The Unseen

9

1911

‘These are… simply marvellous. Marvellous. Truly, the most wonderful pictures,’ Albert breathes, leaning forwards over the table top and putting his face close to the photos, as if unwilling to defile them with his touch. Robin Durrant smiles, his face alight, jubilant with triumph. He seems unable to speak, and instead puts out one hand to grip the vicar’s shoulder. Albert reaches up with his own hand and covers the theosophist’s, grasping the other man’s fingers tightly. For some reason, the ardour in that touch distracts Hester from the pictures, and she moves closer to her husband, putting her own hand gently upon his other shoulder. There they stand, Hester and Robin, either side of the vicar as he sits at his desk with the pictures Robin had taken that very morning arrayed before them, still reeking slightly of the developing chemicals. After a pause, Robin gently removes his hand from Albert’s, but the vicar does not reach up to take Hester’s hand instead. She fights the urge to pinch him, to lean her weight, make herself felt.

Instead she reaches forward and picks up one of the prints. ‘Careful, Hetty,’ Albert cautions her. ‘They are easily damaged by fingerprints and the like.’

‘I shan’t damage them, dear,’ Hester tells him. She examines the photo as closely as she can focus her eyes. The odd, androgynous form, swathed in diaphanous white and with copious hair flying out behind it. In most of the shots it is just a blur, features impossible to make out, form lost in the swirls of fabric. But in two or three, a human-like figure is clear to see, leaping with its thin limbs cast out wide. ‘And is this like the ones you saw, Bertie? The ones you described to me?’

‘Yes,’ Albert says, although he does not sound entirely sure. ‘Though, this one seems to be better formed, and rather taller…’

‘That is only to be expected,’ Robin says, swiftly. ‘I expect, from your descriptions, Albert, that what you saw were some slightly lesser beings than this – perhaps elementals allied to some wild flower or meadow herb. I have seen just such beings myself in the meadows here, and they are indeed smaller and of a less sophisticated form. This, I believe to be the guardian of the old willow tree.’

‘A dryad?’ asks Albert.

‘As it would have been called, in ancient times, yes. Like the tree it nourishes, this elemental being is a larger and more sophisticated entity. I did endeavour to engage it in a dialogue, but it was wary of me, and perhaps wisely so, though I did my utmost to emanate waves of love and welcome towards it.’

‘Perhaps that was rude,’ Hester says, before she can catch herself. Robin glances at her. ‘Well, I mean… if it has lived with this tree in the meadow for many long years, perhaps you, as the visitor, ought not to have bade it welcome to its own home,’ she explains. Robin smiles slightly.

‘Really, Hetty. Don’t be so obtuse. Robin means only to speak in general of his emotional vibrations. There is no social etiquette to be observed here,’ Albert says.

‘Well,’ Hester says, taken aback. ‘I’m sure I didn’t meant to imply-’

‘No, it’s quite all right, Mrs Canning. I understand what you meant. One must of course tread carefully with something as pure and reactive as these beings,’ Robin says, benignly.

‘Look – look at this one. The face is almost discernible. And lovely – quite, quite lovely…’ Albert holds a particular photo up to the theosophist, who takes it and studies it closely, his eyes lost in thought.

‘Lovely indeed,’ he murmurs.

‘Robin – we must publish these at once! The whole world must see them! I shall call the papers myself – is there a particular one you should like to have the pictures first? Can copies be made?’

‘Of course, of course. We shall do just as you say, Albert,’ Robin soothes the trembling vicar.

‘Well, gentlemen, I shall leave you to your… great work. Amy must have got the children dressed by now, and we have promised them a trip into Thatcham to buy sweets,’ Hester says brightly, but if she hopes to cause a stir with her departure, she is disappointed.

‘I’m not sure what to make of it,’ Hester confesses to her sister, as they walk slowly along The Broadway in Thatcham, parasols on their shoulders with the sun beating down on them, almost like a physical weight. Ellie and John lag behind them, squabbling over a bag of liquorice twists. The town is quiet and stifled. From the smithy, the clank of hammer on metal is slow and irregular, as if, however used to the heat he might be, even Jack Morton’s arm is too heavy that day. Those people of Thatcham that are about walk slowly, their faces screwed up against the onslaught. Fat flies buzz around their heads with aggravating tenacity.

‘Come on, children. Let’s go down to the river and see the ducks,’ Amelia calls over her shoulder, her voice brittle with impatience. ‘These photographs of his, you mean? I’m not surprised you don’t. I shall have to see them myself before I pass comment, of course, but…’ She shrugs.

‘But? You suspect them to be… not genuine?’

‘How can they be? I’m sorry, Hetty, but it’s just too much. Fairies. Really! And you say he was quite alone when he took the pictures, and when he developed them?’

‘Oh, yes. Albert doesn’t go with him into the meadows any more, and nobody is allowed into the cold store. His dark room, that is.’ Hester steps carefully over the butcher’s brindle-haired dog, fagged out flat on its side in the middle of the pavement. It twitches an eyelid as her skirt tickles it.

‘Well, there you are then! He’s had ample opportunity to doctor the images… I can’t see how he will hope to convince anyone if he has produced them in such secrecy,’ Amelia declares.

‘Well, they do seem… that is, it does look like a real… person – figure, that is. It’s just that… it’s so blurred it’s hard to tell if it is a fairy or just a… woman,’ Hester says, hesitantly. ‘But it can’t be a person. Who could it be? Nobody would partake willingly in such a deception. Nobody from the village has hair so long and fair, nor would be out in the meadows before sunrise. No. There is some other explanation… Perhaps it is real,’ she concedes. ‘Albert certainly believes it.’

‘Yes. It’s clear that Albert is rather… caught up in it all.’

‘Oh, yes. He is quite convinced by whatever Robin says,’ Hester agrees, not trying to keep her unhappiness from sounding.

‘Remarkable, how quickly they have become so close.’

‘Indeed. So very close. Sometimes… sometimes I catch Mr Durrant watching me with a most peculiar expression on his face, and I wonder…’

‘What, Hetty?’

‘I wonder if he knows things about me that I would rather he did not.’

‘You mean, that Albert may have been indiscreet? About your… marital affairs?’

‘Perhaps, as I confide in you, Albert has… confided in Robin,’ she says, hesitantly. Amelia takes a short breath and considers this for a moment.

‘That speech he gave last night, about the undines in their ecstasy… do you suppose he was referring to…?’ she suggests.

‘You would know better than I if that was what he was referring to,’ Hester says, miserably.

‘I thought he merely meant to cause a stir! Rascal of a man!’ Amelia’s voice is low and scandalised. ‘Well, that only confirms to me something I suspected from the very start, dear sister.’

‘What did you suspect?’

‘That Mr Durrant is not what he seems to be. Be careful, my dear. Do not let him get the better of you, and… try to distance yourself from this whole fairy business.’

‘How can I distance myself when my husband is so very involved?’ Hester asks. Amelia is silent, and appears deep in thought for some minutes.

‘It is a difficult situation, I do see. I think the best thing will be to speak of it little beyond the walls of The Rectory; to try to encourage scepticism in Albert, if it is at all possible; and to hope that the whole affair blows over quickly. A madness of this hot weather, and nothing more,’ she says at last.

‘Scepticism? Albert is busy writing a pamphlet about it all! They mean to go to the press, and publish the pictures… Surely that must mean that Robin is genuine? That he does not mean to dissemble? Surely he would not risk exposing himself in this way otherwise?’

‘But what has he to lose, Hetty? He is an unknown, who seeks to be known… whereas Albert has a reputation, an important role of long standing in the church and in society… He lends respectability to the project, but if there were to be a scandal…’ Amelia says seriously.

‘Then Albert would suffer more damage from it than Mr Durrant?’

‘Indeed he would, dearest.’

‘But… what can I do?’ Hester cries, fear making her tearful. Amelia takes both of her hands and squeezes them.

‘Don’t look so frightened! It will more than likely come to nothing at all! And perhaps it could be a good thing for them to publish the pictures – if they cause a stir, Mr Durrant may well take himself off on a tour with them, or some such. It may hasten his departure from The Rectory.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ Hester says, hopefully.

‘You must hope so; and wait to see,’ says Amelia, and though she smiles at her sister, her eyes are grave.

At the river, Thatcham’s children are sporting in the greenish water, leaping from the bridge with whoops of delight, paddling haphazardly from bank to bank, where the grass is being trampled muddy. Ellie and John watch them with envy and rage, knowing better than to even ask their mother if they can join in. They stare, and chew their liquorice glumly, running blackened tongues over greyish lips. The air is cooler by the river, where tall horse chestnut trees shade it and the water soothes it. The two sisters walk very slowly and find a bench to sit upon. No ducks to feed, not with the racket the children are making.

‘I do wish you didn’t have to go back to town tomorrow, Amy,’ Hester says softly.

‘So do I, darling. But… we must. I have much to talk to my husband about.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘Just what I told you. That if he continues, I will love him no more. Perhaps that will not bother him.’ She shrugs sadly. ‘Perhaps it will. But what else can I do?’

