The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  “But please, please, Mag, it’s no fun on my own,” Katie pleads this autumn day of’54. Maggie is staying with her and Mother again at the 10th Street apartment.

  “No. I swore to Lish that I’d never rap again. Ah, don’t stay cross, Kat. It’s still me. I’m still here.”

  “Gosh-it-all. You haven’t forgotten about Mr. Intrigue yet?”

  “No, no, of course not.” Maggie hasn’t forgotten him, just the hollow and giddy way she felt when with him. Just the exact way he looked and sounded.

  Katie does not stay cross at Maggie for long; she never does. And she is earning plenty on her own, without Maggie’s help. Mr. Partridge, the match magnate, has hired Katie to give séances to the public, all for the improvement of mankind and for the betterment of the world order, or something like that. Twelve hundred per annum. Imagine a young woman of seventeen earning so much, Maggie wryly thinks. Imagine being able to shop for whatever lovely clothes and pretty rings you wish. Maggie swallows her envy. She lives on the modest funds that Elisha set up before he left and that are administered through Mr. Grinnell. How quickly that money vanishes, however And how sour Grinnell’s letters are becoming in reply to her polite pleas for more funds. He does not understand that she must continue her studies of German and sketching and speech and deportment if she is to be worthy of the Elisha-who-returns. And Maggie has to be dressed in some semblance of the latest style.

  17 October, 1854

  Dear Miss Fox,

  We have no tidings yet of the Doctor. If he is not heard from by November, we must assume he intends to remain another winter in the Arctic regions.

  Your Servant,

  Henry Grinnell

  Intends? Maggie thinks.

  Winter of’54–55 passes, and then the spring of’55, and Maggie is even less at her lessons, less in Crooksville and ever more out enjoying New York’s entertainments. She wonders if she should return to rapping. She does miss the fun of it at times, as well the challenge, the gratitude of the clients, the money-all-her-own. Some days she does not think of Elisha at all, that is until someone reminds her what a grand hero he is, how esteemed and intelligent and really quite handsome, and how easy it must be to love such a man.

  CHAPTER 29.

  “Do you mind reading today, Mrs. Mellon? My eyes ache and blur so.” (My patient had just quaffed down her medicine. We had long dispensed with measurements.)

  “Certainly, duck.” I reached into my satchel. “Here. I have the almanac … the Times, an issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book. Not current, but does that signify?”

  “None of those. This.” Mrs. Kane shoved Elisha’s book across the bedclothes.

  “Sortilege? Another go? I suppose we could … Not that I hold with it.”

  “No. Not that. Not today. You must read out all the names you find. Perhaps you can see what I cannot, because I’ve searched it over and over again. Searched it to see if I’m mentioned. If my name is writ there—if, that is, Elisha thought of me at all when he was gone. Oh, I know his book is all about men and their adventuring, but still why won’t he tell of me? It’s as if I don’t exist. Not at all. And yet when I was with him, I felt as if I existed as much as I ever would.” She stared at her thin little hands then as if they were disappearing (they were not). Those brown eyes of hers took on a lost and wild cast. But then she was ever at a loss with this shilly-shally man.

  “Settle yourself, duck. I’d be happy to read now—”

  “Begin with the crew, please.” She found the page. “There.”

  I did as bid, then soon wished I had never touched her damned book. “Henry Brooks, first officer; Isaac Hayes, surgeon and officer; John Wilson, sailing master: August …” I cleared my throat and squinted. “The light. It’s far too bright.” I shifted the ladderback away from the slant of sun.

  She waited, said nothing.

  “August Sonntag, astronomer and officer; James McGeary, executive officer: Amos Bosnall, photographer and naturalist.” And so on. I read the others without even hearing them, the name of August rang so loud.

  August was my son’s name. I called him thus, not because he was born in August (he was born in March, as I have said) but because it is a tradition in my family to name children after the months, which is why I am called June. March would have been a ridiculous name for my son; August, however, suited him like a kid-glove, his manner being as warm and genial as a New England’s summer day.

  I could read no more and told her this fact.

  “Perhaps it’s a riddle,” she muttered, and took the book from my hands.

