“That’s it.”
“Seems…well, very simple.”
“Sometimes the simplest things are the best. And as I said, nothing would make me happier than for you to never have need of a signal like this. But there is no harm in knowing it.”
The women turned to discuss, and she was pleased to see that a few even made the decision to go up to the deck right away, newly emboldened. She did not want them hiding for the entire journey. She was glad she’d done it, though she did have to admit, there was a kernel of truth to Caprice’s accusation. Some of the more innocent women had probably never had cause to think ill of others, regardless of sex, and now they might. But most women—certainly Dove, who’d been a battlefield nurse, and Irene, who’d lived in the wild with trappers and voyageurs—had lived in the world long enough to know and fear the evil that certain men could do. Siobhan had probably seen more than any of the rest of them, walking among men as if she were one. Someday soon, Virginia would ask for her stories.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and saw Irene, her face serious. She was surprised to realize she and the translator had not even exchanged words yet; there were so many women, and Irene kept to herself, but there was no real excuse for not getting to know the women better, especially one whose skills would be so essential.
“Irene! Can I help you?”
She put up her palm in the no motion. When Virginia clearly understood her, her face brightened, but she did not speak.
“I can’t? So…I’m sorry…” Confused, she did not know what to say next.
Irene made a gesture Virginia didn’t recognize, a circle with her hand, gesturing toward herself and away in a kind of loop.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Irene repeated the gesture, again silent. A creeping dread flowed through Virginia.
“Irene, are you choosing not to speak?”
She used the gesture that meant no, and the creeping dread inside Virginia blossomed into something darker, larger.
“Can you speak?”
Irene repeated the no motion and let her mouth fall open. Virginia only caught a glimpse of what was there—or rather, wasn’t—and had to turn away in horror.
Irene had no tongue. Most of it, if not all, had been cut out.
“I’m sorry,” said Virginia, mumbling the apology down at the wooden boards of the cabin floor. “I’m sorry.”
Feelings warred within her. Disgust and horror at whoever had done this to Irene. Anger that Brooks hadn’t known—had he?—that the translator he’d hired was mute. And a sinking, spiraling sense of foreboding that the woman they’d planned to depend on for communication with any natives could not speak a single word out loud.
Irene tapped on her shoulder again, and Virginia forced herself to look up. She’d been able to face the woman just fine before she’d known of her injury; as the leader, it was her responsibility to accept and adapt to the change. She wondered how many of the other women knew.
“Yes?” she asked, willing herself to be open.
Irene used the help gesture, then perfectly mimed drawing back a bow and arrow, then picking up and hauling the animal her imaginary bow and arrow had slain.
“Help hunt?”
Irene nodded.
“We’re going to need that,” said Virginia, half to herself. “When we get to the ice.”
Irene pointed down at the deck emphatically.
“Now?”
She nodded, mimed herself drawing the bow again, then touched Virginia’s nearest hand.
“You want to teach us to hunt? Ah. Can you shoot too?”
Irene nodded fiercely, clearly happy that Virginia was catching on.
“We could have lessons. While we sail. You can teach the other women. I don’t know who’s able and who’s not, but all the firearms in the world won’t help us in unschooled hands.”
The mute woman gestured help enthusiastically, and while it wasn’t what Virginia had intended the motion to be used for, she understood Irene’s use of it perfectly.
“Thank you,” said Virginia. There were so many other things she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure how to say them. She would need time to decide.
Irene pointed to her and made another motion: with a flat palm, she touched the tips of her fingers to her lips and gestured outward, almost like blowing a kiss.
“What does that motion mean? I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Irene gestured as if giving a gift, moving her hands outward from her chest toward Virginia.
“Giving? Gift?” guessed Virginia. It was like a parlor game but the strangest one she’d ever experienced. How was she supposed to know what the other woman wanted?
Irene nodded. Then she pointed to Virginia, at Virginia’s mouth, and cupped her ear.
“You want a response. If you give…give to me. So you give me something, and I say…thank you?”
Irene grinned broadly and nodded once more.
“It means thank you? This?” And she repeated the motion, moving her fingers outward from her lips.
Irene’s smile was all the answer she needed.
The sooner they could learn how to communicate with Irene, the better. There was so much they had to learn and not that long to learn it.
Even with that small satisfaction, Virginia could feel the beginning of a panic welling within her. The reality of Christabel’s death was settling in, and now this. There would be so many other surprises, so many other things she couldn’t anticipate. Any one of them could spell disaster.
She needed to get away, just for a moment. She nodded her farewell to Irene, who stepped back, head low.
A kernel of an idea sparked in Virginia’s head. She ducked back into the women’s cabin to grab her pack, the precious few items she’d brought on the journey for her own use, and headed for the deck.
There was nowhere aboard ship she could enjoy true solitude, but in the inhospitably windy conditions of the prow, she was able to crouch against the rail. Working carefully with trembling fingers, she spread open the first of Lady Franklin’s letters and read it eagerly to herself.
