The Unseen (19 page)

Her bad mood isn’t only due to having the hottest, dullest job to do. There’s also the fact that she won’t have a moment free to enjoy the fête herself; and that when it’s over and the clearing up and packing away done, she’ll still have all her work at The Rectory to try to get done somehow. In
Votes for Women
that week, there had been glorious pictures of the Women’s Coronation
Procession, which had taken place in London the week before, on the seventeenth of June. Horse-drawn floats adorned with the colours, magnificent with swags and ribbons and garlands of flowers. Suffragettes from all over London wearing wonderful costumes; dressed as Liberty and Justice, and as the four corners of the British Empire. Cat wishes she’d been there with them. Walking alongside the white ponies with a garland of red English roses, or carrying an eagle-topped staff. She wishes she’d been part of something so glorious and beautiful and above all
meaningful
. She gazes out of the tea tent as the village men begin a tug o’ war, and the women gossip and fill their faces with cake. Then the man who has just taken her photograph ducks into the tent in front of her.

‘Afternoon, miss. Is there some tea on the go?’ he asks, unloading his camera onto a table and pulling out a handkerchief to mop his face.

‘Plenty of it, and I’ll give you the fresh, not the stewed, since you’ve got to spend the day working as well,’ Cat says wearily.

‘Hotter than Satan’s toenails, isn’t it?’ the little man grins. He has a sharp face, boyish but beady, somehow feral; his cheeks and jaw sport a fur of auburn whiskers.

‘That it is, and no cooler standing next to this tea urn, I’ll tell you.’

‘Will I still get the fresh brew if I tell you that I’m about done with work for the day?’ he asks. Cat makes a show of pausing as she pours his cup, and the man grins again.

‘Which paper will the pictures be in?’ she asks.

‘The
Thatcham Bulletin
. I’d hoped to pick up some gossip for the society pages while I was here, but everybody is being terribly polite and patriotic. In other words, dull.’ He takes the cup of tea from her and slumps into a wooden chair with it.

‘Haven’t you met Cold Ash Holt’s newest pet? The theosophist?’ Cat asks.

‘I met him briefly. He was quite keen to have his picture taken.’

‘That sounds about right.’

‘He and the vicar are working together on some academic paper or something. I couldn’t really find out much about it. Sounded very dry, I have to say. You never could rely upon a vicar to give you a scandal.’ He sips his tea, then looks up and catches Cat’s thoughtful expression. ‘Why do you ask, miss? Do you know something more?’ She flicks her eyes at him, and considers.

‘It wouldn’t do for me to be found out, discussing their business. Let alone in the press,’ she says, carefully.

‘But, I don’t know who you are – and I promise not to find out,’ the man says, laying one hand earnestly on his heart.

‘Well, then,’ she says at last. ‘Let me tell you a little bit more about Mr Robin Durrant.’

At the end of the week Cat collects the newspaper when it’s delivered, and ducks through the narrow doorway to the cellar stairs. She perches on a step halfway down to the kitchen, and leafs through the pages until she finds the photographs of the fête. She smiles when she sees herself there, haunting the shade at the edge of the tent while Hester and the other ladies light up the foreground. In the bottom left-hand corner of the page is a poor, grainy photo of the vicar, Robin Durrant at his side, smiling smugly into the camera. Chin lifted, chest puffed out. Cat wonders what exactly has made the vicar burst out with pride like this. She turns over to the society pages – thinly veiled gossip compiled anonymously by someone called Snitch. Cat skims her eyes over the text until the name she’s looking for stands out.

Mr Robin Durrant graced the Cold Ash Holt fête with his presence, to the obvious delight of several ladies of the village. Mr Durrant, of Reading, claims to be able to see fairies, hobgoblins and other imaginary folk; and is here to hunt for the very same in our own water meadows, aided by Cold Ash Holt’s worthy curate, the Rev. Albert Canning. The hunt has been going on for three weeks already, but alas, has so far
proved fruitless. By what means Mr Durrant might capture a fairy, Snitch was not able to determine; nor what he would do with one if he caught it. It seems that Mr Durrant’s father, the esteemed Wilberforce Edgar Durrant, one-time Governor of India, is less than enthusiastic about his son’s unusual mission. Perhaps if young Mr Durrant is successful in his fairy hunt, he’ll also find a pot of gold to raise his father’s spirits?

