by Seán Haldane
7
The next morning I rode out Cedar Hill Road as far as Mount Douglas, stopping at each house to ask if people had seen the alienist pass on the day of the murder or previously. A few had vague recollections. The best was a woman who claimed her geese honked every time someone passed along the road, causing her to look out. She therefore remembered every passer by. She had seen the alienist on his first excursion, some weeks previously, and had been intrigued by the Chinaman’s silk robe. The other times the alienist had been alone, both coming and going. He always walked briskly, but if he noticed her he would take off his hat. She realised he must be an American, by his clothes, his walk, and the fact that he carried no walking stick. I asked if she had noticed anyone else passing by, either just before or just after McCrory. She had not. Most passers by were local farmers on foot, on horseback, or driving their carts or buggies. Then there was her neighbour, Parson Coulter (whose very English wife I had just talked to), of St Mark’s church, and the curate, Mr Firbanks, who lodged a few houses down. Yes, she had been visited by some Indian women. All the neighbours had. Cleaner than usual, very polite, and selling the most beautiful baskets and silver bracelets, and carved stone brooches which were ‘barbarous.’ But she would not open her door to them now. It was a scandal, allowing them to stay at Cormorant Point, less than two miles away. Her husband had got the guns down and given them a good cleaning.
I rode back into town on just such a sunny day, of flowers, ravens cawing, and robins singing, as when I had come out along the same road with Parry and Harding. The other time, at night, seemed however to have occurred in another world. I did not think of it much, although when I did I felt happy, then uneasy.
I had a funeral to attend. The alienist’s body, although it had been removed to the undertaker’s late on the first night, and submersed in some kind of preservative, had evidently become too disgusting to leave unburied. It had been decided – with no evidence other than that perhaps McCrory was an Irish name, and that he had red hair and beard – that he was a Catholic. At least the Catholics, who were mainly Irish-Americans, had been willing to take him on, the funeral expenses paid from his bank account.
The cemetery was no more than a field with a few slabs and stone Celtic crosses, and many wooden crosses, all close together. The coffin was a deal box, the undertaker’s cheapest. But it and the buggy it was lying on were covered with a profusion of wreaths and flowers. And there was a good crowd in attendance – all men, as was the custom. But they provided no material for speculation since in effect every worthy of the town short of the Governor himself had chosen to turn up, out of respect or curiosity. Even the fussy Dr Helmcken and Dr Powell were there, in solidarity with their fallen medical brother. The pall bearers were four of my convicts from the jail, out on parole, wearing borrowed clothes, and enjoying every minute. They stood turning their heads this way and that in the fresh breeze, like horses let out into a field after too long in the stables.
The service was conducted by an Irish priest, in church Latin. The old me might have found it professionally interesting. But by now, apparently, I was a new me. I was itching to get a look at the flowers and wreaths. Eventually, after the coffin had been lowered into a mucky grave, and the crowd were picking their way out of the cemetery along the cart ruts, I had my chance. The wreaths were stacked to one side as the gravediggers began filling in the hole. Most held the cards of notables – the people at the funeral. Some were without cards. Then there were bunches of the garden flowers currently in season: mainly tulips, of all colours, long stalked primulas, and forget-me-nots. I wished it had been the custom for women to attend funerals. That would have been interesting, I sensed, remembering the boxes of lambskin sheaths. Perhaps the alienist had gone with prostitutes. But he would not have needed a sheath for that. It would have been bad value, I supposed, for the money. Or perhaps sheaths prevented venereal disease … I turned over in my mind the possibilities of tracing the origins of the bunches of flowers, but gave up the idea. They could have been delivered by messengers to the sexton’s door at the church, or at the undertaker’s. Furthermore, they were all similar. Domestic flowers in Victoria were profuse but not varied.
‘Chad, old chap!’ It was my friend Frederick, whom I had not seen for weeks but had noticed in the crowd – rubber-necking, I had assumed, in the American phrase.
