Journey: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘That big ship you put me on, and thank you again for paying my fare, steamed its way up the river just as ice formed behind us. I got into Edmonton in October, I guess it must have been, and just like you advised, everyone wanted me to go back to North Dakota. But I’d have none of that. I got me a job as waitress. Last autumn in Edmonton anybody could get a job.’

  ‘What miracle happened to get you here?’ Luton asked, and she said almost demurely: ‘There was a big Australian who had dug for gold in his country and was eager to try his luck on the Klondike, but like all sensible ones he hadn’t rushed north when your team and mine did. He sat the winter out in a warm boardinghouse in Edmonton. He came to our restaurant for his meals, and what with one thing and another we got married. That’s him, standing over there. He jokes that he’s the only man in Alaska with no neck, but he’s fierce in a fight.’ Then she added one of those extraordinary touches that distinguished her, amusing, revealing and just a bit self-deprecatory: ‘An unmarried woman in Edmonton, especially a widow with no children working in a public place, I do believe I received six proposals of marriage a week, and Verner had three big fights before he drove the others off. It was dreamland, Lord Luton, and it seems so long ago.’

  Then, putting her own affairs aside and grateful for the domestic felicity she had attained, she asked: ‘Where are your other three? That delightful young fellow who cared for me so thoughtful? Wasn’t his name Philip?’

  When Luton could not bear to answer, Fogarty said gently: ‘Drowned. Those boots you warned him about. They dragged him down.’

  Uttering a cry of grief, she covered her face and soon was sobbing: ‘I told him he was too young to go.’ Then she recovered her poise and asked: ‘Carpenter, the nice one?’

  ‘Dead. Scurvy in the second winter.’

  ‘You spent two winters? How about the one who quoted poetry?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Oh my God! What happened to you men? Did you miss the easy route or something?’

  Neither Luton nor Fogarty dared answer that terrible question, but after a moment Evelyn asked: ‘And you? How did you negotiate the Mackenzie? On your second try, that is?’

  ‘Come early spring we’re back at Athabasca Landing, same four Germans sell our group, three couples, a new boat, bigger and stronger this time, and the rest was easy.’

  ‘Easy?’ Luton asked in a distant, displeased manner.

  ‘Yes. That fall when you put me on the big boat, ice chased us up the river. In the spring in our boat, we chased it down. Like everyone advised us, we found the Peel, then the Rat, where we cut our boat in half along the line the Germans had painted on it, and we hauled it inch by inch—what hellish work—over the Divide, but when we reached that other little river … what do you call it?’

  ‘The Bell,’ Luton replied in a drained whisper.

  ‘Once we hit it, no more trouble. It fed into the Porcupine, and after being careful to turn right at that junction we sailed so fast, first thing you know we were on the Yukon, where we bought six tickets for that steamer right there, the one you were boarding, which whisked us into Dawson in a proper hurry.’

  ‘How long did it take?’ Luton asked, and he listened almost benumbed as she calculated: ‘Well, we left Edmonton earlier than most, maybe twentieth of May, so we could beat the crowd to Athabasca and get one of the good boats. The rest, pretty normal except that portage was no fun. We got into Fort Yukon, where we bought our tickets for Dawson …’ Losing count, she beckoned for her husband to join them, and the big Australian, a veteran of gold fields, ambled over. ‘Verner, what date did we reach Dawson last year?’

  ‘Eighth of September. Everyone said it was one of the speediest trips. So it would be twenty May till early September, fifteen, sixteen weeks.’ He said this in such a barbarous Australian accent that Lord Luton almost winced to think that this man, and a million like him, were full-fledged members of the British Empire.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ Fogarty asked, and the couple, taking turns, explained: ‘We arrived here too late to hit that big strike on the Klondike, but so did most everyone. Anyway, Verner said he was tired of mining. We operate what you might call a pawnshop, buy and sell anything,’ and Irina added: ‘You can make surprising money if you’re sharp.’ Luton gasped inwardly: A pawnshop. This couple is right out of Dickens. But Fogarty cried: ‘That’s wonderful! You have your own store and all?’ and Irina said: ‘We do. Verner built it. We used the timbers from six Yukon riverboats abandoned by those who couldn’t wait, they were so eager to be off to the diggings. We bought two for one dollar American each.’

  But now, in her moment of triumph, Irina, like the responsible woman she had always tried to be, wanted to repair ancient damage, and she asked: ‘Lord Luton, could we please sit over there?’ When they were apart from the others, but still within the shadow of the steamer that would separate them forever, she said quietly: ‘You never liked me, and I didn’t like you. But I did understand you, and I pray you understood me. You were a man frightened by the onset of winter, I was a lone woman who had just survived a terrible tragedy.’

