We Hear the Dead

by Dianne K. Salerni

  At this revelation, I fell into such a state of fevered agitation that the Turners became alarmed. I locked myself into my bedroom with the unread letters; I sobbed until I was sick and refused to eat or drink. I burrowed into my bed and would not come out, weeping for hours without speaking and ignoring Mrs. Turner’s anxious attempts to comfort me. After two days, my tutor and her husband threw up their hands in surrender and telegraphed my family in New York, requesting that someone come to fetch me. Mother and Kate arrived as soon as they could, and after failing to cajole me into a functioning state, they decided to take me with them back to the city.

  “Only Maggie,” remarked Kate, “needs to leave the country for the city to regain her health.”

  I had come to abhor country living, and only the unwavering belief that Elisha was going to return this summer and find me hard at work at my studies had sustained me. Now that this idyllic vision of our reunion had crumbled, I fell to pieces as well.

  “He is dead,” I cried piteously on Kate’s shoulder during the interminable carriage ride to the Philadelphia train station. “I know he is dead!”

  “He is not dead, Maggie!” my sister reprimanded me. “He knew that he might be gone two years. He said so when he talked of provisioning his ship. Did you not listen to him?”

  “I listened. But I refused to hear anything that did not have him back in my arms in a year.” I pressed my sodden handkerchief to my face. “I couldn’t bear it, Kate. I can’t bear it now! Another year!”

  “Does he expect you to stay in Crooksville for another entire year?” demanded Mother. “You would be happier living with us!”

  “I can’t live with Leah!” I wailed. “He doesn’t want me with Leah!”

  My mother sighed. “Those two and their silly feud!”

  I turned back to Kate and grasped her hands between my own. “He could be dead, Kate!” I insisted, pleading with her. She knew what I was asking her. I could see it in the way her eyes darted from side to side, trying to escape my gaze.

  Finally, she sighed and looked at me directly. “He is not dead, Maggie. I am sure of it.”

  I let out a breath of relief, followed by an intake of shuddering realization. “You know!” I gasped. “You know! What have you seen?”

  “When did you start believing I have the sight?”

  “When did you start hesitating to tell me what you’ve seen?” I countered.

  Kate shook her head at me, looking distressed and wary. “I do not believe Elisha will die in the Arctic. I cannot tell you any more.”

  “Cannot or will not?” I demanded.

  “My vision is unclear,” she insisted. “I only feel certain that he will return from this trip. I cannot give you any reason.”

  She was lying. I knew she was, and I still did not press her. For I was wise enough to know even in my state of hysteria that if she had seen something worse than his dying in the Arctic, I was not strong enough to hear it.

  ***

  My stay in New York was destined to be brief this time. Mr. Henry Grinnell, the sponsor of Elisha’s expedition and guardian of my living allowance, liked me best in the backcountry of Pennsylvania, buried under a mound of schoolbooks. It did not take long for him to discover my presence in the city and ply his influence to reinstate my exile.

  As usual, the son Cornelius was delegated to the dirty work, and it was from him that I received the first warning letter. His first sentence caused my heart to rise up in my throat with panic, but upon reading further, I realized that there was no cause for any more alarm than we already endured.

  Dear Miss Fox,

  I am sorry to be writing you with an unhappy development that may cause you grief, but it is my sad duty to break this news before you read about it in the newspapers. Remains of the Franklin Expedition have been discovered by the Canadian explorer John Rae on the Boothia Peninsula of northern Canada, and it appears that all of the English explorers are dead. I am further distressed to explain to you that this final trace of the ill-fated group is far to the south of the route taken by the Advance, and it is now clear that Dr. Kane is searching in the wrong place.

  As there will undoubtedly be increased speculation on the condition of Dr. Kane’s expedition, I urge you to withdraw to your quiet country retreat, the better to escape the hurtful and ill-informed opinions of the newspapers.

  After all, you and I are in accord regarding our belief that Dr. Kane will safely return from his explorations. When this happy event does occur, I would not like him to think that I allowed you to be remiss in your studies during his absence.

  Your humble servant,

  Cornelius Grinnell

  I was not as ignorant as Mr. Cornelius Grinnell assumed. I knew the location of the Boothia Peninsula. The charted regions of the Arctic had long since been burned into my memory. I quite understood, from the moment I read the name Boothia, that Elisha’s expedition would find no trace of Franklin in northern Greenland or any island thereabouts.

  What I also understood was this: if the discovery had been made a year earlier, in time to inform Elisha before he passed beyond the areas of human habitation, he still would not have turned back. This expedition was never about Franklin, not really, no matter how the men who had planned, financed, and executed it pretended otherwise to themselves and to others. It was about competition and recognition and, as Kate had so nastily put it, about “naming frozen bits of wasteland.” And therefore, the fate of the Franklin party upset me less than Cornelius Grinnell thought it might, because I had never expected it to divert Elisha one degree from what he really wanted to do.

  In my reply, I thanked Cornelius for his concern and assured him that I fully understood the implications of this discovery, but I also knew that it had no bearing on the state of the second Grinnell Expedition, hundreds of miles to the north. Furthermore, as politely as I could, I reminded him that in fifteen months I had only twice left Crooksville to visit my family. Surely, Elisha would not wish me to neglect my own mother!

