Reckoning of Boston Jim (33 page)

“And then this mine. This pit. This, ah. But you see, I had been lucky. At one point I could see my fortunes turning sure as the tide. Lily, that is . . .”

“Lily is your wife?”

Eugene notices again the immaculate state of the Judge's attire, the cleanliness of his person. The man must bathe at least once a week. “No, my wife's name is given Dora. Lily, well, it is of no importance.”

“Dora, that is it. I recall now. I recommend caution, Mr. Hume. There are certain women who are best avoided in this town.”

“Yes, of course. It would not occur to me, not at all. Lily was not a woman, but a . . . a lucky charm of sorts, not that I hold with such superstitions.”

“Of course not, and thus, your dear wife, how is she faring?”

“She was well the last I heard from her, though I am planning this afternoon to wait once again in that purgatory of a post line. It troubles me not a little, I must confess.” Eugene sighs. Fortunate that he is fortified with food or he might well begin to weep.

“The line troubles you?”

It is difficult to tell if the Judge is jesting. Eugene smiles obligingly, just in case. “No, that I have not heard from her lately. She is alone, you see, in the Cowichan. Not all alone, of course. She has paid Indian help and neighbours close at hand.”

“The post is not the swiftest as yet. However, I am certain you will be rewarded for your efforts and that you will hear from your charming wife. And so, Mr. Hume, I will not keep you any longer from your duties. I wish you the best of luck and God's Grace. As for myself, I have a great number of matters to attend to.”

The Judge stands. Eugene stands. The waiter rushes over, takes payment from the Judge only after much prompting. Eugene elects to stay where he is. His chair near the stove is pleasantly warm, the odour of fresh baked bread and brewing ale most comforting. He stares into his coffee cup. He has heard of women who can read one's destiny in the dregs, though to him it looks like all the same black sludge.

Good that he did not ask the Judge for a loan, even the smallest of ones. The mention of money would have tarnished their friendship, though what, after all, are friendships for if not mutual assistance?

Addendum

If the Gentleman should find that he has miscalculated his opportunities and finds that he is missing his beloved wife, that he is longing for a helping hand, a charitable ear, then he should be well advised not to despair but to recall Errare human.

Or Errare humanum? Yes, that is it.

Beyond Fort Connelly is the village and the forest and the sea. It is two months after Boston's arrival before he ventures outside the gates. With him are Lavolier, James Thomson, and Peopeoh. They have been sent out hunting, the People having brought no meat to trade for some time.

Peopeoh grips his musket and look sadly upward. “Sky,” he says.

Boston looks up also, at the vast mossy branches of the cedars and firs. The bit of sky is a mere platter for these towering trees with their trunks as wide as five, six men abreast. And the moss. It covers all. It mutes their voices and their steps, has made soft forms of rocks and fallen trees. Great fringes of it hang from the branches, become entangled in their hair as they walk along a faint path to what might be called a clearing, though it seems more like a green cave, so dense and over-arching are the trees about, so muffled are all sounds, and so odd is the light, denser somehow and green of itself. The glimmer of the sea is gone entirely. James Thomson points to a group of knobbly forms that are thickly covered with moss. “Don't it look as if some family sat down to rest and then waited too long and were done for?”

Boston stares.

“Don't see them?” Thomson asks, half-smiling. “It's what happens if you sit too long. The moss creeps over you and chokes you. It's true.”

Boston still does not see the family, sees only a totality of green, a place where they do not belong.

“
Taisez-vous,
” Lavolier whispers. He points to a shadow. A movement of ferns. Raises his rifle; the shot resounds. They clamber to where the deer is thrashing, its blood seeping into the green. Lavolier thanks Christ and Mother Mary, then cuts the deer's throat.

“Bloody hell,” James Thomson says when they come into sight of Fort Connelly. Lavolier half raises his rifle, then eases it down. Just outside the fort gates is Anawiskum Tulane. He is tied to a post, his bare torso striped with blood. A whimper escapes from his gritted teeth. A number of the People look on, as do all of the engagés. Illdare holds a whip in his gloved hand. His breath trails in the chilly air.