We exchanged the usual banalities, and agreed to walk down the street together. Frederick seemed bursting with the need to talk. When we were out of earshot of the gravediggers he asked eagerly: ‘How’s the investigation coming? Any dramatic news?’
‘How do you know I’m investigating?’
‘Steady on. Everybody knows that. You’re investigating for Pemberton. And behind Pemberton, they say, is Begbie the Indian-lover.’
‘That’s not so. Pemberton’s his own man. And so far as I know he has heard not a word from Begbie. I certainly haven’t. But of course, old boy,’ I added in a friendlier tone, feeling I had been too abrupt, ‘I can’t tell you how the investigation is going.’
‘Then maybe I can help you.’ Frederick seemed delighted with himself. ‘I knew the man, you see.’
‘McCrory?’
‘Well, I didn’t really know him as a friend. I never even had a private conversation with him. But we met socially.’
‘Where? I must admit I haven’t been able to unearth a social life at all.’
‘At Orchard Farm. With the Somervilles. But of course you don’t know them. I’m afraid I owe you an apology, old chap, for keeping it quiet. Wanting to keep the field to myself, as it were.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve never heard of them? I should have thought every man around here had. They are a bunch of “eligibles” of the first class. Three girls, living on a small farm out in Saanich with widowed mother – very touching. Father was an Englishman, killed by Indians almost ten years ago. He’d tried to settle up island, among the Comox, but they did him in. So mother and the girls came down here, with a little money, and bought the farm. They have help from a mixed couple – a nigger and his wife – trying to get an orchard going. You will probably have eaten their apples and pears, without knowing it. They’ve planted some peaches too, and say they’ll do very well here. And strawberries…’
Frederick did rattle on … I interrupted: ‘And the alienist?’
‘He visited them. Lots of people do. On Sundays only, mind you. That’s made clear. You never know what you’d see if you turned up unannounced in the middle of the week. They work, you see, in the orchards. One chap I met out there, Beaumont, a Marine, teased them that during the week they must put on trousers. But that was received as bad taste. Things can’t be that difficult. They’re fairly prosperous. Well, after all, this isn’t England, is it? They can’t sit around all day working on samplers in stuffy rooms. Between you and me the mother is a bit of a pill – somewhat pretentious. I suspect she married above herself. Exaggeratedly English, though she left home as a girl. Maybe that’s why they emigrated, come to think of it, if she was a servant girl or something who married Somerville who had been an army Major. One is often reminded of the rank. The girls were all born over here, down in Oregon Territory, though it wasn’t American then, it was ours. I think I’m reaching a certain entente with Cordelia, the youngest girl, who’s really charming.’
‘And the other sisters are called Goneril and Regan?’ I interrupted, to slow down Frederick’s flow, although I was becoming resigned to hearing about the alienist in Frederick’s own good time.
‘You mean as in King Lear? Ha, ha. No. Aemilia and Letitia. Well, you see what I mean, the mother is pretentious. But they’re sweet girls. Aemilia is a bit, well, different – rather too serious for me, melancholic even, but very bright. I say, I think she’d be just the ticket for you, old chap. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself. The thing is, I feel more secure, as it were, in my courtship of Cordelia. I wasn’t telling you about it, you see. I mean, you will have
noticed that I sort of disappeared from our Sunday shooting expeditions.’
‘Of course I’d noticed.’
‘It was very petty of me. I met them at church one Sunday morning. St Marks on Cedar Hill Road, which is nearest to them. Frankly, I’d gone out there to see the “eligibles” once I’d heard they went there. Not very devout of me, I’m afraid. But once I’d met them, and been invited, etcetera, I thought if I told you you’d come too, and then you might take a fancy to Cordelia. There were – are still, damn it! – already other rivals. It would have been too much to add you.’
‘Who are these rivals? Was McCrory one of them?’
