Reverend Hives asked the boys to meet him in the dining room. “We need to discuss what happened.”
Clara followed him into the school with her arm around Henry. “There will be an inquest, then?”
Without answering, Reverend Hives entered the dining hall and closed the door behind him. Clara was hurt and disturbed that he didn’t include her, the school nurse, in such a tragic matter. She put on a sweater and went outside.
She could hear digging in the cemetery and walked over to speak with Noel, who was slumped over a shovel and peering down a hole. “Reverend Hives has kept me out of the loop. Tell me what happened, Noel.”
“I don’t know, Matron.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You drove the boys!”
“I couldn’t drive the truck through the soft sand, so I parked it some distance from the picnic area and let the boys walk the rest of the way. There have been reports of vandalism in the Point aux Pins area and I was worried hoodlums might strip my truck, so I stayed back. People are desperate these days.”
“So you didn’t see Dudley drown?”
“I didn’t even hear the commotion. I just don’t know what happened.”
Clara knew Noel could swim across the St. Marys River to the American side. Had he been present, he likely could have intervened. “Can Miss Morrison and Miss Loucks swim?”
“I’m not sure. I suspect so, or they wouldn’t have offered to supervise. I’m ashamed my truck came before the boys’ safety.” Noel jammed the shovel into the dirt. “I’m sure this will come out in an inquest.”
“An inquest isn’t a court of law, Noel. It serves to identify problems and make recommendations.”
Noel released the breath he’d been holding while he listened to Clara.
She put her hand on his shoulder. “We all make mistakes, Noel.”
Clara walked toward the stone church named after Bishop Fauquier, who had been buried at Shingwauk the same year she was born. She stood on the steps of the chapel and gazed west down Queen Street. Noel’s house was adjacent to the school property. His teenage sons were tossing a football on the lawn. The boisterous shouts of his boys contrasted with the sombre conversation inside the school.
CHAPTER 17
Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison didn’t appear at the school the week following the drowning. Reverend Hives assured Clara that the police and coroner reports would be available to read as well as his own before they were sent to Indian Affairs. He used the word accident to describe the drowning. Clara felt strongly that an inquest should be held to determine what had gone wrong. When she was in charge at the Galt Hospital, there had been inquests that, in her mind, improved the standard of care without blaming the staff or hospital. The school is in loco parentis for these children who are so far away from their homes, she thought. An inquest could prevent another drowning and any other accident. All these thoughts and more whirled in her head as she waited to read the reports.
The interment took place Saturday afternoon in the school graveyard, laying Dudley to rest among many other deceased students who were marked by crude wooden crosses, many of them rotted. After the burial service, Clara wandered through the cemetery, which testified to the history of the school. An eight-year-old girl from Walpole Island had died in 1918 from the flu pandemic. Clara wondered if she, like Dudley, was a ward of the school. A deteriorated headstone with the inscription “Arthur, Son of a Supreme Court Justice” seemed odd and even more unusual in a residential school cemetery.
This burial would be well before Reverend Hives’s time, Clara thought. Perhaps the child was adopted from an Indian family or the father wanted his son, buried in this lonely graveyard, to have status.
Clara’s eye was caught by another inscription describing a deceased who had worked at the school as “devoted.” She would have to be, Clara thought. What struck her was the separation of Native graves from white ones.
Sergeant Stuart was waiting to drive Clara home. She signalled that she needed to retrieve something in her office. After fifteen minutes, Clara noticed he had entered the doorway, reluctant to disturb her. She was bent over documents spread out on a table, hands on her hips, a matron’s posture. Something was wrong. She turned abruptly and said tersely, “How could the Shingwauk employees on the outing to Point aux Pins not be aware six boys had buggered off?” Clara could see the surprise on Sergeant Stuart’s face. He had never heard her swear.
“The attempt to rescue and resuscitate the boy would have taken forty minutes,” Clara added. “How could they not hear something dreadful was taking place? There are three differing accounts of what happened to the boy and those who tried to save him. The reports don’t add up to a truthful explanation.”
The sergeant had seen Clara indignant before. She valued the truth. It was a nurse’s lies that had led to her dismissal from the Galt Hospital.
“Sergeant Stuart, this is a whitewash,” she insisted.
He stepped forward with the patient expression he always offered Clara. Despite a ten-year friendship, she had never called him by his Christian name, Robert.
“The report has already been sent to Indian Affairs,” Clara told him. “I’m reading a copy.”
“Is that not what you expected, Matron?”
Clara perceived the sarcasm. Sergeant Stuart wasn’t an admirer of the Anglican Church.
“No, it wasn’t! I expected Reverend Hives to have me read the report before it was sent to Indian Affairs. I’m the school nurse and responsible for the children’s well-being. This makes me unwittingly part of a whitewash, but I won’t remain silent.”
CHAPTER 18
Clara was deeply disturbed by the incompetence cover-up of Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison, so she did something unusual. Knocking on the door of the upper duplex, she asked Sergeant Stuart to come down for a drink to continue the conversation about the drowning report. Clara had reduced the sergeant’s rent to reflect the many chores he performed — she felt this avoided the social obligation she would incur if he worked for her as a favour. Tonight, however, she needed to talk about the drowning and thought a police officer would understand her concerns. Lily and Barnaby arrived at Clara’s just as the sergeant was descending the stairs.
