The Arctic Fury Page 2

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t upset me in the least,” said the woman, though it sounded to Virginia like a lie. “You are simply a very bad singer. And it is not my song, as you style it. It is simply a popular song that purports to speak with my voice, though I gave no permission for it to do so. But let’s have done with that. Please, tell me, how was your journey?”

  As rusty as her social skills might be, Virginia recognized a change of subject when she heard it, and she took the cue. “Long, to be sure. But far more comfortable than it would have been without your generosity. Thank you for that. If one has a first-class cabin on both the Pacific ship and the Atlantic, the portage in Panama is the worst of it.”

  She tried to make the journey sound like nothing, when in fact, it might have broken a less experienced traveler. The journeymen who carried her belongings in Panama made off with one of her two precious trunks. A drunken sot on the Atlantic journey mistook her cabin for another’s and pounded on her door, shouting and then sobbing, the better part of a night. But she wasn’t one to complain. Her neck itched again. She pictured the rash she would find—an inch-thick strip like a priest’s collar, all the way around—when she finally peeled the infernal wool dress away. She missed the buckskin trousers and tunic she’d worn as a guide or even the plain cotton hand-me-down dresses she’d worn before that. As dangerous as they were, the wilds beyond the eastern edge of America did offer some advantages over civilization. On the frontier, a young woman in her twenties might do almost anything, as long as she was capable and smart, and if she chose, she could do it dressed in comfort.

  “I hope you don’t come down with the fever,” said Lady Franklin, her clipped British accent brushing away her ending r’s. Feev-ah. “It might interfere with the plans I have for you.” Int-ah-feeh.

  Virginia smiled. Small talk was done with, it seemed. “Your correspondence referred to a journey, an expedition. And now that I know who you are, I suspect the travel you have in mind is entirely northward.”

  The older woman laughed, a throaty, husky sound, and looked Virginia up and down. “Do you, now.”

  “Your husband is lost,” Virginia said simply. “I assume you want him found.”

  “Those are the facts of it, yes. I would expect most young women—or thoughtful people of any age or sex—would phrase it with more care, having some regard for my feelings in the matter.”

  “Feelings are a luxury, ma’am,” said Virginia, respectfully but firmly. She figured Lady Franklin would appreciate a hard head. “Feelings did not bring me here.”

  Lady Franklin’s sharp eyes grew even colder, indicating that she’d miscalculated. “How jaded you are, even at your age. Feelings are what make us human. It is my deep love for my husband that drives me to continue to seek him out, despite so many obstacles, so many failures.”

  Taking a new tack, Virginia tried to appear contrite. “I apologize. I confess I do not know the whole of what you have done so far to seek him. West of Fort Bridger, news is thin on the ground.”

  “And yet you know that song, the one you referred to as mine. ‘Lady Franklin’s Lament,’ they style it.”

  “As I said, my Canadian friend was fond of the tune. He was a better singer than I am.”

  “Was?”

  Virginia ignored the question, forging ahead. She had come a long way for this opportunity; she would not let it slip away without knowing what was truly on offer. “If it’s a northward journey you have in mind for me, Lady Franklin, I hope you don’t misunderstand my background. I have spent no time in the North.”

  “Your expertise is in leading people. I need people to be led.”

  “Over land or sea?”

  “Both, as it happens. And lakes as well, which may be new for you. Land, lake, sea. Good things, I am told, come in threes.”

  “And deaths,” said Virginia.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “It’s a superstition,” she said, feeling her cheeks redden. “I’m sorry. Deaths also come in threes, they say. But I apologize, I should not have steered us off course. Tell me, what sort of people do you have in mind for me to lead?”

  Lady Franklin sat up straight in her chair, curling her fingers around its soft arms like an eagle’s talons on a branch.

  “I have determined,” said Lady Franklin, “a key similarity between all the expeditions—and I now need a second hand to count them—that have failed to find my husband.”

  “And that similarity is?”

  “Men,” said Lady Franklin, not with rancor but still investing the word with a sharp importance. “Each of these failed expeditions has been conceived by men, run by men, peopled by men entire.”

  “Forgive my ignorance,” Virginia said apologetically, though she was getting the distinct sense that Lady Franklin may not. “Aren’t all Arctic expeditions so run?”

  “Yes.” Lady Franklin smiled a wry little smile. “They have been, so far. But I have a theory about women. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Women can do far more than the narrow lens of society deems fitting. I suspect there is nothing, literally nothing, of which women are not capable.”

  It was a shocking statement on the face of it. Virginia happened to agree.

  Lady Franklin went on, “I myself have done things only a handful of travelers of my generation can lay claim to, man or woman. Sailed down the Nile. Ridden a donkey into Nazareth. Visited a quarantine station in Malta, the docks of Alexandria, the shining Acropolis. Can any man of your acquaintance say he has even been in the presence of janissaries? Bedouins? A pasha? I have met them all.”

  Virginia’s awe was sincere. This elegant, carefully arranged woman—sixty years old if she was a day—bore no signs of such adventure. Her soft cheeks, rich dress, sophisticated air, all seemed at odds with the idea of such unusual achievements. “You are clearly extraordinary.”

