The Unseen

1

May 14th, 1911

Dearest Amelia,

It’s the most glorious spring morning here, on a day of some excitement. The new maid arrives today – Cat Morley. I have to admit to feeling a touch of nerves, such is the reputation which precedes her, but then I’m sure she can’t be all bad. Albert was not at all sure about the appointment, but I managed to persuade him with a two-pronged argument, thus: That it would be an act of commendable Christian charity for us to take her on when surely nobody else will; and also that because of her reputation we would be obliged to pay her very little, and she would therefore represent a sound household investment. We are doubling our household staff at virtually no increase in expense! I received a letter of introduction from the housekeeper at Broughton Street – Mrs Heddingly – giving a list of duties with which the girl is familiar, and also urging me not to let her read ‘for all our sakes’. I am not sure what she means by this, but I find it generally wise to heed advice given by those in the know. She – Mrs Heddingly – also passes on a peculiar rumour about the girl. I can’t think why she chooses to mention it and can only assume a love of gossip – that the identity of Cat’s father is the subject of much speculation, and that it has been whispered, taking account of the dark tones of her skin and hair, that he may have been a Negro. Apparently, the other staff at Broughton Street took to calling her Black Cat after this story got about. Well, I’m certain that the girl’s mother, however low her station, would not stoop to such degradation, unless she was the victim of a most heinous crime. And that her poor daughter should go under such an ill-luck name hardly seems fair. I will not hear her called it again, I am quite resolved.

Amidst the nerves I confess I also look forward to her coming. Not least because there are balls of slut’s wool beneath the beds the size of apples! It’s been many months since Mrs Bell, God bless her, was able to bend down far enough to see to them. The whole house is in need of a thorough seeing to. But it will also give me great pleasure to gather up one of God’s creatures who has been led astray, and who has wandered perilously close to ruin. Here she will find a Godly house, forgiveness and the chance to commend herself to the Lord with hard work and clean living. I intend to offer her every succour in this endeavour, and to take her quite under my wing – she will be my project – imagine it! The chance to truly reform a person, and set them back on quite the right path. I’m sure the girl will see how fortunate she is – to be given such a chance to redeem herself. She comes to us tarnished, and will soon be polished to a shine.

And such work is surely the perfect preparation for motherhood. For what else is a mother’s job than to nurture her children into Godly, worthy and virtuous people? I see how well you do with my niece and nephew, dear Ellie and John, and I am full of admiration for your gentle, guiding way with them. Don’t fret so over John and his catapult. I am sure he will grow out of this mood of violence very soon: a boy’s nature is – by divine design – more warlike than a girl’s, and it’s to be expected that he feels urges that you and I can’t understand. How I look forward to having little souls of my own to grow.

Amelia – please forgive me for asking you again, but I fear your last letter has left me still quite in the dark on the subject in question. Must you be so vague, dearest? I know such things are not easily discussed, and indeed are better not spoken of at all if possible, but my need is great, and if I can’t turn to my sister for help and guidance, then who, pray, can I turn to? Albert is an exemplary husband, only ever kind and affectionate towards me – each night before we retire he presses a kiss to my hair and praises me as a good wife and lovely creature, but thereafter he sleeps, and I can only lie and wonder what it is that I am doing wrong, or not doing, or indeed not even trying to do. If you would only tell me in the most specific terms how I should behave, and how our bodies might be ‘conjoined’, as you put it? Albert is such a wonderful husband, I can only assume that it is I who am not performing my right function as a wife, and that this is the cause of – well, of my not yet expecting a happy event. Please, dear Amelia, be specific.

All is well, then. I had better end this letter now. The sun is high, and the birds are singing fit to burst, and I shall post this on my way to visit poor Mrs Duff, who has no such problems as I and has been kept abed with a terrible infection since the birth of her sixth child – yet another boy. Then, after lunch, Cat Morley should make her appearance on the three fifteen train. Cat – such an abrupt name. I wonder if she would take to being called Kitty? Write to me soon, dearest and best of sisters.

Your loving, Hester

2011

The first time Leah met the man who would change her life, he was lying face down on a steel table, quite oblivious to her. Odd patches of his clothing remained, the colour of mud, slick with moisture. The bottom half of a trouser leg, the shoulders of his jacket. She felt cold on his behalf, and slightly awkward faced with his nakedness. His head was turned away from her, face half pressed to the table so that all she could see were the carved dark structures of his hair, and one perfect, waxen ear. Leah’s skin prickled; she felt voyeuristic. As though he was only asleep, might at any minute stir, turn his head and look at her; woken by her footsteps and the sound of her breathing in that immaculate ear.

‘You’re not going to throw up, are you?’ Ryan’s voice broke into her trance. She swallowed, shook her head. Ryan smiled mischievously.

‘Who is he? Was he?’ she asked, clearing her throat, folding her arms in a show of nonchalance.

