Castle Nowhere

C >> Constance Fenimore Woolson >> Castle Nowhere

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But Waring did not answer; he turned away. The old man caught at his
feet. 'You are not going,' he cried in a shrill voice, '--you are not
going? Leave me to die,--that is well; the sun will come and burn me,
thirst will come and madden me, these wounds will torture me, and all
is no more than I deserve. But Silver? If I die, she dies. If you
forsake me, you forsake her. Listen; do you believe in your Christ,
the dear Christ? Then, in his name I swear to you that you cannot
reach her alone, that only I can guide you to her. O save me, for her
sake! Must she suffer and linger and die? O God, have pity and soften
his heart!' The voice died away in sobs, the weak slow sobs of an old
man.

But Waring, stern in avenging justice, drew himself from the feeble
grasp, and walked down towards the boats. He did not intend fairly to
desert the miserable old creature. He hardly knew what he intended,
but his impulse was to put more space between them, between himself
and this wretch who gathered his evil living from dead men's bones. So
he stood gazing out to sea. A faint cry roused him, and, turning, he
saw that the old man had dragged himself half across the distance
between them, marking the way with his blood, for the bandages were
loosened by his movements. As Waring turned, he held up his hands,
cried aloud, and fell as if dead on the sands. 'I am a brute,' said
Waring. Then he went to work and brought back consciousness, rebound
the wounds, lifted the body in his strong arms and bore it down the
beach. A sail-boat lay in a cove, with a little skiff in tow. Waring
arranged a couch in the bottom, and placed the old man in an easy
position on an impromptu pillow made of his coat. Fog opened his eyes.
'Anything come ashore?' he asked faintly, trying to turn his head
towards the reef. Conquering his repugnance, the young man walked out
on the long point. There was nothing there; but farther down the coast
barrels were washing up and back in the surf, and one box had stranded
in shallow water. 'Am I, too, a wrecker?' he asked himself, as with
much toil and trouble he secured the booty and examined it. Yes, the
barrels contained provisions.

Old Fog, revived by the sight, lay propped at the stern, giving
directions. Waring found himself a child obeying the orders of a wiser
head. The load on board, the little skiff carrying its share behind,
the young man set sail and away they flew over the angry water; old
Fog watching the sky, the sail, and the rudder, guiding their course
with a word now and then, but silent otherwise.

'Shall we see the castle soon?' asked Waring, after several hours had
passed.

'We may be there by night, if the wind doesn't shift.'

'Have we so far to go, then? Why, I came across in the half of a
night.'

'Add a day to the half and you have it. I let you down at dawn and
towed you out until noon; I then spied that sail beating up, and I
knew there would be a storm by night, and--and things were desperate
with me. So I cast you off and came over to set the light. It was a
chance I did not count on, that your dug-out should float this way; I
calculated that she would beach you safely on an island farther to the
south.'

'And all this time, when you were letting me down--By the way, how
did you do it?'

'Lifted a plank in the floor.'

'When you were letting me down, and towing me out, and calculating
chances, what was I, may I ask?'

'O, just a body asleep, that was all; your punch was drugged, and well
done too! Of course I could not have you at the castle; that was
plain.'

They flew on a while longer, and then veered short to the left. 'This
boat sails well,' said Waring, 'and that is your skiff behind I see.
Did you whistle for it that night?'

'I let it out by a long cord while you went after the game bag, and the
shore-end I fastened to a little stake just under the edge of the
water on that long slope of beach. I snatched it up as I ran out, and
kept hauling in until I met it. You fell off that ledge, didn't you? I
calculated on that. You see I had found out all I wanted to know; the
only thing I feared was some plan for settling along that shore, or
exploring it for something. It is my weak side; if you had climbed up
one of those tall trees you might have caught sight of the
castle,--that is, if there was no fog.'

'Will the fog come up now?'

'Hardly; the storm has been too heavy. I suppose you know what day it
is?' continued the old man, peering up at his companion from under his
shaggy eyebrows.

'No; I have lost all reckonings of time and place.'

'Purposely?'

'Yes.'

'You are worse than I am, then; I keep a reckoning, although I do not
show it. To-day is Sunday, but Silver does not know it; all days are
alike to her. Silver has never heard of the Bible,' he added, slowly.

'Yes, she has, for I told her.'

'You told her!' cried old Fog, wringing his hands.