  Luton started to speak, but she held up her hand, and when it was in the air she used it to brush off her cap, so that her wealth of silvery hair fell free to frame her face: ‘No, let me finish, then you. I knew your problem. You were terrified that your nephew would fall completely in love with me. As a proud man from a proud family you couldn’t allow that. You would do anything to prevent it and so would Mr. Carpenter, because you understood how such an affair … the woman six or seven years older … it could unbalance a young man for life. You knew that, but so did I, Lord Luton. I would never have allowed it to happen …’

  ‘But you encouraged it. Harry and I could both see that.’

  ‘I was not thinking of Philip,’ she said contritely. ‘I was thinking of myself. I had suffered terrifying loss. At the end of the world. With no one. With not one penny there or back in Edmonton. Lord Luton, I needed assurance. I needed the affection of some other human being. In that cold, cold land I needed warmth.’ Covering her face, she wept silently for several moments, then said as she wiped her nose with her sleeve: ‘He was such a dear boy, so good, so promising. I share your grief at his loss.’

  Luton, a man who had in the last year also suffered defeats few men experience, needed to exorcise himself, and confessed: ‘At one point I was so distraught I contemplated shoving you overboard in the dark of night. Harry prevented me. He thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.’

  Irina stared at Luton, who averted his eyes, and she wondered what alchemy the deaths of his friends had wrought on his soul that he would now admit this monstrous thought to her, his intended victim. A few moments later she asked: ‘Why did things go so wrong that three of your team died?’

  ‘Nature dealt us a series of dreadful blows … much like the storm that sank your first boat on Great Slave.’ He was still unwilling to admit that he had abetted an uncharitable nature, had indeed invited her retaliation for his blunders: ‘You could call it rotten luck.’ Then, to his own surprise, he asked: ‘Have you ever known anyone who stood this close to death from scurvy … the slow rotting away of the human body?’ And he held his thumb and forefinger only a millimeter apart.

  ‘So now it’s back to England and a castle somewhere, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I do now have a castle and many new responsibilities.’

  A gush of tears overwhelmed her, and at the end she said: ‘I can see the faces of each of your three men, of my own three farmers. They will be with us forever.’

  When Luton said nothing, she concluded: ‘On the first time we parted, you refused to accept my kiss of thanks. Don’t refuse me again.’ He rose, stood very erect, and striving to mask his distaste, he allowed her to kiss him but she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Then he asked: ‘What will you do when the gold runs out?’ and she shrugged her shoulders as she replaced her kepi: ‘Who knows? Verner might rush off to another gold field.
Who can guess what we will do? We are voyagers headed for destinations we cannot see. But like traveling the Mackenzie, if you get thrown back the first time, you keep trying.’

  Signaling to Fogarty and her husband that she was ready, she joined them and watched Lord Luton briskly climb the gangway and turn at the railing of the Jos. Parker to salute her in farewell. ‘Where are you heading?’ the big Australian shouted, and he called down: ‘Back to civilization,’ and with a kind of sardonic amusement Evelyn lingered there, watching the three as they walked jovially away: There they go, an upstart Irish peasant trying to be better than he is, a hulking Australian with no neck nor any command of good English, and a Yankee farm girl of no background whatever. He shook his head in a gesture of surrender and mumbled: ‘Barbarians take over the world while proper men huddle like bears in icy caves.’

  But that cynical comment was not to be Lord Luton’s final evaluation of his well-planned expedition to Dawson. It could not be; he was too good a man for that. As he watched Irina Kozlok disappear from view, swinging along with her mates in a free and easy stride, her fine uniform glistening in the sun, her kepi properly cocked, he suddenly uttered an anguished cry that startled others lining the rail, and he felt no embarrassment in disturbing them in this highly improper way.

  ‘Oh God!’ he cried, his heart torn with anguish, his brain finally prepared to face the truth. ‘She spent fifteen weeks going the right way. I spent one hundred going the wrong, and I lost three companions in doing so.’ He trembled, still looking at the space she had just vacated, and then like some penitent anchorite in his medieval cave he mumbled, his proud head bowed at last: ‘Merciful God, let the souls of those precious three men forgive me.’

  FOUR

  REQUIEM

  THOUGHTFUL BIOGRAPHERS OF the ninth Marquess of Deal, which title he inherited in 1909, judged that his disastrous expedition to the Klondike had not been all loss:

  He spent twenty-three months covering the two thousand and forty-three miles getting to Dawson and remained only a few hours, but it was this prolonged and dreadful experience, in which he lost three of his party, including his sister’s only son, that put steel into the heart of the Marquess. When Lloyd George tapped him in 1916 to whip the British industrial effort into line so that Britain could muster its full strength against the Kaiser, he was as well prepared as a man could be to discipline the private sector.

  A blue-blooded nobleman and a man who in the privacy of his club had dismissed Lloyd George as ‘that insufferable little Welshman, no gentleman at all,” he rallied to his assignment, became one of Lloyd George’s most trusted adherents, and performed wonders in helping to throw back the German might. In dealing with refractory industrialists who came to him complaining that they simply could not accept the difficulties involved in this wartime measure or that, he never referred to his two years in the Arctic, but he did look the man in the eye, stare him down with what was known as ‘Evelyn’s silent-sneer’ and ask: ‘Difficulties? Do you know what difficulty is?’ and because everyone knew of his experiences in the Arctic, he got his way.

