Death on the ice, p.21
Death on the Ice, page 21
‘You don’t love me today,’ Shannon said with mock-petulance.
‘Nonsense, Charles. You know that you and Ricketts,’ she replied, referring to the other half of the Rickysan painting duo, ‘are my two favourite Charlies in the world.’
‘You aren’t loving me. The paint isn’t loving you either. You are somewhere else.’
She took two great handfuls of hair and flicked them over her back. ‘I’m sorry. I saw my captain again yesterday.’ She had met Scott at tea at Mabel Beardsley’s, ten months after the initial encounter. They had seen each other a half-dozen times since, going to the theatre, galleries and concerts as well as attending readings at fashionable literary salons. He seemed hungry to fill in the gaping holes in a naval education.
‘Your gallant explorer?’
‘I took Gilbert along this time. Tea at the Goring. Gilbert, I am afraid, is not going to go quietly. He was excessively charming and witty yesterday.’
Shannon raised his eyebrows and swished the brush vigorously. Like most people who had met the young playwright Gilbert Carman, he was very taken with his beauty. ‘Well, I always thought Gilbert was more suited to you than a naval type. Not quite as much as a successful artist, mind.’
‘Charles, don’t waste your ardour on me.’
He smiled to show he was half teasing. ‘Then our love shall remain chaste. And purer for it.’
‘That’s more like it.’
Kathleen stood and walked over towards the easel. Shannon stepped into her way.
‘No, you can’t see. I’m not pleased. I am very unhappy with you bringing your personal life in here.’ He stuck out his lower lip, a comical effect in a middle-aged man. ‘Besides, I am having trouble with your hands.’
She held them up and examined her fingers. They were perfectly formed, but larger than her frame might suggest. ‘I have a man’s hands.’
‘You have a man’s soul, Kathleen, but a woman’s wiles. It is a fatal combination. So, what was the outcome? Was there a duel between suitors? Or did they behave like twentieth-century gentlemen?’
She had furrowed her brow, and ignored his question. ‘Trouble is, he’d be perfect.’
‘Gilbert?’
‘Captain South Pole Scott. What do you think of that scheme?’
Shannon tutted. ‘I understand you might need someone more, urn, stable than Cannan. He can be very erratic. He’s been a promising playwright for just a little too long now, hasn’t he? Time to fulfil that promise, I’d say.’ He cleared his throat, aware she might not like what was coming next. ‘On the other hand, Kathleen, alas, I can’t see you as the doting naval wife, knitting socks while … ’ His face lit up as a fresh thought came to him. ‘A-ha. A husband who is away at sea and God knows where else for long months might be an ideal situation, might it not?’
‘That’s a beastly thing to say, Charles.’ A sly smile dimpled her cheek, though.
‘And you can carry on your dancing and your vagabonding.’
‘When I am married I shall be very good,’ she said forcefully. ‘But he would have to accept me for who I am.’
‘And would he?’
‘I’m not sure. Some days I think yes, others no. And for a great explorer he is wracked with self-doubt. Thinks he’s not worthy of me.’
‘Who is, darling, who is?’
‘And there is his mother.’
Charles tutted. ‘A mother. Oh, dear. The curse of our age. Tell me she isn’t an upright God-fearing widow who regards the arts as Satan’s spawn and anyone with designs on her son a harlot?’
‘I haven’t met her. But I suspect you are right. He has to support her. And the sisters.’
‘Oh. Will you be poor?’
‘One can’t be poor, can one?’ she mused. ‘No, I couldn’t stand that. But I still think he might be the one I had in mind. There must be a great inner strength in him. I shall have to digest what he has said and done these past weeks. He is going to write to me from his ship. I’ll see then.’
‘And Gilbert?’
She sighed, imagining the younger man’s crushing disappointment. ‘Poor Gilbert.’
‘Do you love him? Captain South Pole?’
There came a hammering on the studio door. ‘Don’t peek,’ said Shannon, indicating the incomplete portrait, as he crossed to see who was making such a racket.
Gilbert Cannan burst in like a wild-eyed bedlamite, breathless and dishevelled. ‘There you are! I’ve looked everywhere from Sloane Square to Richmond for you.’
