When Nights Were Cold (11 page)

‘What's she up to?' Locke craned her neck.

‘Perhaps it wasn't kind to call her a dry old corpse.'

Locke bit her lip, winced. ‘I wasn't – I didn't mean Parr, specifically I was thinking of some of the older lecturers and – do you think she's furious?'

‘She might not have heard.'

‘I'm sure she did. Probably went sneaking off to write her own anti-suffrage play in retaliation. But no – she hasn't got any imagination.'

‘I didn't think she was sneaking,' I said, always ready to defend Parr, particularly as Locke had referred to her as a corpse before and I thought her remark was deliberate. ‘She has a drawing lesson around now.'

But I was wrong. Parr had gone to see Miss Hobson. We learned later that she went to ask the principal what should be done when one knew that the student next door was not in her room after lights out. After all, while one did not want to intrude, there were serious questions pertaining to our safety and, if it were the middle of the night and the student had not returned, might it not be considered an emergency? Miss Hobson asked Parr to explain what exactly she meant. Parr was always vague about her reply. She denied that she had mentioned Locke by name, or even this specific incident, but said she had merely repeated her question.

Miss Hobson discovered that Locke and Morgan had not been at chapel or breakfast that morning and threatened to have them sent down. Locke had a quick mind and a talent for performance. She simply denied that they had not come back that evening and she paid the maid a few more shillings to back up her story. Morgan nodded meekly. Miss Hobson would not believe that any Candlin College student would have the audacity to lie about such a serious matter so agreed to take Locke at her word. She fined the pair for missing breakfast and chapel but decided not to investigate further, perhaps wishing to avoid a scandal. Instead she assured Locke and Morgan that they would be watched closely for the rest of their time at college.

At the next Society meeting, we did not even begin official proceedings. Locke arrived last, marched in and banged her fist on Parr's desk. Parr, who had been sitting with her hands clasped beneath her chin as Hooper and I chattered, jumped back with a cry.

‘Why the devil did you say anything?' Locke banged the desk again. ‘It was none of your business.'

A slight pinkness spread about the edges of Parr's face, just around her hairline.

‘I – I merely asked for guidance in what might be a dangerous situation. I was careful not to say anything about you. It was really a criticism of the staff and the nightwatchman.'

‘But to what purpose?'

‘If someone is not in their bed all night and nobody knows about it, shouldn't we all worry about our safety? What if a madman had come into the building and taken you? My bed is in the next room.'

‘I think you knew where I was and felt perfectly safe.'

‘How could I have known?'

They argued the point for several minutes. I had planned for some study of oceanography and Nansen's important work on currents at the North Pole and had even prepared sketches of the
Fram
, frozen in pack ice, as it drifted across the Pole. I was anxious to begin but no one was interested. Hooper sat at the back of the small classroom and finished off a letter to Teddy. Locke glared at Parr, tapping her foot against a desk leg. Parr stared out of the window with red-rimmed eyes.

I declared the meeting utterly pointless and suggested a postponement until the following week.

Locke chased me down the corridor. ‘I'm sorry we ruined it, but do you see what she did? I'm sure she knew I was in London.'

‘Parr was worried. You didn't come back all night and could have been lost or murdered in the city. If she had only wanted to cause trouble, she could have told the nightwatchman and had the whole college up looking for you.'

‘But she is more subtle than that. Look, I don't care about her and it's my own fault anyway, but I don't understand why you like her so much. She has shown herself to be malicious. I expect she is jealous because she thought I was with a lover.'

‘Try to see things from her point of view. She's lost both parents and is quite alone. It's easy to see why she might be afraid at night.' We crossed the quad and entered the cloister. The chapel windows were open and the choir were practising Bach's ‘Wachet Auf'. ‘It would be best to forgive her. And you did lie about it, which is rather terrible.'