  “You mistake me!” Lady Franklin leaned forward, intent. “I do not argue my own exceptionalism. What I have done, a thousand other women could do, given the chance. This westward expansion of yours proves it. These American wagon trains. Women drive wagons or trek alongside them, learn to shoot firearms, protect themselves and one another, survive the worst storms and the baking sun, shift for themselves through hardships. Over thousands—thousands!—of miles. These intrepid women. At the end of it all, they make it to California or Oregon or Washington Territory.”

  “Except when they don’t,” Virginia blurted.

  Pinning her with a direct look, still from the comfort of her gilded chair, Lady Franklin said, “Well, yes. To attempt great things sometimes means failure. But even in failure, there are often kernels of success. That party of settlers that went astray on the way to California, marooned in the deep snow of a mountain pass for months, more than half of them dead at the end, you know who survived?”

  Virginia held her peace. So many possible answers. Lady Franklin’s was the one she wanted to hear.

  Lady Franklin said, “The women. If women can live through that, who’s to say they can’t succeed where men have failed and bring my husband back to me?”

  “What if there’s no husband to bring back?”

  “Girl,” said Lady Franklin, her voice turning harsh again, “I said it before, you have no regard for feelings.”

  She’d spoken too plainly, Virginia realized, and she tried to recover from the mistake without showing weakness. “I understand your feelings, ma’am. Fully. Yet I believe they are not the only reason you called me here. I believe you wanted to offer me some sort of employment.”

  “I did.”

  “If you do still,” Virginia said, “I am more than willing to listen.”

  Lady Franklin’s pause was long, but it ended with clear, steady words. “Simply put, I propose you lead an expedition to the North
to bring back my husband. He is a great man, and the world does not yet recognize his triumph. Once he returns, his name will be sung far and wide.”

  Virginia was eager to embrace the proposal, but she forced herself not to agree just yet. Why her? She had to be clear, just in case. “Leading wagon trains through the pass to California is not the same as leading people on foot through the frozen North. What we were looking for, I already knew how to find.”

  “But how many people did you take safely through?”

  After Virginia had abruptly given up her career as a guide and settled temporarily in San Francisco, a newspaper article—just one—had told her story. Lady Franklin must have seen it, and it included the number she was asking for. There was no reason to hedge. “By my best estimation, 563.”

  “I believe you have the skill and strength to do what I need, Miss Reeve. The terrain will be different, but the party is much smaller than what you’re used to. You have my confidence. I only need your agreement.”

  Virginia’s mind was whirling, starting to seize at the particulars. “You propose for me to lead this expedition alone? Myself?”

  “Yes. You will be in charge. At different points, yes, you will need to work closely with others—the experienced voyageurs with the canoes, for example, and the captain of the schooner that carries you north through the Bay. That’s why I chose you. You worked with a man to lead those parties through the mountains, if I recall correctly.”

  And there was the rub. She needn’t have avoided mentioning Ames; Lady Franklin obviously knew why Virginia wasn’t leading wagon trains through the pass anymore. Why her number of saved souls would never climb any higher than 563. Because she could no longer do it with Ames, and she would not do it alone.

  Perhaps this expedition—this mad, ridiculous idea of an expedition—was actually exactly what she needed.

  And then she remembered the last verse of “Lady Franklin’s Lament,” heard it as warm and strong as if Ames were standing right next to her, his scratchy baritone singing directly into her ear. It took real effort to keep from smiling at the memory.

  And now my burden it gives me pain,

  For my long-lost Franklin I would cross the main.

  Ten thousand pounds I would freely give

  To know on earth that my Franklin do live.

  There was a reward. Real money. She would almost do it only for the adventure, but what could she do with that money if she had it? Anything. Nothing. She could live as she liked, where she liked, and never feel even the slightest hunger. Money would free her from so many questions, so many concerns. One could not even put a price on that freedom. There was no other realistic way for her to earn so much money so fast—and become so free. “And if we find him, the reward is ours?”

  “Yours alone. To share with the rest of the expedition however you see fit. Like a whaling captain shares with his crew.”

  “And if we fail?”

  “I’m betting that you won’t,” said Lady Franklin. “You should be willing to make the same bet.”

  Virginia thought. She was on the cusp of something extraordinary. Whether it was something fantastic or fatal, she did not know. But there was excitement here, and wonder. There was potential she had not thought she could ever embrace again.

  At her silence, incongruously, Lady Franklin smiled. “When I read about you, I knew you would be qualified, but whether you’d be interested in taking on the work, that I didn’t know. Having met you, talked to you, I’m completely sure you are the right choice. I feel confident no one else could do as well.”

  Virginia said, “I’m…flattered, Lady Franklin.”

  “Of course you are. You’ll leave for the first leg of the journey in a week. I have a few other things to discuss, like some letters you’ll carry for me. Very important letters, including one to deliver to my husband when you find him. We can go over the particulars at the desk here, if you’ll please?” She gestured for Virginia to sit.

  Virginia remained standing. “I said I was flattered. I didn’t say I’d do it.”

  The older woman’s brow knotted in discontent. “What could possibly stand in your way?”

