Granite and Rainbow
Outside it seemed to be autumn.
Of course, it was difficult to be sure, because London was always grey and smoky to her; so different from living on the coast! Besides, inside the Nautilus, there was a maintained temperature, so one couldn't shiver, find a shawl, and remark, 'Oh, fall must be coming! It's getting chilly!'; and there were very few windows, too, so she didn't decide the darkness had come any earlier to-day than it ever did. But somehow, somewhere, there was a faint smell, in the colour of the twilight when she pressed her face close to the little window and looked out, that made her think it was autumn.
She hadn't left the Nautilus in several days, being as it was several days since they had found Dr. Jekyll in Paris and they were now returning to England to report back (and presumably to find someone else for this 'League' of Mr. Bond's), but she had just seen London out her window before the dark came.
Mina turned away from the window with a faint smile. She was already growing tired of someone elses and Mr. Bond's infuriating condescension. In truth, perhaps, she hated them all. They all believed they were better than she was, but--she lifted her hand to her throat automatically--what did they know of? Mr. Bond did not know what it was to have one's closest friend killed a few weeks before her wedding, and then returned to some kind of half-life where she killed children. Allan Quatermain might well have survived dangers in Africa, but had he ever had to be constantly afraid, constantly watching and hiding and frightened because the thing he was afraid of couldn't be gotten away from, only held off for moments of time? Captain Nemo had indeed suffered injustice from England, but he had never been forced to drink blood.
Presently, only Dr. Jekyll had failed to lord it over her in that manner that made her furious, but this was only because he was a pathetic wretch. It was perfectly true, and she thought it matter-of-factly. He argued with no one. Hyde she had not truly met and therefore was not sure of how he would behave towards her, but she thought she would hate him, too. Men angered her since Jonathan...
She lifted her hand again and put it down quickly.
She would go for a short walk. It was better to do small things. Often now she thought that since Jonathan had betrayed her (he had, in throwing her away when she was no longer perfect), she was trying to hide the things that had made him want her in the first place. Surely, when he first loved her, it was because she was a sweet, proper lady who looked at the floor and blushed when she noticed his eyes were on her, or devoted herself to pleasing him because she said she loved him, too. She did, then. Now, when she was by herself with no chance of a dear man like Jonathan had been (surely, they had both been different before those things happened), she was angry, short, shameless--she would not be demure for any man, not now. So, instead of so sweet Madam Mina, she was shrewish Miss Murray. Sometimes that was easier; sometimes, it was more difficult. That was why she thought to herself, it was better to do little things. It was better to walk when she felt tired and sick of people.
That was why she was here, outside her room, walking down one of the Nautilus' halls, touching the doors curiously.
There were men on the Nautilus who guided it, who kept it alive, the way sailors kept a ship alive, but she had never seen any of them. The moment she left her room, they seemed to scatter and disappear like so many mice before a lamp. These doors, then, must be the way they disappeared; perhaps they were the doors to quarters, or simply to places where the men could take refuge. Mina tested the knobs idly, wondering if the men spoke English.
Suddenly, one of the knobs turned beneath her hand and she fell, caught utterly unawares, placing her palms down to the floor to catch herself and wincing as the impact made her forearms ache, cursing softly as she got to her knees. She looked up and froze.
She'd gone into Captain Nemo's room by mistake.
Slowly, she looked about her, staring dubiously at the little statues of hideous-looking gods on the tables, and a tall case of shells by the bed. Apart from that, it was furnished much like--like her room. She blinked, but still continued standing and beginning to back out hurriedly. Then she noticed a picture on the wall.
It was of a woman and two children. The woman was beautiful; dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed; young and smiling solemnly. The children were pretty, but Mina didn't care for children so much. At any rate, from what she knew of Captain Nemo, this was his wife and these his children, and she felt a creeping sense of shame. She'd seen something she oughtn't to see. She was certain that if Captain Nemo knew, he would be angry; just as she would be angry if someone saw her old picture of Lucy and Arthur. She still didn't know what Jonathan had told Arthur and Dr. Seward about the reason for the divorce, or how he would explain to Quincey why he had no mother. But that was entirely beside the point, she thought in a sort of frustrated, close-to-tears helplessness. She had seen Captain Nemo's picture, and she was ashamed. She would leave at once.
She did.
She shut the door quietly behind her and stood in the hall, torn between thinking of Quincey, who was her--her son--and the beautiful, innocent-faced Indian woman in the portrait. Perhaps, though Captain Nemo would never know what it was like to be forced to drink blood, he understood what it was to lose one's family, one's child or husband or wife.
Then Mina thought solely and intently of the picture, of the woman with her dark eyes and solemn smile. Genteel. Elegant. A proper woman, she would have been, happy just to be married and to satisfy her husband.
"Yes. It's likely true," Mina said aloud, speaking to the woman. "I quite expect you were a sweet, perfect wife of a husband who was manfully adoring. Weren't you?" she asked accusingly. "You were probably my complete opposite. But you're dead now."
