The Unseen (43 page)

‘See now what a violent miscreant you have in your employ?’ Cat asks, bitterly.

Hester stares at her with wide eyes, robbed of words. In the end, she looks away, gets up and goes to the window, though there is nothing to see outside it but a solid black sky.

‘I scarce know what is right or fair any more, Cat. But that you should be gaoled for that small crime is not right. Not right at all,’ she says, unhappily.

‘We were beaten in gaol, madam. Beaten and … handed out worse treatment than I know how to describe to you! And now … and now I am a prisoner again! Do you see? Can you understand – I can’t bear it!’

‘Yes, I see! Quiet, Cat! Here – take this.’ She holds out the skeleton key to Cat, who stares at it incredulously. ‘Take it. You can unlock the door once Mrs Bell has locked it and gone. She takes the key from the lock when she goes, I have checked.’ Cat snatches the key, holds it tightly in her fist as if Hester might try to take it back again. A cold, iron lifeline, a talisman even more powerful than her Holloway medal. ‘But you must swear, Cat, you must promise me you will not go out of your room at night. Please – swear it! If you do, if Albert finds out that I have given you this key … Please, swear to me,’ Hester begs, crouching down in front of Cat and forcing her to meet her eyes.

‘I swear it.’ The words drag themselves from Cat, reluctantly. ‘But, I must get word to … to George. To my man. We were arguing, before. He might think I keep away because, because I don’t want him any more.’ To Cat’s bewilderment, Hester’s eyes fill up with tears; her lips tremble slightly and she presses them together.

‘Do you love him?’ Hester asks. So alien, it seems to Cat, to speak so freely with the vicar’s wife. But the night is dark and the room is a cell, and Hester Canning has offered her reprieve.

‘With body and soul, madam. With all of me,’ she answers; and Hester drops her head, a tear falling with a minute splash onto her clasped hands. For a long time Hester is quiet, breathing shallowly, and seems to fight for control of herself. Then she looks up again.

‘I will send you on some errand, tomorrow afternoon. Some errand in Thatcham. You may seek him then. But promise me – not in the night time. Not when your freedom might be noticed.’

‘I promise you,’ Cat says, and is surprised to find that she means it.

‘Well then. Hide the key, and keep it carefully! Turn the lock again in the morning before Mrs Bell comes to let you out. It wasn’t right to lock you in, Cat. I never thought it was right. But lately I seem to be mistress of this house no longer. There are two masters instead,’ Hester says forlornly, getting to her feet and picking up her candle once more. In the warmth of its glow, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, eyes wide and glistening, the vicar’s wife is quite lovely.

‘Only one master, as I see it,’ Cat says darkly. ‘Can’t you be rid of him?’ Since they are speaking openly, Cat will have her say.

Hester blinks, startled. ‘I have tried to suggest that it’s time he went home …’

‘As far as I can tell, and as Mrs Bell’s gossip informs me, the man has no other home. And not much money to his name, either. His father keeps him on a very tight stipend. He is expected to make his own fortune,’ Cat says carefully. She watches Hester Canning, sees her digest this unwelcome information.

‘No home? He doesn’t even keep rooms somewhere?’

‘No, madam. It will be hard to shift him, I think, while the vicar makes him so very welcome.’

Hester nods her head, resignedly. ‘You understand a great deal, Cat Morley.’

‘Nobody knows a household and its occupants like its servants, madam. It’s inevitable.’

‘And what else do you know about Mr Durrant?’

‘Only this: do not trust him. He is a liar. If you can find some way to move him on, then do it,’ Cat says, gravely.

Hester stares at her, alarmed, then nods once and turns to go. ‘In the morning,’ she says, from the threshold of the room, ‘it must be as though none of this has passed between us.’ Her face betrays some discomfort.

‘Of course,’ Cat says, quite unperturbed. With Hester gone and
the door open, she lies down on the bed and sleeps for the first time since it was locked.

The following day is one of simmering heat. In the kitchen, Cat and Mrs Bell make jam from the overflowing baskets of raspberries and loganberries that the gardener, Blighe, keeps bringing to the kitchen. The fat housekeeper is at the stove, stirring and stirring, making sure all the sugar in the vast copper pan has dissolved. Cat scalds the glass jars, boiling kettle after kettle of water to sterilise them before filling. Both work with sweat running down their faces and backs, between their breasts, into the folds of their clothes. Their cheeks are as red as the bubbling fruit pulp, their eyes flat with a kind of dull, resigned anger; ill-defined, aimed half at the heat of the day, half at the blameless raspberries. The room is sweet and heady with the scented steam. It clings to their hair and their faces and hands. Cat burns herself for a third time, hisses at the pain and plunges her hand into the bucket of cold water where the milk is kept. Mrs Bell hasn’t the energy left to reprimand her, or urge more care.

