Andrea Barrett: Voyage of the Narwhal

In the kind light of the candles Lavinia might have been a candle herself, radiant in white silk trimmed with blue ribbons. She stood perfectly still when Zeke, just as Erasmus had hoped, silenced the room and said, “I have an announcement!”

Erasmus had sighed with relief, not noticing that Lavinia looked confused. Zeke rested his elbow on a case that held a bird-of-paradise. “You’ve all heard the news announced by John Rae earlier this month,” he said. He stood with his chin up, his chest out, one hand dancing in the air. “No doubt you share both my sorrow at what appears to have been the fate of Franklin’s expedition, and my relief that some news — however fragmentary, and possibly incorrect — has been obtained.”

He went on about the tragic disappearance of Franklin and his men, the many rescue attempts, the details of what Rae had discovered — old news to Erasmus, who’d followed every newspaper article. His guests listened, glasses in hands, among them women who would have listened with equal interest had Zeke been reciting the agricultural products of China; anything, Erasmus imagined them thinking, for this chance to gaze at Zeke blamelessly. Yet his own sister was the woman Zeke had chosen. “Perhaps you also feel, as I do,” Zeke added, “that now that the area has been defined, someone has to search further for any possible survivors.”

A guest stepped sideways then, so that Erasmus caught sight of Lavinia’s face. She looked as puzzled as he felt.

“To that end,” Zeke continued, “I’ve been able to obtain the backing of a number of our leading merchants for another expedition. Our valiant Dr. Kane has been searching for Franklin in the wrong area, and although we’re all worried about him — and although I’d be the first to go in search of him if a relief expedition wasn’t already being organized — something more is needed. I propose to set forth this spring, to search more thoroughly for Franklin in the areas below Lancaster Sound. While I’m there, I also propose to study the region, and to further investigate the possibility of an open polar sea.”

Everyone had cheered. Erasmus had stretched his lips in something like a smile, hoping no one would notice his surprise. What merchants, when, how… did everyone know about this but him? Lavinia, even, who might have hidden her knowledge — but she wore a smile as forced as his own. Zeke must have made these arrangements in secret, taking pleasure in presenting his plan only when it was complete.

After the flurry of congratulations, after the first buzz of questions about where Zeke might go, and how he might get there, and what sort of ship and crew he envisioned, Zeke took Lavinia’s hands. She beamed as if his announcement were the ideal birthday present, and when a guest sat down at the piano and began to play, she and Zeke led the crowd to the floor.

Erasmus went outside to have a cigar and calm the storm in his chest. He was watching the smoke rise through the still night air when Zeke appeared with two glasses and a bottle. He had to ask questions, Erasmus thought. Fatherly questions, although that role still felt odd: what this meant in terms of the engagement, whether Zeke wanted to marry Lavinia before he left — or release her, perhaps, until he returned.

Leaning against one of the fluted porch columns, Zeke filled the glasses and lit a cigar for himself. Erasmus opened his mouth to speak, and Zeke said, “Erasmus — you must come with me. When are you going to get another chance like this?”

Erasmus choked, coughing so hard he bent double. All the expeditions he’d already missed — was this what he’d been waiting for? Even Elisha Kent Kane had spurned him, sailing off with a crew of Philadelphians younger but no smarter than himself. Perhaps Zeke sensed his discouragement, and the extent of his wounded vanity.

“You’re ideal for this,” he said. “Where could I find anyone else as knowledgeable about the natural history of the polar regions? Or as familiar with the hardships of such a journey?”

The idea of serving under a man so much younger than himself was preposterous, but it seemed to him that Zeke was looking for a partner, not a subordinate. Surely Zeke wouldn’t ask for his help if he didn’t regard him as an equal, even — naturally — a superior? Erasmus said, “You’re kind to think of me. But you might have asked me earlier — I have responsibilities here, and of course my own work…”

Zeke bounded from the porch to the grass below. “Of course!” he said, pacing before the columns. “It’s a huge imposition— I wouldn’t think of asking you if your work weren’t so invaluable… but that’s why you’re the right person. I didn’t want to bother you until I was sure I had backing for the expedition. Think of what we’ll see!”

Somewhere in those icy waters, Franklin and his men might still be trapped in the Erebus and the Terror. Even if they couldn’t be found, many new species, even new lands, were there to be discovered. Erasmus thought of being free, this time, to investigate everything without the noxious Navy discipline. He thought of northern sights to parallel, even exceed, his brief experience in the Antarctic; of discoveries in natural history that might prove extraordinarily important. Then he thought of his sister, who appeared on the porch with her white dress foaming like a spray of catalpa blossom.

“You should go in,” she said to Zeke. “All the guests are longing to talk with you.”

He leapt up the steps and she steered him inside. With a swirl of skirts she turned to Erasmus.

“Will you go?” she said.

Eavesdropping, he thought. Again. She’d done this since she was a little girl, as if this were the only way she could keep track of her brothers.

“Please? You have to go with him.”

He had his own reasons, Erasmus thought. For going, or staying. “Did he keep this secret from you?”

“He had to, he said he needed…”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“As if you ever tell me anything,” she said. “And who are you to criticize him? Especially since Father died: all you do is mope around, sorting your seeds — do you think I haven’t seen you at eleven in the morning still in bed? So Linnaeus and Humboldt can run the business without you. So you haven’t found anyone to fall in love with since Sarah Louise.”

Sarah Louise, he thought. Still the simple sound of her name made him feel like he’d swallowed a stone. A dull ache, which never quite left him. As Lavinia knew.

“Copernicus isn’t married either,” she continued, “but you don’t see Copernicus moping around, you don’t see Copernicus wasting his life… I need you.”

A snarl of guilt and tenderness caught at him. As children, he and his brothers used to bolt for the woods and return hours later, to find Lavinia waiting by a window with an unread book in her lap. He’d been the one she looked up to, the one who tied her shoes and taught her to read. Sometimes, when the other boys weren’t around and he’d remembered not just that her birth had cost him his mother, but that she’d never had a mother, they’d drawn very close. Then his brothers would tumble in and he’d abandon her again. Back and forth, oldest and youngest. He had failed her often enough.

She drew him inside, to a corner behind a case of stuffed finches. “This is who I love,” she said fiercely. “Do you understand? Do you remember what that feels like? What if something happens to him? You have to take care of him for me.”

“Lavinia,” he said. Her hands, squeezing his left arm, were very hot. Once, after Zeke had been describing the shipwreck that made him a local hero, Erasmus had found her weeping in the garden. Not with delayed fear over what might have happened to Zeke, not with hysteria — but with longing, she’d managed to make him understand. A boundless desire for Zeke. When he’d tried to remind her that Zeke had flaws as well as virtues, she’d said, “I know, I know. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the way I feel when he touches my hand, or when we dance and I smell the skin on his neck.” The strength of her feelings had embarrassed him.