The boy came with the message while I was black leading the grate. “What is it?” I asked, wiping my hands on a cloth as my cousin Phoebe reclined on the settee, reading the note.

“It’s from Captain Fazakerley,” she said, her forehead puckering. “He has arrived back in town and would like to pay a visit.” Phoebe and I had watched the captain’s lectures two years ago during our trip to the seaside, which was where Phoebe first met her husband, Lindsay.

“How did he find us?” I asked. It had been some time since we had heard from the captain, who had been on a long expedition to the Northern Regions. I suspected that Lindsay might have kept up a correspondence with him, but the captain would not have received any letters until he had returned to civilization, and in any case, we had moved lodgings several times in the interval.

“He writes that he made inquiries at the last address he had for us,” Phoebe read, squinting to decipher what looked like an illegible scrawl. So Lindsay had been writing to him. I knew Phoebe would not be pleased by that, but whether more from the fact of the correspondence itself or more because he did not tell her of it, I could not be sure.

“I will let Lindsay send his reply when he comes in,” she decided, letting the note flutter from her hand onto the side table. Lindsay was out on one of his marathon walks along the river, seeking inspiration by the water’s edge when it deserted him at the easel. I began to prepare supper.

When Lindsay came back, his cheeks were red as though they had been slapped, but from the cold wind rather than by any human hand. Phoebe made a languid gesture toward the note on the side table. “A message came,” she said.

He read it while I served supper. For the first time in a long while, excitement gleamed in his eyes. “By all means!” he said, as if talking to the captain directly rather than to a piece of paper. “You shall come and be welcome!” With that, he rose from the table, dashed off a short note of his own, standing by the dresser, and then went off in search of a boy to deliver it to Captain Fazakerley at his hotel.

From her place on the settee, Phoebe sighed. She had always been delicate, but she had been especially unwell since the discovery that she was with child.

“It will just be one visit,” I said to soothe her. I added that she would not have to worry that the captain would entice Lindsay to join him on another expedition, as Lindsay had pressing obligations at home.

Phoebe nodded, but I could see that she was still not easy in her mind.

.

The captain came the next afternoon. His enormous figure, made even larger by the long fur coat he wore, filled the door frame. He embraced Lindsay, handed him a bottle of brandy, and then turned to grin at Phoebe on the settee and me standing beside her. We stared back. Half his face had been mauled beyond recognition, with the place where there had once been a sharp black eye to match the one on the right side of his nose replaced by a thick web of angry scars.

Noticing our reaction, the captain held his hand up by the destroyed part of his face. “An unfortunate encounter with an ice bear,” he said in an airy manner, as though excusing a gravy stain on his trousers, of which he also had a few.

Lindsay clapped him on the back. “I’ll wager that ice bear saw the worst of the encounter,” he said, ushering the captain to a chair and then pouring out the brandy into glasses. Phoebe took a drop, “for medicinal purposes,” she said; I abstained, as I’ve never cared much for the stuff.

“I’m sorry to come when you’re poorly, ma’am,” the captain said to Phoebe, “but I’ve not long in town before setting out on another expedition — this trip to the city was mainly to secure funding and lay in provisions before departing — and I simply couldn’t leave without calling on my good friend Lindsay here, who seems to have equipped himself with a veritable harem in my absence.”

Lindsay chuckled at this, shaking his head at the captain’s temerity, while Phoebe’s face flushed and I felt my own features turn to stone.

Heedless of any offense he may have caused, the captain barreled on, regaling us with reports — I use the word judiciously, for who knows how true they were? — of his adventures in the Northern Regions, including his epic fight to the death with the aforementioned ice bear. It was a gruesome story, and I could see Phoebe grow faint as the sanguinary details emerged.

“I think we’ve heard enough of that,” I hastened to say, inclining my head toward the wilting figure on the settee.

“Oh, begging your pardon, ma’am,” the captain apologized. “I’ve lived such a rough life in unrefined company for so long that I’m no longer used to the society of ladies.” He gave another grotesque grin in our direction, which I imagine was his attempt at being charming. My reply was a curt nod.