Kathleen, unfazed said: ‘Gilbert. You’ve met Charles, haven’t you?’
Cannan’s head swivelled as if he had only just noticed the owner of the studio. ‘What? Yes. Hello. Sorry to interrupt.’
‘Not at all, my dear chap. It’s only a sitting after all. Can I get you something?’
‘No. Would you excuse us?’
Shannon looked nonplussed at being dismissed from his own premises, but said, ‘I’ll see if there’s any tea.’
As soon as Shannon had left, Cannan grabbed Kathleen by the shoulders. He towered over her, far taller than Scott. ‘I have a solution.’
‘To what?’
‘Our predicament.’
‘Which predicament is that?’
‘You don’t know which of us to choose. The steadfast rock or the interesting author. The dull penny or the shiny sixpence.’
‘You’ll be the sixpence, I take it?’
‘Yes. He’s the penny because he seems more substantial, heavier. But the weightiest coins aren’t always the most valuable.’
Despite herself she had to laugh.
‘Oh, he’s a dear, clean thing, but he just doesn’t see life the way you and I do. Does he know Socrates or Euripides? Muriel Paget? Beethoven? Where is the joy in him? I sense a melancholy, don’t you? Dark thunderclouds.’
She didn’t disagree.
‘Whereas you and I, we burst with life. With freedom, truth, purity and light. And my life is for you. I dream of you. I will troubadour under your window every night—’
She sensed one of Cannan’s more elaborate flights of fancy. ‘Yes, yes, Gilbert. And your solution?’
‘You can have both of us,’ he announced. ‘We three can live together.’ He caught the flicker of dismay on her face. ‘Or you can live with the captain while he is home from the sea and with me the rest of the time.’
‘A ménage à trois? That’s terribly modern.’ For some reason, she wasn’t shocked by the suggestion. Kathleen enjoyed having the attention of men and with a few exceptions—Mabel, Isadora—she preferred male company. The prospect of two husbands, therefore, didn’t sound quite as grim as it might to others. But it wouldn’t do. ‘I don’t think Captain Scott would agree to that.’
Carman threw out his arms wide in frustration. ‘Oh, hang him. Tell him to take it or leave you. I saw the look in his eyes. Besotted. As am I. You are enough woman for two men, Kathleen. Think about it. Don’t leave me. Please.’
She moved to the window and looked out over the garden and the skeleton of timber beyond it. A new row of four-storey houses was being built, which would cut the late-afternoon light to the studio at certain times of the year. The two Charlies had railed against it, but it seemed property speculation took precedence over mere art.
‘No. It’s not right. He can’t have two fathers. It would confuse him. Thank you for the offer. I think you should go.’
Caiman looked puzzled as she ushered him towards the door. ‘Who can’t have two fathers?’
‘My son, of course.’
Early in the morning, the map room of the RGS at Number One Savile Row was always gratifyingly empty. Scott knew he would have it to himself for at least an hour. He selected the Des Barres map of the southern hemisphere and unrolled it on the table. He used the lead weights provided to hold down the corners. His eyes roamed over the chart, till his gaze located New Zealand and his gaze tracked south. His eyes came to rest on McMurdo and he stared down at the fringes of white continent.
The last news he had received was of Shackleton’s ship, the Nimrod, being towed south from Lyttleton in New Zealand. Towed! The vessel was so small it couldn’t carry enough coal to get it to the Antarctica ice pack. Scott had admired the speed and enthusiasm with which Shackle had put together his expedition, but rumours had reached him of unpaid bills and rash promises, of hasty provisioning and last-minute recruits. Still, he knew all about that. When you were preparing for the South, a kind of immorality gripped you. It was all about getting down there, by fair means or foul and hang the consequences. They could be dealt with later.
‘Where are you, Shackle?’ he whispered, his voice shaking with the anxiety that was present whenever he thought of the man. He ran a finger over the coast to the east of McMurdo, to Balloon Bight. ‘Where are you?’