‘What can any woman do?’ Hester agrees. She thinks of Cat, and smiles. ‘My maid, Cat, would tell us off for such defeatism. She went to jail to earn us the vote, after all.’

‘Was that what it was all about? How ridiculous. They do more damage than good, those foolish vandals.’

‘Indeed,’ Hester murmurs. ‘And have you any more words of advice for me? Regarding my… marriage bed?’ she asks, and though she tries to make her tone light, the words come out with a quaver that sounds fragile, at breaking point. Amelia squeezes her hands again.

‘Only this. If you are lying close to him, smiling and asking to be taken into his arms, then your part is done, dearest. Anything that is lacking is lacking in Albert, not in you. So I cannot help you, because you are not the problem,’ she says.

‘Yes. That is what I have come to fear.’

‘So, I suppose this will take Mr Durrant to pastures new,’ Hester says to Albert, lying on the cool sheet with the blankets cast off, in the sudden darkness of the bedroom after the lamps have been extinguished. The window is still open, to freshen the air, and the distant sound of a dog barking echoes in from the village. She turns onto her side, facing Albert, as she always does in bed, and can trace the shape of his face in the pale glow of the starry night sky. His eyes are open and shine softly. He does not reply for quite some time, and when he does his voice is tight with anguish.

‘I truly hope not. Perhaps, for a while at least. He means to go up to London with them, to the headquarters of the Society. But afterwards… I pray he will return to us. To the elementals of our meadows.’

‘You wish him to return?’ she asks, already knowing the answer.

‘Yes, of course. He is teaching me so much… I feel that my mind has been opened, in these weeks since he came to me. The world is quite a different place.’

‘Yes, he has been full of… instruction,’ she says.

‘I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t come back again. I don’t know… how I would continue,’ Albert whispers, in a distracted way, as though to himself.

‘Come now, Bertie – you will always have me, even if house guests come and go,’ she says robustly, putting out her hand to stroke his arm reassuringly. ‘Won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course, Hetty,’ Albert says, not sounding in the least bit comforted.

‘He can’t stay with us for ever, after all. For one thing, we couldn’t afford to keep him,’ she says, pointedly.

‘But can’t you see, Hetty? He’s right. Everything he’s told us, since he arrived – and I saw you take some of it with a pinch of salt – no, don’t deny it. I know you too well, dear Hetty – all of it was true. And now he has the means to prove it to the world… do you understand how important this is, Hester? How important what has occurred here this summer is?’

‘Yes,’ Hester whispers, and feels close to tears because she does not feel it in her heart. She cannot feel the truth of it, nor share her husband’s conviction. The pictures show her a pretty figure, a thin figure, a barefooted dancer in a water meadow. Try as she might, she cannot see a fairy. And she does not want Robin Durrant back. She wants Albert back – wants him to belong to her again, if not in body then in spirit. She watches him for as long as she can, but while her own eyes grow heavy and her eyelids droop, his stay wide open, gleaming with the light of the heavens in them.

For the first time since she mastered the bicycle, Cat walks the distance to Thatcham. After days without George, she is so eager to see him that it feels almost like fear, makes the tips of her fingers shake and her thoughts buzz inside her skull like trapped insects. It is a mauve and indigo night, the landscape quite visible and full of noisy life – scrabbling movement in the bulrushes, the whirr and clatter of cricket wings, the harsh cries of startled river birds. Fatigue makes her head feel light. She has not slept for a day and a night and a day; has eaten little; has thought of Tess and George and Robin Durrant so much and so intensely that they have blurred in her mind’s eye, spiralling queasily into one another. Her dance in the water meadow could have happened a week ago, or a year, or ten years. Time is behaving oddly. Mrs Bell caught her earlier, up to her elbows in the scrub bucket, clutching a chemise when the water had long since gone cold. When she took her hands out the skin was puffy and wrinkled. Her steps along the towpath are a clock ticking, a metronome. One follows the other, left then right, and by this means alone, she finds her way.

His boat is moored in its usual place, and the cabin light is on. Cat stops beside it, feels puzzled and delighted and relieved. She walks the gangplank, slowly, carefully, unsure of her own body, her balance. All of the power she felt as she danced has gone now. When George hears her and climbs out of the cabin, she falls into him.

‘Cat! What’s happened? Are you well?’ He has caught even more sun, the skin of his face dark brown but for little pale lines around his eyes, where during the day he squints.

‘No, no, I’m not ill. Just tired. I have not slept,’ she says, smiling drunkenly up at him. He searches her face for a moment; runs his hands the length of her as if to check all is in place; brushes back the short wisps of her hair; plants a kiss on her mouth.

‘Sit down, Black Cat. You look done in, girl.’ He smiles. ‘Look – I bought some beer while I was away. Will you have some?’

‘Ginger beer?’

‘Yes, though I bought plain ale as well if you’d rather.’

‘No, I like the ginger,’ she says.

‘What happened while I was away?’

‘Need anything have happened?’

‘I can see it in your eyes, Cat. Is it bad news?’ George takes two cups from hooks, pours their drinks.

‘It’s all bad news. I am bad news,’ she says, and he waits for an explanation. ‘My good friend Tess, who was arrested and gaoled with me – on account of me, if truth be told – has found herself in the workhouse, with nowhere else to go. She’s only a child! Not yet eighteen, even. And I would have gone to see her today, since today is the only visiting day, but the vicar’s wife would not allow it. And it is all my fault! And The Gentleman… he could have kept her out of it. He could have let her have her old job back… he knows she was no trouble, not really. Not like me. Or sent her here, that’s what he should have done! Sent her here in my stead. I deserved the poorhouse, perhaps, but she did not. She did not.’ The words tumble over one another, and before she knows it, tears are sliding down her cheeks and she can’t keep her throat from closing.

‘Hush now, stop that! It won’t help her to tear yourself up over it,’ George says softly, holding her face in his hard hands, catching the tears with his thumbs.

‘I must help her, though… I must. Perhaps I spoke the truth just now… perhaps that’s it!’ she cries, her eyes widening.

‘Cat, love, you’re not making sense…’

‘She should come here, and take this job. I hate it… I can’t stand it. It’s all lies and… and captivity! But Tess doesn’t fight things like I do. She would be a good maid to them, and grateful as people would say she should be. They must hire her!’

‘And where will you go, if they do? They’ll not keep you both on, I’ll warrant,’ George asks, frowning slightly and catching Cat’s hands as she gesticulates wildly.

‘I’ll leave. I don’t care. I’ll just go… I don’t care where,’ she says, then falls still as she considers her words. ‘I can’t stay there for ever. I can’t be like Sophie Bell. I will turn mad,’ she murmurs.

‘I have an answer to this, perhaps,’ George says quietly. He lets go of her hands, crosses to the far side of the cabin where his kitbag is stowed beneath the narrow bed. He pulls it out, rummages inside for something. ‘I had meant to ask you another way, and perhaps not this evening. But still.’

‘I could find some other job, perhaps. Not as a servant. I could learn to type… Or I could work in a factory somewhere…’

‘That’s just another kind of servitude. Cat, listen to me.’ He kneels in front of her, so that their eyes are level. ‘I have the answer, I’m telling you.’ Cat frowns, struggles to focus her eyes on him, her thoughts on him. There’s a flash of silver in the palm of his hand. ‘This ring was my grandmother’s. I called in on my folk, while I was away. They’ve kept it in case I ever had need of it, which now I do.’

‘You mean to sell it? The money… would not be enough to support…’ Cat shakes her head, gazing at the thin white band.

‘No, I don’t mean to sell it, you dunce. I mean to wed you with it!’ George exclaims. Cat stares at him. ‘I mean to wed you with it, Cat. I love you, truly. I would have you with me always. And you can leave your post, if that’s what you wish. We can take rooms in Hungerford, until I can save enough for the boat… Find other work if it pleases you, or I’ll keep you, as a man should…’ In the face of Cat’s silence, George’s words stumble to a halt. He looks hard into her eyes, which are inscrutable. ‘Have you no answer for me, then?’ he says, anxiously. Cat puts her hands through his hair, runs them the length of his thick arms. She kisses his neck, his eyes, all over his face, and puts her arms around him. He is more real and alive than anything else she knows, and though she is asleep within seconds, she wonders, at the last, how she will explain her refusal.

Cat wakes, by chance alone, as the sky is turning pale silver. For a while she lies still and wonders why her back aches, and why her feet are cold, and where she is. For a while, she revels in the glorious sensation of having rested. Her stomach rumbles hotly. Then she lifts her head and sees George. No room for two people side by side on the narrow bed. He has lain all night on his back, with Cat on his stomach as though he were a mattress. He snores softly, shifts his spine when she moves, and a spike of fierce love for him startles her. Panic soon replaces it. Dawn is on its way, and she has passed the whole night fast asleep in his arms. In less than an hour she must be washed and dressed and ready to open the house and make breakfast and start the day, yet she is miles away, and has slept in her clothes which are creased and stale. And she hasn’t even got the vicar’s bicycle with her to speed the return journey. She slides to her feet as softly as she can, but George opens his eyes.

‘Where are you going?’

