A Journeyman to Grief (17 page)

“No, Yankee.”

“Quick, count it.”

Lena took the notes. “It’s mostly ones and twos, probably her milk money. Oh, Fiddie, there’s almost a hundred dollars here.”

“She most likely got more hidden somewhere about, we should search.”

“Not right now. We’ve got to eat or I shall faint. Put the money on the table where we can look at it.”

Lena went to the window and pulled the heavy woollen curtains closed.

“We don’t want anybody looking in.”

“We didn’t pass no farmhouse since yesterday. We’re all right.”

They didn’t speak until the soup was devoured and Fidelia filled their bowls again. She was shovelling up the thick stew into her mouth when Lena rapped her hard on the hand with her spoon.

“Don’t gulp your food. Where are your manners?”

“I lost them long time ’go,” said Fiddie with a scowl.

“Well you’ve got to acquire some. You’re not an ignorant nigger gal now.”

“I knows that.”

“And you’ve got to start talking properly. You must say, I
know
that. And it’s incorrect to say, ‘The Lord done sent us,’ it should be ‘The Lord has sent –’”

“What you doing, missus?”

“I’m trying to teach you. These things are important, Fiddie. When we’re in New York, you might as well wave a Cessie flag saying ‘ex-slave, ex-slave’ when you talk like that.”

“Why you raging on me, missus high and mighty?”

“I’m not raging on you, I’m –”

“Yes, you are. I know you. You’re roaring at me, ain’t you, for hitting that old woman?”

“I might have been able to talk her into helping us.”

“Not her. You heard her. She don’t have no time for niggers.”

Lena shuddered.

“What’s the matter?” asked Fidelia.

“Nothing, I’m just cold that’s all. Let’s light all the lamps and stoke up the fire.”

“Not before you ’pologize to me. I saved us.”

There was a long silence. Lena stared down at the table, then her body sagged and she reached out her hand. “You’re right, Fiddie. Please forgive me. It’s just that…”

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself that this old white woman is all soft and helpless, but she weren’t. She’d have shot us soon as blink if she had a chance.”

“You’re right again, Fiddie.” Another pause while Fidelia wiped her bowl clean with the last crust of bread.

“While we’re talking bout ’pologies and ‘you’re rights’ are flying round the table, I’ll give you one back. From now on you can correct me all you want. I’m not gonna be a nigger gal any more.”

Lena leaned forward and kissed her. “My angel, my dove. Your price is above rubies.”

Fiddie gave her a slap on the arm. “That so? I hope you ain’t thinking of selling me.”

Lena touched the girl’s cheek. “Not God Himself, nor the Archangel Gabriel, not all the company of heaven could tempt me.”

“You and your poetry,” repeated Fidelia. “Now come on, I’se full of beans now. Let’s you and me give this place the spring cleaning of its life and see what we can find.”

They searched for two more hours and discovered another forty dollars in coins hidden in an old cigar box in the kitchen cabinet. Fidelia made up a bundle of things they could use or perhaps sell later when they got to New York. There were a few good pieces of silver cutlery, a man’s steel watch; several picture frames. One of them contained the photograph of a young man in a Confederate uniform.

“See, what I tell you?” said Fiddie. “She wouldn’t have helped no nigger women.”

She removed the photograph from the frame, tore it up, and threw it on the fire.

“It’s almost midnight, Fiddie,” said Lena. “We’ve got to stop. We can’t take the entire household with us.”

“We’ll take much as we can carry. You’ll see. It’ll be worth it.”

She had been going through the wardrobe in the corner of the room and she took out a navy blue worsted suit. She sniffed at it.

“Smells like tobacco. Must have belonged to her old massa man.” She slipped on the jacket. “Looka this, Lena honey chile. It fits me snug as a bug in massa’s ass. See, there’s boots as well.” She thrust her bare feet into the boots that were at the back of the wardrobe. “They’s perfect.” She beamed at Lena. “You know what I think, missus? I think Miss Fidelia and Miss Lena, slaves in the possession of Mr. Leigh Dickie and his wife, may she rot in hell, Missus Caddie, have now died and here we have two new
folks. One a respectable widow lady and the other her faithful boy, Solomon.”

“Solomon? Why Solomon?”

“He was very wise, wasn’t he? And ain’t I very wise too?”