‘If we knew that, I wouldn’t have called you all the way out to Belgium.’ Ryan shrugged, airily. He was wearing a white coat, like a doctor, but it was grubby and marked, and hung open to show torn jeans, a scuffed leather belt.

‘First time seeing a dead body?’ Peter asked, with his calm, Gallic intonation. Peter, the head of the archaeology department.

‘Yes.’ Leah nodded.

‘Always an odd experience. At least with one this old, there’s no smell. Well, not the worst kind of smell, anyway,’ he said. Leah realised she’d been breathing through her mouth; shallow breaths, expecting the worst. She inhaled cautiously through her nose. There was a dank smell, almost tangy; like wet January leaves, like estuarine mud.

She fumbled in her bag, drew out her pad and pen.

‘Where did you say he was found?’ she asked.

‘In the back garden of a house near Zonnebeke, north-east of Ypres. A Mrs Bichet was digging a grave for her dog…’ Ryan paused, pretended to check his notes, ‘her dog Andre, if I have it correctly.’ He smiled, that curving, lopsided grin that made something pull in Leah’s bones. She raised an eyebrow at him, nothing more. Under the strip lights his skin looked dull and there were shadows under his eyes. But he was still beautiful, she thought helplessly. Still beautiful. ‘Digging one grave and stumbled across another. She nearly took his right arm off with the shovel – see here.’ He pointed carefully to the dead man’s forearm. Beige skin had parted, brown flesh protruded, fibrous like earth, like muck. Leah swallowed again, felt her head lighten.

‘Isn’t the War Graves Commission going to identify him? Why call me?’

‘So many dead soldiers turn up every year – fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. We do our best, but if there are no regimental badges, no tags, no crucial bits of kit to go on, there just aren’t the resources to pursue it further,’ Peter explained.

‘He’ll get a nice burial, with a nice white cross, but they won’t know what name to put on it,’ said Ryan.

‘A nice burial?’ Leah echoed. ‘You’re too flippant, Ryan. You always were.’

‘I know. I’m impossible, right?’ He smiled cheerfully again; ever one to make light of something serious.

‘So… if there’s nothing to go on, how did you think I could help?’ Leah addressed the question to Peter.

‘Well-’ Peter began, but Ryan cut him off.

‘Don’t you want to meet him face to face? He’s remarkably well preserved – that end of the garden is waterlogged all year round, apparently – there’s a stream that runs along the bottom of it. Very pretty, by all accounts. Come on – not scared, are you? Of an archaeological find?’

‘Ryan, why must you be so…’ Leah gave up, didn’t finish the sentence. She tucked her hair behind her ears, folded her arms protectively across her chest, and walked around to the other side of the table.

The dead man’s face was rumpled slightly, as if he’d only lain down to sleep, pushing it resolutely into a pillow of broken ground. A crease in the lower cheek, running from eye socket to mouth. His top lip still described a long, elegant curve; a trace of stubble above it. His bottom lip and lower jaw dissolved into a scrambled mess that Leah could not look too closely at. His nose was also crushed, flattened, soft and gelatinous. It looked like she could reach out, cup her fingers, scoop it away completely. But his forehead, his eyes, were perfect. A lock of sodden hair fell forward, unruly; his brow was unlined, perhaps because of youth, perhaps because the skin was swollen, waterlogged. Handsome, he would have been. She could almost see it – could unfocus her eyes, blur away the terrible injuries, the wrong colour of his skin, the inhuman smell. And around each closed eye were tiny black lashes – each one separate, discernible, neatly lined up, as they should be. As they had been, the day he’d died almost a hundred years before. The lids had a faint silvery sheen, like meat left too long. Were they completely shut? Leah leaned towards him, frowned a little. Now it looked like they were slightly open. Just a little. Like some people’s remained when they slept, when they dreamed. She leaned closer, her own heartbeat loud above the whine of the lights. Could she see his eyes moving, behind the lids? Would the last thing he saw be there still? Tattooed accusingly onto his irises. She held her breath.

‘Boo!’ Ryan said in her ear. Leah jumped, gasped audibly.

‘You prick,’ she snapped at him, and marched out through the heavy swinging doors, angry at how easily she rattled.

She strode briskly up two flights of stairs and followed the smell of chips and coffee to the college’s cafeteria. Pouring herself a paper cupful, she noticed that her hands were shaking. She sank into a plastic chair by the window and stared out at the landscape. Flat and grey and brown, just as England had looked when she left. A neat row of gaudy crocuses lining a pathway only highlighted the drab of everything else. Her own reflection in the glass was pale – pale skin, pale lips, pale blond hair. The dead man in the cellar had more colour, she thought ruefully. Belgium. Suddenly she yearned to be somewhere, anywhere, rather than here. Somewhere with bright sunshine to etch outlines onto the landscape, and warmth to soak into her bones. Why on earth had she agreed to come? But she knew why. Because Ryan had asked her to. He walked right out of her thoughts and sat down opposite her, frowning.

