The next day Elizabeth sat among the tourists that crowded the tiny Wesleyan Methodist Church and waited for the Judge to finish his monologue.
It won’t be long now, she thought. The Judge was already telling the story of Cataline, the muleskinner, and how his lands were saved by a timely action of Begbie’s.
Elizabeth had decided to talk to the Judge about what had happened to her yesterday. She had stayed awake last night, worried and unable to sleep, long after her mother had returned to the trailer. The Judge had been in Barkerville for a long time. He, if anyone, would be able to help her understand what had happened in the graveyard — if, in fact, anything had happened and she wasn’t just going crazy.
Staring at the Judge, hoping to catch his eye, she once again had the frightening feeling that the man in the long robes who stood before her was not her friend, Evan, but the real ‘Hanging Judge’ himself. The Judge finally saw her and acknowledged her presence by nodding to her and saying, “Isn’t that a fact, young lady?” after a statement. Elizabeth relaxed.
Come on, Judge, she thought. Finish talking. I need to tell you about the graveyard.
As if on cue, the Judge finished his speech, and threw the courtroom open to questions. Luckily, there were only a few, and soon he was bowing to the applause that shook the foundations of the tiny old building. The audience, content with the performance, slowly made its way through the wooden pews and out of the church. The Judge gathered his books and gavel and got ready to leave. As he came down the aisle towards her, he smiled and called a greeting. “Afternoon, Your Majesty. And how’s the young Bess today?”
“Fine, Judge. You were great, as usual.”
“Thank you.” The Judge sat down on the pew beside her. “Are you sure you’re fine?” he asked. “You look a bit down-in-the-mouth to me.”
“Yes. I’m okay. I was just wondering if . . ..” In spite of herself, Elizabeth felt tears inching their way into her eyes.
“Come on, now.” The Judge’s voice was firm. “You’re not upset because I’m calling you ’Your Majesty’ again, are you? You know that’s just my little joke; a judge’s reverence for a young lady who looks so much like a famous queen.” He reached out a hand and patted her on the shoulder. “Come on, now. Don’t cry. Just let me take off this wig, then tell me all about it.”
Elizabeth grubbed in her pocket for a Kleenex, found a rather sad looking one, and firmly blew her nose, banishing the ready tears. “No. I like your nicknames for me, Judge. It’s not that. I guess I need someone to talk to. Can you listen for a while?”
The Judge’s moustache, freshly waxed for every performance, now drooped slightly in the heat. He placed his heavy horsehair wig on the pew beside him. Small beads of sweat marked where it had framed his face during the performance, and his cheeks were flushed, but he still looked impressive — tall and dignified and every inch a judge.
“Bess, my dear, I’ll listen as long as you want to talk. I know about the disagreement you and your mother had last night.”
Suddenly, Elizabeth didn’t know how to begin.
“No, it’s not that either. It’s . . ..”
The Judge sat patiently, waiting for her to start, but the words just wouldn’t come. Then, gathering her courage, she began, “Judge, did you ever think that you were going crazy?”
The Judge laughed, a great booming laugh that seemed to come from beyond him, from the boisterous, robust days when Barkerville and Judge Begbie were both young. “You ask an actor that?” he said. “Listen, my young friend, when you act, especially when you act three or four times a day, day after day, when you portray a person who is not yourself, you sometimes get very mixed up. Actors often wonder who they really are.
“You see, the characters sometimes spill over into your real life and you find yourself thinking and behaving like them, rather than like yourself. And when you pretend to be a real person, someone who actually existed, like Judge Begbie, the problem becomes worse.
“I know Judge Begbie so well. I know where he lived, what he read, how he spoke, what he liked to drink — and how much! I know him so thoroughly that sometimes I think he’s taken over a part of me. Sometimes I have to stop and say to myself, ’Hey! Did I, Evan, say that, or was it the Judge himself putting words into my mouth?’
“Once in a while I don’t even know for sure just who I am. Judge Begbie was such a powerful person that I’ve had times when I think he’s taking over and shoving Evan aside. Often I wonder if . . . . Yes, Bess. Everyone sometimes thinks they’re going crazy.”
Elizabeth thought she knew her friend fairly well, but he had just shown her a whole new side of himself. She momentarily forgot her own problem, and just sat and stared at him.
