When Nights Were Cold

by Susanna Jones

  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.

  ‘I can’t see your face.’ His voice was thick. But I saw his, clearly now. Then, like a blind man, he ran his fingertips over my face, my neck, the loose strands of hair under my shawl. ‘Are you too cold? We can go back.’

  I rubbed my nose against his. ‘I’m not
cold enough,’ I said.

  Ah, the cold. Frank, I remember your fingertips, the soft skin between the knuckle and the nail, the way you kneaded my spine. I had forgotten but your hands were often speckled with oil paint, green, mauve and blue. I liked to rub at it with my fingernail.

  Scott and his men were dead. It was on the front of every newspaper. I spread the pages out on the dining-room table and read them all thoroughly, though the information was more or less the same in each. It happened just as I had imagined it, as Frank and I had played it by the fire. Three of them, including Captain Scott, stayed in the tent and died there. Titus Oates had left them and died outside in the blizzard. They had fought for the Pole, found that they had lost it, then lost their lives. They had been dead for months. I sat in the garden for an hour, let the cold breeze nibble at my skin. Oates’s death made me think of Hooper, weakened and lonely. I never cared much for Scott, out of some sense that he belonged to my father whereas I had Shackleton, but now I cried for him.

  I thought again of my night on the mountain when I had become separated from the others and fell. I remembered the strange feeling of being alone with the whole universe, somewhere before birth and after death, and yet alive. It was distant, now, and strange to me, as I had come to think of the whole journey as a prelude to Hooper’s death, but it was not like that at the time and need not have ended as it did. I thought of Parr and her odd way of being our captain. I wondered how Scott and his men had spoken to each other in the final hours, if they had spoken. As I asked myself these questions, Hooper fell and fell, turning, falling further, shrinking up so tiny that she never had to stop.

  ‘More rest, Mrs Farringdon, and if you feel strong enough a stroll in the garden once a day but no more. I’ll give you a stronger dose for the pain.’

  I was outside my mother’s room. The door was an inch or two ajar and I could see Dr Sowerby standing over the bed, waving his long, black-sleeved arms around.

  ‘There’s something else. I’m worried that my daughter has lost her mind. She no longer takes proper care of me and seems to live in a dream. There has been much tragedy, of course, losing her father and so on, but she is behaving in a very odd manner. And now I worry that she’s going to try and sell the house with me in it.’

  I stepped back a little so that they could not see me. I had thought that she meant Catherine, of course, until she mentioned the house. Surely Catherine had not also thought of selling.

  ‘I’m sure she could not do that.’

  ‘And there are rumours about her – behaviour. The servants were gossiping over the garden fence and I heard it all. It was shocking. She seems to be meeting somebody in secret, a man I presume.’

  ‘I had better examine her.’

  ‘I don’t want to frighten her, but I worry about the future. If the servants and neighbours are going to talk and what with all the discussion in the newspapers and everybody knowing that she was mountaineering without my knowledge . . . You must be able to prescribe something that would quieten her a little, knock the edges off.’

  ‘If she is suffering a mental disorder, then there are treatments that we might consider but she must see a specialist. A good spell in hospital would certainly be in order. I must say, she struck me as being rather agitated when I last spoke to her.’

  ‘Oh, I hope it will not mean a sanatorium, not for long. I need someone to look after me and we’ve only got one servant now, but I fear I have lost her anyway.’

  ‘Is your daughter here?’

  ‘I expect she is in the attic being strange. She takes food up there and I hear her bleating away. She was very disturbed after the mountaineering accident and that in itself was a sign that she was already . . . I mean, she is mad, isn’t she?’

  ‘I couldn’t say without a full examination.’

  ‘No, but now that I think of it, she has been going to pieces for years. Her sister is not much better, but she is a quiet girl who will always find things to do in the home and take flowers to the family graves, so I put up with her. Grace is altogether more alarming. She has a look sometimes, as though she resents me, wants to hurt me, but I’m her mother. It’s distressing. It must come from her father’s side. His sister was never quite right. I wanted Grace to stay here and help me but if she’s determined not to do it, I think it might be better if . . .’

  Dr Sowerby came towards the door so I swung back into the alcove on the landing.

  ‘Your older daughter is quiet but has always been so, hasn’t she? A docile girl. She is probably affected by her over-excited sister returning with all her demons. I’ll come tomorrow morning, so be sure that Grace is here.’

  He shuffled downstairs with his bag in his hand, and did not notice me. I packed a few clothes into a suitcase, then added my mountaineering clothes and tent. Parr’s broken axe was too long to go in so I wrapped it in a cloth and fixed it to the side of the case with a leather strap. I hurried to the station.

