by Vicki Delany
“Angus.” I abandoned the bacon. “What do you know about this business?”
He looked me straight in the eye, not even blinking. Now I knew he was lying.
“I know nothing more than everyone in town, Mother. Everyone’s saying the police have to make an arrest soon. Of anybody. Otherwise it will look bad on their record. There hasn’t been a murder in Dawson this year—until Ireland. So they have to find someone to blame. Uh, the kettle’s boiling, Mother.”
“Bugger the kettle.”
Angus’s eyes opened wide at my choice of words.
“They have no reason to blame Irene; there are more than enough other suspects. Half the town, in fact. If you know something about Ireland’s murder, you have to tell me.”
“No, I don’t.” He stood up so fast, he knocked his chair over. “I don’t want any bacon, you can have it. You’ll probably burn it anyway.”
“Angus, wait. Irene didn’t kill Jack Ireland. The police have let her go.”
He stopped with his hand on the door knob. “They did?”
“They said they had no reason to hold her. Which I believe is fair enough, as she didn’t do it. If they’d let women into the police force, they would have had someone on hand to tell them that a woman doesn’t kill a man because he hits her once. Unless it’s at the time, of course, which would be in self-defence. Although the men rarely see it that way. Angus, have you done something you don’t want me to know about?”
“No, Mother.”
“Very well, have it your way. Pick up that chair and sit >down and eat your breakfast. I promise I will not take my eyes away from this frying pan until the bacon is perfectly cooked. In order that I may do so, you can slice the bread. Do you want toast, or shall I fry the bread in the dripping?”
“Dripping, please.”
“I might have some toast myself. Get out the marmalade, as I am concentrating single-mindedly on the bacon.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You may think you don’t have to tell me everything, and I suppose that at your age you don’t.” I looked at my son, who was holding the pot of marmalade as if it might break if he loosened his grip. It was good marmalade— literally worth its weight in gold. “But if you know something about the Ireland, murder you’re legally and morally required to inform the police.”
My comment had an unexpected effect. Instead of looking guilty, and hanging his head in shame, my son stared straight at me. He smiled and his chest puffed out—not too much, but enough to strain the too-small nightdress.
“Certainly, Mother. I’m aware of my duty, thank you for reminding me. I’m glad to hear Miss Davidson’s been released. Really, I am. I didn’t like to think—never mind. You’re not watching the bacon, and it needs turning.”
I returned the focus of my attention to the pan. The bacon was not in need of turning. The fat was pure white, the meat pink, and the whole thing as soft as a baby’s dinner. And my son was lying to me. A serious matter, but of no relevance to Irene and the murder. Whatever secret he was trying to conceal was probably something he’d heard hanging out with boys of whom he knew I wouldn’t approve. He was afraid of telling me he’d been listening to wharf-rat gossip.
I poked the flabby bacon; it spat grease into my face.
* * *
I had nothing planned for the day and since it was Sunday, I intended to sleep as long as I liked. A note propped up against the tea canister asked Mrs. Mann to leave me alone.
As so often happens, my optimistic intentions came to naught. At first I simply lay awake, watching the rising sun dance through the thick layers of sawdust on my window, remembering how unpleasant it had been sitting on the wooden bench at Fort Herchmer while splinters found their way into one of my best skirts and men pretended not to see me.
Mrs. Mann stumbled out of her room, coughing heavily. She tried her best to be quiet, but she dropped a log on the kitchen floor while ferrying it to the stove, knocked a pan off the table, and shouted at Mr. Mann to shush.
This Ireland business was threatening my peace of mind. The fellow seemed to be some sort of malicious ghost, even more annoying dead than he’d been alive. Asleep or awake, he never completely left me. Not that I cared one whit who’d killed him, but whoever that fool was he’d killed Ireland in my establishment. And thus left the problem on my doorstep. Surely, the Mounties would soon give it up? Forget about Ireland and get back to the more important business of shutting the saloons down at two minutes to midnight on Saturday and arresting anyone who dared to use vile language.
