It might seem counterintuitive to place the capital of British Columbia on an island thirty miles off the mainland, yet it seemed the thing to do when Fort Victoria was preparing to fend off an American invasion and Vancouver didn’t exist.
Seventy-five years later, the city is an homage to the Mother Country and a haven for British immigrants who want as little as possible to do with the rest of Canada.
One might think Grace would feel quite at home.
Crossing the expanse of lawn, sometimes she thinks she is in Alice In Wonderland, as though Queen Victoria, with her crown, her sceptre and her bronze décolletage were about to screech: Off with her head!
Above her, wisps of wet cloud swirl about the golden statue of Captain George Vancouver, perched atop the octagonal dome of the Legislature building.
Approaching the oak-lined committee room, silver light filters through wet leaded glass, barely illuminating a space not unlike the interior of a cigar humidor.
At a long table sit the three men with sole discretionary power over the legal importation, manufacture and sale of alcohol in the Province of British Columbia. Each man was selected by the Attorney General for his “exemplary character and reputation,” as required in the Government Liquor Act of 1921.
Unnoticed or ignored (perhaps both), Grace takes her place at a student’s desk in the corner, the dunce in the class, and resigns herself to another afternoon of transcribing their self-serving shite.
Today she senses tension in the room—and smells it, thanks to Mr Munn’s imperfect personal habits.
This is the first board meeting since the untimely death of the Attorney General, and Gwendolyn seems to think the LCB is anticipating a big change. Before his sudden passing, Attorney General Cunning installed Clyde Taggart, a political operative and Cunning loyalist, as chairman. Mr Beaven and Mr Munn have disliked Taggart from their first meeting, when he announced his intention to “drain the swamp.”
Grace assumes this to be some sort of metaphor having to do with the inner workings of the department. In her position it would be unwise to inquire further.
She is paid to serve, not to be nosy.
At the head of the table, Clyde Taggart glances at his pocket watch, then rises to his feet with an unlit cigar between his fingers. Impeccably tailored, he has the build of an ex-athlete and is rather handsome despite a cauliflower ear.
The atmosphere is, as usual, less than convivial. Mr Taggart is a man who is used to being disliked. Grace suspects that he sees it as part of the job.
“Gentlemen, before approval of the minutes, after the tragic death of Gordon Cunning I think it behooves us to call for a minute of silence.”
After a lacklustre “Hear! Hear!” Munn and Beaven stand up and fold their hands in front of their watch chains. Grace wonders if it would be respectful or presumptuous of her to stand up as well, but rather than draw attention to herself, she stares at her blank sheet of foolscap, pencil at the ready, like a china figurine.
The silence seems to last a good deal longer than a minute. Outside, raindrops rhythmically tap the leaded glass like the tips of little fingers.
In the foolscap margin, Grace draws a headstone bearing the initials RIP.
Beaven and Munn exchange comradely nods across the table, implying that the death of the Attorney General wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
Ever since the end of Prohibition, the two men have enjoyed a cordial relationship, despite their opposing constituencies. Mr Munn, with his thin white hands and face like a weasel, is on the board of the People’s Prohibition Association. Mr Beaven, whose skin is the colour and texture of melba toast, is a corporate lawyer for the Reifel brothers—rum-runners of long standing who have become rich beyond imagining. Since the plebiscite the two have found common cause: both regard bootlegging as a menace, and both have an interest in obstructing any change to a system that has served them well.
Chairman Taggart clears his throat and calls the meeting to order. Grace readies her pencil. However, before they can move to the first order of business, the door to the committee room opens and a receptionist, after poking her nose through the crack, tiptoes into the room to whisper into the chairman’s ear.
Taggart’s eyebrows narrow. “Oh really? Yes, of course, Miss Witherspoon, please show him in. Gentlemen, it seems we have been favoured with a visit from the acting Attorney General’s office.”
And here it comes: Grace knows perfectly well what is about to happen, having been informed this morning by Gwendolyn, who works in that office and is just as bored with her job.
The unexpected visitor is a gentleman of perhaps forty who might have stepped out of the London Stock Exchange, the sort who carries a furled umbrella and thinks soft collars in the civil service will lead to the downfall of Britain.
Chairman Taggart manages a tight smile. “Gentlemen, we have been flattered with a visit from Mr Bertram Bliss, our deputy minister.”
In the margin, Grace draws a snake.