My response was pious and sanctimonious. The soaring voices of the choir seemed to emphasize this and mock me for it. I was disappointed in Parr. Why on earth had she gone to the principal? But I preferred to believe that Locke was wrong than that Cicely Parr could have acted with spite. Perhaps it was also the case that I envied Locke and Morgan their adventure.

‘We have to keep her happy,' I said. ‘For the sake of our travels.'

‘I'm not climbing any mountains with her. Why does she want us to come with her if she despises us so much? Why doesn't she go with all these extraordinary mountaineering friends she has?'

I thought about this. ‘I'm not sure that she does have them.'

‘Oh, I see. I assumed—'

‘They're all aunts and uncles and their friends. I think she thinks that we're her friends.'

‘Strange way she shows it.'

‘Yes, it is and that's why she's lonely, but I think she'll change in time. Will you still come to Wales?'

‘Cicely Parr doesn't own all the snow and all the mountains in the world, though she may think she does. I'll come, but I still say that she is treacherous.'

The Society continued to meet each week and when Shackleton's account of the
Nimrod
expedition,
The Heart of the Antarctic,
was published, I purchased it and used it to guide our role-play.

We sat beneath the Earth shadows, as though it were sunrise at McMurdo. The long, black bars, projected up into the sky from the Western Mountains, crossed the ceiling of our small classroom. We travelled over plains of white, saw giant sastrugi and nunataks and their beauty amazed us. I was in charge of meteorology and took the temperature at regular intervals, boiled the hypsometer. Locke was the cosmographer, taking angles and bearings of the new land. In the freezing winds she operated the tiny screws of the theodolite. At times it almost brought her to tears, but her tiny, nimble fingers made her the best man for the job. Hooper made notes of our experiences and impressions in her diary. Parr was our guide, crunching through snow and leading us onward.

We followed Mawson, Mackay and Professor David on their journey up the white slopes of Mount Erebus. A depression marked the old crater and we passed it, travelled towards the active cone at its side, not sure how close we could safely go, wondered what sort of noise it would make, if any. Parr led us safely up and down, not quite sure of the way, but telling us when to put our crampons on, where to make camp for the night.

From below Erebus one can see a strange glow which waxes and wanes. Sometimes flame bursts across the crater. And when Shackleton looked out through Armytage's telescope to see how his party progressed, he saw the six members of the main and support parties combined and, a little further away, the four figures of the Candlin College Antarctic Exploration Society.

Though we were clearly pretending to be men when we played our Antarctic scenes, we couldn't help thinking as women, when lying in our tent at night, imagining our sweethearts at home.

Sometimes we got along fine. Hooper heated a tin of giblet soup over the coal fire one evening. We had decided that it would be better to conduct the imaginative part of our proceedings without electricity. In the flicker and glow of flames we sipped the soup from large enamel cups. Hooper was the first to address the meeting and she spoke about the emperor penguin, the largest of all penguin species and that which breeds the furthest south. She laid out sketches of penguins on pack ice sheltered by bergs and cliffs, but it was not easy to see them clearly without holding them close to the candles. We held a vote and agreed not to switch on the electric light until the end of the meeting so we would maintain our special atmosphere, but take extra care not to start a fire.

Locke read Scott's account of his journey south with Wilson and Shackleton. She read aloud so beautifully that I forgot that I had read the work many times before. Parr applauded her, then followed with an informative talk about skiing and sledging, not that she had done either but she had aunts and uncles who had. It seemed that the difficulty of skiing on the horizontal was the matter of balance and it could take much time to master this. I was pleased that Locke and Parr did not mention their argument again but appeared to have overcome their differences. They made a particular effort to laugh at one another's jokes and agree heartily with pertinent comments.

We had some discussion about current expedition plans. Scott was planning another assault on the South Pole, while Shackleton was hoping to take a scientific team to the Antarctic for research. Presumably if Scott didn't make it to the Pole, Shackleton would be ready to leave his research and make a run for it himself.

‘That's what I'd do,' I said.

‘Shackleton might take you with him,' said Locke. ‘Perhaps you could have a role in the scientific research.'