‘It’s morning!’ she snaps, anxiety making her curt. ‘I can’t believe I slept so long… I have to get back! They’ll notice… and I look like a vagrant!’

‘Don’t fret so… the sun’s not yet up, you’ve time.’ George sits up, twists his shoulders to free up the muscles. ‘Tell you what, for a slip of a thing you aren’t half heavy after a while.’ He smiles.

‘I can’t believe you let me sleep on like that.’

‘You needed it. I was going to wake you when it got late, but you looked so peaceful. So I shut my eyes for five minutes, and must have drifted off as well.’

Cat rakes her fingers through her hair and brushes roughly, pointlessly, at her skirt and blouse. Pulling on her shoes, she turns to climb the steps. George catches her hand.

‘Wait! Wait a second, Cat. You never did answer me. My proposal.’

‘There’s no time now, George,’ Cat says, trying to pull away and be gone.

‘Yes or no – both very short words, and quick to say,’ he counters, and his tone is guarded now. ‘I would be good to you, Cat Morley,’ he adds when she hesitates, won’t meet his eye.

‘I know it. I know you would. But I can’t marry you, George.’

‘Why not?’ he asks, his face falling. Cat hugs her arms tight around herself, suddenly cold and queasy. ‘Why not? Do you love another?’ he presses, sounding both angry and afraid.

‘No!’

‘Am I not good enough for you?’

‘You would be good enough for any woman, George, and that’s the truth,’ she says, sadly.

‘Then why won’t you marry me?’

‘Because you would own me! I won’t be owned, George! By you or anybody… bad enough that I am slave to the vicar and his wife. I would not swap that one kind of slavery for another.’

‘I’m talking of marriage, not slavery…’

‘But it’s the same thing! If you’d only heard some of the accounts I have, from women in London – how marriage has served them, how they have been treated. If I wed you it would be your right to beat me! To take my money, my children, everything I own, though God knows I own precious little… It would be your right to take your pleasure with me, whether I wanted it or not! To shut me indoors and never let me see the light of day… It would be your right to…’ She runs out of breath, and coughs; finds her hands shaking in fear at her own words.

‘I would do none of those things! Is that what you think of me?’ he asks, stricken.

‘No! I don’t think you would do any of them, George; I speak only of the state of marriage, and why I will not enter into it. With you or any man!’ she cries. ‘I will not be owned!’

From outside the boat, in the wake of her words, comes silence. George turns away from her, sits back down on the bed and does not look at her. Cat swallows, her throat parched and painful. She hesitates a moment, then climbs out of the cabin and makes her way back towards Cold Ash Holt.

The Rev. Albert Canning – from his journal

TUESDAY, JULY 18TH, 1911

Today Robin has gone up to London. He sent a telegraph ahead to propose a meeting with the upper echelons of The Society, and although he had not had a response before he left, I am sure they will be most thrilled to see the evidence he has procured here, and to think and plan in which way best to use it, to further the teaching and enlightenment of the people. It is like walking in God’s very shadow, to know such things are so close at hand. It is a constant distraction, and a glorious one. I can think of little else. I yearn to be in the meadows at dawn, with Robin at my side; to be suffused with the overwhelming sense of rightness which overcomes me at such times. Yes, I yearn for it. Afterwards, the human race, in the full light of day, seems a paltry and unworthy thing indeed. I find my parishioners almost disgust me, with their sicknesses and their impiety and their material obsessions and their lasciviousness. Bringing them to the truth would be a task indeed, and I confess, to my shame, that some selfish part of me would rather not try, and would rather keep this exquisite discovery between myself and Robin. But this is not the way of theosophy, and I must work to oppress such thoughts.

I have not been able to sleep of late. I lie awake until the birds begin to sing, captivated by thoughts of the wonders of the earth, and how close I am coming to communing with them. For knowledge is the first step to enlightenment, and from enlightenment the path to a clearer inner vision and higher consciousness unfurls. I think that I cannot sleep because my inner sight is awakening. When I do sleep, in the first hour or so after dawn, I am beset by dreams, most troubling dreams. My own human doubts and fears return to mock me, and to test my resolve. Robin Durrant’s face comes to me often in such dreams, as though he has reached out, and wishes to guide me. Even when I wake, his face remains. He is in all my thoughts, and I feel his benign influence in my every action. The days will be long indeed, and empty while he is away. I wish he had asked me to go with him, so that I could remain at his side and help him in this time of great change.

I cannot sufficiently explain the aura of blissful harmony and knowledge that emanates from the theosophist. He is an exemplary man. This is how a person should be! His patience and learning, and how in all things he is both passionate and rational. He is the actual embodiment of an unsullied human spirit. How else to explain the feelings of completeness, peace and joy when I am in his company? Hester does not understand. When she speaks of him she is petulant, and is at times foolish. I should not reprimand her for it, since she does not know the truth, and can have little understanding of such esoteric ideas. Women were ever less pious than men, ever less studious, ever less able to commit to serious thought. Wisdom is not in their make-up, and they are not to be blamed for it. Though theosophy teaches that, within The Society, no such discriminations are made between the sexes, I do not claim to agree with every one of its tenets.

While Robin is away I will go myself into the meadows, and I will recapture the quietness of spirit that first allowed me to see the elementals. I will do this. I must not fail. For if I cannot do this I am no better than the gamblers in the pub, the fornicators in the dark corners of the streets. I will fight their assaults on decency, and I will fight my own impurities, the materialistic urges that have made it impossible for me to see again what I first saw. For as Charles Leadbeater himself says, for the elementals to be near an average man is like to be assaulted by a hurricane – a hurricane that has first blown over a cesspool. I will not be an average man any longer. If I can achieve this, Robin will truly have something to come back to. A proper companion, a proper acolyte to his teachings. For he must surely come back.

1911

For a while after she wakes, Hester can’t quite place what is different. Downstairs, she hears Cat opening the shutters quietly, the gentle clonk of wood against wood as they concertina away into the panelling. The air is still, and close, and too warm. Her skin itches slightly, hot and clammy wherever the sheets touch her, and her thoughts feel drowsy and slow. Then she realises – she is not alone. For the first time in as long as she can remember, she has woken up before Albert, and he remains in bed beside her, asleep on his back with his jaw fallen slack and the tiniest of frowns puckering his brow. The soft sound of his breathing fills what would normally have been silence. It has been six days since Robin Durrant went up to London, and there has been no word from him; and while Albert seems agitated and impatient at this, Hester is pleased, and feels happier than she has in weeks. She rolls over gently so that she can lie facing him. With the curtains still closed the light coming through the thick fabric is a rich, shady ochre. Albert has kicked the covers off in the night, and lies with his legs and arms jumbled wide, carelessly. Hester smiles fondly at him as he murmurs something unintelligible, and shifts his head a little.

To sleep in, Albert wears a long, loose shirt of unbleached linen over a matching pair of trousers. These are rumpled now, from a restless night, and lie bunched and creased in a way that would be most uncomfortable had he been awake. Hester puts out her arm and rests it gently on his stomach, and then recoils in surprise. There is a hardness at his crotch, beneath the pale linen, that she has never felt before. Albert murmurs again, more softly now. Hester stares at her husband’s body, but try as she might she can’t think what form of thing it might be that would feel that way – odd and almost unnatural, as if wholly disconnected from the rest of his relaxed, supine form. With her pulse quickening, Hester, ever so gently, fumbles at the buttons that fasten Albert’s trousers. The fabric is rough and she has to use both hands, though she does so with her lip gripped in her teeth in consternation, in case he should feel it and wake. He does not. And there it is. A curve of hardened flesh, arching up to rest against the soft down of his stomach, the skin satin smooth over an array of ridges and vessels; a deep, flushed, pinkish-brown colour, and a musky smell unlike any she has ever noticed him having before.

For a second, Hester is stunned, then revolted and afraid. She thinks that perhaps this deformity is the reason her husband has never wanted to hold her, or lie truly close to her at night. She lies rigid, propped on one elbow, transfixed and bombarded with questions and anxieties. But the more she thinks about it, the more some of the things Amelia has written to her drop into place, and she begins to understand that this… state is what is needed for their bodies to enmesh with one another. And now she is witnessing it, finally, for the first time. Cautiously, with one eye on Albert’s sleeping face, she touches it, letting her fingertips brush lightly against his skin. It feels feverishly hot, satin smooth, and strange. Albert whimpers quietly and arches his spine a little, twisting as if in nightmare. Hester considers waking him, but in the end is too fascinated by this new exploration of his anatomy. She curls her hand around it and squeezes ever so slightly, testing its rigidity, trying to discern what makes it so. Albert sighs, squirming slightly beneath her caress. The thing in her hand seems to grow yet harder, and she fancies for an instant that she can feel the beat of his heart within it. Running her hand along to its tip, which feels like the finest chamois, Hester smiles, surprised and pleased to finally learn something new about her husband. If he had been shy about this organ of his, then surely now she has seen it, he will not be? A warm tingling begins between her thighs, and spreads to the pit of her stomach, and on impulse she leans over and kisses his mouth.