‘Look, I’m sorry, OK?’ he said, contritely. ‘Having you here isn’t easy for me either, you know. You make me nervous.’

‘Why am I here, Ryan?’ Leah asked.

‘I think there could be a great story in it for you – really. The lost soldier, anonymous and unmourned all these years…’

‘You don’t know he was unmourned.’

‘True enough. Undiscovered, then. And I know you think I’m flippant about it, but I’m not. It must have been a bloody miserable way to die, and I think the guy deserves some recognition, don’t you?’

Leah eyed him suspiciously, but he seemed sincere. His hair had grown since she’d last seen him. It was hanging in loose tawny curls at either side of his face, matching three or four days’ growth on his chin. His eyes were the colour of dark honey. Leah tried not to look too deeply into them.

‘Why me?’ she asked.

‘Why not you?’ he countered. ‘I don’t know that many freelance journalists.’ He looked down at his hands for a minute, picked at one ragged thumbnail where the skin was already raw. Leah’s own fingers twitched, from the long habit of trying to stop him doing it.

‘That’s all?’ she pressed.

Ryan frowned, took a short, irritable breath. ‘No, that’s not all. What do you want me to say, Leah? That I wanted to see you? Fine – there you go,’ he said, abruptly.

Leah smiled a small, wintry smile. ‘You never were very good at saying what you’re feeling. It always was like getting blood out of a stone.’

‘I didn’t get much chance to improve before you walked out.’

‘I had a bloody good reason, and you know it,’ she said.

‘So why did you come, then, if I’m such a nightmare and you don’t want to see me?’

‘I never said…’ Leah sighed. ‘I’m not sure why I came,’ she concluded. ‘I haven’t had a good idea for a story in ten months. I haven’t written anything worth reading in I don’t know how long. I thought you might actually have something for me to work on, but an unidentifiable soldier? What am I supposed to investigate – the work you’re doing for the War Graves Commission? What happens to these men once you’ve dug them up? It’s worthy, of course, but it’d be a pretty dry piece…’

‘Well, there’s not nothing to go on, actually,’ Ryan said, leaning towards her and smiling his pleased, boyish smile again.

‘What do you mean? Peter said-’

‘I was going to tell you downstairs, but you stomped off.’

‘Well, what is it?’

‘Have dinner with me tonight and I’ll show you,’ he said.

‘Why not just tell me now?’ she suggested cautiously.

‘Dinner would be far more fun.’

‘No. Look, Ryan, I don’t think you and I should be… spending too much time together. Not like that.’

‘Oh, come on, Leah. Where’s the harm in it? We’ve known each other long enough…’

‘Apparently, we didn’t know each other quite as well as we thought,’ she said, glancing up. Anger sharpened her gaze, and she saw him flinch.

‘Just… have dinner with me tonight,’ he said, more softly. Leah swigged the last of her coffee, grimacing at the wan, bitter taste.

‘Bye, Ryan. I wish I could say it was good to see you again.’ She got up to go.

‘Wait, Leah! Don’t you even want to know what it is that we found on him? I’ll tell you – then you can decide whether or not to stay. Leah! He had letters on him – they’ve survived ninety-five years in the ground! Can you imagine? And these are no ordinary letters either,’ Ryan called after her. Leah stopped. There it was, that tiny sparkle; the shimmer of curiosity she felt before she began to chase down a story. Slowly, she turned back towards him.

1911

Cat is so completely mesmerised by the rushing blur of the world outside the window that the journey passes quickly – all too quickly. With her head tipped against the glass, staring into the chalky sky with the green blur of fields pouring beneath it like a river, she fancies to herself that she is running faster than anyone ever has before, or perhaps even flying like a bird. The train carries on, she knows, all the way into the west, further west than she has ever been. It will carry on without her to Devon, and Cornwall, and the sea. She longs to see the sea again. The thought makes her ache with need. She’s seen it only once before, when she was eight years old and her mother was still alive, and the whole household upped sticks for the day and went to Whitstable. It had been a blousy summer day; all diaphanous clouds, with a curling breeze that had caught the donkeys’ tails, made them stream out behind them, and made the empty deckchairs billow. The Gentleman had bought her an oyster in its shell to eat, and a strawberry ice cream cone, and she had been sick all down her best dress. Stringy little gobbets of oyster flesh in a clinging pink sauce. But it had still been the happiest day of her life. She kept the oyster shell; had it for years in a cardboard box of everyday treasures.