The two shake hands, outwardly pleasant but wary. Beaven and Munn mutter a greeting, then reseat themselves and light cigarettes. Taggart remains standing; otherwise, the visitor would tower over him.
“And to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr Bliss?” A certain edge underlies the chairman’s smooth baritone.
A practised speaker, Mr Bliss pauses to make momentary eye contact with each gentleman in turn. Impeccably groomed, his skin appears buffed—in fact, he could be a duplicate of himself out of Madame Tussaud’s. Even his moustache could be made of paraffin, there being no evidence of the individual hairs involved.
Mr Bliss speaks the way members do in the Legislature, as though delivering a memorized speech.
“Chairman Taggart. Mr Munn. Mr Beaven. Frightfully sorry to barge in on your deliberations, but Mr Stalker insists that we follow one cardinal rule: before any public announcement is made, departments affected by the decision must be notified. This is, I think, only fair game, would you not agree?”
Mr Beaven and Mr Munn agree, although their enthusiasm is restrained. (“Fair game,” in Canadian usage, is about being sportsmanlike; however, to the British it identifies a grouse that is fat enough to shoot.)
Though the chairman remains outwardly calm, his features have begun to gather at the centre of his face.
Satisfied with his progress so far, Mr Bliss heaves a sigh to indicate sadness. “We in the Attorney General’s office remain in absolute shock over Mr Cunning’s passing.” He turns to the chairman: “Special condolences to you, Mr Taggart, as a colleague and a close friend.”
With a curt nod, Taggart sets fire to his cigar with a silver lighter while the rest of the three-man board respond with nods of sober agreement: Yes indeed, dreadful shock, dreadful shock, simply dreadful.
Bliss shakes his head slowly, as though deep in thought—Such greatness gone forever—then returns to the present. “All the same, as I believe they say in Hollywood, ‘the show must go on.’” He chuckles at his American reference. How contemporary!
“I believe you said you had an announcement,” Chairman Taggart says.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you can kindly make this reasonably short, we do have an agenda.”
Bliss remains as placid as ever. “Quite right, Chairman Taggart, time flies and all that. I shall get straight to the point.”
“Thank you, Mr Bliss.” The chairman smiles with gritted teeth. Grace can see that he suspects something is up.
Mr Bliss exhales through pursed lips, the innocent bringer of bad news.
“Of course it goes without saying that change is never entirely welcome for everyone, and it goes without saying that change in no way indicates dissatisfaction with those persons affected—”
“Yes, yes, it goes without saying. Mr Bliss. You have staked a claim on our attention, now kindly get to the goddamn point.”
“Quite. Just so.” Mr Bliss sighs as though to say, let’s get this over with, and clears his throat.
While Mr Bliss makes his announcement, Grace observes the way Chairman Taggart creates a buffer of smoke between himself and the speaker.
“Tomorrow morning, every newspaper in the province will report that Premier Gulliver has appointed the Honourable Boris Stalker, MLA for Vancouver City, to the position of Attorney General for the Province of British Columbia. I myself am to continue in my capacity as deputy minister. After due consideration, Attorney General Stalker has, in turn, appointed Mr Harlan Crombie to the position of”—Mr Bliss sighs regretfully—“chairman of the Liquor Control Board.” After a slight pause to allow this to sink in, he continues. “In this capacity he will replace our current chairman,” he nods to his left, “Mr Clyde Taggart.”
With a sad smile, he addresses the man at the head of the table: “Of course, it would be an understatement to say that the Attorney General is frightfully grateful for your service. He wishes to schedule a meeting, perhaps later this week, to discuss the future.
“That said, gentlemen, I shall not detain you any longer.”
Mr Taggart quietly sets his cigar on the ashtray rim. Taking advantage of the shocked pause, Mr Bliss eases his way out, like a cat burglar.
“Bliss, you squalid bastard!” Taggart makes a move toward the deputy minister, who hops sharply out the door and shuts it behind him.
Taggart turns back into the room, leans on the table and takes a moment to catch his breath. His teeth are clamped so tight that Grace wonders if his jaw might break.
Miss Witherspoon’s frightened face reappears through a crack in the door: “Mr Chairman, was there anything more—”
“Get out!” And the door slams shut as though blown by a gust of wind.
Seated at her desk in the corner, Grace scans her shorthand notes for errors.
She wonders what Gwendolyn will have to say.