Lena chuckled. “You most certainly are. You’re going to have to bind your little rosebuds down though, if you want to be convincing.”

“Missus Caddie told me just last month I was as flat as an ironing table and as ugly as spoiled porridge.”

“She was wrong on both counts. You’re sprouting every day and you’re as pretty as any coloured gal I ever saw.”

Fidelia touched her own breasts tentatively. “Good thing we got out of there then.”

Lena turned away. “I’ve changed my mind, Fiddie. I don’t care if it is late, I’m going to have a bath.”

“What for? You’re only gonna get dirty again.”

“Never mind about that. Look, she’s got a tin tub. I’m going to boil up some water and sit in that old tin tub till I wrinkle up. You can go to bed if you like.”

“No. I’ll stay. You’ll probably need somebody to wash your back for you.”

After Lena’s bath, they decided it would be warmer and safer to sleep downstairs, so they hauled the mattress off the bed and brought it down in front of the fire. The old lady had more than one nightgown, and Fiddie insisted Lena take the cleaner of the two.

“We can burn our clothes,” said Lena. “I never want to see them again. I’ll take hers, they’re decent enough.”

“What name you gonna take as your new self?” Fidelia asked.

“I don’t know yet, I’ll have to think about it.” She pulled the girl closer. “It’s cold, snuggle up. I don’t think I’ve stopped shivering yet.”

Fidelia rolled over so she was facing Lena. “I’ve been a thinking, the best thing to do is to set the house on fire. We can bring the old woman’s body in here. When the neighbours find her, they’ll think she just gone and knocked over a lamp or something like that. They might not even know ’bout her money and if they did they’ll think it burned in the fire. We can get ourselves a good start that way.”

“Surely, they’ll notice if the mule is missing?”

“He could just have escaped.”

“But what about the cow? It would be suspicious with the cow gone as well. Cows don’t ever wander far.”

“If we leave her, she’ll holler if she ain’t milked and that could bring the neighbours over too soon. We’ll have to kill her.”

“We could take her with us. We won’t be travelling that fast and it means we could have fresh milk.”

“No, she’ll slow us down.”

Lena sighed. “If we leave her in the shed, it most likely catch fire and she’ll be burned alive.”

“If it bothers you that much, I’ll cut her throat first.”

“If you say so, Solomon.”

At daybreak they were up. Silently, they carried the corpse of the old woman, now stiffened in death, into the house. Lena made a pile of their old clothes, then splashed lamp oil on the furniture and the floor while Fiddie packed the mule’s panniers. She milked the cow and added the pannikin of fresh milk to the mule’s burden. Then as Lena started to throw lit matches onto the oil-soaked carpet, Fidelia released the cow to a merciful death.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

A
my had found her visit with Mary Blong unsettling. The girl had had some sort of fit in her presence, but Amy thought she was acting.

“Her mother is forced to wait on her hand and foot, to the detriment apparently of the little brother, who is also clearly the apple of his father’s eye,” she told Murdoch. There was a sharp note in her voice. Amy was, Murdoch knew, the only girl in a family of boys.

“I tell you what, I’ll have a word with Professor Broske. He might be able to give some advice, even see the girl if need be. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to do so, and it will enhance your value in the councillor’s eyes…No, I’m only joking.”

“I’m not offended. What sort of tight-laced spinster do you take me for? I’d polish Mr. Blong’s shoes and anything else, if that would get me a permanent position.”

Murdoch had made a sound of disbelief.

Later, he invited her to share his bed, but she declined,
pleading fatigue. She left with a deep kiss and a whispered promise and he went to bed alone but content.

The following morning, he slept late again and had to get moving in a hurry. He washed and shaved as fast as he could, swallowed a cup of cold tea left over from the night before, and jumped on his bicycle. He decided to drop off the vial of medicine that Brackenreid had given him at Dr. Ogden’s house before going to the station and to ask her how he could get in touch with Professor Broske. It was a glorious spring morning, with clouds like dandelion fluff, scattered across a robin’s egg blue sky, and he happily took a shortcut through the Horticultural Gardens. Buds had burst out on the trees and shrubs overnight, and flocks of starlings were twittering shrilly in the branches. He would have broken out into song himself if he hadn’t feared to upset passersby, so he hummed loudly instead, until he realized he had unconsciously been singing “Ave Maria,” which seemed incongruously ecclesiastical for his decidedly carnal feeling of well-being.

