by Mary Daheim
I was back in my overstuffed chair by the time Mrs. Cameron returned, balancing a tray on her lap. Two English bone-china cups and saucers, a Royal Doulton teapot with matching sugar and creamer, spoons, strainer, and several napkins resided on the tray. I marveled at how my hostess managed not to spill anything.
“I never did go back,” Mrs. Cameron said suddenly after we’d gone through the ritual of pouring and stirring our tea. “To Port Angeles, I mean. But of course I was a baby when we left. I felt no real pull. Victoria has been my home since 1929.”
Boldly, I asked if the people in the photograph were Claudia’s parents. She nodded. “That was their golden wedding anniversary. Sandy and I celebrated ours in 1979. Such a privilege to live that long together! And such a trial!” Her small mouth turned down at the corners, but the twinkle remained in her eyes.
I attempted a delicate approach for my next question. “And your mother was named … Minnie?”
“That’s right. Minnie, for Mary. So many Marys in those days. She came from a big family. One of her brothers had given her the nickname, I think.”
“Irish,” I remarked with what I hoped was an ingenuous smile.
“Yes.” Mrs. Cameron nodded, her fingers clutching the rose-patterned teacup. “I never knew her people. Oh, I must admit, we were quite alone while growing up. My father’s family was mostly in Ireland except for a brother who went out to California. We lost track of him, though.”
I made a sympathetic noise. So far, I was discovering absolutely nothing. And how could I? Claudia Malone Cameron had been a year old when she left Port Angeles. Had I expected her somehow to have stored away indelible memories of her first year among the Rowley-Melchers?
Frustrated, I tried a different tack. “I realize you don’t remember Simone, Cornelius Rowley’s second wife. Have you any idea what happened to her after Cornelius died?”
Resting her cheek on one hand, Mrs. Cameron’s expression grew sly. “Simone! Now there’s a name that wasn’t allowed to be uttered under our roof! My mother wouldn’t hear of her, not a word. Naturally, that made one wonder.”
Naturally, I agreed. It made me wonder, too. “Why was that?”
“Well.” Claudia Cameron sat up straighter in the wheelchair. She looked rather excited, her cheeks taking on a delicate pink hue. “The fact that Mother wouldn’t mention Simone’s name made my sister, Julia, and me ever so curious. Finally we waited one evening until Poppa got a bit … ah … tipsy, which happened rather often.” The wrinkled flesh along Mrs. Cameron’s jawline hardened. “The Irish enjoy their dram, you know. So when Poppa’s tongue became loose, we asked him about Simone. Alas, he wasn’t drunk enough to be completely indiscreet, but he hinted certain things, his brogue thicker than ever. Winks and rolling of eyes, you take my meaning?”
I did, but was still in the dark. All I could see was Jimmy Malone, rollicking in his favorite chair and leading his daughters on with a lilting, if slurred, Irish voice.
“We gathered that Simone was no better than she should be, as we used to say. An adventuress who’d married Cornelius Rowley for his money. There was another man in the background, a Frenchman as you might assume. His name was Antoine or Armand or something like that, and he worked as a fisherman in Port Angeles. Mother had once overheard a quarrel between Cornelius and Simone. It seemed he had caught her with this Frenchman. She cried and carried on, promising to be a good wife. Cornelius vowed to run the man out of town. From that point on, Simone must have behaved herself.”
Jackie’s fantasy about a lover had turned into reality. “Do you think Simone left Port Angeles to join her lover? After Cornelius died, I mean.”
Mrs. Cameron gave a slight shrug. “It’s possible. She had the means.” There was a bitter note in her voice.
I tipped my head to one side. “Simone inherited the family fortune?”
My hostess grew tight-lipped. “I couldn’t say. But isn’t that what she was after?”
My page of notes wasn’t yet half full. I certainly hadn’t gotten my money’s worth out of the combined cab and ferry fares. I decided to confront the issue head-on. “I’m confused, Mrs. Cameron. Your mother’s name was Minnie, for Mary. But my understanding is that her name was really Carrie, for Caroline. Caroline Rowley Malone. Why am I mixed up?”
