The Devil's Making (44 page)

‘In a way.' I found I was blushing like a boy. ‘Not that there's much wrong with them, but they're upset about the situation.'

‘And you'd like us to take care of her until her brother is – we hope – released?'

‘Mrs Pemberton, you're a brick!', I burst out in relief. ‘As you have guessed, that's exactly what I was going to ask you, although I fear it's an imposition.'

‘She'll be no trouble at all. We have an extra servant's room, if you and Augustus are delayed until tomorrow. No!' She held up her hand as if to stop me from saying something which might have been silly. ‘I shan't
treat
her like a servant. I shall enjoy teaching her a few things around the house. I have the impression she has never been in a house like this before.'

‘Plank houses, my dear,' Pemberton interrupted. ‘Much more grand than the Songhees. Great big plank houses, like school dormitories I suppose.'

‘Well, she's clearly a cut above the Indian girls I've seen around here. I'm afraid I don't have a word of Chinook, but we'll manage,'

‘Thank you,' I said, getting up. ‘I know she'll be very well with you.'

‘All right then', Pemberton said. ‘Noon at Telegraph Cove. I'll go and see the man Wiladzap at once. His statement should be ample justification for a very vigorous questioning of Mr Beaumont.'

I said goodbye to Mrs Pemberton and turned to Lukswaas who – perhaps copying Mrs Pemberton – had remained sitting. I had meant to say goodbye coolly, so as not to give anything away to the Pembertons, but when I saw her eyes looking at me with a clear trusting expression, I did not hesitate to do what came naturally: I bent and gave her a kiss on her cheek, then held her hand for a moment while I said to her in Chinook that I hoped to see her the following evening at the very latest, but in any case she should stay here until she heard from me.

‘Kloshe nanitsh', she said. Literally ‘good see', meaning I should take care – an unknowing echo of Mrs Pemberton. I straightened up and, aware that it would not be fair to Mrs Pemberton – quite irrelevantly to Lukswaas being an Indian – to leave with her a young lady with whom I was obviously on intimate terms, without explaining the relationship, I said: ‘She is my fiancée.'

Mrs Pemberton rose to the occasion, although her eyes widened: ‘you may be sure I shall treat her as such.'

26

I arrived on horseback at Orchard Farm soon after ten o'clock. The sun was already high in the sky, the dew had burned off, and it was hot. In the Orchard, along the roadway behind a zigzag snake fence, a young man in a straw hat was apparently inspecting the trees, although as soon as he saw me he came to the fence. It was Aemilia.

I was less shocked than I might have been. I had never seen a woman in trousers before, but my visit to the Indian camp, where some of the women wore leggings and the others were bare-legged, had disabused me of the idea that women were somehow born in dresses … The greater shock was my recognition that this ‘young man' was the one who had bounded into the forest to escape meeting me when I had plodded wearily along the road after my break with Lukswaas. But I was prepared for something like it. There had been a conspiracy.

‘Good morning,' I said, dismounting and tying my horse to the fence.

‘Good morning. I thought you might come.' Aemilia looked very pretty in man's clothes. They consisted of blue dungarees and a striped shirt, but her body was pleasantly curved, her bright eyes and fresh face more clearly displayed as her hair was pinned up under her hat. She looked ready to brazen out the interview.

I swung myself over the fence and landed just in front of her. ‘Aemilia. I want you to tell me everything. The whole story,'

‘Why should I?'

‘For one thing because Wiladzap –
your friend
Wiladzap – is still in jail.'

Suddenly she looked as if she might cry. She bit her lip. ‘What happened?' She said tightly.

‘I arrived in time, that's all. Waaks and Tsamti were lurking outside but I got in past them. Lukswaas and Wan had almost suborned the jailer, but the procedure was not complete. I had a good talk with Wiladzap who in the excitement of it all blurted out a few words of English. I sent the Indians back to camp, except for Lukswaas who is now with friends of mine in town. The name “Aemilia” created a strong effect, I noticed in Wiladzap. But he would answer no questions about you. Very gentlemanly of him. I said I'd ask you. So here I am.'

‘I have nothing to say.'

‘Yes you do. You must, in fact. There's a murderer on the loose and the only way to get your friend Wiladzap out by
legitimate
means, is to find him. And you can help.'

