The Equations of Love (14 page)

“And what did you do then, Victoria May? Didn’t you think to ask the man who he was and get his name?” asked Mrs. Emblem.

Vicky shook her head. “But I’d know him anywheres,” she said.

“Well, for goodness’ sake,” said Irma Flask, “why didn’t you ask him his name, so’s you could tell Myrtle?”

“I dairsent, I was scared to,” said Vicky humbly, and this was so probable that the whole fabric of Vicky’s story was complete.

“Well, Myrtle,” said Irma, “it’s certny just
terrible
, but you must feel awful proud!”

“I certny do,” said Myrtle, and her face resumed at least its calm.

“Irma,” said Mrs. Emblem, “you fix up the stove and I’ll make a pot of coffee right here on the gas, and you sit right here in the rocking chair, Myrtle honey, and then when you’ve had some coffee, you lay down and have a good night’s sleep, and I’ll stay the night and Irma can go home … I don’t have to lay down … I can sleep just as good sitting up in my slip in the rocking chair … And Vicky, you run along home, you can’t do anything here,” added Aunty Emblem kindly, thinking That poor little queer thing, it’s no use
her
staying, she’ll just be in the way. So Vicky, whose courage was leaving her,
became herself again, and, standing there awkwardly, looked at her cousin whom she had lately dominated, and tried to tell her how sorry she was, and failed, and said inadequately “Well, Myrt … I’ll be seeing you … one of these days … well … goodnight all,” and she turned and went out of the room and down the stairs and into the dark street where the air was so pleasant, and the heavy rain refreshing, and they forgot her.

The room which she had left soon became heavy and saturated with abundant feeling welling up and overflowing, and with repetition, and sentiment, and reminiscence, and indictment, with cups of coffee, and enveloping sympathy, and lavish emotion, and, before Irma Flask went home, Myrtle was established as the grief-stricken widow of Mort Johnson who had been a hero, and as the eternal detester of Eddie Hansen who had ended her husband’s life. And at last Myrtle went to bed solitary yet sustained, and she at last slept, and Aunty Emblem settled herself in the rocking chair in her slip with her coat round her shoulders, and, rocking a little, soon slept. Mrs. Emblem and the kitten, who had much in common, woke from time to time, wandered about a little to see that all was well, settled again and slept.

Victoria May, having no umbrella, walked in her rather mincing way through the now driving rain and the darkness and the occasional lights of Cordova Street along the black and shining splashing pavements where a few people were hurrying through the wet. Oh, she thought mournfully, my hat-with-the-veil will be rooned, and then she accused herself of poorness of spirit for thinking of her hat on such a night. Her exaltation had left her and had exhausted her. As she hurried along the dark wet pavements, life and time continued as usual everywhere under heaven with practised ease
their ceaseless fluid manipulations and arrangements of circumstance and influence and spiked chance and decision among members of the human family – such arrangements as had caused Victoria May to be what she was; and had caused her that night to see Mort sober and Eddie drunk; and had caused her to force her small will upon Myrtle Johnson; and had caused her in one instant by means of a lie to turn Myrtle aside from her fury, and had thus enabled Myrtle to become the widow of a hero, not of a louse, and so had enabled Myrtle to remember Mort with half grudging tenderness and with her best and sleazy love; and had caused her (Victoria May) to do Mort a great service by so establishing him in general reputation and in memory; and had caused Myrtle to esteem herself a woman not preferred – for one fatal moment – to that souse Eddie Hansen, thereby adding to the power of her eyelids by being a wife widowed and deeply injured by this non-preference; and thus had caused Myrtle to continue to dominate Mrs. H. X. Lemoyne and Victoria May and even Irma Flask – more than ever before – and sometimes by virtue of her cruel loss to dominate Mrs. Emblem; and still to be very lonely.

The once-felt blaze of heat that had so warmed Victoria May as she stood over her cousin Myrtle did not of course long retain its virtue; but in solitude – which was to say in most of Victoria May’s waking and sleeping life – she was often to be sustained by the contemplation of that moment and of that scene which her memory came habitually to recall, to fondle, to admire, and to enhance.

She reached the back door which was her entrance, and found Mrs. Pavey from the basement taking in her wash in the rain and the dark, and blocking the immediate approach to the back door with her person and with her big laundry
basket. Mrs. Pavey had forgotten her wash and had left it on the line while she and Mr. Pavey had gone to a show.

