by Vicki Delany
I was standing at the far side of the room, up against the back wall, trying to stifle a yawn, when the orchestra called out, “Take your partners for the next dance,” and for a brief moment everyone shifted so that a space opened up before me, leading all the way to the door.
In which I saw Jack Ireland dragging a reluctant Irene behind him.
I practically sprinted to catch up with them, almost tripping over the train of my dress, which was just long enough to wrap itself around my feet. I wrenched the train out of my way with a muffled curse. Surprised faces watched me fly past.
“…out of this dump,” Ireland was growling as I arrived within hearing range.
“I’d just as soon not leave right now.” Irene’s voice was as low as a whisper made to a lover, but not nearly as welcoming. “Mrs. MacGillivray won’t like it.”
“Never mind Mrs. MacGillivray. Stick with me, and you won’t have to kow-tow to the likes of her again.”
“Did I hear my name?” I stumbled to a stop in front of them, yanking at my skirts to pull the tumble of fabric out from under my feet. “Had enough dancing, Mr. Ireland? It’s almost closing time, anyway. Irene, please go up to my office, I have to talk to you about last week’s hours. There seems to be a slight problem.”
“Yes, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she said with such a gush of gratitude that it was clear I hadn’t been mistaken as to what had happened after she’d left with Ireland the previous night. There had been no tumble down the backstairs.
“Irene,” he said, “I’m leaving. And you’re coming with me.”
“Not if she doesn’t want to,” I said. Ireland turned his black eyes on me. I didn’t look away: I’ve been stared down by harder men than he. “But it is most definitely time for you to leave, Mr. Ireland.”
“You just wait until you see what my paper has to print about you.”
“What? That I serve nothing but toasted crumpets and tea and hold secret revival meetings behind locked doors every evening? That’s the only thing you could write that would hurt my business. You haven’t been in Dawson long, Mr. Ireland, and I suggest that you don’t make your visit last any longer.”
“Come on, Irene, let’s get out of here.” His hand closed around her arm.
“Irene,” I said, “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. MacGillivray. I’m staying. I’m sorry, Jack, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided not to go to San Francisco with you.”
Ireland’s eyes bulged, and a purple vein throbbed in the side of his neck. He tightened his grip on Irene’s arm, and she grimaced. “You’re making a mistake, Irene. I can make you a star.”
“I don’t want to be a star.” Her voice broke as she tried pry his hand off her. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“I suggest you release her, Mr. Ireland,” I said, conscious of the press of men gathering around, attracted by our angry words.
He released Irene, turned to me, and shoved me in the chest with such force that I lost my footing and fell backwards. Eager hands caught me, and I struggled to pull myself free.
Ireland turned his attentions back to Irene. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook. A section of her hair flew out of its pins. “I’ve paid you good money. You’re bought now, like a whore. You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
He slapped her across the face, hard.
Men’s boasting voices and women’s false laughter died away; musicians stopped playing mid-note; dancers froze mid-step. One man snickered, the laugh cut short.
Ireland pulled back his fist and punched my best dancer full in the stomach. The blood drained from her face, and Irene folded over and vomited.
Chapter Sixteen
Irene would have fallen to the floor if Jack Ireland hadn’t been holding her arm. He slapped her again, hard. The ugly sound echoed throughout the room. Silence spread out from the centre of violence like a tidal wave sweeping all before it.
“You whore. You’ll do what I tell you.”
I freed myself from my rescuers’ hands, lunged forward and raked my nails across Ireland’s face.
He released Irene’s arm and fell back with a cry. “What the hell?” He touched one hand to his cheek and looked at the blood on the pads of his fingers.
I danced back and brought my foot up with a straightlegged jab, placing the heel of my high-heeled boot directly into his crotch. He screamed—the sound highpitched, unworldly—and doubled over.
Blood swam before my eyes. I clenched the back of one hand with the fist of the other and prepared to bring them down across the back of his unprotected neck.
My target disappeared before I got into position. Ray Walker had run through the door, slammed his not-tooconsiderable weight into Ireland and knocked the reporter off his feet. Then, like the scrawny streetfighter from the back alleys of Glasgow that he was, Ray proceeded to kick with a vengeance at every exposed bit of Ireland’s body.
Women screamed, men shouted, as many trying to drag Ray off as were encouraging him to kick harder. I waded through the throng, shouting Ray’s name. I wrapped my arms around his skinny, sunken chest and tried to drag him away, with as much effect as a horsefly attacking a bull moose in rut. I hoisted my skirt past my knees and jumped up to wrap my legs around Ray’s non-existent hips, hoping to drag him down by my weight if nothing else. I heard fabric tear. Ireland had curled into a ball, trying to protect his tender parts. Blood streamed from his nose, blending with the stuff coming from the scratches and the effluent from his eyes into a gory mess of blood, tears and mucus.
If Ray killed Ireland, we’d be shut down for sure, with jail time for Ray, maybe me as well. I prayed for the sound of the booming voice of Constable Sterling arriving to break up the fight, but all I could hear were Ray’s grunts, Ireland’s moans, the distant roar of men yelling and women screaming. And the sound of my own voice, shouting Ray’s name, over and over. Eventually some semblance of common sense fell over the bystanders, and a group of men dragged Ray away, although they were considerably hampered by my weight hanging off him.
I clambered down. Two men held Ray by the arms, and others helped Ireland to his feet. A dark stain spread over the front of the trousers of the San Francisco Standard’s prize reporter. The smell of fear and blood and bloodlust filled the crowded room. The men were murmuring in a dangerous tone.
Ireland pushed away the men holding him. He lunged towards Ray, but Murray grabbed his arm.
“You bastard,” Ireland spat. A mouthful of blood and a shiny white tooth fell onto the floor. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Perhaps, but not in Dawson.” Mouse O’Brien pushed his way through the crowd. Mouse was so big that he could push his way through a brick wall if he ever took a mind to. “Every man here saw you hit that sweet little lady, Miss Irene. We reckon you got what you deserved. Ain’t that right, boys?”
The onlookers shouted their agreement. Now that someone was expressing their feelings, in a calm, rational voice, the muttering and the threat of further violence began to die down.
“We also reckon that if you show your ugly face in this bar again, we’ll finish what Walker didn’t.”
The men cheered. One of the dancers took Irene’s arm, and they slipped into the crowd.
Mouse held up one hand. The crowd hushed, the silence broken only by Ray’s heavy breathing and the wheezing of Ireland’s lungs.
“’Course, maybe we won’t have to. Looks like Mrs. MacGillivray here coulda managed you all by her pretty self.” The men howled with laughter. It was hard to tell through the mess of blood and snot, but Ireland appeared to redden at the insult. His breathing was ragged, and I suspected he’d suffered a broken rib or two.
“Your time in Dawson is done,” Mouse said. “Now get outta here and go clean yourself up. You stink. You’ve interrupted my dancing.” He walked back into the crowd.
Sam Collins stood in the shadows watching as Murray and a couple
of onlookers dragged an unresisting Ireland out of the dance hall. The men holding Ray gripped him tighter as they passed, but the fight had gone out of the Scot. He glared at Ireland but made no move to break free. I followed to make sure the newspaperman did indeed leave the Savoy.
Helen Saunderson watched from the doorway of her kitchen slash broom closet, wringing her dishcloth in her hands. The other new bartender, whose name I still didn’t know, stood behind the bar with nothing at all to do. Not a single person waited for a drink. Everyone stood still, watching us pass.
Murray made a move to shove Ireland into the street. I held up a hand and walked around to face the newspaperman. “Surely I don’t have to tell you that you are not to step foot in these premises again, Mr. Ireland.”
He glared at me with such venom that I took a step backwards. In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much hatred in a man’s eyes—the emotion amplified a thousand times by the angry bruises, the right eye swelling shut, the rivers of blood drying across his face. And the rank smell of humiliation and urine-soaked trousers.
“You toffee-nosed English whore,” he hissed. “You’re hiding something beneath your fancy dresses and proper manners. I’ll find it, then I’ll ruin you. Don’t think I can’t. Or I won’t.”
