“James, where is he?” Olivier demanded.
“Pond,” James babbled, “pond.” But we could get no more information from him.
At the entryway, Julien told us later, the returned dog was pawing and scratching, whining to be let out. Marcel grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back, but the dog was desperate, yelping and straining, and finally, on their father’s command, they again unbolted the door and the dog ran out into the white.
Once again, the waiting commenced, and after I had dressed James in clean flannels and held him while Julien’s wife had him drink some hot toddy and then put him to bed, I rejoined the party in the entryway in time to once again hear that sickening thump against the door, which Marcel this time opened at once, with a cry of relief that soon became a wail. There, at the door, were both of the dogs, frozen and exhausted and panting, and, between them, Percival, his hair in icicles, his young handsome face the particular unearthly shade of blue that means only one thing. The dogs had dragged him all the way from the lake.
The next hour was awful. The rest of the children, Percival’s brothers and sisters and cousins, who had been instructed by their parents to stay upstairs, came running down and saw their beloved brother frozen to death, and their father and mother keening, and began to sob as well. I cannot remember how we managed to calm them, nor how we managed to make everyone go to bed, except that the night felt interminable, and outside the wind continued to scream—spitefully, it now seemed—and the snow to fall. It was not until well into the following afternoon, when James had finally awoken and become sensate once more, that he was able to relay, tremblingly, what had happened: When the storm had come, he had panicked, and had tried to make his way back on his own. But the snow was so blinding, and the wind so ferocious, that he was driven back again and again to the pond. Then, just when he had convinced himself he would die there, he had heard the faint sound of barking, and had seen the top of Percival’s bright-crimson cap, and knew he was to be saved.
Percival had reached out his arm, and James had grabbed it, but at that moment there had been a particularly strong gust of wind, and Percival had skidded onto the ice with him, and the two had tumbled into a heap. Again they stood, inching together to the edge of the pond, and again they fell. But this second time, after being once again pushed by the wind, Percival fell at a strange angle. He had had his ax drawn—James said he meant to stick it into the shore and use it as a lever to pull themselves out—but it instead pierced the ice, which cracked beneath them.
“Christ,” James said Percival had shouted. “James, get off the ice.”
He did—the dogs moving close to the water so he could grab them by their ruffs to steady himself—and then turned to reach for Percival, who was once again sliding on his boots across the frozen surface toward ground, but before he could reach it, he was buffeted by another gale, and fell back a third time, this time landing on his back near the spiderwebbed crack. And now, James said, the ice gave a groaning, sickening noise, and split, and Percival was swallowed by the water.
James yelled, from fright and desperation, but then Percival’s head emerged. My nephew grabbed the end of the rope, now no longer attached to Percival’s belt, and threw it to him. But when Percival tried to pull himself out, the hole in the ice split further, and his head once again slipped beneath the surface. By now, of course, James was frantic, but Percival, he recounted, was very calm. “James,” he said, “go back to the house and tell them to send help. Rosie”—one of the dogs—“will stay with me. Take Rufus and tell them what happened.” And, when James hesitated, “Go! Hurry!”
So James left, turning to watch Rosie pick her way across the ice toward Percival, and Percival reaching toward her.
They’d not gotten more than a few meters when they heard a dull sound behind them; the wind was so loud that it muffled all noise, but James turned, and he and Rufus returned to the pond, scarcely able to see through the snow. There, they saw Rosie running in circles on the ice, barking and barking, and then Rufus ran to her, and the two stood there together, whimpering. Through the snow, James could see Percival’s red glove clutching at the surface, though not Percival’s head. But he could see a thrashing from the water, a kind of violence. And then the red glove slipped, and Percival was gone. James hurried to the pond, but when he stepped atop the surface, it broke into plates, soaking his feet, and he only managed to scrabble up to the shore again before it split once more. He shouted for the dogs, but Rosie, no matter how much he called for her, wouldn’t move from her floe of ice. It was Rufus who guided him back to the house, but for many minutes, he could hear Rosie’s whining, her cries carried by the wind.
He had been crying as he told this story, but now he began to sob, gulping for breath. “I’m sorry, Uncle Charles!” he said. “I’m so sorry, Mister Delacroix!”
“He didn’t even have time to sink,” Marcel said in a strange, faint, strangled voice. “Not if the dogs were able to rescue him.”
“He couldn’t swim,” Olivier added, in a low voice. “We tried to teach him, but he never learned.”
As you can imagine, it was another dreadful night, and I spent it with James, holding him against me and murmuring to him until he at last fell asleep again. The snow and wind stopped the next day, and the skies turned brilliant and blue, and the weather even colder. I and some of Percival’s cousins shoveled a path to the ice house, where Marcel and Julien would keep Percival’s body until the ground had thawed enough for them to bury him properly. The day after, James and I left, detouring to Bangor to send word of what had happened to my sister.
Since then, as you can imagine, things have been much changed. I do not even mean from a business perspective, about which I dare not ask—I have sent the Delacroix our deep condolences, and my father ordered they be given the monies for a smokehouse they’d intended to build. But we have heard nothing from them in response.
James is very different now. He has spent the holiday season in his room, hardly eating, rarely speaking. He sits and stares, and sometimes he cries, but mostly he is silent, and nothing his brothers or mother or I can do seems able to bring him back to us. It is apparent he blames himself for the tragedy of Percival’s passing, no matter how many times I tell him he is not at fault. My brother has temporarily assumed control of the business while my sister and I spend every moment we can with him, hoping we might be able to puncture his fog of grief, hoping we might once again hear his dear laugh. I fear for him, and for my beloved sister.
I know it will sound terrible, and selfish, to say this, but as I sit with him these days and weeks, I find myself returning repeatedly to our conversation, which I left feeling embarrassed—of how much I had said, of how emotional I let myself become, of how much I burdened you—and wondering what you must think of me. I say this not as a rebuke, but I wonder if this is why you’ve not chosen to write me, though of course you might have mistaken my silence for lack of interest and been offended, which I would understand.
Percival’s death has made me think more often as well of William, of how wild with misery I was when he died, and of how, in my brief time spent with you, I began to imagine that I might be able to live again with a companion, someone with whom I might share the joys of life, but also its sorrows.