The Unseen

12

Now that she has made up her mind, has settled things with George, Cat itches with impatience. She longs to be gone, to be away with him, and heading for the coast on a train. Not for half a day, which is all the time off she has in a week; not for one precious full day, which she is granted for each two months she works. But for two days, three, four. However long they want, with the silver-grey sea stretching to the far horizon, and the tang of salt water clinging to their skin. She thought for a while that she should give notice to Hester, give some kind of warning. But then she remembers Hester’s broken promise, to send her out to see George, and the motto she embroidered, which hangs on Cat’s wall: ‘Humility is a servant’s true dignity.’ Then I have neither, she thinks with grim satisfaction. The words repeat themselves in her thoughts, giving her face an expression of disgust, and she hardens her heart against the vicar’s wife. Let her find her breakfast table unset one morning; let her be obliged to lift a finger for once. But she finds it hard to stay angry with the woman, as she takes their dinner up to them in the evening. Hester has dark circles under her eyes, red rims around the lids. Her face is drawn, her expression stunned. She looks wholly miserable, and Cat must repress a flicker of unease, the unexpected urge to seek her out, to find out the cause of her dismay.

In the end, she tells herself that she could do nothing to help Hester, even if she knew what troubled her. She is a servant, a nonentity. Not a person, not a friend. The night is sultry again, warm and balmy, and the breeze that blows is so soft it feels like a lover’s fingertips, brushing her arms as she stands, and she smokes, and she waits for Robin Durrant to appear. She does not have to wait long. All she need do now, when she wishes to speak to him, is catch his eye at the dinner table. She kicks off her shoes as he walks towards her, feels the warm bricks of the courtyard on the soles of her feet, and the springy tufts of moss between them, like strips of fine carpet. Everything feels more real, now she knows she will be free. Everything is more alive, and brighter.

‘Well? How goes it with you, my costly model and muse?’ Robin asks, as he lights his own cigarette, pushes back the flap of his jacket and stands with his hand in his pocket, like a schoolboy.

‘I’m leaving, Robin. If you want more pictures, it must be soon. Tomorrow, or the day after.’

‘What do you mean tomorrow or the day after? The Theosophical Society hasn’t decided what to do yet, who to send down… it can’t be so soon! We’ll have to wait a bit longer…’ He frowns.

‘No, I won’t wait. I mean it, theosophist. I have plans, and I shan’t change them for you, much as I would like to collect my next wage from you. Tomorrow, or the day after,’ she insists.

‘What do you mean “leaving”, anyway? Going where? How do you plan to go anywhere when you’re watched all day long, and locked in at night?’ he says, petulantly.

‘I have my means,’ she says, and smiles. In her pocket the skeleton key sits, its weight a constant reassurance.

‘You can’t go until I’m ready! I thought we had an agreement… I thought I told you-’

‘Well, I’m tired of being told! What can you do to stop me? Come after me, when my George can knock down any man in a fifty-mile radius? If you try it, I will start talking about these pictures of yours. To anybody who will listen – and I’m sure I could find people who’d be interested to hear.’ She leans towards him, takes a slow drag of her cigarette, fixes him with a baleful stare. ‘I’m tired of being told. By you, by everybody. So now I’m telling you. For the agreed sum of money, I will let you take my picture tomorrow or the next day; and I will keep my mouth shut for ever after. That’s the last offer I’ll make to you. I’m tired of it all.’ As she speaks, Cat feels her resolve like a solid shape inside her. She will let nothing stand in her way.

Robin glares right back at her for a minute, and then breaks into a wide grin. He laughs softly, pirouettes on his heel with his head thrown back, appealing to the sky at such treatment.

‘God! I’m going to miss you, Cat!’ he says. Cat blinks, bewildered. ‘You truly are a breath of fresh air. It’s a shame we’ve met under such odd circumstances, and you a servant. I think we could have been friends,’ he says, still smiling at her.

Cat thinks about this for a moment. ‘I very much doubt it,’ she says at last. ‘You’re a liar and a hypocrite.’

‘Very well then, Black Cat. You truly are as stubborn as a cat, and as difficult to govern. The day after tomorrow, then. Dawn, at the same place. We shall capture the elemental again, and I shall have to perform some magic when they send down their witness – if they insist on supplying their own film for the camera. Some switching of frames in the dark room – voilà!’ he cries suddenly, throwing his hands wide like a magician. ‘I shall win them over yet, just you watch.’ Cat slips her shoes back on, grinds her cigarette out with her toe.

‘I won’t watch. But you carry on.’ She pauses. ‘What’s wrong with Mrs Canning? What’s happened?’ she asks, in spite of herself. Robin’s smile fades, and an expression flits over his face that Cat can’t decipher. Anger? Or guilt?

‘Oh, don’t worry about Hetty. She’ll be fine. A little marital strife, I believe,’ he says, in a stilted voice. Cat thinks to press him harder, but thinks again.

‘Don’t forget to bring the money,’ she says, and leaves him there.

