He hesitated. ‘Sure.’ His voice sounded reluctant. We drew our chairs a little apart from the others. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s about the Kingdom?’ His voice sounded nervous.
‘I believe you did some sort of a survey up there last summer?’
He nodded. ‘A seismographic survey.’ His voice was very quiet, a gentle, musical sound. The scar was white across the smooth, gypsy skin. His eyes were fixed on his hands as he pressed back the cuticles of the nails. The nails were pale against the dark skin. ‘If you want the results of that survey an account was published in the Edmonton Journal of 3rd December.’
‘The results were unfavourable?’
‘Yes.’
‘How reliable is a seismographic survey?’
He raised his head and looked at me then. ‘It won’t tell you definitely where there’s oil, if that’s what you mean. But it gives a fairly accurate picture of the strata and from that the geophysicists can decide whether it’s a likely spot to drill.’
‘I see.’ That was what Acheson had said. ‘Oil is trapped in the rock formations, isn’t it?’ I asked.
‘Yeh, like in an anticline where you have a dome formation and the oil is trapped under the top of the dome.’
‘So the sort of survey you did in Campbell’s Kingdom last year is pretty well a hundred per cent in showing where there’s no likelihood of oil?’
He nodded.
‘In your opinion did that survey make it clear that there could be no oil in the Kingdom?’
‘I think you’ll find the report makes that quite clear.’
‘I’m not interested in the report. I want your opinion.’
His eyes dropped to his hands again. ‘I don’t think you quite understand the way this thing works. My equipment records the time taken by a shock wave to be reflected back from the various strata to half a dozen detectors. It’s the same principle as the echo-sounding device used by ships at sea. All I do is the field work. I get the figures and from these the computers map the strata under the surface.’
‘But you must have some idea how the survey is working out,’ I insisted.
‘All I do is get the figures.’ He got to his feet. ‘You’d better go and talk to Winnick in Calgary if you want to query the results. He charted the area.’
I caught him as he turned towards the door. ‘I’m only asking you for your opinion,’ I said. ‘I haven’t time to go to Calgary again.’
‘I have no opinion,’ he replied, his eyes looking towards the door as though he wanted to escape from my questions.
‘All I want to know,’ I said, ‘is whether there is any chance of oil existing under the surface of the Kingdom.’
‘The report says No,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t you write Winnick for a copy and read it?’
Something about his insistence on the report made me wonder. ‘Do you agree with the report?’ I asked him.
‘Look, I’m in a hurry. I’ve already told you—’
‘I’m asking you a very simple question,’ I said. ‘Do you or do you not agree with the report?’
He seemed to hesitate. ‘Yes,’ he said, and pushed quickly by me to the door.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the still open doorway, wondering why he had been so reluctant to commit himself. I went back to the stove and sat there for a while, smoking a cigarette and thinking. I went over again my conversation with Roger Fergus. He had given me to understand that Bladen had been as enthusiastic as my grandfather. And yet now, when I had asked Bladen . . .
I looked round the room. It was quite empty, but through the door to the scullery I could see Pauline busy at the sink. I went across to her. ‘Could you tell me whether there’s a girl called Jean Lucas still living here?’ I asked. Her little girl clung to her apron and stared up at me with big round eyes, sucking a dirty thumb. ‘She’s English and she used to go up—’
‘Yes, she’s still here,’ she replied. ‘She lives with Miss Garret and her sister.’ She looked at me out of slanting brown eyes as she stretched up to put a plate on the rack. She had a fine, firm figure. ‘If you like I’ll take you over there when I’ve put Kitty to bed.’
I thanked her and went back to the stove.
4
IT WAS ABOUT seven-thirty when we left The Golden Calf. We went out by way of the bar. A little huddle of men were bunched around the stove. Their talk ceased abruptly as we entered and they stared at me dumbly, curiously. James McClellan and Creasy were there and the man with the fur cap and the two who had been playing cards when I first arrived. There were others I had never seen before and a little removed from them was the loutish figure of Max Trevedian staring stupidly into the red glow of the stove. At a table by himself Bladen sat over a glass of beer, the scar more noticeable than ever, his dark eyes fixed on my face.