Dear Miss Reeve,
So you have passed the first month of your excursion. I imagine it has not been easy. No, I do not have to imagine—I know it has been hell. Do not forget that I traveled a great deal, both with and without my husband’s company, and I know the million awful sins that travel into the wilderness visits on a person. At least in the frozen North, you are less likely to have your provisions swarmed by rats. Once on the Nile, my flatboat was so overrun by rats, they ate away the greater part of my maid’s quilt during the night. Filthy little beasts. Whatever the demons of your journey so far have been, I hope rats have not been among them.
This first letter is to encourage you, Miss Reeve. Your travels have just begun. Though misery may be your constant companion, it is my fervent wish that hope rides just as close to you and your company. Whatever your personal feelings at this time, they are, in the main, irrelevant. You must keep them to yourself. Clutch them under your coat like you would a precious trinket or a spy’s message, not to be thieved. Especially if they are doubts. Let no one see.
You alone are the leader of this expedition. At this moment, a man might be at the helm, but your mind, your sense of right, propels the ship forward. Soldiers and sailors, men and women, all aboard look to you.
Do not disappoint them. Do not disappoint me.
Sincerely,
J
Virginia put the letter away, fighting the wind to fold it back into a rough square and slide it back into its envelope, then stood for a moment in the silence. It was not truly silent, of course. She could hear the low-pitched shouts of men elsewhere on deck, calling, responding. The ship had its own voice too, creaking its many discomforts as its masts and sails captured the power of the wind,
as its precious wooden hull fought its way north in the cold water. When she thought about it, how narrow the division was that protected them from disaster. A few feet of wood, that was all. Like the narrow wheels of the wagons that rode west, like the thin walls of a cabin in the dead cold of winter mountains, the barrier here between life and death was too fragile to bear thinking about.
All you could do was thank God that there was a barrier and do your best to stay on the right side.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Virginia
Sierra Nevada Mountains
1846
Virginia fell a little bit in love with Emmanuel Ames the moment they met, when he lifted her thin, wasted body in his arms as if she were something precious. Only dimly aware of him in the beginning, as her legs swayed and dangled limply above the snowy ground, she came into full consciousness already held by him, his body warming hers everywhere they touched.
When he proposed a unique partnership between them six months later, how could she have said no? What she needed then, above all else, was escape. Ames offered it. In the months following the Very Bad Thing, she refused to be a prop for her stepfather’s misguided political ambitions. They shouldn’t be out in the world, flaunting the lives they’d all clung to so tightly. Saving his life had apparently not given her a say in how he spent it, but she could at least choose not to give any more of her own life in service of his.
She did not even hesitate before saying yes to Ames. She hadn’t known what she was getting into, that was true, but he’d never given her cause to regret it.
She’d loved him, in her way, and she knew he’d loved her, but not how everyone assumed. She’d met his wife, Gloria, a true beauty with hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing, and she liked her. Gloria seemed to like her too. Sometimes Virginia thought Gloria was the only person, man or woman, stranger or friend, who didn’t suspect Virginia of slipping her naked form into Ames’s sleeping furs at night.
Virginia knew what part of a man went between the legs of a woman. She’d seen and heard it all on the trail, where people seemed to forget about the very idea of keeping things private. Possibly because privacy was hard to come by, but possibly because they had decided that privacy, like the other trappings of civilization, was no longer as important as they’d once thought.
Some corner of her wondered, yes, what it would be like to physically unite with Ames. But he was far too important to her to try. Much of what she loved about him was his utter fidelity to his wife when men all around them treated vows like kindling twigs, no good but for burning up. To her, he was alluring because he was upright. It was his very untouchability that made her want to touch him, and if he’d let her, she wouldn’t have wanted to anymore.
She had never told anyone this, partly because she was afraid she’d be judged for it—was this how normal people felt, or was she an aberration?—and partly because there was simply no one to tell.
Later, she and Ames were partners, but that first time, he had been her rescuer. She still remembered that feeling, unmoored but still secure, aloft in his arms. Free of the earth as if she were floating. As if nothing, no worldly concerns, could touch her anymore.
Until the first shivers of sensation began to tingle in her neglected limbs, for a long, not unwelcome moment, she thought it was just like being dead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Virginia
Aboard the Doris
June 1853
After two weeks on the Doris, Virginia was torn. They were well underway now, settled into a routine, and the crew still viewed the women with disdain and ignorance. After Christabel’s fall, some had even begun to cross themselves when a woman drew near. But perhaps that was safer, she thought, if it kept the two groups separate. She was otherwise satisfied with the progress they were making toward Repulse Bay—they were on course, so far—and with the women’s preparations for launching onto the ice when the time came.
Only the captain had exchanged more than half a dozen words with her, but his goodwill was far and away the most important. When they could, she and Doro would take him aside to discuss what they all knew of the land and sea, comparing maps of Franklin’s route to the route Lady Franklin had given them to search, the area where she was sure the entire party could still be found. Alive, she’d said she hoped, though Virginia wondered how long such a practical woman could truly sustain such an impractical hope.
