“No,” she said, almost laughing. “My father could not perish so easily.”
Julian returned her appreciative grin. “He was not a man easily defeated.”
“He was unconscious, bleeding from the head, it was awful.” Ophelia saw it all again in her mind’s eye, the chunk of bone that had chipped out of his skull, his hair still attached. It was the stuff of nightmares. “I wrapped his head to the best of my ability, and we were forced to abandon our attempt. It was a long struggle to make our way down the mountain, and by then it was dark.”
She gripped Sir Julian’s hands as tightly as she’d gripped the rock during that descent, that terror for her father making her cling to the mountain with the bottoms of her feet. “And then as we crossed back over the Hörnli Ridge, it was so narrow that only one person could cross at a time. Being the tallest, our guide and Tristan tied my father in between them to carry across the ridge. It’s so rocky and uneven, and it was dark, and we were tired and hungry and cold.”
“That fatigue is something I understand. I’ve felt that myself.” He gripped her hand back, lending a support that Ophelia hadn’t felt since her father died.
The sensation of his hands warm, strong, and still calloused gave her a burst of courage. “One of us slipped. I think it was Eleanor, I can’t be sure. And it took Prudence over the edge, and I heard the rope slithering over the rock, another sound I cannot forget.”
“What did you do?”
“Before Prudence could pull me off the ridge, I tried to wedge myself onto one of the rocks. I almost fell. I almost didn’t make it. Justine was the other end of our quartet’s rope, and she had better terrain for bracing herself without falling. And then Tristan and Karl—Karl was our guide—put down my father and came to help us. Tristan tied me into the rock face and then together we were able to pull up Prudence and Eleanor. They were both injured, but not horribly so. Only Justine and I were unscathed.”
“I would not say you are unscathed, Miss Ophelia.”
She steadied her breath, wishing she could plead with him to fix it. To go back in time and change what happened. But there was no such magic. “Karl and Tristan took my father to the church ahead of us, while we cleaned up the camp and followed as well as we could, with Prudence and Eleanor’s injuries. By morning, a donkey cart arrived to carry my father back to Zermatt, and we did what we could. We were told the cold temperatures kept him from dying immediately, but it was weeks before he was well enough that we could leave Zermatt. And then when we did, it didn’t matter. He would only come around for short periods, and often not lucid ones. He died, oddly enough, of pneumonia, not of his injury.”
They sat in silence.
Sir Julian nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”
“It was the worst mistake of my life.” Ophelia choked on the words.
“It wasn’t your mistake,” he insisted.
“If I hadn’t insisted we take on the chimneys before making camp, he would be alive. If I had taken into account how tired everyone was, that it was the end of the day, and it would have been better to take the chimneys after rest, he would still be alive.” Ophelia burned with rage at herself, the anger of hindsight.
“If you had taken the chimneys the next morning, you would have been even more fatigued,” Sir Julian argued.
“No, we would have had decent rest,” Ophelia insisted.
“Did you bring food? Tents?”
“No, they’re far too heavy. We’d wanted to complete it in one long day.” Ophelia stuck her jaw out. She felt mulish and obstinate. Her stomach churned, feeling acidic.
“So you think that if you attempted the chimneys in the morning, after spending the night in freezing conditions with no shelter and no food, it would have improved the outcome?” Sir Julian challenged her.
His words were as painful as if he’d struck her. “But.”
“The human body needs food, Ophelia. We require sustenance. And sitting in cold conditions, I can tell you from experience, saps your energy. It makes you need even more.”
Ophelia shook her head. “No, that’s—”
Julian gripped her hands even harder, ducking his head to make her look at him. “You did the right thing. Your call was correct. I would have done the same.”
“But, he slipped—”
“Your father would have done the same. Did he question you on this?”
“No, he agreed with me.” Ophelia started breathing faster, and she didn’t understand why.
“You did the right thing.”
For the first time in months, her eyes teared up. “But. But he died because of the expedition. My expedition.”
“He died doing what he loved. I can’t think of a better way to go.”