Once the jam has been left to sit for a quarter hour so the fruit will settle evenly, there are more burns as it’s poured. Splashes, piping hot flecks find bare wrists; dribbling overflows must be wiped away, the hot jars braced with wincing fingertips.

‘Dear God, if only that was the end of it! In a week the blackcurrants will start coming in,’ Mrs Bell sighs, putting her hand to her mouth and sucking where a blister is forming.

‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ Cat says, leaning her elbows on the sticky table top and bending forwards to stretch her back. ‘It’s suffocating me.’

‘It’s hotter than hell, I’ll grant you,’ Mrs Bell agrees. All day Cat has looked to the doorway, looked to the stairs, looked to Hester as she put the lunch dishes on the sideboard; waiting to have her errand, her means of escaping to find George. All day it has not come, and the wait has chafed her more as each minute ticked past.
She takes the tea tray up at four, with a bowl of the fresh jam and a plate of scones. Her legs feel like lead as she climbs the stairs; her movements are wooden. No amount of water she drinks seems to quench her thirst. In the drawing room, the vicar and his wife sit with Robin Durrant, listening as he reads from a letter. Hester Canning’s face is flat and shiny, her hair a frizzy mess around her forehead. She seems lost in thought, and does not notice Cat, however hard Cat tries to catch the woman’s eye. The vicar can’t seem to keep his eyes still. They flit from Robin’s face to his hands to the letter he holds, and when Cat draws near he shuts his eyes and turns his head away, shuddering slightly, as though the smell of her offends him.

Gritting her teeth in fury, Cat puts the tray down with exaggerated care, and transfers the tea things to the table as slowly as she may without it appearing deliberate.

‘
It is a source of tremendous satisfaction to us both that you have at l— that you have begun to make such a name for yourself as an authority in your chosen field. You are to be congratulated in the advances you have made of late. I look forward to our next meeting, and to a further discussion of both the nature and implications of your discoveries, since the newspapers’ reporting of it, which we follow most keenly, has been somewhat stingy with the facts of it all, and over-exuberant with either excitement or derision. I am sure that your continued diligence and endeavour in the field will only bring you greater prospects and wider renown. Yours etc …’
Robin Durrant lets the letter drop into his lap and smiles widely at the Cannings. ‘There! What a wonderful letter to receive from one’s father!’ he exclaims. ‘I know for a fact that the old man can’t for the life of him grasp the esoteric theories of theosophy, and yet he offers me his support and, I think, begins to respect the fact that in this field at least, my understanding outstrips his. And that of my brothers,’ the theosophist says, his voice vibrant with excitement, smiling with achievement. When neither of the Cannings replies to him, it clearly annoys him. He prods them as one would a listless pet, Cat
thinks, requiring it to play. ‘What say you, Albert? Hester? Don’t you think it wonderful that a man as staid and traditional in his beliefs as my father can be persuaded to open his mind to this new reality?’

‘Oh, yes. Robin. You are to be congratulated, indeed,’ Albert obliges him, still keeping his face averted from Cat, and swallowing convulsively after he speaks. Beneath the sunburn that bridges his nose and cheeks, his face is an ashen grey. He looks unwell.
No more than he deserves
, Cat fumes inwardly. Hester seems about to speak, but clears her throat instead, and fumbles with the handle of her fan until the theosophist’s gaze returns to her husband.

‘Will that be all, madam?’ Cat asks pointedly, catching Hester’s eye and filling her face with significance.

‘Oh, yes, thank you, Cat,’ Hester replies, distantly. Cat glances at Robin, glares balefully at the flawless, self-satisfied smile on his face, and then leaves the room.

‘Damn and blast the woman!’ Cat swears, as she returns to the kitchen and pours herself a cup of water.

‘What now?’ asks Mrs Bell. She is writing out labels for the jam, crouched as close to the pen as she may, her face screwed up with the effort of concentration. Her writing is as small and cramped as she is large and flowing.

‘Let your pen move as freely as your thoughts,’ Cat says, peering over her shoulder. ‘Let the ink flow like a slow river.’ Mrs Bell shoots her a black look, and Cat retreats. ‘That’s how I was drilled, when I was learning to write.’ She shrugs.

