Heart of Oak: A Three-Stranded Yarn, vol. 3

Sir Mortimer received the news of the loss of the ship whilst he was in Paris. He had sent his foreign address to the office in the Minories, always hoping to hear from, or of, his daughter, and Mr. Butcher wrote to him, unknown to me, and perhaps to Mr. Hobbs.

He at once came to London: he arrived in the afternoon. The bank was closed and he drove to my rooms, where he found me. He was very pale and looked ill, but whether he had disciplined his mind during his journey, or was a person of more fortitude than I had imagined, his behaviour was almost calm compared to what I had expected to find it on our first meeting.

'When we surrendered her,' were almost his first words after holding me by the hand and struggling as though with his tears, 'I had a feeling we should never again meet. I ought not to have permitted her to take so long a voyage. She was too delicate, her health was too poor, she was too used to have comforts'--he could not proceed for some moments. He then said, 'She was my only child. I am now alone in the world,' and, casting himself into a chair, he hid his face and gave way.

'I will not believe there is no hope,' I exclaimed, and, sitting down beside him, I repeated all that I had gathered from my talk with the boatswain Wall, with whom I had conversed for above a couple of hours on the previous day, having brought him to the bank by a letter and taken him into a private room, where, with my father, I had closely questioned him, getting all that his experiences as an old seaman could reveal of the chances a shipwrecked company had in those seas where Marie had been abandoned.

Sir Mortimer listened to me with passionate interest, dwelling upon every syllable, catching me up if he did not clearly understand. Sometimes his eyes brightened, as with a little struggle of hope, but often he shook his head.

'Consider,' he exclaimed, 'the "Lady Emma" was dismasted July 2.' (I had all necessary notes of dates and the like in my note-book.) 'The crew left her on the fourth. This is October 5; you cannot believe that the helpless hull has continued to float in such frightful seas as run off Cape Horn all this while.'

'I don't say so. I don't dream it. God forbid, indeed; for that would put an end to all chance of our ever seeing Marie again. But may we not believe that she was fallen in with long ago?'

'Why have we not heard? There has been time!'

'No. Suppose the vessel that rescued them was proceeding to Australia. We might need another three months to hear.'

'Oh, but think!' he exclaimed, 'a dismasted hull, utterly helpless; the horrors and perils of ice close to, a wild sea continually running--she has not the strength to meet such sufferings; they will have broken her poor heart. Oh! Archie, she has been taken! She is dead! We shall never see her again.'

He had made up his mind to this, and I daresay his comparative calmness rose from his resolution to accept the worst at once. Though he knew little or nothing about the sea, he could not listen to my version of Wall's story without regarding the wreck of the 'Lady Emma' as hopelessly complete as any in the maritime records. He said that the mere circumstance of the 'Planter' cruising and finding nothing was of itself a death-blow to hope.

'And what is there to hope for?' he exclaimed, rising and moving about the room with something of feebleness. 'We are to wait; but for what? This sort of waiting in grief breaks down the intellect--the mourner goes mad. In my youth I knew a woman whose only son had been drowned in a shipwreck. She would not believe it; she hoped on; and ten years after his death saw her on the beach with her eyes fixed upon the sea, gazing, with a joyous welcoming face, at the apparition of her child whom, in her craziness, she beheld approaching her in a boat. Oh no!' he cried with a sudden, most moving, passionate wringing of his hands, 'Marie has perished; she is lost to us! Why did not the good God hinder me from sending her away? They told me that nothing could save her life but a voyage, and I, who would have given my life for her, despatched her to her death!'

I could not bear this, for I, too, was heartbroken. I grasped him by the hands, and then he became silent, after looking in my face.

But still, as I have said, his behaviour throughout this meeting with me, even when the first horror and shock of the news was renewed to us both by this our first meeting, was calmer than I had expected. He stayed in London that night, and next day accompanied me to the City, where he had an interview with Mr. Butcher. We then drove to a street out of the West India Dock Road, where Wall lodged.

The substance of Mr. Butcher's talk was that ships homeward bound from the Australias frequently touched the latitude the hull had been left in; there was, therefore, reason to hope that Captain Burke and the ladies had been rescued by one of the many vessels which every year were navigating those seas. He said he had spoken to several captains of experience on the subject, also two or three underwriters of long standing, and on the whole their opinion was, Burke and his companions would be preserved.

Wall had nothing to add--no further conjectures to offer. He went very fully into the story of the dismasting of the vessel and her abandonment, and answered with intelligence the questions Sir Mortimer put to him about Marie, how she looked, if she had picked up, if he (Wall) considered she was strong enough to outlive the horrors and sufferings of her situation, supposing the hull to be encountered within a reasonable time--say a week--from the date of the men's quitting her.

