Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [52]
Marie hurried off with a whisper of her crinoline petticoat. A pendulum clock ticked in the main drawing room, and Verne waited. Feet planted, he looked at the many odd items that M. Aronnax had acquired over the years -- trophies brought by his merchant ships from their voyages around the world.
A pink conch shell sat on a glass tabletop, surrounded by delicate shells from South Sea islands. A carved elephant tusk sat on a black lacquer stand. Around the corner, in shadow, stood an airtight case that contained a dark mass that just might have been a shrunken human head. . . .
Marie returned from the back room and gestured toward a pair of folding French doors that led out to an enclosed flower garden. “Mademoiselle Caroline awaits you in the courtyard. She has requested chocolat chaud for the two of you.” She hurried off.
A cast-iron table, painted white, stood on the patio flanked by two chairs. Caroline, wearing a lavender chintz dress with full sleeves and lace collars, sat in the sun without a hat or parasol, staring listlessly at a cluster of scarlet blossoms. Her back was to Verne, though she must have heard him arrive. A sketchpad lay on her lap, its top page covered with a quick drawing of a face. Nemo’s?
Gathering courage, he stepped forward. Caroline folded her sketchpad and turned. Her heart-shaped face was achingly beautiful as she smiled at him. “Please sit, Jules.”
He almost tripped over his own feet as he hurried to take the scrolled-iron chair opposite her. Verne’s heart fluttered as if it were pumping air bubbles instead of the red blood of a young man in love. He rested his elbow on the table, before remembering his manners. He sat up again, straight and proper.
Through the interior windows, Verne caught a flash of Madame Aronnax pacing in the sitting room, a distant chaperone. Verne berated himself for not thinking to bring a bouquet of flowers. He still had a lot to learn about love.
“It can be no news to you that I reached marriageable age some time ago, Jules,” Caroline said, and he caught his breath. “My parents have received many offers from suitors attracted by my social standing.”
And also by your beauty, Verne thought, but did not dare say it aloud.
With a resigned and confused expression, she forced out the next words. “My mother has completed all the necessary arrangements for me to marry. He is an older man, a well-respected sea captain. My father concurs, and so the decision has been made.”
Verne felt as if he would shatter from despair if he moved even a fraction of an inch. Her news struck him like an avalanche.
“Captain Hatteras has sailed my father’s ships with great success. I . . . looked over his records. His profits have always been excellent. The captain is an ambitious man who wishes to become an explorer.” Caroline continued rapidly but without emotion, as if she had memorized her speech.
“He has recently financed a new expedition to seek an alternate passage to Asia. He will go northwest, up around Greenland and North America, hoping to discover a route through the Arctic Sea and back down to China and Japan. Such a route could bring vast fortunes to my family.” She toyed with a ruffle on her sleeve. “And it is time for me to stop waiting.” He could hear the unspoken message in her words. With Nemo gone, I can ask for no better husband.
Verne swallowed hard, tried to articulate any objections that came to mind. “But . . . but that’s so dangerous. Around the arctic circle? It’s never been done.”
He thought of the Dutch explorer Willem Barents, who in the 17th century had sailed around Norway and upper Russia until his ship became ice-locked and crushed. Barents and his crew were forced to build wooden huts on the no-man’s island of Novaya Zemlaya. During the spring thaw, the survivors braved the Arctic Sea in open boats. Barents himself died, as did many of the crew, before anyone reached civilization.
Caroline