The more she got to know Captain Malcolm, the more he reminded her of Ames, which surprised her. They didn’t look anything alike: Malcolm was tall, broad, and dark, while Ames had been wiry and pale as birch bark, surprisingly thin in his arms and legs despite his strength.
But there was something about the captain’s apparent calm that spoke to her. Ames had had that same quality. No matter what came to pass on the trail, Ames had been a reassuring presence. Virginia had seen dozens of men begin to turn on one another, seeking to blame and even punish others for their own foibles, but when Ames stepped in between the potential combatants, their anger drained away like so much water on the salt flats west of Bonneville.
Because of his careful, thoughtful way of speaking and his ability to remain still in chaos, she believed that Captain Malcolm probably had the same ability. She believed it up until the first time he failed her.
The captain was escorting Virginia and Doro back to the women’s cabin after one of their discussions. He’d thawed toward her somewhat but never sought her out and only seemed comfortable talking with her when Doro was present. He was obviously trying to keep his distance. There were many reasons one might do so, thought Virginia, and she wondered which was his. She might or might not figure it out before they reached Repulse Bay, she decided. She had plenty more pressing matters on her mind.
As they passed the mess, Doro said, “There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you, Captain. Why do your men eat with plate?”
Virginia had noticed it too: every man on the Doris, from cabin boys to the captain himself, ate with sterling silver cutlery. She and the women ate with battered old forks, tossed into a heap for washing after they were done, and retrieved another fork from a similar heap when it was time to eat again.
“Ah,” the captain said, “that was a gift. From those who hired us to transport your party.”
“Some gift,” laughed Doro.
“You sound skeptical, but it truly is. No matter what does or doesn’t happen on this journey, these men have been compensated more than they might have made from their lays in a whaling season.”
“Lays?”
“On a whaler, the compensation depends on the haul. Everyone receives their portion—their lays—from the harpooner to the first mate.” He gestured toward the men on the deck above them, unseen, bustling, and tending to keep the Doris moving northward. “Loyalty may not come cheap, but it can absolutely be bought.”
Doro frowned. “I still think it’s an odd thing to pay with.”
“Here, yes. But not for the British. On a naval vessel, officers have silver, even in the Arctic.”
Virginia chimed in, “Seems a waste to fancy up one’s plate for tinned stew and a few morsels of seal liver to ward off scurvy.”
Meeting her gaze in the shadowed hallway, the captain cocked his head as he answered. “Don’t underestimate how much it matters to people to feel human.”
“I know people,” she said defensively. “I’ve gotten hundreds of them safe where they needed to go.”
“So I’ve heard,” he replied.
A sailor squeezed by them in the hall, and she fell silent for a moment. They stood at the open door of the women’s cabin, the happy chatter of its inhabitants audible. She found herself highly conscious of how near she stood to the captain, though of course the choice was not hers. The tight space left nowhere else to stand.
Instead of moving away, she forged ahead. “I suppos
e if you’d stayed in the seminary, become a preacher, you’d have done the same.”
“The same?”
“Guided people to where they needed to go.”
He gave a rare smile and nodded at that, an acknowledgment. But almost immediately after, she saw something else clouding his face. The smile faded. His eyes went to a spot some distance behind Virginia and Doro, and he said, “What is it, Mate?”
“Captain,” said Keane, his voice overly loud in the small space. “I regret to tell you some men have reported belongings missing since these women boarded ship.”
The captain shifted uncomfortably, his eyes gliding from the mate to Virginia and back again. Doro was standing in the doorway of the women’s cabin, but Virginia could hear that the hubbub in the room had subsided. The women were no longer talking, only listening.
“What kind of belongings?” asked Virginia.
“Small things, mostly,” Keane said, still addressing the captain. “Spare pair of socks, pouch of tobacco. But today, two men reported their cutlery missing.”
“Heavens,” Virginia said. “That, I’m sorry to hear.”
Keane did not look at her, but the captain did.
Captain Malcolm asked her, “Have you had any of that happen?”
“I don’t think so,” Virginia said slowly, but when she looked through the door of the cabin at the gathering women, she saw she’d answered too soon. Several glanced at one another, their gazes veiled. She could not miss the import of those glances. Clearly, some of them were missing items, though they’d said nothing about it.
She felt a heavy slug of worry in her stomach. If they hadn’t told her about this, what else weren’t they telling her?
She also didn’t like how Keane’s eyes looked past her to rake the women’s cabin, taking in every detail.
“We’re quite crowded down here,” she said, struggling to keep her voice pleasant. “Could we take this discussion up on deck?”
“No,” said Keane, at the same moment as Captain Malcolm said, “Of course,” and Virginia watched the tension crackle between them for a moment before the captain spoke, saying, “As you wish, Miss Reeve.”
The Arctic Fury Page 16