Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1959 page)

Frank
(
to
CRAYFORD). Shall I?

Cray.
Yes, if he wishes it.

Frank
(
casting
). Two! He stays! Wardour, I am sorry I have thrown against you.

Ward.
I tell you again — go or stay, it’s all one to me. You will be luckier when you cast for yourself.

Cray.
It is his turn to throw for himself now.

Frank
(
casting
). Eight! Hurray! I go!

Ward.
What did I tell you? The chance was yours — you have thriven on my ill luck.

Cray.
Steventon! it’s your turn.

Stev.
(
casting
). Five!

Cray.
Stay! We must comfort each other. Men who stay file into the inner hut. (
They do so.
)

Capt. H.
Men who go, the rendezvous is at this hut, as soon as we can be ready for the journey. A couple of hands here, Lieutenant Crayford, to shovel away the drift. It chokes the door.

Stev.
(
calling off
). A couple of hands there, with shovels, to clear the snow from the door!

Cray.
Here are the directions for the journey.

(
Gives paper.
)

(
Exit
CAPTAIN HELDING,
accompanied by his Officers.
BATESON
and
DARKER
shut the door.
)

Frank
(
going to his berth
). I shall pack at once. It won’t take me two minutes. (
Rolls up his blankets, &c.
)

Cray.
(
to
WARDOUR,
who is about to go
). Wardour, you are one of those who stay. You will not be wanted yet at the hut. Wait here a little. I wish to speak to you.

Ward.
Are you going to give me any more good advice?

Cray.
Don’t look at me in that sour way. I am only going to ask you a question.

Frank
(
rolling up his bundle
). There! I am all ready for the march. Stop! I have forgotten my snow-shoes. (
Going out.
)

Cray.
Frank, have you taken everything that belongs to you out of your berth?

Frank.
Yes.

Cray.
We are almost as short of fuel as we are of provisions. Your berth, having no one to shelter now, will make good firing. If you see Bateson in the storehouse, send him here with his axe.

Frank.
Very well. (
Exit by the door at the back.
)

Cray.
Wardour, we are alone at last.

Ward.
Well?

Cray.
You have both disappointed and surprised me to-day. Why did you say that it was all one to you, whether you went or stayed? Why are you the only man among us who seems indifferent whether we are rescued or not?

Ward.
Can a man always give a reason for what seems strange in his manner or his words?

Cray.
He can try — when his friend asks him.

Ward.
That’s true. Do you remember the first night at sea, when we sailed from England in the Wanderer?

Cray.
As well as if it was yesterday.

Ward.
A calm, still night. No clouds, no stars. Nothing in the sky but the broad moon, and hardly a ripple to break the path of light she made in the quiet water. Mine was the middle watch that night. You came on deck, and found me alone.

Cray.
And in tears.

Ward.
The last I shall ever shed.

Cray.
Don’t say that. There are times when a man is to be pitied indeed, if he can shed no tears.

Ward.
I should have quarrelled with any other man who had surprised me at that moment. There was something, I suppose, in your voice when you asked my pardon for disturbing me that softened my heart. I told you I had met with a disappointment which had broken me for life. There was no need to explain further. The only hopeless wretchedness in this world is the wretchedness that women cause.

Cray.
And the only unalloyed happiness, the happiness they bring.

Ward.
That may be your experience of them. Mine is different. All the devotion, the patience, the humility, the worship that there is in man I laid at the feet of a woman. She accepted the offering, as women do — accepted it, easily, gracefully, unfeelingly — accepted it as a matter of course. I left England to win a high place in my profession, before I dared to win her. I braved danger, and faced death. I staked my life in the fever-swamps of Africa, to gain the promotion that I only desired for her sake — and gained it. I came back to give her all, and to ask nothing in return, but to rest my weary heart in the sunshine of her smile. And her own lips — the lips I had kissed at parting — told me that another man had robbed me of her. I spoke but few words when we parted that last time, and parted forever. “The time may come,” I told her, “when I shall forgive
you;
but the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.”

Cray.
Wardour! Wardour! I would rather see you in tears again than hear you say that.

Ward.
The treachery has been kept secret. Nobody could tell me where to find him; nobody could tell me who he was. What did it matter? When I had lived out the first agony, I could rely on myself — I could be patient, and bide my time.

Cray.
Your time! What time?

