The Arctic Fury

by Greer Macallister

  Either way, she finds the company better than no company at all. So she listens to the Clarion vilify her as “the Northern Borgia” and “self-proclaimed Queen of the Arctic”—a proclamation that has never passed her lips in public or private—almost as reverently as she listens to the Beacon praise her as “a noble American Valkyrie” and “the Arctic Fury.” At least there are words. At least there are voices.

  And now that her trial has begun, there will be more voices and faces than she can stand. She will listen in silence as penance. They would not disdain her if she had not failed; she deserves this. Who will the first one be?

  The prosecutor announces, “The Commonwealth calls Gabriel Bishop to the stand.”

  Bishop? She knows no Bishop. Breath and motion ripple throughout the room while whoever it is comes forward, murmurs tracking him like wind in grain. Again she is reminded of church. Will she ever be allowed in church again? To see shafts of light illuminate stained glass, to feel the utter peace of her soul lifting after confession, the deep rumble of the organ vibrating in her very bones? How long until she’s allowed to set foot anywhere beyond her solitary cell and—hardly better—this cavernous courtroom? She does not allow herself to think about where she will spend time or how much of it will be left to her if she’s found guilty.

  The man Gabriel Bishop steps up into the witness box. He has thinning reddish hair, smoothed sidelong across his forehead all the way down to a narrow, silky-looking pair of brows, incongruously delicate. His sideburns are faint, and he is otherwise clean-shaven. His face is more English than Irish, not a freckle to be seen, and wholly unfamiliar. What Virginia can see of his body is on the slim side of average and as straight as the barrel of a gun.

  The bailiff extends the Bible forward, and the witness places his hand atop it without hesitation. He raises his other hand to take his oath. She is still not sure she has ever seen his face before. Then again, she doesn’t need to remember him for him to remember her. And she has no idea what he’s there to say. What nail has he been called here to drive into her eventual coffin?

  The prosecutor opens by requesting his name and position. Bishop’s relevance springs into her brain, too late, just as he begins to speak.

  In a firm, steely voice, he says, “My name is Gabriel Bishop. I am employed as a butler in the home of Mr. Tiberius Collins.” The British hint to his voice is more a lilt than an accent. But-luh.

  “That’s Tiberius Collins of Beacon Hill, correct? The father of Caprice Collins?”

  The butler stares out over Virginia’s head and the heads of the women in the front row to gaze farther into the courtroom. “From her birth until her untimely death.”

  “Her murder, yes. May she rest in peace,” says the prosecutor with great, performative sorrow.

  To Virginia, the routine playing out here seems as carefully rehearsed as any scene in a playhouse. The actors exchange their lines with precisely chosen inflections. She’s keenly aware others will see it with less cynical eyes. And those people might believe it. She wants to leap up. Scream. Give voice to her sorrow, her anger, her fear.

  Instead, she sits in silence, not even letting her toes touch inside the closed box of the dock, giving the observers nothing to observe.

  The next question. “How long have you been employed by Tiberius Collins?”

  “Twenty-two years in that good man’s employ, sir, and if I might add, I was employed by his father-in-law before him. The now Mrs. Collins was born a Masterson. Of the Chestnut Hill Mastersons. You know of the family, I presume.”

  “Oh, of course,” says the prosecutor, his voice approving.

  “I was established in the Collins household when they married as a bit of a gift, you might say.”

  “I might,” said the prosecutor, smilingly familiar. “I imagine Mr. Collins was thrilled to have a man of your sterling reputation as his butler, with your long-standing record of excellent service. Someone upon whom he could rely.”

  The butler’s eyes return to that same spot in the crowd, and Virginia realizes that Bishop must be looking at Mr. Collins himself. She can’t pick him out without turning her head, which she decides against doing, but he must be there. A shiver runs up both sides of her neck. She hadn’t thought of having to face Caprice’s parents, these people who want her dead for what they think she’s done. She hasn’t seen them since they had her arrested, months ago.

