It helps me to stay in character when the audience co-operates. Thank you.”
Somewhat taken aback, Elizabeth smiled shyly. “You’re welcome. But I’m still sorry I was late.”
“That’s okay.” The Judge took off his wig and ran his hands through his hair. “This horsehair is unbearably hot in this weather — not to mention these heavy black robes.” He smiled at her. “Hey! Haven’t I seen you around the Jack O’ Clubs Hotel? I had dinner there last week and it seems to me that I saw you.”
“Yes. My mother is the new cook.”
“Well, you can tell her from me that she certainly is an improvement on the old one. I really enjoyed my meal — which wasn’t always the case when you ate at the Jack.”
“Thanks,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll tell her. She’s new at cooking, at cooking in a restaurant I mean. She’ll be glad to hear the compliment.”
The Judge held out his hand. “I’m Evan Ryerson, but most of my friends call me Judge. I guess after five years of doing this part I’ve begun to think of myself as the Judge as well.”
“I’m Elizabeth Connell.” She shook hands nervously. Hand shaking was something she didn’t do too much of, and she was never sure if you were supposed to give a good hard squeeze or just let your hand sit there.
“Elizabeth?” The Judge looked at her curiously. “Not Liz or Libby or Lizzy or something shorter?”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I’ve never had a nickname. I’ve never liked them much. I’ve always been just Elizabeth or Margaret Elizabeth when someone is mad at me.”
“You are like an Elizabeth, you know; With that reddish hair and that strong chin you remind me of pictures of a very determined Elizabeth — Elizabeth the First, Queen of England.”
Elizabeth blushed again. She seemed to blush at everything these days, and the feeling of her face growing warm added even more to her embarrassment.
“Elizabeth the First was known as Bess when she was younger,” the Judge continued. “That’s what you look like to me — Bess. You don’t mind if I call you Bess, do you? You probably will be an Elizabeth in a few years, but right now you look like a Bess to me.”
Elizabeth found that she was strangely flattered by the Judge’s nickname for her. “No. I don’t mind,” she said.
“Well, if you’re going to be around here for a while we’ll probably be seeing a fair amount of each other. Bess is easier to say than Elizabeth.”
“I don’t mind,” Elizabeth repeated. She thought for a moment. “Bess seems sort of old fashioned, as if it goes with Barkerville and Wells and all the history that’s a part of this place. No. I don’t mind being called Bess.”
“Well then, Bess, you call me Judge if you like. And since we are going to be neighbours (I live in Wells too, you know), then let’s be friends.”
“All right, Judge.” Elizabeth smiled. “By the way, I enjoyed your performance.”
“Thanks,” the Judge replied. “I enjoy doing it. Judge Begbie was so much a part of the history of the gold rush that I feel honoured to portray him.”
They began walking towards the church door. “It made me feel a bit funny,” said Elizabeth. “Almost as if you were the real Judge Begbie and this really were Barkerville a century ago.”
The Judge opened the door for her. “A lot of people react that way, Bess. What do you think of Barkerville?”
“This was my first trip,” said Elizabeth. “I’m not really sure. There is too much to take in at once, and some of the exhibits — well, they almost seemed too real. I felt as if I were a ghost, snooping around people’s houses, and that the people themselves might come back at any minute and find me there. I halfway expected to see gunslingers in the main street when I first came through the gate.”
“Oh, no!” said the Judge, seriously. “Judge Begbie didn’t allow any gun-fighting in Barkerville. It may look like a western town in America, but it was very Canadian, even then. Absolutely no gun-slingers were permitted!”
He looked very stern, almost as if he had been personally responsible for establishing law and order in Barkerville. Then he relaxed. “But I do know what you mean. This town affects me the same way. You know, sometimes I get so involved with Judge Begbie — thinking about him, reading about him, researching stories to use in my monologue — that I feel almost as if I am the Judge and that Evan Ryerson is one of those ghosts you talk about. I feel as if I’m just hanging about and peeking in at the Judge’s life but that he is the real person, not me.”
He shook his head. “Fanciful thoughts, aren’t they? Listen, let me get rid of this costume and then I’ll buy you a Coke at the Wake-Up Jake Café. I could do with something cold to drink. Then we can sit and swap impressions of Barkerville in comfort.”
Chapter 3
August 24, 1980
Dear Dad,
If my writing seems a bit funny it’s because I’m writing this on my knees as I sit in the cemetery in Barkerville. I have a special place here, under a big old pine tree, out of the way, where the tourists don’t often come. There is one lonely grave in this spot, but I can’t read what the marker says (except for one big S or maybe one of those funny f’s that they used to make in the old days). The rest of the inscription is weathered and grown over with moss and I haven’t got the heart to scrape it away and see what it says.
I like this spot, and I am spending a lot of time here. It is quiet and peaceful. I bring my book and read (or write letters), and sometimes I snooze. Mom is really busy these days and still very tired when she’s finished work, so I don’t see much of her. She doesn’t mind my spending so much time here. It keeps me out of her hair! Somehow this spot isn’t spooky at all, in spite of it being in a graveyard. I don’t feel nearly as lonely here as I do sitting in the trailer in Wells, so almost every day I get out my bike early in the morning and ride up to Barkerville. Sometimes I go into the town itself, but most of my afternoons are spent right here, under my favourite tree, with a book from the Pacific 66.
I’ve even memorized some of the headstones. Do you know that there are people here who came from all over the world? It is fascinating to read the epitaphs and wonder what they were like and why they came to Barkerville. The graves are so old that some have full grown trees inside the picket fences that enclose them.
Barkerville is a great place! I think I told you about how it made me feel so peculiar the first day I came here. Well, it still gives me the shivers once in a while, but now that I know it better, that feeling has almost gone away. I spend hours looking at the exhibits and wondering what it would have been like to live here when the town was new.
My favourite display is the Bowron house, built in 1898 by William Bowron, the son of one of the Gold Commissioners. There is a beautiful old piano in the house with one of those mannequins playing it. I don’t like the mannequins very much. I’ve found out that they’re made of papier maché, not plaster as I thought at first, but I still don’t like them. The Judge says that six men brought the piano into Barkerville on their backs in the early 1860’s for use in one of the saloons!
