When Nights Were Cold

by Susanna Jones

  Even Hooper delighted at the array of clothes, coats, nailed boots, silk sleeping bags, folding lanterns, pots, pans and miniature containers of soup and jam. If she still had doubts, then an article in the following day’s Mail persuaded her that we were not betraying our sex. I took it to her room and read it to her.

  ‘Listen. I have never known a lady climber to be either mean, gossipy or hysterical. Lady climbers invariably make good wives, good mothers and excellent chums. You see?’

  ‘It’s a relief to hear it from a newspaper. I knew it already, of course. Look, as long as you will all understand that I’ll never be fast or especially good at it, I won’t stay behind.’

  ‘Bravo. And here is all you need to learn about climbing: Be very careful about the feet. At the close of each day bathe them well in hot water, and, after plunging them in cold and drying them, a little brandy may be rubbed in. Mind your boots, and keep them well greased.’

  We went to Ambleside and Keswick, explored the Langdales, scrambled up Striding Edge and Jack’s Rake, climbing one or two peaks each day. We rowed on Grasmere, forgot that this was exercise and pulled in the oars to lie and watch the clouds spill over the hills. In winter we returned to Wales for a few days to practise working on snow and ice. Parr gave me her spare ice axe as I had no money now to buy my own. The end was broken off so the handle was shorter than it should have been, but it was good enough. I learned how to stop a fall by throwing myself onto my front and sinking the axe into the snow. We screamed as we slid down our practice slope, axes over our shoulders, like strange warriors, ready to flip over and spear the ground. Hooper always came last, apologizing as she caught us up, but always doing her best. We applauded her pluck, until she told us that she did not need our applause and only felt a little insulted by it.

  My mother did not disapprove of my excursions, thinking I was with a wealthy heiress and friends. She imagined country houses, parties with games, rich relatives, suitors, and all sorts of doors opening to a good future for me.

  Scott was now on his second expedition and we followed his journey in the newspapers. Ernest had tried to raise funds for another trip to the Antarctic but failed, so Scott had beaten him to it, setting off on the Terra Nova. I studied, climbed, rowed, planned and sometimes stood in front of my mirror dressed in all my gear: boots, bloomers, coat, hat, gloves, sun mask and goggles. I would lift my axe as though to plunge it into a wall of ice. My reflection thrilled me. It was bigger than I, something not human, more than human. I was a mighty, terrifying creature.

  Amundsen reached the Pole. There was no news yet from Scott and I felt a certain disappointment, as all British people did, that Amundsen had got there first. Shackleton had said: The Pole is hard to get, but for Amundsen it had seemed quite simple. I was not particularly upset that it was Amundsen, rather than Scott, or even Shackleton, who got the Pole, more that my own preposterous dream – that it would be Grace Farringdon – must die.

  A month later, the Titanic sank and my mother’s mood and health went down with it. She had nightmares of icebergs and freezing seas. She had stayed calm and composed immediately after Father’s death, but Catherine said that she would not stop weeping about the Titanic and kept looking through photographs of Father in his uniform, letters he sent her from ports around the world. She wrote letters to the families of the drowned, sent them gifts and clothes, and she cried every day.

  Parr had graduated but continued her involvement with the Ladies’ Alpine Club. The remaining three members studied for our finals and imagined life after graduation. Locke completed Turn Back the Clocks! and the Drama Soc performed it in the picture gallery. She found work in the office of a London theatre run by her uncle and planned to continue writing in her free time. Hooper’s fiancé decided, to her family’s distress, not to qualify as a doctor after all but become a school teacher instead. Hooper was surprised to find that she was pleased. They might start a school together, which was rather exciting, and he had inherited a large house in Shropshire so they would be comfortable even on a smaller salary than she had anticipated.

  Not long before my finals, I came out of the library one afternoon and bumped straight into Miss Hobson lurking in the shadows of the South Tower.

  ‘Miss Farringdon, I was waiting for you.’