'Be quiet, or you will disturb those bandages again. I only asked her
if she had read the book, and she said no; that was all. But supposing
it had not been all, what then? Would it harm her to know of the
Bible?'

'It would harm her to lose faith in me.'

'Then why have you not told her yourself?'

'I left her to grow up as the flowers grow,' said old Fog, writhing on
his couch. 'Is she not pure and good? Ah, a thousand times more than
any church or school could make her!'

'And yet you have taught her to read?'

'I knew not what might happen. I could not expose her defenceless in a
hard world. Religion is fancy, but education is like an armor. I
cannot tell what may happen.'

'True. You may die, you know; you are an old man.'

The old man turned away his face.

They sailed on, eating once or twice; afternoon came, and then an
archipelago closed in around them; the sail was down, and the oars
out. Around and through, across and back, in and out they wound, now
rowing, now poling, and now and then the sail hoisted to scud across a
space of open water. Old Fog's face had grown gray again, and the
lines had deepened across his haggard cheek and set mouth; his
strength was failing. At last they came to a turn, broad and smooth
like a canal. 'Now I will hoist the sail again,' said Waring.

But old Fog shook his head. 'That turn leads directly back into the
marsh,' he said, 'Take your oar and push against the sedge in front.'

The young man obeyed, and lo! it moved slowly aside and disclosed a
narrow passage westward; through this they poled their way along to
open water, then set the sail, rounded a point, and came suddenly upon
the castle. 'Well, I am glad we are here,' said Waring.

Fog had fallen back. 'Promise,' he whispered with gray lips,--'promise
that you will not betray me to the child.' And his glazing eyes fixed
themselves on Waring's face with the mute appeal of a dying animal in
the hands of its captor.

'I promise,' said Waring.

But the old man did not die; he wavered, lingered, then slowly
rallied,--very slowly. The weeks had grown into a month and two before
he could manage his boat again. In the mean time Waring hunted and
fished for the household, and even sailed over to the reef with Fog on
a bed in the bottom of the boat, coming back loaded with the spoil;
not once only, not twice did he go; and at last he knew the way, even
through, the fog, and came and went alone, bringing home the very
planks and beams of the ill-fated schooner. 'They will make a bright
fire in the evenings,' he said. The dogs lived on the north shore,
went hunting when their master came over and the rest of the time
possessed their souls in patience. And what possessed Waring, do you
ask? His name for it was 'necessity.' 'Of course I cannot leave them
to starve,' he said to himself.

Silver came and went about the castle, at first wilfully, then
submissively, then shyly. She had folded away all her finery in
wondering silence, for Waring's face had shown disapproval, and now
she wore always her simple white gown, 'Can you not put up your hair?'
he had asked one day; and from that moment the little head appeared
crowned with braids. She worked among her flowers and fed her gulls as
usual, but she no longer talked to them or told them stories. In the
evenings they all sat around the hearth, and sometimes the little
maiden sang; Waring had taught her new songs. She knew the sonnets
now, and chanted them around the castle to tunes of her own;
Shakespeare would not have known his stately measures, dancing along
to her rippling melodies.

The black face of Orange shone and simmered with glee; she nodded
perpetually, and crooned and laughed to herself over her tasks by the
hour together,--a low chuckling laugh of exceeding content.

And did Waring ever stop to think? I know not. If he did, he forgot
the thoughts when Silver came and sat by him in the evening with the
light of the hearth-fire shining over her. He scarcely saw her at
other times, except on her balcony, or at her flower window as he came
and went in his boat below; but in the evenings she sat beside him in
her low chair, and laid sometimes her rose leaf palm in his rough
brown hand, or her pretty head against his arm. Old Fog sat by always;
but he said little, and his face was shaded by his hand.

The early autumn gales swept over the hikes, leaving wreck and
disaster behind, but the crew of the castle stayed safely at home and
listened to the tempest cosily, while the flowers bloomed on, and the
gulls brought all their relations and colonized the balcony and window
sills, fed daily by the fair hand of Silver. And Waring went not.

Then the frosts came, and turned the forests into splendor; they rowed
over and brought out branches, and Silver decked the long room with
scarlet and gold. And Waring went not.

The dreary November rains began, the leaves fell, and the dark water
surged heavily; but a store of wood was piled on the flat roof, and
the fire on the hearth blazed high. And still Waring went not.

At last the first ice appeared, thin flakes forming around the log
foundations of the castle; then old Fog spoke. 'I am quite well now,
quite strong again; you must go to-day, or you will find yourself
frozen in here. As it is, you may hit a late vessel off the islands
that will carry you below. I will sail over with you, and bring back
the boat.'

