Miss Forester during the entire meal. “Are you a writer also, Miss Forester?”
“Heavens no.” Miss Forester looked quite startled, whether at being mistaken for a writer or being spoken to, Angus didn’t know.
“What brings you to Dawson, then?” he asked, simply trying to be polite. His mother hated men who only talked about themselves.
“The fishing fleet,” Miss Witherspoon said, carefully counting out the money for the bill.
“Fishing? The salmon’ll be running soon. We weren’t here last year for the salmon run, but they say it’s really something. I can’t see that you’ll… I mean, you don’t look like…” Angus fumbled for the words.
“Martha,” Miss Forrester said, “please be quiet.” “Nothing wrong with it, my dear.” Miss Witherspoon waved at the waiter once again. “The fishing fleet, Angus, is what they used to call the pack of Englishwomen who set sail once a year for India in search of a husband.”
“Oh.” “Miss Forester is looking for a husband. A wealthy one.
Fallen on hard times, haven’t you, dear? Such a tragedy when the great families can’t pay off their debts.”
Miss Forester turned an unattractive shade of red and gathered her gloves. “That is none of the boy’s business, Martha.”
“We met in San Francisco,” Miss Witherspoon continued, as if her companion hadn’t spoken. “Euila’s brother was most grateful to find her a respectable companion to take her off his hands. He was no match for the Klondike, let me tell you. Now, where shall we go next? You may lead the way, dear boy. But remember: I want to see everything!”
Chapter Eight
Helen Saunderson and I collected the good soap, which cost an absolute fortune, and walked back to town. Mrs. Saunderson was telling me something about one of her children who was having problems with a tooth. I scarcely heard one word in ten. What did Irene think she was doing! Having an assignation—and with a woman at that!—on the street. She must be mad. We sold dreams as much as dances and drinks in the Savoy. The men paid to see the show or to have a brief turn on the floor with one of the girls because they needed some happiness in their generally miserable lives. They admired Irene on the stage and imagined, however foolishly, that one day she might be theirs. Let a little reality into the room—such as a female lover—and the effect would be like a magician telling the audience everything he was doing. Illusions once shattered can not be put back together like a piece of old china. Irene would no longer be the most popular dance hall girl in the North. She would be lucky to be able to make a living as a percentage girl.
What would Ray have to say if his illusions of living happily ever after with Irene were so brutally shattered? He’d probably fire her on the spot. And let everyone in earshot know why.
I sighed so heavily, a passing man paused in the act of lifting his hat to me. I tossed him a self-conscious grin and shrugged slightly. Mrs. Saunderson chattered on. The man walked away with a huge smile on his face. He was perfectly ugly and desperately in need of grooming and the attentions of Mrs. Mann’s laundry, but his eyes were kind, and I was pleased to have made his day.
“Madame MacGillivray, how pleasant to run into you.”
Joey LeBlanc, the most notorious whoremonger in Dawson, had planted her tiny self firmly in front of us, blocking the boardwalk. There was nothing pleasant about the look on Joey’s face. For some reason she’d hated me since the day she arrived in town—only a week after Angus and I—although I don’t recall having done anything to offend her, other than hold my nose (figuratively speaking) whenever we passed. She was less than five feet tall, and her bones were so fine, I sometimes wondered if she would be carried away by a middling wind. As though defying anyone to guess at her occupation, she dressed in the plainest of clothes. Her grey hair was scraped back so tightly that the skin beside her eyes stretched upwards, and her head was topped with a straw hat about two sizes too small. She wore no jewellery save a woman’s simple wedding band, although there was never any sign of a Monsieur LeBlanc.
I didn’t bother to be polite. This was no London drawing room where one cooed over the cut of one’s worst enemy’s new dress (“My dear, I simply loved that frock when I saw it on Lady Morton last month”) or her husband’s new position (“So nice for you that he will be able to dine at home regularly”) and where the sharpest battles were fought with words that could wound more deeply than swords.
In Dawson, I could be so much more blunt. “Get out of my way, Joey.”
She looked at me with eyes as cold as the frozen earth out of which the men pulled their gold. “Is that any way for a lady to talk?” She took the thickness of her Quebec accent up a degree.
I wasn’t about to stand there all day wondering who would step aside first. I lifted my skirts and stepped off the boardwalk, carefully avoiding a recently deposited pile of dog droppings. From an extremely large dog. I tugged on Helen’s sleeve, and she reluctantly stepped into the road beside me. Helen could be even more blunt than I, and I didn’t want a scene.
“You ’ave something what belongs to me, MacGillivray,” Joey said.
Despite my better instincts, I turned around. “I beg your pardon?” I asked in my best dealing-with-the-peasantryvoice, something that I’ve noticed a Canadian or an American can’t quite pull off.
We were attracting a crowd. Some people in Dawson had far too much time on their hands. Joey lowered her voice. “The Indian bitch is mine,” she hissed. “Bought and paid for.”
I wiped spittle off my face. “No longer, it would appear.” I turned and started to walk away, still tugging at Helen’s sleeve.
“I want ’er back.”
This time I kept walking.
“And ’ow are you, ’elen?” Joey called after us pleasantly, her voice back at a normal street level. “Enjoying your employment at the Savoy?”
I whirled around. “Is that a threat, Joey? If you have anything to say, you’d better say it to me.”
“Me?” Joey said. “I make no threats.” This time it was her turn to walk away, head held high under its plain straw hat.
“I’ve encountered the likes of her before, Mrs. Mac,” Helen said. “Not fit to walk on the same sidewalk as decent women, she ain’t. Imagine forcing a lady such as you into the street!”
“I’d rather walk in the mud than engage in a contest of wills with her and create a public spectacle.”
“What do you suppose that was really about?”
“Nothing good, Helen. Most certainly nothing good. If you see her around the Savoy…if you ever see her anywhere near Angus, let me know right away, will you?”
“You think she’d harm Angus?” At the very thought, Helen Saunderson looked ready to go after Joey and clobber her with the package of good soap.
It was an exceedingly hot day, but I felt a shiver under the strings of my corset. Against the likes of Joey LeBlanc I had few defences. It was unlikely she would be reduced to blubbering idiocy by a witty yet scathing comment about the style of her hair or worry overmuch about being cut out of polite society by a well-placed whisper of scandal. “I think she’d do most anything to harm me. If she could.
Take that soap to Mrs. Mann. Tell her I expect to wear the dress tomorrow.”
I didn’t tell Helen that my earlier misgivings about letting Mary stay at the Savoy had disappeared the moment Joey LeBlanc stepped in front of me. It might not be in my best interests, but I wasn’t about to give LeBlanc the satisfaction of letting her think she’d won.
Nor did I mention that someone had been watching the scene with a far greater degree of interest than the majority of the bored crowd. Chloe, the dancer I’d fired the night before for drinking, reversed her direction