‘I’m just taking Mr Wetheral down to see Jean,’ Pauline told her husband.
I saw Bladen start and realised suddenly that this was the same Jean he had been so anxious to see when he arrived. James McClellan grunted. The others watched us in silence as we crossed to the door.
Outside it was pitch dark. Not a light showed anywhere. It was warmer than it had been during the afternoon and there was a light wind from the West. We stopped outside the door and in the stillness of the night the only sound was the gentle murmur of water seeping down to the lake. From behind the closed door I heard the murmur of conversation starting up again. ‘I suppose they’re talking about me?’ I said.
‘But of course.’ My companion laughed. ‘What else would they talk about? We have little enough to talk about in the wintertime. They will talk of nothing else for weeks.’.
‘They don’t seem to have liked my grandfather very much,’ I said.
‘Oh, they are bitter, that is all. All the time he was living up there in the Kingdom they had something to hope for. Now he is dead and they have nothing to stand between them and the reality of their lives here. Look at the place.’ She shone her torch out across the snow to the crumbling shape of the shacks on the other side of the street. They looked forlorn and wretched in the brightness of the beam. ‘Do you wonder they are bitter? Come on.’ She took my arm. ‘I will guide you because it is dangerous. This sidewalk has many boards missing. There is no money to repair them, you see. If anything becomes rotten in this town it stays rotten. If you are here till the spring you will see how dreadful this place is. The main street is axle-deep in mud and the whole mountainside seems to be slipping beneath the houses. More and more houses collapse each year when the mud comes. You will see.’
Tell me,’ I said, ‘is Max Trevedian the brother of the man who runs the transport company?’
‘Out. You would never believe it to look at them, would you?’ She gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘Half brothers, I think. But do not tell them so. That is just gossip, you know. Jimmy says Peter takes after his father and is a real Cornishman, while the younger one, Max, is very German like his mother.’ Her hand tightened on my arm. ‘Be careful here. It is very bad.’ A single rotten plank spanned a gap in the sidewalk. ‘Do you know what my children call Max?’ she added as we stumbled through softening snow to the next safe stretch of the sidewalk. ‘They call him the Moose Man. Have you ever seen a moose?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only in pictures.’
‘You will see plenty here if you go into the timber, then you will understand how very amusing the name is.’ She flicked her torch towards the pale glimmer of a lighted window ahead. That is where the Miss Garrets live. They are terrible gossips and very old-fashioned. But I like them.’
‘And Jean Lucas — what’s she like?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you will like her. She is very interessante, I think.’ She gave my arm a squeeze. ‘She and I are great friends. We talk in French together.’
‘She speaks French?’ Somehow the idea of an English girl out here in the wilds speaking French seemed absurd.
‘But of course. She is English, but she has some French blood.’
‘What is she doing in Come Lucky?’ I asked. ‘Has she relatives here?’
‘No. I also think it is queer.’ I felt her shrug her shoulders. ‘I do not know. I think perhaps it is because she is not happy. She worked in France during the war. Here we are now.’ She knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Miss Garret,’ she called. ‘It is Pauline. May we come in?’
A door opened and the soft glow of lamplight flooded the small entrance hall. ‘Sure. Come on in.’ Miss Garret was small and dainty, like a piece of Dresden china. She wore a long black velvet dress with a little lace collar and a band of velvet round her neck from which hung a large cameo. To my astonishment she quizzed me through a gold lorgnette as I entered the room. ‘Oh, how nice of you, Pauline,’ she cooed. ‘You’ve brought Mr Wetheral to see us.’
‘You know my name?’ I said. � ‘Of course.’ She turned to the other occupant of the room. ‘Sarah. Pauline’s brought Mr Wetheral to see us.’ She spoke loudly and her sister darted a rapid, bird-like glance in my direction and looked away again. ‘My sister’s a little deaf. It makes her shy. Now take off your coat, Mr Wetheral, and come and tell us all about your legacy.’
‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘I came here to see Miss Lucas.’
There’s plenty of time.’ She gave me a tight-lipped, primly coquettish smile. ‘That is one thing about Come Lucky; there is always plenty of time. Right now Jean’s in her room; reading I expect. She reads a great deal, you know. She’s very well educated. But I do think she should get out more in the winter, don’t you, Pauline? I’m always telling her education is all very well, but what’s the use of it here in Come Lucky. Just put your coat over there, Mr Wetheral. No, not on that chair — on the stool. Sarah. Mr Wetheral has come to see Jean.’
The other old lady darted me another quick glance and then got up. ‘I’ll go and fetch her, Ruth.’ She escaped to the door with a quick patter of feet. In appearance she was the image of her sister. But her face was softer, plumper and there was no lorgnette. I gazed round the room. It was fantastic. I was in a little copy of a Victorian drawing-room. An upright piano stood against the wall, the chairs had cross-stitch seats and the back of the armchairs were covered with lace antimacassars. There was even an aspidistra. The whole place, including the occupants with their over-refined speech, was a little period piece in the Canadian wilds.
‘Now, Mr Wetheral, will you sit over there. And you, Pauline — you come and sit by me.’ She had placed me so that she could sit and watch me. ‘So you are Mr Campbell’s grandson.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She raised her lorgnette and stared at me. ‘You don’t look very strong, Mr Wetheral. Have you been ill?’
‘I’m convalescing.’
‘Oh, and your doctors have said the high mountain air will do you good.’ She nodded as though agreeing with their verdict. ‘I’m so glad to hear that you are not allowing this little backwater of ours to become an industrial centre again. Do you know, Mr Wetheral, they even had the Japanese working up here during the war when they were building the dam. I am sure if you were to permit them to complete it they would now have Chinese labour. It is quite terrible to think what might happen. Opium, you know, and now that they are all communists-’
‘But wouldn’t it be a good thing for Come Lucky?’ I said. ‘It would’ mean new homes here and a road,’
‘That is what Peter Trevedian says. But my sister and I remember what it was like here at the beginning of the war. The homes are all very much in the future. Meanwhile we have to put up with the labour gangs. You have no idea what it was like here when they began working on the dam. We hardly dared to go outside the house. They had cabins built for the men up the valley of course, but the old King Harry saloon was converted into a hospital for them and some of the Japanese were actually billeted in the town. Such horrible little men! They shouldn’t have been allowed outside their camp, but then Peter Trevedian owns most of Come Lucky and he was collecting rent as well as making money out of the sale of land and the operation of the cable hoist. I am so glad, Mr Wetheral, you are not a mercenary man. Everybody here-’
‘I’m surprised my grandfather agreed to the building of a dam,’ I said.