‘I’m just taking Mr Wetheral down to see Jean,’ Pauline told her husband.
I saw Bladen start and realised suddenly that this was the same Jean he had been so anxious to see when he arrived. James McClellan grunted. The others watched us in silence as we crossed to the door.
Outside it was pitch dark. Not a light showed anywhere. It was warmer than it had been during the afternoon and there was a light wind from the West. We stopped outside the door and in the stillness of the night the only sound was the gentle murmur of water seeping down to the lake. From behind the closed door I heard the murmur of conversation starting up again. ‘I suppose they’re talking about me?’ I said.
‘But of course.’ My companion laughed. ‘What else would they talk about? We have little enough to talk about in the wintertime. They will talk of nothing else for weeks.’
‘They don’t seem to have liked my grandfather very much,’ I said.
‘Oh, they are bitter, that is all. All the time he was living up there in the Kingdom they had something to hope for. Now he is dead and they have nothing to stand between them and the reality of their lives here. Look at the place.’ She shone her torch out across the snow to the crumbling shape of the shacks on the other side of the street. They looked forlorn and wretched in the brightness of the beam. ‘Do you wonder they are bitter? Come on.’ She took my arm. ‘I will guide you because it is dangerous. This sidewalk has many boards missing. There is no money to repair them, you see. If anything becomes rotten in this town it stays rotten. If you are here till the spring you will see how dreadful this place is. The main street is axle-deep in mud and the whole mountainside seems to be slipping beneath the houses. More and more houses collapse each year when the mud comes. You will see.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘is Max Trevedian the brother of the man who runs the transport company?’
‘Oui. You would never believe to look at them, would you?’ She gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘Half brothers, I think. But do not tell them so. That is just gossip, you know. Jimmy says Peter takes after his father and is a real Cornishman, while the younger one, Max, is very German like his mother.’ Her hand tightened on my arm. ‘Be careful here. It is very bad.’ A single rotten plank spanned a gap in the sidewalk. ‘Do you know what my children call Max?’ she added as we stumbled through softening snow to the next safe stretch of the sidewalk. ‘They call him the Moose Man. Have you ever seen a moose?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only in pictures.’
‘You will see plenty here if you go into the timber, then you will understand how very amusing the name is.’ She flicked her torch towards the pale glimmer of a lighted window ahead. ‘That is where the Miss Garrets live. They are terrible gossips and very old-fashioned. But I like them.’
‘And Jean Lucas—what’s she like?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you will like her. She is very intéressante, I think.’ She gave my arm a squeeze. ‘She and I are great friends. We talk in French together.’
‘She speaks French?’ Somehow the idea of an English girl out here in the wilds speaking French seemed absurd.
‘But of course. She is English, but she has so
me French blood.’
‘What is she doing in Come Lucky?’ I asked. ‘Has she relatives here?’
‘No. I also think it is queer.’ I felt her shrug her shoulders. ‘I do not know. I think perhaps it is because she is not happy. She worked in France during the war. Here we are now.’ She knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Miss Garret,’ she called. ‘It is Pauline. May we come in?’
A door opened and the soft glow of lamplight flooded the small entrance hall. ‘Sure. Come on in.’ Miss Garret was small and dainty, like a piece of Dresden china. She wore a long black velvet dress with a little lace collar and a band of velvet round her neck from which hung a large cameo. To my astonishment she quizzed me through a gold lorgnette as I entered the room. ‘Oh, how nice of you, Pauline,’ she cooed. ‘You’ve brought Mr Wetheral to see us.’
‘You know my name?’ I said.
‘Of course.’ She turned to the other occupant of the room. ‘Sarah. Pauline’s brought Mr Wetheral to see us.’ She spoke loudly and her sister darted a rapid, bird-like glance in my direction and looked away again. ‘My sister’s a little deaf. It makes her shy. Now take off your coat, Mr Wetheral, and come and tell us all about your legacy.’
‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘I came here to see Miss Lucas.’
‘There’s plenty of time.’ She gave me a tight-lipped, primly coquettish smile. ‘That is one thing about Come Lucky; there is always plenty of time. Right now Jean’s in her room; reading I expect. She reads a great deal, you know. She’s very well educated. But I do think she should get out more in the winter, don’t you, Pauline? I’m always telling her education is all very well, but what’s the use of it here in Come Lucky. Just put your coat over there, Mr Wetheral. No, not on that chair—on the stool. Sarah. Mr Wetheral has come to see Jean.’
The other old lady darted me another quick glance and then got up. ‘I’ll go and fetch her, Ruth.’ She escaped to the door with a quick patter of feet. In appearance she was the image of her sister. But her face was softer, plumper and there was no lorgnette. I gazed round the room. It was fantastic. I was in a little copy of a Victorian drawing-room. An upright piano stood against the wall, the chairs had cross-stitch seats and the backs of the armchairs were covered with lace antimacassars. There was even an aspidistra. The whole place, including the occupants with their over-refined speech, was a little period piece in the Canadian wilds.
‘Now, Mr Wetheral, will you sit over there. And you, Pauline—you come and sit by me.’ She had placed me so that she could sit and watch me. ‘So you are Mr Campbell’s grandson.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She raised her lorgnette and stared at me. ‘You don’t look very strong, Mr Wetheral. Have you been ill?’
‘I’m convalescing.’
‘Oh, and your doctors have said the high mountain air will do you good.’ She nodded as though agreeing with their verdict. ‘I’m so glad to hear that you are not allowing this little backwater of ours to become an industrial centre again. Do you know, Mr Wetheral, they even had the Japanese working up here during the war when they were building the dam. I am sure if you were to permit them to complete it they would now have Chinese labour. It is quite terrible to think what might happen. Opium, you know, and now that they are all communists—’
‘But wouldn’t it be a good thing for Come Lucky?’ I said. ‘It would mean new homes here and a road.’
‘That is what Peter Trevedian says. But my sister and I remember what it was like here at the beginning of the war. The homes are all very much in the future. Meanwhile we have to put up with the labour gangs. You have no idea what it was like here when they began working on the dam. We hardly dared to go outside the house. They had cabins built for the men up the valley of course, but the old King Harry saloon was converted into a hospital for them and some of the Japanese were actually billeted in the town. Such horrible little men! They shouldn’t have been allowed outside their camp, but then Peter Trevedian owns most of Come Lucky and he was collecting rent as well as making money out of the sale of the land and the operation of the cable hoist. I am so glad, Mr Wetheral, you are not a mercenary man. Everybody here—’
‘I’m surprised my grandfather agreed to the building of a dam,’ I said.
‘Oh, it wasn’t Mr Campbell. It was Peter Trevedian. It’s on his property, you know. I’m sure Luke wouldn’t have done it, not when it meant making a lake of Mr Campbell’s property.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘I’m afraid Peter is a much harder man than his father.’ She leaned forward and tapped me playfully on the arm with her lorgnette. ‘But you are a civilised person, Mr Wetheral, I can see that. You will stand between us and the factories and things they are planning. My sister and I remember when the mines were working here. You have no idea the sort of men who are attracted by gold. They were most uncouth, weren’t they?’ She had turned to Pauline. ‘Oh, of course, you don’t remember, child. Do you know, Mr Wetheral, I remember the days when the street outside was a seething mass of brawling miners. Every other building was a saloon in those days. Really, a girl wasn’t safe. We were never allowed out at night and even in the seclusion of our room we were kept awake by the noise they made.’
Footsteps sounded in the hall and then Jean Lucas entered the room. ‘Mr Wetheral?’ She held out her hand. ‘I’ve been expecting you for some time.’