‘Imagine.'

There was silence for a few seconds and then we all laughed.

Catherine had written to say that Father was becoming increasingly agitated and confused. His strange spirits were always at his side and it was embarrassing to leave the house with him lest he begin to shout and curse at some apparition in the air. He frightened children and made the neighbours cross to the other side of the street. Mother could not bear to witness his humiliation but could not stop him going out, so she spent most days alone in her room. It fell to Catherine to care for them both. I had promised to return at Easter to help, but now I could not go. I tried to persuade myself that this was all right because Catherine had chosen to stay at home when she could have left, and that she was a better nurse to Father than I could ever be. But it was unfair and I knew it. I lay awake most of the night and in the end decided that I would go to Wales as planned and try to be a better sister when I returned.

I wriggled further into my bed in the dark and drew the blankets to my neck. The ceiling was mottled, became pliable and loose as I gazed up. I let the adventure unfold as though watching a play at the theatre. Mountains soared, white and ragged, to a painted blue sky. Four characters stood on soft brown foothills and took the first steps of their ascent. And I thought that, in a way, it would be easy. All we had to do was rehearse and know our parts, and we would reach the summit.

Now I see the four of us on the edge of a mountain, a balcony path with rocks and stones underfoot. Parr and Locke are arguing while Hooper and I trudge quietly behind. The hill falls steeply away and we go on. Rain and sleet drive into us and every few minutes I have to wipe my face and eyes with thick mittens. My vision is blurred but I know the look of the grass and rocks underfoot so well that even when I close my eyes my boots are moving on, left and right, left and right.

Chapter Nine

The manservant met us at Penmaenpool Station and took us by pony trap over the estuary bridge. The train from Paddington had been delayed and it was now evening. The mountains were dark bruises on the sky and the estuary a grey space which sometimes gave up a hint of a glimmer. A narrow lane led us up the mountain to the house. There was little light except for the servant's lantern. The way was steep and wound through trees, between cottages. We held tight to our things and spoke in small, staccato voices. We passed two or three houses set back from the lane, part hidden by fir trees. And we heard the rushing of a waterfall into a deep river.

The pony pulled slowly until the lane became so steep that we could go no further. We jumped down at the side of the track and shivered in the cold, grassy air. Parr led us up to her aunt and uncle's house, Ael y Bryn. We trudged along a slate-edged path, through long lawns, to the porch. Below us was an orchard and, high above the gardens, a deep forest. The wind ruffled the trees and crept over our hair and skin. We looked around, tried to make out shapes in the dark. The estuary was now a wide black gash far below, marked off by the lights of houses and the railway tracks.

Parr rang the doorbell, then left us in the porch as she went to give instructions to the manservant for our luggage. An owl hooted and Locke mimicked the sound in a whisper.

Parr pressed the bell again, peered through the window. ‘Where's Ruth? She knew we'd be here by now.'

Locke stepped back to gaze at the house. She was wearing an opera coat in deep blue that seemed dramatic at college but incongruous here. It billowed and ballooned in the wind.

‘All the windows are quite dark. Are you sure your aunt and uncle are home?'

Parr looked uneasy. Then she explained, as though she must have mentioned it many times before, if only we had paid attention, that in fact they were away, just for the first few days.

‘But the servants are here.' She rapped on the door. ‘We'll have a fine time by ourselves.'

Hooper turned and stared out at the forest. ‘Parr,' she said after a few moments, ‘you can't expect us to stay here without your aunt and uncle. My parents will never stand for it. Teddy will be terribly upset.'

‘I don't really see how they'll know.'

‘But I don't want to be in this situation. It's compromising. If anyone knew that we were here without your aunt and uncle—'

Parr attacked the doorbell with her whole fist. ‘You could probably catch the night train back to London. If I were you, though, I'd stay for something to eat first.'

Hooper sighed, marched away from us, then returned. Her hair was coming loose and, with all its wild curls, resembled a child's scribble around a too-small face.