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1855, 1:10 p.m. and the steam-ship Release arrives in New York Harbor with Elisha and his surviving crew aboard. Maggie hears the news of his return, of the loss of Elisha’s ship the Advance to the Arctic ice. She hears the boom of cannons in the harbour, the cheers of the throngs at Battery Landing. The Advance left New York Harbor in June of’53. This means, Maggie calculates, that two years, four months, ten days, and five hours have passed since she last beheld Elisha. Now that she will soon see him again, her feelings for him have returned in a shot.

  “Come, lamb, you’ll wear a gutter in our new rug,” Mother says. “Sit. Will you?”

  “I can’t! I can’t! Where is he?”

  Five o’clock and Elisha has still not called at the 10th Street town-home Maggie, having given up on the Turners altogether, now shares with Mother and Katie. Maggie has her own private parlour, very small, but all her own. She insisted on that.

  “He’s detained, that’s it,” Katie offers. “Or, or he’s ill. You know he’s ill a lot.”

  “I’ll go to him! I will. I should have gone to see the rescue ship arrive! Why did you stop me, Ma? Why in tunket do you keep me trussed to your damned apron strings!”

  “That is enough. Enough! Sit down, Maggie Fox. Ladies wait. They do not seek out men as might, as might … oh, never mind. And they do not ever speak to their mothers so. Nor do they cuss.”

  Maggie apologizes. Sniffles. Resumes pacing.

  They wait. And wait. The clock chimes midnight.

  Katie hands Maggie a glass of spiced rum. “For her nerves, Ma,” she says at their mother’s sharp glance. Katie is arrayed in fawn and amber, but it is Maggie who looks the heiress in a gown of changeable blue silk. It is trimmed with figured lace and tiny crystal drops and fits her every curve. The cost was exorbitant. Enough, as Mother groused, to keep plain wholesome food on a table for a year.

  Maggie finally permits Mother and Katie to coax her to bed. They unfasten her buttons and hooks and ties. Loosen her corset. She refuses to take the dress off entirely. She wakes at first light, shivers at each hour-dong of the clock as if it were a death knell. At just past eight, the newspapers are delivered. Elisha’s name is emblazoned everywhere, the front pages columned with his exploits. Maggie snatches the papers up and reads them over once, twice. The first account describes in detail how the Advance was trapped in ice for two years, how the intrepid Dr. Kane gave orders to abandon ship and then led his stalwart men south on foot, a harrowing eighty-three-day journey to the whaling post of Upernavik. Only two of his crew died in this epic adventure.

  The next account tells much the same but adds how, though Kane sought hard for more clues to Sir Franklin’s demise, he sought in vain, and this because in April of’54 one Sir John Rae, a Scot, found evidence that the Franklin expedition had made it as far as the Boothia Peninsula, which was a thousand miles away from where the Advance had searched. And then the Esquimaux in those parts had reported seeing mad, hideous white men gnawing on their dead comrades. Not that this, the account stresses, could be considered anything more than primitive fancy. At least the Grinnell expedition sighted the Open Polar Sea and Dr. Kane can now present firm evidence for its existence at last.

  The final account gives much the same story, though it adds hints of desertion, a near mutiny, a near murder or two, and the news that Dr. Kane will soon be marrying Miss Margaret Fox.

&nbs
p; Maggie stares at these lines. Marrying? Their engagement had to remain secret, or else be placed in jeopardy. Elisha had assured her of this several times. And who gave the rumour to the paper? Leah? Could she have done so? She had certainly been afume ever since Maggie refused to help with séances. “You might as well marry Dr. Kane,” Leah said. “That is, Margaretta, if he doesn’t return a cadaver, and even if he does, for all I care. Secret engagements. What poppycock. At least if you marry, people will cease calling you his mistress, his wh—his what-have-you.”

  Thinking on this, Maggie pats at her gown. It is too snug-fit. Too aglitter.

  Katie reads out from her paper: “Dr. Kane is much improved in physical appearance. He has a bronzed face, a long and heavy black beard, a stouter body and a hand with a hearty grip.”