  A second letter followed fast upon the heels of my reply. Cornelius explained that his father was greatly concerned about the grim reports trickling into the newspapers as more details of Franklin’s last days became known. Both father and son wanted me tucked away in Crooksville as soon as I could possibly arrange it, to shield my delicate sensibilities from the sordid truth about those wretched and desperate men.

  In fact, I already knew that members of the Franklin crew had resorted to eating the flesh of their own dead in a fruitless attempt to avoid starvation. I had too many friends in the newspaper business to have escaped that unpleasant knowledge. I knew, also, that with Elisha’s ship overdue and assumedly trapped in the ice, speculation was rife about whether he and his crew would, this winter, be reduced to the same depravity.

  The Grinnells, in their paternal way, wished to shield me from this conjecture. But I was a practical girl and not given to passing judgment on people whose dire circumstances I could scarcely imagine. I am afraid my opinion on the matter was sharply divided, depending on who was doing the eating and who was doing the dying.

  However, one fact was inescapable. Mr. Henry Grinnell was, for now, in charge of my living expenses, and if he desired that I return to Crooksville, then it would behoove me to comply.

  Still, my willful nature led me to concoct one small rebellion. I wrote to the Grinnells that I would gladly return to Crooksville as requested, after I traveled to Rochester for the wedding of a dear family friend.

  ***

  It was only a slight untruth. Although he and I had spent several years growing up together while I was a boarder in his home, I had never considered Amy Post’s son Donald “a dear friend.” But I would not submit completely to these men who were trying to confine me in obscurity. Thus, I accompanied Mother and Kate to Rochester, where we watched a quiet and subdued Quaker ceremony, with the emphasis
on quiet, and there was nothing that could be described as ceremonial at all.

  The couple merely stood before a handful of close friends and kin and, after a suitably long and contemplative silence, expressed aloud their wish to be joined in marriage. There was no minister to sanctify the union, only the good wishes of any person present who wished to speak. This was marriage in the old way, the common-law manner, which Quakers still practiced.

  It was a bittersweet event for me. Ill-complexioned Donald Post was married, and not even to a lumpish fright like Miss Clementine Walters. The sweet-natured Post bride was a lovely auburn-haired beauty, scarcely eighteen years old.

  And here I was, just a few months away from my twenty-first birthday, living an enforced exile from my family, with no prospect of marriage unless the cruel Arctic ice spared the lives of its newest batch of victims.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Maggie

  I returned for a third time to Crooksville, despondent, reluctant, and more than a trifle resentful. I spent long hours of the journey contemplating the fate, not of Sir Franklin, but of his widow. In 1845 her husband had left her for the arms of the cruel mistress of the North, the elusive Arctic Passage, and only now, nearly ten years later, did she finally ascertain that which her heart must have known all along. Would nine years find me forgotten in Crooksville, fluent in seven languages and composing my own music for the piano, a used-up and faded old maid still waiting for the return of my love?

  As it turned out, that was not going to be a possibility. Waiting for me upon my return to the Turner house was a letter anxiously held in my tutor’s hands, her curiosity barely restrained. Clearly, from the markings, it had originated from the Kane household at Rensselaer.

  Naïvely, I was excited by this, my first contact with Elisha’s family. I opened it with expectations of commiseration in this time of great apprehension. Having been amply warned by Miss Leiper, I should have known better.

  Dear Miss Fox,

  I am writing to you at the behest of Mr. Henry Grinnell, who manages the funds held in trust for you. The monies placed in Mr. Grinnell’s care will soon be exhausted, and as the protracted absence of Dr. Kane has extended the duration of his guardianship, Mr. Grinnell has sought my recommendation on the matter.

  After due consideration I have decided that in deference to the affection I feel for my brother, I will donate my own personal funds to the cause that he espoused: the redemption of a young lady by providing her with the means of leading an honest life and resisting the temptations that beset a poor girl with a pretty face and an already disreputable association. I am certain you will find great relief in this safeguard to your comfortable home and education, but now that I am cograntor of your trust, I will remind you that as a dependent of my brother’s kind charity your expenses should be subjected to restraint. As you are neither relation nor mistress to Dr. Kane, you of course realize that this generosity must in due time end and apply yourself to that eventuality.

  In the meantime, I would like an itemized account of your expenditures since June of 1853, which you can forward to me through your regular correspondence with Mr. Grinnell.

  Your servant,

  Robert Kane

  “Is something amiss?” inquired the shrewd Mrs. Turner, watching my face closely.

  I could not have prevented the flush that burned on my cheeks, but I called upon all the control I had learned in many years of deceit to look up from this letter with an expression of serenity. Even in a moment of acute humiliation my instinct for self-preservation led me to understand I could not let Mrs. Turner know her income was in jeopardy. “Not at all,” I said lightly. “Just an amiable letter from Dr. Kane’s brother, inquiring after my well-being in light of the recent unpleasant developments in the North. He also asks after his aunt. Do you think it would be possible for Mr. Turner to take me in his carriage tomorrow, to call upon Miss Leiper and commend to her Mr. Kane’s regard?”

