Swamp Angel (5 page)

“Good evening,” said the fresh-faced young woman behind the counter.

“Have you a cabin?” asked Maggie, hoping.

“Yes,” said the young woman, and they went out together.

Maggie lighted her little stove and made her tea. When she had finished her supper she went through the woods, dark
now, in the direction of the river noise. She had her flashlight. She found a fallen log and sat down in the dark beside the whitely curling Similkameen River. A sadness fell upon her and the thin cruel thought returned. What dreadful thing had she done to Edward Vardoe. He who had built himself up to satisfaction was humiliated and angry now, and unhappy with a helpless unhappiness that was shocking because he was unprepared. I can’t help it, she told herself once again. I betrayed myself and I betrayed Tom and I betrayed Edward Vardoe when I married him. Now I’m almost happy again … and he was happy because he had no perception – none – and he will never have perception, and now he is unhappy. I didn’t judge him, but I am his executioner just the same … and he has been my executioner for what I did by marrying him. We have been each other’s executioners. Now this is the very last time I will think about it, the very last, she said to herself despairingly, it was too dreadful to bear. He is he and I am I. He will never forgive me, and I shall always go unforgiven. But this is the very last of it. God help me. I am humiliated for always by what I did, for marrying him. I won’t think of it – there’s no good in it – ever … if I can…. The cruel dangerous thought slid away and played by itself.

Maggie sat there in the dark and she lifted her heart in desolation and in prayer. The west wind blew down the river channel; and the wind, the river, and the quiet sound of the rippling river, a sigh in the pine trees surrounded by stillness, and the stars in the arc of the night sky between the mountains, the scent of the pines, the ancient rocks below and above her, and the pine-made earth, a physical languor, her solitude, her troubled mind, and a lifting of her spirit to God by the river brought tears to her eyes. I am on a margin of life, she thought, and she remembered that twice before in her own life
she had known herself to be taken to that margin of a world which was powerful and close.

She rose to her feet, turned, and with her flashlight picked a way through the trees back to her cabin.

For three days Maggie stayed at the Similkameen cabins. She slept long, walked and watched in the woods, and fished the river. Spring was pouring in over the whole countryside, and she knew that she could not stay any longer. She was refreshed now. She turned back on her journey to Hope and then up the Cariboo Highway on her way to Kamloops.

These days had been for Maggie like the respite that perhaps comes to the soul after death. This soul (perhaps, we say) is tired from slavery or from its own folly or just from the journey and from the struggle of departure and arrival, alone, and for a time – or what we used to call time – must stay still, and accustom the ages of the soul, and its multiplied senses, to something new, which is still fondly familiar. So Maggie, after her slavery, and her journey and her last effort – made alone – stayed still, and accustomed herself to something new which was still fondly familiar to her.

When she took her seat next to the window of the bus leaving Hope, a woman sat down beside her.

W
hen Hilda Severance came in from her office she saw her mother sitting behind a cloud of smoke. Mrs. Severance flicked a letter toward her, on the table. Hilda opened it.

“Maggie,” she said.

“What address?”

“Just Vancouver.”

“What postmark?”

“Vancouver. She says nothing … really … but … she’s gone.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Severance.

Hilda sat down. She read, “It’s easier for you both and easier for me if I don’t tell you where I’ve gone. You will understand, perhaps, that my life wasn’t endurable….” “That calm placid Maggie!” exclaimed Hilda, looking up at her mother and then continuing to read. “My plans have been made for some time and have been a great support to me. I shall write to you when I am settled, and where, but whatever happens I shall not come back. I’m not asking anything of you, Hilda, unless, if you can help Edward, do. Perhaps you can. I can’t.
Of course one never expects to arrive at this point in one’s life, but here I am. I won’t talk about ‘feelings.’ My love to you both – Maggie.”

“D’you suppose she’s written to him?” said Mrs. Severance.

Hilda made a gesture that said How do I know?

“D’you intend to tell him you’ve heard?” asked her mother.

“I think I should but I don’t want to get in touch with him. But … you see,” indicating the letter, “she asks me, doesn’t she?”

