The Devil's Making

by Seán Haldane

  I felt embarrassed. Frederick’s impulsive plan was clearly not a tactful one. It was only a few days since McCrory, usually present at these Sunday gatherings, had been butchered in a way of which some detail might have come to these delicate female ears. Since he had not been a family relation, one would hardly expect the Somervilles to go into mourning, and of course they had not. But they must be shocked and saddened. Perhaps a concealment of this exaggerated the mother’s gushiness, Aemilia’s hauteur, and the younger girls’ fluffiness. Whatever they felt, they could hardly show it with a newcomer, known to be investigating the murder, sitting like a death’s head in the room. They must certainly wonder why I was there and what I would do. I felt like slinking out and away.

  Letitia had moved onto Hope, which she was finding more difficult, and she stopped as the new guest arrived, Mr Firbanks, the curate. His waxy-looking cheeks blushed as he came in. There were the usual greetings, a rather cursory introduction to me by Mrs Somerville, then at once urgings from the younger girls that he should sing. He was obviously delighted to oblige. At church it had been clear that he liked the sound of his own voice. There was much fuss over a new book of songs in Italian, bound in blue leather, which had been a present that very day from Mr Quattrini. He, at least, would not be heartbroken at the alienist’s demise. Naturally the book contained Caro Mio Ben, a great favourite at musical gatherings and soirees. Aemilia was called on to play the accompaniment, since she was apparently the best at sight-reading. After much ritual encouragement, Firbanks sang. His voice was indeed lightly agreeable, and he launched the higher notes with a slight bobbing motion of his body, his mouth open roundly like that of a cherub. Aemilia’s accompaniment was impeccable, almost nonchalant. It would have been vulgar to clap, of course, although Quattrini did smack his hands together once, then held them clasped as the others uttered quiet bravos and murmurs of pleasure. Firbanks grew quite flushed. It was becoming hot in the room, the air scented with a lemony scent all the Somervilles wore.

  Then Mrs Jones brought in the ‘tea’ on a trolley, with flowered dishes on doilies, various pastries, and Beaumont’s American seed-cake. This must mean all the afternoon guests had arrived. Perhaps the others Frederick had mentioned were keeping away, so as to leave the Somervilles with their grief at the loss of a friend, and only the inner circle of family friends would be here now. I was not quite used to ‘tea.’ It was very much a citified fashion in England, and not an institution at Oxford. Where I came from it was still the custom in mid-afternoon to drink a glass of sweet wine, usually Madeira, with a slice of cake. Here there was much passing around of cups and saucers. The Somerville girls and mother all crooked their little fingers as they drank. ‘Oh dear!’ I could almost hear my own mother say … Yet I was disposed to admire these women for putting on such a good show.

  Firbanks immediately brought up the subject of the alienist, in a rather complacent tone. ‘So dreadful to think of us all sitting here, in our usual happy gathering under the wing of Mrs Somerville, while our old friend Dr McCrory lies smitten down in the prime of life. It shows’ – he held up a dainty forefinger – ‘how frail is this civilisation, which just such a simple gathering as this may express, in a world in which savagery and barbarism stalk the land.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Somerville, ‘it has been very painful for I and the girls. It will take us a long time to get over it. A terrible blow! And in this family!’ Here she seemed to lose her composure, and her eyes rolled upward. ‘I need not say how such a deed echoes the loss of my dear Harry, brutally murdered by the Comox whom we had thought were our friends! No. It’s almost too painful that Mr McCrory should meet such a fate. I only hope’ – and here she looked directly at me, then at Beaumont – ‘that the authorities of this Colony will learn from an incident like this the necessity of absolute control and ruthlessness with the native population. That poor dear Dr McCrory should be the one to pay with his life to remind us how precious our English-speaking civilisation is in this wilderness! It’s too sad. A man who cared only for his work, who had detached himself from the civil conflict in his own country, who lived entirely for the light of learning and the relief of infirmity! And so interested, always, in the customs and behaviours of savages. “We can learn from them”, I remember him saying in this very room. “Our ancestors themselves were savages. They are as we were. Indeed they know things about the universal life force that we have forgotten!”. But he didn’t know – poor, naïve Dr McCrory – that if the Indians retain an ancient knowledge, they have also retained a brutality that we spurn and reject! Do we not, Gentlemen?’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Beaumont, obviously moved by this peroration. ‘But of course that’s why we’re here. Order cannot be maintained without force. I’m afraid the good Doctor was too trusting, in his American way. I venture to say an Englishman would have had more sense than to go among the Indians almost as an equal, asking them what they knew of healing and herbs.’

