The Frozen Deep Part 16

"Asking after me?" Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the words. He added, in lower and graver tones, "You had better tell Miss Burnham you have seen me here."

The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the boat-house.

Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.

On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the _Amazon_, Clara had embarra.s.sed and distressed, not Crayford only, but the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour.

She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to herself, when Crayford (out of compa.s.sionate regard for her) declared that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been dismissed--that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind--exactly reflecting similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mind--which so distressed the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky.

Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.

On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged--and the pa.s.sengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the s.h.i.+p had anch.o.r.ed--now, when officers and pa.s.sengers alike were on sh.o.r.e, with leisure time at their disposal--Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance of the truth?

These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion in Clara's mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it--at once honorably and mercifully--was more than Crayford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford's face.

"Have you seen anything of Clara?" he asked. "Is she still on the beach?"

"She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. "I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circ.u.mstances under which Frank is missing.

As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her."

"Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to separate s.h.i.+ps. What could have led her to suspect that they had come together?"

"She was firmly persuaded, William, that they _would_ come together when the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on ice-bergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance.

I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, 'While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!'"

"Good G.o.d!" cried Crayford; "I warned him myself, almost in those very words, the last time I saw him!"

"Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you have just told me. She will not take it for what it is--a startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superst.i.tious faith, that is in her. So long as you don't actually know that Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour's hand, deny what she says--mislead her for her own sake--dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise her to the better and n.o.bler belief in the mercy of G.o.d!" She stopped, and looked round nervously at the doorway. "Hus.h.!.+" she whispered. "Do as I have told you. Clara is here."

Chapter 17.

Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the boat-house, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was standing.

"There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on board the s.h.i.+p," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford's heart to see. "You are Lucy's husband, and you have an interest in me for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that account from giving me pain: I can bear pain. Friend and brother! will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank?"

The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook Crayford's self-possession at the outset. He answered her in the worst possible manner; he answered evasively.

"My dear Clara," he said, "what have I done that you should suspect me of deceiving you?"

She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara's arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of speaking of other things.

"Any instructions from the s.h.i.+p, Steventon?" he asked, approaching the officer.

"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The s.h.i.+p will sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send another boat ash.o.r.e. In the meantime here are some refreshments for the pa.s.sengers. The s.h.i.+p is in a state of confusion; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably here."

Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took _her_ opportunity of silencing Clara next.

"Come, my dear," she said. "Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen come in."

Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had in view to be silenced in that way. "I will help you directly," she answered--then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name was Steventon.

"Can you spare me a few minutes?" she asked. "I have something to say to you."

"I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham."

Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs.

Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whispered to her, "Don't be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him; his discretion is to be depended on."

Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.

"I will not keep you long," she said. "I will promise not to distress Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable of self-control. I won't ask you to go back to the story of your past sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing--I mean about what happened at the time when the exploring party was dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind.

Frank cast the lot to go." She paused, shuddering. "And Richard Wardour," she went on, "cast the lot to remain behind. On your honor, as officers and gentlemen, is this the truth?"

"On my honor," Crayford answered, "it is the truth."

"On my honor," Steventon repeated, "it is the truth."

She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she spoke again.

"You both drew the lot to stay in the huts," she said, addressing Crayford and Steventon. "And you are both here. Richard Wardour drew the lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to be with Frank's on the list of the missing?"

The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively.

"It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, "that the two men were missing together because their names happen to come together on the list."

Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-considered reply.

"Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the huts?"

Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a moment's hesitation!

"Yes!" she said. "Wardour is missing from the huts."

Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She turned to Steventon.

"I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?"

She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.

Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.

"You hear?" she said. "It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you call 'Accident,' what I call 'Fate,' brought Richard Wardour and Frank together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.

"Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?" she asked.

"I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied.

"Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as 'The Second Sight'?"