Albert wakes with a sharp inhalation of breath and a look of extreme bewilderment in his eyes, as if he expected to see somebody entirely different. The look persists even as he moves his head away from her slightly, and draws breath to speak. With her hand still circling his shaft, Hester feels, very precisely, the moment that its hardness begins to soften, and its size to diminish. Albert leaps away from her, scrambling from the bed and fumbling with the buttons of his trousers.

‘Hester! What are you doing?’ he cries, his voice breathless and tight, either with fear or with outrage.

‘Nothing, my love – it’s perfectly all right, really… I was so delighted to wake up beside you for once… I merely wanted to touch you, and I saw…’ She gestures at his lower body, her smile falling from her lips as she sees the thunderous expression spreading over his face.

‘Silence!’ he snaps, finishing with his fly and pulling on his dressing gown with desperate haste. He knots the cord around his middle with such ferocity that he will struggle to undo it again. ‘You must never touch me like that when I am sleeping! Or ever!’

‘But, Bertie, I only-’

‘No. We will not discuss this! We will forget it-’

‘I don’t want to forget it! Albert, this is nothing to be ashamed or… embarrassed about, my darling. It’s perfectly natural,’ she says, still hoping against a nagging uncertainty that this is so. ‘And I am your wife… we are married. There should be no secrets between us, nothing that the one does not understand about the other…’ She trails into silence. Albert goes to the window and throws the curtains wide, as if inviting the world in, unwilling to be alone with his own wife. His arms hang limply at his sides, fingers flexing occasionally.

‘It was most improper and… indecent of you, to touch me like that!’ he says, his voice charged with some emotion she cannot define.

‘Bertie, please-’

‘We will not speak of it,’ he says.

‘But I want to speak of it! We must start to talk about these things, Albert, or remain forever in the dark!’ she cries in desperation.

‘What do you mean, in the dark? It’s you who will bring darkness upon this house, with such indecency!’

‘Indecency? Is it indecent for a wife to touch her husband – the man to whom God has joined her? Is it indecent to want to live as man and wife, rather than as… brother and sister? You are a man of the cloth, Albert. I know it, and I respect it. But you are not a monk! What is the point of marriage if not to allow us to… lie together, and touch one another, and to make a family, Albert?’ Her voice shakes with emotion.

Albert stands and stares at her for some time, his jaw working, knotting at the corners. ‘You don’t understand… how could you?’ he says at last, his voice hard and low.

‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand this, and increasingly I don’t understand you, Bertie, or what I have done to make you treat me in this way… Please, explain it to me!’

‘I… I have always been kind to you, haven’t I? And a good husband?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Then please, Hetty, don’t pester me like this all the time! Is this… physicality all you want from me? Are you so desperate for it that you’re willing to steal it from me, against my knowledge while I sleep? Like the worst kind of wanton strumpet?’

‘How can you accuse me like that? How can you use the word wanton when I, your wife of over a year, am still a maid?’ she gasps at him, struggling to speak as sobs take a stranglehold on her.

Albert’s face is pale, and shining with sweat. He looks unwell. ‘I… I’m sorry,’ he says at last, quietly. His eyes are wide and unfocused. He swallows, and looks down at Hester as she weeps as though she is a wild and unknowable animal. At length, he turns and walks slowly away towards his dressing room, and Hester flings out her hand, clutches the fabric of his robe.

‘Albert, wait! Please, don’t go… stay and talk to me!’ she begs.

‘Now, now, Hetty,’ Albert murmurs vaguely. ‘I must get ready.’ He goes into his dressing room and shuts the door, his expression both fraught and distant.

Kneeling on the bed, Hester puts her hand over her mouth and catches the musky smell of him clinging to her skin. She is still sobbing, and though she tries to stop she can’t. She shivers in the warm room, and sits until these symptoms ease. In their place come confusion, and doubt, and desolation; and with them the new, unwelcome realisation that it had been when he’d opened his eyes and seen her that Albert’s state of arousal had waned. Hester moves to the edge of the bed, and sits with her feet dangling over it. She ought to get up, and get dressed for breakfast, but it all seems so pointless. Entirely as pointless as she feels herself to be.

Cat hears the jeering before she sees the unfortunate butt of the abuse. She has walked to Thatcham, and posted letters and a parcel for Hester, and now has to pick up fresh meat from the butcher. This she has to do more regularly than ever, since the weather continues to seethe and stew, and they can’t keep it from spoiling at The Rectory. After more than a day hanging in the well it comes up silvery green, and slick with a wet shine that greases the fingers, smells sharp and vinegary, and turns the stomach. As Cat walked past George’s boat, just now, her heart lurched and her throat went dry. But the cabin door was firmly shut, with no sound from within or signs of its occupant. She walked on past with a slight fluttering in her stomach – butterfly wings of panic, threatening to grow stronger. She wonders what they mean. At the far end of The Broadway, where a wide open area between the flanking rows of shops forms something of an unmade square, a plump woman is standing on a rickety wooden platform. Her bonnet is no match for the powerful sun, and her face is flushed and shining. It’s the colours that draw Cat’s eye, make her catch her breath: a banner of white, green and purple hanging in swags behind the woman; a sash to match, draped over her; ribbons in the colours hanging limp in the still air. Arise! Go Forth and Conquer! the banner reads, painted by hand in purple letters that stand bold from the white sheet. A smaller placard propped beside her reads Newbury WSPU – Bicycle Corps. Licking her dry lips, and with a strange longing inside – almost like when her mother died, though not as strong – Cat makes her way over to the crowd.

It’s mostly men making all the noise, though some women join in too; laughing, passing remarks to one another, firing scandalised looks through their eyelashes. Those folk at the front of the crowd who might have wanted to hear the speech have little chance to. The strain of making herself heard above the din is forcing the plump woman to fight for breath.

‘As Mrs Pankhurst herself explained… as Mrs Pankhurst herself explained, the vote is first of all a symbol! Firstly, a symbol; secondly a safeguard; and thirdly, it is an instrument! Sisters! Comrades! Your lives will never improve until the government of this country is made accountable to you all!’ she shouts, to a fresh round of whistles and abuse. The speaker, short in stature with curly brown hair and a wide, gentle face, casts a glance over the hostile crowd with a helpless look in her eyes. ‘The vote is the instrument by which we may redress the imbalances in education, and law, and employment, all three of which remain to this day weighted so very heavily in favour of the male sex!’ she says, the words all but lost in the din. ‘They say that men and women occupy two different spheres of existence – the home for women, and work and government for men – and that these spheres have been ordained by God, and should remain separate. They say that the political world is too dirty and raucous a one for women. Well, if the home may benefit from a woman’s gentle nurturing and purity, then surely public life could not help but be benefited by the same? If it is so dirty and raucous, then let us cleanse and civilise it!’ she cries gamely.

‘Be quiet!’ Cat says, the words seeming to arrive directly upon her tongue, without first passing through her brain.

‘Yeah, stop your mouth up!’ a man next to her says, looking down at her and grinning his approval.

‘No… you, all of you! Let her speak! Haven’t you the least common decency?’ Cat shouts.

‘Oh, Christ, here’s another one,’ the man mutters to a friend, stepping away from Cat and eyeing her coldly.

‘Let her speak!’ she shouts again, louder now. A few more people turn to look at her. The speaker struggles bravely on, but Cat can no longer hear her. There is a buzzing in her ears that has nothing to do with the jostling crowd or the rising tide of their voices. The stink of sweat and sweltering skin is everywhere. The air tastes used, soiled; commingled breath, hot vapours and sour mood. The man beside her and his friend begin to sing, linking their arms and tipping back their heads in music hall parody.

‘Put me upon an island where the girls are few; put me among the most ferocious lions at the zoo; put me in a prison and I’ll never, never fret; but for pity’s sake don’t put me near a bleedin’ suffragette!’ they carol, and fall about laughing at their own cleverness. At the mention of prison, Cat feels a black fury building in her chest, bitter as bile.

‘Shut up! Shut your mouths, you worthless whoresons!’ she spits at them.

‘Here, you want to watch that tongue of yours, slut. It’ll get you in trouble,’ the first man tells her bleakly, through tight lips. He holds his finger, thick and dirty, right up to her face, and she slaps it away. Just then, a scream from the stage causes a momentary hush to fall. The speaker is looking down in horror at her white skirts, now streaked with red juices. Someone in the crowd has pelted her with a handful of rotting tomatoes, and they cling to the fine muslin; blackened seeds and flecks of skin and pulp.

‘Good shot!’ a man shouts, to much laughter.

‘Really, I…’ The speaker falters. ‘I have every right to come here and speak to you, and speak I shall!’ she rallies, but her voice lacks the courage of her words.

Cat pushes her way through the wall of people, and as she climbs onto the platform more missiles are launched. Eggs land with soggy little crunches, and one hits Cat on her arm as she straightens up, turns to the crowd. Breathing hard, she glances at the stranger, whose face is pinched and startled. The woman’s eyes dart nervously from Cat to the crowd. Cat grabs her hand and turns full face to the crowd’s contempt.

