‘Yes, of course, Reverend. Ladies, if you will excuse me?’ He gives them a graceful incline of his head. Albert nods briefly at his wife and her friend, and then guides the theosophist away with a hand hovering at his back.
‘Well, he is quite delightful, isn’t he?’ Claire murmurs. Do you know what I think? I think your husband was a little jealous, seeing you walking and talking with that young man!’ She nudges Hester lightly.
‘Oh, no!’ Hester laughs. ‘I’m sure not. Do you really think so?’ she ventures.
‘Absolutely! Such a charming fellow … and so handsome. And I saw the way he smiled at you … perhaps the vicar has a good reason to be jealous?’ she suggests, archly.
‘Claire, really!’ Hester admonishes her, but can’t keep from smiling.
‘And I’ll tell you another thing – I’m jealous too. Of you, having such a wonderful house guest! Nobody interesting ever comes to stay with us at Park Farm. It’s simply not fair,’ Claire sighs, looping her arm through Hester’s as they walk on again. Hester says nothing, a little ashamed by how pleasant it feels to be envied.
5
Cat hears the crunching of the dairy cart horse on the driveway, and goes out with the milk jugs to greet him. It’s before seven in the morning, and the sky is as clear and colourless as glass. Barrett Anders, the dairy man, is thin and silent. His overalls stink of cattle, but his hands are scrubbed pink and clean. His mouth is lost beneath drooping moustaches, the same greasy grey as his hair.
‘The usual please, Barrett,’ Cat says, stifling a yawn. For the first hour after waking from her restless sleep she is chilled, shivery and stupid. She sets the heavy jugs on the ground as the dairy man measures out two pints of buttermilk, one of blue milk and one of cream; dipping into the churns with a long-handled tin measure. The horse, a sturdy cob with a massive rump, lifts its tail, farts loudly and expels a pile of manure onto the driveway. Cat rolls her eyes. ‘It’s me that’ll have to pick that up, thank you very much,’ she mutters. Barrett’s mouth twists beneath the whiskers.
‘Tha’ll please the mistress, tha’ll. Summat extra for ’er roses, free o’ charge,’ he drawls.
‘Too kind of you, old nag,’ Cat thanks the horse. After Barrett is back aboard the cart and rolling slowly away along the lane into the village, Cat lingers for a moment with the jug of cream in her hands. She likes the still and quiet, the cool dampness of the air. So sweet, it seems different stuff to the baked, heavy fug of the afternoon. Overhead, a phalanx of swifts goes screaming past, wings cranked back, bodies taut. Into the west, where the sky is a deeper colour. Cat stares after them, and longs to follow.
Just then she hears the door open behind her, and voices talking softly. She turns to see the vicar and the theosophist emerging from the house, all kitted out with their binoculars and bags. The vicar strides along smartly, tapping a polished walnut walking stick into the gravel as he goes, talking earnestly all the while. Mr Durrant wears a smart linen coat, one hand thrust casually into his pocket, the other carrying a boxy camera covered in soft brown pigskin and gilt decorations. As they pass her, Cat can make out the vicar’s hushed words.
‘… I do believe that the very reason I have always felt so deep a love for the countryside and the wild places of this earth, the very reason I have always been drawn to it and taken comfort from it, is that I have, all the while and unbeknownst to me, been in the presence of these elemental beings; beings higher and closer to God than the whole of mankind,’ he says. His face is quite rapt as he speaks, so much so that he doesn’t even see his maid, standing in the dawn light with milk jugs at her feet.
‘It may indeed be so, Albert. You must possess at least some small measure of inner sight to have seen the elementals in the first place, and that is where we all begin. Tell me, were you in any kind of a trance state when you saw them first?’ the theosophist asks.
Cat frowns at them as they pass her by, at a distance of thirty feet. Her moment of peace is quite ruined. At the gate into the lane the theosophist looks back, unseen by the vicar, and gives her a smile too knowing, too familiar for her liking. She turns away, and picks up another jug before making for the kitchen.
They will be gone for at least an hour, Cat knows. The theosophist has fast adopted the vicar’s habit of rising early, and joins him in his walks through the meadows before breakfast. No longer just walks, however. Summonings, she heard the theosophist call them, as she served him yet another cheese omelette the other evening. With curiosity, or something like it, gnawing at her, Cat goes upstairs on soft feet, and along the corridor to the guest bedroom that has become Mr Durrant’s. She closes the door quietly behind her, in case Hester is awake and might hear, opens the curtains then stands with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene. The room is in disarray. Every morning she sets it straight, and every night she turns back the bed and shuts the curtains again; and yet in the short intervening space of time the theosophist manages to create more mess than a nursery full of toddlers. Clothes and shoes lie discarded on the chair and ottoman and floor; a plate covered in cheese rinds and grape stems is in the middle of the silk eiderdown, surrounded by greasy fingerprints; a high pile of books by the bed has toppled over; the sheets are a tangled mess, spilling off the bed. One pillow is entirely out of its case. ‘For heaven’s sake, was he pitching a fit?’ Cat mutters, as she begins to pick up his clothes, shaking them out and hanging them neatly in the wardrobe. She makes the bed and matches up his shoes, putting one muddy pair by the door to take down and polish. She restacks the books, and as she does so an envelope falls out of the pile.