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Charles Dickens - "Master Humphrey's Clock"

Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with Lloyde Osbourne - "The Ebb Tide"

Rainer Maria Rilke - "Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge"

Eleanor H. Porter - "Miss Billy's Decision"

THE FROZEN DEEP

W >> Wilkie Collins >> THE FROZEN DEEP



[Italics are indicated by underscores
James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]





[Etext prepared by James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net. Italics are
indicated by the underscore character.]





THE FROZEN DEEP

by Wilkie Collins




First Scene--The Ball-room

Chapter 1.

The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an
English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the
moment is--dancing.

The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in
celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their
port. The ships of the expedition are two in number--the
_Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_. They are to sail (in search of the
Northwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide.

Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The
band is complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory
opening out of it is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns,
and beautifully decorated with shrubs and flowers. All officers
of the army and navy who are present wear their uniforms in honor
of the occasion. Among the ladies, the display of dresses (a
subject which the men don't understand) is bewildering--and the
average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the
highest average attainable, in all parts of the room.

For the moment, the dance which is in progress is a quadrille.
General admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as
its favorite objects. One is a dark beauty in the prime of
womanhood--the wife of First Lieutenant Crayford, of the
_Wanderer_. The other is a young girl, pale and delicate; dressed
simply in white; with no ornament on her head but her own lovely
brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham--an orphan. She is Mrs.
Crayford's dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford
during the lieutenant's absence in the Arctic regions. She is now
dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs.
Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the
_Wanderer_) for vis-a-vis--in plain English, for opposite couple.

The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in
one of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The
captain is greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty;
but he thinks her manner--for a young girl--strangely serious and
subdued. Is she in delicate health?

Mrs. Crayford shakes her head; sighs mysteriously; and answers,

"In _very_ delicate health, Captain Helding."

"Consumptive?"

"Not in the least."

"I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs.
Crayford. She interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty
years younger--perhaps (as I am not twenty years younger) I had
better not finish the sentence? Is it indiscreet, my dear lady,
to inquire what _is_ the matter with her?"

"It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger," said Mrs.
Crayford. "An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish
I could tell you what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery
to the doctors themselves. Some of the mischief is due, in my
humble opinion, to the manner in which she has been brought up."

"Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose."

"Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you
have in your mind at this moment. Clara's early years were spent
in a lonely old house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant
people about her were the people who did the mischief which I
have just been speaking of. They filled her mind with the
superstitions which are still respected as truths in the wild
North--especially the superstition called the Second Sight."

"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she
believes in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!"

Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.

"In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in
dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by
spirits who can't spell! By comparison with such superstitions as
these, even the Second Sight has something--in the shape of
poetry--to recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself," she
continued seriously, "the effect of such surroundings as I have
described on a delicate, sensitive young creature--a girl with a
naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected
life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the
infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite
incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer
accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma'am, as you put it.
Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to
meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight.
Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to
understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees
people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That
is the Second Sight, is it not?"

"That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and
positively, what she does."

"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?"

"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us."

The captain waited a little--letting the new flood of information
which had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind.
This process accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded
resolutely on his way to further discoveries.

"May I ask, ma'am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance
with your own eyes?" he inquired.

"My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a
month since," Mrs. Crayford replied. "She had been nervous and
irritable all the morning; and we took her out into the garden to
breathe the fresh air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the
color left her face. She stood between us, insensible to touch,
insensible to sound; motionless as stone, and cold as death in a
moment. The first change we noticed came after a lapse of some
minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as if she was groping in
the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips, in a lost,
vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether what she
said referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of
persons in a foreign country--perfect strangers to my sister and
to me. After a little interval, she suddenly became silent. A
momentary color appeared in her face, and left it again. Her eyes
closed--her feet failed her--and she sank insensible into our
arms."

"Sank insensible into your arms," repeated the captain, absorbing
his new information. "Most extraordinary! And--in this state of
health--she goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary
still!"

"You are entirely mistaken," said Mrs. Crayford. "She is only
here to-night to please me; and she is only dancing to please my
husband. As a rule, she shuns all society. The doctor recommends
change and amusement for her. She won't listen to him. Except on
rare occasions like this, she persists in remaining at home."

Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor.
Something practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific
man. Sure to see this very obscure subject under a new light.
"How does it strike the doctor now?" said the captain. "Viewed
simply as a Case, ma'am, how does it strike the doctor?"

"He will give no positive opinion," Mrs. Crayford answered. "He
told me that such cases as Clara's were by no means unfamiliar to
medical practice. 'We know,' he told me, 'that certain disordered
conditions of the brain and the nervous system produce results
quite as extraordinary as any that you have described--and there
our knowledge ends. Neither my science nor any man's science can
clear up the mystery in this case. It is an especially difficult
case to deal with, because Miss Burnham's early associations
dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to the
malady--the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it--from
which she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her
general health; and I can recommend you to try some change in her
life--provided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties
that may possibly be preying on it.'"

The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his
anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of
the difficulty.

"Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the head! Secret
anxieties. Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in
love--eh, Mrs. Crayford?"

"I don't know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara's
confidence in me--in other matters unbounded--is, in this matter
of her (supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all
else we are like sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be
some trouble preying secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a
little hurt at her incomprehensible silence."

Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this
difficulty.

"Encouragement is all she wants, ma'am. Take my word for it, this
matter rests entirely with you. It's all in a nutshell. Encourage
her to confide in you--and she _will_ confide."

"I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone
with me--after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the
meantime, will you consider what I have said to you as intended
for your ear only? And will you forgive me, if I own that the
turn the subject has taken does not tempt me to pursue it any
further?"

The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject;
choosing, on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of
ships that were ordered on foreign service; and, finding that
these as subjects failed to interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next
of ships that were ordered home again. This last experiment
produced its effect--an effect which the captain had not
bargained for.

"Do you know," he began, "that the _Atalanta_ is expected back
from the West Coast of Africa every day? Have you any
acquaintances among the officers of that ship?"

As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while
they were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which
brought them within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same
moment--to the astonishment of her friends and admirers--Miss
Clara Burnham threw the quadrille into confusion by making a
mistake! Everybody waited to see her set the mistake right. She
made no attempt to set it right--she turned deadly pale and
caught her partner by the arm.

"The heat!" she said, faintly. "Take me away--take me into the
air!"

Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took
her into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room.
As a matter of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the
quadrille at the same time. The captain saw his way to a joke.

"Is this the trance coming on?" he whispered. "If it is, as
commander of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request
to make. Will the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest
way to the Northwest Passage, before we leave England?"

Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. "If you will excuse my
leaving you," she said quietly, "I will try and find out what is
the matter with Miss Burnham."

At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered
her husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A
man with a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and
an irresistible kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a
man whom everybody loved--including his wife.

"Don't be alarmed," said the lieutenant. "The heat has overcome
her--that's all."

Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half
satirically, half fondly.

"You dear old innocent!" she exclaimed, "that excuse may do for
_you_. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. Go and get
another partner, and leave Clara to me."

She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara's side.



Chapter 2.


"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Crayford began, "what does this mean?"

"Nothing."

"That won't do, Clara. Try again."

"The heat of the room--"

"That won't do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own
secrets, and I shall understand what you mean."

Clara's sad, clear gray eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs.
Crayford's face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears.

"If I only dared tell you!" she murmured. "I hold so to your good
opinion of me, Lucy--and I am so afraid of losing it."

Mrs. Crayford's manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and
anxiously on Clara's face.

"You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for
you," she said. "Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There
is nobody here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara.
I see you are in trouble, and I want to comfort you."

Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make
conditions.

"Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every
living creature?" she began.

Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her
side.

"Does 'every living creature' include my husband?"

"Your husband more than anybody! I love him, I revere him. He is
so noble; he is so good! If I told him what I am going to tell
you, he would despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking
too much in asking you to keep a secret from your husband."

"Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the
easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I
give you my promise. Now begin!"

Clara hesitated painfully.

"I don't know how to begin!" she exclaimed, with a burst of
despair. "The words won't come to me."

"Then I must help you. Do you feel ill tonight? Do you feel as
you felt that day when you were with my sister and me in the
garden?"

"Oh no."

"You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat--and
yet you turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the
quadrille! There must be some reason for this."

