The Unseen(151)

Hester Canning seems an odd woman, full of nerves and disquiet, but she is clearly trying to make Tess feel safe, and welcome. She is softly spoken, so different to The Gentleman, and to Mrs Heddingly. To the many and various wardens and masters Tess has suffered of late. Hester Canning speaks and moves as if there is something sleeping in the corner of the room that she fears to wake. She often keeps one hand curled protectively around her midriff, and Tess wonders if she is expecting. She hopes so. A child is what the house needs to brighten it. The vicar is a vague and silent man. He hasn’t said two words to Tess; does not seem to have noticed her arrival. Tess doesn’t mind this. She has seen much in the past rough months of her life, and she no longer has much trust in men – even a man of the cloth. The household appears to run quite well without any input from him. And all around the house, unmentioned but unavoidable, Cat’s absence is felt. The police found her last letter to Tess, in the bag abandoned in the meadows. It found its way to her eventually, after her arrival in Cold Ash Holt and her first learning about her friend’s death. A message from beyond the grave – one that made her cry again, when the first storm of grief had scarcely passed. Tess is here because Cat is not. Everybody at The Rectory knows this, and Tess wonders if it will always be thus.

She takes a deep breath, stifles fresh tears at the thought of her murdered friend. She refuses to walk across the blameless meadows where it happened. She takes the longer route, along the lane and then onto the towpath beside the bridge. Nobody suggests that she should do otherwise. If Cat’s ghost is anywhere, it is haunting those meadows, angrily lamenting just how close she came to freedom, how close she came to starting her new life. Whatever the reason she met with the theosophist that morning, if she just had not, if she had gone straight to see George, she would be with him now, loving and laughing; radiating that bright strength that had drawn Tess to her like the moon pulling the tide. The injustice of it is so vast and bitter that Tess is too angry with God to say the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the church service. Her eyes stay open, her lips sealed. When she reached for the chamber pot one morning soon after her arrival, she found a small brass crucifix tossed underneath the bed. After careful consideration, she left it there. God will have to prove himself to Tess, after what has been done to Cat.

She keeps walking and at last buildings begin to appear further along the canal. She hears voices, laughter and splashing. Pausing nervously, she pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders and cautiously walks on. By the bridge where she is to take to the road and follow it to the centre of town, a group of boys are bathing, their blazers and straw hats scattering the grassy bank. It’s some kind of impromptu swimming gala, the boys let out from school, and a crowd has gathered – men and women and children, hanging from the bridge to watch. Tess joins them, smiling uncertainly, laughing at the boys’ antics as they swim a cigarette race – the winner being he who can make it to the far bank and back twice over with his fag still alight, in spite of the hearty splashing all around.

Eventually, Tess turns to walk on into town, but just as she does a steamboat chugs slowly into view from the east. She pauses to watch it, as the boatman whistles a shrill warning through his fingers, and the boys make way for him, scrambling onto the banks to clear a path. The boat is old and battered; wreathed in clouds of steam and smoke. But it has fresh paint, half-finished. The cabin has been done up in Romany colours – greens and reds and yellows. The sides are still faded and flaking, except for the name of the vessel, done neatly in white against a dark blue ground. Black Cat. Tess’s heart leaps and she runs back to the side of the bridge to see it better. The man at the tiller is weathered and strongly built. He smiles and thanks the boys as he passes, but his eyes are sad. Tess’s eyes stay fixed on him, and she has the sensation that she knows him – so powerful that for a second, when he is close, she almost calls out to him. Tess watches until the boat slides out of sight, and suddenly she grows calm. The autumn sun shines softly on her face, and she walks on into Thatcham with a feeling that things will be well. That she will be well. She feels as though a friend is walking beside her.