“Were we invited to chaperon?” Barnaby quipped.
Clara shook her head and laughed. “No need of that,” she replied with an impish grin before her face became serious. “As a coroner, Barnaby, can you explain why there wasn’t an inquest into the drowning of a Shingwauk student?” She handed him the copies of the accident report. Then, with Lily, she went into the kitchen to prepare drinks.
Lily attached Barnaby’s adaptive handle to a cup and poured two ounces of rye. “He rarely uses the prosthetic arm,” she said cheerily, “but he wouldn’t part with this handle.” She topped his drink with ice and placed it at Barnaby’s left side. Clara had arranged her living room furniture for his convenience.
“These are quite different accounts,” Barnaby said, handing back the written reports. “The American Coast Guard describes their attempt to resuscitate the boy. On the other hand, Reverend Hives obviously reported the boys’ conflicting accounts of the accident. It’s quite extraordinary that the youngest boys rushed down the beach unnoticed to find a rowboat and then paddled back to where Dudley had gone down. There must have been screaming.”
“Exactly!” Clara cried. “Where were Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison when the tragedy was happening?”
“I suspect cowering in fear for their own safety,” Lily offered, “otherwise they would have run to get the boat rather than leave two little boys to do this! They absolutely had to hear the shouts.”
“The farm manager, Noel Thomas, said the women weren’t more than a hundred yards away,” Clara said. “In essence, Reverend Hives has protected the reputation of the school and these two spineless ladies, and no one in the school is apologizing.”
“It’s a conundrum that Reverend Hives concluded the boys were at fault a
fter chronicling their heroic actions,” Sergeant Stuart said. “The word misadventure in his report should have been replaced by the word drowning. He doesn’t even mention that adults were on the outing. And the government official reading these reports didn’t ask if there were supervisors present when the boy was drowning.”
“There could have been more than one drowning in the chaos of the boys trying to save and then recover Dudley’s body in such a strong current,” Clara said emotionally. “Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison should have attempted to rescue the boy, not let eight-year-olds step into the emergency!”
“The police officer would report what he was told,” the sergeant said. “In the absence of seeing what happened, Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison would have to concoct credible stories. Perhaps the Coast Guard needed its own version of events. They are, after all, responsible for safety in those waters.”
“Dr. McCaig is devoted to those children,” Barnaby said. “His work with them is entirely voluntary.”
“Shouldn’t he have interviewed the boys?” Clara asked.
“He would have no reason to doubt Miss Loucks’s and Miss Morrison’s accounts,” Barnaby said. “Perhaps he was afraid to stir up controversy with the possibility of a new school being built. All Indian Affairs wants is the number of the deceased student. They aren’t concerned with the details.”
Clara considered the possibility of quitting and searching for work as a public health nurse. The thought of buying a car and driving daily to see her patients eliminated this thread of thinking. She did, however, ruminate on the recent events that were hard to understand. Until the drowning, Clara had never doubted Reverend Hives’s concern for the children in his school. He had learned their language, buried them in their own tongue, and made his own exceptions to the Indian Act. Dr. McCaig’s affection for the children was obvious. The doctor and headmaster had taken the train to personally petition government leaders in Ottawa for a new school.
Dr. McCaig was in the headmaster’s office, and Clara decided this was the time to confront them with her misgivings. They had wittingly or unwittingly been part of the cover-up of Dudley’s drowning. Clara was in her second year at the school and didn’t want to become a pariah as she had in Lethbridge. Dr. McCaig was reading an official-looking letter over Reverend Hives’s shoulder. They glanced up with such triumphant smiles that Clara knew this wasn’t the time for accusations.
“We’re going to have a new school,” Reverend Hives said emotionally.
Clara figured they probably knew from her face that she had come on another matter, despite telling them, “Congratulations to you both.”
“I can read your thoughts,” Dr. McCaig said. “Reverend Hives told me you felt strongly that an inquest should have been held.”
“Miss Morrison and Miss Loucks told you that they had no idea there was a commotion. I don’t think you heard the truth, Dr. McCaig. I wish you’d spoken with the boys and not just taken the words of Miss Loucks and Miss Morrison for what happened.”
“I’m very sorry that I was misled by the ladies. I had no reason to doubt their accounts of the events.”
“The government would use any excuse to put off this project,” Reverend Hives interjected.
“Inquests into Indian deaths take years,” Dr. McCaig offered.
“Our funds are secured,” Reverend Hives added, looking at the document on his desk. “Canadian National Railways deposited government bonds in the Bank of Montreal yesterday to be used to build the Shingwauk School. Would you want those funds to be relegated to another building project, Matron? It’s a case of David and Goliath.”
“A new school won’t improve residential life unless the ethos changes,” Clara insisted.
That evening, after her meeting with Reverend Hives and Dr. McCaig, Clara noted in her address book a brief thought:
August 15, 1934
Residential schools are bringing out the worst in everyone.
