When Nights Were Cold (14 page)

He walked away, a little pale. As I kept my eyes on his face, I began to understand and thought myself very stupid for not seeing it sooner. I had not seen it in him and, more stupid still, I had not seen it in myself.

Frank turned. His overcoat rumpled slightly in the wind and the tips of his hair brushed across his forehead.

‘I'm sorry, Grace,' he mumbled. ‘I meant – it isn't to do with Catherine, my reason for coming here.'

‘But to draw a comparison between my sister and me – I wish you hadn't.'

‘You know how much respect I have for Catherine but, really, we were never more than friends. I loved her playing, of course, but I also liked to spend evenings with your family. It was all so eccentric and fun. Don't be angry. We're spending tomorrow together and – ' he slid his fingers under his scarf and tugged at it – and I want to talk to you.'

I called an official meeting of the Society. We took lanterns, a pocket book, our supper and followed the garden steps up to the highest of the lawns, then climbed over the stone wall to get up onto the hill behind. A steep path edged the forest and led past the overgrown entrance to a derelict gold mine. We trotted single file along a narrow trail into the heart of the forest and came to a small, ruined shepherd's cottage. The roof had fallen in and the walls were only partially intact. There was a fireplace and part of a chimney and we found slabs of stone and slate for seats. We hacked at overgrowth with our knives and collected a pile for fire. When it was flickering nicely, we heated Ruth's mutton stew which, in truth, was still quite warm from the kitchen stove.

‘This is the most delicious food I have ever eaten.'

‘Much better than seal or penguin.'

‘But seal or penguin would be fine, if that were all we had. Nansen liked fox flesh, but I don't imagine that tastes good. Perhaps, after hundreds of miles on snow, it's delicious.'

I wanted to go further than this. I wanted to walk and walk. The gap between home and away was already wide and treacherous. There would have to be two of me now or I wouldn't be able to survive. I was splitting into two, becoming my own twin sister.

‘Now we know we can climb mountains and that we're stronger than we were last week. That's our main achievement. Apart from you, Parr, of course,' I said. ‘You could already climb.'

‘No, I haven't learned anything this week,' said Parr, blunt and clear, ‘but I never expected that I would.'

‘Farringdon has had another success, I think.' Hooper poked me with her foot. ‘Now, if you had a husband like Frank, you'd be able to go anywhere you liked and he would follow you. He seems very modern.'

‘But he'll never be my husband.'

‘A husband
like
Frank is all I said.'

Hooper placed her foot on something and jumped when it moved. She stood to see what it was.

‘Ugh. Look at that.'

‘What?'

Hooper picked up a ram's skull with the hem of her skirt, peered at it under the lantern light. The bone gleamed around black eye sockets.

Locke watched her with amusement. ‘A week ago you wouldn't have touched that, even when it was alive and woolly.'

‘I'm used to things now,' said Hooper, still gazing at the skull. ‘And I've realized that there isn't time to be afraid of everything. I'm still not sure what to tell Teddy when we get back. He only likes books and cricket and tailors' shops, but I'd like to do some more of this. Well, he might be like Frank and Wilfred and give it a go, but I know he would never permit the Alps.'

‘Then climb as much as you can before you get married,' said Parr. ‘Or marry someone else.'

Locke laughed and shook her head at Parr. ‘That's rather severe advice.'

I stirred the stew on my plate. Tiny globules of mutton fat glistened in the firelight and I chased them with my fork. I remembered my mother's remarks about Frank's appearance. How irritating that she should be right.

Flames twisted and lapped against the cottage walls. For miles around us there was nothing but thick forest. I imagined the shepherd who had once inhabited this place, living out of sight among the dark trees, lighting his fire under the big chimney, and listening alone to the sheep out on the hills.

Our day in Barmouth was all pleasure. Frank and Wilfred, Mr and Mrs Taylor, and the four members of the Society all went off together on the train. We walked on the beach and we strolled around the town. The four of us were tired and sore so we didn't walk far. After a week on the mountains your limbs are full of bent springs and dodgy hinges. But we had a lovely luncheon in a cafe with a view right out to the sparkling grey sea. In the afternoon, we stopped on the promenade for ices. Parr and Locke stood together and pointed at something on the horizon. I don't know what it was, but they were nodding at their shared observation, seeming quite friendly and pleased.