  ‘Yes, he was brash!’ Mrs Somerville interjected. ‘Fatally brash. We found it so charming! Though we used to tease him about it, didn’t we, girls? He was willing to make friends with anyone. Yet a gentleman, I assure you, as so many Virginians are. What dear Harry and I used to call a natural gentleman, not schooled to it perhaps, a little rough and ready, but with a measure of inborn refinement.’ Here she gave a soft smile at Mr Quattrini, as if to intimate that he fell into the same category, then addressed the curate. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Firbanks?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Firbanks simpered. ‘Indeed. He was not of our church so I did not know him apart from here. But a most impressive man.’

  ‘A good chap,’ Frederick echoed.

  I tried to assess all this. The only obvious thing was that everybody, no matter what their real, sub-latent position was in regard to the alienist, was thoroughly enjoying making their public admiration known. Even the girls – except Aemilia – added their bit. ‘Dear Dr McCrory,’ sighed Cordelia. And, ‘Do you remember his anecdotes about Washington?’ said Letitia, apparently more of an intellect. ‘He could bring American history so alive!’

  Quattrini said nothing, too honest, I hoped, to add his voice to the chorus.

  ‘Frederick’s friend Mr Hobbes, here, is a police Sergeant,’ Mrs Somerville announced suddenly. But there was no horrified gasp of surprise. Everyone in the room knew it, except perhaps the curate. ‘And I believe, from gossip about town, that he is engaged in “detective work” about poor Dr McCrory’s death.’

  All faces turned to look at me. ‘Just tying up loose ends,’ I said. ‘And you know, an Indian will probably be charged with the crime. It’s not as if we’re looking to find out who did it.’ A white lie, I hoped. ‘We don’t know very much about Dr McCrory. He was new in town, and something of a mystery man – a practitioner of new medical methods which clearly required more than the usual confidentiality, for one thing. Of course we have to put together a dossier if nothing else, to aid the case against the Indian.’ Now the white lie was turning black. ‘After all there has to be a trial. It may be that the Indian will have a defense lawyer who will attack any weaknesses in the Crown’s case.’ I had in fact heard the day before that Victoria’s least competent barrister, Mr Mulligan, was willing to take on Wiladzap’s case, ‘for the public good,’ given the fact there was no money in it. ‘So we are particularly interested in hearing from any acquaintance of Dr McCrory’s whatever information can illumine the man for us, and perhaps explain why he visited the Indians that day – just how he may have laid himself open to this crime. My task is to collect what information I can. You may have surmised that it’s partly why I am here.’ I managed a laugh. ‘I must admit that when Frederick told me he had known Dr McCrory I plied him with questions, and he told me he had made the gentleman’s acquaintance at this farm. But then I had another bone to pick with Frederick. In the darkest days of winter he and I would go riding to Oak Bay every Sunday, rough shooting for grouse. Then he disappeared! Not one squeak ou
t of him until the other day, when he avowed he had been spending Sunday afternoon at this delightful Orchard Farm. Well of course I had to come when he intimated I might meet you all by attending Matins at St Mark’s. And here I am.’

  My speech seemed to ease some tension. It was at least good form, and allowed the proprieties to be observed.

  ‘And most welcome, Mr Hobbes,’ said Mrs Somerville. ‘I’m only sorry you meet us in such a distressing time. Yet, life must go on!’ she said brightly. The tension was eased still further. Beaumont’s seed-cake, the tea, and the pastries were duly praised, and conversation wandered from the weather, to the beauty of the apple blossom, the plans for further embellishment of St Mark’s, and the idea of a picnic up Mount Douglas when the weather improved. The barbarous savages in their camp on the other side of the mountain, and the loquacious Dr McCrory now reduced to eternal silence, were for the moment forgotten.