“That wasn’t much help, was it?” The Judge smiled. “You ask me to listen to you, and I do all the talking. Well, now that I’ve had my say, do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”
“It was a help, really Judge. Tell me, do you mean that you can actually see Judge Begbie?”
“No,” he replied. “I never quite see him, if you mean the way that people see ghosts. But sometimes I’m sure he’s here when I do my speech. I can feel a . . . a power, I guess, and my act becomes almost not an act. It’s as if I’m the pilot of a plane and suddenly the plane starts flying itself. Once in a while I feel that it isn’t me up there talking to all those tourists, but him, Judge Begbie himself. It can be a bit frightening.”
Elizabeth spoke quickly, afraid that her courage would desert her. “Yesterday, in the graveyard, suddenly everything looked funny. The headstones were new and Chartres Brew’s grave was fresh and hadn’t grown over and all the trees were gone and . . ..” She stopped, blushed.
Then she recovered and continued more slowly.
“Anyway, I had this funny feeling that it was what the graveyard must have looked like years ago when all the trees were cut down to build houses or for firewood.”
She paused, and took a deep breath. “So I thought I’d ask you, and maybe you’d know what happened to me.”
The Judge was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you, Bess,” he said at last. “This town is so full of memories. The very dust in the streets is rich with the long-gone hopes and fears and dreams of the people who used to live here. Look, Barkerville was re-built to give you just that feeling. You walk down the main street and peer into houses that look as if someone just walked out the door and will return at any moment. An open book lies on the table and you can almost see the woman who left her reading to go into the kitchen and start the stew for dinner.
“That’s why we all love Barkerville. Because it’s very real, very dramatic. Because the past is here and now. The present and the past overlap to such an extent that we all have a feeling of awe, a sense of history. Maybe your feeling for the past is greater than other people’s. Maybe your imagination has been so caught by Barkerville that you subconsciously projected your ideas of what the graveyard looked like long ago, and then thought you saw it.”
“But I did see it,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I read the grave markers and they were clear and new. There were no trees on the hillside, I’m sure of that.”
“Easy, Bess. I didn’t say you made it up. I was just trying to give you a logical explanation for what happened. There is another explanation, one that I think is more likely, but it isn’t logical and it isn’t reasonable.”
Elizabeth looked at him. “I think I know,” she said. “You’re going to say that maybe, somehow, I went back in time to when the graveyard was new. I know. I’ve thought of that possibility and it frightens me.”
“Well, perhaps not really back in time, Bess. Maybe you just caught a very powerful memory from someone or something — a glimpse of what someone long ago, long since dead, had seen. I don’t know. I can only make a guess.”
Elizabeth gave a short, strained laugh. “I read a lot of science fiction. Maybe it’s affected my imagination.”
“Perhaps,” said the Judge. “And you’ve just heard my lecture on the impact of Barkerville on people. Barkerville, with its sometimes horrible sense of the past that seems to hang over everything here and to work its way into everyone who stays here for any length of time.
“I don’t have a better answer for you, Bess. I wish I had.”
“That’s all right, Judge. It helped a lot just to be able to talk to you. I don’t feel so frightened now. I think I do know what you mean. I love Barkerville, but sometimes it makes me feel strange.
“You said it yourself. It’s like history right there over your shoulder, watching you and wanting to be, not history, but part of the here and now. It’s as if the old times are jealous of the new, and want to come back and be alive again. It scares me, sometimes.”
“Bess, my dear, it scares me, too.” The judge was serious.
“However, in my judicial wisdom I proclaim that the best cure for the Barkerville blues is a Coke, or maybe one of those new-fangled things called milkshakes, at Wake-Up Jake’s. Followed, of course, by a shot of melodrama at Theatre Royal.”
“You’re right, Judge. And thank you for listening.”
“Thank you, my dear. I appear to be a more proficient talker than listener, though. But come and speak to me if it happens again, will you? I’m always here, if you need me. And Bess, I’m an expert on the Barkerville blues. A real expert!”
Elizabeth answered him slowly. “Thank you, Judge. I’ll remember that. I have a feeling that I’ll need someone to talk to before this year is over.”