As the train slows, the notion of flying evaporates, and Cat feels herself grow into flesh again, feet tied to the earth. The temptation to not alight is powerful. She could sink down in the clammy seat and keep on, keep on, until she saw the sea through the dusty window. But the train squeals to a halt, and she curls her fingers tightly, squeezes until her nails bite the palms of her hands. She’d hoped to draw strength from the gesture, but can’t quite manage it. The station at Thatcham is small and simple. She and one other person, a thin man scowling above his moustache, alight; and there is a busy scene at a freight car where several huge wooden crates are manoeuvred onto a trolley. Tall banks of young nettles and buddleia lean over the wooden fence, whispering softly. Cat draws in a steady breath. She would rather be anywhere else in the world, but at the same time she feels numb, devoid of all feeling as though it has been shaken out of her in the pain and violence of the past few months. At the far end of the platform stands a vastly fat woman. Cat pauses, seeks an alternative, and then walks slowly towards her.

The woman is quite as wide as she is high. Her cheeks crowd her eyes, narrowing them to creases. Her chins crowd her chest, so that the line from jaw to bosom flows quite uninterrupted. A skirt of flesh hangs down from her middle, swinging slightly beneath the light cotton of her dress, bumping her thighs. Cat feels sharp grey eyes sweep her up and down. She stares back, and does not flinch.

‘Are you Sophie Bell?’ she asks the woman. Sophie Bell. Such a pretty, tinkling name. Cat had envisaged a tall, soft woman with cornflower eyes and amber freckles.

‘That’s Mrs Bell, to you. And you’ll be Cat Morley, I take it?’ the woman replies, curtly.

‘I am.’

‘God help me then, for you’ll be no use whatsoever,’ says Sophie Bell. ‘Six months I’ve been asking for help in the house and now I get this wraith, who looks fit to drop dead by Friday,’ she mutters, turning from Cat and walking away with surprising speed. Her legs swing in wide arcs, her feet strike the ground flat. Cat blinks once, grips the handles of her carry-all, and then follows her.

Outside the station, a pony and trap is waiting. The little cart leans wildly to one side as Sophie Bell heaves herself onto the seat alongside the driver. Cat looks up at him, half thinking to proffer her bag, but the man gives her the briefest of glances before turning his attention back to a motor car, all glossy and black, that has pulled up on the other side of the road.

‘Well, don’t just stand there like a dolt! Get in. I haven’t got all day,’ Mrs Bell tells her, exasperated. Awkwardly, Cat throws her bag onto the back seat and climbs up after it. Barely settled, the driver flicks the reins and the pony throws itself into the harness, pulling them away with a jolt. So it is facing backwards, with a view of the road just travelled, that Cat is towed into her new role, her new life. Something in her rejects this so strongly that her throat knots up and makes it hard to breathe.

The village of Cold Ash Holt lies about two miles outside Thatcham, the lane winding south and east through a tangle of lakes and reed beds, water meadows so bright with spring growth they hardly look real. Young leaves flash silver where the breeze turns them, and even the air seems to carry a green scent; one of moisture and the headiness of flowers. They startle a heron, which erupts up through the rushes and seems too slow, too weighty for flight. The sun gets caught up in its greasy grey feathers, glints on the beads of water falling from its feet. Cat stares. She does not know its name. She has never seen a bird as big before, has barely ever seen birds, other than sparrows and the uniform London pigeons that scratch a living from the dirt. She thinks of The Gentleman’s canary, on its little gilded swing; the way he whistled at it, crooning, coaxing it to sing. She had watched, paused with duster in hand, and admired it for refusing. Mrs Bell chats to the driver all the while, a low commentary that barely lets up, leaving the shortest of pauses from time to time in which the man grunts. Most of what she says is lost beneath the clatter of the pony’s hooves, but Cat catches odd words and phrases. ‘She’ll be back again before the summer’s out, just you mark my words’… ‘had the nerve to suggest it wasn’t done proper’… ‘her son’s gone off again, and with little more than a child’… ‘short shrift for those that show criminal urges’. Cat glances over her shoulder, catches Mrs Bell’s narrow eye upon her.

The vicarage is built of faded red brick, three storeys high and almost square in shape. Symmetrical rows of windows with bright white frames gaze out onto the world, the glass reflecting the bright sky. The surrounding gardens overflow with early flowers, sprays of colour rising from tidy beds that curve through stretches of short, neat lawn. Budding wisteria and honeysuckle scale the walls and window sills, and tall tulips march the path to the wide front door, painted bright blue and sporting a gleaming brass knocker. The house sits on the outskirts of the small village, its gardens adjoining the water meadows. In the distance a stream carves a winding path, like a silver ribbon. The driver pulls up at the far side of the house, across the gravel driveway, where mossy steps lead down to a more modest door.

‘You use this door, none other,’ Mrs Bell tells her curtly, as they make their way inside.

‘Of course,’ Cat replies, nettled. Did the woman think she had never worked before?

‘Now, pay attention while I show you around. I’ve not got time to keep repeating myself, and I need to get on with the tea. The mistress, Mrs Canning, wants to see you as soon as you’ve had a chance to tidy yourself up and get changed-’

‘Get changed?’

‘Yes, get changed! Or did you plan to meet her in that tatty skirt, with dirty cuffs on your blouse and your bootlaces frayed?’ Mrs Bell’s grey eyes are sharp indeed.