  Her face was dry and wrinkled as a currant, but it was impossible to discern any mood or emotion from the patterns in the lines.

  ‘You haven’t come to see me about your future plans. We’ll walk to my study.’ And she set off.

  ‘I haven’t quite made up my mind.’ I scurried to catch up.

  ‘You have come to university, excelled in your courses and yet you have given no thought to your future?’ Miss Hobson peered at me.

  ‘I have thought about it, but I don’t know the answer yet.’

  ‘A girls’ boarding school near Bedford has a vacancy for a science teacher. You would be suitable and I have recommended you. Of course, you’ll be expected to work hard and live up to the good reputation of Candlin College, but it is an excellent position and you will enjoy it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I was pleased and flattered but had no intention of working in a boarding school. ‘I’m very grateful but—’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Perhaps I’m not the best person for the position.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll do fine and I have already said so. Miss Doughty has told me that you are a very able dissector and have a gift for leadership. Have you ever been to Bedford?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a pleasant town and there are plenty of good schools so you’ll meet other educated women and be very fortunate.’

  I was hardly paying attention. I only wanted to get to the Alps and, after that, go further. I followed Miss Hobson into her study and she motioned me to sit in her armchair. I sank, small and low among tall bookcases, furry plants and dusty pictures. Miss Hobson perched, upright, behind her desk, reached into a drawer and took out a letter. She fixed a monocle to her eye, squinted and read the letter. Her right forefinger drummed the desk.

  ‘Yes, it’s a very good situation indeed. But I detect reluctance, Miss Farringdon.’ She looked up with, I think, disgust. ‘Are you required at home?’

  ‘No. Well, my father passed away as you know but—’

  After the Alps, I would need a job and money to travel, but a boarding school would not do it. I could not stand all the responsibility of teaching, setting an example. I did not want to be a grown-up yet.

  ‘It’s a pity. I’ll have to write to my esteemed friend in Bedford and disappoint her.’

  ‘Perhaps in a year or two I would change my mind and want to teach.’

  ‘Don’t be foolish. Another student will be glad of this opportunity.’

  And I felt foolish as I left her study, but certain that I had given the right answer. It was embarrassing and a little annoying that Miss Hobson had offered me to the school without my knowledge. My friends were surprised when I recounted the incident at dinner. Many hoped to find just such positions and could not understand why I showed so little gratitude.

  Hester Morgan leaned across the dining table.

  ‘Is it because of the man you met in the picture gallery? Have you made plans?’

  ‘No, no. Not Mr Black. I forgot him a long time ago.’

  This was not true. We had written a few times, though we had not met again, and I longed to see him, to see his paintings and to tell him about my plans to climb in Switzerland.

  Father glared down from somewhere near the ceiling of my sitting room and mumbled at me. What did I think I was doing, so soon after his death when I should be making a show of mourning him? Worse, it was his money I’d spent. I wept silently on my bed. Wasn’t it enough that I had worn a black dress for months? I looked around for something that belonged to him. The Brunton, of course. I shouted silently back and shook the compass at him: Don’t complain. You started it all and I’m taking you with me. It’s your chance
to travel again. And I ducked, laughing through my tears, as an invisible salt pot whizzed past my head.

  There are hours more till sunrise. I’ll play the piano for a while. It takes me deeper into the night and, of course, Father likes it. Yes, the keys are stiff, but I can make them yield. La ta dum doo di. I like it too. I have finished with college now and got my honours degree. I am going to the Alps where the air will thin, it might snow a little, and I can be cold, properly cold, again.

  Part Two

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was almost twilight. A dozen or so men waited around a tree on Bahnhofstrasse, lounging on stools or their packs, smoking and talking. When travellers passed, they called out in French, Italian and English, offering their services as bergführer and porters, but most visitors went on their way to the hotels around the square or further up the village. Ahead of us, the Matterhorn’s snowy top shone, blue-white, a rocky changeling among the ethereal peaks of the Pennine Alps. A wiry, middle-aged couple passed us, stiff-gaited, leaning awkwardly on mud-splashed alpenstocks. The woman nodded and said good evening with a slight German accent, and followed her limping husband down the street. We smiled but dared not laugh, knowing that we might be as badly off, or worse, within a few days.

