Reckoning of Boston Jim (44 page)

“Got money for the Hume's woman,” Milroy said. “She lives in the Cowichan. Her name's Dora Timmons.”

The Judge hid his surprise. Milroy did not seem the sort who would trouble himself about recompense. “I will see that she receives it,” he said.

“Good then.”

The money was in a well-stitched-over pocket on the inside of Milroy's torn shirt. The Judge cut the pocket open with his penknife, took out a tasselled smoke pouch. Milroy stared impassively past the Judge's shoulder. Indeed, the Judge had never seen a man so impassive to his fate.

“Here. One hundred and twenty-six pounds, ten shillings. Take the money. Not the pouch. Thank you to give her new money for that,” Milroy said.

The Judge emptied the pouch. It was English money of many decades past, the notes worn soft as fabric. Likely it was no longer even negotiable. He put the money in his breast pocket, then left the pouch at Milroy's feet.

“Crisp new notes. You have my word.”

Milroy nodded, then looked at the Judge. Even through the swollen eyes the gaze was unsettling. “Where is it?”

“The heart of poor Mr. Hume, you mean?”

Milroy nods.

“We buried it with him, as is civilized.”

“The Dora woman. Thought she might want it, as a gift, see.”

All the Judge could see was that Milroy was most certainly mad. “It is not the most appropriate of gifts.”

“Now it's not right. Still not right.”

“Things have a way of righting themselves, Mr. Milroy. Now I suggest you make peace with your maker, whoever, whatever that was.”

≈  ≈  ≈

The crowd is gone. The body has been cut down from the gallows; the morning is promising to be fine. Poor Miss Timmons, the Judge thinks. But then Hume was a fool. More than that. He was a drunkard, an opportunist, an exaggerator, a sycophant, a poseur. He was the sort who stayed about once a conversation had reached its natural conclusion, like a porter waiting for a large, unnecessary tip. And he was a gambler no matter what justification he gave. Not a bad man for all that, however. No, the Judge would not say that; but neither would he say he was surprised that Mr. Hume's end was very bad indeed.

“Milroy's last words,” Arthur Bushby says. “They were strange, weren't they, your honour?”

“No stranger than many.”

“Chandler was the only one who heard what Milroy said. Maybe he invented them.”

“Chandler is not one for imaginative tellings.”

“Then whose birthday do you think Milroy meant? Someone in the crowd? Was he working some kind of curse?”

“Perhaps, perhaps, though likely it was simply a morbid jest.”

My life, dear? Ah, well and so. It has been full, rounded. It smells of Cantonese silk newly unwound from the bolt, of the talc I sprinkled so liberally on my children, of the apples ripening in the yard. And of roses, certainly. Blooming in my garden. Plucked by children who giggle like wind chimes and think I do not know. Even the dear old Judge Begbie praises my roses. Such a compliment coming from him, the champion at the Rose Festival three years running. I must invite him to tea. Ah, no. Dead. Dead these twenty-odd years. No longer does he sweep down Yates Street with his cape and cane and little dogs. No longer does he send out elaborate invitations to his parties. Pity he never married. All the women said so. And the dear Governor with his sashes and medals. He and Amelia are dead also, aren't they? And my first husband Eugene, my darling Eggy. And my beloved Jacob. At times I forget that even he is dead. Sometimes I am certain he is in the room with me. After being with a man for fifty years you are allowed such mistakes. Indeed, I must admit that lately I have begun to see my lost loved ones clear as day. Not so the blessed living. My eyes have always failed me and now those I love are mere dim, glimmery shapes, until they hove suddenly into sight, as if a door has been flung open in the air. Ah, yes, my spectacles would help. I have them hereabouts. But I have some vanity left. And so you must come closer. There. Ah, you remind me of my daughter now. She is so much like Jacob, mild and firm, and looks of him, too, not lovely, poor lass, but pleasant-faced, and gentle in her ways. And isn't she a wonder at the business? The Empire of Lace and Petticoats as you called it in your newspaper. Was that last week? Last month? Odd that you are here again. Never mind. I must tell you that “Empire” is a rather grand way of describing five shops scattered about the West, though certainly the shops are more successful than I would have ever dared dream. I do have a talent for knowing what looks best on men and women both—what style, what fit, what fabric, what colours are needed to bring out the eyes and make the complexion glow. It is why my patrons are so loyal. That and my habit of chatting with them, for remembering their birthdays and the names of their children and my habit of giving out small gifts: perfume, lace, collars, handkerchiefs, small notebooks. I learned all such things from my father. He died by fire and I miss him even still.