  “I should like to think so, sir.”

  “So you were in the household when Miss Caprice Collins was born, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Knew her from a babe?”

  “I did, yes, sir. She grew into a fine young lady, fine indeed.” His overbearing pride in himself extends, for a moment, into pride in Caprice.

  Virginia sees no sorrow at all here, just this stuffed-up, faux-noble arrogance. How she would dearly love to slap him across the face. As if names and places of origin matter. As if any of this matters. If he is going to help them kill her, which it seems he is, she wants him to go ahead and get straight to the meat.

  The prosecutor continues. “And though I know she’s less familiar to you, I’d like you to tell us now how you know this person here, the defendant at the bar.”

  Virginia notices he doesn’t use her name or even young woman. Just person. Caprice was a young lady. Virginia is the defendant. This time, he does not even raise his arm to indicate her. He does not turn, even slightly, in her direction.

  “That is Virginia Reeve,” says the witness, who does glance her way, if only for a moment. “Or at least she gave that name when she visited the house. We had no benefit of a formal introduction.”

  “She just showed up at the Collins house one day?”

  “She did.”

  Virginia notices the implication that she wasn’t expected, though in fact she had been. Witnesses could do equal harm to her through what they said and what they failed to say.

  “And were you present for the meeting?”

  “I showed her in and presented her to Miss Collins, who received her in the formal parlor.”

  “You’re sure of that?” The prosecutor interrupts him to ask the obvious question, which Virginia wonders at, but she imagines he must have his reasons.

  “The day is utterly etched in my memory,” the man intones in a serious voice, the picture of responsible rectitude.

  Virginia’s stomach drops. How much of this have they rehearsed?

  “Thank you. Please, proceed.”

  He does. “After I brought the visitor in, I immediately retired to the hall, to my post at the front door.”

  “Yet you heard some of their conversation?”

  “I did. I did not eavesdrop at all, of course. I would never compromise my employer’s expectation of privacy.”

  “No one doubts your integrity,” says the lawyer, as if he can make it true merely by saying it. Virginia fears perhaps, in a way, he can.

  “Thank you. I was not listening, I promise you. But when their voices were raised, I could not help but hear. In a fine, well-built house like the Collins home, one cannot hear a typical conversation in the parlor from the front hall. Certainly whispering or civil conversation would not convey.”

  “So this was not a typical conversation?” the lawyer offers.

  “It wasn’t. As I said, civil conversation is not audible from the front hall. But shouting is a different matter.”

  The prosecutor shakes his head, disapproving, rueful. “Shouting, you say.”

  “I do. That is what I heard.”

  “And from what you overheard—unintentionally, as you said—the two women didn’t seem to get along?”

  “No, they most certainly did not. I should say, Miss Collins was perfectly polite. It was this one who was… I can’t quite find the words, sir.”

  “Take your time.”

 
He pauses a moment longer, purses his lips, and finally says, “Well, I suppose she was rude.”

  It stuns Virginia how this lemon of a man, full of sour reproach, can make rude sound worse than murder. And yet.

  The witness’s eyes land on her at last. From this distance, in this light, they seem to have no particular color. She returns his gaze without flinching. After the space of a few heartbeats, he is the one who looks away.

  The prosecutor says, “Could you share with us some of what she said?”

  “I object,” says Virginia’s counsel, and she winces inwardly. He could not choose a worse moment to speak. She sees the trap before he does. Fool or mouse, he walks right up and springs it.

  “Yes?” the judge asks. “Please, share the grounds for your objection.”

  “Why ask this man what my client said? She will recollect better than he.”

  “Then when the time for defense comes, you are welcome—encouraged, even—to put her on the witness stand.”

  The lawyer’s silence stretches on, uncomfortable, obvious, until he sits. Then he reaches out for more papers to rustle and fans through them without speaking. Virginia resists the urge to put her head in her hands. She has so many urges in this room she knows she must resist. Civilization is a maze of forced constraints; she almost wants to be out of it. But she remembers, too, how dark the world beyond civilization can be.