‘Shame on you! Shame on all of you! We’re not afraid of you! You can’t just shout abuse and expect us to go away! We’re not children!’ she shouts. She ducks to one side as more festering fruit is thrown, and an empty beer bottle, sticky and brown. ‘That’s your answer, is it, when a woman speaks up for herself? Attack her! Wound her! No doubt you treat your wives and daughters the same way, since that’s the only way men can continue to impose their illegitimate domination of women!’ Her voice grows louder, hoarse with fury. The speaker hangs from her hand, astonished.

‘Our wives have better sense than to stand about in public shouting about things they know nothing of!’ one man calls up at her.

‘And how can they know anything about it? About politics, or education, or their rights, when they spend all their time in the home, addling their brains with housework and the raising of children?’ she demands.

‘And who else should do those things, then? Their menfolk?’ This to general laughter.

‘I say-’ The speaker tries to interject, but Cat squeezes her hand tighter.

‘Why the bloody hell not?’ she shouts. But this is the final straw, and more objects and insults are thrown, and Cat cannot hear her own words for the cacophony of abuse and name hurling, though she knows she is shouting because her throat aches with it, and the speaker is pulling to free her hand, which Cat will not relinquish; and somewhere behind it all she hears police whistles blowing, and then a dead rat hits her legs, stinking, its eyes filmy and its tongue a dry curl between snarling teeth, brown fur matted with filth on which flies resettle, almost at once. It smells sweet and rank and putrid, so strong that for a moment Cat falters, clamps her teeth together to keep the stench out.

‘Oh, good Lord.’ The speaker quails, the blood draining from her face. She sits down heavily, her eyes sliding out of focus, legs splayed inelegantly. A smattering of laughter comes from the crowd, and Cat grinds her teeth in fury. Kicking the rat to one side she bends down, picks up what she can of the eggs and vegetables and hurls them back at the crowd, shouting furious curses at them all the while. She aims the beer bottle at the head of a man whose eyes are streaming with mirth, forcing him to duck hurriedly. It shatters into pieces on the street behind him, and he flinches as a fragment hits his cheek, makes a tiny cut there.

‘Let that wipe the smile from your face, you son of a bitch!’ Cat yells at him. She keeps it up as long as she can, trading insults and missiles with the raucous crowd until heavy hands clamp around her limbs and she is carried off, twisting like a snake.

Cat’s upper arms are tender, and she touches them tentatively. Rolling up her sleeves, she finds bruises shaped like finger marks, dotting her skin like tokens of some plague. The lock-up at the police house is cool, the walls constructed of thick stone and coated in cream-coloured paint that bulges and cracks into craters in places; but Cat can’t appreciate the respite. She can’t even worry that she has jeopardised her position, has jeopardised everything, by losing her temper that way. All she can do is sit on the hard wooden chair and stare up at the tiny window with its dirty pane of glass behind strong metal mesh, and take her thoughts away, far away so that she does not panic. She must be anywhere, anywhere else but locked in a cell. The bitterness of bile burns in the back of her throat, and cold sweat trickles between her breasts to her stomach, seeping into the waistband of her skirt. If she were to pay attention, if she were to acknowledge her incarceration, she might lose her mind; burn out like a match in an instant of pure fear and be nothing but cinders, charred remains of herself. Frowning in concentration, she makes sure she is anywhere else but there…

She is in the house where she grew up, as they carry her mother downstairs and out to the waiting hearse. She had waited at first, and not told anybody that her mother had died. She didn’t know what she would do next; she didn’t want to start life again without her. Her mother had said somebody would come for her, when the time came. Cat had twisted and tried to turn away, but her mother had insisted, her eyes fever-bright, the whites gone grey, pupils huge in the shadowy room.

‘No, you must listen. This is important. When the time comes, somebody will come and collect you. You’re to go with her, and do as you’re told. Do you understand? It’s all arranged. It’s the best I can do for you. You will be looked after there. The Gentleman of the house…’ She paused, her voice little more than a whisper, and fought to keep a storm of coughing at bay. Cat willed her to succeed. She could not bear the agony these fits caused her mother. ‘It is a good place. The Gentleman of the house…’ she tried again, but this time succumbed to the fit, and was too exhausted afterwards to speak any more. So Cat, when she died, waited. She waited, and she wondered, but did not care, what would happen next. And when a neighbour had called round the next morning, and found her alone, and when they had taken her mother out, a strange woman did appear in the doorway. Buttoned tightly into a black coat, her face motionless beneath steel-grey hair, looking as though it had never worn a smile in a lifetime.

‘You’re to come with me now, young lady. Do you understand?’ she asked. Mute, Cat nodded. ‘This is what your mother, God rest her soul, has arranged for you. Go now and pack up your things. Others will see to the rest. Go on, now,’ the woman said. Cat did not want to. She wanted to go with her mother, even with her shut away in a box, even with her body so very empty and silent and wrong. She did not want to go with this hatchet-faced woman with her thin, censorious lips or her spidery hands. Mrs Heddingly. But her mother had told her to, so she went…

When the door is opened some time later – she has little idea how much time – Cat does not break off her reverie. Only when the police constable shakes her shoulder, tentatively, as if she might explode, does she blink. She twists her head, hears him speak.

‘Come on, I haven’t got all day. Or do you want to stay in here, is that it?’ Behind him the door is open, and Cat is up in an instant, bolting through it without a word. She runs headlong into George.

‘Cat! Steady, girl! You’re all right, are you? Not hurt?’ he asks, holding her easily with one solid arm, though she would have run right by him, out into the sunlight.

‘George! They locked me in!’ she gasps.

‘Hush, hush, I know they did. But you’re out now. Slow down, Cat. Look around you,’ he says, softly. Cat does as she is told, taking a deep breath. She is in the front room of the police station, and behind George the door is wide open, the street dazzlingly bright.

‘You’re letting me go?’ she asks the constable who roused her just now.

‘This time. But just you stay out of trouble, you hear? I’ve heard rumours about you, Miss Morley. We’ve no need for any more of your public exhibitions, understand?’

‘But… they wouldn’t let her speak. She had a right to speak! And… they threw things – a dead rat, for God’s sake! At two defenceless women!’ she cries. ‘Are you going to lock up the man who threw that, are you?’

‘If I knew who it was that threw it, aye, I would. And you hardly strike me as the defenceless type, I must say. Luckily, Mrs Hever has spoken up for you, and told us you were only trying to protect her from the crowd’s… hostility. And George Hobson here has… vouched for you. So you can go.’ He scratches absently at his moustache with one hand. Sweat glazes his face and is staining the stiff collar of his shirt. ‘This heat,’ he mutters. ‘It’s turning people frenzied, I do believe. Go on and begone with you, and I don’t want to see your face again. Things might not go so smoothly if I do.’ He dismisses them. George marches Cat from the room before she can speak again.

They walk in silence for a minute or two. The Broadway is all but deserted now; the sun dipping in the west, growing fat and glowing, honey-coloured. At the south end of the street a scattering of debris is all that remains of the trash that was hurled at the WSPU speaker. Cat can smell her own sweat, sharp and rank. She stinks of the fear that gripped her inside the cell, rather than from the heat. George walks with his eyes down and his shoulders tense. Cat peers up at him, tries to read him.

‘You vouched for me? What does that mean? What did you say?’ she asks him, hesitantly.

George shrugs, puts one hand in his pocket and then takes it out. ‘I said you were my woman,’ he says, gruffly. ‘I said I would keep you out of trouble.’

At this, Cat can’t help but smile. ‘Oh, really?’ She knocks him playfully with her elbow. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

But George does not smile back at her. His eyes are troubled.

‘Please, Cat. I can’t afford to bail you another time,’ he says, then pulls himself up short, and clamps his lips tight together.

‘You can’t afford to? What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. Forget I said it.’

‘George – did you have to pay that man, to let me go?’ she whispers. George aims a kick at a pebble in the road, sends it bumping into the verge.

‘Perhaps he would have let you go anyway. Later today or tomorrow. Or perhaps not.’

‘How much?’

‘Never mind it.’

‘How much, George? Tell me,’ she demands.

‘I won’t. Enough,’ is all he says. Cat stops walking and hangs her head in shame, tears blurring the image of her feet in their dusty shoes.

‘But… your boat, George! You shouldn’t have done it!’ she says, the words sticking in her throat.

‘I had to, Cat. You were locked up! I knew… I knew how you would be feeling. I didn’t know if you could manage it… and I couldn’t bear the thought of it.’

‘But you shouldn’t have! I can’t repay it! We can’t get it back!’

‘I’ll make it back. It’ll just take more time,’ he says, grimly. ‘Perhaps I’ll sell that ring, as you suggested. If you’ll not wear it. A small sum, indeed, but a start, I suppose.’

‘George…’ she whispers, turning to face him. She puts her arms around his middle, not caring who might see; lays her face against his chest and feels the mass of him through his shirt, the deep, steady beat of his heart. ‘I’ll not be your wife, but I am your woman. Just as you said. If you still want me.’ The words muffled and sad.

George grips her shoulders, gives her a little shake. ‘Of course I still want you! I’ll always want you! I’ve never known anyone like you. But we must wed, Cat! I want you as my wife. And it’s sinful not to-’

‘Sinful? I don’t believe in it.’