‘I’m not sure. The part he played was sort of “friend of the family”, trusted advisor, and so on. In fact he hadn’t been there many more times than I. I believe he only arrived in town back in the Fall – or Autumn as I suppose you still say, but I like the word Fall don’t you?’
I shook my head, trying not to smile. ‘Can’t you see I want to know more about McCrory?’ I said. ‘Please tell me more about him.’
‘All right. He was a bit of a swell, very sure of himself, conceited. Most definitely a ladies’ man, I’d say. The old mother – well, she’s not that old, quite well preserved in fact – loved to fuss around him. He would turn the pages at the piano for the girls. He would discuss varieties of apples, the necessary climate for peaches. A know-all. Walking encyclopedia. You know the type, from Oxford, although by our standards he was awfully brash. Oh yes, another act of his was “the Southern gentleman”, displaced by the war, with some implication of the family mansion being razed by the invading Yankee barbarians. But on the other hand a Southerner with a conscience: the Negro our brother, all men the same under the skin, his understanding of his Celestial servant…’
‘Lee went out there too?’
‘Sometimes. But he would spend the afternoon chatting with the Joneses in their quarters – quite a multicoloured group that was. They have a picaninny of their own, who is coffee-coloured, and an Indian boy who is said to be adopted but I somehow imagine is the result of a youthful indiscretion by Mrs Jones.’
‘Really, Frederick, there is no need to be so cynical.’ Some of the ‘old’ me was still alive.
‘These things do happen. In England too, as you know very well. How many children in your father’s parish were conceived out of wedlock? At least half, I’d bet.’
‘Admittedly. My father once calculated it to be two out of three of the first-borns, though almost always their parents married once the woman was “enceinte”. But that is by the by.’
‘All right. McCrory. I didn’t like him much, as you can gather. Perhaps jealousy, because he could make the girls laugh, and keep their interest with travel stories. I don’t think he had actually travelled much but he’d read a lot, about exotic customs in far off lands, women wearing discs in their noses, and so on. Then he had one of those velvety baritone voices with which he sang Negro spirituals one moment and Down in Dixie the next.’
‘Did he talk about medicine?’
‘He was rather coy about his work, I thought. He said an alienist saw all kinds of patients with nervous troubles, the vapours, and “incipient dementia praecox” whatever that means to medical men – and so he couldn’t talk about it. Another of his acts: the mystery man.’
‘How did he meet these people, the Somervilles?’
‘No idea. You’ll have to ask the old girl – I mean Mrs Somerville. Well, I’ll tell you of a suspicion I have. I did find myself wondering if Mrs S was a patient of his.’
‘Why?’
‘There was a certain indefinable familiarity between them. She would pet him, make sure his tea was hot, and so forth.’
‘I didn’t know patients petted their doctors. Or was she being motherly? What’s the difference in their ages?’
‘She, I’d say, is in her forties. I know Aemilia, the eldest girl, is twenty-four. Cordelia is only eighteen.’
‘And McCrory?’
‘You don’t even know his age?’
‘No.’ I was annoyed. I had in fact sent a letter to the University of Virginia, and a telegraph to the San Francisco police to which I had not yet received a reply. ‘I only saw him dead.’
‘Must have been ghastly. At any rate I’d say he was about 35. A little young for Mrs S, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Who else attended these Sunday afternoon gatherings when McCrory was there?’
‘The curate from St Mark’s – Firbanks. He was sweet on Cordelia but not a great worry to me. A cold fish. Now more interested in Letitia. Similarly with Beaumont, the Marine. He’s a Lieutenant with the detachment on San Juan Island – some of them come over to town on weekends. He’s sort of switched to Letitia too.’
‘I see. They move up the line, once they’ve been displaced by you.’
‘The girls are all pretty, though of course I think Cordy’s prettiest. Aemilia is a bit intimidating – almost a bluestocking. She’s very good looking, though.’
‘Who else visits?’
‘Mr Quattrini. You’ll know him.’