  Aemilia was the least talkative, except for quiet answers to eager questions from Frederick about the order in which different varieties of apple blossomed in the orchard. She seemed to be the one who knew about the subject. Her accent was the most properly English. Perhaps, as the eldest, she had been more influenced by her English father. The mother’s accent had undertones of the improper, although English. The younger girls sounded half American, a pleasant compromise.

  As the tea things were being cleared away by the silent Mrs Jones, Aemilia went to the piano and began playing from the Songbook. Although the songs were in Italian they were not all by Italian composers. She was playing the thrumming accompaniment to Gluck’s O del mio dolce ardor, but did not seem to like it, made a face, and began on Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga. The book was sure to be full of Handel – after Mendelssohn the rage of our epoch. I felt happy. I loved Handel, loved music, and would probably know most of the songs, since my mother and I used to play and sing through the long winter evenings at the vicarage, and I had sung in choirs all through boyhood and early manhood.

  The conversation became hushed as Aemilia began to sing the words, which she pronounced quite adequately, in contrast to the curate in Caro Mio Ben. ‘Lascia ch’io pianga, mia cruda sorte’: ‘Let me weep my cruel fate.’ She might not understand it all, but she must have understood the words were about grief, and with a powerful instinct for the music she was uttering each syllable in a detached, almost staccato way, as if choked with feeling – which she was surely too controlled to be. I was moved. Quietly I rose and went over to her left side and stood ready to turn the page. This required a long reach since her dress on the floor kept me at a distance, and I leaned across her, close to her head and into the aura of lemon scent. I managed to turn the page noiselessly, and stood still, observing her fine long-fingered hands, and her bosom, encased in the lilac dress and an over-layer of transparent muslin and lace. I liked her creamy skin. I turned the next page. She sang to the end, quietly, as if partly for herself alone.

  ‘Bravo,’ Beaumont murmured from the other side of the room.

  ‘Lovely, dear,’ sighed Mrs Somerville. ‘Do let us have another. Handel’s Largo is there, surely.’

  ‘Of course, Mamma.’ Aemilia dutifully sought out the inevitable Largo, under its true title, Ombra mai fu. She began playing it, not singing, but playing louder, allowing the piece’s gloomy strength to come through. But at the end of the first section, she stopped. ‘Do you sing, Mr Hobbes?’ she said. ‘What we need is a baritone or bass for this. Or’ – without waiting for my answer – ‘Mr Quattrini?’

  ‘I don’t sing,’ said Quattrini. But he got up and came over to the piano on Aemilia’s right side, gazing down happily at the book which was causing such pleasure.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Aemilia asked him. ‘Something about a dear vegetable? Not fitted to the tone of the Largo, surely.’

  This caused a laugh, because of Quattrini’s known association with the vegetable business. He took it in a good part. ‘The vegetable in question is a tree,’ he said. Then in an attempt at humour: ‘as if you were singing to one of your apple trees.’

  Aemilia smiled. ‘I can’t sing it. Mr Hobbes, I think it devolves on you to give it a try.’

  ‘I shall,’ I said. Aemilia began the piece again and I gave it my best. By the time we reached the end I was almost ecstatic. Like my mother – again! – she seemed to know how to match the piano to my voice, unusually capable of listening carefully as she accompanied.

  Again there was a chorus of Bravos. At least the tea party was in full swing. Aemilia flipped through the pages and stopped at Paisiello’s Nel cor piu non mi sento. ‘Another for baritone,’ she said. ‘One moment.’ She tried the first bars of the rather difficult accompaniment, and succeeded. ‘All right?’

  It was a short, playful song with which I had no difficulty. But the words – which since I had done some reading in Italian and knew Latin, I understood – were embarrassing. ‘Mi pizzichi, mi stuzzichi, mi pungichi, mi mastichi’ must mean something like, ‘You pinch me, you poke me, you prod me, you chew me.’

