The Navigator of New York (36 page)

Dear Aunt Daphne:

As you will have read by now in the St. John’s papers of my involvement in the rescue expedition that was sent to Greenland in search of Lieutenant Peary and his family, the time seems right for a full disclosure of my whereabouts and plans
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Up to the point of my strange and chance encounter with Lieutenant Peary, I was really little more than a guest of the leader of the expedition, Dr. Frederick Cook, whose personal assistant I have been since shortly after arriving in New York
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As you know, both Lieutenant Peary and Dr. Cook were members of the North Greenland expedition of 1892, from which my father disappeared. Lieutenant Peary was its commander, Dr. Cook my father’s fellow medical officer
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Dr. Cook and his wife, Marie, have been kind enough to put me up in the unoccupied wing of their house in a part of Brooklyn known as Bushwick. I am very well provided for, wanting for nothing except your own dear company, which I have greatly missed these many months
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I realize that, what with all that happened to my father and mother, the idea of my taking part in polar expeditions and associating with a polar explorer with a view to becoming one myself must be very troublesome to you. I can think of no way of putting your mind completely at rest on this score, since you are as well-acquainted
as I am with the perils of exploration. I have chosen my vocation not because it was my father’s, not to redeem his reputation or to complete what he began. I am drawn to Dr. Cook not because he knew my father or because he took part in my father’s last expedition. That Dr. Cook is, to some degree, my inspiration I happily admit, but not even he could have inspired me to become an explorer were I not predisposed by nature to become one
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I could not make you understand in a thousand letters how much Dr. Cook’s kindness and tutelage have meant to me. I have spoken to Dr. Cook about you and Uncle Edward, and he has asked me to assure you that I will not participate in any venture for which, in his judgment, I have not had adequate preparation
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I have changed somewhat in the short time since I left home. There is much that I must put behind me. As no one better understands than you do what I mean, I hope you can forgive my manner of leaving, which, though regrettable, was necessary
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I will not presume to hope to receive your blessing on my choice of careers. Nor is there any chance that I will receive it for what I am about to ask
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You may think it ungrateful, even treacherous, of me, but I must ask that you allow me to try to make my way without your help. Indeed, I must insist upon it. For so long, you were all I had. If not for you, I would have become what other people thought I was. Your love kept alive in me the faint hope that someday someone else might love me too. I so came to depend on you that I will never gain my independence except by being, for how long I do not know, completely apart from you. It is not your nature but mine that makes this necessary. Were you here, so that I could daily see your face and hear your voice, even were you to write frequently to me and I to you, the result would be one that, though you did not intend it, I would, because of my own faults, my own deficiencies, be unable to prevent
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When I have remedied these deficiencies of mine, when I can return your affection without detriment to either you or me, I will
let you know. Please believe that I long for that day, that I wish I was writing now the letter I will write to you when that day comes
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It pains me to say that for a while, we must not see each other and must not correspond. I look forward to reading your reply to this letter, and to the day when I can write to you again. Please trust my judgment in this and know that it signals no lessening of my affections for you
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Love
,
Devlin

My darling Devlin:

I expected that, sooner or later, word of your whereabouts would surface, but I never imagined that it would be in the newspapers, that in the papers I would learn where you have been and how you have been occupied since you left home
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They have run several recent photographs of you, which, after our long separation, should make you seem closer to me, yet do the opposite. They make you seem so distant, so foreign, as if you have no past, or have one in which I played no part. You look as though, for you, far more than fifteen months have passed. How strange it was, after not having seen you in fifteen months, to come upon those photographs. It did not seem right that I was learning of your exploits just as people who had never heard of you before were doing. It seemed that these stories and photographs were notice that you would never write to me at all
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Can you imagine with what joy and relief I received the envelope that bore your name and return address? Oh, how I miss you, Devlin. How I wish that you were here so I could hold you in my arms. I do not hope, by saying such things, to cause you any torment, or to castigate you for doing what you still believe was right. But how pointless it would be to write to you and not tell you how I feel
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It would seem from your letter that you have changed much in the short time since you went away. I can think of nothing to attribute it to but the influence, whether good or bad, of this Dr. Cook, whose name, in the papers, figures in every paragraph that features yours
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I must confess that while I was glad to hear you are prospering, I was dismayed to hear which profession you have chosen, for it seemed to me that of all the world’s professions, it should have been the one least likely to appeal to you. I do, as you predict in your letter, find your choice of this vocation troublesome, and I wonder if it can really have as little to do with your father as you seem to think, especially as your new associate was a colleague of your father’s and a member of the expedition on which he was lost. Can all this be mere coincidence?