‘But who
is
the murderer?' Aemilia said angrily.

‘You don't know?'

‘God knows! I don't. There are several people I might suspect. Everybody who knew McCrory ended up hating him.'

‘You too?'

‘No one more than I.'

‘Perhaps
you
killed him.'

‘Don't be silly. Chad, if you know no more than this, stop playing cat and mouse with me. Stop this torment. Just go away.'

‘I could arrest you, as a matter of fact, for conspiring to break a prisoner out of jail.'

‘Do you like this power, Chad? You're becoming a brute.'

‘I'm reluctant to be completely honest with you, because even then I'm not sure you'll be honest with me.'

She thought for a moment. ‘Let's be honest, then. But please don't use what I say as evidence against me.'

‘As a matter of fact the law requires that I must – if for example you were tried for an offence. I cannot undertake not to. But so far, I have kept the jailbreak incident quiet, and I doubt it will come to the fore. My own aim, in fact, is to get Wiladzap out. I think I know who the murderer is too. I'll tell you shortly. But please, I want your story: about you and the Indians.'

‘All right.' She turned and went over to the shade of one of the apple trees, and sat down on the dry grass. I followed and sat near her. I realized, unhappily, that my feelings toward her were still strong. I was very much aware that I had embraced her the day before, and I felt a kind of desire – for caressing her but not for the moment of consummation itself. That belonged to Lukswaas. I was not experienced enough to be able to label such an ambivalent feeling in any but naïve terms. I told myself that I ‘liked' Aemilia, even sensually, but did not ‘love' her.

‘Lukswaas will have told you,' Aemilia said, as if wanting to put off her story.

‘I didn't press her to.'

Aemilia looked puzzled. ‘Are you in
love
with that girl?'

‘I am.'

‘That explains a lot. You might have been just cynically using her, as so many white men use “squaws.” But I couldn't quite believe it of you. And she was terribly gone on you. She said she had given herself to you, like a crazy woman, and then later she learned you had thought she was Wiladzap's
wife!'
Aemilia laughed harshly. ‘You're given a cherry to pluck, and you assume it's an over-ripe plum!
I'm
the plum, not she.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘
I'm
his wife.'

This went so much further than my suspicions that I was speechless. I waved a hand to tell her to continue.

‘Starting from the beginning: I was fourteen years old. Daddy was killed, as I described, by a filthy Comox. I was with him. We were both some way from the village. The Comox, several of them, grabbed me and took me away. Needless to say they decapitated Daddy. I've told this before, so I don't cry about it now. It's history. The Comox tinkered around with me a bit but did not violate me, as they would have an Indian girl. They were in fact very frightened. Most Indian violence is committed out of sheer terror, I think. Perhaps white violence too? Anyway, this particular band set off fast, with me, to the territory of the neighbouring Kwagiutl. They had, I think – I didn't speak Comox, which is a kind of Salishan – decided to sell me as a high quality virgin slave. I was too dangerous for them to keep, but the Kwagiutl are the most bloodthirsty tribe along the upper Straits so perhaps they would have the power to take me on. At any rate, as I later heard, the HMS Trident had arrived and shelled the Comox village, which was a pity since women and children were killed, and the culprits had got away.

‘We went toward the Kwagiutl territory by canoe. But we didn't meet the Kwagiutl. Instead we encountered a really grisly sight: a huge canoe full of Tsimshian who had come hundreds of miles down the coast for a raid on the Kwagiutl. Their canoe had eleven, as I recall, Kwagiutl heads stuck on poles down the middle. There were thirty or so Tsimshian men, and three Kwagiutl girls they had taken as slaves. All this, by the way, is rare now. That was in 1860, only nine years ago, but much has changed. Anyway, my Comox literally befouled themselves with fright. As the other canoe swept up, they made me stand up and they called out in Chinook that they had a beautiful white girl to sell. The canoes wallowed side by side. And Wiladzap, who was only twenty one but who had done particularly well in their raid – he had killed four Kwagiutl – bought me. For the entire stock of his personal booty from the Kwagiutl – skins, argillite, blankets … You should understand, this was a very high price. He could have simply cut the throats of the Comox. I wish he had! There were only five of them. But it was a question of pride, and largesse. The canoes grappled together. The goods were handed over to the Comox, and I to the Tsimshian.