‘It won’t speak to you, you know. Won’t tell you where he is.’ Sir Clements Markham’s voice boomed off the wood-panelled walls.
Scott looked up. ‘It hasn’t yet, true. Good to see you, Sir Clements.’
‘And you, Con.’ The old man shuffled in on his sticks. His mutton-chop whiskers and heavy topcoat marked him out as a man of the middle of the last century, as did his weary, painful gait. ‘There will be word eventually. You’ll have to be patient.’
‘Alas, not one of my virtues.’
By the time he reached the map table, Markham was huffing like a steam engine. Both his physical and mental powers, once so formidable, were on the wane. ‘He’ll be on the ice b’now.’
‘But where?’ Scott asked, his hand hovering over the ice shelf. ‘Where will he have landed?’
‘Wherever he sees fit, I would imagine. Now, Con, you must prepare yourself for the fact he might make it to the Pole. It’ll be a bad blow if he does it by using your foothold. I was as angry as any man that he didn’t consult you about his plans. But he might do it anyway, regardless of where he makes his base.’
Scott felt his stomach sink to his boots. ‘I know.’
Markham removed the lead weights and let the map curl up once more. ‘How long have we known each other?’
Scott considered. They had first met when Scott was a midshipman in the Training Squadron and had won a cutter race. That had been some twenty years previously. That was when Scott had first come to Markham’s attention, but that wasn’t what the old man meant. ‘It’s ten, no nine years, since we bumped into each other in the street and I said I was interested in going South and you took up my cause.’
‘Nine years. I remember you then. Whip smart, ambitious, a naval man through and through. Shy, somewhat, though you fought it well enough. Restrained.’ A bushy eyebrow arched upwards. Scott wasn’t sure what he was driving at. ‘And now, look at you.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, the doyen of the drawing rooms. The best boxes at the theatre. Soirees and receptions. Opera and ballet, I hear. The ballet. Man about town. And I hear rumours. Of a woman.’
Scott flushed slightly. ‘Yes.’
‘A suitable woman?’ he growled.
‘An interesting one.’
‘Oh dear,’ laughed Markham. ‘That’s exactly the phrase I heard used. Do navy captains want interesting wives?’
‘This one does.’
Markham’s smile faded. ‘You are not the same man you were, back in Discovery—’
‘I haven’t grown soft. I’m as fit as I was.’
Markham pointed to Scott’s stomach. ‘Down there.’ He tapped his temple. ‘But up here?’
‘What’s your point, Sir Clements?’
‘I know you are hoping he fails. Not that he suffers. But fails. But even if he does, I am not sure you should go back. You got away with it once, Con. By the skin of your teeth, sometimes. But you were hungry then, had no other life, no high and mighty friends. And once you have a wife—’
‘Shackleton has a wife.’
‘You are not Shackleton. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t mean that as an insult. Just that you are different. You, Con, are my friend and my protégé. I see the thinking behind your claim of primacy. Know the temptation you must be under. But don’t be pushed into something in haste by what Ernest Shackleton does or doesn’t achieve.’
Scott rolled the map into a tighter shape and pushed it into its tube. ‘I won’t.’
‘Do you love her? This Bruce woman?’
Scott nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
Markham’s eyes sparkled. ‘See, bloody disaster already. She loves you, I suppose. How could she not love Captain Scott of the Discovery?’
It was a question he had asked himself a dozen times. He had thought her lost to him, but now her letters were full of ideas of marriage. Did she love him? Or the idea of him? For his own part he thought a woman like Kathleen Bruce might find it terrifically easy not to love Scott of the Discovery. Especially as he had never achieved anything as tangible as the Pole. And then he felt the stab of fear once more. Where the hell was Shackleton at that moment?
He forced himself to smile at Markham as if the answer to his question was a foregone conclusion. ‘Shall we take tea, Sir Clements?’
Lunch was at the Café Royal and Scott was there first, having tired of Sir Clements’ cataloguing of his medical problems. He watched as Kathleen entered and made slow progress through the gilded room, stopping at every other table, it seemed, to share a greeting or an anecdote, her booming laugh infecting all around her. He wondered why he found her so captivating. He knew she wasn’t conventionally beautiful or dressed in the height of fashion. There was something intangible about her, a force that electrified him, even across a crowded room. But then, love was always intangible he supposed, no matter what definition of it you used.
