Death in the Age of Steam (59 page)

“If only we had known that Crane had over her no moral or legal right . . .” sighed the postmaster general, then added with gratifying directness, “Her father was my mentor in politics,
monsieur
. I regret deferring to his assassin.”

Marthe shook Harris's hand and promised to care for his horse until he had leisure to fetch it. Six carriages and a mail car constituted the entire train. Harris did his comically inadequate best to see that the wheels were attached to the axles. Then the two passengers climbed aboard.

“It's hard to believe we'll sleep in Toronto tonight,” Theresa called down through the window in the pause before starting.

Her words might have made Harris suspect she too was apprehensive—had her tone not expressed rather the agreeable wonderment everyone felt at the newly-opened line. Theresa was entitled to her share of wonder. Often enough had she accompanied her father between the Canadas by the more leisurely conveyances of steamer, coach and sleigh.

“Don't forget to set your watches back twenty-three minutes,” Laurendeau called up, as if neither Harris nor Theresa had ever ventured so far before. “When you travel west, you see, the sun
reaches its zenith later and . . .”

His further explanations were lost as the train rolled away from the station, and the journey began.

Harris closed the window before sitting down. He squirmed in his seat. Mixed with his vague forebodings was the excitement of spending the next thirteen and a half hours at Theresa's side, her sole companion. A black quilted carriage mantle hid nine tenths of her. From under a matching bonnet, chestnut brown hair—three inches longer than in August—spilled out over her forehead in a freakishly ravishing sheepdog fringe. Harris's fingers yearned to be among the wisps.

Aware of his eyes upon her, she looked up, smiled slightly, and bent again over her book. Whether or not she would in fact sleep the night before facing Crane in coroner's court, she showed no anxiety yet. The volume she held was a journal. In it she pencilled sentences as the motion of the train allowed. Harris wondered if the composition of that harrowing letter had not had the delayed consequence of showing her she was capable of assembling her thoughts on paper, rather than merely keeping lists.

“It amazes me,” she said, reading his mind, “how much time I spent cataloguing wildflowers. You must have been bored.”

“Not at the time. What are you writing now?”

“An essay on the sickroom. Listen: ‘The name is apt. Too often it is a tight box to contain and reinforce disease rather than a light and open place where the sick may mend.'”

“We must see that it's published,” said Harris.

“The observations are my own, but from the late war Miss Nightingale draws the same lessons. True originality would be putting them in everyday practice.”

Even as he applauded this goal, Harris judged the admirable Miss Nightingale too monogamously wedded to nursing to make a reassuring model. How soon might he broach the subject of his place in Theresa's future? Not today, not tomorrow. He tried to look no further than the next telegraph pole, then the next, then the next.

The poles appeared to pass the window slowly. A boy on
horseback confirmed Harris's impression by easily overtaking the train. Only after six or seven minutes did the rider again come in sight and fall behind, sparing his mount spurs and whip to save its life. A lordly passenger threw him a coin.

By staging a hundred such horses between the metropolises of Canada East and West, one might arrive sooner, though exhausted. The appetite for speed grew with feeding, speed over comfort. The
Cytherean
and all “floating palace” steamships on Lake Ontario and the upper St. Lawrence were superseded, and the train still took too long. Soon passengers would resent any slackening of pace. They would even want to bolt down their meals in the jolting carriages. Harris wanted to.

Lunch was served briskly enough at the station restaurant in Brockville, dinner at the one in Cobourg. By now night had fallen, and drizzle beaded the carriage windows. Theresa, however, was becoming more aware of her surroundings, which began to remind her of her flight. East of here she had slumped inattentively in a stage coach. Cobourg was where she had spoken to a bucktoothed horse named Jupiter and a big-eared stable boy whose name she did not know.

“Asa,” said Harris.

“What did happen to Enoch Henry?” she asked when the train slowed to cross the Prince Albert Viaduct at Port Hope. “I should like to repay him what he gave me for Nelson.”

“You need not worry about that. He's dead.”