“Nonsense, Fazakerley, that was fascinating,” Lindsay protested, ignoring Phoebe. “I only wish I could have accompanied you as expedition artist. Perhaps I could try to render an image based on your vivid account, however.”

“That would be splendid!” roared the captain. “Publish an engraving of it in the newspapers, and then think of the funds we could raise for even further expeditions.”

My outrage at this turn in the conversation must have been evident on my face, for the captain attempted to mollify me with a wink — a poor choice on his part. I stood up from the stool I had pulled up by the settee and walked over to the window.

For some time, the captain and Lindsay carried on their conversation in an animated manner, Lindsay the most excited I had seen him for some time, while I stared out the window at the street below, which teemed with peddlers and ragged urchins as usual. My thoughts were of Phoebe, however, who must have been suffering greatly at Lindsay’s admission that he regretted not joining the expedition, meaning that their elopement would have been deferred or perhaps never even have taken place.

How could he be so heedless and cruel? I wondered, and I wished for the captain’s speedy removal — not just from our rooms, but also from the city itself.

After some time spent conversing and finishing the bottle of brandy, the captain announced his intention to leave, and that he hoped to make a farewell visit in a few days’ time on the eve of his departure for the Northern Regions — intelligence I heard with some relief.

After paying his respects to Phoebe, he made his way to me at the window and, to my surprise, took my hand, his huge paw overwhelming but not crushing it.

“It was never my intention to cause you any distress,” he said in a low voice that the others, at the end of the room, could not hear. “Lindsay’s a lucky man, did he but know it. I hope to see you again, dear lady.” Then he kissed my hand while I stood like one of those fantastic ice formations of the Northern Regions.

As soon as he was gone, I hurried over to Phoebe, whose expression betrayed her wretchedness, although she spoke not a word. When I returned to her side, she swooned in my arms, sobbing. Witnessing this, Lindsay gestured impatiently and stormed off to his easel to try to capture in visual terms Captain Fazakerley’s fateful meeting with the ice bear.

.

I informed Lindsay that he mustn’t have Captain Fazakerley back at our rooms, no matter that it was the last time he might ever see him, because of the effect upon poor Phoebe, who was drawing near to her confinement.

“If you will not allow me the luxury of visitors,” Lindsay retorted, “then I shall send a message to the captain that I will see him at his hotel at whatever time he can receive me.” With that, he stalked off to scribble a note and have it delivered.

On the eve of the captain’s departure, Lindsay went to visit him. Phoebe and I had expected the visit to be short, since the captain’s expedition set off early the next day, but the hours crept by and Lindsay did not return. Phoebe, near collapse, begged me to make my way to the captain’s hotel to see what was happening. I knew that she feared that Lindsay had decided to abandon us and join the expedition. I tried to reassure her that this could not be the case, but she was so distraught that I finally tied on my shawl and left for the hotel.

It was after dark, and the streets, so busy during the day, were almost deserted, with the traders having long ago packed up their wares and gone home. At intervals, as I hurried along, shadowy forms glided by me on either side, faceless and insubstantial, emerging from alleyways and wafting across the road. I gathered my shawl close about me and hoped I appeared as a wraith to them as well, that they would not take notice of me and do me some mischief, although I had concealed a paring knife on my person in case anyone tried.

I walked for a quarter of an hour before I reached the hotel where the captain was staying. In contrast to the breathless quiet of my sojourn, it was a boisterous place. Music and loud laughter emanated from the blazing windows, and the light pouring out of them seared my eyes.

I knocked several times at the heavy front door before anyone came to answer it. When a young male servant finally let me in, I didn’t have long to look before I found Lindsay and the captain at the tavern downstairs, enjoying a bottle of spiritous liquor. They were toasting one another, each trying to outdo the other in expressions of admiration and esteem.