‘I’ve a spare blouse, my best, and I can put it on, but this skirt is the only one I have,’ Cat says.

‘I’ll not believe they let you about the place looking like that in London!’

‘I had a uniform. I… had to give it back when I left.’

Mrs Bell puts her hands where her hips might have been. Cat gazes steadily at her, refusing to be cowed. The older woman’s knuckles are cracked and red. They sink into her flesh, wedge themselves there. Her feet rock inwards, the arches long ago surrendered to the weight they carry. Her ankles look like suet dough, dimpled beneath her stockings. Cat grips her own two hands together in front of her, feeling the reassuring hardness of her bones.

‘Well,’ Mrs Bell says at last, ‘it’ll be up to the mistress whether she’ll provide you with clothing. Otherwise you’ll have to make do. You’ll need a grey or brown dress for the morning, a black one for the evening; and something to wear to church. There’s a rag sale next week in Thatcham. You might find something there that you can alter.’

Cat’s room is in the attic. There are three rooms side by side, all with views north through small dormer windows, and accessed off a bright, south-facing corridor. As if the architect had thought the corridor more deserving of sunlight than the servants. Cat puts her bag down at the foot of the bed, surveys her new home. Plain, whitewashed walls, a small iron bed with a brass crucifix hanging above it; a bible on a woven straw chair; wash stand; threadbare curtains. There’s a narrow cupboard for clothes, and a patchwork quilt folded at the foot of the bed. With quick steps, Cat crosses the room, takes the crucifix from the wall and flings it out of sight beneath the bed. It hits the pot with a musical clang. Where they touched the smooth limbs of the metal cross, Cat’s fingers seem to sting. Rubbing her hands on her skirt in agitation, she shuts her eyes and fights off memories of an object so similar; of Jesus watching her solemnly from a high wall, oblivious to her torment. Then she stands at the window, looking out at the lane and a field of ginger cattle beyond. Such a wide empty space. She thinks of her friends in London, of Tess with her eager green eyes, always excited about something. The thought makes her ache. She has no address she can write to, no idea where Tess will end up. Tess might not be as fortunate as she, in finding another position. I am lucky, Cat tells herself, bitterly. She has been told it enough times, of late.

Behind her, the door swings itself shut, nudged by some stray breeze. Cat freezes, every muscle pulling tight. She stands ramrod straight and tries to breathe when the air seems too thick all of a sudden. It’s not locked, she tells herself. Just shut. Not locked. She turns slowly to face the door, braced as if some horror waits there to be discovered. The small room’s walls bow inwards around her, clinging to her like wet cloth. Her knees shake, and she totters to the door like an old woman, certain as she turns the handle that she won’t be able to get out. The metal knob rattles in her hand as she turns it, and as she pulls the door open a few precious inches, she knows that it is her shivering that makes the handle shake. Her heartbeat tumbles like a waterfall, and she leans her face against the pitted wood of the door, waiting to feel calm. Never again, she thinks. Never, never, never.

Hester arranges herself at the walnut desk in the front parlour, with the household ledger open in front of her. It’s the position she adopts for her weekly meeting with Mrs Bell to discuss menus and household accounts and the arranging of chimney sweeps, grocery deliveries and bicycle repair men. And she fancies it gives the right impression – feminine but businesslike; commanding yet approachable. The afternoon sun lies pooled and yellow on the oak floor, showing up the lazy dance of dust motes and houseflies. Hester flaps a hand irritably at a fly that comes too close. She finds their hairy bodies indecent, and hates the way they go dry and hard after death, lying down on the window sills in their final moments, crossing their bristly legs as if they expect to receive a last blessing. She is immensely relieved that she won’t have to sweep them up from now on. Mrs Bell has been hard pushed to keep up with the cleaning and the cooking both – heaven knows the woman can hardly be expected to work at speed. She wishes Mrs Bell wasn’t quite so very fat. The squeaking protest of the floor gave away her approach as soon as she left the more robust stones of the basement, and she is hardly an elegant sight. A woman should be soft, of course, her outline one of curves rather than angles, but one had to draw the line somewhere. There is little point in Mrs Bell trying to keep it all in with a corset. Years ago she wore one, and it merely squeezed her flesh up and down from the middle, so that she could scarcely sit or turn her neck. Watching her manoeuvre had been both horrifying and impossible to resist.

Hester can hear her now – creaking and thumping her way from the kitchen. She sits straighter in her chair, and arranges her face into a mild, genteel smile. She worries momentarily that she will suffer in comparison with Cat Morley’s more cosmopolitan former employer. Then she remembers that the girl is a pariah and relaxes, slightly ashamed of her own anxiety when her role is to mother, and to correct.

‘The new girl, madam,’ Mrs Bell announces, after a short knock.