“Of what?” Her lovely lamplit features expressed concern rather than alarm.

“A head injury,” said Harris to test her nerve, and hoping too by frankness to cut the distance that remained between them. “A brick fell on him—from this very bridge.”

While the town spreading out below them lacked gaslit streets, individually illuminated house windows defined the valley sides and floor.

“An accident then. People suffer such misfortune.” To these commonplace words Theresa looked as if she expected some rejoinder.

Harris nodded. He found he could not after all tell her how
the Englishman's misfortune had contributed to her rescue—nor yet did it seem timely to apprise her of Oscar's drowning at Niagara. To slice away all misunderstanding was too brutal a surgery. Either they must go on forever as companionable strangers or peel truth like an onion one layer at a time. In a speed-drunk age, a task of infinite patience.

Theresa spoke again. “Death followed . . .”

“Instantly.”

“A mercy there. Tell me something, Isaac, since you persuaded me to testify for Sibyl's sake. Why does this subpoena mention only Papa?”

Harris explained that a prior inquest had identified Sibyl's remains, but not named her killer. On Sibyl, no second inquest was permitted. Nevertheless, so long as Crane could be kept in view, he would be indicted for her murder at the same spring assizes, where Theresa's evidence would convict him.

“But I didn't see him smother my father,” Theresa objected. “How can I speak to that?”

“You heard him confess,” said Harris, “and witnessed a demonstration that gives his confession credence. If in performing his post-mortem examination Professor Lamb finds William Sheridan was smothered, Jasper believes Crane's fate is sealed.”

“Poor Papa . . . I wish it were spring and we were done with Henry.”

The final portion of the journey was plainly trying for Theresa. Just past Port Union, as the locomotive began struggling up the steep incline to Scarboro, a pair of new passengers let their eyes rest on her while passing down the car.

“When
will
this hair grow?” she cried. “It attracts notice—and tickles my forehead.”

“Let me tuck it up for you.”

“Don't.” She pushed his hand away. “This near the city, someone is bound to recognize me.”

He touched her arm. She shook him off.

“I suppose,” she added, “because I'm neither widow, maid nor wife, I have no reputation to lose. Kind of you to remind
me! Well, everyone knows what sort of women most nurses are, so it seems I've chosen the perfect occupation.”

“That's enough,” said Harris. “I had no such thoughts.”

She turned irritably away, then back to face him.

“I'm sorry,” he said less gruffly. Although the anomaly of her position reflected no discredit on her, her sensitivity was understandable. Its remedy coincided with Harris's dearest wish. “As soon as you like,” he went on, “or think compatible with your bereavement—”

“It would not stay tucked anyway,” she said, forestalling his proposal. “I don't know why this business of going home is becoming so difficult. My only friends were the MacFarlanes, and the cholera letter already makes it impossible to see them again. Give me your hand to hold, Isaac . . . That's good.”

She held it hard until her fear seeped away through the contact. For Harris, the first good was her appeal to him for strength, and his being there to respond. Then presently she began to feel and explore—so slackening, shifting and tightening the pressure of her fingers on his as to keep sensation fresh. This delighted and disturbed his entire body, and at the same time, squeezing back in answer to her lead, he felt engaged in silent conversation that after so much separate experience brought them closer together than words.

She held his hand till Scarboro. She dropped it abruptly when, at that station, an imposing personage in black climbed aboard and surveyed the occupiers of seats as if they were so many usurpers.

“Who's that swell?” said Harris.

“George MacFarlane's secretary,” Theresa breathed.

When MacFarlane joined him, the secretary—shrunk in height and bulk as might an elephant beside a whale—pointed out two empty places well behind Theresa and Harris. MacFarlane nodded affably and with heavy tread followed his minion. Theresa pretended to look out the window, but Harris saw they had already been recognized.

“Hallo, George,” he said.

“A great thing, this railway, isn't it, Harris?” MacFarlane let
one massive hand rest on the younger man's shoulder as the train resumed its lurching march. “And a great burner of my trees, but they will be gone soon enough.”