  “He’s not ill? Not at all?” Maggie asks.

  “Well, I mean, he could be underneath … Here, let me get you a soother.” Katie opens her cabinet of spirits. “There you are, my pretties.” The bottles are arrayed on the insides of the doors as well as on the shelves: champagne and whisky. Gin and brandy. All are of fine vintage, the bottles of every colour. The crystal glasses of every size and shape. And every one is of crystal.

  Katie mixes Maggie a martinez, and then one for herself. Mother sighs.

  By six p.m., Maggie is at last ready to take off her blue silk gown, which looks, she allows, rumpled and desperate in the failing light.

  “The door! He’s at the door!” Katie cries. “You didn’t hear the knocks?”

  Maggie rushes to the looking glass. Fusses with her hair, pinches colour into her cheeks. “Open the door, Ma. Open it! But without showing your agitation! Please!”

  Mother does not show agitation, only astonishment. “Mr. Morton?”

  Morton takes up the offer of tea. There are awkward pleasantries and strained small chat, then Morton says, “Righty, then. The letters, you see. His love letters, that is, to you, Miss Fox. He wishes, that is, he pleads with you … pleads that I should retrieve them. His mother, you see, has also read the reportages and these, uh, rumours about an impending marriage.” Morton attempts a laugh. “Gossip and all, but …”

  Maggie clenches her teacup. Katie frowns. Mother shakes her head. All of them, Morton included, sit on the edge of their brocaded chairs, stiff as effigies.

  When Maggie finally speaks, she is surprised at her own becalmed voice. “The letters are mine. Mine. Why is he not here? He should be here if he wishes such a … such a thing.”

  “He’s indisposed and unwell.”

  “The papers said he’s hearty as a walrus!” Katie blurts out. Mother nods. Maggie stands, giving Morton no choice but to stand also. “Mr. Morton. Tell your master to never come here. And to never contact me again, in any way.”

  Elisha arrives the next afternoon. He is indeed bronzed and hearty looking, and is dressed in full naval regalia—braids and epaulets and gold buttons and such. His expression when he sees Maggie atop the stairs is astounded, intent, alike those of the new-convinced at a séance. Maggie’s resplendant blue dress is crumpled, her cheeks a burning red, her hair a yanked-at mess. She looks her worst. And she hardly cares.

  “Get gone!” she yells.

  At this Elisha dashes up the stairs and catches Maggie as she turns to flee. He kisses her brow, her lips even, proclaims, “By God, what a vision you are. God, but I love you. I adore you!” He attempts to kneel but it seems the breeches of his uniform are too tight. “Keep the letters, dear heart. Morton misunderstood entirely. We shall be married. I give you my word. And my heart.”

  He guides her down to the parlour, continues more sedately, “I have walked these streets the night through, pondering our course, and then seeing you draped in light … well, my mind is set. Attend closely, my pet, I have been promised a great deal of money for my account of the expedition. It will be unlike anything yet written. And then I, you, we, shall be free to do as we please. God, but I wish I were not born to status. It is an enchainment. The reputation of my family rests upon me. And my mother … my mother has been distraught about our, our, connection, and she will cut me off from all funds if she believes we are engaged. I’ve not a cent to my own name, Tuttie, thus …”

  He draws an official-looking paper out of his inner pocket, and then a handy travel pen with its own little inkwell. It is part of the grander plan, he tells Maggie. She need only sign here, where Elisha is said to be her concerned patron, his interest in her brotherly, nothing more. “Do it for me, Tuttie. You shall never suffer. It is for my mother.”

  “Don’t, Mag!” Katie warns.

  “She’s right, lamb. It’s abominable. Isn’t it?” Mother adds.

  But Maggie has already taken up Elisha’s little pen. She sobs as she signs her name, then looks aghast at her own signature. What in bloody tunket is she thinking? “But you have sworn to marry me, Elisha Kane.” She snatches at the document, just as Elisha tucks it away.

  “You’re a coward, that’s what. Not a hero at all!” Katie shouts.

  “A cad!” Maggie shouts.

  “Get out!” Mother demands.

  All three of them thrust him out the door, skewing his epaulets, ignoring his please and protests.