Ward.
The time when I and that man shall meet face to fact. I knew it then, I know it now — it was written on my heart then, it is written on my heart now — that we two shall meet and know each other. With that conviction strong within me, I accepted this service, as I would have accepted anything that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts, between my misery and me. With that conviction strong within me still, I tell you it is no matter whether I stay here with the sick or go hence with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man. There is a day of reckoning appointed between us. Here, in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat — in battle or in shipwreck — in the face of starvation, or under the shadow of pestilence — I, though hundreds are falling around me, I shall live! — live for the coming of one day — live for the meeting with one man!

Cray.
Wardour!

Ward.
(
interrupting
). Look at me! Look how I have lived and thriven with the heartache gnawing at me at home, with the winds of the icy north whistling round me here! I am the strongest man among you. Why? I have fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our party on their backs. Why? What have
I
done, that my life should throb as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this deadly place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home? What am I preserved for? I tell you again, for the coming of one day — for the meeting with one man.

Cray.
Wardour, since we first met, I have believed in your better nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly, truly, as your brother might. You are putting that belief to a hard test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk now — that you had ever looked as you look now — I would have turned my back on him as the utterer of a vile calumny against a just, a brave, an upright man. Oh! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of you, put away those thoughts from your heart! Face me again, with the stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody superstitions of revenge, and knows them no more! Never, never, let the time come when I cannot offer you my hand as I offer it now to the man I can still admire — to the brother I can still love!

Ward.
(
aside
). Why did I speak? Why did I distress him? (
To
CRAYFORD.) You are kinder to me than I deserve. Be kinder still, and forget what I have said. No, no, no more talk about me; I am not worth it. We’ll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let’s do something. Is there no work at hand? No game to shoot, nothing to cut, nothing to carry? Hard work, Crayford, that’s the true elixir of
our
life! Hard work that stretches the muscles, and sets the blood a-glowing, that tires the body and rests the mind. (
Enter
BATESON,
with an axe.
) Here’s a man with an axe. I’ll do his work for him, whatever it is. (
Snatches the axe from
BATESON,
and gives him the gun.
)

Bate.
(
to
CRAYFORD). Captain Ebsworth wishes to see you, sir.

Cray.
(
looking at
WARDOUR). Wardour, you won’t leave the hut till I come back?

Ward.
No, no!

Bate.
(
holding out his hand for the axe, and offering the gun
). I beg your pardon, sir —

Ward.
Nonsense! Why should you beg my pardon? Give me your work to do. My arm is stiff, and my hands are cold. Go you and look for the bear I have failed to find. Some other man always finds what I miss. What was this axe wanted for?

Bate.
(
pointing
). To cut up Lieutenant Aldersley’s berth there into firewood, sir.

Ward.
I’ll do it. I’ll have it down in no time.

Bate.
(
aside
). He looks as if he’d have the whole hut down in no time, if he only got the chance of chopping it. (
Exit.
)

Ward.
If I could only cut my thoughts out of me as I am going to cut the billets out of this wood! (
Striking at the berth.
) Down it comes! A good axe! O me, if I had been born a carpenter instead of a gentleman! Crash you go! Something like a grip on this handle! Poor Crayford! His words stick in my throat. Crash again! A fine fellow, a noble fellow! No use thinking, no use regretting; what is said is said. Another plank out! It doesn’t take much, young Aldersley, to demolish
your
nest. Have at the back now. One, two, and down it comes. (
Tears out a long strip of wood.
) This must be cut in half. Stop! What’s here? A name carved in the wood! C. L. A. —
Clara.
(
Throwing down the wood.
) Damn the fellow and his sweetheart too; why must she have that name, of all the names in the world! The axe — where the devil is the axe? Work, work, work; nothing for it but work! (
Cuts out another plank.
) More carving! That’s the way these young idlers employ their long hours! F. A. Those are his initials. Frank Aldersley. And under them here? C. B.! His sweetheart’s initials. Why,
her
cypher is C. B. — C. B.! Clara Burnham! Nonsense! Why Burnham, because the letter is B.? Hundreds of names — thousands — begin with B. Where’s the axe? Crayford, come here, and let’s go hunting. I don’t like my own thoughts. I am cold, cold all over. (
Goes to the fire, and holds his hands over it.
) How they tremble! Steady, steady, steady! (
A pause. His voice drops to a whisper, and he looks all round him suspiciously.
)
Has
the day come, and the man? Here, at the end of the world? Here, at the last fight of all of us against starvation and death?