The Unseen(42)

‘You’ll want to see the site, of course. The hollow in the water meadow. I doubt whether we shall see any of the elementals themselves, of course, this late in the day and with the sun so high. It was early dawn when I first saw them, which was just as you mentioned in your lecture as being the best time by far,’ Albert says.

‘I should be very glad to see the place, indeed.’ Robin Durrant nods. ‘But I need not right this minute, if it will delay your lunch at all, Mrs Canning?’

‘Oh, no, lunch will not be delayed. You don’t mind, do you, Hetty? It needn’t take very long,’ Albert says, before Hester can reply. He does not take his eyes from Robin Durrant as he speaks, though he inclines his head towards his wife slightly, as if he knows he should.

‘No, of course. You must do whatever you see fit, gentlemen,’ Hester says. ‘I will let Mrs Bell know that we’ll sit down at two, instead of one. There’s a lovely leg of lamb in the oven, I believe.’

‘Perhaps … it’s rather awkward of me, I know, but perhaps you might also give fair notice to your cook that I do not consume meat, of any kind.’ Mr Durrant smiles, a touch diffidently.

‘No meat?’ Hester replies, before she can stop herself.

‘Indeed, no meat. Theosophy teaches us that something of the animal nature of the beast that is eaten physiologically enters and is incorporated into the man upon his eating of its flesh, thereby coarsening him, weighing down mind and body and greatly retarding the development of the inner intuition, the inner powers,’ the theosophist explains. All with a disarming smile.

Hester is dumbstruck for a moment. She glances at Albert, but he is shrugging on a lightweight coat, and patting the pockets to be sure he has a handkerchief.

‘Well, then. Well. I shall of course let the kitchen know,’ she murmurs, somewhat dreading Sophie Bell’s reaction to the news. The men bustle from the house, and in the sudden quiet Hester is left to shut the door behind them. She stands at the hall window to watch them go up the path and into the lane. Albert talks avidly all the while, his hands moving in quick gesticulations; Robin Durrant walks steadily, and with his head held high. Hester takes a deep breath, and releases it in a short sigh. She finds herself wishing she might have been asked to go along with them. Albert does not look back from the gate, nor wave, as is his custom.


At the window in the drawing room Cat sees the men leave, and turns her face to the sun for a moment. She longs to chase the grey tone from her skin, to burn all trace of it away with the sun’s glare. She has seen the farmer’s wives, and their children, with their faces bronze and gold, and freckles like brown sugar scattered over their noses. That is what she wants. When she is with George, she feels it ebb from her. The chill; the deathly, clinging taint. Memories of fear and pain. George and the sun, these two life-giving things, keeping her going by day and by night. She turns from the window and continues to dust, stroking the soft cloth slowly over the contours of a carved chair. She likes the satin feel of the wood beneath her hand. On the desk is the letter Hester was writing when Robin Durrant arrived. The letter that had her blushing over her pen. Cat walks idly to stand in front of it, and starts to read.

She reads that she might be checked upon in her room, to be sure that she sleeps. This makes her heart jump up into her throat, chokingly. Then it beats hard with rage. To be checked upon, kept watch over, kept captive. She is breathing hard, is too angry to enjoy Hester’s concern over her health, or her worries about hidden perversions. When she reads the final paragraph an incredulous smile breaks over her face. She almost laughs aloud – not cruelly – but to read of the vicar and a rutting stallion in the same sentence … Then she hears a noise outside the door and hurriedly steps back from the desk. The duster had been clamped under her arm, and she can’t quite get it to hand fast enough, can’t quite seem to have been dusting, blamelessly, as Hester enters the room. The vicar’s wife’s expression is one of troubled distraction, but when she sees Cat she smiles, hesitantly. Cat smiles too, quick and curt, and hurries from the room.

She and Tess were discovered, of course. One of the footmen saw them, one Sunday afternoon, handing out leaflets outside the Liberal Party offices. Or rather, trying to hand them out. Men brushed past them, rudely knocking their hands away, barrelling by as though they were invisible. One or two gave them dark looks, muttered ‘For shame’. They had been wearing the best version of the uniform that they could manage – green, white and purple regalia, draped over their right shoulders, passing under their left arms. Ribbons in the colours tied around their bonnets. They could not afford the white golf coats they ought to have had, at seven shillings and sixpence; nor the short, daring green or purple skirts that brushed the leg just on the ankle bone. They were working class, as all could see, but they were still recognisably suffragettes.