  ‘A guide for tomorrow?’ The voice came from a young Italian man who caught us up as we passed on our way to the Monte Rosa Hotel. I looked at him, curious, and saw that he was not young after all. He had the upright, muscular stature of a boy athlete but weathered skin and sunken, shadowed eyes. He looked as though he had tales to tell, if only we would stop and listen. He shrugged and turned away as Parr grabbed my arm and ushered me into the hotel lobby.

  ‘We have a guide.’ Parr pressed the shiny bell on the desk. ‘We’ll meet him soon enough.’

  The lobby was warm, luxurious and a strange mixture of the Alps and England. At the desk were copies of English newspapers and a sign directing guests to the lounge. Photographs of mountaineers on summits decorated the walls. Parr had chosen this hotel because Edward Whymper himself had been a guest here, as had many other famous Alpinists. Even Theodore Roosevelt had stayed here when he climbed the Matterhorn as a young man. I thought of the money I was spending – my father’s legacy – and how this was just the right thing to do with it. If he could see me now, would he not feel a little vicarious pleasure or excitement? Surely he would not begrudge such an adventure.

  A cheerful hotel boy took our luggage and we went to our rooms to rest before dinner. My room, which I shared with Locke, was like any hotel room in England, but I stepped out onto the balcony and looked straight up at the Matterhorn. It seemed closer and larger now, as though playing its own game of Grandmother’s Footsteps with me. I would climb it one day, surely. Not now, not when we were so unready, but I would climb it. I breathed the pine scent of Zermatt and stared at the mountain that seemed, in its very shape and size, to insist on the challenge. Fine, then. This might be my Pole, a vertical path to my ambition, if I could have no other.

  Later, in the rosy lamplight of the lounge, Parr unfolded her map and, using her little finger to point the way, showed us the peaks of the Breithorn, the Klein Matterhorn, the Monte Rosa, Castor and Pollux, the Gornergrat, the Zinal Rothorn. We discussed, as we had before, the routes we might take, depending on what we decided to climb.

  ‘Of course, our guide will make the final decision.’

  We persuaded Parr that we needed a gentle start and must be reasonable in our plans. Parr might find the terrain easy but there were four of us and we didn’t know whether or not we were good enough to climb the higher peaks. At the end of the week, we should make a decision based on our abilities and the weather conditions. If we were to climb a high peak, then we would take the guide and a porter. Parr agreed to this.

  ‘And who is our guide?’

  ‘His name is Alberto. He’s from Brueil and is the grandson and son of guides and chamois hunters. He knows every glacier and ridge. He’s climbed the Matterhorn countless times.’

  Parr was hungry to climb the Matterhorn one day, but I was too. Perhaps I would even do it before she did. I pushed the ignoble thought from my mind and questioned Parr further on Alberto, glaciers and the chamois.

  I woke in the night to hear the bedroom door creak open. A figure slipped into the room, banged a foot on my bedpost and cursed. I lifted my head.

  ‘Locke?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, pulling off her coat. Her pyjamas were underneath. ‘Tried not to wake you. Ouch, my toe.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Just along the street. I couldn’t sleep.’

  I raised myself onto my elbows, squinted at her. ‘You’ve been outside? Alone?’

  ‘I just wanted a few minutes by myself, to see the place. Come with me now. It’s so peaceful.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Come on.’ She pulled at my wrist.

  I dressed and followed Locke along the landing and downstairs to the door. The night porter let us out. We went along a small street with pretty wooden houses. Some hotels had lights on but most buildings were dark. Around us, though we could hardly see them, was the sense of mountains, watching and listening.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ My voice sounded strange to me.