  But there is somebody in the kitchen and he – I do not know why but I am sure it is a he – has been quiet for some half an hour.

  Hello out there. Hello?

  Nothing but the drip of the kitchen tap. Yet, if I listen closely, perhaps I can hear something more, a rustle and swish, like somebody turning the pages of a newspaper. If it is the man who jumped over the fence, I could speak to him without telling him anything. I could trust myself to do that, I think. I wonder if I dare ask for a little company in this lonely night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Grace, this is not the answer.’ Frank passed me a towel and called for his housekeeper to bring me tea. My clothes were damp from the rain and I moved closer to the fire. The room was small, packed tight with overflowing bookcases, and smelled of wet sheep. The smell, I realized, came from my woollen shawl. I let it drop to the floor and kicked it under the chair.

  ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘You’ve the rest of your life to consider. I won’t be responsible for ruining you.’

  ‘Ruining me?’ As soon as Frank had opened the door, I knew it was a mistake to have come. He had looked down the hall and stairs before letting me into his flat, as though it would be shameful for his neighbours to see me.

  ‘You can stay here tonight, for a few nights if you like, but . . . Have your family discovered the nature of our relationship?’

  ‘No, no. At least, they don’t know that it’s you.’ I ran the corner of the towel between my fingers. I was tired, wet and had to think of something to make him my Frank again. ‘I thought we would go away together. You said . . .’ I tried to kick my suitcase away from him so he would not see that I had brought the ice axe.

  ‘My dear.’ He managed a tight smile, still standing before me. ‘One day we shall go away together but I can hardly drop everything and go tomorrow, can I? I’m just beginning my career. I have no money yet. Look how small my rooms are. Look around you.’

  His flat was small but very clean and cosy with books and furniture that gave it the mood of an old library. I would have loved such a place.

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t expect that you could leave immediately but—’

  ‘And I didn’t expect you to come here. Really, Grace, not when you can be safe at your mamma’s house.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘You really think she’d let the doctors put you in an asylum? I can’t believe it. You must have misheard, or she spoke in a moment of haste. You just have to tell the doctor that you are perfectly well and there is no need for any treatment. He will say that he’s glad to hear it and that will be the end of the matter. Grace, I do love you and we’ll think of something but, for now, please go home. They don’t know you’re here, do they?’

  I shook my head. ‘It was a little hasty, I know, but if you had heard him—’

  ‘So it’s going to be the devil of a mess. Perhaps we’ll get married one day, but these are not the circumstances in which to make that decision. And, to be honest, I’m rather alarmed by you mysel
f.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of marriage, just that I could stay here for a while until – I don’t know.’

  ‘You haven’t given it any thought. How will it look that you just ran off? How will I look? You’re giving them grounds for saying that you’re mad. Do you understand? You must see reason and go home now, my Grace. If you don’t, you may prove that they were right.’

  ‘Of course.’ I tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry I troubled you.’ I blinked back tears and the overwhelming knowledge that Frank did not want me here.

  ‘Look, I have something for you.’ He went to his bookcase and took a volume from the top shelf. ‘I saw this in the shop and thought of you immediately. I was going to bring it the next time I came to your house but you may as well have it now.’

  I took the book. I just had time to imagine what it could have been, the tales, maps, poems, stories that Frank might have thought the perfect gift for me.

  It was a textbook for learning Pitman’s shorthand.

  ‘I thought that you could study it on your own. You’re not going to teach but you need to work and this will give you your way in. Then you can stay with your family but have some routine and a little income and you’ll soon be back on the right path.’

  I flicked through the pages, a blur of strange symbols and half-written words. Was I supposed to thank him for this?

  ‘I must go,’ I said. With the book still in my hand I rushed to the front door.

  He offered me his umbrella but I refused it, which was foolish. The rain was harder now. It beat down on Russell Square and the plants in the garden bent and buckled under the weight. I pulled the brim of my hat over my ears as I stood on Frank’s doorstep and sobbed. Nobody would hear my pathetic convulsions above the rain and traffic so I wept with abandon.

  Locke would be at her parents’ beautiful house in Kensington now, or perhaps at the theatre. I blew my nose and wiped my face. Locke would surely let me stay with her but then what? The lights in the houses around the square burned happily away and spoke of cosy evenings, of friends and families around fire. I had no place in London any more and I was no longer sure of my friendship with Locke. If Frank would not travel with me, it was no matter. I had my things for the mountains and I would use them.