a new matchsafe made of silveroin from which a penknife and cigar clipper ingeniously spring. Langstrom buys three folds of Virginia tobacco and a meerschaum pipe large as his fist and carved with a pirate’s head. Once outside he hurls his old pipe into the street where a man in a ragged coat scoops it up from the mud. George holds his purchase cupped in his hand. The snuff box shows an enamelled scene of three women languishing under a green bower. Their rosy-tipped breasts are clearly visible under their dresses of diaphanous white. One looks in mild concern at the man spying at them from the bushes.
Eugene claps George on the back. “That’s it, take life by the horns! I’m proud of you, that I am.”
George grins. “Now where?”
≈ ≈ ≈
Mr. Lee works for a long while at his abacus.
Langstrom indicates Eugene’s pocket. “Napoleon.”
“Ah, yes,” Eugene hands the paper to Mr. Lee who studies it, glances curiously at Eugene, then orders the clerk about in his peculiar chiming tongue. The clerk brings out a jar. Mr. Lee fills a cone with greyish powder, then cites the amount, plus the amount of credit owed. Though it is more than Eugene expected, he does not hesitate to add an extra shard to Mr. Lee’s scale. “In thanks for your generosity, sir, your trust.” It astonishes Eugene that such fragments have any value at all. Astonishes him that the gold is there for the taking, should one only know where to look. One need do nothing to deserve it. Look at Oswald. Look at himself for that matter.
≈ ≈ ≈
At Itlebod’s Pawn and Supply, Eugene retrieves his pocket watch, his folding candlestick, and his flask. Tells Itlebod to keep the suit for now, he will buy another, then looks about, as giddy as a schoolboy in a sweet shop. Buys an ornate brass scale the size of his hand and with it a neat case with velvet lining. He also buys a sheaf of the finest paper, envelopes, sealing wax, good steel nibs, ink of indigo blue. Dora will know immediately when his letter arrives, the news in the weight and worth of the paper itself.
George cannot decide between a brooch of entwined flowers for his mother, or a silver money clip for himself. Buys them both at Eugene’s encouragement. Langstrom decides on a handsome colt revolver. He aims it at the pots hanging in the window. Something in his look of anticipation gives Eugene pause. How much does he know of Langstrom? Or of Young George? Or of Lorn and Napoleon, for that matter? He trusts them all, but why? All they have done is swear on the Bible to be honest with each other. Langstrom might be some Laplander who worships trees and water sprites, George a stupendous con man, Lorn and Napoleon anarchists or poisoners. They might all begin tucking gold away in their pockets and boots, might even now be getting the dead wood on him, as the yokels here about say.
Bowson hiccups. Langstrom grins and tucks his new revolver into its holster. Both are looking to him the way men look to a respected leader. Eugene’s fear passes. He’d trust these good men with his life. And they would trust him with theirs. Certainly.
“Gentlemen, our attire must now be attended to.”
≈ ≈ ≈
The tailor shop of Overlander Pearl is small and overheated by the stove. Cloth is piled high in neat bolts.
“Your finest shirts, sir!” Eugene says. “And good collars!”
“Gosh, but I’d give a cracking lot for a pair of my mother’s socks.”
“Good,” Langstrom says and indicates his flannel shirt that is so faded and mended it threatens to drop from his frame.
“You must have new apparel, Langstrom,” Eugene says. “What of trousers? A cravat? Mr. Pearl has ready-made. Or so I have heard.”
Mr. Pearl agrees that he doe
s have ready-made. Mr. Pearl would agree that he has cashmere and silk-stuff, just allow several weeks for delivery, gentlemen. He is a lanky Upper Canadian with bristling orange hair and a tape measure strung over his neck. He need only clamp pins between his teeth to become the very caricature of a tailor. Apparently he and his party of two hundred and fifty thought the British Columbian gold fields only a five-week journey from the Red River settlement of Manitoba. Four months later those who were left limped into the goldfields, their great carts long since abandoned. Some straight away took a ship ’round the Horn back home. As for Nathaniel Pearl, henceforth Overlander Pearl, he went back to the work that he had thrown in for better. Poor bastard, Eugene thinks. But then it cannot be the same for everyone. It takes fortitude to achieve riches. It takes tenacity.
“We shall need good wool coats for our eventual journey home. Can you supply us, good man? One should not be caught unprepared in the winter storms, is that not correct?” He winks at Overlander Pearl to show that he sympathizes with the man’s past travails. Pearl stares at Eugene, then cites an exorbitant price. Eugene does not even blink. He has already sworn to spend this entire first sachet of gold on this one night. It is an offering of sorts, in thanks for their fortune. Do not the Indians of Mexico lay their first harvest at their snake temples or what have you? Do not the Indians hereabouts do something of the same?
They stand on stools before Overlander Pearl as he darts about them, tucking and sewing. At last they are fitted. Overlander Pearl weighs their gold, then wraps their old trousers and shirts in brown paper. Langstrom tugs at his new collar and grimaces. It was not easy to convey to him with single words and broad gestures the abstract ideals of fashion, not easy to convince him that they should appear in sartorial harmony, one with the other.
At the bathhouse the attendant leads them to a room divided up by curtains. A vat rests on an enormous stove. An old Indian woman stands at the ready with a bristle brush. A Chinaman brings in the steaming buckets.
Reckoning of Boston Jim Page 29