Frank and I became closer in Barmouth. The others watched us so I tried to keep apart from him and not show much interest, but it was such a pleasure to have him there that I could not help but talk to him sometimes. Don't ask me what we said because I cannot remember, and I have often tried. Then, at dinner, Mrs Taylor arranged things so that I was seated beside him. We hardly spoke, though, because Locke was quizzing Mrs Taylor on her Alpine climbs and I wanted to listen.

‘And I suppose you didn't get mountain sickness or you wouldn't have been able to climb Mont Blanc.'

‘I probably had a headache when we reached the summit, but I would hardly have noticed it by then. There was the view, and the pleasure of having done the job, and the soreness everywhere.'

‘It's very romantic.' Locke's nose was pink and sore-looking from the wind. Her cheeks were pale and made her hair seem darker than usual. There was tiredness in her features but she chattered away, as lively and interested as ever.

‘Yes, but one is always aware of the dangers,' said Mrs Taylor. ‘We saw accidents and – well.'

There was a silence and I am sure that we were all thinking of Parr's parents. Parr reached for her water glass and took a sip. She seemed about to speak but changed her mind and, distracted, turned the glass between her fingers.

Frank and I had a moment alone near the station and he kissed me.

A kiss on my hand. That was all and it was over my glove, my cream glove. It seems like nothing now, I know, but then—

Frank wanted to see me again, of course. I wrote to say that it would be difficult to receive him at college, but that the picture gallery was open to visitors on Thursday afternoons and had a notable collection of Victorian paintings. He might like to visit one day.

A kiss, on my left hand. Yes. The fingers inside the glove were rope-burned and scree-grazed. The nails were broken and scraggy. The hand belonged to me, but when I regard my hand now it has the look of another person's altogether. I am not sure where that leaves the kiss.

Chapter Ten

‘Father, what happened to Edward Whymper after the Matterhorn accident?'

I knew the story but wanted to hear it from him. It was the end of the summer vacation. I sat beside him in the drawing room. King Edward had passed away in May and Father decided that he must follow shortly.
My life is nicely finished off now
, he would say.
I don't want to straggle on into somebody else's era. I'd be the unwelcome guest at the dinner party and I'd rather just go.
Catherine was in her position at the piano but not playing. She moved her fingers around above the keys as though thinking where to start, but she had been doing this for several minutes and I wondered if some music was playing in her head that she could not quite catch and tether. My father pushed tobacco into his pipe and patted it down with his finger stub. He lit it and sucked deeply.

‘There was an inquest, of course, all that business about the rope breaking and whether he or Taugwalder cut it. Not possible, of course. The weight of four men already plummeting and pulling you down – how could you have time to pick up a sharp stone or find your knife to cut the rope? Whymper didn't even see what happened because he was last, still coming round the corner when the first one went. I have always felt a sort of connection with him because of the tragedy, not that it was the same thing as – well – of course, but you know. To see those men die and be too late to save them. It's a terrible thing to live with.' My father's eyelids pinkened. ‘Don't know where the poor chap is now, but I think he's still alive. He's been all over the world. He's probably up a mountain somewhere, though nothing so high or dangerous as the Matterhorn again. You'd lose your nerve, wouldn't you?'

‘The Matterhorn is not so difficult for modern climbers, is it?'

‘Good God. Many have climbed it but some still die. It hasn't got any smaller, or less treacherous. Nobody has yet climbed the north face, of course. Look at a picture and you'll see why. Mind you, if they get away with building a railway to the top, that'll be the end of it as a proper mountain. You can take your wife up to the top and bring her down again half an hour later. Pah.'

‘But some women have climbed Whymper's route, and from the Italian side, too.'

‘Yes, a few obstinate female creatures who must spoil it for the climbers.'

I thought there was a glimmer in his eye and he might be teasing me so I ignored the comment.