Later, once Sophie Bell is safely out of earshot, Cat turns back the lock in her door. She opens it a few inches and waits for her pulse to return to normal, her breathing to grow deeper, more even. Still feeling sick, and with her head aching, she sits on the edge of the bed, uses the night stand for a table, and writes two letters.

Dear Tessy – well, I have come up with a plan, just as I promised. Soon, I will have left this place and gone away with my sweetheart, whose name is George Hobson. If you ask around, someone will know how to find us. I say this because I will write to the mistress here, before I make my escape, and beg her to send for you to replace me. I think she will do as I suggest. I have told her a little of your situation, and how we came to be arrested, and I know she will do the right thing. So expect to hear from her soon, because not this morning but the next, I am leaving with George. I can’t tell you the joy and anticipation I feel, Tess! To be making my own way from now on, and not governed by anybody. I feel as though a new life is about to begin, and one in which at last I can be happy. I’m so excited I can barely keep a straight face as I go about the chores! I hope that you will be more content here than I have been. You always were better than me. The vicar’s wife is a good woman, and always tries to be kind. But there are alternatives if you can’t settle, Tess! I met a woman at the butcher’s shop just the other day who had worked for fifteen years at Cowley Park, which is a huge house near to here. Now she works at the telephone exchange. She is a professional! And out of service. Things are changing, Tess, and only for the better I believe. However you find it here, it will be better by far than Frosham House. I will be in touch, I promise. We will see each other again soon. Look after yourself, and please be strong enough to come here, and take my post.

With my love, your friend, Cat

Mrs Canning – if you are reading this it is because you have sought me out and found me gone. I apologise that I did not give notice, but sometimes a person must follow their heart and their impulses, and strike a blow for what they believe. I can no longer live as a servant, and as a free person I leave this house without a by your leave. One thing I beg of you – please send for Teresa Kemp to be my replacement. She is in the workhouse, as I told you. It is called Frosham House, on Sidall Road in London. She is a good, sweet girl; not at all like me. Her current misfortune is all my doing and none of her own, and she will be a good girl for you, and work hard. Tell Mrs Bell to be kind to her. I know Sophie has a soft heart behind that sharp tongue of hers, and Tess will have much need of the former when she comes down. She is little more than a child, still.

I also must tell you another thing. Perhaps you have wondered at my lack of propriety, and my unwillingness to accept a life of servitude. I place the blame for this at my own door, with my own temperament, but the blame also lies with my father. He gave me an education far above my station, and taught me that there was a wide and mysterious world that I would never see. This was a grave injustice on his part. It has caused me always to question my station in life, and when I was told that my blood was to blame – my breeding that is – again he was the sticking point. My father is your uncle – the very Gentleman who sent me to you. My mother worked in his household at Broughton Street when she was younger, and they – at his behest – were lovers, and she became pregnant with me. She was forced to leave her job, of course, but my father looked after her and made sure she was provided for; and when she died I was taken into his household. My mother told me this on her deathbed, and she was a woman who never lied. Perhaps this summer you have come to learn a little more about the nature and behaviour of men, and will not find this too hard to believe. We are cousins, Mrs Canning; and if my mother thought it best that I know the truth about my parentage, nevertheless that knowledge has only ever caused me anguish. I was born neither one thing nor the other, neither gentlewoman nor servant, and so I intend to be neither, from this day onwards. I intend to make my own path.

Robin Durrant is treacherous, and not to be trusted. I think you know this already, but I say again – if you can remove him from your household, do so at once. Perhaps I have no right to offer you advice, but since we are not to meet again, I shall offer it anyway. I know something of your troubles with the vicar. A servant will learn these things, whether they would want to or no. In London there was a gentleman, a friend of my father’s, who came to visit from time to time. He only ever brought with him, as his companions, young and beautiful men, whom he kept and spoilt like pets. He found women inferior to men in all regards, and shunned their company, from his life and from his bed. If you come to suspect that your husband may feel this same way, then you will never be happy until you have left him, or accepted him as he is and sought companionship for yourself elsewhere.

Goodbye, and please mind what I have written about Teresa Kemp. You have in her an opportunity to do tremendous good. I have written a letter to her, which I will post myself, telling her to expect to hear from you. This is presumptuous of me, I know, but I trust you to do the right and charitable thing. I wish you well, and I hope you can find it in your heart to wish me the same.

Your cousin, Catherine Morley

Cat finishes these letters with cramps in her hand, the muscles more used to scrubbing than writing. She seals them into their envelopes, addresses each one, and puts Hester Canning’s on the night stand, propped up to be easily visible. She slips Tess’s into her bag, which she has packed with her few possessions, and what money she has saved. Outside the window the moon is mottled and full, as pale as fresh milk. It shines onto a landscape of graphite grey shadows and silvery outlines, and in the perfect quiet and calm, Cat sleeps.

