The Unseen(89)

‘What can any woman do?’ Hester agrees. She thinks of Cat, and smiles. ‘My maid, Cat, would tell us off for such defeatism. She went to jail to earn us the vote, after all.’

‘Was that what it was all about? How ridiculous. They do more damage than good, those foolish vandals.’

‘Indeed,’ Hester murmurs. ‘And have you any more words of advice for me? Regarding my … marriage bed?’ she asks, and though she tries to make her tone light, the words come out with a quaver that sounds fragile, at breaking point. Amelia squeezes her hands again.

‘Only this. If you are lying close to him, smiling and asking to be taken into his arms, then your part is done, dearest. Anything that is lacking is lacking in Albert, not in you. So I cannot help you, because you are not the problem,’ she says.

‘Yes. That is what I have come to fear.’


‘So, I suppose this will take Mr Durrant to pastures new,’ Hester says to Albert, lying on the cool sheet with the blankets cast off, in the sudden darkness of the bedroom after the lamps have been extinguished. The window is still open, to freshen the air, and the distant sound of a dog barking echoes in from the village. She turns onto her side, facing Albert, as she always does in bed, and can trace the shape of his face in the pale glow of the starry night sky. His eyes are open and shine softly. He does not reply for quite some time, and when he does his voice is tight with anguish.

‘I truly hope not. Perhaps, for a while at least. He means to go up to London with them, to the headquarters of the Society. But afterwards … I pray he will return to us. To the elementals of our meadows.’

‘You wish him to return?’ she asks, already knowing the answer.

‘Yes, of course. He is teaching me so much … I feel that my mind has been opened, in these weeks since he came to me. The world is quite a different place.’

‘Yes, he has been full of … instruction,’ she says.

‘I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t come back again. I don’t know … how I would continue,’ Albert whispers, in a distracted way, as though to himself.

‘Come now, Bertie – you will always have me, even if house guests come and go,’ she says robustly, putting out her hand to stroke his arm reassuringly. ‘Won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course, Hetty,’ Albert says, not sounding in the least bit comforted.

‘He can’t stay with us for ever, after all. For one thing, we couldn’t afford to keep him,’ she says, pointedly.

‘But can’t you see, Hetty? He’s right. Everything he’s told us, since he arrived – and I saw you take some of it with a pinch of salt – no, don’t deny it. I know you too well, dear Hetty – all of it was true. And now he has the means to prove it to the world … do you understand how important this is, Hester? How important what has occurred here this summer is?’

‘Yes,’ Hester whispers, and feels close to tears because she does not feel it in her heart. She cannot feel the truth of it, nor share her husband’s conviction. The pictures show her a pretty figure, a thin figure, a barefooted dancer in a water meadow. Try as she might, she cannot see a fairy. And she does not want Robin Durrant back. She wants Albert back – wants him to belong to her again, if not in body then in spirit. She watches him for as long as she can, but while her own eyes grow heavy and her eyelids droop, his stay wide open, gleaming with the light of the heavens in them.


For the first time since she mastered the bicycle, Cat walks the distance to Thatcham. After days without George, she is so eager to see him that it feels almost like fear, makes the tips of her fingers shake and her thoughts buzz inside her skull like trapped insects. It is a mauve and indigo night, the landscape quite visible and full of noisy life – scrabbling movement in the bulrushes, the whirr and clatter of cricket wings, the harsh cries of startled river birds. Fatigue makes her head feel light. She has not slept for a day and a night and a day; has eaten little; has thought of Tess and George and Robin Durrant so much and so intensely that they have blurred in her mind’s eye, spiralling queasily into one another. Her dance in the water meadow could have happened a week ago, or a year, or ten years. Time is behaving oddly. Mrs Bell caught her earlier, up to her elbows in the scrub bucket, clutching a chemise when the water had long since gone cold. When she took her hands out the skin was puffy and wrinkled. Her steps along the towpath are a clock ticking, a metronome. One follows the other, left then right, and by this means alone, she finds her way.

His boat is moored in its usual place, and the cabin light is on. Cat stops beside it, feels puzzled and delighted and relieved. She walks the gangplank, slowly, carefully, unsure of her own body, her balance. All of the power she felt as she danced has gone now. When George hears her and climbs out of the cabin, she falls into him.