I wondered if Constable Sterling would have taken me into custody for telling a child to “bugger the kettle”. I wondered what it would be like to be taken into custody by Constable Sterling. Would he use force, nothing excessive of course, just enough to subdue me? Would he tie me up? Lean into my face and ask me to confess all, his voice perilously short of breath?
Stop right there! No more of that line of thought, thank you very much.
Now I was wide awake. But I was so tired that eventually sleep forced itself upon me, despite Mrs. Mann’s attempts to be quiet, Mr. Mann’s language when he hit his finger with the hammer while trying to secure a loose cupboard, Angus’s big feet hitting the floorboards, the mental haunting of the vile Jack Ireland, and my licentious thoughts about Constable Richard Sterling. The latter of which I had absolutely no intention of ever experiencing again, as they were clearly the effects of fatigue, brought on by overwork and worry.
I slept for several hours. When I awoke, not to the sounds of Mr. Mann repairing the window frame of the room next to mine, but of Mrs. Mann berating him to be quiet and show some consideration for the “poor tired dear”, I would have said that I’d slept well, without a dream or a stray thought.
Only later did I realize that while I’d slept, my mind had been very busy indeed. Sorting, sifting, and finally understanding.
Chapter Forty-Six
Sundays I wash my hair. It’s quite the chore: fetch water from the spring, warm it over the stove, stand in the middle of the kitchen floor in my shift while Mrs. Mann pours the water over my head into a bucket, whilst rubbing in the soap. Mr. Mann and Angus ordered out of the house.
Finally the deed was done. It being a hot and sunny day, I sat outside, hiding in the patch of weeds behind the house that passed as the Mann’s garden, combing out my thick, wet tresses and letting the sun do the work of drying it, reading Wuthering Heights.
It was late afternoon before my hair had dried enough to gather up at the back of my head, and I was restless from spending the morning in bed and the afternoon on my hair and book. Angus was off with his friends, so I put on my best day ensemble, a dark blue skirt and a blouse that had once been pristine white, with the intention of taking a stroll into town.
Mrs. Mann was in the kitchen, her hands floury with the mixings of scones for supper.
I stuck my head in the kitchen to tell her I’d be out for a while.
The early evening was warm and sunny. The endless sound of wood being sawn and shop clerks shouting the value of their irreplaceable wares had fallen silent, and everyone I passed was relaxed and smiling. If one came to Dawson, say on the back of a giant bird, stayed for a Sunday afternoon, and then returned on any Friday night, they would find it impossible to believe they were in the same place, occupied by the same people.
I walked out of town, heading east, away from the Yukon River towards the hills, greeting acquaintances on the way. I passed beyond the wooden storefronts and semipermanent buildings and came to where a handful of white canvas tents, interspersed with wooden shacks, clung precariously to the foot of the mountain.
A cheap, cracked mixing bowl, overflowing with tall blue larkspur and tiny yellow buttercups plucked from the hillside, sat outside one of the hastily-erected homes.
Sam and Margaret Collins sat by the open doorway, finishing their dinner by the light of the evening sun, tin plates balanced on their laps. He leapt to his feet as he saw me appro
ach.
“Please, Sam, finish your dinner. I’m out for a stroll and found myself walking this way. Hasn’t it been a lovely day? Makes the long winter seem almost worthwhile, doesn’t it?” I slapped a mosquito that was hovering above my hand, looking for a safe place to land.
What could he do but offer me his chair? And what could I do but accept? Proper manners do have a way of allowing one to manipulate others. I dread to imagine what civilization would be without them.
Margaret put her unfinished supper on the ground. Their meal looked most unappetizing—a bit of fatty beef, a few leaves of boiled cabbage, some wrinkled potatoes. The ubiquitous beans.
“Can I offer you some tea, Mrs. MacGillivray?” Margaret said.