"There is a reason. Captain Helding--"

"Captain Helding! What in the name of wonder has the captain to
do with it?"

"He told you something about the _Atalanta_. He said the
_Atalanta_ was expected back from Africa immediately."

"Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are
interested coming home in the ship?"

"Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship."

Mrs. Crayford's magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement.

"My dear Clara! do you really mean what you say?"

"Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must
go back--if I am to make you understand me--to the year before we
knew each other--to the last year of my father's life. Did I ever
tell you that my father moved southward, for the sake of his
health, to a house in Kent that was lent to him by a friend?"

"No, my dear; I don't remember ever hearing of the house in Kent.
Tell me about it."

"There is nothing to tell, except this: the new house was near a
fine country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the
place was a gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my
father's Kentish friends. He had an only son."

She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford
looked at her attentively. Clara's eyes remained fixed on her
fan--Clara said no more. "What was the son's name?" asked Mrs.
Crayford, quietly.

"Richard."

"Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour
admired you?"

The question produced its intended effect. The question helped
Clara to go on.

"I hardly knew at first," she said, "whether he admired me or
not. He was very strange in his ways--headstrong, terribly
headstrong and passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite
of his faults of temper. Can you understand such a character?"

"Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper.
I begin to like Richard already. Go on."

"The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown
very much together. I began, little by little, to have some
suspicion of the truth."

"And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?"

"No. He was not--unhappily for me--he was not that sort of man.
He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I
who saw it. I couldn't help seeing it. I did all I could to show
that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never
be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I
can't say which."

"'Would not,' is the most likely, my dear. Go on."

"It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough
bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke
out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been
provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?"

"Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for
you."

"Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was
suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused
his death. He was quite unfit to interfere."

"Was there no one else who could help you?"

"No one."

"No lady in whom you could confide?"

"I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had
no friends."

"What did you do, then?"

"Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with
him, unfortunately, until it was too late."

"What do you mean by too late?"

"You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is
in the navy--"

"Indeed! I am more interested in him than ever. Well?"

"One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us
before he joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into
the next room. It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to
the garden."--

"Yes?"

"Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the
garden. Without waiting for me to invite him, he walked into the
room. I was a little startled as well as surprised, but I managed
to hide it. I said, 'What is it, Mr. Wardour?' He stepped close
up to me; he said, in his quick, rough way: 'Clara! I am going to
the African coast. If I live, I shall come back promoted; and we
both know what will happen then.' He kissed me. I was half
frightened, half angry. Before I could compose myself to say a
word, he was out in the garden again--he was gone! I ought to
have spoken, I know. It was not honorable, not kind toward him.
You can't reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more
bitterly than I reproach myself!"

"My dear child, I don't reproach you. I only think you might have
written to him."

"I did write."

"Plainly?"

"Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving himself,
and that I could never marry him."

"Plain enough, in all conscience! Having said that, surely you
are not to blame. What are you fretting about now?"

"Suppose my letter has never reached him?"

"Why should you suppose anything of the sort?"

"What I wrote required an answer, Lucy--_asked_ for an answer.
The answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My
letter has never reached him. And the _Atalanta_ is expected
back! Richard Wardour is returning to England--Richard Wardour
will claim me as his wife! You wondered just now if I really
meant what I said. Do you doubt it still?"

Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first
time since the conversation had begun, she let a question pass
without making a reply. The truth is, Mrs. Crayford was thinking.

She saw Clara's position plainly; she understood the disturbing
effect of it on the mind of a young girl. Still, making all
allowances, she felt quite at a loss, so far, to account for
Clara's excessive agitation. Her quick observing faculty had just
detected that Clara's face showed no signs of relief, now that
she had unburdened herself of her secret. There was something
clearly under the surface here--something of importance that
still remained to be discovered. A shrewd doubt crossed Mrs.
Crayford's mind, and inspired the next words which she addressed
to her young friend.

"My dear," she said abruptly, "have you told me all?"

Clara started as if the question terrified her. Feeling sure that
she now had the clew in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately
repeated her question, in another form of words. Instead of
answering, Clara suddenly looked up. At the same moment a faint
flush of color appeared in her face for the first time.