  Virginia twists the middle of her body slowly until she can feel her stays pressing into her flesh. She does this to remind herself of her own fragility. What a vulnerable vessel the human body makes for the human soul. Puncture the membrane and it all spills out like water.

  “Now, Mr. Bishop,” purrs the prosecuting attorney, “please do tell us what Miss Reeve here called your client.”

  Clearly enjoying the attention, the witness puts his shoulders back and says, “I remember her words quite well. She called Miss Collins an ‘arrogant, empty-headed fool.’”

  “Goodness!” exclaims the prosecutor, his eyebrows raised, prim as a pastor’s wife in a pew. “Those were her words exactly?”

  “Yes. ‘Arrogant, empty-headed fool.’ I’d stake my life on it.”

  Easy for him to say, thinks Virginia. His life isn’t the one at stake.

  The prosecutor sweeps a searching glance across the room, making sure everyone within these walls has had a chance to ponder the witness’s words, and then goes in for the killing stroke. “Was that all?”

  “No, sir,” says the butler, leaning forward with relish.

  “What else did she call her?”

  “Wasn’t what she called her, sir. It was her threat.”

  “Threat!”

  “Yes, sir. She said to Miss Collins, and this is exactly the word of it, sir, I’ll never forget. She said, ‘If you insist on going to the Arctic, you’ll never come back.’”

  Chapter Six

  Virginia

  The Collins House, Boston

  April 1853

  Caprice smelled like money. Not the blood-tinged scent of copper pennies, heaven forbid, nor the grimy stink of much-handled bills, but the crisp, almost leaflike smell of a dollar fresh from the mint. When she stirred her skirts, the smell wafted up, settled in. It was the first thing Virginia noticed about her.

  The second: she was as homely as a toad.

  The third: while she herself was probably unaware of the first point, she went to great expense to distract you from the second.

  When the butler showed her into the parlor, Virginia wasn’t sure where to look. The velvet couch upon which Caprice was arrayed was attractive enough, an elegant lavender in color, and in a plainer room, it would have been lovely. But it was flanked on both sides by chairs upholstered in a turquoise-and-pink floral pattern, in front of a wall striped with gold and rose in turn, and if the riot of color weren’t enough, the stripes gave the whole scene an air of the circus. Then there was the rich, thick carpet, which swirled all the other colors together with ribbons of cream and green, a snarl of flowers the likes of which would never be served up together by nature.

  Caprice herself wore a floral pattern that clashed equally with the chairs and the carpet. The skirt of her dress was heavily embroidered with lilies. Her bodice, tapering down to a sharp point at her narrow waist, was a solid green. Perhaps she was supposed to look like a flower herself. She did not.

  Setting a careful foot on the outrageously flowered carpet, Virginia extended her hand to Caprice. Caprice did not take it.

  Looking past Virginia to the butler, Caprice said, “Thank you, Bishop. That will be all.”

  Virginia turned her head to see the man, slim and rigid. He bowed sharply at the waist as if it were the only point where his body could bend. Then he backed away and disappeared around a corner, still facing them, until he receded from view. Virginia wanted to laugh, but she could tell from Caprice’s expression that this was expected. She swallowed her amusement and waited instead for her host to speak.

  Once he was gone, Caprice looked up at Virginia, appraising her frankly. “So tell me. Who are you?”

  The rich girl’s glare made Virginia uneasy. If Caprice had any pretty part, it was her muted gray-green eyes, but what she did with them was piercing, not pleasing. The confidence Virginia had felt with both Lady Franklin and Brooks seemed to drain away instantly. Hesitating even as she cursed her hesitation, Virginia began, “I thought Lady Franklin told you. She’s asked me to organize the expedition… She did mention the expedition?”