‘Well, I’m not learning. I’m plenty good enough at it,’ Sophie Bell grumbles.

‘Sophie … I have to go out,’ Cat says suddenly.

‘You what?’ She does not look up from her labelling.

‘I have to go out. Please – only for an hour. I just have to get some fresh air, and be out of this house for a little while. I’ll be back in time to clear up the tea things, I promise …’

‘Oh, promises, promises. You’ll be off to see George Hobson, I know, and not back until you’ve made your bed with him,’ the housekeeper says. Now she looks up, to find Cat’s jaw gone slack with surprise, and her mouth robbed of words to protest. Sophie Bell smiles, not unkindly. ‘You of all people ought to know there’s little goes on around this parish that I don’t know about, Cat Morley. You’ve been seen with him enough times, by enough people.’

‘And I suppose you condemn me for it?’

Mrs Bell frowns a little, turns back to her pen but does not write. ‘There’s scant enough fun to be had in a servant’s life. I’m not so old and
sour
, as you called me, to begrudge a youngster getting out and about a bit. George Hobson’s an honest enough sort, rough as he is,’ she mutters.

‘Sophie Bell … of all the people I would not have placed on my side in all this …’ Cat shakes her head in wonderment.

‘Shows what you know, don’t it?’

‘So, then – please. I need to go and see him, just for a while. I just need to ask him something, that’s all. And I can’t send a note because he can’t read. Please. If I’m missed, tell them I came over all faint and went to lie down for half an hour … I’ll come straight back again, I promise.’

‘I don’t know … it’s one thing for you to put your own job at stake, quite another thing to start doing it to mine, isn’t it?’

‘Lie, then. Tell them I slipped out without a word, and you were none the wiser. When I get back … when I get back I shall tell you a secret,’ Cat says, teasingly. Mrs Bell looks up, studies her for a moment and then chuckles.

‘Whatever it is, I’ll bet you I know it already. Go on, then – and be quick!’

The sun is like hot metal in the sky, fierce and heavy. Cat goes via the front gate, not caring if she is seen. She walks quickly, breaks into a jog from time to time. In her pocket is the stub of a pencil
and a scrap of paper – an old laundry receipt. Though she can’t write George a note, if he is not aboard his boat, Cat will leave some mark, leave some symbol to show she came to look for him. She thinks of the very thing, and smiles. A black cat. That’s what she’ll draw. But, twenty minutes later, as she comes upon his boat and her throat is so dry that it feels torn, she sees him on the deck. Lying on his back, knees bent, bare feet flat, arms crossed over his face to shield them from the glare of the sun.

‘George!’ Cat calls, and can’t keep from smiling, a wide and compulsive smile. ‘Listen!’ She stands by the boat and takes a deep breath – huge, all the way to the bottom of her lungs. They are dry. No catch, no bubble; no fluid to make her cough. George squints at her, confused for a moment, and then he smiles.

‘You’ve got it licked at last, then,’ he says. Cat nods, wipes one hand over her slick brow. Her hair is wet through at the back of her neck.

‘The last of that muck they poured into me, finally gone. Can I come on board?’

‘You can.’ George nods, getting up to take her hands as she wobbles along the gangplank. Standing close to him, so close she can scarce focus her eyes, Cat takes another deep breath. The smell of him, so familiar and enticing. Like the warm wood of the boat; like the dank canal water; like the fresh, pungent foliage all around them. All have sunk their perfume into his skin, mixed and made it wonderful. So wonderful she shuts her eyes, sways on her feet, surrenders herself to the hold of it. ‘You stayed away a good few days. I’d wondered if you would come again after the fright of having the police close in like that,’ George says. His voice is even, the words without emphasis. But when she looks up, his face is pulled apart with emotion, with uncertainty and relief, with love and fear and wounded pride.

‘I didn’t mean to. They’ve been locking me in, George! I couldn’t get word to you … the vicar saw me at The Ploughman. He’s quite lost his mind! He wanted me sent packing, but
somebody spoke up for me. But I’ve been locked in my room, each night when work’s done!’

‘They lock you in? That’s not right … they’ve no right to!’

‘I know it. The vicar’s wife takes my part in it. She’s given me a key to unlock the door, so at least I need not spend every night a prisoner, and afraid … but even so I have sworn to her I will not go out at night any more. I don’t like it, but … I have sworn it!’