“I’d write,” said her mother, relighting from her stub and mumbling a bit. “He’s a little stinker, that’s what he is but I think you’d better write…. Did you bring the sole? I’ll do it in wine,” and she got to her feet and walked into the kitchen.

J
oey the taxi driver lived with his father and mother and eight brothers and sisters in some rooms behind some rooms behind some rooms upstairs behind the small office on Pender Street which said Universal Taxi on the window.

There was not much light and not much air, and in fact some of the rooms were not entire rooms but had been divided by partitions for purposes of visual privacy. These partitions did not run up as far as the ceiling. They were made of wood and varnished to a light yellowish color which looked sticky but was not. This does not sound very pleasant, especially as other families lived adjacent. Actually it was very pleasant indeed. The family lived in harmony from morning till night and slept in harmony from night till morning. When one of the older boys returned quietly from taking his shift as dispatcher or driver and poked another boy who woke sleepily, got up, pulled on trousers and a sweater and went downstairs to sit by the telephone or to drive, the family did not waken, although the mother never failed to be vaguely aware of what was going on among her children, what with the partitions that did not go up as far as the ceiling.

The father, whose name was Joe or Mr. Quong or Dad, had the kind of benevolent influence that spreads as far as he has jurisdiction, and, by virtue of his character, usually radiates a little farther still. Moreover he was strict. So it was that Joe’s word ran throughout these connecting rooms where his children slept, played, studied, and ate, and it flowed up and down the stairs and into the taxi office, and sometimes onto the sidewalk outside the door where he often stood surveying the scene – always changing, always the same – which he knew very well. Here his younger children hopped, skipped, pushed the smallest ones on scooters and tricycles, got in people’s way, and were admonished by Joe. Strangers passing the taxi office sometimes felt a faint and memorable pleasure as they saw and recalled again the stout urbane figure of Joe whose white shirt shone below his face of a smooth ivory color. He had, of course, many friends in Chinatown who stopped and chatted. His office was a sort of small and crowded social club where people spent their time talking. Sometimes there was much argument. Some members of the club drifted in and stayed there all day, saying nothing. They then went away somewhere, and no one knew what they thought, if they thought, or where they went, and no one cared. Joe’s expression was benevolent, since he was a benevolent man. He was also very sagacious and was not easily deceived. One of his little girls had inherited an ivory skin.

The mother, whose name was Mrs. Quong or Mother, was a small insignificant woman of enormous character. Her children never desired to quarrel among themselves. Whether this was due to the powerful domination of the mother or whether some alchemy in which Joe and the mother had separate parts had wrought this miracle, no one could know, and no one wondered. The result of this was that in the Quongs’
home – for these partitioned rooms were indeed a home – there was almost ceaseless noise and clatter, but the noise was not of crying or of anger and nobody minded the noise to which the sound of a radio was usually added.

The family of nine children was a healthy family in spite of all the reasons why they should not be strong and healthy. The youngest little boy was blind, but he was healthy too, and he was so much beloved and watched over by his brothers and sisters that one might say that he was luckier than many other little boys; but that, of course, could hardly be. The children’s names were Sam, Alfred, Joey, Yip, Angus, Billy, Greta, Joan, and Maureen. Angus wore spectacles and was short of stature. He admired Joey and wished to be like him, but that was impossible.

As Sam and Alfred grew up and drove the taxis, and now as Joey had begun to drive too, Joe had bought another not very good taxi (that made three in all), and then Yip would soon be able to drive as well. Then there were two cousins nearby. Some horse-riding families make up polo teams among themselves. The Quong family had a taxi team. Joe did not drive and he spent long pleasant idle and busy hours within reach of the telephone and kept a guiding hand on things. Angus was big enough and smart enough to take messages. He was very earnest, and that made him fairly reliable.

Joe spoke both English and Cantonese. Mrs. Quong spoke Cantonese only. She understood English but she did not care for the language so she did not speak it. She got along very well in her own world of her family and friends and neighbors. The children spoke to the mother in either language and did not notice.