‘Thank you, Mrs Bell. Do come in, Cat,’ Hester says, warmly; then hesitates. Cat Morley looks little more than a child. For a second, Hester thinks there’s been a mistake. The girl is barely five feet tall, and has the fragile, bony look of a bird. Her shoulders are narrow, her hands and feet tiny. Her hair, which is almost true black, has been cut off short. It grazes her ears in a most unladylike fashion. Cat has pinned the front of it back from her forehead, which only makes her look more like a schoolgirl. But as the girl approaches the desk, Hester sees that there is no mistake. Her face is narrow, the chin pointed and sharp, but there are smudges beneath her eyes, and a crease between her brows that speaks of experience. Cat regards Hester with such a level stare, her brown eyes unflinching, that Hester feels uncomfortable, almost embarrassed. She glances at Mrs Bell as the housekeeper leaves the room, and understands from her pinched lips exactly what the woman thinks of this new appointment.

‘Well,’ Hester says, flustered. ‘Well, do sit down, Cat.’ The girl perches on the edge of the carved chair opposite her as though she might fly away at any moment. ‘I’m very pleased you’ve made the journey safely.’ She had prepared, in her head, what she would say to the girl to put her at her ease, and to show what a kind and calm and Godly household she had found herself in, but it has got scattered in her head by the shock of the girl’s appearance, and now she can’t think what she wanted to say. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy here,’ she tries. Cat blinks, and although her face does not move, and she does not speak, Hester gets the distinct impression that the girl doubts this last statement. ‘Gracious! I have never seen hair cut in such a style as yours! Is it all the fashion, in London? Am I terribly behind the times?’ Hester bursts out. Her own hair is her crowning glory. It is light and full and soft, and gathers into a bouffant high on her head each morning as if it knows exactly what it is doing.

‘No, madam,’ Cat says quietly, never once breaking off her gaze. ‘My hair was always long, before. I was forced to cut if off after my time… my time of incarceration. It became terribly infested with lice.’

‘Oh! Lice! How dreadful!’ Hester exclaims, horrified. Her hands fly to her scalp as if to protect it, and she leans away from the desk involuntarily.

‘They are quite gone now, I assure you,’ Cat says, the hint of a smile ghosting across her lips.

‘Well, that’s good. Yes. Well, now. I am sure Mrs Bell has told you your duties, and do please look to her for guidance in all matters regarding your work. You will be expected to rise at half past six and be ready to start work at seven, but you probably won’t be the first person about – my husband has a great love of walking and nature, which he is particularly able to indulge at sunrise. He will often have risen and gone out before you come down, so don’t be alarmed if you encounter him very early in the day. He does not expect breakfast to be ready before his walks. You may consider yourself at liberty between the hours of three and five o’clock in the afternoon, with the exception of the tea, provided that all your duties have been carried out to Mrs Bell’s satisfaction.’ Hester pauses, and looks up at Cat Morley. The girl’s level gaze is unnerving. There is something behind her dark eyes that Hester has never seen before, and can’t decipher. The shifting outline of something strange, something unpredictable.

‘Yes, madam,’ Cat says, eventually, and quite tonelessly.

‘Cat – your proper name is Catherine, isn’t it? I wonder that you mightn’t like to be called Kitty? A new name for a new start? I think it would suit you very well.’ Hester smiles.

‘I have always been Cat, never Kitty,’ Cat says, puzzled.

‘Yes, I see; but don’t you think Kitty would be better? What I mean to say is, you can leave all that old trouble behind with the old name? Do you see?’ Hester explains. Cat seems to consider this, and her eyes grow hard.

‘I have always been Cat,’ she insists.

‘Very well, then!’ Hester cries, at a loss. ‘Is there anything you would like to ask me?’

‘Only to say, madam, that I am not able to wear corsets. The doctor has told me, after my illness, that it would put too great a strain on my chest.’

‘Really? That is a terrible shame. Of course, you must do what is best for your health, even if some might consider it improper. Is the condition likely to improve? Do you think you’ll be able to wear them at some time in the future?’

‘I cannot tell you,’ Cat replies.

‘Well, we shall see when the time comes. Cat, I want you to know…’ Hester hesitates. Somehow the words she had prepared seem almost silly now that she is face to face with the girl. ‘I want to tell you that it won’t be held against you, here. Your… past troubles. In this house you have the chance to start afresh, and live a clean, Godly life. My husband and I have always said that charity is the greatest of virtues, and begins at home. I hope you will find us true to our philosophy.’ Again, that disconcerting pause, that immobile expression. A small shiver runs down Hester’s spine, and the skin of her scalp tingles unpleasantly – just like it does when she finds a black spider hiding in the folds of her bedroom curtains.

‘Thank you, madam,’ Cat says.

