The Unseen (23 page)
‘This Sunday? I am sorry, Cat, but it’s quite out of the question,’ says the vicar’s wife, when Cat asks her. Hester Canning is sitting at the desk in the morning room arranging violets, yellow and indigo pansies and pink phlox into a suitable pattern in her pressing book. She works quickly since the heat of the day is making the petals wilt already. Several torn violets lie discarded to one side.
‘But the place only lets in visitors the third Sunday of each month. That’s this Sunday. If I can’t go then I can’t go for another month, madam …’
‘But on such short notice, Cat, and with my sister arriving tomorrow with her family … you are very much needed here. I
am
sorry, but I cannot allow you to go. I promise you may next month. How about that? The third Sunday of August will be entirely yours, to make up for the afternoon you will lose this week. There’s an early train which will get you to town in plenty of time to visit your friend.’ Hester smiles brightly, as if the outing will be a fun one. She shuts the wooden cover of the pressing book and begins to tighten the screws, forcing the boards together with the hapless flowers caught between, flattened, stifled. Cat tries to breathe calmly but feels like her chest is pressed, as though Hester tightens screws upon her at the same time. How can she explain the way London workhouses are? The words will not form sentences, tangled in her desperate thoughts. By next month Tess might have faded and gone. Not dead, necessarily, but the light inside her
extinguished, her innocence snuffed out, the spirit of her crushed like flower petals, and no pretty image of it preserved anywhere. Cat has seen people bought out of the workhouse. Empty shells, they seemed. Nothing behind their eyes but echoing space; shadows of loss and despair.
‘Please,’ she tries once more, her voice little more than a croak. ‘It is of the utmost importance. Teresa is a very great friend of mine and it is only because of me that she finds herself put out of her job …
I
am to blame. I must visit her. I must take her some things to ease the hardship she is left facing …’ she implores.
‘Cat, please. Enough of this. I am sure the girl is being well looked after. The poorhouses are designed for such as her, after all – to give them shelter and food, and a way to earn these comforts. And she will still be there for you to visit next month, and every bit as pleased to see you then as she would be now, I am sure. It is only fair that I have more notice than this of you taking time off. Surely you can see that?’ Hester smiles vaguely, quite unconcerned. Comforts? Cat stares at her, bewildered. Can the woman really think that there is comfort in such places? She stands in front of her, quite still, unable to move; not quite believing what she has heard. Hester continues about her hobby for a while, then looks up with an expression of mild discomfort. ‘That will be all, Cat.’
For the rest of the stifling day, Cat works hard and fast, scrubbing angrily at the flagstones of the hallway until sweat marks a dark trail down her spine; pulling the sheets from the beds with enough force to tear them; chopping vegetables with sharp, agitated carelessness. She cuts her thumb this way but does not notice until Sophie Bell peers over her shoulder, curses in dismay at the sticky red smears all over the runner beans.
‘What in heaven’s name has got into you today?’ the housekeeper asks.
‘I want to leave!’ is all Cat can answer, frustration making her voice tremble and holding her tongue half-paralysed.
‘Well, by Christ, girl, there’s the door!’ Sophie Bell mutters. ‘Hold still!’ She binds Cat’s thumb with a length of clean rag, ties it tightly with string. Almost at once, the blood blooms out through the fabric, unfurling like a rose. ‘You cut yourself deep. Foolish girl,’ Mrs Bell observes, and the words sound profound to Cat – a judgement on more things than Sophie Bell can know.
In the early evening, the rain finally comes. Thick blankets of cloud had lain warm and damp over the house all afternoon, growing steadily darker and heavier. At half past five the first drops fall, warm as bathwater, soft as melted butter. Cat serves the dinner, disgusted by the luxury, the excess; the way the theosophist turns down the meat, his expression blasé, sanctimonious. How many others in the world have need of that meat, Cat wonders? When now it will go back to the kitchen and spoil, and be thrown away and wasted because the cold store is full of this thoughtless young man’s toys. She snatches up their plates with her lips pursed and her face in a frown. And afterwards, when all her work is done, she slips out into the pounding rain and is soaked to the skin in an instant. She takes the vicar’s bicycle from the shed and wheels it clanking along the side of the house, the rain hiding any sounds she might make. By the gate she pauses, swings her leg over the saddle and tips back her head, lets the rain wash away the day and all it brought. Her anger is like a scent on her skin, a clinging stink that she can’t get rid of. The rain almost hurts on her face, it falls so fast. Lightning makes her see red – the inside of her eyelids, glowing. She can feel the thunder in her chest like another heartbeat, irregular and uncomfortable, making her blood run faster. If lightning were to strike her, she thinks, she would not mind. She would not feel it. A hand on her arm makes her gasp.
‘Off out again? In this inclement weather?’ Robin Durrant asks, his voice raised against the onslaught of the rain.
‘What are you doing out here?’ Cat demands, bewildered by his sudden appearance. He holds his jacket above his head but it is
soaked, water dripping through it, running down his arms, drenching his shirt.
‘Well, I went to your room but you weren’t there. I guessed you must be leaving for one of your assignations. He must be a very fine lover, to tempt you out in this storm.’ Robin smiles.
‘That he is!’ Cat snaps back at him, but Robin only smiles wider. Splinters of a new worry work their way into her mind. He went to her room? Who knew if he could move softly, if he was careful. ‘Now let me go.’
‘In a second, in a second. I have a job for you. Meet me at the stile along the lane at first light on Sunday.’ Robin runs his tongue along his bottom lip, licking the rainwater there.
‘I will not!’
‘You will. Or I will have to let slip to the Cannings about these evening jaunts of yours. The vicar is very much concerned with the purity and moral probity of his flock. I dare say he would have something to say about it within his own household.’ This he says in a light tone, conversational, even slightly bored. Cat glares at him, tries to see if he would indeed betray her this way, and to guess why he might. ‘First light on Sunday,’ he says again, and grins at her like an excited child, without malice; as if he is not threatening her, not controlling her. Cat snatches her arm away, strains against the pedals to be away from him. She can hardly see in the rain and the dark, she can hardly breathe through the rage in her heart. George is not there for her, but still she pedals as fast as she can, the bicycle careening wildly through puddles, along the little stony lanes. Just to be away from The Rectory; just for the illusion of liberty.
Hester hears the sound of the pony and trap on the driveway and her stomach gives a childish little lurch of joy, mixed with something almost like relief. She hurries to the front door and waves as her sister, her niece and her nephew climb down from the cart, and Mr Barker undoes the straps around their luggage and begins to pile it on the ground.
‘Oh, careful with that one, please! It’s rather fragile,’ Amelia cries. Mr Barker clamps his jaw into his moustaches and nods in a surly manner.
‘Darling Amelia! It’s so wonderful to see you! Come here, children, let me look at you,’ Hester calls. She holds the two children at arm’s length: eleven-year-old John, who has sandy hair and a rather pinched-looking face, and is all skin and bone; and eight-year-old Ellie, who is plump and cheerful, with pale grey eyes and a tucked-in chin like a china doll. Her little blue and white sailor dress is tight across a round tummy, and creased from the journey.
Just as I would have looked at that age
, Hester thinks, with a tug of affection that is almost painful. ‘Goodness me, how you’ve grown! I can scarcely tell it’s you! You’re enormous!’ she exclaims. Ellie smiles but John rolls his eyes a little and looks down, scuffing his feet in embarrassment.
‘John! Don’t make that face! Give your aunt a kiss,’ Amelia instructs him sharply.
‘Oh, there, there.’ Hester crouches down and smiles at them. ‘I’ve never liked forced kisses, only freely given ones. What do you say, John?’ Hester’s nephew leans forwards and kisses her cheek quickly, and Ellie puts out her arms for a hug, which Hester gladly gives her. ‘Run around the garden and stretch your legs, children. Off you go! Come and have some lemonade when you get too hot!’
she calls after them, as they gratefully trot away and are lost amidst the high flower borders and sun-beleaguered shrubs.
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ Amelia sighs, putting down her vanity case and hugging her sister. ‘John has been vile all the way here! It’s not his fault – he’s so disappointed that their father hasn’t come with us …’
‘Yes, where is Archie? Didn’t he mean to come?’
‘He did, until the very last minute. I’m so sorry, Hetty! Typical of him – he had a prior engagement at his club that he hadn’t told me about, and had forgotten about himself. But I am here, and so are the children, and we shall have a wonderful time without him, I’m sure.’ Amelia smiles. She is five years older than Hester, and has a grace and elegance that her younger sister has always envied. Feline cheekbones and a delicate jaw, and the most perfectly blue, almond-shaped eyes. As a débutante, her beauty was the talk of the season, but now there are slight hollows in her cheeks and under her eyes, and her skin has lost the first vibrant glow of her youth.