My Eggy had a talent. His was for knowing exactly when a party was at hand, as well for the way it would play out. He could nearly smell the charge of it, he said. It did not seem a useful talent, but then neither did mine, and look what I have done with it. You must make use of what you are given. Eggy told me that. Or was it my father? Or was it Jacob?

Is that grey you are wearing, dear? I don't understand the fashions these days, though my granddaughters adore them. They say they are “emancipating” and go on about how the women of my time were jailed in their corsets and great hoop skirts. Perhaps, but at least in my day a woman made an entrance. At least you knew when she was in the room, being that she took up such a great deal of it. But nowadays! Not a flare, not a ruffle, no waistline at all, and all to make a poor woman seem as flat-chested as a boy and thin as a wood panel. And, oh, the hair! It is as if the women are fevered, as if there is some wretched epidemic and their hair has been shorn to give them strength. And then, then, they jam those little hats so far over their heads I fear they will disappear into them, as in a magician's trick. Ah, now my hair was glorious. Golden and thick and long it was. Ah, well and so, I was not “emancipated.” I loved those hoops. It was as if I were a splendid ship and men mere rowboats bobbing about. I loved what came later, too, the intricate hats, the bustles, the mutton sleeves, the hair arranged plump as a Christmas goose on one's head.

You are quiet now, so quiet. Did I mention that I am forever astonished that I live in this grand house, that I could have petit fours at any hour of the day if I should so please, though I do not indulge often, for otherwise I would be a globe and you would be searching out the Hebrides or the Indies on my person. Ah, I am talking on so. You do not mind? You know, I feel quite at ease with you, quite at peace. I have always talked a great deal. I know that. Of course. I have always noticed how eyes would dart to windows and doors and rooftops. It were as if people thought they were tethered and a fire were advancing. And yet they could have just excused themselves, just moved on. I would not have minded. Well and so, I do not talk as much as I once did, I can assure you. My voice is too frail for that and too full of old-lady warbling. Ah, but my thoughts, they splash against each other and the past bumps against the present like paper boats in a pond. My daughter says that lately I have been talking to myself and I admit sometimes I do, but only when I remember something that I should have mentioned years ago, to Jacob, or to the dear Judge, or to my darling Eggy, and I must say it, to get it off my chest, you see. Ah, well and so, at least the worry no longer courses through me, like a dreaded wind that has no source or cause.

Have I thanked you for writing that I am Victoria's Greatest Philanthropist? Yes? Did you know that time was I wouldn't have known such a word as philanthropist? Indeed, I recall thinking it was some kind of insult. My Jacob changed all that. Such patience he had in teaching me my letters. He was not interested in teaching me how to speak properly, however. You see, even though my mother tried to iron it out of us, you could still hear the London market in my voice. Jacob said he liked the way I spoke. But Eggy had told me there was no point in wearing fine clothes if one were not wearing fine speech. And so after his death I moved to Victoria and took lessons in elocution and diction. All to remake myself, as so many people here have done.

I apologize. I drift from one thing to the next. Indulge me, dear. And now, you were asking of the pioneer days. Everyone is so intrigued by those times. Exciting, they say, to be forging a new land and all. The paintings? By Miss Carr? Yes, I have seen them. So strange they are. No, they do not look like the great forests did before they were cut down. The great forests didn't flow together like dyes from a vat. And yet her paintings feel the way the forests did, as if they might fold you in. Ah, but in all, pioneering was so very dull. Imagine being alone in a cabin, the nearest neighbour a good mile off, animal sounds all about, and endless toil to fill your days. Perhaps I was simply not cut out for it. I was never one for churning butter and tilling the soil and pounding the washing. I was born of London and its throngs, its cobbles, and great churches. Bustle is what I like and shops aplenty, and the sense that the world is pulsing all about you. I can mend a shirt or two well enough, but that is all the domestic arts of which I can boast, and that only because I did my time as a seamstress. Did I tell you of this? And did I tell you of the
Tynemouth
? Everyone wants to know of the
Tynemouth
. A brideship.
How archaic
, people say. You would think we were white slaves the way they go on. But we had our pick of men and I picked a fine man, but he died. Yes, he died, and it was the greatest sorrow of my life. I understand the Indian women now, the ones who carry the bones of their dead husbands on their backs to show the weight of their grief. We called them the Carriers because of it, though I don't know what they call themselves, nor if they follow that custom still.

