The Arctic Fury

by Greer Macallister

  Once he was in, she offered him tea, which he declined with a wave of his hand.

  She began brightly, “I’m so glad you’ve come early, Brooks. I have news.”

  “I have news as well.”

  “I assumed so,” she said. “Since you stand here. But mine first.”

  He raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

  She plunged ahead. “You asked me to secure three resources. I have done so. Their names are Siobhan Perry, Thisbe Westphal, and Dorothea Roset.”

  He must have been a superb player of card games; his visage remained pleasantly blank through all three names, without even a flicker of recognition at the third. She could not help a twinge of disappointment.

  “Are you quite finished?” he asked.

  “I thought you’d be glad.”

  “Gladness is a waste of time,” he said dryly. “I came to inform you that circumstances have necessitated a change in the roster.”

  She reviewed the roster in her mind, silently, quickly. She already had a way of remembering all twelve: a journalist, an illustrator, a translator, and a mountaineer; one woman who knew dogs and one who knew maps; two English ladies, two medics, Thisbe from the ordinary, and herself. Had someone gotten cold feet? Who? Hope surged up in her heart that Caprice Collins had decided to stay home after all. Perhaps the tidings that Brooks bore so gravely would be, for Virginia herself, good news.

  Brooks said, “One more passenger will be coming with you. Her name is Stella Howe. She will meet you with the others in Buffalo, New York.”

  “So our party will number thirteen?” That was bad luck, that number; she didn’t have to be a sailor to know it.

  “No.”

  “No? But that’s—what am I supposed to do? I have twelve already.”

  As if he were speaking to a simpleton, Brooks stretched out his words, spacing them like posts in a fence. “It seems, Miss Reeve, that you will need to release one woman from the expedition.”

  “Release one? They’re not passenger pigeons, Brooks.”

  “Tell one she’s not coming,” he said bluntly. “Any one you like.”

  “Caprice, then.”

  “Any one of yours. The three you chose. Now it’s two.”

  A quarter of an hour before, she’d been thrilled with herself for quickly securing her recruits, and now, she wished she hadn’t. If she’d only…but she knew the uselessness of regrets.

  And just like that, she was already weighing the pros and cons of each of her three precious recruits. Who had the most essential skills? Not just who did she want to have along, but who did she need? Doro for her maps and her expertise in the ice, second to none. Siobhan was not the only one on the roster with medical knowledge, which made her slightly less valuable, but Virginia knew all the things that went wrong on a trail. And she was not being asked to strike two, only one.

  And there was her answer, clear and plain: Thisbe would remain behind. There was no real alternative. Truth be told, the woman was such a wild card, the expedition might be better off without her. But she dreaded imparting the news.

  “All right, then. I’ll find time to break the news to her before Saturday.” That was the time frame he’d given her for leaving. Saturday they would leave on the train for Buffalo; some of the women were already there in New York, and the rest were on their way. Her mind was already rushing forward into the logistics of their gathering, the inn where they’d stay, the provisions that had to be transferred, when she heard him speak.

  “Make it Tuesday,” he said.

  “Tuesday? That’s tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do I need to tell her Tuesday?”

  “Because you leave Wednesday.”

  “Do I?” she challenged.

  “That’s correct,” he answered, his voice cool.

  Cool as a desert at midnight, she thought, one of Ames’s favorite phrases. She noticed the words Brooks spoke were a response, not an apology.

  Barely were the words out of his mouth when her mind was working again. How hard could she push back? What response was most likely to get her what she wanted? That was when she realized she didn’t really need more time. More time wouldn’t help and could possibly even hurt. They should really be on their way. Which was probably why the timetable had been moved up, but damn it all, why could the man not just say so? He seemed to have a deep, pronounced aversion to explanations.

  So this time, she would not ask for one.