You are right, I suppose. There is much that you must put behind you, though I fear that you can no more forget the past than you can change it. I do not fully understand this quest of yours, nor why you think it more likely to succeed if, however temporarily, you exclude me from your life. However, I sense that to try to change your mind or to ask you to explain yourself at greater length would not advance my cause, which is to keep to a minimum the amount of time that must pass until we meet again. I would almost consent to this interval being a protracted one so long as it was fixed, not indeterminate, indefinite, as it is now, for I cannot help fearing that this yet-to-be-determined date may never come
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I am very proud of you, and not at all surprised that you risked yourself to save another without any expectation of reward. You may think this insincere coming from someone who showed imperfect faith in you. But my faith in everyone, myself included, is imperfect
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I do not wish to strip you of your new-found self-confidence. I do not wish to make you doubt yourself, though it seems to me that what is really self-knowledge is often mistaken for self-doubt. But I worry that you are far too hastily putting things behind you, that
you are not ready to live in New York, or to be an explorer, or to throw in your lot with a man like Dr. Cook. What I mean by “a man like Dr. Cook,” I hardly know
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I am happy to hear that you are well, and well provided for. But I have my doubts about this Dr. Cook, whom you so unreservedly admire and with whom you have become so close. Judging by the papers and your letter, he seems to be no less devoted to you than you are to him, which is perhaps what concerns me most—that he, a grown man who should no longer be prone to forming impulsive attachments, should have become so devoted to you in so short a time. If you had allied yourself for the same purposes with someone your own age, I would be concerned but not surprised
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Perhaps you will dismiss my concern as mere jealousy, some measure of which I am willing to admit to. He has the pleasure of your company, but I do not. You may think I would dismiss out of hand anyone who encouraged and pledged to help you realize an ambition of which I disapprove. Again, you would not be altogether wrong. Or you may think my concern unflattering to you, as good as saying that I cannot imagine how you, in particular, could so rapidly inspire such devotion in anyone. In this case, you would be altogether wrong
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I thought you might like to know, if you do not already, that there is no hint in the local papers that you were ever looked upon as anything but “shy.” And everyone speaks of you as if, all along, they knew that you would do great things. Suddenly everyone talks to me about you, wants to know how you are doing and when you will be coming home—that you should be so popular now that you are gone! It all seems so perverse
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I cannot keep this letter from rambling. I feel as though I must cram everything into it, since it may be the last letter of mine that you will read for quite some time. It almost freezes my pen to think that I have but this one chance to prepare you for your setting forth
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I cannot think what interest of Dr. Cook’s it would serve to convince you to pursue a life for which he knew you to be ill suited and by nature disinclined. Perhaps he is merely acting out of an impulsiveness that a man his age should be able to resist. But it seems far more likely to me that his motives are in some way dishonourable. If, by voicing these concerns, I make myself out to be just the sort of suffocating guardian from whom you feel you must escape, then so be it. I would be remiss if I did not say that this sudden alliance he has formed with you does not seem right
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I do not know Dr. Cook except by reputation, which is described by the papers as “untarnished.” Yet they say that he will not allow you to be interviewed alone, that he is as watchful and protective of you as a mother cat is of her kittens, that he fields or diverts from you any question requiring an answer of more than one word, and that even that one word must first, by an exchange of looks, be cleared with him before you say it
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I cannot help wondering why this man, whom you esteem so highly, will not allow you to speak for yourself. What harm does he think will come of it? What is it that he thinks you need protection from?

It seems that this man is all things to you. Patron. Sponsor. Mentor. Guardian. Friend. In some of the papers, he is referred to as your “manager.” I do not like the sound of that. I would say that he was trying to gain something for himself, except that he seems to have been as protective of you before the rescue expedition on which you rose so unexpectedly to fame as he is now
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I tell myself that perhaps Dr. Cook merely wants to advance the cause of a young man whom he senses has been kept back through no fault of his own. Perhaps I should be grateful that hardly had you left home than your “possibilities” were spotted by a man as shrewd as the papers make him out to be. “Shrewd.” “Unaffected.” “Reserved.” “Reflective.” “Watchful.” “Generous in his estimations of others.” “Laconically modest about his own accomplishments.” “A likeable, open-hearted man to whom one is
immediately drawn.” A word critical of him is nowhere to be found. Yet I distrust him
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Perhaps because of the photographs I have seen of him. At first glance, they seem undamning. I know you will think it absurd of me to read so much into photographs, to blame a man so much for having had his picture taken. But I see the two of you in those photographs, and I do not see in your eyes what I see in his. I look at his eyes and think, Here is a man whose true nature no one knows
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This assessment of him is all that I can really give you by way of warning or advice
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It would be pointless for me to write to him. A charmingly evasive reply is all I would get in return, if he answered me at all
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I feel as though I should hire someone to go to New York and bring you by force back home where you belong. At the same time, I fear that if I meddle in your life, you will make my exclusion from it permanent, which I could not bear
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I must have some word from you—I must—or the days to come will be more difficult to endure than the past fifteen months have been
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Surely it would do no harm for you to write to me from time to time, simply telling me of your whereabouts and plans. Otherwise, I will have no knowledge of you except what I can gather from the papers. I believe I have done nothing to you that would make me deserving of such treatment
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I hate how this letter sounds. I cannot make it sound like me. I do not know what tone I should take with you. I cannot make you understand, in a letter, why I am so afraid for you. You are too young, Devlin. Through no fault of your own, you are younger than your age. You are not ready. I wish, my sweet, my darling Devlin, that I could convince you not to go where you are bent on going. Please, please come back home instead. Surely the advice of someone who loves you and has known you your entire life should count for more than whatever you have heard from Dr. Cook, who cannot possibly know you as I do
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Be careful, Devlin. Do not do anything simply because someone else desires you to do it or may think less of you if you refuse. Follow your true heart in all things. It is not infallible, but it is yours
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I wish I could go on writing this letter forever. Knowing that you will read it makes me feel as though I am speaking to you now, as though you are here but must soon leave and it will be a long time before you can be with me again
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Imagine that I am always with you, always able to hear you if you speak to me, always answering if only you remember me
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Love always
,
Daphne