Upon their arrival in Victoria Harbour, Grace and Gwendolyn spent their first few weeks at the YWCA, then took a room at Mrs Croft’s Rooming House for White Women. Mrs Croft was a smug, religious biddy and a vicious bully who opened the doors at seven, locked them again at nine, and any girl locked out could seek other quarters next morning.
And she spied. When Grace came home from work, her undergarments were never folded quite the same way.
So the two began looking for a regular flat, where one could come and go as one pleased—only to have prospective landlords demand proof that two single women in a flat do not intend to run a bawdy house. How is one supposed to prove that?
Miss Carr came as a welcome, if peculiar, exception.
A sturdy woman with watchful eyes, she explained right off that she raised sheep dogs and kept a monkey, and if they objected to monkeys and dogs, then there was really no point in seeing the flat.
The fact that Grace’s family raised sheep in the Lake District elicited a grunt of approval. Gwendolyn wasn’t comfortable with monkeys, having seen them do disgusting things at the London Zoo, but she managed to keep it to herself.
The flat, though small, was clean and had decent furniture, and in any event an eccentric landlady seemed a more attractive proposition than hideous Mrs Croft, let alone a tattooed landlord with duplicate keys.
Once settled in Miss Carr’s boarding house, at Gwendolyn’s insistence the two girls set about attending every mixed social available—Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, even Catholics were not out of bounds.
Grace quickly grew weary of these occasions, and not just because she is plainer and men aren’t keen to look at her—instead, they look past her, as though someone more attractive might be just over her shoulder. At a Methodist gathering, a young man kissed her and slipped his hand around to where it didn’t belong, and not once did he meet her gaze.
She thinks it might be the glasses, but suspects it to be more than that.
Their initial assumption upon arrival was that, in the absence of prospective husbands at home, there would be excellent hunting here, in this forest of men. Now Grace thinks that may have been a mistake. Quantity doesn’t equal quality, and in Victoria the available men seem to be low down, stuck up or Chinese.
During their first week they were warned that Chinatown is a warren of wooden sidewalks with trap doors through which a girl can fall into a cellar, to be made a white slave or a member of some dreadful harem. Some said that pagan rituals take place, where people are hypnotized into doing unspeakable things.
Grace thinks a trip to Chinatown sounds exciting compared to a date with a local gentleman.
Gwendolyn is not discouraged. Bold as brass, she goes to dances at the armoury and the Crystal Garden, or moving pictures at the Royal, or a play at the Capitol, and never without a strong arm to lean on. (At times she dresses more like a flapper than a civil servant.)
For herself, Grace would rather stay home with the dogs, the monkey and Miss Carr.
Stalker Confirmed as Attorney General
Cecil Harmsworth
Staff Writer
The Beacon
Vancouver citizens who are concerned over the current state of the city will welcome the appointment of Boris Stalker to the position of Attorney General of the Province of British Columbia, to replace the late Gordon Cunning.
As Reverend McDougall of the People’s Prohibition Association was heard to comment: “Praise the Lord, the province is back on track.”
Mr Stalker’s entire career could be described as a “crusade” against alcohol, drugs, gambling, vice and unchecked immigration.
As commandant of the Vancouver Frontiersmen, he played a prominent role, at some personal risk, in pacifying left-wing radicals during the General Strike of 1918. As a member of the Asiatic Exclusion League and the Citizens’ League, he spearheaded the campaign that brought about the historic Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923.
As a Vancouver alderman, Stalker drew praise from groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union for his tenacity and zeal in patrolling the city’s drinking places with an eye to infractions. At City Hall, with reporters present, he regularly dominated council meetings with reports of gambling, brawls, prostitution and, on one occasion, plying schoolchildren with whisky.
Continued Reverend McDougall, “With Stalker at the helm, we are on the path to reform.”
An Invitation
On Friday, September 11, 1925, an informal reception will be held at the Imperial Palace of the Kanadian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 1690 Matthews Avenue West, at 8 PM.
You are personally invited to attend. On presentation of this letter at the door, the holder will be conduced into the Aulik of the Grand Goblin, Maj Luther Forrest, who will be present to welcome visitors and to share insights and observations as to the objects, ideals and purposes of the Vancouver Klavern.
Klaliff Ambrose Walker
Imperial Officer of the Provincial Kloncilium
God Save the King
Keep Kanada British