27. In which there is only one bed at the inn and a novel feeling
IN WHICH THERE IS ONLY ONE BED AT THE INN AND A NOVEL FEELING
She could not believe Hester would do this. It was mortifying.
Charlotte knelt on her sleeping bag, head in her hands, breath ragged. The tent kept the wind off, but oh, it was so cold. Marjorie fussed at her face, trying to push her snout between Charlotte’s hands.
The tent flaps opened behind her, the wind stealing her breath for a second before Arnold crawled through and the flaps fell shut.
“Are you alright?” he asked, dropping his hood. His hazel eyes softened as she peeped between her fingers at him.
“Not really.”
“It’s been a long day. Let’s get some sleep.
” He unrolled his sleeping bag next to hers, and she stared down at it, swallowing hard.
She had never slept next to a man before.
She and Ernie had always kept separate bedrooms. Her stomach hollowed out at the thought of him.
But she could do this. It was fine. It meant nothing.
“Come, Marjorie,” she said, dragging the dog by the collar into the space between her and Arnold, then slipping inside her fur-lined bag.
The cold bit into her bones, lodging itself there.
She wrapped an arm around Marjorie. The dirty cream fabric of the tent shook in the wind, and Charlotte shook in the wrappings of matted, stinking fur.
Arnold got inside his bag and propped himself up on an elbow. “I’m sorry if sharing the tent makes you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine.” She avoided his eyes, pulling the bag up to her nose and shivering. Had Hester done this on purpose? What possible reason could she have to inflict this on her? She risked a glance at Arnold.
He looked crestfallen, a longing in his eyes.
“Why do you look that way?” she asked, her voice muffled through the fur. He was probably wishing Hester had put him in a tent with her.
“What way?” he asked.
“You’re sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“You are! You always have that little crease between your brows when you’re sad.” She knew him so well after spending each and every day with him. Knew when he was content, when he was worried, when he was miserable.
“I’m sad you’re uncomfortable. I’ll go and get Hester to swap with me,” he said, starting to climb out of the sleeping bag.
“No! Don’t. She snores. I’m fine here with you,” Charlotte said, her teeth starting to chatter. The cold leeched up through the ice and into the fur.
“If you’re sure,” he said, lying down and curling up. “It’s really cold, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Goodnight, Arnold.” She was being short with him, she knew.
But she was so cross with Hester. Hester didn’t know about that night, couldn’t possibly understand.
Charlotte curled up into Marjorie, tucking her hands under her armpits and letting the warmth of her breath heat the space inside the bag.
She closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose against the smell of the fur and hoped her shivering wouldn’t keep Arnold awake.
“You’re shivering,” Arnold said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put Marjorie on your other side, and me on this side?”
Charlotte’s eyes shot open. It was almost as if she were in one of the romance novels she loved, when there was only one bed left in the whole inn and the reluctant couple were forced to share it.
But there was no way anything would happen, unlike in those books.
Arnold was pining for Hester, and she was still in mourning and couldn’t let a man touch her like that, even if she was attracted to him.
No, she could hardly act on these feelings.
But it couldn’t hurt to use the warmth he offered.
“Alright.” She dragged Marjorie to her other side, turning her back to Arnold, who shuffled over and tucked his legs up under hers, his chest pressing against her back. She settled into him, his warm breath hitting the back of her neck.
A different kind of warmth flooded her. She lay stock still, hardly daring to breathe as the heat that rose in her cheeks swept down and coiled between her thighs. She shifted her hips away from him slightly, in case he’d feel the heat somehow.
“Is this alright?” he asked, propped on an elbow over her.
“Yes,” she squeaked, cheeks blazing hotter. “Yes, better. Thank you.”
She turned to look up at him, and when their eyes met, she stilled. His whole face seemed lit from within. His cheeks were rosy, his lips parted. But his eyes. Full of love and longing and hope. And she knew. It hit her so hard she the breath left her lungs, and she struggled to inhale the next.
All this time? Could it be? When he’d said he was in love with someone who did not love him back. Had he meant her? Not Hester at all?
She gasped in her next breath, and his smile faltered.
“What is it?” he asked.
And did that mean that Hester knew, too? Had she tried to force them together in this tent?
“Nothing. Nothing,” she muttered, turning to look at Marjorie, her heart beating a fast rhythm against her ribs. She daren’t look back at him. Oh, she would be having words with Hester in the—
Panicked shouts arose from outside the tent.
Hester flew out of her tent, taking in the chaos of people and dogs in the dark.
“Captain—a crack in the floe, right in the middle of the camp,” Frank shouted.
“Hell. Is everyone alright?”
“As far as we know.”
“A headcount. Everyone hold still,” Septimus shouted from somewhere behind, and Frank began counting the men and women, all frozen in place.
Hester noted Arnold and Charlotte scrambling from their tent, Charlotte’s cheeks slightly pink. Had her plan worked already?
“All present,” Frank shouted to Septimus, and the crews began to move once more.
Charlotte was striding towards her, eyes narrowed, snow kicking up in flurries around her boots. “You!”
“Me?” Hester asked, feigning bafflement. She had not seen Charlotte angry. The Boss was always so calm, like a mirror-flat sea on a windless day.
“You put us together on purpose,” Charlotte whispered, jabbing a finger at her.
Hester held up her hands and tried not to smile. “Why on Earth would I do that?”