Do you know the tale of the Princess and the Pea? Such a delicate, useless princess, I always thought, to feel a pea through a hundred feather mattresses. Yet I understand her now. I understand how things can press through all your luxuries and comforts and trouble you in your sleep. For, you see, sometimes I am certain my father is alone in my attic rooms and has been for these sixty-odd years and the loneliness has driven him mad beyond remedy. Sometimes I think that the younger Mr. Haberdale is weeping for me still, or Isabel from the
Tynemouth
is crying out that she is not a thief, not a thief. Sometimes I weep with regret that I was so guileless and trusting then and so did not insist upon travelling with my Eugene to the Cariboo and so keep him safe. And sometimes I weep when I think how angry I was when he left, and how I did not write to him each week as I promised. You see, I wanted him to fret and worry same as I did. I wanted him to yearn for me, as I yearned for him.

I can't ever forget the black day the letter came. I can't forget, either, when I met the Judge for the first time and he told me that Eugene was a worthy attribute to his class and that he, the Judge, had considered him a friend and a rare gentleman. He gave me some money then, over a hundred pounds it was, and some shillings, and he told me a collection had been taken up for me in the goldfields. I always suspected, however, that the money was his very own. And now do you understand? My fortune was all built on one man's Christian charity, for it was with that money I started my first drapery.

Eugene's partners? They all came to see me at one time or another. Mr. Hallwood and Mr. Beauville came first. Though they were near broke they still tried to give me a bit of money. The mine only had one good seam, they said, and it had been exhausted soon enough. I told them to keep the money, I had enough from the good Judge. They were surprised by that. They hadn't realized the Judge and my Eggy were such close friends. Well and so, Mr. Napoleon went into business with a Prussian fellow, Mr. Shillmice I think. They made a fortune on restoratives and balms and cigarettes. Mr. Hallwood, now he became something of an agitator, trying to right the wrongs done to his people. They both lived in Philadelphia with their wives and children. We corresponded for a time but fell off as people do.

As for Mr. Langstrom, he and his wife Anna moved to Hastings Mill, the place they call Vancouver now, and later went to the Yukon. I never heard of them again. They loved each other so very much. How you could tell! And Mr. Langstrom said that all the bad luck went to Eugene and that he'll never forget him, at least it seemed that's what he said in his poor English.

One Mr. Oswald came to see me also. I was living in Victoria by then. He was a curious fellow, fidgety and full of cusses, but kindly withal, and he said that he and Eugene were more different than oil and water, but that Eugene loved me as fierce as he loved his Jessica and that was enough to bind them. From time to time, I received a letter from him as well. He did splendidly. Went into making steel and though he and his wife had no children they gave plenty, as I always have, to the good causes of this world.

Mr. Bowson? He became a tent preacher, one of those in America who move from town to town and preach eternal salvation and eternal damnation and breathe fire in general and all come from afar to listen and be amazed. Hard to believe, it is, for when I met him he was wretched with guilt. He blamed himself for my Eggy's death, you see. He fell asleep when he should have been watching, lulled, he said, by the opium, the devil's smoke. He added quickly that Eugene did not suffer much and I felt, as I had felt with the others, that there was more to tell, but then isn't there always? He begged my forgiveness and I gave it quick enough. I didn't blame him. Eggy's death was the fault only of this James Milroy. That was his name. Even now it catches in my throat. That bastard. That black-hearted soul. Excuse my words, dear, but how else can he be called? How else can he be remembered?