An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(13)
By the time she was twenty, Alice Baker-Greene had surpassed her family’s achievements, becoming the first woman to summit Coropuna. She gained fame for never shying from a challenge, setting herself impossible tasks and working doggedly at them until she achieved them. She was the first to climb without male porters or guides on the grounds that her accomplishments would never be recognized if there was the slightest possibility that a man might be credited with the work. She led teams of amateur lady climbers around the world in order to finance her solo climbs upon the more demanding peaks. She was outspoken, arguing forcefully for admission to the various mountaineering clubs that refused her entry on the grounds of her sex.
The piece went on to describe the contretemps that arose on the fateful expedition to South America with Douglas Norton, adding rather more colorful detail than the lady herself had included when she had related the tale to me. According to the Daily Harbinger, upon the descent of El Cielo, she had publicly horsewhipped Douglas Norton, challenging him to a duel and claiming that he had stolen her summit. In return, he had laughed at her and claimed that El Cielo was no longer fit to climb since a woman had touched its summit. It was the last time she climbed with a man. From then on, she climbed alone or with her ladies, proving her achievements by planting a small green banner blazoned with her name at each peak. When guides removed her banners to call her accomplishments into question, she had begun to climb with photographic equipment, hauling the heavy camera to the summit in order to prove her success. I thought of the collection of photographs hung along the stairs of the Curiosity Club, silent testimony to one woman’s determination to prove her worth.
“I wish we had met again, Alice,” I murmured as I paged through the newspaper to find the conclusion of the piece. “I think we would have got on rather well.”
The rest of the article discussed her political leanings. Rebelling against the cult of True Womanhood with its insistence upon domestic virtue and bodily delicacy, Alice Baker-Greene had been a vehement advocate of fresh air and robust exercise, putting forth the notion not only that were women strong enough physically to endure the arduous requirements of mountaineering, but that they were better suited to the challenges of solitude or cooperation that different expeditions required. She claimed women were, by nature and nurture, more adaptable and easygoing than men, better able to govern their tempers and work in harmony with circumstances rather than against them. She detailed the numerous examples of men who had perished on mountaintops from their stubborn refusal to accept that conditions had turned murderous. She did not have to cite her father and grandfather as examples. It was well-known that on her grandfather’s fatal climb, her grandmother had protested against the prevailing wind, pointing out that the damp warmth of it was likely to spawn avalanches. The men had pushed on, and only Alice’s grandmother, with the wisdom born of long experience, had turned back, and she alone survived.
Doubtless that event had shaped young Alice’s perspective and her determination to listen to her own instincts and experience rather than those of others. She gave speeches crediting her grandmother with the courage to resist even those who loved her when she knew they were wrong. And she pushed for women to do so in their own lives. She spoke at rallies for women’s suffrage and posed for a photograph of herself in climbing gear for a pamphlet on the subject. She wrote letters in support of Irish Home Rule and liberal immigration policies and comprehensive education for women. Her lectures on mountaineering were often picketed and protested, but she did not censor herself. Some of her articles took on a hectoring tone, lecturing against the evils of keeping women on pedestals that too often served as cages and advocating for rational dress. She had spent a night in jail in America for publicly burning a corset before climbing Pikes Peak. She was, in short, a firebrand who lived life on her own terms, and I felt oddly mournful as I read the conclusion of the article.
“But who would have wanted you dead?” I wondered as I put it aside. Again, there had been no byline, but I suspected J. J. Butterworth might have known a thing or two about it. I made a mental note to run her to ground and see if I could pry a little information free.
The last article was decidedly more salacious in tone, detailing her frequent visits to the Alpenwald in the last years of her life and the fact that she had often been seen in the company of an Alpenwalder aristocrat, the Duke of Lokendorf. There was an accompanying photograph of the duke, an official portrait of a handsome young man dressed in a dashing uniform lavishly covered in medals. The author of the piece hinted that Alice might well have found herself a duchess if she had lived, a minor member of the Alpenwalder royal family. I peered more closely at the photograph, reaching automatically for my magnifying glass. The photograph was poorly reproduced—the Daily Harbinger was not known for the quality of its prose or of its paper—but I could just make out the fine features of the duke, features that were enhanced by the presence of a lavish set of dark moustaches.
“Goodness me, you were a dark horse, weren’t you, Alice?” I murmured. So, the gentleman who had posed with her for a photograph on the Teufelstreppe was the Duke of Lokendorf. It had been apparent from the picture in Alice’s possessions that they had enjoyed a certain closeness. Had there been an understanding between them? I steepled my fingers together as I studied the newspaper cutting, wondering exactly how well such a connection might have suited a formal European court, no matter how small.