‘But it's not the highest peak in the Alps, is it?'

‘No, of course not. There are several higher. Mont Blanc and the Monte Rosa are the highest, but it's the shape of the Matterhorn that's the thing, the way it has been chopped and carved into a thing that cannot be climbed and yet must be. I'm glad I never saw it when I was a young man, or else I'd have probably wanted to give it a try. Damned silly way to break your neck, though. Or worse. They never found the body of Lord Francis Douglas, just shreds of his clothing. All that was left.' My father gazed into the fire, wiped his left eye. His hair was in tufts of white, which glistened at the roots. ‘Still, at least Queen Victoria never managed to ban the sport. Men will always have to do it, schoolboys will dream of doing it, and that is that. I'll have my veronal now. This conversation has made me sad.'

‘Do you suppose that he would have been strong enough to reach the South Pole?'

‘Who, Whymper? He wasn't anywhere near the South Pole. What are you talking about? Don't suppose he was even interested in it. Greenland – he went there.'

‘No, I meant his strength and technique on the mountains. Having learned those skills, he could use them to cross the Antarctic, if he had wanted to reach the South Pole.'

‘Oh, yes. Well, I expect so then, but you've got to want to do it. You wouldn't succeed otherwise.'

Nothing ever changed in Dulwich. I returned each vacation but no longer considered it my home. In the evenings we gathered around the fireplace and Mrs Horton brought cocoa. Father read his journals, accompanied by the rattling and wheezing of his chest. Mother embroidered linen and offered unconnected remarks every so often. Catherine sometimes played the piano and sometimes worked at her knitted dolls and animals for orphans. She had become accomplished at these and made little elephants with curving trunks and tusks, cats with long, fine whiskers. I sat sighing in the cosy corner and made a show of reading my largest and most difficult college textbooks.

Catherine and I sometimes strolled together around the neighbourhood. We visited our old schoolfriends, but she did not ask much about my new life and I probably showed no interest in her activities at home. Once she surprised me by saying she was expecting to get married, but when I questioned her she admitted that there was no suitor.

My last few days at home during that vacation were quiet. Father took to his bed and we nursed him. My parents begged me not to return to college but the doctor said that my father's condition was not dangerous, or no more so than usual, and so I shrugged and apologized, and said that I must go. The old arguments caught light and burned until my head ached. I longed for my friends, my place in the lab, the classroom where the Society met, and my room with my own furniture and kettle.

Catherine helped me pack.

‘I wish I could be as strong as you and just do what I wanted regardless of everyone.'

‘And what do you want?'

‘To play the piano with Frank again.' She did not pause. Her answer was simple and straight as though she could want nothing else.

‘I'm sure you will.' I tried to smile.

‘I'm too shy to ask him but perhaps he'll come one day.'

I hugged her and together we pushed my trunk to the door and down the stairs.

‘I'm worried about you, Grace. I wish you wouldn't go away. I have a feeling about it.' She puffed for breath, leaned against the wall. Her arms, freckled and long, folded across her chest.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You should really stay here. It's going to be harder when you finish university and can't find anyone to marry you.'

‘I'll do without marriage then,' I said, but I had no idea whether or not I should mean it. I often thought of Frank but, like Locke, did not want to imagine myself as a wife. ‘It was never my ambition.'

I spent the last weekend with Locke's family in Kensington. There was a party to celebrate Mrs Locke's final performance in a new play. I wore a pink silk dress that had once belonged to Catherine and I fastened a band of tiny roses in my hair. We walked through a hall that smelled of lavender and almonds. And then we were in a drawing room. Jewels, bright gowns and dark suits blurred and merged into dancing shapes around the floor.

I drank champagne for the first time. The sudden, sharp fizz made me sneeze.

A door opened to a small courtyard. I breathed sweet air that did not smell of London. In the centre, a small pond rippled in the night breeze. I shivered, smiling, and stepped towards the water. Two young men stood at its edge, intense in their conversation, gesticulating with cigars. Their smoke mingled and rose above their heads into a ribbon of satin. Locke introduced me to her lover, Horace, and her brother, Geoffrey.