“That would be lovely. But only once you’ve finished your meal.”
“I have.” Her words were friendly, as one would expect when a working-class woman found herself confronted by the unexpected, and most unwelcome, intrusion of her husband’s employer. But her eyes were as hard as stone and her face not a whit friendlier.
She stood up and snatched her husband’s unfinished plate out of his hands. He opened his mouth to protest, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“Didn’t you tell me you’re planning to join Robbie for a smoke and a walk after supper? It’s time you were on your way. Robbie doesn’t like to be left waiting.”
Sam looked at his wife. He looked at me. He looked at his unfinished meal clenched in Margaret’s hand.
And I knew I was right, which in most circumstances is a sensation I adore. But on this lovely northern evening, the knowledge didn’t make me happy in the least.
“Mrs. MacGillivray and I rarely get much of a chance to have a nice visit,” Margaret said. “You run along now, Sam.”
Her husband shook off his confusion. “Well, I’d say that if Robbie were finished his dinner, he’d be along soon enough to collect me. But I guess you’re right, Margaret, as always. He don’t much like to be left waiting. Will you excuse me, Mrs. MacGillivray?”
“Of course, Sam. Enjoy your walk.”
We watched him lumber off down the muddy path. A toddler, dressed in a clean white nightgown, momentarily escaped her mother’s attention and rushed directly into a puddle, where she splashed about with delight, until the shrieking mother descended upon her. Not many people were about on such a pleasant summer’s evening. This was a hard-working town; tomorrow was Monday and family people, people with jobs, retired early.
“Do you really want tea?” Margaret said, still balancing two half-finished plates.
“Tea lubricates every social occasion, as I’m sure you know.”
“I do. You remind me of my father.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t take that as a compliment. I hated my father. He was always so sure of himself. Completely convinced that he was right and everyone else was wrong. Whether it was better to prune the roses in the morning or in the evening, whether slavery was the natural order of things or an affront to God, whether his only daughter should marry this man or that one.”
“I don’t care one whit about your father, Margaret. When I first arrived here, I wasn’t at all sure of myself. I had considerable doubts. But no longer. So perhaps your father took his clues from the people around him, and from that he made up his mind. Did your mother cringe when he suggested cutting roses if it were evening?”
“I have no intention of discussing my parents with you. State your business and then be on your way.” Margaret stood in the doorway of her home, glaring down at me. Apparently I was not to be served tea.
I got to my feet. “Jack Ireland told me he’d been a newspaper correspondent during your American Civil War.”
Long ago, I’d been to the British Museum, escorted by Lord Alveron, because the exhibit of Egyptian artefacts was considered to be exceptionally fashionable. There I’d seen the most amazing carving of a long-dead queen. She transfixed me, that queen, with her steady gaze, the haughty lift to her chin, her imperial presence so strong it crossed barriers of time and space. So entranced was I that my escort had had to grip my arm with more strength than was seemly to drag me away before his grandmother-in-law, unexpectedly visiting from the country, entered the hall. I had always hoped to return, to see her again. The carving, not the grandmother-in-law. But circumstances forced me into leaving London before I had the opportunity.
Margaret’s face reminded me of that stone queen.
“I enjoyed our chat in the Savoy the other morning. The story of your brave Confederate husband captured by the Union solders because he chose to remain behind with a wounded comrade was most entertaining.”
“It wasn’t a story.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t. But Sam told my son another story. That you left the Eastern States before the war and travelled throughout the west in order to avoid having to take sides.”
“You’re an unusual woman, Mrs. MacGillivray, if everything you ever say is the God-promised truth.”
“I’ll admit I’ve been known to stretch the facts on occasion. But I’m wondering who stretched the truth here, Margaret. You or Sam? I suspect it was Sam, not wanting anyone to know he’d served in the war, although most men, in my experience, love to talk about their time in the army. So dreadfully tedious. But you had told Helen what really happened, and when Helen pressed you to tell me, you could hardly spin a different story in her presence, now could you? Not, I’m sure, that it even occurred to you that I’d hear both versions of your life story.”