‘Yes. The food wholesaler. I’ve met his son-in-law, Jeroboam. He must be well into middle age.’
‘I forgot to mention him in the list of suitors earlier. He must be secretly delighted. He really is courting Mrs Somerville. There are perhaps other admirers of Mrs S. Well, she’s not really that old at forty five or thereabouts, is she? Such as Nally, of the Mechanics’ Institute. I’ve seen him there twice. A local farmer, Sutherland, turned up with his wife so he’s not after Mrs S. He has a gangling son who gapes at Cordelia. Then there’s John Haddock, the schoolteacher. He talks books with Aemilia. But don’t worry, he’s married to a little woman just as mousy as himself. They seemed pretty thick with McCrory actually. But I believe they’ve stopped coming to the farm. I haven’t seen them since February.’
‘How many of these people were acquaintances of McCrory away from this Orchard Farm?’
‘No idea. Now look, Chad, the trick is this. The day after tomorrow is Sunday. You can come with me out to St Mark’s. Then I’ll introduce you to them. Bring a bottle of ale and a sandwich and you and I shall have a picnic lunch, then stroll over there and call on them. Of course they’ll be in an atmosphere of gloom because of McCrory’s demise. But that should be helpful to you. Only you mustn’t interrogate them.’
‘Thank you. It’s a good idea. I’ll be discreet but I’ll ask a few questions of Mrs Somerville if I can have a word with her alone. Where is Orchard Farm?’
‘About a mile from St Mark’s, in the valley behind Mount Douglas.’
‘Ah yes.’ Two or three miles from Cormorant Point, blocked from it by the mountain. ‘Indians?’ I said. ‘Did McCrory say anything about them?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. Odd, when you think of it. From what I read in the paper, he had visited them frequently. But perhaps he was being sensitive. I mean with Major Somerville having been killed by them, and probably scalped or whatever. I believe Indians don’t just kill people, they chop them up. What did they do to McCrory? I mean, I didn’t like the chap, but all the same … What does “horribly mutilated”, as the paper put it, really mean?’
‘It means someone stabbed him, slashed him, tried to bite out chunks of his flesh, chopped his member off, and stuck it in his mouth.’
‘Oh, I say. Not really.’
‘Really.’
‘Well, I’m glad you have him in jail.’
‘I don’t think we do,’ I said hopefully.
8
‘Christians awake! Salute the Happy Morn!’
It was, after all, not long after Easter. The hymn brought me back to the stone church in Wiltshire: the stained glass window I would look at of St George with a lance, his foot on the neck of the Dragon, scaly as a fish; the pew ends of oak with their carvings of lions, bunches of grapes, and the leafy face of Jack-in-the-Green; the church’s six bells, each with a name – Great Tom, Jeremy, Little Isaac and the
others, acquired over five centuries; my father in a state of innocent elation like mine now as I sang the hymn. I had given up the church, yet no music could stir me like church music. I had not gone to church in Victoria, not even at Christmas, which I had spent in the jail relieving Seeds who had made an increasingly merry tour of various friends, perhaps to forget the wife in San Francisco. Now I was in something more like a barn than a church, named after Mark, the youngest of the Apostles, with a smell of newly planed wood and fresh paint, six gothic windows on each side and a large triple one behind the altar, all of plain white glass. Yet Parson Coulter’s robes of Ascension white were the same as my father’s, and the white of the altar cloth no different from home. Coulter’s sermon had been a typical English one, about charitable obligations, and delivered, like the usual prayers for the Queen, in an English voice. Although the alienist’s demise was the talk of Victoria and had occurred less than two miles from this church, the parson was too much of a gentleman to give a sermon on anything to do with the sixth commandment or the revenge of the Lord against the Moabites. There was even the typical English diversion of young men and women on display, although not so many young women. There were not more than seventy people at the service, and most of them were married couples and their small, restless children, with few old people, and about a dozen young men staring at the main attraction of the service: the ‘eligible’ Somervilles.