  Locke nodded. ‘I’m going to buy a house here one day.’

  We reached the river, stood on the bridge and listened to the water chatter and tumble over stones.

  ‘Will you live here?’

  ‘No. I know I can’t live anywhere except London, but I’ll come here every summer to write my plays. I decided when I was walking by myself.’

  ‘Then I can come and visit you.’

  ‘But you should live here, Farringdon. You could have a house a bit higher up than mine – because you like to be up high – and marry a mountain guide. It would suit you perfectly and we can spend all our summers together.’

  I laughed. She had planned my life so carefully. ‘Let’s choose houses tomorrow then, when we can see them all. I shall want good views, and a garden.’

  We linked our arms together and walked back to the hotel.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, as we reached our room, ‘Parr might be here too.’

  Locke was quiet for a moment. ‘No, by then she’ll be in Bolivia or the Himalayas. We shan’t have to worry about that.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know.’

  I curled up under my blankets and smiled to myself thinking of Locke’s idea. I knew that I did not want to stop here, though. Zermatt was an adventure, the next stop after Wales and the Lake District, but it was just another point on the journey and not its end.

  We climbed shady routes through forests of larch and rhododendrons. Paths opened out onto rocky green hillsides where marmots played, an ibex trotted by and sloped shyly away. Sometimes we stopped at a teahouse for bread and cheese, made conversation with other trampers. Parr led us along moraine paths, steep ridges. We passed travellers on mule-back, and, on the Riffelalp, we even saw a man in a sedan chair. We walked long days and took in much ascent, stopping sometimes to catch our breath, wipe sweat from our hands and faces. After the first few days, our rests were shorter and our packs seemed lighter. We were growing used to it and, other than a little stiffness in the mornings and a blister here or there, suffered no ill-effects. From the Gornergrat we watched as clouds covered and uncovered the spiny top of the Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm’s deadly white cornices, the long snowy ridge of the Breithorn. Glaciers poured down into the valley, where they joined and swelled into strange shapes. We ate chocolate, gulped water and did not speak but tried to take in everything we saw.

  We climbed higher. Locke picked an edelweiss for her hat and Hooper chided her. It’s a protected species. Locke apologized but kept the flower and wore it in her hat, since it was already picked. We learned how to cut steps with our axes, how to trudge along the ice in our nailed boots, walking with a wide gait so as not to spike our
ankles or trip ourselves. A glacier was not always the jewelled floor of beauty I had imagined but something that moved from brown to grey, was harsh with pleats, whorls and ugly growths that looked like tongues and fingers. In places, it seemed solid and ancient. In others it rippled like a sparkling liquid. I learned that ice can be any colour of the rainbow. Sometimes, light in the head from the effects of altitude, I thought I was looking out on some giant machine, with knobs and levers to move the landscape around or open it up.

  ‘Come on, Farringdon, you’re slowing us. Chop chop,’ called Parr when, once or twice, I paused to wonder at our progress or take in the changing views.

  On longer days, we hired a porter to carry our equipment and food. His name was Ulrich and he was a quiet but friendly man from Zermatt, who helped when we needed him and stood back when we did not. When we stopped for lunch or tea he would unload food from his pack and tell us of his ascents, pointing out a peak or col with a piece of cheese or the wine flask. One day Locke begged him to tell us his most terrible mountain experience. We were sheltering from rain under overhanging rocks and Locke wanted a story to pass the time. Ulrich crossed himself and walked out into the rain muttering.

  ‘What?’ Locke mouthed at us.

  ‘You shouldn’t ask him that while we’re actually on a mountain,’ Parr whispered. ‘It’s awfully bad luck.’

  We took a day’s rest in Zermatt, wrote in our diaries, read a little and napped. That evening, after bathing our feet and wrapping them in cotton wool, we retired to the lounge and sat around our favourite table in the corner to discuss the final few days of our trip.