  ***

  “What a detestable young man!” exclaimed Miss Leiper.

  I looked at her with some surprise, and Miss Leiper smiled, clearly amused at my reaction to her words. “I know, Miss Fox,” she said, bending her head with its still-golden hair to the teacup in her veined hands. “I should not have a favorite among my nephews, let alone a least favorite! Yet I can safely say that Robert is a man who would try the most patient and virtuous soul. He is a Philadelphia lawyer, through and through.”

  “Does he not know?” I asked. “Is he unaware of Elisha’s regard for me?”

  “Oh, he knows, Miss Fox. I assure you, they all do. Have I not told you that Elisha begged their permission to present you at Rensselaer House? But my nephew Robert Kane would not admit such a relationship in a letter that could be read by others. I hate to slander all lawyers. I am sure there are many men in the profession who are warm and generous and kind to children and dogs alike. But Robert was born a lawyer, or born with the personality of one at any rate, and thus chosen for the role in the cradle.”

  To the extreme irritation of Mrs. Turner, I spent a week with Elisha’s aunt. She was transparently glad for the company. I read to her, and she regaled me with stories about Elisha’s childhood, her own youth, and her father’s exploits in the War for Independence.

  We also worked together on my reply to Robert Kane. I thanked him for his intervention in the matter of the dwindling trust fund and assured him that I would inform his brother of the treatment I received at his hands. I also conveyed to him his aunt’s regards and passed along her request to be notified if any further funds were needed, as she had promised Elisha she would treat me as her own niece. Furthermore, I suggested he apply to Mr. Henry Grinnell for a list of my expenditures since 1853, for as trustee of the fund, he certainly must have such a record. Finally, I assured him that I was bearing up well under the strain of Elisha’s long absence and that despite the speculations of the press I was certain that he would return in the spring. “It will be a joyous reunion for us all,” I wrote, “and I greatly look forward to making your acquaintance during the happy celebrations to come.”

  Thus, I answered the kindly letter he should have written to me rather than the acerbic one he had actually composed. There was not a single word to suggest the injury I had received from his cold note, or any acknowledgement of the low way in which he addressed my character. However, I knew that he would read between the lines to grasp the meaning I wished him to comprehend: Elisha would learn of any insult he gave to me. I lived under the protection of his aunt, Eliza Leiper, who was fully aware of my true relationship with her nephew. And upon the triumphant return of Elisha’s expedition, I would meet Robert Kane on equal terms as the wife of his brother.

  I received no further correspondence from Mr. Kane, and money for my expenses continued to arrive from the Grinnells with no interruption.

  ***

  The months crept on. I had lived so long with the Turners that I had become a member of the family. This meant that the gloves came off, in a certain respect, and Mrs. Turner and I clashed as heartily as any mother and daughter. By turns she cajoled and threatened me.

  “I trust in kind Providence that Dr. Kane will return in the course of this next year,” she enticed me. “He will expect to find a companion whose conversational powers have been cultivated. I know that you will not wish to disappoint him.”

  On another day, she spoke with more bluntness, using a variation of that time-honored threat of every mother: “You just wait until Dr. Kane gets home and hears about this!”

  This is not to say that I did not apply myself to my studies. But under the circumstances, what young lady could continue day after day, week after week, with no occupation save the endless tasks given by a relentless tutor and no social engagements except visits to a kind elderly lady? I was living the prime years of my life in exile, practically confined to a convent like some maiden of medieval days
. While my sister Kate attended plays and operas in the city, I stared moodily out through a pane of glass at a bleak, rainy autumn of bedraggled greenery, a pile of books in my lap and nothing to break the monotony except dire imaginings of Elisha’s plight.

  The cold was not his only enemy. As lethal and malignant as it was, with its constant threat of frostbite and gangrene, there was also the danger of illness, especially scurvy. The bane of explorers since the time of Ferdinand Magellan, this disease had cost more lives than the forces of nature or mishap in expeditions of the North. Without fresh food, its insidious poison would eat away at its victims, weakening their ability to remedy themselves by hunting for the food that could cure them. I had listened to Elisha when he spoke of provisioning his ship. And I knew that his stores of fresh foods must surely have been expended by now. He had known from the start that this would be his greatest deficiency and his most dire need.

  I began to pester Cornelius Grinnell obsessively with demands for information on a possible rescue mission. He counseled me to practice self-control and not give way to “female jitters.” He promised to apprise me of developments as they became known to him and advised that I commit myself to my studies and leave the matters of men to men.

  December buried Crooksville under snow deep enough to make the roads impassable by man or beast, and so I passed my birthday, Christmas, and the end of 1854 in even more solitude than usual. It was not until January that the Turners were able to retrieve their accumulated post from Philadelphia. My first bit of news came not from the Grinnells, but in the form of a telegram from Leah, my first communication with her since the Tribune spiritual contest of 1853.

  Its message was short, simple, and baffling:

  Married Daniel Underhill on Christmas Day.