Her manner was direct, her grip firm. She had the assurance of good breeding. In her well-cut tweed suit she brought a breath of the English countryside into the room. I stared down at her, wondering what on earth she was doing buried up here in this Godforsaken town. Her eyes met mine—grey, intelligent eyes. I think she must have guessed what I was thinking for they had an expression of defiance in them.
‘You knew I’d come?’ I asked.
She nodded slowly. ‘I knew your war record. I didn’t think you’d let him down.’
The room seemed suddenly silent. I could hear the ticking of the clock in its glass case. There seemed nobody there but the two of us. I didn’t say anything more. I stood there, staring down at her face. Her skin was pale and there was a tired droop to her mouth which, because the lips were rather full, gave it a sulky look. There were lines on her forehead and lines of strain at the corners of her eyes. The left cheek and jaw were criss-crossed with scars that showed faintly through the skin. The cast of her features seemed to be a reflection of her real self and as I stared at her I suddenly felt I had to know her.
‘We’ll go into my room, shall we?’ she said.
I was dimly aware of Miss Ruth Garret’s disapproval. Then I was in a room with a log fire blazing on the hearth and bookshelves crowding the walls. It was furnished as a bed-sitting-room and though most of the furniture belonged to the house, it had a friendly air. White narcissi bloomed in the light of the oil lamp and filled the room with their scent and on the table beside them was a large photograph of an elderly man in Army uniform.
‘My father,’ she said and by the tone of her voice I knew he was dead. A big brown collie lay like a hearthrug before the fire. He thumped his tail and eyed me without stirring. ‘That’s Moses,’ she said. ‘He belonged to your grandfather. He found him as a pup in the beaver swamps the other side of the lake. Hence the name.’ She glanced at me quickly and then bent to pat the dog. ‘What do you think of my two old ladies?’
‘Are they relatives of yours?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Then why do you live up here?’
‘That’s my business.’ Her voice had suddenly become frozen. ‘There are some cigarettes in the box beside you. Will you pass me one please?’
‘Try an English one for a change,’ I said, producing a packet from my pocket. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to—’
‘There’s no need to apologise.’ Her eyes met mine over the flame of my lighter. ‘It’s just that I know it’s odd and I’m sensitive about it. I imagine you think it was odd of me to live up in the Kingdom with your grandfather during the
summer months?’
‘Now that I’ve seen you—yes.’
She gave a quick little laugh. ‘What were you expecting? Something out of Dickens?’
‘Perhaps.’
She turned away and poked at the fire. ‘I believe there are still people in the town who are convinced I’m Stuart’s illegitimate daughter.’ She looked up suddenly and smiled. ‘We call this decrepit bundle of shacks a town, by the way. Would you care for a drink? I’ve got some Scotch here. Only don’t tell my two old dears or I’d get thrown out on to the streets. Naturally they don’t approve of liquor—at least Ruth doesn’t.’
We sat for a while over our drinks without saying anything. It wasn’t an uneasy silence though. It seemed natural at the time as though we both needed a moment to sort out our impressions of each other. At length she looked across at me with a faintly inquiring expression. The firelight was glowing on her right cheek and, with the scars not visible, I realised with surprise that she looked quite pretty. ‘What did you do after the war?’ She smiled. ‘That’s a very rude question, but you see Stuart was very anxious to know what had happened to you.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘You see, after your mother died he lost touch with home. It was only when I came out here—’ She looked away into the fire. ‘I wrote to friends of mine and I think they got in touch with the War Office. At any rate, they reported that you’d been working in the City before the war and that you’d been a Captain in the R.A.C. out in the Middle East. They couldn’t discover what had happened to you after you were invalided out.’
‘You were very fond of him, weren’t you?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘Enough to hear his voice again in yours. You’ve something of his manner, too, though not his build. He was a very powerful man.’ She suddenly looked across at me. ‘Why did you never write to him or come out and see him? Were you ashamed of him—because he had been to prison?’
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