PART TWO
Change of Heart
CHAPTER 19
In her first letter home, Ivy wrote:
I bought a smart little hat at Ogilvy’s Department Store on Mountain Street. Student nurses must wear un chapeau when they leave the hospital. Being hatless when I arrived, I borrowed one from Sass to walk the six blocks to Ogilvy’s.
A good sign if Ivy’s using French, Clara thought. She had to read on to learn that “Sass” was Cecily Mitchell from Senneville, a fancy suburban area west of Montreal. Ivy’s letter was brief, but Clara enjoyed the chattiness.
In a second letter, Clara learned more:
Sass lives in the room next door and has a serious beau that her parents don’t know about. He’s a second-year resident and five years older. She says her parents wouldn’t approve. They took us out for lunch when they dropped her off at the residence. According to Sass, her mother writes crime novels under another name, but I’m not sure I believe her. If she does, I’ll send you one. The Mitchells asked me to come to Senneville when we have a day off, but Sass said that never happens.
A third letter was concerning to Clara because Ivy seemed to be involved in some kind of residence intrigue:
We were too many ladies to be housed in the original nurses’ residence, so the overflow, including me, had to share half the medical residents’ ward. There’s a strict rule that nursing students aren’t to socialize with them. The authorities separated us with doubled particleboards. We strung a clothesline between the partitions to send messages. Sass wasn’t in the overflow group, so I sent her notes down the clothesline. We have many ways to get around the rules.
Our residence looks like an ancient castle with turrets, gables, and dormer windows that don’t let in much light. We have to pass through a narrow, dark corridor to get to the hospital where we have our classrooms. We do have a brightly lit foyer with beautiful antiques to entertain our friends under the watchful eye of a senior nurse. Sadly, poor Sass has to meet her medical resident beau in the utility closet.
Clara gleaned from the letter that Ivy was having fun. She did worry that amusement might turn to contempt for authority as it had with a student at the Galt Hospital.
“Curfews are made to keep your daughter safe,” Clara had explained to the director in front of the hospital board. “Your daughter chose to stay out late and tumbled off the ladder, trying to get into the hospital unnoticed.”
Clara sat at her writing desk to compose a return letter to Ivy. After conveying the local news that might interest her daughter, she ended with a motherly reminder: “Remember that you went to Montreal to train as a nurse, not a comedian.”
In November, Clara received a letter from Ivy indicating she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. “I thought out-of-town first-year students were given a week at Christmas to visit their families and to recuperate from the rigours of the first few months,” Clara wrote back. She was disappointed and sent a follow-up letter to ask why before waiting for Ivy’s answer:
Sass isn’t considered out-of-town but desperately wants to have a few days with her medical student boyfriend, Robert Mason, somewhere other than a utility closet. I’ve offered to cover for her so she can go home. Pamela Hobbs, our director, is agreeable.
Clara didn’t comment further and accepted that Ivy was staying in Montreal for a friend.
Had Clara inquired further about Pamela Hobbs, she would have learned the true story behind Ivy’s altruism. In her first few months, Ivy had adjustment difficulties. She fainted while observing her first operation on the surgical ward. The procedure was the amputation of a diabetic patient’s leg. It wasn’t the surgery itself that overwhelmed her, but the condition of the leg. Until the elderly man arrived in hospital as an emergency patient, he had never seen a doctor. The putrid smell of his ulcerated, infected skin nauseated Ivy. She dropped to the floor. Her last recollection was the doctor giving her a shove with his foot, saying, “Get her out of here!”
But it was Ivy’s second disgrace that led Miss Hobbs to take act
ion. Ivy had thrown up on the operating table during a messy bowel operation. That time she didn’t pass out and was able to navigate to the washroom. The head nurse was waiting at the door when Ivy came out, ghost-like and embarrassed. She transferred Ivy to the geriatric ward.
It was there during a December cold snap that Ivy began to shine. The hospital heating system had broken down, and the frail patients were shivering under thin bedcovers. The hospital budget had no money for ward supplies due to the economic crisis. Ivy went to Miss Hobbs for permission to collect blankets from the rich families in Montreal’s Golden Square Mile.
“Many of these Square Mile mansions are empty,” Miss Hobbs said. “The stock market crash wiped out fortunes, and the hospital, alas, lost its major benefactors.”
“Miss Hobbs,” Ivy began in her most respectful voice, aware she had been a problem for the director, “perhaps being able to lend blankets during an emergency will restore these benefactors’ sense of philanthropy without it costing a red cent.”
Miss Hobbs laughed. “Miss Durling, you remind me of your mother. She was a master at improvisation.”
She knows Clara, Ivy thought. Why didn’t Mum tell me? That must be the reason Miss Hobbs didn’t send me home. Ivy waited for an explanation.
“I was one of five probationers graduating from the Galt Hospital in the class of 1921,” Miss Hobbs explained. “Your mother had just arrived from England. I believe you were five or six at the time. We had few medical supplies following the war. Matron Durling would march to the kitchen and retrieve items from the utensil drawer and then place them in the sterilizer. I recall a staff doctor calling your mother a genius.”
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