Page 12 of Under the Stars

An Account of the Sinking of the Steamship Atlantic, by Providence Dare (excerpt)

Long Island Sound

( twenty-five hours before the Atlantic runs aground )

I had met the bloodhound only a week earlier, and yet I felt as if he had pursued me all my life.

He arrived at the Irvings’ house about an hour after I had raised the alarm.

A local constable had answered the summons and sent for assistance.

The doctor rushed in a few moments later, and then Maurice Irving, whose student rooms were not far away.

By now Josephine was married to a gentleman who lived in Quincy, so she was not to appear until later that afternoon—long after her father’s body had been taken to the morgue.

Ephraim was still in Europe and learned the news weeks later. On a mountaintop in Austria, I believe.

I remember I had taken up a position on the small rush-bottomed chair in the back hallway, as stiff and numb as I stood now, in Mr. Dobbs’s cramped berth aboard the Atlantic .

I sat on this particular chair because it afforded me a view into the small sitting room, where Maurice hung from the edge of a sofa and sobbed into his palms. Two more constables had joined the first one, along with the city’s marshal, Francis Tukey—Mr. Irving being a person of great consequence—who introduced himself with an important pause that suggested I ought to genuflect.

Mr. Irving’s body still lay at the bottom of the back stairs under a sheet of linen from the cupboard.

I had fetched it myself after the doctor, adjusting his spectacles, had pronounced him deceased.

The house was very quiet. The constables spoke in hushed voices.

Soon the newspapers would get wind of this shocking accident to America’s beloved painter—not two years after the equally shocking accident to his wife—and the weird stillness of the present moment would shatter irrevocably.

But for now, I heard only the sobs in the other room and the occasional murmur of one of the constables, the intermittent clop of hooves and clatter of wheels from the sleepy street outside.

Into this atmosphere of disbelief prowled the bloodhound. I remember hearing the crack of his shoes on the checkerboard tiles of the entry, and how every nerve sang at the sound. Animal instinct, I suppose. Every beast understands when a predator approaches.

He made straight for Mr. Irving’s body at the bottom of the stairs.

I see him now in his black frock coat and his dark trousers, the same color as the impenetrable dawn outside, removing his hat as he bent to pull back a corner of the sheet and inspect Mr. Irving’s face.

From his expression, you would not have guessed that Mr. Irving’s skull had been crushed during the course of the fall, and the brains that had imagined so many celebrated works of art shone pink and glossy between the shards of white bone and the blood-matted hair.

He replaced the sheet and his hat and stood, casting his gaze up the length of the staircase and down again.

I had the feeling he was calculating the direction of a falling human body, the force of impact at each step.

I thought he had a coarse, thick, primitive profile, quite unlike Mr. Irving’s fine features, and a neck like a trunk.

He was so spectacularly ugly, I couldn’t look away.

When at last he turned his head and fixed his gaze upon mine, I realized he had been aware of my attention all along.

“Miss Dare, I believe,” he said, in a low, sloping, ponderous voice, as an elephant out for a stroll. “My name is Starkweather. I’m afraid I must trouble you to answer a few questions.”

—

Once Starkweather had delivered Dr. Hassler to his stateroom, he returned laden with blankets and life preservers.

The stewards were handing them out, he said.

The Atlantic had lifebelts for six hundred souls, which was five hundred more than had boarded the ship this awful night.

One woman had taken four and tied one on each limb.

By now a violent shivering had taken command of my bones. I pulled a blanket from the stack and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Much good they will do her when she lands in that icy sea, half a mile from shore,” I said.

“The sun will rise in a little over three hours. Rescue will arrive with the light.”

“Rescue? From what quarter?”

“From the many steamships that travel these waters, as you know. Those departing New York last night will arrive in New London with the dawn. Dustan will have hoisted the distress signal; the nearest vessel will come to our aid.”

“In this gale? Mr. Starkweather, we’ve lost our steam. We’re at the mercy of the sea. We’ll be driven onto the rocks by the time the rest of the country sits down to its turkey dinner.”

“We’re in God’s hands,” he said. “His mercy is without bound.”

“And yet his faithful lambs still drown in terrible accidents.”

He did not answer. I lifted my gaze to that familiar face—the same heavy bones, the same barbarian jaw.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Starkweather?”