Hester feels considerably more at ease once Cat Morley has gone back below stairs to help Mrs Bell prepare the tea. The girl had an odd air about her, as though she were distracted by something, some unnatural urge perhaps. Hester assures herself that this is unlikely, but she can’t quite shake the feeling. Cat did not drop her gaze as she ought. Well, not as she ought, precisely, but as one might expect her to. She was so tiny and weak looking, it was easy to imagine her frightened of the least little thing. Hester takes up her needlepoint bag, and the fresh frame she stretched only yesterday, ready to begin a new piece. She thinks for a moment, and then smiles. A gift, for the girl who insists on being called Cat. What could better demonstrate her good will? She rummages through her bag and chooses threads of green, blue and saffron yellow. Fresh colours for a fresh new season. Hester hums happily as she begins to prick out her design, and when Cat Morley brings in the tea tray she thanks her kindly, and tries not to notice the way the sinews stand raw and proud beneath the skin on the back of Cat’s hands.

‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ Mrs Bell observes, as Cat finishes wiping the last of the tea crockery, and spreads the towel to dry over the range. The housekeeper stands with her knees together but her ankles apart, leaning her wide behind against the heavy work table, watching Cat’s every move. The kitchen is half-submerged below ground, the view from the spotted windows one of sky and tree tops.

‘When I’ve something to say.’ Cat shrugs. Mrs Bell grunts.

‘Better that way, I suppose, than some young chit gabbling on all the live-long day.’ Mrs Bell studies Cat a moment more. ‘You don’t talk like a Londoner. I’ve heard some Londoners, when they come down selling and making speeches in town and the like.’

‘My mother spoke very properly. The Gentleman preferred all his staff to do so,’ Cat replies stiffly. She does not want to speak of her mother. She does not want to speak of London, of the past. Mrs Bell grunts again.

‘Well, don’t go giving yourself airs and graces, not now you’re here. You’re the bottom of the pile now, my girl, and one word from me’ll be enough to send you packing again.’

‘How kind of you to say so,’ Cat mutters, darkly.

‘Don’t get lippy with me, miss.’ Mrs Bell pauses, seems to check her own tongue. ‘You done any cooking?’

‘I used to help prepare the staff food, sometimes. Never for the family though.’

‘Prepping vegetables, and the like? Can you make pastry?’

‘No.’ Cat shakes her head, reaches behind her back to untie her apron.

‘Not so fast, if you please! There’s four pigeons to pluck for supper tonight – you’ll find them in the cold store.’ Cat reties her apron, turns to leave the room. ‘And take them out into the courtyard, or you’ll be chasing feathers around for days!’ Sophie Bell calls after her.

The courtyard is a small area to the west of the house surrounded by a high brick wall, and paved with the same red bricks. The evening sun shines warmly on the top of Cat’s head as she works, surrounded by tender green plants as they begin their steady growth up from crevices in the mortar. In the midst of life, we are in death, Cat thinks, as her fingers catch up the soft feathers of the birds, ripping them sharply from the slack skin. She has always hated the tearing noise it makes, always avoided the job at all costs. In London the servants were many, and their roles well defined. Only in times of panic would a parlourmaid be called upon to pluck birds for a meal. There were kitchen-maids for that. There was Tess. Smears of fat on her apron, fingernails stained brown by potato skins, smudges of flour on her smiling cheeks. The dead birds smell sticky, slightly sweet; their heads loll and flop as she works, cracks in the dry skin around their beaks. Cat thinks of dried blood around Tess’s mouth; the way it had smeared her gums, drawing dark outlines around her teeth. She thinks of this same sickly smell, coming from stains that bloomed through rough clothing. Cat longs for a cigarette.

Towards five, a rattle and the whirr of spokes announces the return of the Reverend Albert Canning. Hester puts down her needlework and goes into the hallway to greet him. He opens the door as the clock strikes the hour and smiles at his wife, who takes his hat and bag while he removes the heavy binoculars from around his neck and doffs his coat. Albert is tall and slender, his fair hair fine and downy, and just starting to thin across the crown – a development that does not age him in the slightest, and conversely seems to emphasise his youth. There is colour high in cheeks from the exertion of cycling back from town; wide blue eyes, with that look of innocence that had so captured Hester’s heart from the very first; his skin soft and smooth. One arm gets caught in the sleeve of his coat, and Hester tries to help him but is hampered by his heavy leather satchel. They tussle with it for a moment, catch each other’s eye, and laugh.

‘How was your afternoon, Bertie?’ Hester asks, as she settles into a chair once more.

‘Very pleasant, thank you, Hetty. I managed to call upon everyone who had asked for me, and was able to help in some small matter or another in all but one instance, and on my way home I saw the most splendid peacock butterfly – the first I’ve seen this year.’

‘And did you catch it?’ Hester asks. Albert keeps a fine silk net and a collecting jar in his bag, in case of rare sightings.

‘No, I thought it a trifle unfair, so early in the year. Besides, the peacock is hardly an exotic species,’ Albert says, bending forward to release his trousers from his bicycle clips. He draws his journal from his satchel and flips it open with one long finger.