'But you are not strong enough yet,' said Waring, bending over his
work, a shelf he was carving for Silver; 'I cannot go and leave you
here alone.'

'It is either go now, or stay all winter. You do not, I presume,
intend to make Silver your wife,--Silver, the daughter of Fog the
wrecker.'

Waring's hands stopped; never before had the old man's voice taken
that tone, never before had he even alluded to the girl as anything
more than a child. On the contrary, he had been silent, he had been
humble, he had been openly grateful to the strong young man who had
taken his place on sea and shore, and kept the castle full and warm.
'What new thing is this?' thought Waring, and asked the same.

'Is it new?' said Fog. 'I thought it old, very old, I mean no mystery,
I speak plainly. You helped me in my great strait, and I thank you;
perhaps it will be counted unto you for good in the reckoning up of
your life. But I am strong again, and the ice is forming. You can have
no intention of making Silver your wife?'

Waring looked up, their eyes met. 'No,' he replied slowly, as though
the words were being dragged out of him by the magnetism of the old
man's gaze, 'I certainly have no such intention.'

Nothing more was said; soon Waring rose and went out. But Silver
spied him from her flower-room, and came down to the sail-boat where
it lay at the foot of the ladder. 'You are not going out this cold
day,' she said, standing by his side as he busied himself over the
rigging. She was wrapped in a fur mantle, with a fur cap on her head,
and her rough little shoes were fur-trimmed. Waring made no reply.
'But I shall not allow it,' continued the maiden, gayly. 'Am I not
queen of this castle? You yourself have said it many a time. You
cannot go, Jarvis; I want you here.' And with her soft hands she
blinded him playfully.

'Silver, Silver,' called old Fog's voice above, 'come within; I want
you.'

After that the two men were very crafty in their preparations.

The boat ready, Waring went the rounds for the last time. He brought
down wood for several days and stacked it, he looked again at all the
provisions and reckoned them over; then he rowed to the north shore,
visited his traps, called out the dogs from the little house he had
made for them, and bade them good by. 'I shall leave you for old Fog,'
he said; 'be good dogs, and bring in all you can for the castle.'

The dogs wagged their tails, and waited politely on the beach until he
was out of sight; but they did not seem to believe his story, and went
back to their house tranquilly without a howl. The day passed as
usual. Once the two men happened to meet in the passage-way. 'Silver
seems restless, we must wait till darkness,' said Fog in a low tone.

'Very well,' replied Waring.

At midnight they were off, rowing over the black water in the
sail-boat, hoping for a fair wind at dawn, as the boat was heavy. They
journeyed but slowly through the winding channel, leaving the
sedge-gate open; no danger now from intruders; the great giant,
Winter, had swallowed all lesser foes. It was cold, very cold, and
they stopped awhile at dawn on the edge of the marsh, the last shore,
to make a fire and heat some food before setting sail for the islands.

'Good God!' cried Waring.

A boat was coming after them, a little skiff they both knew, and in it
paddling, in her white dress, sat Silver, her fur mantle at her feet
where it had fallen unnoticed. They sprang to meet her knee-deep in
the icy water; but Waring was first, and lifted her slight form in his
seems.

'I have found you, Jarvis,' she murmured, laying her head down upon
his shoulder; then the eyes closed, and the hand she had tried to
clasp around his neck fell lifeless. Close to the fire, wrapped in
furs, Waring held her in his arms, while the old man bent over her,
chafing her hands and little icy feet, and calling her name in an
agony.

'Let her but come back to life, and I will say not one word, more,' he
cried with tears. 'Who am I that I should torture her? You shall go
back with us, and I will trust it all to God,--all to God.'

'But what if I will not go back, what if I will not accept your trust?
said Waring, turning his head away from the face pillowed on his
breast.

'I do not trust you, I trust God; he will guard her.'

'I believe he will,' said the young man, half to himself. And then
they bore her home, not knowing whether her spirit was still with
them, or already gone to that better home awaiting it in the next
country.

That night the thick ice came, and the last vessels fled southward.
But in the lonely little castle there was joy; for the girl was saved,
barely, with fever, with delirium, with long prostration, but saved!

When weeks had passed, and she was in her low chair again, propped
with cushions, pallid as a snow-drop, weak and languid, but still
there, she told her story, simply and without comprehension of
its meaning.

