6 February 1911
I HAVE PUT off writing as I don’t know what to say. We have been living through a nightmare. Perhaps if I set it down in order, like telling a story, I will finally be able to make sense of what happened – or maybe I will wake up after all.
Two days ago, just after breakfast, Mummy and Daddy went out for a walk around the grounds.
They had seemed in a perfectly ordinary mood that morning, reading snippets from the paper aloud to us all.
Daddy grew particularly passionate at the news that Amundsen had arrived in the Antarctic: ‘The nerve of the man! Does he really think he can beat us to the Pole? Well, I will be first in line to shake Captain Scott’s hand when he returns victorious.
’ Then he put on that ugly old flat cap that Mummy hates so much, saying he wanted to see if the daffodils were out yet, and would I like to join him?
But I said no, as it looked like rain and I had just used the irons on my hair.
Mummy said she would go with him instead.
I can’t help thinking that if only I had been less bloody vain …
Come lunchtime, we realized that our parents still had not returned, and all the horses and motorcars were accounted for so we knew they had not taken an impromptu trip into town.
After another half-hour, we children were all traipsing about in the drizzle to try to find them.
Rex put himself in charge, as always: it was under his command that I went to the lake.
At first, I thought it was a pair of logs that I saw floating at the centre. Then I spotted Daddy’s cap, left at the water’s edge.
Mr Allen arrived within moments of my shout and, before anyone else had got to us, he was pushing out in a boat.
I could barely stand to watch as he worked the oars.
Every moment that passed was an agony. I almost dived in myself, but thankfully Charlie reached me at that point and had his arms around me to keep me back.
When Mr Allen at last pulled them from the water, I already knew it was too late.
There was something in the way my parents’ limbs refused to move, how much of a struggle it was to get them flat.
Even so, Mr Allen began to apply pressure to Mummy’s chest in an attempt to resuscitate her, the boat rocking so much I was sure they would all go overboard. Then he tried the same for Daddy.
Finally, Mr Allen sat back and lifted his head to look at Charlie and me across the distance. Then he took up his oars and began rowing back. This time, there was no urgency.
We brought them up to the house, and after that, everything was a commotion.
Each person that returned from the search had to be told what had happened; I felt the deaths anew every time I saw the heartbreak on one of my brothers’ faces.
I kept thinking over and over, ‘I am an orphan now.’ It just does not seem possible.
Later in the afternoon, the police came to speak to us all, and I had to tell them exactly what I had seen and show them the lake.
They concluded that it must have been an accident: one parent had slipped on the damp ground and fallen into the water; the other had gone in to rescue them.
But I do not understand how that can be the case.
Daddy in particular was such a strong swimmer.
He was always out in that lake in the summer and never once had a problem.
Perhaps he hit his head as he fell in, and Mummy couldn’t manage his weight when she tried to pull him out.
But there wasn’t any sign of such an injury when the police checked.
Harry says it could have been on purpose, but I think that is just the artist in him speaking.
Why would they both decide to … And Daddy wouldn’t have been talking about meeting Captain Scott in the future if he had been planning that, would he?
I cannot help but remember all the similar speculation after George Allen’s death – also ruled an accident by the police, nevertheless.
We have all been at a loose end these past days.
Bloody Morry keeps breaking into tears as if it is his own parents he has lost. I would give him a good slap for it, if not for the fact that he would only enjoy the attention: he just can’t stand it when the spotlight is not on him.
Even the Allens have been miserable, but then they are almost a part of the family themselves – more than Morry is, in my opinion.
I wonder if all this also reminds Mr Allen of what happened to his brother.
The commotion, everyone searching for answers.
It seems a cruel twist of fate that this came almost three years to the day after that unhappy event.
And just like with me and my parents, poor Mr Allen will never know exactly what happened to his brother that night.