  Elisha is back promptly the next morning. “Damn my mother and her demands,” he tells Maggie. He is still in his Navy regalia, though the braids are squashed, a gold button hanging. “I didn’t sleep a jot last night. I roamed the streets once again, espying you at every corner.” He hands Maggie the document. “Destroy it, my love. I will defy my family, my mother, the world entire for your love and regard.”

  In a nonce paper fragments are spinning out from Maggie’s wrenching hands.

  Elisha watches her raptly. “Tear it, Tuttie! Oh, do. That’s it, don’t stop. Allow me to help!”

  Folding and tearing. Tearing and folding. Until both she and Elisha are exhausted, exhilarated, the paper fragments like snow at their feet.

  “Gracious damned evers,” Mother grumbles. “You two should be a theatre act.”

  Two weeks later and Maggie and Elisha are shuttered-up in her private parlour. It is a pink-hued space with silken shadows, a nacreous light. “Alike a seashell.” Elisha says. “And we curled up inside safe from all eyes.”

  They have just returned from mass at St. Ann’s Church. Elisha assured Maggie she would be awed by the sublime arch of the dome, the stained glass windows, the organ, the theatricality, in all, of the papist religion, and Maggie was indeed awed. The soaring cathedral was so unlike the workaday churches of her girlhood, the Latin liturgy—mysterious and rhythmic—so unlike the exhorting, condemning services of the Methodists, and the kindly old Father Quinn so unlike the severe ministers she has known. And then there was the exotic scent of the smoke wafting from the censers, the gleaming chalices, the turning to the strangers aside her: Peace be with you, and also with you. What affected Maggie the most, however, was the little candle-lit shrine she found tucked into a side alcove, the five crowned, elegant ladies set there. They were made of wood and no more than two feet high, and their articulated arms were held out as if in supplication. Three of the ladies bore expressions both wistful and mysterious, the fourth looked as dolorous as could be, the last was faintly smiling, as if privy to some delicious, long-held secret. What was most arresting, however, even unsettling, was that they had only skirt-shaped cages for their lower halves. These cage were empty of limbs, but not empty. No. Inside were hung objects of devotion: papers writ with prayers, crosses of silver, rosary beads of clay and stone, and hearts of reddened glass.

  “Ah, you’ve discovered the Santos dolls,” Elisha said when he saw her puzzling over these figures. “Lovely, queer females, are they not? They were once used to convert the heathens, but are now banished to the distant fringes of belief, they having misfortune to be considered graven images, idols. Many of them were burned during less encompassing times.” Elisha then added that the one lady, there, the faintly smiling one, resembled Maggie, his tu
ttie, and to perfection. At this put Elisha delved his hand inside the lady’s cage and gently touched the heart hanging there.

  Now Elisha edges closer to Maggie on the settee. Gone is his hearty-walrus health. He is gaunt and pale from writing day and night. He has admitted his journals are a bit … raw, given the circumstances, and need to be entirely re-worked, made more tally-ho and all together.

  An organ grinder’s music drifts up to them. A street-monger calls out his wares. No sounds stir below-stairs. Mother and Katie are out. Mother has, to Maggie’s astonishment, allowed her and Elisha unchaperoned time. She has, indeed, withdrawn objections altogether, as has Leah. Not that Maggie sees Leah much anymore, for which she is glad, though she does, on occasion, miss Leah’s decisiveness, her praise, her rare and genuine laugh.

  Elisha strokes the blue veins on the underside of Maggie’s wrist. “Brother Tom came to see me today. God, but he rides on my coattails. He gave me quite the lecture and said that I must let the nation make a pet of me. That I should practise sham modesty, be more respectful of the newspaper men, and praise my colleagues, by which I suppose he means I should not admit to wishing I’d murdered that William Godfrey. He said that my tack will be ‘the official scientific’—science, with the brevet of sword, spunk and gentlemanly savoir faire.”

  “Your tack?”

  “Yes, the image that will spring to mind when my name is mentioned in any region of this country.” Elisha chuckles. “There ought to be a name for someone who manages the … what? The reflection of another. The image?”