The green eyes grew very wide. “I have no idea. My mother was a Burke, from Londonderry. Her family, all seven of them, came to America when she was a child. Her parents were taken early on, in Boston. One of her brothers had married and moved West. She came out to join him and took a post as a governess. That’s how she met my father.”
My brain was tripping over itself. “And that was … where?”
“Why, in Port Angeles, of course. They had a most romantic courtship. They eloped to Seattle. And then they moved there when I was not quite a year old. My two younger brothers and one sister were born in Seattle. Six, in all, though there are only three of us left.”
“But …” I had begun to wonder if Mrs. Cameron’s mind wasn’t as clear as I’d thought. Or maybe it was my own that was fogged. “On the phone I mentioned that you were a member of the Rowley-Melcher family. You implied that it was so. Yet now you say you aren’t?” I knew my face showed bafflement.
Mrs. Cameron smiled, a bit condescendingly. “You said clan, I believe. My husband was a Scot. To me, clan includes people outside of the immediate family. Which we were. You see, my mother was governess to the Rowley children.”
There is no point in arguing with an eighty-six-year-old woman. In fact, there’s not much point in arguing with anybody. It’s always hard to change people’s minds. It’s damned near impossible when they are elderly and set in their ways.
Still, I was tempted. I wanted very much to say that I knew—had proof, though not with me—that Jimmy Malone had been married to Carrie Rowley and that she was Claudia Cameron’s mother. But what if Carrie had left Jimmy and their children? What if she’d run away? Worse yet, what if she’d been murdered? Why suggest such awful things to a lonely, crippled old lady? She remembered Minnie Burke Malone as her mother. No doubt Minnie had been loving, selfless, understanding, and kind. If she had married James Malone somewhere along the line and borne him three children while taking on the trio from his previous marriage, so what? She had been as much of a mother to them as had Carrie Rowley. It wasn’t up to me to turn Claudia Cameron’s world upside down.
I uttered a lame little laugh. “I misled you. I’m so sorry. The family tree is sort of confusing, with several of the members marrying more than once. Stepchildren and all that.”
Mrs. Cameron nodded complacently. “Oh, yes. It’s even worse nowadays. So many divorces, and all these hyphenated last names. More tea?” She hoisted the pot and smiled encouragingly.
I couldn’t say no. Nor could I quite let go of Jimmy Malone and the tale of two wives. “I feel silly,” I said lightly. “I wonder how I got it in my head that your father had been married to someone other than … your mother?”
Mrs. Cameron’s face took on a critical expression as she sipped her tea. “This has grown cool and much too strong. Shall I brew more?” I insisted that she not go to the trouble. Briefly, my hostess seemed unconvinced but finally gave in. She had, however, lost the thread of our conversation.
“Nievalle,” she said suddenly, and I, too, was lost. Mrs. Cameron leaned forward in the wheelchair. “Armand Nievalle. That was the name of Simone Rowley’s lover. Isn’t it peculiar that I should remember it after all these years?” She chuckled, a merry sound.
“I suppose he might have descendants in Port Angeles,” I remarked in a doubtful voice.
“Not if he’d been run out of town by Mr. Rowley.” Mrs. Cameron’s tone became quite stem. “It’s interesting, though. I haven’t thought about it for years. Which is odd since my sister and I were once quite obsessed with the subject. But so much else has happened since. And once we found out why Simone was anathema in our house, she lost her air of mystery.”
I nodded. “Yes, I can see that. It’s rather like you enlightening me about your father and his marriages. Marriage, I mean.” I felt like kicking myself; I wasn’t about to give up the chase.
Mrs. Cameron didn’t seem at all perturbed by my single-mindedness. “People get confused, especially about the past. Their memories become hazy. And young people in particular have no sense of what’s gone on before they were born. It’s all one great cluster of events with no specific order. They have no feel for history. It’s a pity.”
