Free Poor Tom Is Cold by Maureen Jennings Page A

irresistible. They were outside. She saw Cullie and was sorry the young servant was afraid. Then she was looking at a tall man in a fur hat and a long coat. He had a dark moustache and his eyes were noticing. The Peg in the chair spoke to him.
    Help me. Please help me
.
    He was worried. “I’ll help you,” he said, although his lips didn’t move.
    “Psst, you, new woman.”
    She turned her head to the left. Mrs. Stratton was watching her.
    “Yes?” She tried to make her voice friendly.
    “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Mrs. Harold Stratton of Chatham, Ontario. What is your name?”
    “Margaret Eakin.”
    “Are you married?”
    “Yes.”
    “Children?”
    “Ye-no. That is, I did have a son but he died.”
    Mrs. Stratton gazed over at her; her eyes were fierce. “Murdered, was he?”
    Peg turned her head away as abruptly as if she had been struck.
    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he was.”

Chapter Eleven
    W EARILY , M URDOCH HEADED FOR Ontario Street and the comfort of Mrs. Kitchen’s parlour. He was cold and hungry, his back ached from walking so long, and the pain in his jaw was all-consuming. Between them, he and Crabtree had questioned virtually every household member on Wicken’s beat, but nothing significant had come of it. Many of the people were familiar with the young constable; some of them were sincerely distressed. One or two of the women wept openly. “Such a nice, polite young man,” cried Mrs. Jackson, who was the cook at a grand house on Gerrard Street. But she hadn’t seen him since the end of the summer when she’d been sitting on the front veranda, it was so scorching that day. “Madam allowed all us servants, even young Eddie, to come outside after evening chores. Very kind it was. The constable went by and we joked at him. He looked so hot, he did, in his uniform.”
    Most people tried to be helpful, would have manufactured information if they could, but essentially nobody told him anything new. Nobody other than Mr. Lee had actually seen Wicken or his companion. It was a night when everybody was as snug as they could be in their own houses.
    Lamps were lit along the street, the macadam black and slick in the rain. Not for the first time Murdoch wished he were coming home to Liza. Closely following on that thought, however, like a herding dog on the heels of a sheep, was an image of Enid Jones, the young widow who was also a boarder at the Kitchens. Under different circumstances, Murdoch had to admit he would have been paying court to her but she was a devout Baptist, he, a Roman Catholic, although not so devout. Those differences of faith seemed irreconcilable.
    He was passing one of the big houses on Wilton Street. The curtains were not drawn and he could see into the front sitting room. Two men, one about his own age, were lounging in their armchairs in front of the fire. They were wearing claret-coloured smoking jackets and he saw them both, in unconscious unison, take a protracted luxurious pull on their respective cigars. The furnishings were opulent and the room was golden from the bright firelight. Murdoch knew the two men slightly, knew they were both lawyers and that the son had joined his father’s firm. He felt a sharp stab of envy. He walked on by, realising it wasn’t the affluence of the menthat he was jealous of, so much as the feeling of security surrounding them and how comfortable they seemed to be in each other’s company. He hadn’t thought about his own father in a while, deliberately keeping his memories as buried as possible, but he wondered if he was even still alive. The life of a fisherman was a dangerous one, after all. However, he assumed somebody would have informed him of any catastrophe.
    Murdoch didn’t particularly like his own envy. He’d seen too much of it in his father and had experienced over and over again the man’s rancour, his unrelenting jealousy of his own son. Once again his thoughts flew to Liza. If she had lived they would be