I stepped forward and said I had come to escort Lindsay home. It was late and Phoebe and I had judged that he may have been in need of some assistance. At that, Captain Fazakerley began to laugh as though he had heard the greatest joke. “Never fear, Lindsay,” he crowed. “Your bodyguard has arrived.” Lindsay himself stared in confusion, too drunk to grasp my sudden appearance or the captain’s amusement regarding it.

.

Before he bade us farewell, the captain invited us up to his chamber so that Lindsay could bathe his face in cold water. As we made our way up, the captain asked the boy servant to bring a pot of coffee.

When we were upstairs, Lindsay bent over the basin, sick. Captain Fazakerley drew me aside. “Lindsay’s a fine man, but he can’t hold his liquor,” he said. “I doubt he could survive the rigors of an expedition in the Northern Regions.”

“Did he ask to join you?” I inquired.

“He did,” the captain admitted, “but I told him he mustn’t think of any such thing, with his good lady wife in her present condition and you —” He paused and regarded me for a while. “What is your position in this little menage?” he asked at last.

“I am Mrs. Lindsay’s cousin and steadfast companion,” I said, with all the dignity I could muster.

“Ah,” he said. “An important role, no doubt. If you should ever consider a change in situation, however, I would be honored to have you as my own helpmeet — although, I suspect, Lindsay and his bride might well starve without your ministrations. Still, you’d have your own household to manage — and me, ugly brute that I am.” At this, he looked quite bashful.

I cast about for something to say. “You wish to marry me? After just a handful of meetings?”

“I know what I want when I see it,” he replied. “When I return from this expedition, we can make all the arrangements. Say you will and send me off to the wild with my heart at ease.” 

I gazed at him, my mouth open. “I — I couldn’t possibly …” I began.

Fearing my imminent refusal, he burst out, “At least promise to write me while I’m away, and you can think about my offer until I return.”

This seemed a good way to end the conversation. “All right,” I answered. He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed it in gratitude. At that, the boy came up with the coffee, and we concentrated on sobering Lindsay up enough for the walk home.

The captain set off in the morning, and, true to his word, he sent letters, long and full of longing. I puzzled over them, unsure whether I should write back; I had promised that I would write to him only to make him stop talking. Still, the letters were full of colorful travel incidents and exotic foreign locales, in addition to many compliments directed at me, so I couldn’t help but find them interesting. In one, he asked for an image of me, so I thought to send him the miniature that Phoebe had done of me, one of her earliest attempts at art. In the end, though, I couldn’t bear to part with it, as she had put so much work into it.

In one of his last letters, he warned that there would be no communications from the Northern Regions, as there was no post office up there, but that he would write again as soon as he had returned to civilization. I had not responded to any of his letters, but he had continued to send them, as if he knew that I was devouring them in silence.

Some months after that a small band of expedition members made their way back to the city by boat rather than in the undersea craft in which the whole party had set out. They told a story of harsh natural conditions and of Captain Fazakerley’s death. While there were rumors of a mutiny among the men, who had wanted to return in the face of such conditions, nothing was ever proved.

To assuage his grief at this news, Lindsay created a series of paintings of what he imagined the captain’s final sojourn in the Northern Regions had been like, along with his portrayal of the ice bear encounter from the earlier expedition. A gallery bought the pictures and displayed them, to much public interest.

Phoebe seemed much more content at the news of the captain’s death. In the meantime, she had been delivered of a daughter, whom we all decided to call Marina, as her parents had first met by the sea.

Of course, had the captain returned, I would not have gone off with him — there was no possibility of my leaving Phoebe and Lindsay. Every so often, though, I enjoy perusing the letters. The captain led a most eventful life, after all, and he had a way with a clever turn of phrase.

^^^

Bridget Goldschmidt received her MFA in creative writing, with a concentration in fiction, from Brooklyn College in 1991. Her short fiction has been published by Flash Fiction Magazine, Every Day Fiction and The RavensPerch. She works as a trade magazine editor and lives in New York by the ocean. She has previously written stories about Phoebe and Sukey for Oblivioni Magazine and Luminaura Magazine.