The Unseen(61)

Mrs Bell waits until Hester’s footsteps have receded, then turns to Cat with her face pinched up in anger.

‘What’s all this?’ Cat asks.

‘Well, the young guest needs a dark room. To make photographs in, apparently, although what pictures he can take in a room with no light, I haven’t a clue. And my cold store is to be the place! No other room in the house will do for him – it has to be this one! And all the food will have to come out of it so as he can do his thing in it, whatever it might be. We’ll have nothing by the end of the day but rancid butter and green curds!’

‘All right – calm down. He’ll be developing the pictures in the dark room, not taking them,’ Cat says.

‘Developing pictures? What do you mean?’

‘The plates are very sensitive to light until they are developed – that is how an image comes to be imprinted upon them in the first place, of course. No other light must reach them until the right chemicals can be applied to set the image – even the faintest gleam would spoil it,’ she explains.

‘How in God’s name do you know all this? No, don’t tell me. You learned it in London,’ Mrs Bell mutters.

‘That I did. The Gentleman had photography as a particular hobby of his.’

‘Of course he did. Well, perhaps with all the vast knowledge you gathered there you can think of a way to keep that milk from spoiling by lunch time?’ she asks, acidly.

Cat thinks for a while. ‘I might have the answer, you know,’ she says, lightly. ‘Does the vicar’s wife have any mackintosh squares, for sitting herself on damp ground and the like?’

‘I believe so, in one or other of the trunks. What on earth will you do with them?’

‘Let’s find them first, then I’ll show you,’ Cat says. She peers back along the corridor before she goes upstairs, and sees the outline of the theosophist, still standing out in the courtyard. She does not like to think that he will be down in the cellars from now on; that he might be around to overhear her speak, or watch her work. Without being able to say quite why, she would prefer to keep him at a greater distance – the safe privacy of the kitchens feels violated.

Cat finds what she is looking for in the chest of drawers in the hallway: two large squares of waterproof oilcloth. She fetches a ball of strong jute garden twine from the greenhouse, then she and the housekeeper pack all the meat and dairy foods into a hamper. With one of them at each handle, they go out into the back garden and make their way to the far corner of the lawn, where the ground is shaded by a stand of ancient apple trees that have mistletoe crouching on them here and there. Protected from the worst of the sun’s onslaught, the grass here is longer and greener. It’s a cool and calming corner.

‘What are you thinking, girl?’ Mrs Bell demands, when Cat puts her side of the hamper down with a bump. Cat points to a pile of crumbling stonework, topped with a rotting wooden lid.

‘The old well,’ she says, heaving the heavy lid to one side. Mould and cobwebs fur the underside of it; the dark entrance to the shaft breathes out a damp smell like fungus. Cat brushes the cobwebs aside, calmly flicking away a spider when it clambers along her wrist.

‘Ugh, how can you bear to!’ Mrs Bell shudders. Cat glances up at her.

‘There are far worse things in life than spiders, Sophie Bell,’ she says.

‘That’s Mrs Bell to you,’ says Mrs Bell, but she speaks distractedly, as if from habit, and there is little feeling behind the words.

‘So. We tie the stuff into bundles, good and tight, then we lower them a way down into the well, and tie them to the top somehow … to a cross bar – this’ll do,’ Cat explains, picking up a broken wooden slat from the grass and laying it across the round hole.

‘I suppose it will be cool in there. Cooler than the kitchen, at least,’ Mrs Bell concedes.

‘Very much so.’ Cat swings the lid of the hamper open, begins to unpack onto the lush grass.

‘It won’t do for the milk jugs. We’ll have to stand them in basins of cold water back indoors.’

‘And if it starts to turn by afternoon, we can scald whatever’s left. It should at least keep until the morning if we do that,’ Cat adds.

A soft breeze eases through the parchment leaves above them. Mrs Bell stands wide, catches her breath. She eyes the mouth of the well with dark mistrust, as if almost frightened by it.

‘How did you even know this was here?’ the housekeeper asks.

‘Oh, you know. Just … getting my bearings,’ Cat says.

‘I’ll bet. Snooping about is more like it.’ Mrs Bell stands still and watches the well; she does not begin to unpack. Cat is drawing breath to demand help when Sophie Bell speaks again. ‘I shan’t be able to go too close to it, I think. No, I shan’t. Not too close, and not to look into it.’ She shudders a little, clamping her hands defensively into the enveloping flesh of her armpits.