  Back in Illinois, before her family set out West, she’d gone to have her fortune told by a spiritualist at a county fair. Whenever Virginia tried to ask her a direct question—Will I find love? Will I die young?—the woman had hemmed and hawed and danced aside. The signs are uncertain, young one. Brooks was like that. Or was he more like the wild horse she’d watched Ames try to break back in Laredo? No matter what angle Ames had chosen to approach, the horse seemed to anticipate him and sidestep, just far enough, with a contrary grace.

  Whether he was a horse, a spiritualist, or some combination thereof, Virginia knew what Brooks really was: a pain in the ass.

  But she’d be shut of him as soon as the expedition began. Which, according to what he’d just told her, was only two days away.

  Keeping her manner calm so as not to show how much he’d rattled her, Virginia said coolly, “Well, I suppose I’d best prepare, then.”

  Not to be outdone, the man answered, “However much preparation you undertake, Miss Reeve, I doubt you will ever truly be prepared.”

  She gave no answer, but as she shut the door behind him, Virginia sighed. She did not trust the man, nor did she ever want to see him again, but in this, his words had the ring of truth.

  She would never really be ready for this challenge.

  She was going anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Virginia

  Massachusetts Superior Court, Boston

  October 1854

  The murmurs in the courtroom are rampant today, rapid, rippling currents that remind Virginia of the spot where the Laramie River meets the North Platte River, just beyond Fort Laramie. The rivers in Wyoming are well-known for their swiftness. So, too, the whispers of gossip in a Boston court. Virginia can’t make out most of the words, but she hears something that sounds like What’s next, and after that, she just hears those words over and over again from a dozen mouths, two dozen, the whole vast room. What’s next. What’s next? What’s next.

  In a swirl of black robes and seeming indifference, Judge Miller finally arrives—probably having kept them waiting on purpose, she decides, not feeling generous of spirit this morning—and nods to the bailiff to start the proceedings. The bailiff nods in turn to the prosecutor.

  The prosecutor, with his usual flair for the theatrical, booms, “The prosecution calls Thisbe Quinlan to the stand.”

  Virginia gives an inner groan. She should have expected this. On some level, she did expect it, she realizes. Everything comes back to haunt her eventually, it seems. Today, it feels like the entire world is peopled only with ghosts, that all those who have ever walked the earth are still here, and the dead outnumber the living by multitudes.

  If this is the worst it gets, perhaps there is hope for her. She never harmed Thisbe, not really. She only withdrew something that, it turned out, was not hers to give. Was it such a sin? When the real reckoning comes for her in heaven, she’s confident that this sin isn’t one she’ll be called to account for. Then again, her reckoning on earth seems to be much more immediate. That one worries her.

  Thisbe looks smart, with a new hat undoubtedly purchased for this occasion. She has a distinct air of self-satisfaction. Her cheeks are rounder, her waist thicker, since Virginia last saw her in the ordinary. The change looks well on her. Her hair is pinned up in an intricate system of braids. Thisbe has taken her time today preparing to
be looked at. Hand flat on the Bible, she swears her oath with her chin, indeed her whole head, held regally high. She is not entirely the same creature Virginia once knew, she decides, nor is she entirely different.

  The prosecutor says, “Thank you for joining us to give testimony today, Miss…Quinlan, is it?”

  “Mrs. Quinlan,” she says. “I was joined in marriage only last month.”

  “Congratulations to you.”

  “Thank you. I am quite a fortunate woman, in this and many ways.”

  Thisbe’s name was not Quinlan when they met, Virginia remembers now. Funny how life has gone on in their absence. The world did not screech to a halt when they left Boston for Buffalo on the way to Sault Ste. Marie, nor when they set sail on the Doris, nor when they leaned into the killing Arctic wind in the vast, unknown expanse. It merely continues wheeling now that they are back. Babies were born, people grew and changed, others died, young or old. In the wheeling of the world, Thisbe got married, and this is just another fact.

  “And can you tell us how you know the defendant, Virginia Reeve?”

  “I can tell you that woman is a charlatan and a liar,” she says, her eyes burning with righteous fury.