≈  ≈  ≈

“It is not to be tolerated,” Illdare tells Boston that night. “He can say what he wishes of me, but he cannot steal from me nor from the company. Not even rum. Everything must be accounted for. Everything must be balanced. Every action countered. Every item paid for. And the punishment for infractions must be witnessed by all. Does that make sense to you, Jim?”

Boston is sitting at his customary chair at the table. He nods.

“And what happens if these rules are ignored?”

“The world falls apart.”

“Yes, our world cracks into great unequal pieces. You remember. Excellent. Now tell me what you have heard.”

Boston tells him what Lavolier has told him, of Solomon and his wisdom, of Jezebel and how she fell and how nothing was left after the dogs had at her but the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands. He repeats the Latin Lavolier taught him:
Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea; quare me repulisti, et quare tristis incedo, dum affligiti me inimicus.

“He goes about in sadness does he?” Illdare says. “While the enemy harasses him. Hah! Here, lad, this is all the Latin you need.” Illdare taps the motto under the company crest. “
Pro pelle cutem
. For skins we risk our skins. Don't forget it. Well . . . look upon it.”

Boston does so, then glances curiously at Illdare. For why should he look at the crest and motto, since he has seen it before?

“What else? What has McNeal said, or Thomson?”

“Don't speak of you now.”

“Ah, they suspect that you inform me. Well. What are we to do with these evenings then?” He looks hard at Boston.

“Sit here while you write, sleep. Won't be a trouble.”

“No, I shouldn't think you would. But would it not be better to learn something of use besides Lavolier's Latin and foolish Bible tales? Would you like that?”

“Would like that. Yes.”

“I would as well. It is good to have someone to speak with of an evening.”

≈  ≈  ≈

It is three months later. Illdare taps the map of New Caledonia. “And here is our island. Named for Captain Vancouver. It is near the exact latitude and longitude that Swift placed his Brobdingnag, which was?”

“Land of the giant people.”

Illdare paces the sitting room. It is late in the evening. The fire burns low. Illdare's bottle of brandy is empty, as it always is by the end of their lessons. The pipe rack, the writing set, the books, all are in the same arrangement as they are every Thursday and Tuesday evening. It gives Boston comfort, this sameness.

“Exactly, the land of Swift's allegorical giants. It is why I was drawn to take the command here. Not, hah, that I believed I would discover giants, but that I might see something of Swift's mind. He knew Man and of what he was made. It is why he lived alone. Why I do as well. Why I do not like others about me. You know, I am often plagued by a dream of a young man. It is not me. Perhaps it is the man you will be. Hah, don't look so Jim, I am jesting. This young man is on a narrow, treacherous path that is cut into a cliff. Behind him are icy mountains, and though I never see what is below, I know the abyss is endless. His journey is of utmost importance, but he cannot find the way forward, nor back, not that it matters, for he is the only soul left in the world. What do you make of this?

“Don't know. Don't dream.”

“Truly? Well, you are a singular creature then. Truly, Jim, I do not know how you came into this world, though oftentimes I doubt you were born of woman. Perhaps you were shaped by this James Milroy out of sand and sea water, given then to me as both a gift and a curse.”

“Not a curse.”

“No, I am rambling.” He lifts the empty brandy bottle and sets it back on the table, precisely in the same spot. “How disappointed I was when I first arrived here. No respite for my melancholic mind. Not here. People pressing all around. Tighter than if I lived in Edinburgh or in London. But I have found some comfort in the thought that I might write a book of the island. It would suit my temperament, to be a writer, to sit alone in an empty room with only a candle and a page. Many have been here, did you know that, Jim? We Englishmen believe nowhere exists before we set our boots upon it, spear our flag in its soil, and claim it for the monarch. But we were not the first. The Indians, of course, they have been here since before time. But there is evidence of others who have washed up, as did you, on these treacherous shores.”