Was Sir Clements right? Was he going soft? No, he was not. Which is why Kathleen was perfect for him. This was not a woman who would allow him to sink into comfortable old age. This was a woman who would challenge and encourage him.
Kathleen dropped down in front of him ten minutes after he had first spotted her. ‘Sorry,’ she looked around and raised a hand at a friend across the room. ‘Perhaps we should have chosen somewhere more intimate. Oh look, they’ve given me a menu with prices.’
‘Really? I’ll change it.’
‘No, don’t worry.’ She leaned forward. ‘Perhaps they think I am a suffragette.’
They both laughed at the thought.
‘Dover sole, I think. You know, Con, I decided today that we shouldn’t get married.’
The burble of conversation around them seemed to fade and the room spun slightly. ‘Oh.’
‘I mean we are horribly different, aren’t we? In all ways. The artist and the man of duty. What a match. Then I thought about the look on your poor face. Look, there it is. Like a bloodhound. I meant, I thought we could do something altogether more romantic. Just live together. But then I imagined what your mother might say. So, I thought of a compromise.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I think we should get married. Perhaps next year. Or sooner. We need to start making babies straight away.’
Scott opened his mouth but not much came out beyond a squeak.
‘Come on, Con. Aren’t you going to order? Although don’t you have the Dover sole as well.’ She laughed and widened her eyes. ‘It’s frightfully expensive and we’ve got a lot of saving up to do.’
Dear Mother,
Now, my dear, I must tell you that I want to marry Kathleen Bruce. She and I are agreed that if we do marry, under no circumstances must your comfort suffer. You are my first priority. Now I have two women to look after. I would like you to get to know her, of course. Yes, she is unconventional, but I feel that is good for me. But we must move beyond this condition of strain we have been living under, knowing I must marry one day but you worrying about how it will affect you. Money will not be a concern, be sure of that. I have looked at the cost of two persons living in a small house in London. It is £329. With the income from my book and even at half-pay when not at sea, that leaves enough to contribute to your upkeep, especially now you are in Henley rather than Oakley Street. So can you please write and ask her to call on you as my prospective wife? I am now near forty, she is but twenty-eight. She is a bright and joyous thing. But a lady by birth, with ties to the late Archbishop of York. I have appended her family history. Quite exotic in parts, but also a very good match for an ageing sea captain.
We will live in London and so be near you. Kathleen says she wants me to go back to the Pole. What is the use of all my energy if I can’t knock off a little thing like that? she says. But, of course, it all depends on what Shackleton achieves and we won’t know that for some months. Not till after the wedding. Please offer your congratulations. There will be no announcement till I hear back from you and you are quite settled in your mind, as I am in mine, that this is the right thing for me to do.
Your Son,
Con
Twenty-nine
From the London Graphic, 7 September 1908.
FAMOUS EXPLORER MARRIED
HUGE CROWDS GATHERED TO celebrate the wedding of Polar hero Captain Robert Falcon Scott at Hampton Court last week [2 September]. One hundred and fifty guests were present in the Chapel Royal, including several of Captain Scott’s colleagues from the Discovery, J.M. Barrie and, on the bride’s side, the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin and his wife as well as well-known literary figures Max Beerbohm and Gilbert Cannan. The King sent a telegram of congratulations. The bride wore a dress of white satin trimmed with Limerick lace and a body of chiffon, a wreath of natural myrtle and a tulle veil. The groom surprised many by choosing morning coat over Naval uniform. The service was conducted by Rosslyn Bruce, brother of the bride, and she was given away by a second brother, Lt Wilfred Bruce RN of HMS Arrogant. Captain Scott’s best man was an old friend from HMS Majestic Captain Henry Campbell. After the ceremony the couple left by motor car for a honeymoon in Paris & France to cheers by the large number of well-wishers. It is understood that the marriage will make no difference to Captain Scott’s future plans with regard to Antarctic Exploration.
