The Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins - HTML preview

Fifth Scene--The Boat-House

 

 Chapter 16.

Once more the open sea--the sea whose waters break on the shores of Newfoundland! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The vessel is plainly visible through the open doorway of a large boat-house on the shore--one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the coast of the island.

The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter's table near him lies a strange object to be left in such a place--a woman's veil.

 What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?

The vessel is the Amazon--dispatched from England to receive the surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meeting has been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has driven the ship out of her course. Taking advantage, on the third day, of the first returning calm, the commander of the Amazon has anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara's veil.

And who is the man si tting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the ship's company. In other words--John Want.

 Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.

 "Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor. "Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you."

With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it. The ship's cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions in trouble. On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the North Pole.

"If I had only known"--thus runs the train of thought in the mind of John Want--"if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the North Pole. I was very happy keeping up everybody's spirits at the North Pole. Taking one thing with another, I think I must have been very comfortable at the North Pole--if I had only known it. Another man in my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was rather a sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs, perpetual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it's all one to me--I don't grumble."

 "Have you done cording that box?"

 This time the voice is a voice of authority--the man at the doorway is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own cheerful way.

 "I've done it as well as I can, sir--but the damp of this place is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs--I only say our ropes."

 Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish for the humor of John Want.

 "Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue from the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve to be sent back again."

"I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I was sent back again; I hope I'm thankful; but I don't like to hear the North Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the North Pole--and it's very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your bone-soup, sir? I do. It mightn't have been strong; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went down. Was it you that was acoughing so long last night, sir? I don't presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad to know it wasn't you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket."

"You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden."

 The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to John Want.

"I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir," said the ship's cook. "But you mark my words -there must have been a deal of troublesome work with the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden."

 Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.

 Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor outside.

 "Where are the ladies?" he asked.

 "Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in."

 "Is Miss Burnham with her?"

 "No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard the young lady asking after you, sir."

"Asking after me?" Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the words. He added, in lower and graver tones, "You had better tell Miss Burnham you have seen me here."

 The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the boat-house.

Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.

On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the Amazon, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour. She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been dismissed--that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind--exactly reflecting similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mind--which so distressed the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky. Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.

On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged--and the passengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the ship had anchored--now, when officers and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their disposal--Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance of the truth?

 These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion in Clara's mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it--at once honorably and mercifully--was more than Crayford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford's face.

 "Have you seen anything of Clara?" he asked. "Is she still on the beach?"

"She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. "I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her."

"Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to separate ships. What could have led her to suspect that they had come together?"

"She was firmly persuaded, William, that they would come together when the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on ice-bergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance. I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, 'While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!"

 "Good God!" cried Crayford; "I warned him myself, almost in those very words, the last time I saw him!"

"Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you have just told me. She will not take it for what it is--a startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in her. So long as you don't actually know that Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour's hand, deny what she says--mislead her for her own sake--dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God!" She stopped, and looked round nervously at the doorway. "Hush!" she whispered. "Do as I have told you. Clara is here."

Chapter 17.

Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the boat-house, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was standing.

"There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on board the ship," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford's heart to see. "You are Lucy's husband, and you have an interest in me for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that account from giving me pain: I can bear pain. Friend and brother! will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank?"

The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook Crayford's selfpossession at the outset. He answered her in the worst possible manner; he answered evasively.

 "My dear Clara," he said, "what have I done that you should suspect me of deceiving you?"

She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara's arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of speaking of other things.

 "Any instructions from the ship, Steventon?" he asked, approaching the officer.

"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send another boat ashore. In the meantime here are some refreshments for the passengers. The ship is in a state of confusion; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably here."

 Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took her opportunity of silencing Clara next.

 "Come, my dear," she said. "Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen come in."

Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had in view to be silenced in that way. "I will help you directly," she answered--then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name was Steventon.

 "Can you spare me a few minutes?" she asked. "I have something to say to you."

 "I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham."

Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs. Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whispered to her, "Don't be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him; his discretion is to be depended on."

 Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.

"I will not keep you long," she said. "I will promise not to distress Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable of self-control. I won't ask you to go back to the story of your past sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing -I mean about what happened at the time when the exploring party was dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind. Frank cast the lot to go." She paused, shuddering. "And Richard Wardour," she went on, "cast the lot to remain behind. On your honor, as officers and gentlemen, is this the truth?"

 "On my honor," Crayford answered, "it is the truth."

 "On my honor," Steventon repeated, "it is the truth."

 She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she spoke again.

"You both drew the lot to stay in the huts," she said, addressing Crayford and Steventon. "And you are both here. Richard Wardour drew the lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to be with Frank's on the list of the missing?"

 The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively.

 "It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, "that the two men were missing together because their names happen to come together on the list."

 Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-considered reply.

 "Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the huts?"

 Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a moment's hesitation!

 "Yes!" she said. "Wardour is missing from the huts."

 Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She turned to Steventon.

 "I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?"

She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.

 Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.

"You hear?" she said. "It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you call 'Accident,' what I call 'Fate,' brought Richard Wardour and Frank together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.

 "Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?" she asked.

 "I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied.

 "Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as 'The Second Sight'?"

 "Yes."

 "Do you believe in the Second Sight?"

 Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.

 "I don't know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the Highlands," he said. "As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving the subject any serious consideration."