“My goodness! Look what I did!” said Mrs. Pavey under the small porch light to Miss Tritt. “Went and forgot my wash and it’s all wet again and you can’t leave a thing out at night nowadays not with all these sneak thieves round the place. My land, isn’t it awful!” she said in the ill-lit darkness, reeling in the line and taking down the sopping clothes and putting them hastily into the clothes-basket. “Was it a good show?” for Mrs. Pavey naturally thought that anyone who came in late had been to a show.

“It … I … oh … yes …” said Victoria May nervously, very much afraid of being talked to. She dodged in the dark around Mrs. Pavey and went through the doorway and on up the stairs to her room and to her night of amazement.

“Well,” said Mrs. Pavey, incensed, “people might at least try to be polite to people!”

To Jo, and those never-failing friends

I
n the early part of this century there lived in the young city of Vancouver in British Columbia a large family by the name of Hastings. The head of this family was old Mrs. Hastings who was a widow, a saint and a mystic. With her lived her younger, elderly sister Miss Edgeworth, some sons and daughters, and two grandchildren. They lived in a big square red wooden house which broke smartly into decoration at the corners. The family had but recently arrived from England, and they had at once planted a garden which quickly flourished in the soil and moisture of the British Columbia climate which encourages weed and flower, tree and vegetable with almost tropical energy. At the end of this garden were low wooden buildings. The building on the left included living quarters of the Chinese cook and a trunk-room full of the trunks which accompany a large English family in migration and also the good English bicycle of Miss Edgeworth who though elderly was daring and would try anything once. She was therefore well fitted to be a pioneer. She had bought this English bicycle before she had learned to ride, and she had never been able to learn to ride it. However, since she felt it to
be a shame not to use so fine a vehicle (the bicycle was too heavy, sexless in spite of its sex, conspicuous for its bulky accessories of bright metal) she used to walk it about the town in the daytime. Thus the bicycle became well known in Vancouver for its handsomeness, for its cussedness, and because it was always walked, not ridden. A result, on the side, was that the bicycle was never taken out at night because Miss Edgeworth never wished to walk it at night when it could not be seen. It became available, then, to unauthorized people who might wish to ride it at night, and, at last, an unauthorized person did.

Yow, who inhabited the little room opening off the box-room, was the Chinese cook of this family. He was a formidable Chinaman, tall, pock-marked, and with a droop of one eyelid which added cynicism to his already disillusioned face. Even in the house, when wearing his Chinese slippers, he walked with a proud and swaggering gait. His look was derisive. He admitted that, in China, he had killed two men, one slowly, one quickly. He also said that he had been beaten to within an inch of his life. All this may have been true. He could juggle the affairs of this family of nine people and have an extensive private life of his own on the side very easily, although the pressure made him bad-tempered. He kept the children in their place by means of the simple threat “I killem you!” He was insolent, a good cook, a clean and devilish servant, rude to the younger ladies of the house, hostile to the men, and he worshipped the venerable Mrs. Hastings, arrayed in her age, simple goodness and heavenly piety. He had indeed three passions. One was for old Mrs. Hastings who actually believed him to be a very good man which perhaps he was; one was for gambling; and one was for Lilly Waller, a white girl with taffy-coloured hair who worked in Chinatown,
whom, in his dark mind, he called “my lady-friend.” Lilly seemed indifferent to him, or perhaps she was cagey.

Washing up the evening dishes as with one swift movement, Yow used to walk to his outside room and transform himself. His real life now began, and the innocent Hastings family were left to their silly and mysterious occupations. When Yow went to his room he wore a white coat and apron and his hair was plaited in a queue which was wound round his head. When he came out of his room a few minutes later he wore a good black high-necked jacket with trousers to match of expensive material with a faintly brocaded pattern. His queue, lengthened by a plait of green silk, was looped up under his right arm. He wore Chinese shoes turned up a little in front and he wore a round black hat. He walked, swaggering out of his room, through the box-room where stood all the trunks and also the English bicycle, out of the gate and down the lane in the direction of Chinatown, headed for Lung Duck’s place. Anyone coming down the lane would instinctively falter at the sight of Yow advancing like Lucifer.