“I confess,” he said, “I didn’t expect to find you still inside this cabin.”

I turned back to Mr. Dobbs and sank the cloth in the bucket of water. “And abandon the poor man? Anyway, the ship is impossible to flee.”

“Unlike Boston.”

I trickled water over Dobbs’s forehead. “I suppose you’ll tell the captain.”

“Captain Dustan has enough to burden him, at the present time. I am perfectly capable of keeping watch over you until such time as we are rescued.”

“I might throw myself overboard.”

“Unlikely,” he said.

I dropped the cloth into the bucket and cupped my fingers together to warm them. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, Mr. Starkweather.”

“On the contrary. I understand that you mean to survive, Miss Dare. Survival above all. To cast yourself into a sea like this is to perish.”

Dobbs groaned from his bunk of misery. He had ceased to thrash about—that was the laudanum—but I saw that his feet were shaking.

“He needs a blanket,” I said. “The cold wash depresses the temperature of the body.”

“Your own clothes are soaked through.”

I laughed. “If I catch a chill, it might save you the trouble of hanging me.”

“I don’t wish you to hang, Miss Dare.”

“Don’t you? You’ve harassed me at my home, harassed me at the police headquarters, chased me like a dog chases a rabbit so he can break the poor creature between his jaws—”

“My task is to gather evidence. Only the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can determine your guilt.”

“You’ve already decided I’m guilty. You believe I killed him. Mr. Irving. Admit it. You believe me a murderess.”

Mr. Starkweather stared down at me. The tip of his large nose was red with cold and the rims of his eyes were pink, as if he had not slept.

As I turned back to Mr. Dobbs, he spoke.

“My opinion of the case,” he said, “has nothing to do with my duty to apprehend you.”

“You can’t apprehend me. You have no evidence, no power to arrest me.”

“Then why flee, Miss Dare? To a jury, flight smacks of guilt.”

“Without evidence, there is no crime. Without a crime, there is no jury. But I hardly need to remind you of that fact, Mr. Starkweather. If you have no charge to lay upon me, I must insist you leave me alone.”

The laudanum was working its miracles. Dobbs no longer thrashed about the sheets and his shrieks of anguish had quieted to the occasional groan.

Blisters bubbling his forehead. Skin the color of milk pudding.

His lids were closed, thank God, over those gobs of jelly that used to be eyeballs. In my nightmares I can see them yet.

I leaned forward. “Mr. Dobbs?”

He didn’t answer, not so much as a flinch. Only the shiver of his chest, the twitch of his fingers. When I touched his hand, it was marble-cold. I removed the blanket from my own shoulders and laid it lengthwise down his chest to his knees.

I turned to Starkweather. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to return to my berth for dry clothes. If he continues to shiver, lay another blanket on him.”

—

In my berth, dressed in dry shoes and clothes, a couple of blankets laid over my shoulders, weariness overcame me and I dropped onto the bunk, not even bothering to draw the curtain around me.

When I shut my eyes, I fancied I could feel the tug of the anchor cable as we reached the peak of each wave.

Then the strange wild slack as we came down again.

Hunger scratched the lining of my stomach; my mouth was sticky with thirst; yet these urges were nothing against the monstrous fatigue that dragged at every joint.

But sleep refused me. Though my body craved rest, my mind buzzed from fear to fear, from memory to memory. No sooner did I close my eyes than Starkweather’s face loomed before me. His voice rang in my ears.

In my head echoed an interrogation from which there was no escape.

Of course, a bloodhound like Mr. Starkweather had had questions for me. That was to be expected. I had raised the alarm, after all. I had found the body. I realize this has been a great shock, Miss Dare, but I’m afraid I shall have to ask you a few questions.

“Of course,” I had replied.

As I said before, Maurice already occupied the small sitting room that opened off the back hallway, so I led Mr. Starkweather into Mr. Irving’s study.

It was stupid of me, I know. To answer these questions about Mr. Irving’s death, this fresh and terrible wound, while surrounded by all the objects and furniture that were so dear to him—well, nobody could think clearly under circumstances such as those.

He started off as you would expect. How I came to find the body, whether I had heard any unusual noise. At what time had I last seen Mr. Irving, was there anyone else in the house that night.