Looking up instinctively on her side, Mrs. Crayford became aware
of the presence, in the conservatory, of a young gentleman who
was claiming Clara as his partner in the coming waltz. Mrs.
Crayford fell into thinking once more. Had this young gentleman
(she asked herself) anything to do with the untold end of the
story? Was this the true secret of Clara Burnham's terror at the
impending return of Richard Wardour? Mrs. Crayford decided on
putting her doubts to the test.

"A friend of yours, my dear?" she asked, innocently. "Suppose you
introduce us to each other."

Clara confusedly introduced the young gentleman.

"Mr. Francis Aldersley, Lucy. Mr. Aldersley belongs to the Arctic
expedition."

"Attached to the expedition?" Mrs. Crayford repeated. "I am
attached to the expedition too--in my way. I had better introduce
myself, Mr. Aldersley, as Clara seems to have forgotten to do it
for me. I am Mrs. Crayford. My husband is Lieutenant Crayford, of
the _Wanderer_. Do you belong to that ship?"

"I have not the honor, Mrs. Crayford. I belong to the _Sea-mew_."

Mrs. Crayford's superb eyes looked shrewdly backward and forward
between Clara and Francis Aldersley, and saw the untold sequel to
Clara's story. The young officer was a bright, handsome,
gentleman-like lad. Just the person to seriously complicate the
difficulty with Richard Wardour! There was no time for making any
further inquiries. The band had begun the prelude to the waltz,
and Francis Aldersley was waiting for his partner. With a word of
apology to the young man, Mrs. Crayford drew Clara aside for a
moment, and spoke to her in a whisper.

"One word, my dear, before you return to the ball-room. It may
sound conceited, after the little you have told me; but I think I
understand your position _now_, better than you do yourself. Do
you want to hear my opinion?"

"I am longing to hear it, Lucy! I want your opinion; I want your
advice."

"You shall have both in the plainest and fewest words. First, my
opinion: You have no choice but to come to an explanation with
Mr. Wardour as soon as he returns. Second, my advice: If you wish
to make the explanation easy to both sides, take care that you
make it in the character of a free woman."

She laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and looked
pointedly at Francis Aldersley as she pronounced them. "I won't
keep you from your partner any longer, Clara," she resumed, and
led the way back to the ball-room.



Chapter 3.


The burden on Clara's mind weighs on it more heavily than ever,
after what Mrs. Crayford has said to her. She is too unhappy to
feel the inspiriting influence of the dance. After a turn round
the room, she complains of fatigue. Mr. Francis Aldersley looks
at the conservatory (still as invitingly cool and empty as ever);
leads her back to it; and places her on a seat among the shrubs.
She tries--very feebly--to dismiss him.

"Don't let me keep you from dancing, Mr. Aldersley."

He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely
downcast face that dares not turn toward him. He whispers to her:

"Call me Frank."

She longs to call him Frank--she loves him with all her heart.
But Mrs. Crayford's warning words are still in her mind. She
never opens her lips. Her lover moves a little closer, and asks
another favor. Men are all alike on these occasions. Silence
invariably encourages them to try again.

"Clara! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday?
May I say it again?"

"No!"

"We sail to-morrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for
years. Don't send me away without hope! Think of the long, lonely
time in the dark North! Make it a happy time for _me_."

Though he speaks with the fervor of a man, he is little more than
a lad: he is only twenty years old, and he is going to risk his
young life on the frozen deep! Clara pities him as she never
pitied any human creature before. He gently takes her hand. She
tries to release it.

"What! not even that little favor on the last night?"

Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand
remains in his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure. She is a
lost woman. It is only a question of time now!

"Clara! do you love me?"

There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him--she trembles
with strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His
arm steals round her; he repeats his question in a whisper; his
lips almost touch her little rosy ear as he says it again:

"Do you love me?"

She closes her eyes faintly--she hears nothing but those
words--feels nothing but his arm round her--forgets Mrs.
Crayford's warning--forgets Richard Wardour himself--turns
suddenly, with a loving woman's desperate disregard of everything
but her love--nestles her head on his bosom, and answers him in
that way, at last!

He lifts the beautiful drooping head--their lips meet in their
first kiss--they are both in heaven: it is Clara who brings them
back to earth again with a start--it is Clara who says, "Oh! what
have I done?"--as usual, when it is too late.

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