The Rev. Albert Canning – from his journal

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8TH, 1911

This is the time. He has told me to stay away, he feels the time is right and I feel it too. He goes with his camera so I know, I know. He will summon them again, he means to take more pictures. I will go, and I will be there, and I will show that I am worthy since I will not announce myself, I will let him go about his great work all undisturbed, and when the images are captured I will reveal that I was there with him, and this will prove that I am ready, and I am pure, and that the elementals can look into the heart of me and will find that I am all I should be. This night has been long but I have waited it out. And all my nights in the meadows were not wasted. Without the sun’s energy the ethereals stay hidden – just as the daisy curls its petals, and shuts its eyes to the darkness, so they sleep. But I have spent long hours, alone and cloaked in darkness, and I have studied my soul and my heart, and I have looked inwards and I have rooted out all lust and material desire, and all the wrong feelings that the devil has sent to torment me of late, and I have scoured myself of it all, and left nothing but the light and pure energy of my astral and ethereal core. I am ready, I know this. I know this. Never at prayer alone have I experienced such vivid dreams and feelings. How dead and cold the stones of my church seem now, when all along the real church was all around me, and I could not see it. Until now! The church of the living light and the living breath and the living spirit of all that is holy and good, lying all around us in its green and golden splendour, and I at last have come to see it and to belong to it. And those of impure heart and those whose minds cannot encompass these mighty truths will be left where they are, lower down, further back, below us on the journey, on the ladder to enlightenment. They have many lives left, many turns of the cycle, to atone for whatever sins and misdeeds have rendered them incapable, in this life, of advancement. Even my wife must atone. Like all women, her heart is full of lust and wanting. Now is the time – this very dawn. I am ready and I will go, and I will see, and all will be complete. Dawn is breaking and the sky is clear, and the sun’s holy light begins to touch, to awaken. Soon the dance will begin and I will dance it too, and I will leave this shell of crystallised spirit, and find my true form. I am ready.

1911

Before dawn, Cat opens her eyes. This is the last time, she tells herself, and smiles. The last time she will wake up in a servant’s bed, the last time she will be in a house where she must labour, and be treated as lesser, and have no freedom. She pauses for a moment, makes note of the feeling of the bumpy mattress, pressing into her spine, and the way the muscles that run from her ribs to her hips are aching, from scrubbing the flagstones of the cellar floors the day before. She makes note of the smell of yeast caught under her fingernails, from taking over the kneading of the bread dough when Sophie Bell got too hot and had a funny turn. She remembers that today she would have had to wash a load of the Cannings’ underwear, if she stayed. With all of this absorbed, and studied, and scorned, she rises and washes her face and hands. The water wakes her, makes her shiver. It splatters into the enamel bowl, fills the room with tinny echoes. The whole world seems to hold its breath.

She pauses outside Sophie Bell’s room as she passes it. She has not told her she is leaving, and there is a needle of guilt about this, behind her excitement. The woman’s loud and heavy breaths sound clearly through the door, and Cat presses her hand briefly to the wood. Too late to do anything about it now. Bidding her a silent farewell, Cat resolves to write to her, once she and George have found rooms somewhere. Hungerford, or Bedwyn. Small towns and villages strung along the canal like beads as it heads west. They can visit, explore, choose. She creeps as silently as she can to the back door, because she knows the vicar no longer takes to his bed. His pillow is smooth every morning, one side of the sheets uncreased. The library door is shut, and though no light comes out from under it, it seems to watch and wait; the silence behind it a watchful one, a poised one. Cat pauses, listens as hard as she can for sounds of movement within. When she walks on again, her heart is thumping. The top step of the cellar stairs creaks, and she freezes. She thinks she hears a footstep, behind that secretive door. The squeak of a chair being risen from. But she won’t go back so she rushes on instead, as quietly as she can. Down the cellar steps, through the kitchen and out of the back door. The latch seems thunderous in the silence.

The world outside is still colourless, flat and surreal with that odd pre-dawn glow, neither dark nor light, not day or night. A suspended moment, when what was before has gone, what is to come has not yet begun. Cat walks through this between-time and feels the blood in her veins, cool and vital. The air is damp, and touches her cheeks and hair with moisture. She pauses by the garden gate and looks back at The Rectory with its high walls and shuttered windows. How much like a prison it looks, and she reassures herself that she will never set foot inside it again. She takes a deep breath, hopes that what for her has been a prison, for Tess will be a sanctuary, of a kind at least. A safe haven, a place to heal. She hopes that in bringing Tess here she has begun to atone for all the violence she brought upon her friend.

The force-feeding had a peculiar effect on some of the gaoled suffragettes. Their faces were bruised and cut, they had frequent nose bleeds, and suffered attacks of nerves they couldn’t contain; many had chest infections, racking coughs that robbed them of air. But beneath all of that, a few of them began to feel stronger again. The food that was poured into them went some way towards nourishing their bodies, and the dizziness and listlessness dissipated for a while. After three days of the terror and violation of it, Tess, Cat and some others stumbled from their cells, strong enough to stand and desperate to see the sky. Leaning on each other like a pair of elderly widows, the two servants from Broughton Street made their slow way out into the yard. Cat could hardly bring herself to look at the cuts and scabs on Tess’s face, the chalky pallor of her skin and the way she shivered constantly, though the day was mild.