‘No, of course,’ Hester agrees.

‘And how about you, my dear? What news?’

‘Well, I fear we shall have to keep on sending the laundry out.’

‘Oh? What of the new maid – can’t she see to it?’ Albert asks, looking up from his journal. In the rhododendrons outside the window, a blackbird pours out its liquid song.

‘I really don’t think so. The girl is quite stunted in her growth, and… well, I just don’t think she can have the strength in her arms for it. And she has been unwell, too.’

‘Oh dear. Well, if you say so, my dear.’ Hester studies her husband, and finds nothing wanting. He wears his sideburns long, framing his face like lovingly cupped hands. The style is a little grave for such a young face, Hester has always thought – she knows Albert grew the whiskers to lend himself gravity in the pulpit. The sun is making them look gold, but when wet, they are quite dark. Albert feels her scrutiny, and smiles at her. ‘What is it, darling?’ he asks.

‘I was just thinking what a fine figure of a man it is I wed,’ Hester says, shyly. ‘Almost a year ago now.’ Albert takes her hand. He sits in his habitual pose, with his legs crossed at the knee so that his trousers ride up a little, and she can see an inch of white skin above his socks. It makes him look vulnerable, somehow.

‘It is I who have been luckiest,’ he says. Hester smiles and blushes a little.

‘I went to see Mrs Duff this afternoon,’ she says.

‘And how is she?’

‘A little better. I took her some of my lemon cordial, the sweet one she’s so fond of.’

‘That was kind of you, dear.’

‘Her newest son is a fine little chap, and he doesn’t cry at all when I hold him. In fact, he studies me with such a calm scrutiny! As if he’s thinking terribly important thoughts about me all the time, and coming to very weighty conclusions,’ Hester laughs.

‘I’m sure that can’t be true of one so young,’ Albert murmurs.

‘No. No, I suppose not,’ Hester agrees. Albert returns to his journal. She waits a little, her heart suddenly high in her throat. Then she gathers her courage. ‘How I do long for the day when we will have a son of our own! Or a daughter, of course. I know you will be the most wonderful father,’ she says, brightly, watching her husband expectantly. When he does not reply, she feels her cheeks begin to redden. Albert still stares at his journal, but Hester sees that he is frowning, and his pen has gone still. The nib has halted in the middle of a word, pressing into the paper, and an ink spot blooms from its tip. Clearing his throat quietly, Albert glances up at last. He gives a vague smile in her direction, but does not meet her eye; and he says nothing.

Late in the evening, Cat lies awake. The thin mattress is lumpy, horsehair sticking up through the worn ticking. She has propped the door open with the bible that was left by the bed. She likes to see the holy book lying on the floor like this, shown no more deference than a bag of sand. The words inside just as lifeless, just as heavy. Through the crack in the door the moon shines coldly, calmly. Cat lies still, listening to Mrs Bell snoring in the room at the end of the corridor. In, out; in, out. She can hear the rattling wattle of the woman’s neck. Carefully, Cat breathes all the way in. There. It is still there, at the very bottom of her lungs – the little wet bubble that will not dry out. Cat releases the breath, tries not to cough. All the bloody coughing, in prison – all night long, from every cell, as their lungs got clogged and muddied by the damp, the spores, the doctor’s foul mixture. She runs her thumbs over the ticking, counts the little bristles, one for each second, as the night ticks by and her eyes stay open. Cat can’t remember what it feels like to lie down and sleep. That peaceful surrendering of control, of power. She can’t do it any more. Now, surrender feels like death, as though the very air in the room can’t be trusted, as if the walls themselves will turn on her if she dares to shut her eyes; the shadows come alive to consume her.

In a very different room, on the floor below, Hester examines Albert’s outline in the near dark. He lies on his back, his eyes shut and his face so resolutely relaxed that Hester guesses he is still awake. The beauty of his face disarms her. That valley between forehead and bridge of nose, the slight pout of his bottom lip. His face gives her an aching sensation she can’t name, as though there is some sprain, some nerve inside her under pressure, in need of release. She reaches out an arm to him, laces her fingers into the hand that lies across his chest. There it is – that subtle change in the rhythm of his breathing, that slight tautening of his frame.

‘Bertie? Are you awake, my love?’ she whispers. He does not reply. Once he holds you in his arms, and kisses you, and he is aware of your love and passion for him, then his passion will also rise, and your bodies may conjoin; so her sister had written. Hester is aware of her own body moving beneath her nightdress, brushing against the cotton fabric, freed from the corsets that confine it all day long. Her hair drapes over her shoulder in a soft, caressing wave. ‘I do so wish you would hold me,’ Hester says, her voice trembling a little. Albert does not open his eyes, but he says:

‘It has been a very long day, my love. I am so very tired.’ Hester often hears these very words from her husband. She heard them even on their wedding night.

‘Of course. Sleep, darling Bertie,’ she says.