Illdare sits on the chair opposite Boston, leans forward, lowers his voice. “I know of a rock carving of a square-masted ship such as the celestials use. I know of jade beads and of an Oriental idol. I know of Spanish swords and Spanish armour. And I know of the most remarkable thing—coins from the time of the Virgin Queen, evidence that Sir Francis Drake himself discovered this island on a secret voyage, more than two hundred years before Vancouver ever clapped eyes on it.”

“What of the company?”

“What of it?”

“The others say it was here before Christ.”

Illdare laughs. It is a choking, guttural sound, one that Boston has never heard before. “Here Before Christ. Hah! The Hudson's Bay Company. They have reworked the meaning of the lettering. Not they as in the men here, not these half-wits. Others. They are alluding to the power and longevity of the company. It is a compliment in its way, not wholly a joke.”

Boston scowls at the table. “The company is not so old, then.”

“Exactly. Oh, lad, you understand so much so quickly, and yet so little withal.”

≈  ≈  ≈

Another evening. Illdare places a slim book on the table. “We feast on Voltaire again.”

Boston handles the book carefully, as Illdare has taught him. Illdare pours out a precise measure of brandy and settles in his chair by the fire.

“Recite now?” Boston asks.

“What? Yes. Good. But do you not want the lantern closer? Your eyes, young man, they will fail you if not given light. Better, but careful now, not too close. You do not want to spark the pages. For where would we find another copy here, eh?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. Any page you please.”

The University of Coimbra had pronounced that the sight of a few people ceremoniously burned alive before a slow fire was an infallible prescription for preventing earthquakes; so when the earthquake had subsided after destroying three quarters of Lisbon, the authorities of that country could find no surer means of avoiding total ruin than by giving the people a magnificent auto-da-fé.

They therefore seized a Basque, convicted of marrying his godmother, and two Portuguese Jews who had refused to eat bacon with their chicken; and after dinner Dr. Pangloss and his pupil, Candide, were arrested as well, one for speaking and the other for listening with an air of approval. Pangloss and Candide were led off separately and closeted in an exceedingly cool room, where they suffered no inconvenience from the sun, and were brought out a week later to be dressed in sacrificial cassocks and paper mitres. The decorations on Candide's mitre and cassock were penitential in character, inverted flames and devils without claws or tails; but Pangloss's devils had tails and claws, and his flames were upright. They were then marched in procession, clothed in these robes, to hear a moving sermon followed by beautiful music in counterpoint. Candide was flogged in time with the anthem; the Basque and the two men who refused to eat bacon were burnt; and Pangloss was hanged, though that was not the usual practice on those occasions. The same day another earthquake occurred and caused tremendous havoc.

The terrified Candide stood weltering in blood and trembling with fear and confusion. “If this is the best of all possible worlds,” he said to himself, “what can the rest be like?”

Illdare looks up from the fire. “Astonishing. How quickly you learn your letters. Read on.”

Boston does so, looking now at Illdare, his hand on the page already recited. He speaks clearly, loudly. Illdare might say astonishing again. He might let him sit with him before the fire and share a measure of his brandy. He might unfurl the map of Great Britain as he did once and ask him to point out the village where he, Illdare, was born. When Boston does so without hesitation he will nod and smile and say again what an excellent pupil Boston is, how diligent, how attentive. He might even tell Boston of his dreams.

“Cease.”

Boston falls silent.

“You are not reading. You have not even turned the page. Why are you not reading?”

Boston looks to the lines before him. He can make out most letters, but many words elude him as yet.

“Reading hard. Easier this way.”

Illdare approaches the table. “What way?”

Boston has done wrong. He is not certain how, but he has. He must
atone,
that is what Lavolier calls it. “Heard it from you. You read it out by the fire.”

“I did? Yes, perhaps. But weeks ago. Nay, a month ago. How is it you recall it?”

“Heard it.”

“And so you recall it after hearing it once? Can repeat it just so.”

“Can. Yes.”

Illdare tilts the book so that Boston cannot see the page. “Recite again. I shall read along.”

Boston does so through to the end of the chapter and then halfway through the next. An old woman consoles Candide. She salves his wounds and later brings Candide his lady love. Candide is astonished. He heard that his lady love had been disembowelled. People do not always die of such things, his lady love assures him.