‘Tess… I’m so sorry I got you into all of this,’ Cat whispered as they stood in the sunniest corner of the yard. Tess tried to smile but could not manage it. The wall behind them was slick with early morning moisture, dark streaks drenching the cold stones.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Cat. It was those policemen…’

‘No – you wouldn’t even have been there if it wasn’t for me, making you! You’d have been back at the house, safe and sound…’

‘I’d rather have been out and about with you than stuck in that house, even if it has led us here, Cat, truly I would. You’re the best friend I ever had…’ Tess said, her words broken off by a husky, bubbling cough.

‘No, I’m not!’ Cat shook her head as angry tears filled her eyes. ‘Come off the strike, Tess. Please. There’s no need for you to continue with it… I’ll do it for both of us! Start eating, and soon enough you’ll be out. The Gentleman will have you back, I’m sure of it…’

‘Perhaps he might, if you’re there to speak for me?’ Tess said, hope lighting her eyes.

‘Of course I’ll be there to speak for you! I’ll make him keep you on, I promise.’

‘But… I won’t come off the strike. I won’t be the only one to give in to them, Cat! And if I know you’re doing it too, I can put up with it, really I can.’

‘But I can’t bear to think of it, Tessy! I can’t bear to think of you suffering this treatment, when I am the one responsible!’ Anguish reduced Cat’s voice to a croak.

‘Don’t you cry, Cat – that’s something I can’t bear! I’d rather starve than eat the slops they feed us in here, anyway. God – couldn’t you just murder one of Ellen’s pies right now? A beef and ale one, with a big puddle of gravy and some potatoes…’ Tess shut her eyes, dreaming up this feast. Cat’s mouth filled with saliva.

‘When we get out of here, we’ll have one. One of the big ones, cut in half just for us and steaming hot,’ she promised.

‘A big slice of blue cheese with it too, and almond tarts to follow. That’s food worth breaking a hunger strike for – not that horrible soup they give us. It’s probably just dirty water – the water The Crow has washed her feet in, most likely!’ Tess said, with a delicate grimace that opened up a cut by her mouth. She winced as Cat dabbed gently at the oozing blood with the cuff of her blouse.

‘The Crow? Wash her feet? Don’t be daft. I heard she hasn’t washed them for a decade. I heard those aren’t stockings she wears – that’s her filthy grey skin!’ she said, and Tess found a tiny smile.

‘That’s disgusting!’ she whispered.

‘And what’s more, it’s those feet that have left her stranded, stuck working in this dank and smelly place all her days. She was due to be wed, you see,’ Cat went on, improvising.

‘The Crow to be wed? I’ll never believe it!’

‘Oh yes, many years ago, when it’s said she still had elegance, even if she was never a beauty. But on the night before the wedding her fiancé paid her a visit, and in the grip of his passionate embrace she forgot herself, cast off her shoes… and the smell of her feet killed the poor boy stone dead!’ She threw her arms wide and collapsed theatrically onto the cobbles, though it made her head spin. Tess laughed a little, clapping her hands covertly. Then she stopped; her face fell.

Cat looked up and saw the dark-haired wardress standing over her, her arms folded and her eyes shining coldly in the morning light. Cat tried to get to her feet, but dizziness assailed her and she remained on the damp ground, suddenly queasy.

‘Heard something funny, have you?’ The Crow said to Tess, her voice treacherously light, almost friendly. Mutely, Tess shook her head. Shivers gripped her again, shaking her whole body. ‘It sounded like you were laughing. Your friend come up with another funny song or a poem, has she?’ Again, Tess shook her head. ‘Come now, don’t be shy. Let’s hear it,’ the woman ordered. Tess stayed silent and still, her face drawn and deathly pale. Cat struggled to her feet.

‘Leave her alone,’ she said to the wardress. ‘She wasn’t doing anything wrong.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that. Come on, I want to hear what she said. If you don’t tell me, I’ll start to think there’s some special reason you don’t want me to hear,’ said The Crow, the words laced with menace. Tess glanced desperately at Cat, and Cat racked her brain for something that might placate the woman.

‘I said that… ah… I said…’ she floundered. The wardress’s mouth twisted to one side, a bitter sneer that made Tess take a step backwards, until her shoulders hit the wall. The Crow closed in on the younger girl, who started to whimper. ‘I said that you’re a bitter old snake who stinks like corruption! There – now you can punish me for it!’ Cat cried.

‘Oh, I will,’ the wardress said, catching Tess’s wrist with her strong, gaunt hands. ‘But what’s most galling to me right now is not what you said, but that this little bitch laughed at it.’ She twisted Tess’s arm and dragged her back towards the cell block, and Tess uttered a small cry of pure fear.

‘No! Leave her alone!’ Cat shouted, running after them. The Crow turned and with one flat hand gave Cat a shove that sent her crashing back to the ground. For a minute Cat couldn’t get up. She coughed and struggled to find her balance; and when at last she got to her feet, Tess was nowhere in sight.