‘Cat! Where are you, girl? Come along down here and get these breakfast things taken up!’ Mrs Bell’s voice comes echoing up the stairs. Cat refolds the paper and trots into the kitchen on light feet. ‘What’s put that smile on your face then?’ the housekeeper asks, suspiciously. Cat cocks an eyebrow, but says nothing. Mrs Bell grunts. ‘Well, if it ain’t proper, you better hope I don’t find out, that’s all,’ she says. Cat takes up the breakfast plates, lays the newspaper neatly on the sideboard, and waits.

Before lunch, she dusts the pictures all along the hallway and up the stairs. She uses a tightly twisted corner of her cloth to get into the curls and small gaps in the fancy moulded frames. Heavy oil paintings of Cannings gone before, ancestors of the vicar whose dignified likenesses have been trapped for ever on the canvas.
This is how the rich buy immortality
, Cat thinks as she studies each one, staring into their dead eyes. By discovering some new place, or inventing some new thing; by writing a book or a play. And for those not bright enough for that, not daring or talented enough, there was always a portrait, or these days a photograph. To make sure their names lived on, their faces didn’t vanish into dust.
As I shall vanish
, she thinks.
One day
. The poor were too busy working, staying alive, to worry about preserving themselves after death. They vanished in their thousands every day, forever invisible to the generations of the future.
Nobody will ever know I existed
. Cat tries not to mind this, since it is all vanity; but it is not a comforting thought, after all.

Suddenly, Albert drifts across the corridor from the parlour to the library, and Cat gasps. The vicar is oddly absent from the house, not in body, but in spirit. He flits from room to room so quietly, so distractedly, that half the time Cat has no idea where he is. This is disconcerting, for a servant. A servant always knows, from the noises in a house, where the upstairs folk are to be found. A servant needs to know, so he or she can dodge around them, slip from place to place, clean and create order and never be seen. So he or she can catch the smallest break, to lean for a second against a warm hearth, or study their reflection in a gilt mirror, or peer from the window at the vast world outside, a world with which they have no business. Time and time again, Cat has risen from blacking a hearthstone, or turned from dusting a bookshelf, to find the vicar sitting in a chair behind her, reading or writing in his journal, quite oblivious to her. He is like a cat, found sleeping in odd places and almost stepped upon. She can’t quite settle in the house when she knows he is in it.

Cat hears the door at the far end of the library squeak open and thump shut, and she pauses.

‘Have you seen this?’ Robin Durrant’s voice is loud and abrupt as it breaks the silence. She hears the slap of the newspaper being thrown down hard.

‘Robin!’ The vicar’s pleasure makes his voice ring. ‘Our picture? Yes, I saw it. I think it’s come out rather well, although—’

‘I’m not talking about the
picture
, I’m talking about the gossip that’s been printed about me by this … this
Snitch
character!’ Robin snaps. His voice is rich with outrage; Cat can hear the angry sneer on his face. She bites her lip to stifle a sudden bubble of laughter, and takes a few tiny steps nearer to the library, peering through the crack between the double doors. Robin stands over Albert with his jaw working into tight, furious knots, while the vicar reads the short piece.
Touched a nerve, did it?
Cat thinks.

‘Really, Robin, this Snitch person is the lowest kind of journalist, and everybody knows not to heed a single thing he writes.
Please don’t let it trouble you …’ Albert clears his throat diffidently, and speaks soothingly.

‘Imaginary folk
, he calls them. Imaginary! Does he take me for a complete fool? How dare he assume he knows more about such things than I do? How
dare
he?’

‘Really, Robin, there’s no need to take it so much to heart … nobody will pay it any mind,’ Albert says, his voice now laden with growing anxiety.

‘And that quip about finding a pot of gold for my father … what is that supposed to mean? Have they been to Reading, then, and pestered my father? Have they been asking the servants there what my father thinks about theosophy?’ Robin demands. Cat holds her breath, waits in the agonising pause for him to put two and two together, and guess the source of the gossip. Her heart pounds in her ears.

The vicar murmurs something that Cat cannot hear, his voice meek and unhappy.

‘They have no idea what they’re talking about – these small-minded idiots, smirking at me through their moustaches … no idea whatsoever. And no idea who I am, or who I will become!’