‘Well, I do. And so does God. Marry me, Cat!’ he says, taking her face in his hands, not letting her look away. But he can read the refusal in her eyes, and she sees it, so she does not need to answer him. She is adamant.

‘I will find the money to give back to you, George – no, I will!’ she insists, when he shakes his head. ‘I will find it. And I am yours, whether you would have me or not,’ she adds; and finds, to her shock, that it’s the possibility he might say no that causes panic to flutter inside her.

Hester hears Mrs Bell’s voice, loud and sharp, coming up the cellar steps, so she knows that Cat has made it back to The Rectory at long last. It has been five hours since she was sent for meat, and to the post. Steeling herself, Hester goes down the steps and into earshot of the tirade.

‘… and after all of it, you come back with no beef! What am I supposed to make for dinner, with no beef? Answer me that, little miss good-for-nothing!’

‘I said I was sorry… I got held up! I couldn’t help it, and then the butcher had shut up shop-’

‘Sorry isn’t going to feed the five of us, now, is it? You’re a useless slattern, Cat Morley, and I’ll tell you another thing-’

‘Mrs Bell, that’s quite enough,’ Hester says, as calmly as she can. The housekeeper visibly bites her tongue, her nostrils flaring, and settles into her chins with a sulphurous expression. Faced with her glittering eyes, Hester feels herself flinch. Cat, in contrast, looks pale and exhausted, her clothes dusty and creased, her hair out of its pins, matted. ‘Cat, would you come with me, please?’ Hester says, and turns to go back upstairs. She thinks for a moment that the girl is not following her, but when she turns to look there she is, treading so softly that she makes no sound. More like a wraith than a person.

Hester leads the way into the drawing room and then turns to stand with her hands clasped in front of her. She has been rehearsing the wording of a reprimand for the past three hours of the blazing afternoon, never having had to give one before – not a proper one. But now it comes to it, it hardly seems appropriate. Cat sways slightly on her feet, her face slack, utterly expressionless. Hester notices blood around several of her fingernails, where they have been torn off too close to the quick, and a purple-grey bruise spreading along one collarbone where it juts through the open collar of her blouse. Two buttons are missing from the blouse.

‘Heavens, child! What happened to you?’ she exclaims, filling with concern rather than ire. ‘Were you set upon?’

Cat blinks, and takes a long, deep breath. Hester fancies she sees thoughts flickering fast behind those dark eyes, as if the girl is phrasing her response quite carefully.

‘In a way, madam. I am most sorry to be so late back, and not to have got the meat for dinner tonight-’

‘Never mind the meat. Mrs Bell will think of something, I’m sure. Just tell me what kept you?’

‘There was a woman in town… she was giving a speech. Mrs Hever, she was called. Only the crowd was most discourteous, and wouldn’t let her have her say. They called her all sorts of names, and they threw rotting food at her, and… and a dead animal, madam, which made her faint. I stood up for her.’

‘You stood up for her? How do you mean?’

‘I… stood next to her, and I… told them to let her speak. But they would not. The police came, and I was made to wait in the police house until… Mrs Hever had come to speak up for me. Then they said I could go. But I could not have got away sooner, madam, or I would have,’ Cat says, and sounds sincere enough. For the first time since her arrival, Hester sees some definite, unambiguous expression on her face – anxiety. The girl is deeply troubled by something.

‘I see. And, tell me, what was it the woman was speaking about in the first place? Or trying to?’

‘It was… she was… from the Newbury WSPU. Come to talk about the vote,’ Cat answers, reluctantly.

‘I see. Cat,’ Hester sighs, ‘it will not do. That is all behind you, and there it must stay. No, no – I dare say you were indeed acting honourably towards this Mrs Hever, and it sounds as though the good people of Thatcham were behaving far from honourably in return. But though my husband and I were quite willing to hire a maid with a troubled past, I am not sure we would be able to keep one with a troubled present. Do you understand? Here, you are our maid of all work, and as such you cannot also be a suffragette. Cat? I must stress this. Put it out of your mind. It will not do…’

‘I cannot change the way I think, madam,’ Cat replies, her voice low but strung tight with emotion. ‘Though I may not take part in the campaign, I must be allowed to think as I see fit!’

‘Well! Your thoughts are your own, indeed; though I might find them unnatural…’

‘It’s not unnatural for women to want control of their own lives, their own destinies, madam… it is not unnatural for them to want to better things for themselves, and their daughters after them…’

‘They may by all means want those things. But these militant tactics… this unwomanly behaviour only goes to show that the gentler sex is not fitted for government, nor politics. Women would do better to make sound marriages, and encourage their menfolk to fight to improve the country for everybody. We are angels of the hearth, Cat; not warriors of the battlefield. God ordained it thus, and thus it should ever be. I am quite sure that by improving her husband, by soothing him and imparting a feminine softness to some of his masculine fire, a woman would make far greater gains than she might by… smashing windows and behaving like a common thug…’ Hester takes a deep breath, and glances at Cat to find the girl’s face registering something like pity, or perhaps contempt. Either way, she wipes it quickly, and reverts to her customary glassy stare. ‘Anyway. Go and get yourself cleaned up. I can see you’re very worn out. I would say to rest this evening, but Mr Durrant is due back in time for dinner so I fear we will need your help. Take half an hour now to wash and rest, and let us hear no more about this. Or again in the future. It’s fortunate that my husband has been addressing his pastoral duties all afternoon, and was not around to learn about any of this.’

‘Robin’s – Mr Durrant is coming back again, this evening?’ Cat asks. Hester glances at her sharply, and though the neutral look is there, something else that she cannot read is written in the maid’s eyes.

‘He is,’ she replies, and cannot keep her own discomfort quiet. It makes her voice higher than normal and pinches the words uncomfortably, makes the phrase slightly shorter than she means it to sound.

‘You must be so pleased,’ Cat says, and an expression passes swiftly over her face, just for a fraction of a second – a twitch of the brows, and one corner of her mouth – that loads her statement with irony.

Hester’s cheeks colour slightly, and she is not sure how to answer. ‘Indeed,’ she says.

With Cat gone from the room, Hester crosses to the window. At least, she thinks, she has dealt with the little crisis calmly and sensibly, and all can now return to harmony. Keeping the house running smoothly, and keeping the servants cheerful and discreet about their work is very much a part of being a wife. It does not do to allow your husband to witness housework half done, laundry half dry, or the servants bickering or being reprimanded. She is glad Albert stayed away, so she could deal with the matter efficiently, away from the tin-tack gaze of Sophie Bell. She looks out at the parched garden, where her crimson roses are dropping petals like waxy tears onto the lawn.

It is no good. She can’t convince herself, even with this piece of wisdom, that she is glad Albert has been out all afternoon. Since she woke him with her unwelcome caress… since she set eyes upon that one part of his anatomy that until then had been such a mystery, he has been more out of the house than in it, and his early mornings have begun again. So early that she woke that morning to find it still dark outside but her husband already up and gone. She has no idea where he has gone, or why, since he no longer talks to her about his day. She watches a blackbird dash a snail to death on the flagstones of the path. The sharp crack crack crack of its last moments feel like fine fractures shooting through her thoughts, splintering them until none make any sense. Something has gone very, very wrong, and is driving a wedge between Albert and herself, but she can’t tell exactly what it is, nor see a way to make things right.

Cat deliberately doesn’t look at Robin Durrant as she serves them their dinner. The vicar is all animation. He has burnt the skin across his nose and cheeks, giving him a look of constant excitement. He asks question after question about who the theosophist has spoken to, and what they have said, and what is to be done next about the grand design to bring truth to the masses, and whether Robin would review the pamphlet he has been working on regarding their discoveries. Robin’s answers seem somewhat subdued in comparison to the vicar’s urgent questions, and it is only with great force of will that Cat can keep herself from studying him, from trying to find the truth of things in his face when she knows it’s not to be found in his words. She knows where to meet him, and later, when she goes out to the courtyard, she sees him waiting in the far corner, smoking, pacing; his shoulders hunched.

‘Well? How well did they swallow your lie?’ Cat asks him, smiling mirthlessly. Robin shoots her a censorious look, flicks open his packet of cigarettes and offers her one. She takes it, holds it between her lips as he lights it, cupping his hand to shelter the match from a lively breeze that comes curling through the courtyard, blessedly cool.

‘You make it sound awful,’ he says, distractedly. He shifts from foot to foot, as if at any second he might be called upon to run, or fight.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No! All I have manufactured is a representation of the truth. A tangible proof, for those that struggle to accept the more intangible ones…’

‘Manufactured. Everything that needs saying about this sorry matter is in that one word. And you know it,’ Cat says, blandly. She takes a long pull on the cigarette, exhales blue smoke into the streaming air. Robin smiles, and then laughs shortly.

‘Do you know, it’s almost a relief to hear you speak of it? Such decisive dismissal, when all I’ve heard for days has been prevarication and dithering and uncertainty,’ he says.

‘They didn’t go for it?’