Cat raced up the stairs and back to the corridor where she and Tess were kept, the exertion making her stumble, and spots dance in front of her eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ another prisoner asked, lips grey in an ashen face. ‘The Crow had the cosh in her hand!’ The door to Tess’s cell was shut, and though she knew there was no point, Cat hammered on it all the same, shouting to be let in until two other wardresses came and took her to her own cell, slamming the door behind her. They cast a look at one another as they did it, in disapproval at the sounds coming from Tess’s cell, but they did nothing more. Pressed their lips together and moved away. Numb with horror, stunned by guilt, Cat sat with her back against the wall, listening to the blows, hearing the screams and the sobbing. She thought she might explode into flame, with shame, with rage. But she did not. Shadows closed around her, filled the room, suffocated her, and she knew it would be with her for ever: the feeling of killing an innocent thing; of impotence; of the irrevocability of harm done.

When Tess’s door was next opened, Tess did not walk out through it. She was huddled in a far corner with her clothes all torn, blood drying around brand new wounds and a hundred new bruises swelling on her skin. And some essence of her gone; fled from the room. The little sparkle that lit her laugh, the avid look in her eye. Cat stood for a long time at the threshold, staring full face at what had been done, letting herself suffer the consequences of her actions. She told herself then she could never suffer enough.

But perhaps, she thinks, as she turns her back on The Rectory, perhaps now she has. She has relived it in countless nightmares, and shouldered the crushing weight of blame. She has barely slept, barely eaten. She has scoured her body and her soul. She will see Tess again, in a few weeks, a few months. She will find out if – in spite of her broken promises and the tide of misfortune she let close over their heads – if in spite of it all Tess still loves her, and is still her friend. Somehow in her heart, Cat feels that forgiveness is coming. She sees a figure waiting up ahead. Robin nods, giving her a tight smile as she joins him by the stile.

‘Good morning. Are you ready to dance, willow spirit?’ he says.

‘Have you got my money?’ she asks blandly. She will not let him see her joy, her excitement; will keep it all for herself. Robin makes a rueful face, fishes in his pocket for a few folded notes, and a handful of coins. Cat puts them away quickly, safely into her bag.

‘Here you go. You’d better dance beautifully, for that wage. I have your disguise here with me.’ He pats his leather satchel, and can’t keep the excitement from his own voice; nerves wound tight.

‘One more time then. Let’s get on with it,’ Cat says. They cross into the meadow, and make for the spot where the willow tree waits.

And as Cat slips on the floating white dress and the long, trailing platinum hair, she feels watched. Not just by the theosophist, not just by the waiting day as dawn begins. Watched by something else, by someone else. She straightens up, the skin at the back of her neck prickling. She casts her eyes to the horizon and sweeps them along, turning a slow circle. Nobody is in sight. But the grass and plants are long, waist high in some places. Cat stares at it, all around, but can see nothing. No telltale place where the long green stems are broken, the dew knocked from flower heads, apart from where she and Robin just walked. No movement, no twitching of a hidden watcher. But still she feels it, and strains her eyes and ears; a rabbit with the scent of fox on the air. A barn owl ghosts across the meadow, making for the trees to the north on silent white wings.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Robin asks, looking up from his camera as he fiddles with the lenses, checks the range of the shot.

Cat shrugs one shoulder. ‘Nothing,’ she lies. She folds her dress into a bundle, and stashes it with her bag.

‘Ready?’ he asks, and she nods.

Cat walks at first along the edge of the stream, stares at the rocks and pebbles and weeds at the bottom of it, just visible beneath the reflected sky. She does not feel like dancing, not like she did before. All the rage that fired her before has gone, and inside she is happier now, has less to fight. She spreads her arms, like a bird’s wings, tips her head to the promise of sunrise, and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she sees him: the unmistakable fair hair and pink face of the vicar; his skinny shoulders, the black cleric’s coat with its high, tight collar; soft features framed by whiskers. He is a long way off, and frozen at the sight of her; half crouching as if to hide. Cat’s heart leaps into her mouth, her stomach twists. They are discovered, for certain. She wonders if Robin knows anything about him being there – of the vicar being let in on the game. But no, she knows he’s not supposed to see this. The vicar is Robin’s believer, his advocate. For nobody else could it be more important to maintain the charade. Her throat dry with nerves, Cat draws breath, is about to announce Albert’s presence to Robin Durrant. The theosophist is crouching low to the ground, is quite absorbed in his work with no idea of the approaching visitor. Cat can feel Albert’s eyes on her, even though he is still too far away for her to make out his features. His stare is tangible, like a touch, like a strong grip that seeks to hold her, possess her.

But then nonchalance fills her, and a touch of mischief. Let the vicar come upon them. What is it to her? She is half curious to see what will happen – to see how Albert Canning will react, and how the theosophist will try to argue out of it. A tiny smile touches her lips, and onwards she goes, not wild like before, but walking steadily. Long strides, pointing her toes. She keeps her arms wide or held back behind her, fingers stretched out. She turns in slow circles, her face to the sky; just fast enough for the dress to swirl, to lift away from her legs, following the movement. And soon she is caught up in it again, this dance of hers; steady and hypnotic this time. Her mind empties and the rhythm captures her, and the sun lights the sky a little more as the seconds tick by, and she forgets about the vicar and the theosophist, and notices only that she is alive. And soon to be free; so soon. Clear lungs, clear head, the clear, resolute beat of her heart.

