Page 86 of Valour

“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.

28

IN WHICH THE COLD ADDLES MINDS AND AMENDS ARE MADE

Charlotte had seen Hester fall apart, and it had shaken her to her core.

The ship was crushed, and Arnold had said they would have to escape over the ice, but surely that wasn’t possible in those tiny boats, on the most perilous ocean on the planet. It was all her fault. Her fault that they were down here. Her fault that Hester’s beloved ship was sinking, slowly and surely into the frozen sea. Her fault that they would all perish down here.

She sat in the tent, her breathing shallow, her head swimming. Marjorie nuzzled her leg, whining, and Charlotte buried her face in her friend’s thick fur.

“Oh, girl. It’s all my fault. I had this stupid idea that I could do this, and I was wrong. I should have just stayed at home.”

She had to laugh at the cross look that Marjorie gave her, as if she could understand every word and heartily disagreed. “But wouldn’t that be better than dying down here?”

“Do you know? I don’t think it would, my dear.”