'I could not rest that night,' she said, 'I know not why; so I dressed
softly and slipped past Orange asleep on her mattress by my door, and
found you both gone,--your father, and you, Jarvis. You never go out at
night, and it was very cold; and Jarvis had taken his bag and
knapsack, and all the little things I know so well. His gun was gone
from the wall, his clothes from his empty room, and that picture of
the girl holding up the fruit was not on his table. From that I knew
that something had happened; for it is dear to Jarvis, that picture of
the girl,' said Silver with a little quiver in her voice. With a
quick gesture Waring drew the picture from his pocket and threw it
into the fire; it blazed, and was gone in a moment. 'Then I went
after you,' said Silver with a little look of gratitude. 'I know the
passage through the south channels, and something told me you had
gone that way. It was very cold.'

That was all, no reasoning, no excuse, no embarrassment; the flight of
the little sea-bird straight to its mate.

Life flowed on again in the old channel, Fog quiet, Silver happy, and
Waring in a sort of dream. Winter was full upon them, and the castle
beleaguered with his white armies both below and above, on the water
and in the air. The two men went ashore on the ice now, and trapped
and hunted daily, the dogs following. Fagots were cut and rough roads
made through the forest. One would have supposed they were planning
for a lifelong residence, the young man and the old, as they came and
went together, now on the snow-crust, now plunging through breast-deep
into the light dry mass. One day Waring said, 'Let me see your
reckoning. Do you know that to-morrow will be Christmas?'

'Silver knows nothing of Christmas,' said Fog, roughly.

'Then she shall know,' replied Waring.

Away he went to the woods and brought back evergreen. In the night he
checked the cabin-like room, and with infinite pains constructed a
little Christmas-tree and hung it with everything he could collect or
contrive.

'It is but a poor thing, after all,' he said, gloomily, as he stood
alone surveying his work. It was indeed a shabby little tree, only
redeemed from ugliness by a white cross poised on the green summit;
this cross glittered and shone in the firelight,--it was cut from
solid ice.

'Perhaps I can help, you,' said old Fog's voice behind. 'I did not
show you this, for fear it would anger you, but--but there must have
been a child on board after all.' He held a little box of toys,
carefully packed as if by a mother's hand,--common toys, for she was
only the captain's wife, and the schooner a small one; the little waif
had floated ashore by itself, and Fog had seen and hidden it.

Waring said nothing, and the two men began to tie on the toys in
silence. But after a while they warmed to their work and grew eager to
make it beautiful; the old red ribbon that Orange had given was
considered a precious treasure-trove, and, cut into fragments, it
gayly held the little wooden toys in place on the green boughs.

Fog, grown emulous, rifled the cupboards and found small cakes baked
by the practised hand of the old cook; these he hung exultingly on the
higher boughs. And now the little tree was full, and stood bravely in
its place at the far end of the long room, while the white cross
looked down on the toys of the drowned child and the ribbon of the
slave, and seemed to sanctify them for their new use.

Great was the surprise of Silver the next morning, and many the
questions she asked. Out in the world, they told her, it was so; trees
like that were decked for children.

'Am I a child?' said Silver, thoughtfully; 'what do you think, papa?'

'What do you think?' said Waring, turning the question.

'I hardly know; sometimes I think I am, and sometimes not; but it is
of no consequence what I am as long as I have you,--you and papa. Tell
me more about the little tree, Jarvis. What does it mean? What is
that white shining toy on the top? Is there a story about it?'

'Yes, there is a story; but--but it is not I who should tell it to
you,' replied the young man, after a moment's hesitation.

'Why not! Whom have I in all the world to tell me, save you?' said
fondly the sweet child-voice.

They did not take away the little Christmas-tree, but left it on its
pedestal at the far end of the long room through the winter; and as
the cross melted slowly, a new one took its place, and shone aloft in
the firelight. But its story was not told.

February came, and with it a February thaw; the ice stirred a little,
and the breeze coming over the floes was singularly mild. The arctic
winds and the airs from the Gulf Stream had met and mingled, and the
gray fog appeared again, waving to and fro. 'Spring has come,' said
Silver; 'there is the dear fog.' And she opened the window of the
flower room, and let out a little bird.

'It will find no resting-place for the sole of its foot, for the snow
is over the face of the whole earth,' said Waring. 'Our ark has kept
us cosily through bitter weather, has it not, little one?' (He had
adopted a way of calling her so.)

