‘I’d been wondering what they locked you up for,’ Mrs Bell manages at last, ‘but like as not it was for impertinence when you should’ve held your tongue! Who was it you gave back-chat to?’ she asks, trying to sound angry but unable to hide the curiosity in her voice.
But Cat can’t answer. At the mention of prison her throat has closed, her mouthful of porridge has nowhere to go. She can feel it clogging her up, sticking to the back of her throat. She rushes to the sink, coughs and gags it all out.
‘Saints preserve us! What is the matter with you?’ Mrs Bell exclaims, blood mottling her cheeks. ‘No wonder you’re such a sparrow! The mistress will hear of this.’
‘It can only be good economy for her, if I don’t eat,’ Cat gasps, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. Mrs Bell grunts dismissively as Cat returns to the table and pushes the bowl of porridge away.
‘Well don’t waste it! Hand it to me,’ Mrs Bell says, and dips her spoon into the bowl. She flicks her eyes at Cat again. ‘What’s that badge you wear?’ She points a finger at the little silver and enamel portcullis pinned to Cat’s collar.
‘My Holloway medal. Given to me by my friends, to show that I have been to gaol for the cause,’ Cat says, her fingers drifting up to touch it.
‘I hardly think it’s something to be proud of,’ the housekeeper says scathingly.
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be wearing it on show like that. Under your clothes if you must, but I don’t want to see it again,’ Mrs Bell tells her, with a curt nod of her chin. Cat glowers, but does as she is told.
Cat is called into the drawing room after lunch, when she had been on her way to her room, to rest for a while. Her hands are red and puckered from the washing-up suds, the nails that grew long in the week before she arrived have all snapped off again. The vicar’s wife is dressed in white muslin, with frills at her collar and cuffs and hem. Her corsets cinch her in at the middle, but she is still broad, soft looking. Her breasts pile up above the whalebone, pushing outwards slightly, into her armpits. Her face looks like this too – broad, soft, accommodating. By contrast her hands are small and fine, the fingers tapering to shiny pink nails. Her feet are tiny. In high-heeled shoes, she half resembles a spinning top.
‘Ah, Cat.’ Hester smiles. ‘I wonder if you would be so good as to take this along to the post office and send it for me? Thank you, child. And perhaps a few madeleines for tea? There is an excellent baker on The Broadway. Mrs Bell won’t like it, but until she can raise a light sponge, she leaves me no choice!’ Hester laughs a little as she says this. Cat takes the letter, and the coins Hester proffers, hating to be called child by a woman only a few years older than herself.
‘Very good, madam,’ she says quietly. Hester’s face falls a little. Cat notices that the woman’s gaze darts past her and around her, and down at the letter. As if she fears to make eye contact with her new servant.
‘You know the way to Thatcham, do you?’ Hester asks.
‘No, madam,’ Cat admits. She had not thought to ask. Would have quite happily set off from the house directionless.
‘Well, the quickest way on a fine day like today is to take the footpath opposite the house – there’s a little stile you must climb – then follow that across the river at the footbridge until you reach the canal, which won’t take you ten minutes. Turn left and follow the towpath for two miles and there you shall find Thatcham. It’s a charming town. Please consider yourself at leisure to take a little extra time to look around. It will be useful in future for you to be familiar with the location of the butchers and the grocers and the like,’ Hester says. Cat’s heart lifts at the thought of the excursion.
‘Thank you, madam,’ she says, with more feeling, and Hester’s smile widens.
Unhindered by corsets, Cat swings easily over the stile and sets off across the field. She steps lightly around the cow pats, examines the new oddness of the turf beneath her feet. She has never walked on grass so long, on ground so unmade. In London the garden had a lawn, but servants were not allowed to walk on it. The Gentleman was quite specific about this – there were paths to be kept to, neatly laid flagstones, or raked gravel hemmed with miniature box hedges. Here there is long ragged grass and other plants too, things she has not seen before. Wild flowers. Tiny blue ones the colour of the summer sky; purples, yellows, spiky white clouds of something she cannot name. In the bright sunlight she feels the day’s warmth seep into her skin, chasing out the lingering chill of the prison cell. She carries Hester’s letter and the coins for the cakes in a purse on a string loaned to her, grudgingly, by Mrs Bell. Dangling it from her fingers, she swings it to and fro, twirls it around, makes it whoosh through the air. A skinny black-haired girl, walking a meandering path across a meadow.