When Nights Were Cold by Susanna Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t even say Miss. Grace, it is all wrong for you. Why won’t you see sense?’
    I crouched down, placed my hand on her back, touched the soft rim of skin that bulged over her corset.
    â€˜You’ll have to go home without me,’ I said after some time. ‘I’m sorry. I can do without your encouragement, but I would, at least, like you to stop crying. It isn’t helping either of us. Mother, please.’ I stroked her arm. ‘There’s no point to all this unhappiness.’
    She balled a handkerchief into her eyes.
    â€˜You’re very severe for a girl of eighteen.’ She tried a brave smile and squeezed my hand. ‘I’ll go now – I know you want me to – but I shall say this first. You’ll always have a bed in your own home and, if you’ve grown out of being a student by Christmas, we’ll be pleased to have you back. Your father and I will always be good, compassionate parents, no matter what you do, I’m sure.’ She shook her head and sat in silence waiting for her breathing to calm. ‘And we shall always have Catherine.’ She stood, straightening her hair and hat. ‘I’m leaving now. Your father wants pork chops for supper and I didn’t tell Mrs Horton to get any.’
    Poor Catherine, I thought. She will be there until she’s a dusty old skeleton perching at the piano or hunched over the sewing box.
    I stared into the large mirror, watched my room as it was reflected back to me. I saw a small, scared face among large, unfamiliar furniture. My reflection looked empty, as if I weren’t behind my own eyes. I wanted the excitement back but my mother’s tears had ruined it all. I didn’t want to go home but I no longer liked being here.
    I placed a small painting of a ship sailing from Cardiff on my mantelpiece. Father had kept it on his study wall and when I was a child he had found me sitting on the floor staring at it. He took it from the wall and gave it to me. I touched it now and blew a little dust from the glass. The room looked just a little better.
    Before dinner, I went to find Miss Locke. I knocked on her door but there was no reply. I knew that I would feel more lonely and nervous if I stayed in my rooms so I decided to take a walk around the building. I set off down the corridor, along the central walkway and into the other side of the hall. I soon became disorientated and could not remember which quad was which and whether I was in the east or west side. I hurried up and down corridors, onto another floor, and finally had to leave the building, follow the path around to the clock tower at the main entrance and begin again. When I arrived back at my room, now choking back tears and beginning to hate the place, Leonora Locke appeared from her room and bellowed my name. A couple of doors opened, faces poked out to see what the noise was about, but Locke seemed not to notice. She grinned and ran towards me.
    â€˜You’re brave to go exploring alone. Could you just help me with my pictures and things? Then we can do yours, if you like.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’m not sure where to hang the male nude.’
    She shot me a sideways glint and looked for my response. I started, tried to hide my surprise by adjusting a hairpin just above my ear, but I suspected she was testing me. Voices rose and babbled behind us in the corridor and, for safety, I reached for Leonora’s arm.
    â€˜I’d love to help.’
    â€˜Splendid. Come on then.’
    She led, chattering about her mother and their frightful journey from London in a crowded train compartment with a man who kept coughing over them. She told me that I had interesting hair and she liked it, that she already regretted choosing to study science because she wasn’t much good at practical work, she was terribly afraid that everyone would be very clever and she had promised her mother that she would join the Suffrage