When Nights Were Cold (24 page)

I took Mother's arm and steered her away from Catherine's door.

‘If you shout, she'll only stay in there. She's trying to escape from you.'

Mother put her hand to her neck and muttered, ‘And now my throat hurts from shouting at her. Really, she is testing me. You can't go out for whole days any more, Grace. It's impossible for me to manage by myself. You'll have to stay indoors so I know where you are.'

‘But I'll be finding a job soon. I won't be able to stay indoors and you must get used to it.'

‘No. No, I don't want you to go out. I'm getting worse. I won't survive without you here.'

She burst into tears and limped to her room. I brought her medicine and sat with her. I hoped that we might discuss the sort of job I would take, but she rolled over and pretended to sleep.

Chapter Nineteen

‘Grace, you must be Captain Scott.'

‘I never liked him as much. Father was always Scott. Why can't I be Amundsen?'

‘Because he is Norwegian and we are British. Anyway, he's not there any more and Scott is. Shhh. I'll be Evans.'

‘I ought to find the map and dice.'

‘But you're beautiful, Captain Scott. Come here. No, come on. Don't look worried, my dear. They won't hear anything from out there, or upstairs. There are no creaky floorboards at the South Pole. You're pretty in the firelight.'

‘Ah, Evans. Your hands are cold.'

Oh, Frank.

We loved to fool around like this in the drawing room. His visits were weekly now. Our expeditions became more adventurous but we never left the space by the fireplace. It was our tent, or hut, cosy even when the fire was not lit. We kept our voices low so that no one but Sarah would know Frank was here. My relationship with him was now far beyond what Mother and Catherine could ever have approved of. We held each other, skimmed the ice and seas, crashed through mountain huts and ships' cabins, and we never left our safe place.

Sarah let him in through the kitchen door when Catherine was locked in her room. All I had to do was to tell Sarah that Frank and I were having private discussions in the drawing room and must not be disturbed. Sarah would nod, give me a clever, sympathetic look and close the door behind her.

‘I love you, Grace.'

‘Shhh.'

Frank squeezed my ankle, ran a finger along my calf.

‘Your muscles. They're very tough, and smooth. You remind me of a seal, or what I imagine a seal might feel like.' He laughed at himself.

‘They're not so bad, are they?'

‘They're rather good. Did you knit these stockings yourself? They look as though you stole them from Captain Scott.'

I had taken to wearing my mountain stockings every day because the house was chilly and we were trying to use less coal.

‘Anyway – ' I guided his hand away from the stocking and onto the floor.

‘You must be hot now. Why don't I just remove—'

‘Shh. Catherine might come out of her room.' I pushed him away – reluctantly, I admit – and lifted myself onto the settee.

Frank threw the die hard against the fireplace. It bounced then quivered to a stop on the hearth.

‘I'm sorry for Catherine, but what can we do about it? How much longer do we have to hide ourselves?'

‘We could go away.'

‘Where?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You could come to my flat but people would talk. Everybody knew about Millicent when we thought it was a secret. I don't want to do that to you.'

‘You didn't mind when it was her.'

‘I regret the whole affair. All I wanted was to give her some happiness. She has a stupid, dull husband who does not show love or even seem to know her. I encouraged her to escape a bit and do some of the things you do.' He nodded and pointed his finger. ‘And now she has taken up golf. She is just like you.'

‘I don't play golf. I've never even thought of playing golf.' I loved Frank but sometimes he was a fool.

‘It's the same sort of thing. And do you want to hear the truth?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I was always telling her about you.'

‘Oh.'

‘As an example of what she could do, if she were brave enough. And she pointed out that I seemed to be in love with you, which was true, of course, but no consolation to either of us.'

‘I didn't know.'

‘That was two months ago and we haven't seen each other since. It's you I want, Grace.'

‘I thought that the incident with her husband's shotgun precipitated the end of your affair, not I.'

‘It was you. The gun business – it has been much exaggerated.'

My nose tingled and I found myself blinking back tears. I pretended to cough.

‘But if we want to be together and I can't come to your flat—'

‘You don't want us to get married, do you? It's a prison for women. Millicent says—'

‘I don't know about any of that. I just want not to be here.'