  Caprice waved the back of her hand once, like a birdwing, and said, “Yes, yes, I know all that. What I mean is who are you? Where did you come from?”

  “California,” she replied.

  Caprice rolled her eyes. “No one comes from California.”

  “People do,” Virginia protested weakly.

  A rap sounded on the door, and in came a young woman with a tea tray. What they called “tea” on the trail had been brewed from acorns, somehow both flavorless and bitter. This tea tray was piled high not just with a flowered porcelain pot of tea and matching cups on saucers but a tempting plate of little biscuits and cakes, iced with graceful swirls.

  The young woman arranged things on a low table, and Caprice dismissed her with, “Thank you, Eleanor. We’ll serve ourselves.”

  Eleanor backed out as the butler had.

  Virginia reached for a round biscuit with a perfect little flower on it and had it halfway to her mouth when she heard Caprice chuckle. In the chuckle, there was malice.

  “That hungry, are you?” said Caprice.

  “I’m sorry?”

  She pointed at the sweet in Virginia’s hand. “It isn’t generally done, just grabbing one’s own fistful like that. But I suppose you do things differently in California?”

  Mortified, Virginia thought to put the biscuit back, but that seemed wrong; instead, she defiantly popped it in her mouth and began to chew. When she’d swallowed it—so quickly she didn’t even have time to savor the taste—she said, “Well, you did say we’d serve ourselves.”

  Caprice’s smile, like her laugh, was malicious. “I suppose you haven’t been in a house like this often enough to speak the language. Here, that means that the host serves. The guest waits. It’s how polite people do things. But you’re self-sufficient, I see, so why don’t you pour yourself some tea?”

  Once, Virginia remembered, a sudden, vicious wind had whipped up on a sandy trail through the Sierras, blasting their party. Virginia had been shocked at how much a tiny grain of sand on one’s skin, delivered with enough force, could hurt. Caprice’s obvious condescension, her scrutiny, hit Virginia like those grains of sand.

  They should be talking about the expedition, how exciting it was to be included, how they would do what no other women had done. Virginia wanted to find out why this girl was important enough to be a required participant. She was sure
Caprice was equally curious about her. They should use every minute to find out all the facts, all the warts, before such things came out on the journey. Then it would be too late.

  Instead, Virginia reached out for the pot of tea and found the handle so hot to the touch she had to pull back her fingers, yelping, “Bugger all!”

  “Goodness!” said Caprice, sounding genuinely shocked. “Now I’m sure no matter where you were raised, you understand that sort of language is inappropriate for a social call.”

  Virginia considered fleeing the room entirely and abandoning the very idea of the expedition. It was nearly as tempting as the tray of sweets. But she forced herself to calm down, and in a deliberately deferential voice, she said, “You know, I’ve decided I’m not really in the mood for tea. Please forgive me. May I sit, or is that something that also isn’t done?”

  She stared directly at Caprice, who matched the grit in her stare and finally, slowly, gave a nod of approval. “You’re right. Let the tea cool. Let’s talk about the future.”

  “Let’s.”

  They seated themselves on the overstuffed couches. This was their last best chance to start over. So Virginia said, “So, Miss Collins, what is your reason for wanting to join the expedition?”

  “Wanting to join? That makes it sound like there’s a question. If I am not part of this expedition, there will not be one.”

  “Is that so?”

  Caprice’s chin went up. “I have persuaded my father that the search for Franklin is a noble undertaking. You could say I’m the reason this expedition is happening.”

  Virginia answered in a dry tone, “I assume Lady Franklin would say her husband is the reason.”

  “I suppose, in the sense that we would have no one to look for if he hadn’t gotten himself lost, along with two very expensive ships and over a hundred other sons, husbands, and fathers. But my father’s money is making this female search expedition possible. That’s why I’m going.”

  Virginia’s eyes lit on the striped wallpaper, the ornate and expensive surroundings. “And your family will allow it?”