My agreement was given halfheartedly. I was distracted. The interview hadn’t gone as I’d planned. There was nothing else to ask Mrs. Cameron. Not without disturbing her. The steeple clock on the mantel showed that I’d been inside her house for less than an hour. I was anxious to get away. But I knew that she enjoyed my company. For once I succumbed to my better nature and asked about her own family. A flood of information surged from Mrs. Cameron’s lips. Her husband Sandy’s career with the provincial parks. Their two children’s marriages, one satisfactory, the other not. The grandchildren, scattered from Vancouver to Toronto. The great-grandchildren, who she had seen only in photographs. I sat back and made appropriate comments.
“It’s a pity to lose track of people,” she said, now sounding a bit weary. “I should have gone over to Port Angeles. But they wouldn’t have known me really. The Melchers, I mean.”
“Well,” I answered slowly, “they would have known who you were.” I tried to envision Lena giving a warm welcome to the daughter of an ex-governess. Or Rose, throwing Sanford out of the music parlor so that she could entertain company. I knew nothing of Uncle Arthur’s wife, but if she had followed in the footsteps of the other Melcher women, there would have been no rolling out of the red carpet.
“It’s so hard,” Mrs. Cameron was saying, and I realized I’d missed something. “Arizona is so hot and Chicago is so cold. Even though Walter and Daniel were closer, we seldom got together. I do regret that. For so many reasons.”
Desperately, I tried to piece the conversation back together. Walter and Daniel were Claudia’s brothers, now deceased. Another brother—Joseph?—was retired in Arizona. A sister lived in Chicago. Was it Julia or Mary Ann? It must be Mary Ann. Julia was dead. But unless I’d missed it, Mrs. Cameron hadn’t mentioned Julia. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all. I tried to remember what Tessie Roo had told me about the Malone offspring.
“Julia lived too far?” I’d tried to make the comment into a statement, but it came out a question.
Mrs. Cameron’s lips pursed. “Julia.” She lifted the lid from the teapot. “It’s empty. Shall I …?”
If I drank any more tea, I could float back to Port Angeles. Mrs. Cameron didn’t press me. Instead, she twisted her swollen fingers together and frowned.
“I was so fond of Julia when we were girls. We had such fun together. How I’ve missed her all these years!” A faint tremor vibrated in Mrs. Cameron’s voice.
“She … died?” As soon as I asked, I finally recalled Tessie Roo’s information: Walter and Julia Malone had passed away in recent years in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
Mrs. Cameron regarded me with a sad yet wry expression. “They all do eventually. But I’m talking about years ago, when we were young. Julia ran away.”
“Oh!” I leaned forward in the chair, eager for my hostess’s confidences.
“Julia and my mother never got along. Never.” Mrs. Cameron shook her head. “Isn’t it strange how children can have the same parents and yet react so differently to them? It was cat and dog with Mother and Julia. When I was twelve and Julia was fifteen, she ran away. Like that!” The old lady made a feeble attempt to snap her fingers.
Julia. Julia, Julia, Julia … I found her on the family tree now imprinted in my brain. She was the eldest of Jimmy Malone’s children. Carrie’s eldest, too, according to the Clallam County genealogy records. If she’d been fifteen when she ran away, the year was 1919. The influenza epidemic came to mind.
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Cameron’s face sagged. “We never heard from her again. Not until she died. Someone I knew in Seattle read about her funeral in the newspaper and sent me a note at Christmas. Her married name was Olofson. She had two children, but they were scattered about, like all the rest.”
“Goodness.” It was all I could think of to say. Where would a fifteen-year-old girl go in the post-World War I era? Had she merely lost herself in the growing metropolis of Seattle? Had she found some of her Irish relatives in another city? Had she run off with a boy? I posed this last question to Mrs. Cameron.
My hostess was slow to answer. “There was no special boy that we knew of. But Julia would go off on the streetcar every so often and be gone for several hours. She was much too young to be on her own, riding around town. Julia was a pretty thing, so we had to assume it was a boy. At that time in our lives the age difference was such that she no longer confided her secrets to me. To her, I was still a baby. If she ran off with someone, it wasn’t so much because of him as it was because of our mother. They couldn’t get along, plain and simple. Poppa doted on his girls, especially when he was in his cups. He called us his little princesses. Julia’s defection was hard on Poppa and me, but Walter suffered the most from her absence. He was always a shy little boy, but after Julia went away, he seemed to withdraw even more. He was very dependent on her, you see, since she was the oldest.”