‘Some did, but not altogether; some wanted to, but weren’t quite able; some didn’t, but thought it was possible…’ He shakes his head. ‘It did not go quite as I had hoped, no. I think more is required.’

‘More?’ Cat asks, instantly on her guard.

‘I might need you again, Cat. Some members of The Society hinted that… perhaps the image of the elemental had been painted onto the film before development. Though I am no artist, as I tried to explain. Maybe they think I have an accomplice. They might send somebody to witness the production of another set of pictures, if I succeed in meeting and photographing the elemental again…’ he says, letting the implication of this linger.

‘That could be interesting. It might be hard to explain me away, in my wig and chiffon gown.’

‘No, no. Nobody can be present for the actual capturing of the image, obviously. But I can argue that case easily. A stranger would upset the equilibrium, and cause the spirit to remain hidden. Their expert could then come with me into the dark room… yes. I may have need of you again, Cat.’

‘Why do you fight so hard for this?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Men. Why do you fight so hard to carve your names into history? To… leave some mark of yourselves for after you’ve gone?’

‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’

‘Isn’t it? You tried poetry, you tried politics… now you will try theosophy, and you will perjure yourself to succeed at it. Why not just live, and let it be? You will die and be forgotten, just like the rest of us,’ she says, shrugging one shoulder and regarding him through lowered eyelashes. Robin blinks, seems taken aback by her words.

‘I don’t want to be forgotten. I…’ He raises his hands, at a loss. ‘Is that the difference between men and women then? Is that why men excel, while women just exist? Why it’s the names of men that last for ever in history?’

‘Nothing lasts for ever. Haven’t you read Ozymandias?’

‘Keats?’ he asks, and Cat shakes her head.

‘Shelley. But the joke’s on you. On men. Women are immortal. We leave traces of ourselves in our children, and our children’s children;while men are out trying to be the first to claim a mountain.’

‘Oh? And aren’t there traces of the fathers in these children as well?’

‘Yes, if the man troubles himself to imprint upon them. If he’s not too busy trying to claim a mountain. Or discover fairies. Perhaps you might consider this as a better way to immortality than posing a housemaid in a costume, and lying to the world?’

‘Settle down and take a wife and spawn a few brats? I think not. But I will be immortal, Cat. I will make my name, and a name that will always be remembered. Even when the world turns and my brothers’ heroics seems commonplace, this will be remembered.’

‘You would do all this for sibling rivalry?’ Cat asks incredulously. ‘How sad.’

‘Who are you to pass judgement on me, Cat Morley? Perhaps nobody will ever remember who you were, but with me you have the chance to be part of something truly world-changing,’ Robin says, still pacing restlessly, a few steps one way and then the other.

‘Well.’ Cat takes another long pull on her cigarette, thinks for a moment. She tips back her head to exhale, watching clouds pour overhead, caught by the wind. It’s not yet wholly dark, and faint slivers of the palest blue show here and there through plumes of indigo. ‘I might have something to say about that,’ she says.

Robin stops pacing and watches her closely, his expression hardening. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It seems to me that I am acting as your model. That I am the only person who can act as your model.’

‘And?’

‘And I believe it is customary for models – be they working for artists or photographers – to receive remuneration,’ she says, meeting his gaze and not wavering.

‘And pay you I do, with my silence; with my collaboration in your wanton behaviour,’ he says, his smile twisting to one side, and cold.

‘Well, I believe that… my silence is every bit as important as yours, now. Even more important, perhaps. I have the option to leave here, you see. I have a proposal of marriage. There is little you can do to punish me, should I choose to speak out about your photographs; and yet I think it would cost you dear if I did.’

‘A proposal of marriage? But where is your ring?’ Robin snaps, his face thunderous.

‘Being fetched down from his mother’s place,’ she lies quickly.

‘Tsk tsk, a badly prepared proposal indeed,’ Robin says. He turns away from her on his heel, thrusts his hands into his pockets and throws back his head. He stays this way for some moments as Cat waits, heart bumping painfully against her ribs, bending all her will to an outward show of resolute calm.

Finally, Robin Durrant turns back to her, so suddenly that she jumps. Snaps his head around like a bird of prey.

‘Very well. I can see you have me backed against the wall on this occasion. What is the going rate for a photographer’s model, do you think?’ he asks, his voice flat with anger.

‘For a model who must hold her tongue for ever more… twenty pounds.’

‘Twenty p- You’ve lost your mind!’ Robin exclaims, his voice falling sharply from a shout to a furious whisper. ‘If I had that kind of money to throw at serving girls I wouldn’t be back here lodging with the bloody Cannings, I can tell you!’

‘The rest of my life is a long time to keep silent. I am the very linchpin of this career you wish to build, I am the key to your lasting fame-’

‘You’re a brazen villain, Cat, to threaten me like this-’

‘You threatened me first, remember? More fool you if you thought I would take it lying down.’

‘Ten pounds, and not a shilling more. I mean it, Cat. Don’t push me,’ he says, standing so close that she must tip back her head to look at him. She can almost hear his heart beating, loud with outrage.

‘Up front. Soon. Before we take any more pictures.’

‘Half now. You’ll have it when I’ve been to the bank tomorrow. Half when we take the next set of pictures.’

‘When will that be?’

‘I can’t say. They will dither some more and take their time to find the right kind of expert to send down to me, I’m sure, once I have suggested the plan. Two weeks, perhaps three.’

‘Agreed.’ Cat smiles. ‘I look forward to receiving my back pay, for services already rendered.’ She turns to go but Robin’s hand strikes out, fast as a snake, and grips her arm to prevent her.

‘If you run off with your fancy man before I have taken more pictures then I warn you, Cat Morley, I will find you and make you pay for it,’ he says, so calmly and assuredly that Cat goes cold. She holds her breath to hide a shiver, and refuses to flinch even though his fingernails are gouging into her skin. After a silent struggle she pulls her arm free, and glares at him.

‘Be careful, theosophist. Karma might catch you up if you did. And my betrothed has twice your weight and reach.’ She fights to keep her voice even when she wants to shriek at him. Her legs feel weak and unreliable. As she turns to go inside, she sees Hester at the window on the stairs overlooking the courtyard. She has seen them talking, stands watching with her face close to the glass to cut out the reflection of the bright lights behind her. Talking is no crime, nor smoking; and yet Cat shivers again, and pretends not to see her, turning her face to her feet as she walks quickly through the door. Again the breeze comes, and lifts the black lengths of her hair, running curious fingers over her scalp, examining, questioning, making her conspicuous.

The next night, Cat knows where to find George. He has a bet to make, though he has a shipment to take west, early the next day – gravel to be moved to Bedwyn for the building of new houses. A few fine spots of rain are falling, hitting her face as she pedals hard, the bicycle clattering along the towpath, skidding here and there on loose stones. Cat squints into the darkness. With the heavy cloud, with no moon or stars, she can hardly see the way. She is upon the bridge before she knows it, the sudden hunched black shape of it looming in front of her, and behind it the weak glow of Thatcham’s street lights. Braking hard, Cat slides to a halt. She dismounts, carefully stashes the bicycle in the bushes at the foot of the bridge, where nobody would see it without first stepping on it; and runs steadily the rest of the way to The Ploughman.

The doorman and the publican know her now, and instead of barring her way they nod, mutter a good evening. A few people inside turn to look at her, to gawk at the girl with the shorn-off hair, who wears no corsets and is rumoured to have slit the throat of her lover, her employer, her father; to have set fire to a church in London; to have robbed a shop, a bank, the mail train; to have done things so awful that the vicar’s wife is too scared to mention them. Cat’s blouse is damp, and sticking to the skin of her back. Catching her breath, she goes straight through to the back room, into the familiar, claustrophobic stink and roaring din, where bodies cram and press all around and her nostrils fill at once with the pervasive reek of liquor and humankind. It is familiar now, almost dear to her; so far removed from the quiet sounds and cooking smells of The Rectory, from the soapy aroma of clean laundry, the gentle souring of milk in the kitchen, the hot fusty smell of the hallway rugs where the long ticking clock marks the passing of life with the slow swing of its pendulum.

It’s no boxing match tonight, but a fight of another kind. Behind the curses and shouts of the audience, shrill shrieks and cackles can be heard, ugly and enraged. Cat crouches slightly, her face at the height of the men’s hips, and through their jostling bodies she can see the cocks, their feathers fluffed, combs bright red and droplets of blood flying from the spurs on their legs. Bright eyes, flat with hate; their beaks open and panting. They thrust and parry and crane their necks, dancing and stabbing at one another. Across the ring, Cat sees George watching the fight, his face serious. She makes her way around to him, touches his arm to greet him.

‘Why do they fight?’ she asks, curiously.

‘Why do dogs bark? It’s what they do. Two males cannot abide to be near each other.’ George shrugs. ‘Come here to me.’ He puts his arms around her waist, tightens them. ‘You choose, then.’

‘Choose?’