‘We'll think of something, Grace. I do love you. Now, if I throw a six, can I make it to the opposite coast?'

‘It's not your turn. And you have just thrown a three anyway. Frank, did you say that you love me?'

‘Yes.' His face softened and he ran his hand over my hair, stroked the side of my neck. ‘Of course I do. Look, one day we'll go to Switzerland and I'll climb an Alp or two with you. I'll don the garb and follow you to the top. If I turn out to be any good at it, why, we may attempt Everest together. They call it the Third Pole so I think we should. First I must sort out my work, though, get a secure income.'

I laughed. When Frank spoke of the mountains, they were not hostile or cruel, just places for a few larks and a bit of an adventure.

‘We'll race against Cicely Parr to the most devilish peaks and we'll set up our own Antarctic expedition. Why not? I'll do it for you, Grace. We'll pay for a nurse – the best we can find – to look after your mother. If we hired an older woman, they might become friends. It would be much better for her than having you here, miserable and all cut off.'

I shook my head. ‘She'd never agree.'

‘She will.' He kissed me.

I tilted my head so that his cheek rested on mine. His hair smelled of cloves and tobacco. I buried my head in his neck to inhale the scent, kissed the soft skin.

‘If you came into the wilds with me, you'd end up with a beard and whiskers, you know. Your skin would get as tough as old boots and your artist friends might find you a little – weather-worn.'

‘But I'm willing to undergo all necessary hardship, you see.'

We lay on the rug for a while, arms entangled.

‘If you won't live with me and don't think we should marry either, I'm not sure what you want for us.'

‘Neither am I. I should not have complained. What we have now is extraordinary. Let's not hurry but see how things will go. When you think the time is right, you must talk to Catherine.'

Frank left, eventually, through the back gates, and Catherine walked in through the front door. I adjusted my stockings and went to greet her but she passed me, telling me about our neighbour's at-home and the dreary gossip of the day.

‘They're only interested in flowers for their hats and who is having problems with the servants. I don't know why I went.'

‘Why did you go?'

‘Actually – ' Catherine's voice shifted, a note higher – ‘I'd hoped that Mrs Black would be there. Frank's mother, you know. Sometimes I do see her at these things but not today. She wasn't there.'

‘What a pity,' I said and hurried upstairs.

I returned from a walk in the park one day. Mother was waiting at the drawing-room window for me, crying because of a strange episode with Catherine.

‘Not again. What is it?'

‘Grace, she is not herself at all and has been making dolls all day. My legs ache and I'm too dizzy to do any more. I'm going to lie down. You have to deal with it and make her see sense.'

‘Making dolls? She is always making dolls. It is the least of our worries.'

‘You'll see what I mean. Gruesome. I'll have my tea in half an hour.'

Catherine was sitting on a chair in her room. The rest of the furniture had been pulled around so that the wardrobe was in front of the window and shut out the light. On the floor around her were pieces of fabric, all chopped up and tangled, and on her bed was a small army of unclothed rag dolls, the kind she made to sell at the church bazaars, but there were thirty or forty of them, all misshapen, strangely deformed with heads sewn onto their sides, stuffing falling out, limbs hanging off their bodies. I started at the sight of them. Catherine was snipping intently at a length of blue silk, tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth.

‘Catherine?'

‘What do you want?'

‘You've made a lot of dolls.'

‘Aren't you clever? Yes, I'm making their clothes now and then I'll find wool to give them hair.'

‘You're making them very quickly.' I picked one up and turned it over. The seams were hardly stitched.

‘Thank you.'

‘Is there any need for such a hurry?'

‘Oh, our mother says I never do anything so I'm making myself busy.' She dropped the scissors onto the carpet and picked up a reel of blue thread. ‘The girls will all have blue silk dresses and go out to play.'

Most of the silk lay in strips around her feet and I took a strip in my hand.

‘Catherine, this was my skirt. You've chopped up my skirt to make clothes for the dolls. You could have asked me.'

‘You have others, and the dolls need clothes. Why don't you have a doll? Choose the one you like best. A gift from me.'