When he arrived at Dr. Ogden’s house near the corner of Gerrard and Parliament Streets, a prim, elderly maid told him he was too late and that Dr. Ogden had already left.

“Friday is her surgery morning,” she said in a disapproving tone, as if he should know that.

“Ah, yes. Did Professor Broske call for her, by any chance?”

“He did.” More disapproval, but Murdoch thought it was for a different reason.

He’d packed the vial in a box with an explanatory note and he handed it to the maid. “Will you ask Dr. Ogden to telephone me at the station as soon as she can?”

The maid dropped a perfunctory curtsy. “Very well, sir. But I don’t know when she will return home.”

He tipped his hat and left. He hoped the good doctor and professor weren’t going to go sightseeing after she’d dealt with her patients. He was curious to know what Broske would say about Mary Blong.

He bicycled back to the station, stopping briefly at a baker’s shop to buy half a dozen macaroons, two of which he crammed into his mouth almost before he left the shop.

Gardiner was on duty again.

“Good afternoon, er I mean, morning, Murdoch. Your clock still isn’t working properly, I see.”

Murdoch grinned back at him. “Yes, it is. I had to bike up to see Dr. Ogden, which is why I am ten minutes past the hour.”

“Constable Fyfer is waiting for you in the duty room. He says he’s got some news regarding that case you’re working on.”

“Good.”

“I warned him to make sure the tea was fresh,” Gardiner called after him.

Murdoch tossed his hat on the hook by the door and went into the duty room, where Fyfer was filling a tea pot with boiling water.

“Good morning, sir. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, Fyfer, it is indeed.”

He dropped the bag of macaroons on the table. “Pour me a mug of tea, there’s a good lad, and you can have one of these.”

The young constable did as he asked and handed a steaming mug to Murdoch.

“The sergeant says you have some news for me.”

“Yes, sir.” Fyfer took his notebook out of his chest pocket and flipped the pages. He glanced at Murdoch, his eyes shining with excitement. “I have found a witness, a reliable one, I swear. His name is James Whatling and he is a coachman to a Dr. Maguire who lives on Mutual Street right at the corner of Shuter Street.
You know where those private grounds are on the west side?”

“Yes. A nobby place. What’s he have to say for himself?”

“When Constable Crabtree and I were going door to door on Thursday, both the doctor and Whatling were out of town. He’d taken him to Markham early that morning and got back late last night, which is why I only just got his statement. I made a point of going around before I came to work this morning.”

“Please read it, Fyfer, I can hardly contain myself.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, I didn’t want you to wonder why I didn’t give this to your earlier. Anyway, here’s what the man had to say for himself. I took it down verbatim.” He took up a somewhat formal pose, the notebook held in front of him like a hymn book.

“He said the following. ‘I had driven Dr. Maguire, my employer for the past twelve years, to a concert at the new Massey Music Hall, which was to start at eight o’clock. The weather was inclement so rather than wait for him as I might ordinarily do, he gave permission for me to return home and he would take a public cab at the conclusion of the concert or stay at his club, which is within easy walking distance. The doctor is a bachelor so would not disappoint anyone who might be waiting up for him –’”

“My God, Fyfer, the man is long-winded. Can you get to the point?”

“Yes, sir, I’m almost there. ‘I came home via my usual route at quite a fast pace because it was raining heavily and neither the horse nor I wanted to be out longer than need be’ – it’s coming, Mr. Murdoch, I promise. ‘As I traversed in a southerly direction down Mutual Street, I crossed over the intersection at Wilton Avenue which meant I was passing the Cooke Livery stable where I now know Mr. Daniel Cooke was the victim of a savage attack –’”

“Is that how we referred to it, ‘a savage attack’?”

“That didn’t come from me, sir. I merely said that Mr. Cooke had been found dead under suspicious circumstances. I believe it
was one or two of the newspapers that called it ‘a savage attack.’”

“All right, go on.”

“‘As I went past the stables, I saw a woman standing underneath a tree close to the fence that surrounds the livery. She turned on her heel on seeing me coming and walked away in the direction of Wilton Street…’ That’s not the exciting bit, sir. It’s coming. ‘Shortly afterwards, I saw a man walking very quickly, almost running, in fact, also going in a northerly direction, that is to say in the direction of the stables. I continued on my way, not paying too much attention –’”