The vicar stands up from the grass to the west of the willow tree. He has slowly come close to them, low to the ground, concealed by barley, foxgloves and wild irises. Now he stands, right in front of her, so that she stops with a gasp, and lets her arms drop. The theosophist is behind her, lying on the ground. Will he photograph this? she wonders. The expression on the vicar’s face. For it is quite a picture – pale skin, pale blue eyes so wide they might drop out of his head. His jaw hangs slack, tongue pressing softly behind his teeth. There is spittle on his bottom lip, tiny traces at the corners of his mouth, a little of it shining on his chin. Cat smiles, can’t help herself. She wonders whether to make him a bow, to end her performance thus, but something about him stops her. He recognises her, this she sees. And changes are working, behind the shifting muscles and lines of his face. Tiny twitches as the last of thought vanishes from his eyes and leaves nothing behind. An emptiness that suddenly scares her. Cat stops smiling, stands still. Only for a heartbeat, two heartbeats or three. She should move; her muscles begin to tighten. She should step aside, run to meet George and let the two men work this out between themselves; make order of their lies and beliefs and strategies, if they may. In the glare of the vicar’s vacant eyes, Cat is suddenly desperate to urinate, and the air seems to trickle from her lungs. But it is too late. The vicar’s arm comes up into the air. His binoculars, heavy and black, tremble in the hand at the end of that arm. Cat sees them, high above her head. An odd, unnatural outline against the far sky. Then they fall.

In darkness, Cat can hear voices. They waver and lurch, distorted out of all sense and meaning. In her head is a blinding pain, and even when she thinks she has opened her eyes, still she sees nothing. Her throat is wet, full of a warm liquid; what little air she can snatch must come past this, bubbling slowly, using all of her strength. She tries again to open her eyes, to see. Light fills her head like an explosion; the pain is excruciating. She shuts them again, holds them fast. The ground is swelling underneath her, shifting like water, rising and falling. The sea? she thinks, at once happy and uneasy. She can make no sense of it. The voices start again, high and then low, fast and then slow. Hush, she thinks. Too loud. Gradually, the voices even out, become just one voice, high with fear and disbelief.

‘Oh, God – what have you done? What have you done!’ She knows that voice, struggles to place it. A beautiful face, cruel too; laughing eyes. Robin. She tries to ask him what has happened, where she is. Why her head hurts and her eyes are blind and her mouth is full of blood – salty, tinged with iron. ‘Albert! You’ve killed her! You’ve… you’ve killed her! Albert!’ More words. Their meaning sifts slowly down to her, through layers of pain and confusion. She is puzzled. Who is killed? I am not killed! she says, but the words remain inside her head. She can’t make her mouth move, can’t make her tongue shape the words. Their disobedience enrages her. She tries to take a deep breath, to steel herself for the effort of moving, of sitting up, but her throat clogs and everything is too heavy, too painful. Her head is made of stone, and slowly crushing itself.

For a while, the voices fall silent. It could be seconds, minutes, years. Cat cannot tell. She drifts, rising and falling. The sun touches her face and she thinks it is the fire she built, to keep her mother warm as she died. The silence booms inside her head, thumping like a vast, vast drum, over and over. It’s her heartbeat – the pressure of it in her ears. ‘They… she… she must not be found, Albert. We must say nothing of this! Everything will be ruined… Take these, take the dress – Albert! Listen to me! Everything will be destroyed… all our work… Albert!’ The voice starts up again, fast and manic now, full of fear and trembling and wild desperation. Rough hands move her, manhandle her. Hands that jerk with panic. She is jolted about, her hair is pulled. She wants to protest at this, wants to be left alone. Each movement is torture, puts spikes of pain through her skull, worse even than the Holloway feeding tube, forced into her swollen and bloody nose for the tenth day running. She must get to George. He will chase them all away, he will protect her from these hands, these voices; he will help her to sit, to cough and clear her throat. ‘Albert! Take these. Oh, sweet Jesus… her face… Albert. Take these – take these! Go back to the house and say nothing. Do you hear me? Albert? Say nothing!’