When Yow arrived at Lung Duck’s place which was in Shanghai Alley off Pender Street, he went through a narrow door and through several stale and dark passages. The Chinese noise grew greater as he got near the gambling room which was full of very potent cigarette smoke and other smells which announced a different world, a Chinese world. The room was crowded with grouped Chinamen. One could see them through the smoke, clustered around tables, squatted upon the floor, all talking loudly in Chinese shorthand. The police did not in those days interfere very much with their pleasures. Shanghai Alley was riddled darkly with gambling dens, one much like the last, all smelling vilely of some kind of smoke, all resounding with voices clacking like typewriters (much argument), no
place in which to spend the night. But that is what Yow did for choice. He spent the night, or most of it, playing fan-tan amid the smoke and jabber, losing a little or winning a little from his cronies (no big stuff), and arriving back at his bedroom in the early morning, elated or black as thunder. This is how he spent his nights while the white family he served were sleeping blamelessly in silent rooms with the windows open and photographs on the walls. No wonder he was bad-tempered. He did not drink.

Just round the corner from Shanghai Alley was a restaurant – no, a joint – with Chinese characters on its dark face. Restaurants in Chinatown were not in those days called Mandarin Gardens or Pekin Chop Suey and so forth for the benefit of foreigners. There were Chinese customers, and there were Chinese characters, or none, on the windows or doors. The food was good. Sometimes there were dried fish or octopuses in the windows. They stayed there a long time and collected dust, as they were a symbol, not to eat, although probably no one would have minded eating them.

In Lam Sing’s place, which was the place that Yow went to for a snack of real food, not white stuff, there were two white waitresses. One was the pale girl named Lilly Waller. She had a room down on Cordova Street, but on the night shift she worked at Lam Sing’s. Yow watched this pale Lilly moving quickly and well. She had taffy-coloured hair, brown eyes and a pale mouth. Up went the straight line of her back, up the straight line of her neck, with the head set well. Her demeanour was not friendly. Yow watched her nightly taking her orders, balancing her tray, moving well and quickly and with indifference from kitchen to tables. He was mad over Lilly. He was mad over old Mrs. Hastings too. Two different loves. He loved Mrs. Hastings steadily, purely, and disliked all
other white people on principle. His love for Lilly was a desire that consumed him, and in her indifferent way Lilly played with him. She was not fastidious. She was not vicious. She was no particular good and she had an inordinate desire for
things
. She was all that Yow wanted.

“You likee go vode-vil show? I takem you,” said Yow one night.

“Say, who do you think I am? I don’t go out with Chinks,” said Lilly, fondling her hair and looking straight downwards.

Yow’s eyes went obsidian. “You callem me Chink, I killem you,” he said, making a threatening gyrating movement with his fist, as though he were going to do it with a corkscrew.

“Twenny-three skidoo,” said Lilly indifferently.

“What for you tellem me skidoo,” said Yow fiercely. “You not tellem me skidoo! I rich man. I plenty money. You look see!” And Yow took from his pocket all his wages, paid that day, and two dollars and sixty-five cents besides. He was lucky. The night before he could not have shown Lilly sixty-five cents. He was clever, too. He had waited till payday to speak to Lilly. Lilly did not answer, but looked at the money and then looked at Yow obliquely and walked away to another table.

Not long before Yow first spoke to Lilly, young Mr. John Hastings had brought his bride to the big house for a few weeks until he moved to Montreal where he had an unusually good opening. His bride was a beautiful young American girl from St. Louis, and in point of riches she was far out of the Hastings family’s class. Her trousseau was of great size and beauty. It was impossible to find room for all her trunks in the house, and one trunk had to be taken out again and put into the box-room. Yow helped to do this. He had a ferocious neatness and shifted all the trunks about until the box-room looked orderly
again. He had to move the English bicycle as well. This was the day after Yow had first spoken to Lilly.

When Yow had arranged the trunks to his satisfaction, he turned and surveyed the box-room. Out of the bride’s big trunk hung a bit of lace. Things had been crammed in and the lid squashed down. Yow opened the lid of the trunk in order to put the piece of lace in, and there he saw piles of silk stockings, layers of lawn and silk nightdresses tied together with silk ribbon, layers of petticoats tied together. He saw camisoles threaded through with pink and blue ribbons; he saw knickers with embroidered frills at the knee. He fingered these things a little and he began to think. He took two pairs of silk stockings with clocks on, and then he closed the trunk. He turned round. The box-room light twinkled on the bevelled glass and the steel of the English bicycle.