  But that was not the characteristic which enabled him to become one of the most effective ministers of war, for as Lloyd George remarked in one of his cabinet summaries: ‘The Marquess of Deal could reach a decision quicker than any man I ever knew, defend it with brilliant logic and ram it down the throats of all who opposed. But if his opponent marshalled relevant facts to support his case, Deal was prepared to listen and even reverse himself, acknowledging with disarming grace: “I could have been wrong.” I asked him once: “Deal, how in God’s name can you be so over-powering when you first thunder out your decision, then be so attentive when the other fellow argues his case? And how did you school yourself to surrender so graciously if his arguments prove superior to yours?” and he gave a cryptic answer: “Because I learned in the Arctic it’s folly to persist in a predetermined course if in your heart you suspect you might be wrong.” I do believe his willingness to listen to others, to bend his will to theirs, anything to keep production humming, helped us win our war against the Boche.’

  Among the few personal items Lord Luton carried back to England was Trevor Blythe’s battered copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. He would complete Harry Carpenter’s mission and bring Trevor’s message of love and his precious book to Lady Julia. But before making the presentation he had put together in an elegant limited edition for family and friends a slim volume consisting of three parts: a selection from those Palgrave lyrics Trevor Blythe had read during the night sessions near the Arctic Circle, extracts from his own journal of the expedition, and, most precious of all, disjointed fragments of a poem cycle Blythe had intended to call Borealis.

  In selecting the Palgrave poems, Luton chose those which he and the others had especially prized, and that collection is here reprinted in part. The editors express gratitude to the tenth Marquess of Deal for allowing access to this treasured family heirloom, which is now part of the library collection at Wellfleet Castle.

  In justifying his choices Luton explained: ‘Three of us were not yet married, so it was understandable that we would find great pleasure in the love poems, and Trevor read to us some of the most beautiful, none better than this first one which we all cherished.’

  LXXXIX

  Go, lovely Rose!

  Tell her, that wastes her time and me,

  That now she knows,

  When I resemble her to thee,

  How sweet and fair she seems to be.

  Tell her that’s young

  And shuns to have her graces spied,

  That hadst thou sprung

  In deserts, where no men abide,

  Thou must have uncommended died.

  Small is the worth

  Of beauty from the light retired:

  Bid her come forth,

  Suffer herself to be desired,

  And not blush so to be admired.

  Then die! that she

  The common fate of all things rare

  May read in thee:

  How small a part of time they share

  That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

  E. WALLER

  LI

  Cupid and my Campaspe play’d

  At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:

  He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,

  His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;

  Loses them too; then down he throws

  The coral of his lip, the rose

  Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how);

  With these, the crystal of his brow,

  And then the dimple on his chin;

  All these did my Campaspe win;

  At last he set her both his eyes—

  She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

  O Love! has she done this to thee?

  What shall, alas! become of me?

  J. LYLY

  XCII

  A sweet disorder in the dress

  Kindles in clothes a wantonness:—

  A lawn about the shoulders thrown

  Into a fine distractión,—

  An erring lace, which here and there

  Enthrals the crimson stomacher,—

  A cuff neglectful, and thereby

  Ribbands to flow confusedly,—

  A winning wave, deserving note,

  In the tempestuous petticoat,—

  A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

  I see a wild civility,—

  Do more bewitch me, than when art

  Is too precise in every part.

  R. HERRICK

  CI

  Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

  Prythee, why so pale?

  Will, if looking well can’t move her,

  Looking ill prevail?

  Prythee, why so pale?

  Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

  Prythee, why so mute?

  Will, when speaking well can’t win her,

  Saying nothing do’t?

&
nbsp; Prythee, why so mute?

  Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,

  This cannot take her;

  If of herself she will not love,

  Nothing can make her:

  The D—l take her!

  SIR J. SUCKLING

  XC

  Drink to me only with thine eyes,

  And I will pledge with mine;

  Or leave a kiss but in the cup

  And I’ll not look for wine.

  The thirst that from the soul doth rise

  Doth ask a drink divine;

  But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

  I would not change for thine.

  I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

  Not so much honouring thee

  As giving it a hope that there

  It could not wither’d be;

  But thou thereon didst only breathe

  And sent’st it back to me;

  Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

  Not of itself but thee!

  B. JONSON

  LXXXII

  Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

  Old Time is still a-flying:

  And this same flower that smiles to-day,

  To-morrow will be dying.

  The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,

  The higher he’s a-getting

  The sooner will his race be run,

  And nearer he’s to setting.

  That age is best which is the first,

  When youth and blood are warmer;

  But being spent, the worse, and worst

  Times, still succeed the former.

  Then be not coy, but use your time;