The Devil's Making (43 page)

Then she stood back and began to undo the braids of her hair, shaking it loose and letting it fall thick and lustrous over her shoulders. We embraced, held each other, wriggled out of our clothes, and fell together onto my narrow camp bed. The afternoon with Aemilia came back to me for a moment with a pang of sadness, then a brief panic: would I be able to do it again, with Lukswaas? But nothing could stop me wanting her. She and I, although of different races, different continents, and unable to understand each other's different languages, came together in our usual effortless way.

I pulled the sheet over us and we lay close. The lamplight was steady and golden on the wall. It was true, what the Oneida people said, that giving in completely in love led to a close bond. I was happy to let go of the outside world and retreat to this room where in a magic circle of giving and receiving Lukswaas and I lay as one. Depleted energies? Spending? This was the peace the religious sought.

Yet thinking of our separation from the outside world brought it to mind. The day had been too eventful for me to be able to sleep. I even had questions for Lukswaas although, as often happened, she anticipated them. She asked what I had done with Aemilia.

I explained that we had had a picnic, describing what this was. I said it had been very nice but I had a feeling Aemilia had wanted to keep me there. However, I had had to come back to the courthouse. I knew I could not lie to Lukswaas, and grew tense in the expectation of more intimate questions. But she did not ask them.

I asked if Lukswaas knew Aemilia, although I knew the answer.

Yes. She did.

They had planned together to free Wiladzap from the jail?

Lukswaas explained that she had wanted to free Wiladzap but could not think how. Then Aemilia had come and together they had decided: Aemilia should keep me away, so that I would not be at the jail. Lukswaas would free Wiladzap.

Lukswaas clutched me urgently in the narrow bed and asked me if I now knew who had murdered McCrory.

I said I thought so, that the murderer had almost certainly been a King George soldier called George, who was now on another island where Pemberton and I would have to go and find him. But, I asked Lukswaas, how did she know Aemilia?

Lukswaas's answer was the same as Wiladzap's: I must talk to Aemilia.

I acquiesced in this, saying I would go and see Aemilia in the morning. Then I changed my theme to one which had often tormented me. Why did Smgyiik say Wiladzap had killed McCrory? Why did he say Wiladzap had been angry at Lukswaas going into the woods with McCrory?

Lukswaas said nothing for a few moments. Then she said it was because Smgyiik had wanted to marry her. But she had never wanted to marry him. Nor had Wiladzap liked him. Smgyiik was an unlucky man, she said. He had probably gone to his cousins – other Tsimshians. He could never return to Tsalak.

Why had he not taken the money?

He was not so small in heart that he would take money for his words. He had spoken them out of anger.

Anger that Lukswaas had gone into the forest with McCrory?

McCrory had had no ‘skookum' – no power. But Lukswaas had been interested in what he had said about plants. Perhaps Smgyiik had thought this meant she had liked the doctor. Anyway, once Smgyiik had burst out and said that Wiladzap had killed McCrory, he had to run away. If he had stayed, Wiladzap, or Waaks, or Tsamti would have killed him. Why had he spoken? Because when my chief (Parry) had started to count out the gold pieces, it showed that the death of McCrory was important – it was as important as all that gold. This meant that Wiladzap would be killed by the King Georges if they thought he had done the murder, and Lukswaas might be killed by them too. Smgyiik had been very angry.

Lukswaas killed too?

Among the Tsimshian, revenge was not limited to one person, Lukswaas said, it included the whole family. That was very cruel, I said, returning tit-for-tat Lukswaas's comments back at the camp about the cruelty of the whites in the case of poor drowned Cathy.

Lukswaas said philosophically that Indians and King Georges were cruel in different ways.

Some King Georges, and especially Bostons, might be cruel to me and Lukswaas, I said. They would not like a white man marrying an Indian woman.

Many Tsimshian would not like it either, Lukswaas said. But she liked it.

She began stroking me again. Our desire should have been ‘spent' only a few minutes before. But it was still there, like a circle including us with no end but itself. After a while we fell asleep, clasped together so closely that our lips were still touching.