"I won't put your credulity to the test," Clara proceeded. "I won't ask you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have just acknowledged--and more than that. How did the two missing men come to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or were they deliberately left behind on the march?"

 Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point which they had now reached.

 "Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief," he said. "How are we to answer you?"

"Your brother officers who were members of the party must have told you what happened," Clara rejoined. "I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to tell me what they told you."

 Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.

"The luncheon is not unpacked yet," she said. "Come, Clara! this is our business, and the time is passing."

 "The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer," Clara answered. "Bear with my obstinacy," she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford's shoulder. "Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You have always been the kindest of friends--don't begin to be cruel to me now!"

 The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to the sailor's heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a glimpse of the truth.

 "On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. He fell behin d the rest from fatigue."

 "Surely they waited for him?"

"It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favorite. They waited half a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength."

 There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips.

 It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on hearing more.

 She questioned Steventon next.

 "Did Frank go on again after the half-day's rest?" she asked.

 "He tried to go on--"

 "And failed?"

 "Yes."

 "What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they desert Frank?"

 She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into answering her plainly. He was a young man--he fell into the snare that she had set for him.

"Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly. "You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring party."

There Steventon stopped--conscious, on his side, that he had said too much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet--referring to the volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.

"What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank's sake?" she said to Crayford. "Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did you never hear any angry words pass between them?"

 There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely hint.

"My dear child!" she said; "how can you expect him to remember that? There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up together, and all weary of each other's company, no doubt."

 "Plenty of quarrels!" Crayford repeated; "and every one of them made up again."

"And every one of them made up again," Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. "There! a plainer answer than that you can't wish to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper--Clara won't help me. William, don't stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don't handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some lunch!"

She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.

"'A time may come when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' Oh, Frank! Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart?"

 Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.

 "Anything there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach."

 "I can see nothing either, Lucy."

"And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the view from this door."

 "There is something dreadful! I feel it, though I see nothing. I feel it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny light. I don't know what it is. Take me away! No. Not out on the beach. I can't pass the door. Somewhere else! somewhere else!"

 Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boathouse. She spoke to her husband.

 "See where that door leads to, William."

Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate inclosure, half garden, half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging up to dry. No other objects were visible--not a living creature appeared in the place. "It doesn't look very inviting, my dear," said Mrs. Crayford. "I am at your service, however. What do you say?"

 She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took Crayford's arm, and clung to him.

"I'm frightened, dreadfully frightened!" she said to him, faintly. "You keep with me--a woman is no protection; I want to be with you." She looked round again at the boat-house doorway. "Oh!" she whispered, "I'm cold all over--I'm frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard! Come into the yard!"

 "Leave her to me," said Crayford to his wife. "I will call you, if she doesn't get better in the open air."

 He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them.

 "Mr. Steventon, do you understand this?" asked Mrs. Crayford. "What can she possibly be frightened of?"

She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house.

 In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door.

Chapter 18.

The man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal; his head was bare; his long gray hair was torn and tangled; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He stood in the doorway, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at the well-spread table like a hungry dog.

 Steventon spoke to him.

 "Who are you?"

 He answered, in a hoarse, hollow voice,

 "A starving man."

 He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sinking under fatigue.

 "Throw me some bones from the table," he said. "Give me my share along with the dogs."

There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors who were passing the door of the boat-house at the time.

 "Give the man some bread and meat," he said, "and wait near him."

The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that hung over his shoulder; the other he devoured voraciously. Steventon questioned him.

 "Where do you come from?"

 "From the sea."

 "Wrecked?"

 "Yes."

 Steventon turned to Mrs. Crayford.

"There may be some truth in the poor wretch's story," he said. "I heard something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man?"

The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an effort to collect his thoughts  -to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild as his looks.

 "I can't tell you," he said. "I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. I can't get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked? When was I first adrift in the boat? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and sleep? When did the gnawi ng in my breast, and the burning in my head, first begin? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can't think; I can't sleep; I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you baiting me with questions for? Let me eat!"

 Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their officer to add a little drink to his meal.

 "We've got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to him?"

 "Certainly!"

He took the bottle fiercely, as he had taken the food, drank a little, stopped, and considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, carefully drank half of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wallet along with the food.

 "Are you saving it up for another time?" said Steventon.

 "I'm saving it up," the man answered. "Never mind what for. That's my secret."

 He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and noticed Mrs. Crayford for the first time.

 "A woman among you!" he said. "Is she English? Is she young? Let me look closer at her."

 He advanced a few steps toward the table.

 "Don't be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon.

 "I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at first--he interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!"

 He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.

 "Well?" said Steventon.

 He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.

 "No!" he said to himself, "that's not her face. No! not found yet."

 Mrs. Crayford's interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him. "Who is it you want to find?" she asked. "Your wife?"

 He shook his head again.

 "Who, then? What is she like?"

 He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.

"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad face--with kind, tender eyes--with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander, wander--restless, sleepless, homeless--till I find her! Over the ice and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find her!"

 He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go out.

 At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.

 "I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. "Who is that?"

The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed her.

 "It's only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered--"shipwrecked and starving."

"Mad?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. "Am I in my right senses?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. "Richard Wardour!" he cried, in a voice of fury. "Alive!--alive, to answer for Frank!"

 The man struggled. Crayford held him.

 "Where is Frank?" he said. "You villain, where is Frank?"

 The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly,

 "Villain? and where is Frank?"

 As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurr