‘I don’t rightly know, Miss Morley,’ he mutters.
‘Is it ruined?’ she asks. George shrugs one shoulder, noncommittal, and Cat understands him. ‘Can’t you read?’ she asks, incredulously. George hands the letter back, shrugs again, frowns at the look on Cat’s face.
‘Not much call for a bargeman to read,’ he says. ‘I’ll bid you good day, then.’ He turns back to his boat, is aboard in one wide, assured stride.
‘Well now, you can laugh at me but I can’t laugh at you, is that the way of it?’ Cat calls to him from the bank.
George pauses, smiles a little. ‘Well, you have me there, Miss Morley,’ he admits.
‘My name is Cat,’ she tells him. ‘Nobody calls me Miss Morley except—’ She breaks off. Except the policemen who took her, the judge who tried her. She shrugs. ‘Nobody does.’
‘You’ll be about town, will you, Cat?’
‘Now and then, I dare say.’
‘Then I shall look out for you. And that sharp tongue of yours.’ He smiles. Cat eyes him, tips her head to one side. She likes the sparkle in his eyes, the way she abashed him like a schoolboy. With a quick smile, she walks on into town. After the post office she buys the madeleines, which she carries carefully, still warm and sticky; the scent of vanilla oozing from the paper wrapper. She buys herself some cigarettes, and a copy of Votes for Women for a penny from Menzies. She will hide it under her skirt when she gets back, spirit it up to her room, and read it after hours.
One Thursday, Hester and Albert eat an early supper of lamb steaks as evening falls outside and bats replace the birds, wheeling across the lawn. Cat serves them, walking from one end of the table to the other with the soup tureen, then the plate of meat, then the vegetables. In London she was to be silent, invisible; servants were not acknowledged at table. But each time she puts something on Hester’s plate, Hester smiles and thanks her softly. Cat was startled the first few times this happened, and did not know how to respond. Now she murmurs ‘madam’ softly, each and every time, like a gentle echo after Hester speaks. Albert seems not to notice any of this, eating his dinner with a diffuse, faraway look punctuated now and then by traces of a frown, or a smile, or an incredulous lift of his eyebrows. He is quite captivated by his own thoughts, and Hester watches him fondly as they proceed across his face.
‘What is the subject of tonight’s lecture, my dear?’ Hester asks, once Cat has withdrawn. ‘Albert?’ she prompts him, when he does not reply.
‘I do beg your pardon, my dear?’
‘Tonight’s lecture. I was wondering what it was about?’ There are lectures once or twice a week in Newbury, and Albert tries to attend at least one of them, especially if they deal with matters philosophical, biological or spiritual.
‘Ah – it should be a most interesting one. The title is “Nature Spirits and their place in the Wisdom Religion”. The speaker is a rising star in theosophical circles – Durrant, I believe his name is. He hails from Reading, if I remember correctly.’
‘Nature spirits? What can he mean?’ Hester asks, puzzled. She doesn’t ask the meaning of theosophical – is unsure that she could pronounce it right.
‘Well, dear Hetty, that is what I intend to discover,’ Albert says.
‘Does he mean hobgoblins and the like?’ She laughs a little, but stops when Albert frowns slightly.
‘It does not do to laugh simply because we do not understand, Hetty. Why shouldn’t the figures of childhood stories and myth have some basis in reality, upon some level or another?’
‘Well, of course, I didn’t mean—’
‘After all, we all know the human soul exists, and what is a ghost but the disembodied spirit of a human soul? Surely none could argue against the wealth of evidence for their existence?’
‘Indeed not, Bertie,’ Hester agrees.
‘The conjecture, I believe, is that plants, too, have spirits, of a kind – guardians to tend them and guide them in their growth and propagation,’ Albert goes on.
‘Yes, of course, I see,’ Hester says, quite seriously now.
They pause for a moment, silent but for the clink of their cutlery, the sounds of their own eating.
‘And you are off to Mrs Avery’s, for a game of bridge? What time shall I see you back here again?’ Albert asks at length.
‘Oh, I expect I will be back before you, dear. We shall only play until about ten,’ Hester says hurriedly, knowing that Albert does not approve of her playing bridge, and wanting to move on from the subject as quickly as possible.