'Ark,' said Silver; 'what is that?'

'Well,' answered Waring, looking down into her blue eyes as they stood
together at the little window, 'it was a watery residence like this,
and if Japheth,--he was always my favorite of the three--had had you
there, my opinion is that he would never have come down at all, but
would have resided permanently on Ararat.'

Silver looked up into his face with a smile, not understanding what he
said, nor asking to understand; it was enough for her that he was
there. And as she gazed her violet eyes grew so deep, so soft, that
the man for once (give him credit, it was the first time) took her
into his arms. 'Silver,' he whispered, bending over her, 'do you love
me?'

'Yes,' she answered in her simple, unconscious way, 'you know I do,
Jarvis.'

No color deepened in her fair face under his ardent gaze; and, after a
moment, he released her, almost roughly. The next day he told old Fog
that he was going.

'Where.'

'Somewhere, this time. I've had enough of Nowhere.'

'Why do you go?'

'Do you want the plain truth, old man? Here it is, then; I am growing
too fond of that girl,--a little more and I shall not be able to leave
her.'

'Then stay; she loves you.'

'A child's love.'

'She will develop--'

'Not into my wife if I know myself,' said Waring, curtly.

Old Fog sat silent a moment. 'Is she not lovely and good?' he said in
a low voice.

'She is; but she is your daughter as well.'

'She is not.'

'She is not! What then?'.

'I--I do not know; I found her, a baby, by the wayside.'

'A foundling! So much the better, that is even a step lower,' said the
younger man, laughing roughly. And the other crept away as though he
had been struck.

Waring set about his preparations. This time Silver did not suspect
his purpose. She had passed out of the quick, intuitive watchfulness
of childhood. During these days she had taken up the habit of sitting
by herself in the flower-room, ostensibly with her book or sewing; but
when they glanced in through the open door, her hands were lying idle
on her lap and her eyes fixed dreamily on some opening blossom. Hours
she sat thus, without stirring.

Waring's plan was a wild one; no boat could sail through the ice, no
foot could cross the wide rifts made by the thaw, and weeks of the
bitterest weather still lay between them and the spring.
'Along-shore,' he said.

'And die of cold and hunger,' answered Fog.

'Old man, why are you not afraid of me?' said Waring, pausing in his
work with a lowering glance. 'Am I not stronger than you, and the
master, if I so choose, of your castle of logs?'

'But you will not so choose.'

'Do not trust me too far.'

'Do not trust you,--but God.'

'For a wrecker and murderer, you have, I must say, a remarkably serene
conscience,' sneered Waring.

Again the old man shrank, and crept silently away.

But when in the early dawn a dark figure stood on the ice adjusting
its knapsack, a second figure stole down the ladder. 'Will you go,
then,' it said, 'and leave the child?'

'She is no child,' answered the younger man, sternly; 'and you know
it.'

'To me she is.'

'I care not what she is to you; but she shall not be more to
me.'

'More to you?'

'No more than any other pretty piece of wax-work,' replied Waring,
striding away into the gray mist.

Silver came to breakfast radiant, her small head covered from forehead
to throat with the winding braids of gold, her eyes bright, her cheeks
faintly tinged with the icy water of her bath. 'Where is Jarvis?' she
asked.

'Gone hunting,' replied old Fog.

'For all day?'

'Yes; and perhaps for all night. The weather is quite mild, you know.'

'Yes, papa. But I hope it will soon be cold again; he cannot stay out
long then,' said the girl, gazing out over the ice with wistful eyes.

The danger was over for that day; but the next morning there it was
again, and with it the bitter cold.

'He must come home soon now,' said Silver, confidently, melting the
frost on one of the little windows so that she could see out and watch
for his coming. But be came not. As night fell the cold grew intense;
deadly, clear, and still, with the stars shining brilliantly in the
steel-blue of the sky. Silver wandered from window to window, wrapped
in her fur mantle; a hundred times, a thousand times she had scanned
the ice-fields and the snow, the lake and the shore. When the night
closed down, she crept close to the old man who sat by the fire in
silence, pretending to mend his nets, but furtively watching her every
movement. 'Papa,' she whispered, 'where is he, where is he?' And her
tears fell on his hands.

'Silver,' he said, bending over her tenderly, 'do I not love you? Am I
not enough for you? Think, dear, how long we have lived here and how
happy we have been. He was only a stranger. Come, let us forget him,
and go back to the old days.'

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