I looked at the mess of fabric and limbs. They were just cloth but they had a macabre quality that Catherine and I might once have laughed at together. I didn't understand why Catherine couldn't see it.

‘Best to save them for the orphans.'

‘I'm making more. Look, I've cut up Mother's old coats. Oh, don't pull that face. She doesn't go out any more. None of us does. The ladies from church will collect the dolls so I won't even need to take them myself. I'll see if I can make a hundred by bedtime.'

An idea went through my mind and I tried to dismiss it but it would not go. It occurred to me that Catherine was cutting up our clothes to stop us leaving the house. The debris of her doll-making lay around her and she looked like a little wren in a nest, pecking at the end of the thread to damp it for the needle.

I went up to the attic room, opened the window and put my head out to feel the wind and rain. I stayed for an hour, recounting to Hooper what was happening in the house. Then I went to the cellar, dragged all my mountaineering clothes and equipment upstairs and took them into the attic. I looked at the pieces one by one, turned them over in my hand. I found my little frying pan and cup. I sat on the floor with my things around me and I waited for Hooper to bring me an answer. She was near. The wind pulled through the room a rustling sound that might have been her skirts. I began to sing, one of the silly made-up ditties we'd sung together in Wales.

‘Talk to me,' I said. ‘See how warm this blanket is? Feel it. You shall have the blanket tonight and then tomorrow, when you're rested and warm, we'll go on.'

The sky darkened. I opened the window and pulled the curtains as far apart as they would go. I crawled into my silk sleeping bag and slept.

There is somebody in my kitchen. Water came from the tap, the pipes hissed and now the kettle is bubbling. Must be Mabel. Her mother did not need her in the end, or she forgot something. She does not want to disturb me. The clock says half past two, a strange time for Mabel to come home. Or it is Miss Cankleton after all. I don't remember hearing her today. She may have been out and come home late, some family emergency or late-blooming love affair I had never imagined. Burglars don't let themselves in with a key and go to put the kettle on so I shan't worry. But just in case my visitor has returned, I'll have the poker on my lap.

Chapter Twenty

It said in
The Times
that Shackleton was planning another expedition, this time to cross the whole of the Antarctic continent with his men. I remembered his glove, still in a drawer. I wished that he had something of mine so that it could travel with him, a handkerchief, perhaps, or my knife. There was still no word of Scott, and Amundsen wrote an account of his journey to the South Pole. He praised the work of Shackleton and said that if he had started at the Bay of Whales instead of McMurdo Sound, he would have reached the Pole himself. In a foolish moment, I wrote a letter to Shackleton and offered the three remaining members of the Society to his expedition. I didn't make it clear that we were women but I did not say that we were men. I signed the names of my friends, above my own, certain that they would come if he asked them to. He would never accept, but I sealed the letter in an envelope and, as I did so, I heard my father's voice.

You see what I meant about that charlatan? His brother is accused of stealing the crown jewels of Ireland. Do you put the honour of the nation and empire in the hands of such a man? Pray God that you never get the right to vote.

I didn't post the letter. I hid it away with the glove and I never mentioned it to Locke or Parr.

Frank and I met one night when all of Dulwich was asleep. I crept out of the front door, bundled up and hidden in a dark shawl, and ran to the end of the street where Frank was hunched on a garden wall, shivering. Without speaking we hurried past gardens, the station and shops, heads bowed, scared and edgy in the quiet city.

A grand house with giant chimney stacks, balconies and long, winding gardens stood at the corner of a small street, near the park. Frank led me to a gap between the fence and the wall. ‘I used to play here as a boy with my friends. It's like a forest. No one ever saw us
.
' He crawled through then held out his hand. I tried to see his face in the dark but could only make out the vast hollows of his eyes, a glint from his mouth. I grabbed his fingers and let him lead me. He pulled me through the leafy corridor, tripping sometimes, on roots and weeds. When we slowed to catch our breath, a tree trunk, knotty and complicated, caught us and I slid my hand around the back of his neck, through his damp hair. He pulled me closer, placed his knee between my legs.