Cat is lifted up. She feels like she’s flying, just for a moment, but then she’s jolted again and the pain clouds everything. Time has disappeared, no longer has meaning. The voice has a new sound now. Wrenching, coughing; as strangled as she. ‘Oh, Cat… Cat. Oh, God…’ He’s crying, she realises. Put me down! Cat says silently. She is uneasy now. She wants to get to her feet; she wants to open her eyes. The booming in her ears is getting slower, and quieter, and while this should be a relief, it is not. It is not. George! she tries. Help me. Please. The theosophist’s breathing is hard and ragged, the jolting faster and harder. There’s a whispering sound, a gentle rushing. Trees? The canal? Robin is gasping and sobbing. ‘I’m so sorry, Cat!’ he says, over and over. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Now Cat is afraid, horribly afraid. With a violence of will she did not know she possessed, she opens her left eye. Light staggers into it, veers drunkenly into her thoughts. Trees, the canal, the bridge by the edge of the meadow where the lane crosses. How did they get here? A figure, in the distance, so familiar, so beloved. George! She screams, without a sound. He is running along the path towards her, fast and desperate. Then she is in the water, feels it closing over her face. For a second it eases the pain, folds her into a cool, green darkness. She does not breathe, no longer seems to need to; she is calm. George is coming. He will help her, protect her, take her up and make good her escape. She waits, and sure enough she feels his arms around her, the familiar heft of them, hard muscles over strong bones. She is lifted up, and the world is once again bright and fierce, spinning. She wishes she could open her eyes and look at him, wishes she could smile. There is a smile in her heart, to know he is holding her. She is safe. The pounding in her ears stutters into silence. She lets it go, and there is nothing else. Not even darkness.

Hester seats herself at her dressing table, stares into the mirror and tries to find some way, with powder and rouge, to mask the corruption of her face. She sees it in the outline of every feature, in every hair of her head. The tiny moist corners of her mouth; the crease of her lower lip into her chin; the space between her brows where a fine line is forming. Traces of the theosophist’s adulterous touch are everywhere. She can’t think how Albert, how everybody, can’t see it too. Except that Albert sees nothing, of course. Nothing but fairies and Robin Durrant. Her eyes are puffy, since she cried again in the night. Hester almost calls for Cat to bring up some slices of cucumber for her eyelids, but she can’t bring herself to. Can’t face the girl’s knowing expression, the way her black eyes see so clearly. She can’t help thinking that Cat will see her guilt – recognise it in an instant and pour scorn on her for what she has done. The thought is unbearable. Because Cat warned her, after all – not to trust the man, and to be rid of him if she could. And instead she’d let him take advantage of her, let him take the maidenhead she’d saved for Albert for so long. So very long. Her eyes blur so she can’t see to put on make-up. What right has she to hide her ugliness, anyway? The ugliness of what she has done. Hester rubs her eyes viciously, and rises to go downstairs.

As her foot hits the bottom step of the stairs, Hester pauses. She knows at once that something is wrong, something is different. As if a strange smell filled the air, or a clock that should have been ticking had stopped. She pauses and listens, and tries to place the source of the feeling. Mrs Bell is clattering the breakfast things as softly as she can in the kitchen, the sound drifting up through the floorboards. The hall clock’s deep tick in fact still plods; the library door is shut; light still pours through the ornate glass above the front door. But not from the dining room or drawing room. These other doorways opening into the hallway are dark, and this is what Hester isn’t used to seeing – what she can’t remember ever seeing. She peers into each room, her stomach twisting when she looks at the drawing room window. The shutters are still tightly closed. She listens, holding her breath. The silence in the house, aside from the kitchen, is complete. More so than usual, she thinks, but can’t be sure. Cat moves on soft feet, just like her namesake. Hester goes to the cellar stairs, and down into the kitchen.

‘Good morning, Mrs Bell,’ she says, as the housekeeper lifts a steaming kettle from the stove and begins to mash a pot of tea.

‘Morning, madam,’ Sophie replies, putting down the kettle and wiping her hands on her apron. ‘How is the vicar? Is all well?’

‘Well, yes – that is, I haven’t seen Albert this morning… yet. Why do you ask?’ Hester frowns slightly. She feels the housekeeper appraising the state of her face – the pallor of it, the purple shadows under her eyes. Hester looks away, ashamed.

‘I thought he might have cut himself somehow – when I came down I found this dish towel by the sink, all bloodied.’ Sophie points to the stained cloth, in a pail of water by the door. ‘I put it in to soak straight away, and Cat can scrub it later, but I can’t promise all the stains will come out of it, madam. There was quite a lot of blood on it.’

‘Oh! How horrible… I do hope…’ Hester pauses. For some reason, her stomach is fluttering so much that her chest constricts, too tight to speak. She presses her fingers into her diaphragm, steadies herself. ‘Sophie,’ she says, in a voice that comes out odd and strained. ‘The shutters are all still closed upstairs. Where is Cat?’

‘Still closed? She’s not still in bed, surely – I turned the lock and banged on the door to be sure she was awake. Well over an hour ago.’ Sophie scowls.

‘But you haven’t seen her?’

‘No, but where else could she be? I locked the door when we went up, just as I’m supposed to…’

They are interrupted by a loud knock on the door. The two women pause, listen for the sound of footsteps going to answer it. There are none. They exchange a glance, and then Sophie begins to undo her kitchen apron.

‘No, no. I shall answer it, Mrs Bell. Please don’t trouble yourself,’ Hester says. She goes up to the hallway, and past the deafening wrongness of the dark front rooms, still shuttered to the bright morning outside. A man in smart uniform is at the door, young and fair, his moustache little more than a reddish blurring of his upper lip. Hester recognises him from church. His cheeks are flushed with excitement.