“Because. You are trying to force something that cannot happen.”
A large presence towered behind her, and Hester spun to find Septimus standing there, his arms folded. She turned back to Charlotte, ignoring him, and spoke quietly. “Cannot happen? Because of a dead husband you had no romantic attachment to?”
Hurt flashed across Charlotte’s face, her lip trembling.
She looked about to say something, and then turned and marched away.
Hester sucked a breath through her teeth.
She shouldn’t have said that. It was stupid and hurtful, and Charlotte had been so good at keeping her secret.
She made to go after her friend, but before she could take two steps Septimus cleared his throat.
“We need to move the camp,” he said.
“Right. Fine. You see to it, seeing as you want to be in charge so badly,” Hester muttered, stomping off over the ice.
She walked back over to the Valour and sat on the piles of gear left stacked on the floe, huddling her knees up to her chest and gazing at the broken vessel. A tear escaped down her cheek, dropped onto her knees, where it froze on the fabric.
Everyone was looking to her, all expecting her to be strong, to be their guiding light. But it was difficult, oh, so difficult to be that person right now.
The ship creaked and collapsed further in on itself, the top spars snapping and lurching towards the deck, and Hester drew a shuddering breath. Her fingernails dug into her palms, the little pricks of pain almost pleasant compared to the deep ache in her heart.
She uncurled her legs, then walked up the ramp and onto the deck, lingering at the wheel before making her way down the companionway and below decks.
She pushed open the door to her cabin, but the little room was broken apart, filled with ice, glowing with a ghostly blue tinge.
She hopped over some fallen beams to reach the galley, and leant against the wall, snatching in lungfuls of air.
How had it all gone so horribly wrong? And how would she ever get over this loss? She dragged her back down the panelled wall, crouching there in a place that had so often been filled with laughter. She could almost hear it now.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, massaging her forehead with the heels of her palms, and rocking back and forth on her toes.
Footsteps echoed on the deck above. “Hester?”
She whipped her head up. That was Septimus’s voice, and she did not want to speak to him. Would speak to anyone but him, even Fliss. Slowly, silently, she crawled under the galley table.
“Hester? It’s too dangerous in here. You need to leave.”
She stayed hunkered under the table, scowling. Couldn’t he leave her in peace to mourn?
“I know you’re here somewhere.” His footsteps drew closer, and then he entered the galley. His hobnail boots appeared, and she held her breath, hugging her knees tighter. “Your crew are worried about you.”
Her heart tightened, but the words were not enough for her to reveal herself.
Hester thought back to the day the Intrepid sank, how she’d found him still inside the ship, refusing to leave. And now she understood.
He started across the floor, halting just in front of where she sat under the table. And then he knelt down until they were eye to eye. “Hello, Hester.”
She scowled in answer. “Leave me alone.”
“We need to get out of here. Come on,’ he said, offering his hand. She turned her head away and crossed her arms. There was no way she was going anywhere with him.
“Don’t be stubborn, little witch. Come on.”
The ship creaked, and a crash echoed from the deck. Hester let out a whimper. “I cannot. I cannot leave her.”
Septimus sat on the floor. “I know.”
She eyed him suspiciously and then curled up on the planks on her side, her heart breaking as soundly as the ship was.
Septimus shuffled under the table and rested a hand on her hair, stroking gently, and she sighed and closed her eyes.
She wanted him to stop and wanted him to keep going.
The words from the marriage vows beat a rhythm in her head. Comfort. Honour. Protect.
“It will be alright, in time. There will be another ship,” he said.
Like a spell had been broken, she pulled away from his touch. That was easy for him to say. It would be easy for him to buy another ship. Not so for her. “Leave me.”
“I can’t.” He said it simply.
He was everything she hated. He was privileged, where she had fought for her place. He thought women were too weak to be in the Antarctic, had ordered her home. And yet…
She twisted just out of his reach, trying to work out what it was that kept drawing her to him.
There had been men before. But never this feeling.
And she did not want it. Would fight tooth and nail to hold on to who she was.
How could it have happened? What was wrong with her? But it wasn’t too late.
“Leave,” she hissed. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”
He did not move. “Like you said to me, that might be difficult, seeing as I’m one of twenty people down here.”
“Hmph.”
Another crash and shriek of ice ripped through the ship. The floor shuddered.
“Hester, please. Your crew need you. You cannot leave them now.”
She looked at him; a look she hoped would pierce him through and through. The ship shuddered again, and there was an almighty crash overhead, snapping her from her self-pity.
“Shit.” She raised her eyes upwards. He was right. It was time to leave. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
She nodded. “Fine.”
Hester crawled from under the table and wiped her cheeks.
She had to be stronger. She swiped her thumbs over her knuckles. Across the words inked there. HOLD FAST. She had to hold on. Had to keep going. One step at a time.
Septimus followed her out of the galley, up onto the deck, where the crow’s nest sat amongst the debris, fallen from the topmast. She stopped, bile rising in her throat as she took in the wreckage.
His hand pushed on her lower back, forcing her through, and she let him guide her through the fallen masts, down the ramp, and all the way back to the camp, which had been moved to thicker ice.
Winston strode towards her, and she crumpled to her knees and wailed, pouring her utter hopelessness into the sound. The dogs took up the cry too, throwing their heads back and howling into the night, breath clouding above them.