kind of postman for Dr. Cook. A go–between. When you have read the letter,
if
you read it, you can do as you see fit. I think I know what you will do, but of course I could be wrong.”
“I could just give it to Aunt Daphne,” I said, “and let her read it first.”
He shook his head. “I would hate to have you wish too late that you had opted for discretion. I think you should read it in my presence, then give it back to me.”
“All right,” I said. What harm would it do me or Aunt Daphne if I read the letter?
Why had Dr. Cook waited for four years after my father’s death to write to me about him? I assumed that his letter contained news about my father. I could think of no other reason for Dr. Cook to write to me. Perhaps he had things to tell me that he thought I was only now old enough to understand.
Uncle Edward opened the drawer of his desk and removed fromit a small, once white envelope that now was yellow, so flat and thin it looked as if it was empty. It was sealed, but there was nothing written on it but my name. It must have come inside another envelope that was addressed to Uncle Edward.
“I will step out onto the rear landing,” Uncle Edward said, rising and walking around his desk, extending the letter to me. “I will come back in ten minutes.” He went to a windowless door across the room from the one I came in by, slowly opened it, went outside and just as slowly closed it.
I broke the seal, tore a corner of the envelope, removed and gingerly unfolded the single page, which looked so old that if mishandled it would have crumbled into pieces. The layers were compressed as if they had been ironed or had lain for months beneath some flat and heavy object. The handwriting, which appeared on both sides of the paper, was minuscule, barely decipherable, the words extending to the bottom line of the second side, the final words crammed into the right-hand margin, as if their author had exhausted his supply of paper.
My dearest Devlin:
I think constantly of you. Strange words from a man whom you have never met. I feel strange writing them. But from where I am writing—where in the world, where in my life—everything seems strange
.
When I wrote your uncle Edward, I should have been well launched on my quest for the South Pole, not in the cabin of a ship that had yet to leave the dock, not in the swelter of Rio de Janeiro. Since I wrote that letter, I have not left the ship more than half a dozen times. Just before we were due to leave last spring, Devlin, a fear I had never known before took hold of me
.
I imagine Peary coming back in triumph from the North Pole. Newspapers whose headlines proclaim his accomplishment figure so often in my dreams that I have banned all papers from the ship
.
Peary, who has never acknowledged in public that your father and I saved his life on the North Greenland expedition. His leg was shattered in a storm by the ship’s tiller. Had he been attended to by lesser doctors, he would have died
.
Devlin, the most mundane things seem ominous. In part, I have worked myself into this state through debating whether it would be fair of me to confide in you
.
I find myself on all matters unresolved. I find even the simplest of decisions impossible to make. I have heard that Peary, in a letter to his mother that he wrote when he was twenty, said, “I must have fame. I must.” His advantage over me is that he will do anything to achieve his goal, whereas I … I lack the ruthlessness that I fear may be essential to the task
.
Devlin, no one knows what I am going through but you. I dare not tell others of my doubts. Who would back my expeditions, who would trust me to command them, if they knew my state of mind?
I have been waking up, drenched in sweat, from nightmares I cannot remember and during which, the captain of the ship informs me, I scream incomprehensibly, as though at some intruder in my room
.
Such has been my physical state these past few months that
if
you read it, you can do as you see fit. I think I know what you will do, but of course I could be wrong.”
“I could just give it to Aunt Daphne,” I said, “and let her read it first.”
He shook his head. “I would hate to have you wish too late that you had opted for discretion. I think you should read it in my presence, then give it back to me.”
“All right,” I said. What harm would it do me or Aunt Daphne if I read the letter?
Why had Dr. Cook waited for four years after my father’s death to write to me about him? I assumed that his letter contained news about my father. I could think of no other reason for Dr. Cook to write to me. Perhaps he had things to tell me that he thought I was only now old enough to understand.
Uncle Edward opened the drawer of his desk and removed fromit a small, once white envelope that now was yellow, so flat and thin it looked as if it was empty. It was sealed, but there was nothing written on it but my name. It must have come inside another envelope that was addressed to Uncle Edward.
“I will step out onto the rear landing,” Uncle Edward said, rising and walking around his desk, extending the letter to me. “I will come back in ten minutes.” He went to a windowless door across the room from the one I came in by, slowly opened it, went outside and just as slowly closed it.
I broke the seal, tore a corner of the envelope, removed and gingerly unfolded the single page, which looked so old that if mishandled it would have crumbled into pieces. The layers were compressed as if they had been ironed or had lain for months beneath some flat and heavy object. The handwriting, which appeared on both sides of the paper, was minuscule, barely decipherable, the words extending to the bottom line of the second side, the final words crammed into the right-hand margin, as if their author had exhausted his supply of paper.
My dearest Devlin:
I think constantly of you. Strange words from a man whom you have never met. I feel strange writing them. But from where I am writing—where in the world, where in my life—everything seems strange
.
When I wrote your uncle Edward, I should have been well launched on my quest for the South Pole, not in the cabin of a ship that had yet to leave the dock, not in the swelter of Rio de Janeiro. Since I wrote that letter, I have not left the ship more than half a dozen times. Just before we were due to leave last spring, Devlin, a fear I had never known before took hold of me
.
I imagine Peary coming back in triumph from the North Pole. Newspapers whose headlines proclaim his accomplishment figure so often in my dreams that I have banned all papers from the ship
.
Peary, who has never acknowledged in public that your father and I saved his life on the North Greenland expedition. His leg was shattered in a storm by the ship’s tiller. Had he been attended to by lesser doctors, he would have died
.
Devlin, the most mundane things seem ominous. In part, I have worked myself into this state through debating whether it would be fair of me to confide in you
.
I find myself on all matters unresolved. I find even the simplest of decisions impossible to make. I have heard that Peary, in a letter to his mother that he wrote when he was twenty, said, “I must have fame. I must.” His advantage over me is that he will do anything to achieve his goal, whereas I … I lack the ruthlessness that I fear may be essential to the task
.
Devlin, no one knows what I am going through but you. I dare not tell others of my doubts. Who would back my expeditions, who would trust me to command them, if they knew my state of mind?
I have been waking up, drenched in sweat, from nightmares I cannot remember and during which, the captain of the ship informs me, I scream incomprehensibly, as though at some intruder in my room
.
Such has been my physical state these past few months that
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