‘Say which bird will win and I’ll bet a penny on it,’ George says. ‘I can’t decide on a winner.’ The heat in the room has put a mottling of dark flecks on the shirt over his chest. Cat puts her hand on the fabric, feels the damp heat of his skin. George leans into her touch, a look of wanting in his eyes. Smiling sharply at him, Cat turns back to the ring. She watches the birds fight for a moment, their bronze and gold feathers shaking, flying; black claws at the ends of grey, scaly legs. Cat has never seen two animals so set upon each other’s destruction. There is none of George’s measured grace in the way they fight. Only the urge to maim and kill.

‘That one,’ she says in the end, pointing to the slightly smaller bird, whose wings are greenish-black.

‘Are you sure? It looks to be coming off worst.’

‘But look how furious it is about that,’ Cat points out. George calls out to a fat man who has stripped himself of his shirt, and stands upon a chair sweating and wobbling in his stained vest. The coin is passed, the bet acknowledged with a scrap of blue paper. ‘Watch him now,’ Cat says, her eyes fixed on the cut and bleeding birds.

For a while, the smaller bird continues to do badly, falling back from the repeated charges of its opponent, screeching in outrage when spurs rake its body, when its face is pecked and cut. But it never loses the mad look in its eye, and it never backs down or gives up. ‘He’s a fighter. He’ll not let himself lose, even if he dies for it,’ Cat murmurs, her words lost and unheard in the din. With a final surge of strength, the smaller bird launches itself into the air, comes down with its talons aimed at the other’s face. One spur takes out an eye, the other shears a chunk of flesh from the unlucky bird’s face, which bleeds into its remaining eye, blinding it. The wounded bird squats in defeat, shakes its head helplessly. It is soon finished off, pecked to death by the smaller bird, which then stands, wings loose, tongue poking out in exhaustion.

Cat stands mesmerised. She had not known that violence could still shock her. Mistaking her sudden silence, George looks troubled.

‘He’s better off out of it, that dead bird. With only one eye he’d have been no use. Turner would have wrung his neck, had he lived,’ he says. ‘Perhaps he would not have wanted to survive it, knowing he’d lost to a smaller bird,’ he adds.

Cat shakes her head. ‘All creatures want to live,’ she says. Frowning, George collects their winnings from the fat man, and gives half to Cat.

‘I shouldn’t have half – it was your penny.’

‘But you chose the winner. I would have picked the stronger bird for sure, and lost out.’

‘Keep the money. What would I buy with it? I can’t buy myself out of my bonds. Keep it and put it towards your boat – towards what I owe you,’ she insists, pressing the coins back into George’s broad hand. He gives her a puzzled look. ‘And here,’ she says. ‘Here’s more as well.’ She smiles, pulling her purse from her pocket and holding it out to him.

‘What’s this?’

‘I have more money for you – though I don’t know what you paid that policeman. I have some now, and I will have more later; and it’s best you don’t ask where I got it from.’

‘What money? How much, and where did you get it from?’ George asks, leading her out of the crowd towards the edge of the room, where the din is less.

‘Money for your boat. I have five pounds now, and the same again before a month is up, most likely…’ She weighs the purse in her hand. George closes his own around it, pushes it hastily into the folds of her skirt.

‘How much? And you brought the whole of it here to be picked from your pocket!’

‘Nobody has stolen it, see. It’s all there, and all for you.’

‘This is far more than I paid for you. I will not take it.’ He sets his jaw stubbornly.

‘But you will take it. And whatever you did not pay to free me, you can keep and put towards the boat. Our boat. Our future, and our freedom,’ she says, seriously. George looks hard at her, thinks for a while.

‘Then… you will marry me?’

Cat looks away, fingers the strings of the purse for a while. ‘No, George. I stick by what I said. But I will come away with you, if you, if you’ll let me. Will it be enough? When I have the other five pounds – will that be enough to take rooms, to buy the pleasure boat and begin again with it?’ she asks, eagerly.

‘It will be enough. More than enough. But-’

‘No, don’t say but! Say I can come with you! Say I can leave off this life that I hate, and that you will give me a different one.’

‘As my wife, Cat, you would have all of that and more,’ he pleads. Pressing the purse into his hand, Cat draws breath to answer but is cut off.

Shrill whistles pierce the air, and the door from the front room is pulled open with the squeal and crunch of splintering wood. Policemen rush in, blowing their whistles and holding lanterns aloft to light the winners collecting their pay, and the losers tearing up their tickets. They fan out to catch as many as they can, scurrying like beetles in their dark uniforms and helmets. In an instant, every man tries to be far from the bloodied birds, tries to be rid of his ticket if it is worthless, or to be gone with it if it will later be redeemed. There is a surge of bodies towards the back doors, which are hastily thrown open, and the crowd knocks Cat off her feet, carrying her away like a piece of driftwood.

‘Oi!’ George bellows, wading after her.

‘Stop there! Everybody, stop there!’ one of the policemen shouts. With her ribs crushed and bruised, Cat fights to regain her feet. The air is suddenly sweet and clear, and she realises she’s been carried clean out through the doors. Eyes searching, she can see no sign of George amidst the struggling bodies. More whistles are blowing, and the sound of running feet in heavy police boots echoes towards her.

The police have pushed from the front of the building, and cast a net at the back to catch the fleeing gamblers. Cat fights her way to the edge of the mêlée, dodging officers left and right. Suddenly she is barrelled from behind, by a man fleeing with his hat pulled so far over his eyes to avoid recognition that he doesn’t even see her, and cannons her to the ground. The wind is knocked from her lungs, and she stays down for a second, fighting to breathe. Then a voice rises high above the police whistles and the grunts of captured men, loud and incongruous. Cat looks up and sees Albert Canning, approaching through the darkness with a fire in his eyes that seems to light his way. He steps into the pool of light spilling from the pub and there is so little thought, yet so much conviction, suffusing his expression that Cat is chilled by it. In spite of her contempt, and the many weeks she has lived with the vicar, scarcely noticing him, she is suddenly afraid. He wears a smile quite sickly and deranged.

‘Repent! Examine you all the error of your ways! The gravity of your sins! Cast aside these foolish and perilous ways, for they are the path to your downfall, to your destruction, and to the destruction of all that is clean and pure and good in the world!’ the vicar shouts, his voice high and excited, face lit with a zeal so bright that it outshines the electric back room lights. Cat’s heart plunges into her gut, which twists in protest. She coughs, fighting for air, flinching as booted feet thunder past her, near her head and hands and legs. He must not see her. She tries to get up but too soon, and a wave of dizziness forces her back onto the dusty ground. The vicar is walking forwards slowly, one childlike step at a time. He holds aloft a gilt cross fully twelve inches high, which gleams like his eyes. Brandishing it, he inches slowly towards a pair of officers who are wrestling a man to the ground, a man who fights tooth and nail not to be taken down.

‘Leave off me, you filth! I only came down here for a pint!’ the man cries, raggedly.

‘Then what’s this betting slip in your pocket, Keith Berringer, and how come you’ve two weeks’ wages in your purse?’ one of the officers asks. ‘Been saving up for a rainy day, have you?’ he says, and his colleague laughs as rain begins to fall steadily, turning the dust to mud.

‘Repent, my son! Cast off your corrupted ways like an old skin! Be born anew in the love and fear of God!’ the vicar implores, standing as close to the struggling man as is prudent.

‘Christ! You needn’t have brought the bloody church along with you! Haven’t I enough to deal with?’ Keith Berringer complains bitterly.

‘Well, that weren’t our idea,’ one of the officers mutters in distaste, as Albert stands before them, beaming, breathing hard. Still coughing, Cat gets to her knees. She knows it would be better to turn her face away in case his gaze shifts, but she can’t take her eyes from the vicar. If he were to look down, if he were to look to his right, he would see her. Her heartbeat bangs in her temples. She is on all fours like an animal, her fingers sinking into the gritty earth as the rain wets it, her clothes filthy with it. She clenches her teeth but can’t keep another fit of coughing at bay. The spasms in her chest are agonising, and she lets her head droop down, close to the ground. For a second the noises all around recede – the whistles and shouts and stamping feet, the slamming doors and the vicar’s thrumming voice and the laughter of the police – all are lost behind a wall of muffled thumping that storms her ears. Shadows crowd her vision, sparkling with bright motes of light. Do not faint! she commands herself. She can’t be arrested, can’t be seen. Can’t be found lying helpless in the mud.

Gradually, air returns to her lungs, and she breathes more easily, and her head clears and sound comes back into vibrant clarity. She gets to her feet, and glances to her right. The vicar is looking for a new target. The police have made off with Keith Berringer, who seems keener to go with them than stay and be preached to.

‘The path to righteousness is one of purity and chastity, one of cleanliness and honesty…’ the vicar announces to fleeing figures left and right, waving the cross at them as though he can cure them with one glimpse of it. Run, now, Cat tells herself. But it is too late. She has risen into his eye line, and he turns upon her, pounces. ‘You! Young woman! You have no place here! Women are created mild, the meek vessels of subservience to Godly rule…’ His voice tails off to silence. Their eyes meet. For a second, she thinks he will not recognise her. Many are the men who would not know their own servants outside their uniforms, outside the house, least of all in the dark and muddied. But he frowns, struggles to place her, and in the second before she flees, Cat sees that he does. His eyes widen with shock.