  Though she has not exactly answered his question, the prosecutor urges her on with great relish. “Can you tell us more about why you say that?”

  Thisbe says, “She made me certain promises. Which she did not keep.”

  “Promises such as?”

  “She invited me to go on this little excursion of hers. This trip to the Arctic, all peopled with women, as if women were not too delicate for such a risky undertaking.”

  Even without looking, Virginia can feel the five survivors bristle, and her heart is bathed in warm love for them. Her affection for them helps her deal with her anger at the liar before her. Thisbe is here to destroy her, yes, but she will not succeed. She cares far more about what the five think of her than what Thisbe thinks, though she cautions herself against hubris. Whether she wants to hear what Thisbe will say does not matter. The jury will listen, is listening. She does not let herself glance over at those faces. She knows what she’ll see.

  The prosecutor asks, “She invited you?” His questions flow easily, gently. No doubt they have rehearsed.

  “She said she did. I told her I would, though I wasn’t ever sure I was going to. Against my better judgment, I thought I’d go at the appointed day and time, you know, to see whether there was anything to it. Perhaps it was a fleecing, and if so, I wanted to warn other women against it. Against her. She can be quite persuasive, you know.”

  “Can she?” laughs the prosecutor.

  Virginia sees a cloud cross Thisbe’s brow, a grim set to her mouth under her smartly styled hair. Conflicted, Virginia silently cheers the prosecution’s witness on. Of course, Thisbe doesn’t want to be made to look foolish. If the lawyer wants her cooperation, he needs to treat her with respect. Then again, how much more cooperation does he need? She has already come here and testified to the offer Virginia made her. An offer made, then rescinded. It doesn’t matter that the offer was made in good faith, nor does it matter that Virginia was forced against her will to rescind it. Thisbe is here to make Virginia seem like a liar. In that, Virginia suspects, she will succeed.

  Judge Miller, one hand casually extended toward the prosecutor, breaks in. “Excuse me. That was, you might notice, a question. Is it a question you expect the witness to answer?”

  “No, no,” the prosecutor hastens to add. “Let me be clearer, please.”

  “Please.”

  Virginia looks at the judge with a smidge more respect than before. Is he…trying to be fair? That would be a pleasant development, though she doesn’t trust it. More likely he just likes to needle attorneys who appear before him no matter which side they’re on. Impartiality doesn’t require the absence of mistreatment, only the application of equal mistreatment all around.

  “Here is the question, Miss—Mrs.—Quinlan,” the prosecutor says, visibly working to regain his composure. “So this Virginia Reeve persuaded you to join her so-called expedition, but at the last minute, you changed your mind?”

  “I did not. Not every woman is a vapid flibbertigibbet who changes her mind, sir.” She is bristling now, giving the prosecutor the full force of her glare, and Virginia knows this is not in the script. If Virginia dared, she would look at the jury to guess if they see what she sees. She does not dare.

  “I see. You did not change your mind. But you did not go on the expedition. Could you explain to us what happened?”

  “Yes.” She nods and gazes around the room slowly, establishing control. “Only the day after she invited me on this expedition—now a fool’s errand, as even a blind man could see—Virginia Reeve told me there was no longer room for me and I was not welcome to participate.”

  “No reason given?”

  “None.”

  “And what do you think her reason was?”

  “Cruelty doesn’t need a reason,” snaps Thisbe. “A woman who has no respect for rules, for promises, is no true woman. She is some other kind of creature.”

  “What do you think would have happened had you gone?” A foolish question on the face of it but as clear to Virginia as an alarm bell. Thisbe went off script, but now the lawyer is wrenching her back on track, which means they have planned her next answer.

  Thisbe says, “I might have died, too, like half her expedition.”

  The courtroom erupts, and the judge bangs his gavel. If their voices were the clashing nexus of two rivers before, now they are a thundering waterfall.

