The Devil's Making (14 page)

The room was furnished in the fashionable way. Almost every inch of the walls (themselves covered with a thick-looking floral wallpaper) was covered with something. There were paintings of the Landseer ‘Monarch of the Glen' type (reminding me of the Hotel Argyle) or of the sentimental type: an ‘Abyssinian girl' bare-footed, casting large black eyes heavenward as if in prayer while a muffled horseman galloped into a distant landscape of mountains and minarets; some ‘gypsy' children, also barefoot, selling clothes pegs outside an English Inn, their faces pretty and seraphic with unlikely innocence. The remaining areas of wall were bedecked with whatever ornament could be accommodated to its flatness: a riding crop with a woven leather handle, a sabre with a silver guard, a cavalryman's pennant – these presumably the father's – and crochet work and embroidery in frames. On the mantelpiece were the usual clock and engraved silver trays and candlesticks. The fireplace was surrounded with enough equipment in the way of brass handled tongs, pokers, scrapers and bellows to maintain three such fires at once.

The back half, as it were, of the drawing room doubled as a dining room (unthinkable in England) and had open shelves packed with china dishes and plates turned outward on display (very English, but unthinkable in more practical houses in the Colony where the shelves would have been enclosed in cupboards, so as to obviate the need for constant dusting). The front half was cluttered not only with armchairs and two settees, but with leather ottomans on which the Somerville girls perched. In view of the floor space occupied by furniture and crinolines, there was very little of the somewhat worn wine-red Axminster carpet visible, and no way of walking around. I found myself stuck on a not very comfortable hard backed chair near the door while an urgent cluster formed around the main feature of the room, an ‘upright grand' piano against the wall beside the fireplace. Letitia had been playing when we came in, and now she resumed, with Beaumont turning the pages, his fixed agreeable smile and mechanical movements making him look like a huge well-dressed puppet. Cordelia abandoned her ottoman and stood fluttering with Frederick, as close together as manners and crinoline would permit, behind Letitia's other shoulder.

Letitia was playing, inevitably, one of Mendelssohn's ‘Songs Without Words' –
Faith,
which I knew was one of the easiest – with competence but not much verve. They were, I thought, rather insipid girls, but they were pretty and it was a pleasure to let the eye feast on them. Quattrini and Mrs Somerville were conversing quietly. Aemilia, who might have been expected to take up the social slack by making me feel at home, had instead taken up a sampler and was stitching the usual hearts and flowers in it while listening, with a sad look, to the music. Frederick had said to me that she was melancholy, and a blue-stocking, and it was clear why she did not exert the same obvious tug on young men as her younger sisters, or even as her mother must have done in her day. Aemilia did not really look melancholy but she was obviously very serious, which was not fashionable, and considered to be intimidating. Irritated, because Frederick had predicted this, I found myself drawn to her. Her face was paler than that of her sisters, with a few freckles on her cheeks and nose, which would of course be considered a blemish, but she did not seem to have made any attempt to cover them up with powder or cream. Her skin was in fact of a milky smoothness. Her grey eyes were clear and, I imagined, wise. Her hair, out of its Sunday bonnet, was gloriously rich in colour although rather thin in texture. The turned up nose was pretty as her sisters'. Her mouth, less of a rosebud than theirs, might have been more generous but now looked severe. She must have seen I was studying her, but paid me no attention.

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 out 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.