  This song was so popular that I had to sing it again, but before starting Aemilia asked me, in her teasing way, ‘Do you know what all this means? The words sound so dramatic.’

  ‘It’s a song about the torments of love,’ I said, with a glance over Aemilia’s head at Quattrini.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Quattrini. ‘The torments of love; the words are made of suffering.’ Perhaps he was embarrassed that the song was in the book he had given.

  ‘You make suffering sound very cheerful, Mr Hobbes,’ Aemilia remarked.

  ‘That’s in the song. I suppose the composer was making fun of it all.’

  We did the song again, with verve. But it would not have been right for Aemilia to monopolise the piano. It was Cordelia’s turn. After much rearrangement, so that Quattrini and I might be replaced by Frederick and Beamont, she played some pretty little pieces by Sullivan. A talented family indeed …

  At some point in all this, the curate had taken his leave – his nose out of joint, I thought conceitedly, aware of having made a good impression and rendered my presence less baleful.

  Then Beaumont looked at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, pulled out his fob watch to check it, and announced that he must be off. The brave lads would be waiting to row him across the Strait before it became dark. Frederick announced that he and I would walk with Beaumont the first part of the way, but Quattrini offered us all a lift in his buggy. ‘You can all squeeze in, Gentlemen’. Beaumont as far as St Mark’s, Frederick and I into town. The party’s ending was well timed. The alienist had had his due, but something of a cheerful atmosphere had been re-established.

  ‘You must come again, Mr Hobbes,’ said Mrs Somerville in the general melee of farewells. ‘But you didn’t interrogate us,’ she added with an attempt at coyness. She must be relieved, I thought. But since we were face to face for a moment with no one immediately close by, I risked:

  ‘There’s just one thing I’d love to know, Mrs Somerville, since your friend was such a man of mystery. How did you happen to meet him in the first place?’

  But this did not in the least faze her. ‘At one of his lectures. On Mesmerism. Afterwards many of the audience remained behind in conversation. He asked if he might call, and I invited him for the following Sunday.’

  How very simple it was. But I could not resist: ‘It’s a long way into town on a winter’s evening to attend a lecture.’

  This time she did seem to be put off balance for an instant. I hoped my question had not been insulting. But, ‘Why that’s no trouble at all,’ she said. ‘Whenever I go into town of an afternoon, whether with one of the girls or alone, driven by Mr Jones, and I might stay the evening, I go to the Hotel Argyle. Mrs Larose is an old acquaintance of mine. I shan’t say exactly a friend because, frankly, our positions in life are rather different. But you probably understand that us older colonists were thrown together willy nilly, and English social distinctions could not always obtain. And she’s
a dear soul, a widow like myself. There are always empty rooms these days, I’m afraid, and I and my girls are always welcome.’

  Mrs Somerville turned to say goodbye to the others. I sought out Aemilia, who held out her hand. I took it for just a moment, imagining that there was a special current of feeling between us. ‘I’ve never so much enjoyed singing,’ I said, and meant it.

  10

  I had received a reply from the HBC at Fort Simpson which, though remote, happens to be on the new Western Union telegraph line to Asia.

  TSALAK RIVER ON PRINCESS ROYAL ISLAND LAT FIFTY THIRTY STOP LOCAL TRIBES UNFRIENDLY HBC STOP ACCORDING TSIMSHIAN INFORMANT HERE WILADZAP MEANS LUCKY IN HUNTING INFORMAL NAME STOP REAL NAMES CEREMONIAL STOP SEVERAL CHIEFS OF EAGLE CLANS AT PRESENT COMPETING FOR NAME LEGEX STOP MAKING ENQUIRIES RE COMPETENT INTERPRETER BUT UNLIKELY FIND AS SOUTH TSIMSHIAN SKEWUNK DIALECT KNOWN TO FEW STOP ADVISE CAUTION DANGEROUS SIGNED CAMERON HBC.

  I had already ascertained that there was no one in the HBC in Victoria who spoke Tsimshian. I decided to visit the subscription library later in the day, to see if I could obtain further information on the Tsimshian. As it happened I was going to visit the other library, the Mechanics’ Institute, but had no hope of the books there.