“Neither of you ever tried to find her?” I asked gently. “That is, after you grew up?”
Claudia Cameron’s gaze looked beyond me, to the farthest corner of the room, or perhaps into a dark place in her soul. “No. I married and moved to Victoria. I had my children and … well, you get so caught up in your own life.” She plucked at the shawl that was thrown over her legs.
“And Walter?”
“No.” The word was emphatic. Claudia’s thin lips tightened. “Not Walter. He had his own … difficulties.”
A veil seemed to have descended between us. There didn’t seem to be much left to say. Mrs. Cameron was obviously tired out from my visit, though she made a polite plea for me to stay on. It was after noon when I finally called a cab to take me out of Oak Bay and back to downtown Victoria.
The next passenger ferry left at one. I was tempted to delay my departure until the later sailing at four, but I knew that Jackie would be wringing her hands over my absence. Besides, my car might be ready. Grabbing an order of fish and chips wrapped in genuine English newspaper, I headed for the ferry slip.
As we left the Inner Harbor, the sun was trying to come out at least three hours ahead of schedule. I strolled the deck, noting that this time the ferry seemed much more crowded. Armed with a cup of coffee, I sauntered over to the stern to watch Victoria grow smaller as we headed out into the strait.
A man in a rumpled cotton sports coat was leaning over the rail. He seemed to be leaning a trifle too far, and I wondered if he was ill. Or, I thought fleetingly, suicidal. I smiled at my own fancy and came up within a few yards of him. Out of the comer of my eye I sensed that there was something familiar about him. A sidelong glance registered the sharp profile with the broken nose.
It was the drunk from the library, and judging from his desolate air, it looked to me as if suicide wasn’t a fantasy after all.
Chapter Ten
I SPILLED MY coffee on purpose, then let out a little yip. Slowly, reluctantly, the man turned. He didn’t seem very interested in my dilemma. But before he could look away, I burst into laughter.
“I’m such a dunce! Don’t walk over here. You might slip and fall. Have you got a napkin?”
“No.” The word fell out of his mouth like a stone. Again he tried to ignore me.
“Could you get me some from the vending area?” I assumed my most helpless air. “Please? I feel like a dope!”
With a sigh of resignation Leo Fulton Walsh moved off. The name had come to me as I visualized his California driver’s license. I drank what
was left of my coffee and waited. The other passengers, who had stared at my little drama, now resumed chatting and watching the water. I caught sight of Mount Baker over on the mainland. The big, snow-covered peak always reminded me of an ice cream cone. It crowned the North Cascades, a link in the range that led to Alpine. The idea made me smile, and I wondered if I was homesick. In the past three and a half years I’d never consciously thought of Alpine as home. It was my base of operations, the place where I had my job. But home was my native Seattle or my adopted Portland. Had I assumed the guise of the small-towner? No, never that; I was a born and bred denizen of the Big City. But maybe Alpine had sneaked into my heart, if not my soul. I smiled at the idea.
“You look pretty happy for a gal who damned near scalded herself,” said Leo Walsh, handing me a dozen paper napkins.
Startled, I accepted the napkins, then bent down to wipe up the spilled coffee. Most of it had already drained overboard. I spent more time than I needed to swab the deck. What could I say to a man I thought was about to commit suicide? How should I initiate a conversation with somebody who was dead drunk when I last saw him? Should I stick to meaningless clichés or actually try to discover what was eating Leo Fulton Walsh?
“Did you spend the day in Victoria?” I asked, settling for triteness.
Leo arched his eyebrows at me. As I’d suspected, his normal complexion was faintly florid. He did not, however, seem marked by signs of excessive drink. Indeed, his brown eyes were clear and in sharp focus.
“I went over for the morning,” he answered after a faint pause. “There’s not much to see unless you’re nuts about English bone china and fuzzy Eskimo sweaters.”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “There’s a wonderful museum and the Parliament buildings are fascinating, especially when they’re in session, and they’ve got an undersea garden and a wax museum and …”
His smile was crooked. It went with the nose. “You did all that in four hours?”
I blinked at Leo. “You saw me on the early ferry?”