“Please don’t insult me again, Mr. Ireland,” I said. “I am most certainly not an Englishwoman. Goodbye.”
I nodded, and Murray propelled Ireland out the door, not giving a care for the reporter’s bruised and battered body.
Margaret Collins, Sam’s wife, leapt back to avoid colliding with the man being so unceremoniously expelled. Her eyes widened with surprise.
“Margaret,” I said. “What’re you doing here at this time of night?”
“Worrying about Sam,” she replied, watching the battered man struggling in the mud. “It’s almost closing, and I thought I’d walk home with him. Who is that?”
“American newspaperman,” I said. “Nothing but trouble.”
“Mountie coming,” Murray said. Constable Richard Sterling was making his way down the street, attracted by the not-at-all-unusual commotion of someone being thrown out of a bar. With a final bloodspeckled spit, Ireland staggered off in the opposite direction. Sterling watched him go. The reporter looked like any other Saturday night drunk trying to remain upright.
Sam came out of the back and saw his wife in the doorway.
She raised one eyebrow. “Come inside. Help Helen clean up. Quickly.” By the time Constable Sterling walked into the Savoy, Murray and the other new bartender, who I was beginning to think of as Not-Murray, were serving one last round, men were leaning against the bar, laughing uproariously at each other’s jokes, Ray Walker was keeping a steely eye on the roulette wheel, Helen Saunderson and Margaret Collins were putting away pails and wringing out rags, the orchestra was playing its heart out, and the girls were dancing as if it were the last dance of their lives. A fight with the severity of the one that had so recently gone on here was no joke to the North-West Mounted Police. Bars and dance halls had been closed down for less.
A couple of the girls, led by Ellie, the eldest, had helped Irene upstairs. I hurried to follow them and made the first two steps before Richard Sterling reached me.
“Mrs. MacGillivray, one moment, please.”
I turned and tried to appear as a woman with absolutely nothing in the world to hide. “Good evening, Constable.”
His eyes passed over the front of my best dress, caressing my body from throat to knees and back up again. That was a first from the oh-so-proper constable.
“I’m feeling somewhat unwell and need to go upstairs and lie down for a moment.” I cranked out a smile that had all the warmth of the last inch of a cheap tallow candle.
“Is everything all right here, Mrs. MacGillivray? We, the NWMP I mean, are always ready to help, you know.”
“And greatly appreciated you loyal servants of Her Majesty are, let me assure you,” I babbled inanely, reminding myself of my son talking too formally when trying to hide something. I took a deep breath. “Of course, everything’s perfectly fine. Doesn’t it look normal?” I waved a hand over the crowd. The customers, who had been listening to every word, smiled at us like the back row of a music hall chorus that was about to be booed off the stage.
“If you say so, Mrs. MacGillivray.” Sterling touched the edge of his broad-brimmed hat. “Almost closing time.”
“I’ll be down by then.” I climbed regally up the stairs, praying that he wouldn’t follow me. Sterling had never behaved at all improperly, and tonight of all nights I didn’t need the handsome officer of the law asking for favours in return for…what?
Irene lay on the lumpy couch in my office, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged. Ellie crouched on the floor beside her, holding a cool, damp cloth to her forehead.
“She don’t look at all well, Mrs. Fiona,” Ellie said. Being the oldest of the dancers, she was the only one permitted to call me by my first name. “Look at this.” She loosened Irene’s gown and pulled it away from the half-conscious woman’s shoulders. A mass of purple and yellow bruises streaked across her breasts. The remains of angry fingerprints ran across her upper arms.
I sat on the edge of my desk. “Closing time in…” I checked my watch “…ten minutes. Get one of the other girls, Ruby I think, tell her to come up here. Never mind what she’s doing. She can sit with Irene. Then go for the doctor. Tell him I’ll pay. When Ruby gets here, I’ll go down for closing.”
Ellie handed me the cloth. “Is she gonna be all right, Mrs. Fiona?”