‘Then they brought me to Tsalak. The journey took two weeks, camping on shore at night. They treated me very well, all of them. Wiladzap did not even molest me. He was waiting to show me to his mother, as it happened. But after several days I became suddenly ill. A reaction, I suppose, to my father's death. I had been stoical, but I collapsed into tears and trembling which wouldn't stop. Wiladzap had the journey delayed for two days so that we could stay encamped. First he disappeared for a whole day into the forest to collect herbs, but also to ask the spirits for guidance. He came back with herbs for an infusion, which I drank. But he also came back with a ‘vision'. He said my father (the Comox had told him my father had been killed) had appeared to him: he described him very accurately. My father had told him that my mother and my sister were safe – the vision seemed to condense my two sisters into one. Wiladzap said he would take care of me, and nobody would harm me: he had promised that to my father. All this was soothing, although I was as if paralysed, trembling like a caught rabbit, and weeping. Then he held my head very gently and put his mouth against it, on top, and for a long while seemed to breathe into my skull. Then he took each foot in turn and breathed for a while into the sole. I was too weak to resist him, and I'm glad I didn't because I suddenly went into convulsions and found myself screaming. Then I slept and woke up feeling clear and almost happy. It was night, and Wiladzap was sitting beside me in the firelight. I saw him and I fell in love with him – just like that. He could see it. He told me later that he had known it would happen: there were only two alternatives – I would die of grief, or I would love him. He treated this as a responsibility above all, but he truly loved me, I knew. He still did nothing improper. He wrapped me in a blanket and I slept again.

‘Tsalaks is quite an impressive place, up from the mouth of a river on a very large island – Princess Royal – well placed for coastal and interior trade up in the mainland rivers, and very prosperous. Big plank houses along the river bank, with totem poles in front. About four hundred people, in four clans – Eagles, Ravens, Backfish, and Wolf. Wiladzap is an eagle. This comes through his mother who is now, I'm sorry to hear, dead. The women in tribes down here are, as you know, treated like dirt, although I dare say they have the kind of secret influence that women always do. The Tsimshian are what I believe the new science of ethnology calls “matrilineal”. That means property descends from mother to daughter, or from uncle to nephew – meaning to a man from his mother's brother. It doesn't mean the women rule. It's not what I believe the more romantic ethnologists call a “matriarchy”. As always the men rule, though the women know everything. But women can accumulate reputation. They can even inherit certain names. Do you know, it makes me think of
Ivanhoe
or other novels of Walter Scott. The Tsalak are by our standards medieval. Their concerns are reputation, courage, and chivalry. And the amassing of material wealth, of course.

‘At any rate, Wiladzap was already a “chief” – although this is a flexible term since a chief has to live up to his title. Even women can be of the chiefly class, and they must be industrious and well behaved – as with us! Wiladzap was also what they call a “halayeet”, what we might vulgarly call a medicine man. But that was not by choice, it was more a sort of inspiration. He had been possessed several times by a “spirit illness” which they value very highly, and almost died, and in the weakness of this, had brought out songs which could be used as formulas for curing illness. So he was already a very special sort of man. He was, of course, also brutal when it suited him. You must
not
romanticize these people. They completely lack conscience about the taking of human life. The only thing that might stop them from killing someone would be the material consequences – a bloody feud, revenge, and so on. They can be prudent. But not what we would call moral. They are however fairly moral about sexual relations between members of the same social class – which I suppose comes under prudence. Wiladzap freely enjoyed the embraces of one of the new slaves, in the first few days of our journey – before his cure of me, after which he remained chaste. But even he would not feel free to have relations with a girl of his own class. If he did, demands for marriage, exchange of property and so on, from her brothers, would follow. This is hard on the girls, of course. Unlike their brothers they can't enjoy fornicating with slaves and social inferiors. It's the same as among us! But worse for them, since they are not kept sheltered but are constantly stimulated by nakedness, sexual talk, and romantic stories which do not stop short, as ours do, before the crucial moment. But I'm digressing – thinking of Lukswaas.