“Mrs. MacGillivray, if you have a point to make, please make it, and leave. You are no longer welcome in my home.”
“What did Jack Ireland have on Sam?”
Then she sighed. “Is any of this your business?”
“Unfortunately, yes. My best dancer was arrested for the murder.”
Her expression didn’t change.
“Please, don’t allow yourself to get too alarmed. She was released. Some silly British legal point about no proof. I would like nothing more than to ignore this whole ridiculous business, Margaret. No one liked Jack Ireland less than I. Well, one person clearly did. But he or she left the body on my property, and thus he or she involved me.”
“It’s a nice evening, but there’s a touch of chill in the air. Let me get my shawl, and we can go for a walk.” Margaret carried her plates into the depths of her shoddy home.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Did Margaret Collins regret how far she’d fallen in the world—their shack was so badly lit that even with the sun still lighting the western sky, I could scarcely see a foot inside—or was she happy with her choice? To have turned her back on her rich, but unloving family, and marry Sam, whom to all appearances she still adored?
A pack of screeching children, every one of them dressed in hand-me-downs, their clothes and hair so tangled and filthy, it was hard to distinguish boy from girl, ran up the road in hysterical pursuit of a drooling dog. A stern-faced man with the best muttonchop whiskers I’d seen outside of a Regimental Mess grabbed the children’s leader in one meaty fist. The others pulled to a sudden stop, and the dog disappeared into the warren of shacks and tents.
Margaret came out of the house, a tattered shawl tossed over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark in her pale face. “Let’s walk this way. I’d like to pick some fresh flowers. Those ones will be dead soon.”
We walked up the street, towards the foot of the mountain they call Midnight Dome. Margaret talked about inconsequentials, flowers mostly, gardens her mother had tended back in her childhood, cacti she’d seen in the southern deserts. I let her prattle on, sensing she would shortly run out of chatter and tell me all I needed (but did not particularly want) to know.
“Don’t you find the wildflowers here to be incredible, Mrs. MacGillivray? I suppose because the growing season’s so short, nature must do all she has to accomplish in one wild burst of colour.”
“They are lovely,” I said.
The cluster of tents and wo
oden shacks thinned and soon fell behind us. The roadway ended, but a rough track climbed into the foothills. There were no trees left, only bare stumps, thin bushes—no good for building—and naked soil. The hillsides higher up were ablaze with wildflowers in all possible shades of yellow, purple and blue, dotted with the purest white to be found outside of fresh Yukon snow.
“I would love to have seen this country as it was two years ago,” Margaret said, puffing with the exertion of the climb. “Imagine what this wood must have been like as planted by God.”
“Perfectly wonderful, I’m sure. Margaret, we’ve gone far enough. I can scarcely hear the people below. My shoes are not suited to this path.”
“Just around this bend there’s a delightful patch of larkspur. I haven’t told a soul about it, so as not to have all sorts of people climbing up here with their ill-trained dogs and snotty-nosed children to trample all over my flowers.”
The path, rough as it was, came to an abrupt end at a large boulder. Margaret gathered her skirts in one hand and climbed over the rock.
Why I followed her, to this day I don’t know. Perhaps because I believed that a woman chatting about wildflowers and the harmful effects of dogs and children upon them could do me no harm? Perhaps because my comfortable life here in Dawson, where I was earning a legal, if only vaguely respectable, living had softened my instincts?
I clambered over the boulder, my delicate calfskin boots protesting. When I got to the other side, I couldn’t see Margaret. I held onto my hat, jumped carefully off the rock and stumbled to regain my footing.
A cold piece of steel pressed against my throat.
“You are as much a fool as all the rest of them, Mrs. MacGillivray.” Her breath was hot in my ear. “Although I doubt you’re legally entitled to that title.”