*   *   *

We awoke not long after dawn, Lukswaas snuggled into my arms with her back to me. After a kiss of greeting we both sprang out of bed and stretched ourselves. We took turns with the chamber pot, all shyness gone, and scrubbed ourselves with soap and cold water from the ewer and basin, sharing my towel. Then I got dressed in my uniform. But Lukswaas stood tall and naked in front of the looking glass and began to work on her hair with my brush. She took one of the black ribbons she had picked up from Seeds's cabin trunk, and tied her hair behind her head in a ponytail such as some white women wore. She was transformed – still an Indian but possessed of a haughty beauty like that of a tall Spaniard or Italian. Then she turned her attention to the pile of clothes. She reached for the stays, and slipped them on gracefully, turning to me to lace them, which I did, though not tightly. Then she put the drawers on the wrong way round, then corrected this. She did the same with the shift. When it was on she looked questioningly at me. I nodded approval. Then she put on the hooped petticoat. Then I helped her into the dress, buttoning it up the back as I had done for Aemilia. She then put on a plain white bonnet, although I had to tie a bow for her. Then she sat on a chair, awkwardly adjusting her dress, and put on the white silk stockings. Then the shoes. Of all the clothes, Lukswaas liked these least. She tapped her feet on the floor and winced. Then she put on the black shawl – these were fashionable in Victoria, although in England they would be strictly for servant girls. She got up and looked at herself in the glass. I said she looked lovely.

I asked her if she was hungry and when she said yes, I asked her to wait in the room. I went downstairs. There was no one around. I went out and walked over to Ringo's. I could not have faced bringing Lukswaas there. There would be no question of Ringo, an ex-slave black as soot, admitting an ‘Injun' to his restaurant. But he would, for a fee, send out breakfast. In a short while I was on my way back to the courthouse followed by a boy carrying a breakfast tray.

It was still early. I got the boy to set the breakfast on the long table in the room which Pemberton had used for the interrogations of Wiladzap and Lukswaas. The boy would come back for the tray later. I went upstairs.

Again Lukswaas had been leafing through my books. She had found a small album in which I kept a few drawings and photographs of my parents and the vicarage in Wiltshire, and was studying it with great interest. I said she could bring it downstairs. We ended up having a leisurely breakfast at the big table – ham, toast and muffins, all of which Lukswaas liked, and tea for her (the Tsimshian obtained tea from traders so she was used to it), coffee for me. Then we sat sipping our tea and coffee, looking through the album.

There was something unreal in the fact that Lukswaas was dressed as a white woman, but at the same time I realized that, to an unprejudiced eye, she would do well in the part. For one thing she was unusually beautiful but in a quiet way. For another she was good at copying my movements with knives and forks and cups and saucers. I made no comment on this but could see she was, in a sense, working hard. This touched me. I would do the same, in reverse, if I were among Tsimshians.

When we had finished we went out of the vestibule. Seeds spotted us from his office where he had been talking with Harding, and came out, looking forlorn but inquisitive. ‘I put this young lady up on the spare camp bed in the store-room,' I lied. ‘I'm now going to take her to the Commissioner's house. I imagine he'll come here shortly to talk to Wiladzap.'

I asked Lukswaas to wait for a moment, and stepped into the armoury. I dropped a Colt 45 revolver and ammunition into my pocket, for later. Then I rejoined Lukswaas and we walked out into the square where, with luck, Wiladzap would not be hanged …

Lukswaas took my arm. At first she had a little trouble with her shoes, and if I was not mistaken she cursed under her breath. But she soon found her natural grace again. There were few people on the sidewalks, but those few stared at us curiously.

We walked as we had done that first night, up Fort Street and out of town until we reached Pemberton's house. It was now half past eight, and I assumed Pemberton would have finished his breakfast. I felt extremely nervous. I was taking a gamble on my sense of the Pembertons' kindness and that as Anglo-Irish they had a more flexible attitude to human nature than English people. I paused at the garden gate. Lukswaas waited docilely, her hand on my arm. I opened the gate, then closed it behind us. We walked along a short path and up the steps to the front porch. I pulled the bell cord.

The door was opened by Pemberton himself. Perhaps it was the maid's day off. Pemberton was wearing a smoking jacket and an old fashioned smoking cap with a tassel. ‘Good morning, my boy.' He said looking surprised.