‘Constable Pearce, isn’t it?’ she says, and her effort to smile produces nothing more than a slight tremble of her mouth.

‘Good morning, Mrs Canning, I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m afraid I come with grave news, very grave news indeed. Is your husband at home? I would very much like to speak with him,’ the young policeman says, all in a rush.

‘I don’t… that is, he may be in his study, but he is often out at this hour… I would have to…’ She pauses, clasping her hands so tightly in front of her that the muscles begin to cramp. ‘What news is it? Please tell me.’ Constable Pearce shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, and his eyes fill with uncertainty.

‘I would much rather speak to your husband first, Mrs Canning. What I have to say is not suitable-’

‘Young man, if you have information regarding a member of my household, then please disclose it at once!’ Hester snaps, her heart racing so fast that it shakes her. The policeman flushes an even deeper colour, reluctance written all over him.

‘It’s your maid, Mrs Canning – Catherine Morley. I’m afraid she’s been found dead this morning. Murdered, I’m afraid,’ he says, not able to keep the thrill from his voice.

‘What?’ Hester whispers. For a second, everything is hung, everything pauses. Time seems to slow, and the halt between the tick and the tock of the clock stretches horribly long, and the air rushes out of Hester’s chest and will not return. She blinks and says: ‘No, you’re quite mistaken.’ But even as she speaks, she turns, goes back to the stairs and begins to climb them.

‘Mrs Canning?’ Constable Pearce calls, uncertainly, still hovering on the threshold, but Hester ignores him. Her walk becomes a run, and then a scramble, up the attic stairs and along the corridor to Cat’s door. She throws it open, and in her head she pictures the girl leaning her elbows on the window sill, staring out into the sunshine. So clearly can she see this – short dark hair growing in the shape of a V down the back of a fragile neck – that she manages to be shocked when Cat is not there. The bed is neatly made, and no trace of the girl’s possessions is left. Her gaze sweeps the room desperately, as fear pours into her, cold as ice, and her eyes light upon a small white envelope on the wash stand. Downstairs, she hears Sophie Bell begin to wail. Sophie, who never could help but to find things out from people.

An odd silence falls over Hester. The house itself is filled with noise – with footfalls as the policeman walks Sophie Bell back to the kitchens and tries to get a statement from her, and the woman’s loud and ugly sobbing all the while. And she barely seemed to tolerate Cat, Hester thinks, distantly. She picks up the envelope, which has her name on it, and carefully opens it. Cat’s handwriting, which she has never seen before, is elegant and sloping. Far more elegant than a maid’s should be. Far more elegant than her own. The words scroll with a gentle rhythm across the paper, and Hester casts her eyes over each of them before realising that she has not made sense of a single one. She slips the letter into her pocket and goes back downstairs on wooden legs, so stiff and unwieldy that she stumbles more than once.

The library door is still shut. If Albert is inside, he has not roused himself to see what is causing all the commotion. From outside comes the sound of a small wagon and pair, driving along the lane and stopping opposite The Rectory. More footsteps, more knocking at the front door. Hester ignores it. She stands in front of the library door, close to it; the grain of the wood in every corner of her vision. Her breathing is quick and shallow, and she can’t seem to get enough oxygen. She raises her hand to knock, but stops, cannot bring herself to. Somehow, she knows there is no point. Whether Albert is inside or not, there is no point in knocking. Shivering uncontrollably in the warm air, she turns the handle and steps inside.

The room is in darkness, the heavy velvet curtains pulled close together. She waits just over the threshold for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows. As footsteps sound in the hallway behind her, she quickly steps forwards and pushes the door gently closed, so as to go unnoticed. The atmosphere inside is heavy and thick, as though many weeks have passed since it was aired. There is a dark shape at the desk, and Hester’s heart lurches before she realises it is only Albert’s coat, thrown over the back of his chair. I am afraid of my own husband, now? she wonders. Her spirit shrinks like a candle caught in a cold draught. On the desk is the Frena camera she had so admired when Robin first arrived, and Albert’s journal, not closed and tied as he usually leaves it, but with his pen wedged between pages, as if he had been in the middle of writing when he’d risen and walked away. The room is empty, and Hester’s nerves ease a little. She walks forwards, thinking to throw open the curtains and the window, to banish the stifling air, prickly with dust and tainted with secrecy, with Albert’s dark fascinations. She hasn’t gone three steps when her foot catches on something heavy and she trips, turning her ankle as she fights for balance. She reaches down for the object. Robin Durrant’s leather bag. Frowning, Hester picks it up, and the leather strap feels soiled somehow, sticky and damp. She has never seen Robin go out without this bag of his. Hester takes it to the window to cast some light on it, but as she twitches back the curtains, squinting, she drops it in shock. Red smears daub her hands where she has touched it. Smears with the unmistakable, iron scent of blood. Hester gags, her stomach clenching in horror. For a long moment she stands frozen, barely breathing, as icicles of utter dread assail her.