  “Those particulars you mentioned. We need to discuss them first. Who else will go? And how? How much will you pay if we follow the route but return empty-handed? What are the dangers, and how will we be prepared for them?”

  Lady Franklin’s brow eased, and she met Virginia’s gaze with confidence and calm. “I have an answer for every one of your questions, I assure you. I do have certain conditions, which I will spell out. But first, you must sit.”

  Virginia didn’t know why Lady Franklin cared so much whether she was sitting or standing, but she knew that when someone cared very much about a thing and you didn’t, you might as well give them what they wanted. Goodwill was a good like any other, to be traded and hoarded and spent.

  So this time, when Lady Franklin told Virginia to sit down, she did as she was told and smiled her prettiest smile. “Let’s begin.”

  Chapter Three

  Virginia

  Massachusetts Superior Court, Boston

  October 1854

  “Very well. Proceed,” says Judge Miller.

  The prosecutor poses in the front of the courtroom as if Charles Loring Elliott himself were engaged to paint his portrait. The man looks like a textbook illustration of an attorney: tiny spectacles, rigid posture. Prominent belly and jowls to match. Virginia’s judgment is clouded a bit by the circumstances, but she believes that even if he weren’t rabid to see her hanged for a crime he can’t prove she committed, she still would not like him.

  She likes him even less when he launches into what is supposed to pass for his opening statement. To her ears, it sounds a great deal more like a schoolmaster’s harangue.

  “Society has rules,” lectures the prosecutor, whose name she has not caught. “Some say we should be kind to those who flout them. Forgive them, for they know not what they do, as we read in the Good Book. But those who choose not to move in society are rarely the gems we wish them to be. You have not heard the name Virginia Reeve before. No doubt, before your time in this courtroom ends, you will be sorry you have heard it at all. Nor will you want to hear the details of how our own Caprice Collins, a native daughter of Boston—upstanding and sorely missed—met a horrible death at the hands of this cast-out, unknown girl. I want to thank you, as her family thanks you, for your service. Because you are taking on this unpleasant task, hearing things no good gentleman should ever have to hear, you may be able to stop a fiend from murdering again.”

  Virginia stays as motionless as a statue. Or a corpse.

  “This girl, she claims that her expedition was initiated and paid for by Lady Jane Franklin. But I ask you, why would a highborn British lady do such an outrageous thing? Gin up a misfit band of American women—women and girls!—to search for two British Royal Navy ships that not even the world’s most qualified, experienced seamen have been able to find? It’s a foolish argument on the face of it. And I tell you, though I regret to do so, there is nothing to learn beyond the face.”

  He gestures back toward her without fully turning around, without raising his arm all the way. Something desultory about it, almost demeaning, but subtly so. “The defendant, Virginia Reeve, has no family. No history. No one to vouch for her, except for these poor, misguided young women”—he indicates the survivors with a backward sweep of his hand, and Virginia wants to launch herself at him like a bearcat and rake the very flesh from his pompous pink cheeks—“whom she has clearly placed under some kind of spell. As we will prove she did to her victim.”

  A year ago, even half a year, Virginia would have laughed at the idea that anyone would call Caprice a victim. But the realities of the trial, what’s at stake, have sunk in. She does not feel at all like laughing now.

  After a stately pause, the prosec
utor resumes his address to the men of the jury. “Each had her own reasons for believing the lies Miss Reeve told. But make no mistake, good gentlemen of Boston. She swindled every one of these girls into believing a lie, the same lie she’ll tell you—if her counsel even lets her speak.”

  As much as she wants to leap up and tear into him, Virginia gazes out from the dock with a blank look, seemingly impassive. For all the terrible things her Arctic ordeal has done to her, not to mention the ordeals previous to it, it has at least done this one good thing: her face keeps many secrets. When she was young, she had a nimble face. Flashing eyes, pink lips quick to smile, the guileless expressions of a girl who wore her heart for anyone to see. No longer.

  And so the people in this courtroom, this judge, this jury, will not be able to find any trace of what she feels inside by looking at her outside. They’ll see the neat slate-gray dress her counsel shoved through the bars of her cell without comment, neither cheap nor extravagant, blamelessly plain. They’ll see the toll that the cold North took on her face, the red bloom on her cheeks that never quite goes away no matter how cold or warm the room might be. They’ll see her dark hair parted in the middle and gathered in a smooth, tight coil at the nape of her neck, not a strand out of place, as if she were a painted picture of a woman and not flesh and blood.

  But they won’t see her anger, the anger that has burned in her for years, unladylike, unquenchable. They won’t see how she truly feels about what happened to Caprice, the fierce, haunting regret.

  Most importantly, they will never, ever see her fear.

  “Thank you. The prosecution rests,” says the lawyer, and Virginia stares straight ahead at a knot in the wood of the witness stand, on the far side of the judge’s bench. She pretends it’s the most interesting knot in the world.

  The sound of shuffling papers comes from the defense table. If she could reach, she would slam her hand down on those damn papers to silence them. Her counsel is preceded by rustling everywhere he goes, like a preening debutante who fluffs her skirts to draw attention.