It was very pretty to see one of the big boys amble up from where he had parked his car, and walk through a web of
little brightly dressed children who usually rushed up and embraced him round the legs. The big boy would pick up a child at random, give it a razoo in the air and set it down squealing for more and would then walk on to the office. Greta, who was sidewalk-broke and had a permanent, was constantly to be seen bending, with her little rump sticking out behind and each curve of her small body instinct with care and preservation, herding Maureen or the blind brother or a neighbor baby away from the curb. That was Greta’s function. Maureen had no permanent yet. She was a doll with straight hair and an ivory skin and a face of secrecy. Joan was indistinguishable from anybody else.

Joe’s boys had often been approached by dope peddlers and could have made a lot of money in the business, but now the peddlers did not approach them unless they were new to the place. It was well known that Joe would take the hide off of the boys if they had any truck with those peddlers, and, anyway, the boys despised them.

So when Joey came home and told Joe about what the lady had said about partners and the business, they both thought it was pretty funny. When Joe told the mother she said That was an awful woman and not to have anything ever to do with her, out to get young boys like that. But both Joe and Joey said No, she was not that kind of a person at all, she was a lovely woman, but still they couldn’t understand it. The rest of the family soon knew about what this character had said, because all the boys had experiences of one kind and another and everything was discussed. The family thought it was pretty funny, and then they forgot all about it.

M
r. Spencer of Thorpe & Spencer, Sporting Goods, remarked to himself that Mrs. Lloyd hadn’t come yesterday. A week later he said irritably “Anybody see Mrs. Lloyd?” and everybody said No.

Mr. Spencer suddenly remembered an unidentified envelope that had come to him through the mail a short time before. Inside it, clipped to a blank sheet of paper were two two-dollar bills, thirty cents in stamps, and a feather. He seemed, now, to see the gray eyes, rimmed with dark lashes, of Mrs. Lloyd, looking at him across the empty envelope.

I shall never see her again, he thought, and discovered that he felt unfairly deprived.

“I
saw Edward Vardoe today on the way home and I saw him yesterday,” said Hilda Severance to her mother.

“He looks terrible.”

“How d’you mean ‘terrible,’” said her mother.

“Well, that jaunty look of his and his face black and pasty.” (“How can it be black and pasty,” murmured her mother.) “He’s going through some kind of a dreadful time. He looks quite wicked. I was frightened of him and I was sorry too.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Me? I? No thank you. I’m not as fond of theater as you are. I put my parcels in the back of the car and drove off. It’s really a revelation – Maggie living with anyone who can look like that.”

Mrs. Severance’s fingers patted the Swamp Angel absently. She was silent for some time. She reached across the table and pulled a writing pad from under the litter of weekly reviews that were her only reading. She lighted a cigarette and did not speak, thinking as she smoked. Hilda went into the garden. When she returned, her mother gave her a stamped envelope.

“Mail this tonight, will you?”

Hilda looked at the envelope and her fine brows went up. “Oh,” she said, with her special expression.

On a Friday afternoon Edward Vardoe drove up to Mrs. Severance’s house in his new car. The car, it was true, proceeded forward, and within it was the person of Edward Vardoe, but the person within Edward Vardoe retreated backward. He did not wish to go to see Mrs. Severance, but something imperious in her letter had made him leave the office early and go through the mechanical motions that took him like fate to Mrs. Severance’s door, which was slightly ajar, and into the room. There she sat in her vast accustomed chair. Edward resented a feeling of being reduced by the large calm presence of Mrs. Severance. His anger, his righteousness, his arguments dispersed and he could do nothing about that. All that was left was self-defense, for and against. For and against what? He looked at her hands which were too small for her.

“How do you do,” said Mrs. Severance politely. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Edward Vardoe, untruthfully.

“Good. Sit down. Don’t put your hat on the table. You can hang it up. Have a cigarette.”

“Thanks I don’t mind if I do,” said Edward Vardoe, jauntily ill at ease. He lighted a cigarette and sat down, bolt upright. He noticed at once the butt of the small revolver protruding from a paper on the table where it lay in its accustomed place.