‘Good morning, Sir. I'm afraid I must talk to you urgently.'

Come in, come in.'

We stepped over the threshold, and Pemberton bowed slightly. ‘Good morning, Ma'am. Augustus Pemberton.'

Then his face became transformed from its usual solemnity to comic puzzlement, almost an expression of pain, then a smile with a mischievous twist. ‘Why this is…'

‘Lukswaas. Wiladzap's sister.'

‘Of course. Good morning, child. Come this way.' He showed us into the ‘parlour' in which there was a small fire burning, unnecessary on such a mild morning, on one side of which Mrs Pemberton, elegantly but simply dressed, and wearing a white mob cap, was sitting stitching at a sampler. Between them was a trolley with the remains of breakfast, and a pot of coffee I could smell along with the smoke from Pemberton's pipe, which he picked up from the side table where he had left it. ‘Forgive the informality. Maid's morning off. My Dear, it's Mr Hobbes. He must talk to me urgently. Perhaps I can take him to the dining room and we can sit there…'

‘Please don't bother,' I said, seizing my opportunity. ‘I have a favour to ask of Mrs Pemberton, and if you don't mind her hearing our discussion…'

‘Not at all. I have no secrets from her – not even official ones – though of course they go no further. Young lady, do sit down.' Pemberton was apparently incapable of speaking Chinook to someone dressed as Lukswaas was. She had grasped that Pemberton meant her to sit in the chair his eyes had involuntarily glanced at as he spoke, and she sat down gracefully, although once she had done so she remained preternaturally still.

‘Pemberton indicated another chair for me, and we formed a fireside circle. Mrs Pemberton was staring intently but not unkindly at Lukswaas. ‘Do you speak English? She asked quietly.

‘None at all,' I said. ‘She is Lukswaas, the sister of the Tsimshian chief who is in jail. Sir,' I said to Pemberton, ‘I don't want to make a long story of this, since it's very embarrassing to both Seeds and myself. I don't think it's fair to report Seeds to Superintendent Parry, since all came out right in the end. As for myself, I was foolish enough to let myself be detained elsewhere and I arrived late for duty last night. A group of Tsimshian from Cormorant Point had come to the jail with some idea of persuading Seeds to let Wiladzap free. He was careless enough to let a couple of the women in, but he was unpersuaded. Nevertheless the incident caused a bit of a ruckus and Wiladzap, when I returned, lost his usual poise. In fact he became quite upset, and in the process he uttered several words in English.'

‘My goodness,' Pemberton interrupted in his brisk way. ‘That's a new one.'

‘I couldn't ascertain where he had learned it or why he had concealed it. But he knows – either from the past or recently – Aemilia Somerville. There is some secret they are concealing, which I can guess at but which I want to discuss with Miss Somerville this morning. It may only be incidental. The most important thing is that now Wiladzap admits he knows some English, he has come clean about what McCrory actually said to him: “That Devil George”.'

‘Beaumont! But why? Does Wiladzap know Beaumont?'

‘He says not – convincingly. I don't think he even knew George was a name, apart from ‘King George'. Hence part of his error, I suppose. But if I may suggest so, Sir, you might go to the jail and interview Wiladzap – in English. I told him you might do so.'

‘Good idea.' Pemberton, with one of his bursts of energy, leapt to his feet. ‘And you'll want us to go to San Juan, no doubt.'

‘If possible.'

‘Why not? There is now justification for doing so at once. I wrote to Delacombe last week saying we would come this week, and received a note from him saying he would expect us. I shall order up a boat to be ready at Telegraph Cove at noon, and I shall meet you there. I see from the bulge in your pocket that you already have a revolver. I shall bring one too. The man may be dangerous.'

Certainly the common description of Pemberton as ‘resolute' was a true one. Although capable of dithering, this must have been, as he himself had said, part of a control of his own rashness. He was now quite excited.

‘I hope you'll take care, Dear,' Mrs Pemberton said. She knew her man. ‘Don't risk coming back across the Strait after dark.'

‘Of course, of course, my Dear. At any rate, Captain Delacombe's very steady. There will be no great surprises.'

‘And have you saved this young lady from her own people, Mr Hobbes?', Mrs Pemberton asked cannily.