This struck her as cruel, and she amended.
"It isn't your fault, of course. I'm sure I don't know how you died, but I expect it was childbirth or a terrible illness, or something, and I'm sure you suffered greatly but with courage." With a small sigh, Mina resumed walking, but this time she kept her arms folded and her hands clenched firmly. She would not be opening any more doors.
"Your husband has become most unattractively xenophobic since your death," she continued. Somehow, it was very easy to speak to Captain Nemo's wife. "Perhaps he was that way before? Now it is almost intolerable, the way he looks at me. Why must he hate me more than Mr. Quatermain or Dr. Jekyll? Hyde is, in fact, from England, too. One would think he might have the decency to expend more energy disliking the particularly dislikeable among us. Besides, not all the world's evil comes from England."
Once again her hand went to her throat. For heaven's sake, she thought irritably, this is becoming a regular habit.
"No, no, no, I know. I am carrying everything to extremes, is what I am doing. I don't care. I am discontented. I am not satisfied. I want to do more than play leader to these men. Suppose I tried to see it without a bias--though I have a bias, and mean to have it no matter what--perhaps I hate them, but they were once dignified men. They were never better than me, but they had twice my standing. What am I? A music teacher. They were considered great men, but this music teacher treats them as ordinary. Of course they dislike me. And then, the way I see it--they aren't ordinary, but they are no worse and no greater than anything else. Haven't I seen more terrible things than a perfectly courteous madman who kills his enemies? Haven't I known a greater man than a once-incredible hunter? I only came to this 'League' because I was called; not because I wanted to be great, as they were; and I suppose M. only wanted me because I am sane. How does he presume to know I am that? I'm pouring out my heart to a portrait of a dead woman."
Again, though, she felt cruel, and paused, then apologised.
"As you can see, I am something of a short-tempered, arrogant fishwife, convincing myself candour is the idealistic thing to do. It's rather foul, isn't it? I'm very sorry. I shan't say something like that again. Lucy is a dead woman, is she not?" --and here she stopped, leaned back against the wall, looked upwards, sighed softly-- "Why has my son been taken from me? Did you lose any of your children?"
The woman's face seemed almost to quiver, as though she were alive, and Mina watched calmly as the lips moved and a sweet, clear voice said, very quietly, Only in part.
"How can one lose a child in part?"
They were killed only a few hours before me. I was not alone for very long, and I had them back again soon.
"You were killed?" She felt a faint rush of being disturbed, being ruffled in her thoughts, because she'd believed Captain Nemo's wife had died of an illness, and in truth she was killed. It was like Lucy, Mina thought unconsciously, and thus she felt the unsettled feeling, very lightly.
To hurt my husband. To hurt Prince Dakkar. When he escaped from them, they took revenge. It is all right, now, though I miss him sometimes. I have my children.
"Good Lord. You mean you and your children were killed by the British? In order that Captain Nemo might be drawn out of hiding?" she asked.
No, said the woman softly, with a little shake of her head. Because they were angry. Are you calling him Nemo because he calls himself so now? It is a lonely name. He is still Dakkar.
"I believe he might object to that."
Oh. Oh, I am sorry now! The woman lifted her hands, hands which hadn't been in the picture, and put her beautiful face in them, and Mina closed her eyes.
"I am, too."
"Memesahib Murray?"
"Captain!" Her eyes opened quickly, and she turned about to look at him. "Hello, Captain."
"I could hear your voice. Were you speaking to someone?"
Was he protective, she wondered, of his men? She knew very well that he did not want her on his submarine to begin with--did he also object to her speaking with the crew? Perhaps it broke some kind of tradition or some rules for him to speak with an English woman, let alone bring her aboard, and perhaps he wished to avoid his men facing that same breach of the rules. She smiled at this somewhat romantic idea. Perhaps he was just a man with an arrogance that came from, and seemed justified by, proud blood, and didn't want her speaking with his men for that simple reason.
"No, Captain. Only to myself."
"I see. Very well, then."
"Indeed."
But now she couldn't help but pause, look at him more closely. Here was a man whose wife had been killed 'to hurt him'. He had lost his children, too. But more than that--the woman from the picture had spoken of him tenderly, with love in her voice. Mina had never imagined anyone could use that tone of voice when talking about Captain Nemo, but this woman had, completely naturally, and she wondered, just a little bit, if she was constantly looking at him wrong, just as he was always looking at her the wrong way, too. What an odd thought that was! A bad-tempered, secret Englishwoman with a scarf on her neck, so like a misogynistic, dignified Indian man hiding in a submarine! They were not the same, would never be the same, and yet there was something they could, perhaps, have understood together, if they had tried. They would not, she knew, but if they tried--
And so Mina turned suddenly in his direction, saw that he was no longer looking at her, that he was no longer facing her, that he was going away, and almost wished that he wasn't. "Captain," she called after him. "It is autumn, is it not?"
He turned for a moment. "Yes, Memesahib Murray. It is autumn."
"Thank you. I wonder, Captain--would you care for a game of chess?"
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