‘Amy, you look a little tired. Are you quite well?’ Hester asks, solicitously. Amelia’s smile shrinks a little, and to Hester’s shock tears appear in her eyes, sparkling in the sun. ‘Amy! What is it? Whatever’s the matter?’ she demands, grasping her sister’s long-fingered hands.
‘Let’s not talk out here,’ Amelia says, lowering her voice as Cat appears in the hallway behind them. ‘Are we in our usual rooms?’
‘Ah, well … Mr Durrant has taken the room that the children would normally have, I fear … I thought it impolite to uproot him, since he has been with us so many weeks and got so well bedded in …’
‘Yes, so you mentioned,’ Amelia replies, wryly.
‘But Cat has made up the west end bedroom for them – I’m sure they’ll be comfortable in there.’
‘But there must be somebody to help the girl take our luggage up, surely?’ says Amelia, eyeing Cat’s thin arms and shoulders as
she hefts one of the trunks, her whole body arching backwards to take the weight of it.
‘I’m quite able to manage, thank you, madam,’ Cat grinds out tersely, scarce able to breathe.
‘Here – let me take that from you,’ Robin Durrant says, appearing in the doorway. He takes the case from Cat, lifting it easily out of her hands and carrying it into the hallway.
‘Oh! Mr Durrant … how kind of you. May I introduce you to my sister, Mrs Amelia Entwhistle? Amy, this is our resident theosophist, Mr Robin Durrant,’ Hester says, trying to keep her tone from betraying her. She isn’t sure what it is she is trying to hide, but lately there is something. There is definitely something. Robin gives Amelia’s hand a gentle shake.
‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Entwhistle,’ he says, smiling his widest, most disarming smile; and Amelia can’t help but return the expression.
‘Likewise, I’m sure,’ she says.
‘Well, I’m off to the station, and thence into Reading. I have a few things I must attend to … but I do hope to meet you properly at dinner, Mrs Entwhistle. Is there anything you’d like me to fetch for you while I’m in town, Mrs Canning?’ He turns his smiling eyes on Hester, who finds it hard to meet his gaze.
‘No, thank you, Mr Durrant.’ Her voice is clipped in spite of herself.
‘Then I’ll bid you fine ladies a good day.’ He makes them an ironic little bow and saunters away towards the gate. When he passes out of sight, Amelia turns to her sister and gives her an appraising look.
‘We have much to talk about,’ she says, as they walk into the house. Inside the hall, Cat bends down again, and sets her back to the heavy case for the second time.
The two sisters settle themselves in the shade of a cherry tree on the terrace to the rear of the house, where the slightest of breezes
stirs the torpid air. They sit on iron filigree chairs, which are so hot that they glow through their skirts onto the backs of their legs. Amelia wafts air gently over her face with a beautiful silk fan, her gaze instinctively following her children as they weave and skip around the garden, playing with an almost grim determination, their eyes screwed up, brows furrowed.
‘I have never known such heat as this summer!’ she exclaims at last. ‘On my way here just now, we passed a group of children playing in the street, and do you know what they were doing? They were collecting bubbles of melted tar from the road on twigs of straw, and using it as glue to stick the pieces onto the side of a barn, to make letters and pictures! Melted tar, at not ten in the morning!’
‘It is extraordinary. I find it most draining, don’t you?’ Hester agrees.
‘Truly. You didn’t mention in your letters that Mr Durrant was quite so very …’
‘Very what?’
‘So very young and handsome,’ Amelia says, watching her sister closely.
‘I must have said he was young? As for handsome … I hadn’t really noticed, to be perfectly honest. Is he?’ Hester replies, evasively. She feels suddenly self-conscious, as if caught out in a lie.
‘You know he is – don’t play the innocent with me. You have eyes, haven’t you? Or do you only have eyes for Albert?’
‘Perhaps that’s it … Anyway, he’s our guest. Of course I don’t think of him that way. And besides …’ She trails off awkwardly, not quite sure what she had been about to say.
‘Yes?’
‘No, nothing. But tell me, Amy, please – what’s troubling you?’ Hester asks, keen to change the subject. Cat comes over to the table with a tray of iced tea and lemonade, freshly cut oranges and slices of Madeira cake. Cloudy droplets of sweat scatter her brow. Amelia waits until the servant has gone back indoors before she sighs.