The Unseen(64)

‘Is that what you believe in? A great nothingness? You are an atheist?’ Robin asks. Cat winces at the word, in case the vicar or his wife should hear it. She finishes her cigarette, grinds it into the bricks beneath her heel. The night is close and sticky. Sleep will be hard to find. In the distance, thunder rumbles ominously. The western horizon is an indigo smear, and all the usual night sounds are stifled, muted. Cat’s body yearns for George, and his heavy, sure hands.

‘I have been to the very edge of death. And I looked hard. And there was nothing there,’ she says eventually, her voice clipped.

‘You are very strange, for a servant,’ Robin repeats.

‘You eat no meat but you drink wine, and brandy, and you smoke tobacco. I should say you are strange, for a theosophist.’

‘Ah, but the Society is not peopled with saints, Cat. Only with sinners who are trying to do better.’ Cat rolls her eyes a little at this, standing up from the wall and folding her arms as she moves towards the door. ‘Not bed, surely? Aren’t you off out to see your sweetheart tonight?’ Robin asks, quite pleasantly. At this Cat hesitates, shoots him a worried, angry glance. There is a hard edge to his smile now, a glint of knowing in his eye that makes her uneasy. Robin shrugs, too casually. ‘Word gets about. But fear not. Your secret is safe with me.’ His tone is nonchalant; makes a lie of the statement. Cat frowns, steps inside. ‘Wait – won’t you stay out and talk to me a bit longer?’ he asks. That slow, lazy, gorgeous smile.

‘Why on earth would I want to?’ Cat snaps, and then remembers herself, checks her tongue a little. ‘Goodnight, sir,’ she amends, and leaves him in the darkness.


In the morning, Cat takes the small stack of letters from the postman and is arranging them on a silver-plated tray to take up to the breakfast table when her own name catches her eye. A small grey envelope, with her name and the address written on it in a round, childish hand that she does not recognise. The postmark is London. Cat’s heart squeezes painfully. Tess, she thinks, slipping the letter into the pocket of her apron and hurriedly taking the tray up to the table. She dumps it rather abruptly in front of the vicar and retreats, not noticing Hester’s polite smile of thanks, or the way Robin Durrant’s eyes follow her. Ducking out into the courtyard she tears the letter open, squinting at the pale paper. The sky overhead is white with cloud so dense and uniform that is seems less like cloud and more as though the sky is too weary to be blue that day. But the letter is not from Tess.


Dear Cat,

I am writing to you because I no that Mrs Heddingly opened the letter what you rote to our Tess, who is not here any more. I did not think she should of opened it for she could of sent it on but she did not. We all saw Tesses name on the front of it and later on I stole a look at it in her room. This was not the proper thing to do neither but it was her that did the first wrong thing by opening it. I did not read it I swear it I only looked to see who it was from and I rote your new place out so I could rite this to you. Tess is in the workhouse now. Frosham House it is called and it is on Sidall Road near Soho. I hear it is not as bad a place as some but it is still not a good place and those what go there do come out thin and week if they come out at all. None of us could do nothing to help her having no money ourselves to give to her and her having no people of her own. I must also say that while Mrs Heddingly did wrong in not giving your letter on to her she did speak up for Tess after what happened but the Master would have none of it. Frosham House lets in visitors in the afternoon on the third Sunday of the month and no other day. Me and Ellen went to see Tess last month but she would not come out to talk to us. I hope you are in a better way Cat. It is not the same place here without you and Tess.

From Suzanne

The workhouse. Tess. Cat reads the letter again, heart sinking, feeling like lead in her chest. She shuts her eyes, and bunches her hand into a fist, the paper creasing and cutting into her. How could he do it? The Gentleman, with all his bluff good humour and progressive ideas. He must have known that without Cat there Tess would have kept herself quiet and well behaved. He must have known that put out of her job with no reference, there were only two places that the orphaned girl would end up. Either earning money on her back, or in the poorhouse. The injustice of it burns in the back of Cat’s throat like bile. At that moment, in spite of anything else, she hates him. Tess, just a baby still, given a choice like that. She would never have turned harlot. She was scared of men; still thought one day a handsome prince with gentle hands and a love of poetry would take a shine to her and marry her for her golden curls and her soft white body. And who knows – it might have happened one day. A tradesman or professional caller of some kind, rather than a prince; but still. Not now. Nothing for her now but endless toil and rat-eaten bread, and the stink of the old and infirm kept in damp rooms with nobody to help them. How she hates him!