‘Robin, please … there really is no need to be so upset—’

‘Oh, but there is! For years I’ve been surrounded by doubters and naysayers and people who like to ridicule what they cannot understand. I’m sick of it! I will
revel
in their contrition when my name is known around the world! When I am at the right hand of Madame Blavatsky herself! Then they will eat their words!’

‘Indeed they will, Robin,’ Albert says, uncertainly. Through the narrow gap Cat can see his stunned expression, the way he stands, face and body turned to the pacing theosophist like a flower turned to the sun. As Robin draws near he raises his hand, as if he would lay it on the other man’s arm; but the theosophist turns away again, stalks angrily to the window. There is a long pause in which the vicar is frozen in shock and the theosophist squeezes his hands into
angry fists. Cat daren’t move in the silence. She can’t trust her feet to go completely unheard.

‘Our progress has been too slow. Far too slow,’ Robin snaps at last. ‘Almost a month I’ve been here, and we have seen
nothing
. I have felt their presence, yes … but they will not coalesce. That bungling photographic studio you sent me to returns blank, overexposed frames, again and again. It will not do, Albert!’

‘No, of course, I’m so sorry … Well, what must we do?’ Albert asks, and Cat almost feels sorry for him, so complete is his supplication. ‘How might we progress?’

‘A theosophist must strive to live cleanly, ethically, and to benefit his fellow man with everything he does. Kindness, and generosity, and understanding.’ Robin speaks as if to a child, biting off the words. ‘Purity is of the essence. But above all, one must strive to bring the teachings of the Divine Truth to as
wide an audience as possible
. It is in this last respect that I must increase my own endeavours.’

‘But how?’ Albert presses. As they speak, Cat edges away along the corridor, so she can still hear them, but can dart away if need be.

‘I mean to provide the world with incontrovertible proof that theosophy is the truth,’ Robin says. ‘A photograph. I will show mankind the reality of the elemental world; I will be the architect of an international acceptance of theosophy, and in doing so I will silence these fools who are so quick to ridicule!’

‘I’ll help you, of course. Whatever you need me to do. I am learning so much, all the time. I hope in the future to become wiser, more adept …’ Albert says, eagerly.

‘But you’re holding me back!’ Robin cuts him off. There’s a startled pause, the sound of more pacing feet. ‘Albert … I can only think that
you
are the reason I haven’t been able to see the elementals yet. You are not adept, and your inner vibrations are discordant to them! Without the ability to tune yourself to their energetic frequency, you make yourself intolerable to them!’

‘But … but … it was I who first saw the elementals, Robin … It was I who saw them first!’

‘They
chose
to reveal themselves to you, it’s true … And you are not without potential, I’ve told you. But there simply isn’t time to wait while you reach a fine enough level of attunement. I must continue without you for now, my friend,’ the theosophist says. There is a long, uneasy pause and when he speaks again, Robin’s voice is low. ‘Have you considered that perhaps they reached into your thoughts that morning and found
me
there – your memories of me from my lecture? Have you wondered whether, by revealing themselves to you, they were in fact calling out to
me?
’ Robin demands, and much of the fury has burnt out of his voice, leaving something stony and cold in its ashes. The vicar is silent for a long time.

‘You no longer want my help?’ he asks at last, and Cat frowns. His tone is like a child’s, near heartbroken.

‘No. Not on my summonings out in the meadows.’

‘Perhaps, as with any wild thing, there is a trust to be built up before communion may take place …’ Albert ventures.

‘If I am to have a chance of capturing an elemental in a photograph, it will take all of my inner faculties, and I can’t have you upsetting the balance … But continue with your studies, Albert. Ask me whatever you like, and I will teach you what I can,’ Robin says, more gently now. ‘You are only at the beginning of the long road to enlightenment, but you have taken your first steps – the first and most vital steps! Don’t lose heart. Soon, when I have proof, you will be a part of the greatest revolution in civilised thought for a generation!’

‘You’re sure you will succeed, then? Where none have before?’ Albert asks.

‘I will succeed,’ Robin replies, and his conviction is like steel in his voice. Suddenly uneasy, Cat slips from the corridor down to the kitchen, where she can be sure they will not follow.