“I believe,” said Harris, “you'll find a seat further back.”

“Yes, plenty of room—but coal is the coming fuel, as our mutual friend Mr. Newbiggins never tires of saying, and if you will follow my example, coal is where you will put your money. Flora, my muse, what a pleasure to see you safe after all this time!”

Theresa looked up into his wide blue eyes with cold dislike.

“Your poor father,” said MacFarlane, “a loss to all who cherish British freedoms. And this imbroglio of Henry's—unspeakable. Accept my sympathy.”

“Henry's affairs will be spoken of at tomorrow's inquest,” Harris felt impelled to observe. “You may find your own freedoms touched upon.”

Hillyard would not be the coroner presiding and might therefore testify regarding the document taken from Sheridan's box. Harris expected that prospect to ruffle the would-be knight's good humour. He was disappointed.

“You prophesy boldly, Harris, like a true Kelt, but when better than on All Hallows Eve? I've written a slight essay on the topic for tomorrow's
Globe
. In the old country, though, it was matches and marriages young people like yourselves chiefly tried to forecast this night.”

“Mr. MacFarlane,” said Theresa, “do give my regards to your wife and children.”

“Gladly, dear girl, but we must chat.” MacFarlane clapped Harris's shoulder. “This cavalier won't object to exchanging seats with your ancient friend for the balance of the journey.”

Harris rose, welcoming the chance to escape from under the sexagenarian's weight. MacFarlane mistakenly thought this meant compliance. He made to sit.

“Out of the question.” Harris's arm barred his way.

“I see you think you know something to my discredit, but I assure you no imputation will touch me. Let's be agreeable.”

“By all means.” Harris wanted to ask whether the cholera
sufferers had agreed to be put ashore. Nothing would be gained. He was still looking up, up into the craggy face of one of the two or three richest men in the country. “We shall agree, George, that you'll sit with your secretary.”

“Theresa, perhaps you would care to join me.”

“She declines,” said Harris.

“Can you not let Miss Sheridan speak for herself?” MacFarlane chided. He smelled of peppermints, good Cavendish and even temper.

“I have been spoken for,” said Theresa. “Please leave us.”

MacFarlane withdrew, smiling Keltically at the ambiguous turn of phrase. However much Theresa meant by it, or knew she meant, Harris felt for her a surge of affection that for some moments obliterated all the world besides.

Finally, the Don River trestle rumbled under the carriage wheels, none of which had come off. They were entering the city. Ahead, through the rain and dark, loomed its first two landmarks—the chimney of the new gas works and the Berkeley Street Gaol, site of public execution.

“Why did George have to mention its being Hallowe'en?” Theresa said. “According to Papa, the old heathen, this is the night when spirits walk, everyone who has perished in the past year.”

On the left now, out the far window, stretched the peninsula and the harbour it cradled. All ships but one lay dark and still. At the same time, a surprising number of men were moving purposefully about the docks. Some wore police tunics. The near, right window framed the market, asleep below City Hall's clock tower, and then the broad plain of the Esplanade sweeping up towards Front Street. Again for this late hour on a wet night, there seemed an abnormal bustle. Harris set his watch back to ten fourteen.

“You have no enemies among the spirits,” he said distractedly.

“No, mine are living—but you start to count and see how many dead there have been since the twelfth of July. Look, is that Jasper?”

Harris leaned across her to open the window. The lawyer was
running hatless beside the slowing train, his wavy hair rain-plastered to his head, his overcoat unbuttoned and flapping like a neglected sail. He had not seen them yet.

“Jasper!” called Harris. “Jasper, what news?”

Small looked up. Normally remote and enigmatic as the moon, his round face was a drenched image of consternation.

“Crane,” he panted. “Crane has escaped.”

An untypically scowling Inspector Vandervoort was stepping out of the railway station telegraph room onto the platform. His tweed cap sat low over his eyes. The skin by his nose flamed with drink, almost to the redness of his side-whiskers. It seemed a safe bet that the medal inscribed “Be sober and watch” was not in his waistcoat pocket.