“Of course,” I said, with more optimism than I felt. “Those marks will heal.” No need to tell Ellie that I wanted the doctor to check for internal injuries. The other marks weren’t terribly serious, but the blow to the stomach that I witnessed might have done some real damage. When I was a child working the London slum of Seven Dials, a prostitute who rented rooms from my protector had been beaten up by a customer. Nothing but bruises, her pimp said, no lasting harm, as he pushed her back out on the street. She worked for one more night, then she died. Died right where she sat, they said, in a dark corner of the Bishop and Belfry Pub cradling a glass of gin and an eel pie before going outside again. Her life left her with a rush of blood that still stained the Bishop’s floor the day I left Seven Dials.
If I caught sight of Jack Ireland again, I would tear him apart.
Irene’s eyes opened. She tried to sit up, and I pressed her back down.
“You rest,” I said.
“I’m fine, Mrs. MacGillivray. I don’t know what came over me.” A cloud passed behind her eyes. “Jack?”
“Escorted to the street. He won’t be back. Not if Ray Walker and Mouse O’Brien and every dancing man in Dawson has anything to say about it.”
She half-smiled and tried to sit up again. “Back to work then. We don’t dance, we don’t get paid. Isn’t that so, Mrs. MacGillivray?”
Again, I pressed her back into the couch. “My mother taught me another saying: You die, you most certainly don’t ever get paid again. I’ve called for the doctor. You wait right there until he arrives.”
“I can’t afford the doctor!” Her legs beat a steady rhythm in the air as she struggled to get up. The couch was deep: broken springs and my firm hand kept her down.
“I’m paying, Irene. The way things have been around here lately, I might hire him permanently.”
Ruby slipped into the room.
“She gonna be all right, Mrs. MacGillivray?”
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Irene said.
“I’d say she’s going to be fine. I have to go downstairs for closing. I’ll make up the money you’re losing by not being on the floor.”
Ruby cocked her head. “I don’t care about the money, Mrs. MacGillivray.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll make it up.” Ruby didn’t care about the money. Tonight. But when it was time to pay her bills or count her savings, she would be cursing me for keeping he
r from closing-time tips.
I stood in front of the mirror to give myself a quick appraisal before venturing back downstairs. For a moment, I didn’t recognize my reflection and wondered what that wild woman was doing in my office. Then I knew why Richard Sterling had been studying me: not in admiration of my beauty or appreciation of my feminine charms, but because I looked like a particularly dangerous escapee from a lunatic asylum.
Chapter Seventeen
Blood, drying to an ugly brown, splattered the front of my Worth gown, particularly noticeable against the excellent Belgian lace, which I had struggled so hard to keep a virginal white all these years. The dress hung by a thread at one shoulder, and the rip in the bodice was borderline illegal. My hair had been pulled out of its pins and stood up like stalks of corn in an Ontario field in August. The broken red feather stuck out sideways from my hair. A streak of blood bisected my left cheek like a bolt of devil’s lightning. I almost screamed at the sight of it and grabbed the damp cloth out of Ruby’s hands. I scrubbed frantically.
“What am I going to do? I can’t go back down looking like this. But if I’m not there for closing, Sterling will know something’s wrong!”
“You put that shawl around your shoulders,” Irene said. “And you wash your face and tuck your hair into its pins as best you can manage, and you wear that dress like battle armour.”
I looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her colour was recovering, and her face was set into lines of fierce pride. I cleaned my face, and Ruby helped me arrange my hair into some semblance of order. I draped my heavy shawl over my shoulders, the orange, handmade woollen one that I kept behind my desk chair for protection from the cool northern nights. I could do nothing about the bloodstains. Tomorrow my best dress, a genuine Worth, presented to me by Lord Alveron in a suite of the Savoy Hotel, London, would be torn up for rags, but tonight I would wear it with pride. We’d been through a lot, this dress and I.
“How do I look?” I stepped away from the mirror to face the two women. They smiled. “Like a winner,” Irene said with a chuckle. But she stifled a gasp, and her hand touched her stomach as she laughed.