Sir Mortimer went to his home by the seaside next day. I promised to visit him on the following Saturday, but fretting had done its work--I was too ill to travel. I was ceaselessly haunted by the vision of the hull, white with snow, brilliant with ice, clouded with the foam of beating seas, wearily rolling with my dear one, with my Marie, alone in her. Somehow I could not think of her as associated with the Burkes. She was the one, the solitary, figure in the gloomy interior of that tempest-tossed fabric, as I witnessed the vision awake and in my dreams. I was aware that Mrs. Burke had been a most devoted servant, a faithful and honest nurse and friend to Marie, but I had got it into my head that her husband had lost his reason, which would drain his wife's sympathies from my sweetheart; and then, again, realising the misery of a time spent in such a hulk, under such circumstances, I could not suppose that poor Mrs. Burke would in her distraction take heed of more outside her husband than the doom that every hour brought closer.

So the vision of that wreck was always present to the eye of imagination, waking or sleeping, with one figure only in the maimed and beaten fabric.

On the morning of October 20, I went to the bank, having resumed work there two days before. My father had not arrived. I went into my private room and sat down with a heart of loathing at sight of a pile of letters which it would be my business to read and deal with.

I had hardly broken the first envelope when a clerk entered and said that a Mr. Norman, an old customer of the bank, wished to see me. I supposed he had called on business, and after reading the letter I held, I opened the glass door and bade Mr. Norman step in.

He was a merchant doing business with Natal and Cape Colony. He at once said, without offering to sit:

'I have not called on business, Mr. Moore. I heard of your trouble, and grieve to find it but too visible in your face. This morning I received a batch of South African newspapers, and met with an account, which--I don't know, I'm sure--it may be ill-advised on my part----' He broke off, and his hand went nervously to his side pocket.

I looked at him inquiringly, wondering what his Colonial newspaper account was about.

'I think,' said he, his hand still nervously twitching at his breast-pocket, 'that where sorrow is speculative the sooner expectation is ended, one way or the other, the better. This may signify nothing'--and now he produced a newspaper--'and yet it may tell everything.'

He was proceeding; I extended my arm abruptly, feeling a sickness at heart, for now imagination leaped to the very height of fear--I believed I was to read something which would prove that Marie and her companions had perished.

But Mr. Norman must needs open the paper himself; and, in order to find the passage, he required to put on his glasses. The piece of intelligence in the journal ran thus:--

'_Cape Town, August 10. Arrival of the schooner "Emerald." A strange discovery! Romantic action on the part of the captain!_ The three-masted schooner "Emerald" arrived yesterday from the west coast of South America. When in lat. 58° S., long. 48° W., the body of a female was seen floating upon the water. Its appearance was so lifelike that, the weather at the time being quiet, the captain ordered a boat to be lowered, and the body was brought on board. The master (Goldsmith), on inspecting the corpse, was convinced by its appearance that it was the remains of the wife of a friend of his. She had been bound round the Horn to join her husband at Monte Video. Feeling persuaded of this he caused the body to be placed in a cask of spirits, with a view to carrying it to Cape Town, his first port of call, that it might have decent Christian interment; also that the husband should, if his wife did actually prove to be missing, be able to procure the exhumation of the corpse for identification.

'The body is described as that of one who in life must have been singularly prepossessing and genteel in appearance; the hair is of a dark amber or gold, the eyes of a light blue or grey, height about 5 ft. 6 in., of a figure that had apparently been full of grace and beauty. No rings were on the hands. Captain Goldsmith conjectures that the rings, including the wedding ring, slipped off the fingers through shrinkage of the flesh by immersion. Owing to the condition of the body, it has been found impossible to form an opinion as to the length of time it was in the water; it is judged, however, from the appearance of the clothes, which were in a fair state of preservation, that the period could not have exceeded three days. The body was attired in a thick serge dress, and a warm jacket, trimmed with a rich fur, of which but a little remained. One garment only was marked: namely, with the letter O, which Captain Goldsmith believes stands for Ollier, his friend's name. The remains will be buried to-day. A romantic mystery nevertheless survives, and it remains to be seen whether Captain Goldsmith is right in his conjectures as to the identity of the poor nameless remains of one who in life must have been "exceeding fair," found floating far south of the stormiest headland in the world.'

I read this very slowly, and when I had come to the last word I read it all over again. Mr. Norman's eyes were fixed upon my face. I fell into deep thought, and was silent for many minutes, with my gaze rooted upon the paper. I then pulled out my pocket-book, in which I carried the memoranda I had collected from Mr. Butcher and Wall, and compared the date of the dismasting of the 'Lady Emma' with the date of the discovery of the body. The 'Lady Emma' was dismasted July 2, the body was seen and picked up on July 10; the situation of the 'Lady Emma' when the crew abandoned her, according to the 'Planter's' log-book, was lat. 58° 45´ S. and long. 45° 10´ W.; the body was picked up in lat. 58° S. long. 48° W.; the minutes and seconds, if any there were, were probably omitted in the newspaper report, or Captain Goldsmith may have given the situation in round numbers.