  This is what Thisbe’s really here for, thinks Virginia. To say what the prosecution wants said. She’s doing a bang-up job, it seems. Another hand to steady the coffin. To drive the nail.

  After he gets the room halfway hushed again, the judge points his gavel at Thisbe and says, “Mrs. Quinlan, let’s keep your answers to the scope of what you know.”

  “But I do know it, sir!” she protests, eyes blazing again. “This woman, the defendant, told me she was leading a group of twelve women into the North to search for Franklin. Here are six, including herself. Where are the other six? Have you thought to ask her?”

  The courtroom roils again; the gavel bangs again. The judge says, “Let me remind the witness that she is here to answer questions, not ask them. Is that clear to you, Mrs. Quinlan?”

  “Yes.”

  Judge Miller aims his gavel at the jury, lowers his brow, and intones in a serious voice, “The jury will disregard Mrs. Quinlan’s claims that are outside her experience.”

  But who can disregard something so salacious? Virginia is only on trial for one murder, but one is enough. Caprice will stand in for all the others. Caprice is the one who matters. She would be thrilled by that, Virginia thinks, if there were any way for her to know it. Caprice always did believe in her own importance the way other people believed in God.

  Thisbe should be grateful she did not go. Thisbe looks healthy and happy, Thisbe is married, Thisbe has not lost toes or ears or her whole damn life the way other women did. The way Caprice did. Bugger Caprice, thinks Virginia, allowing her anger to express itself in profanity. She’d gotten out of the habit. Ames would disapprove of her relapse.

  She makes herself focus. Sucks in air through her nostrils and forces it out through her mouth. In the Arctic, she learned to breathe differently. It took her months to get back to the normal way. But at least in this respect, she thinks, normal was a possibility.

  She looks at Thisbe. She breathes. Be like a stone, she tells herself. Like a stone, she endures.

  The prosecutor fingers his chin and tilts his head as if considering, though of course he has planned what to say.

  “Thank you for your honest testimony today, Mrs. Quinlan. The court is most appreciative.”

  She nods, sober, with only a touch of the pr
eening attitude Virginia remembers from her days in the ladies’ ordinary. Virginia lets herself wonder who Mr. Quinlan is, how Thisbe met him, how their love unfolded, if it was indeed love. Why not speculate idly about the affairs of others? she thinks. She needs something to occupy her thoughts besides her own impending death.

  “One final question,” says the prosecutor, and something about the way he says it makes Virginia think that this bit, perhaps, might not be planned.

  Thisbe says, her voice just a little too loud in the quieted room, “I’m an open book.”

  “Very well. If you could say one thing to Miss Reeve now, what would it be?”

  “But I wouldn’t be confined to one thing, sir.”

  “Pretend you were.”

  “But she’s sitting right there. I can say what I like.”

  “Fine,” he says fussily. To Virginia, it seems like he’s regretting the decision to ask. “Say what you like, then.”

  “You did me wrong, Miss Reeve,” says Thisbe, but even by the end of the short sentence, her voice seems to lose its resolve.

  Virginia can’t respond to her, makes no motion, but the longing is strong; she wants to hold Thisbe and stroke her hair. Even though the woman has damaged her standing with the jury, even with no real information, Virginia still wants to comfort her. As many bad decisions as she has made, as many times as she has forced herself to choose practicality over sentiment, there is something in her that will never be able to ignore someone else’s suffering.

  “I wanted to go,” Thisbe says, this time more mournfully, softly. She is the first of the witnesses to look Virginia in the eye, and what Virginia sees is unbridled sadness. “I wanted to go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Virginia

  Charles Street Jail, Boston

  October 1854

  Hours after Thisbe’s testimony, once she finally finds a fitful sleep in the dark, uneasy silence of the jail, Virginia dreams of Ames. It’s the first time in a long time that she’s done so. On the expedition itself, she thought of him often, wondering what he might think of her adventures, but he’d been absent from her dreams. It is only now that she is back in relative safety—though she is not safe, not by a long shot—that his face and voice come to her.