‘Cat! What’s happened? Are you well?’ He has caught even more sun, the skin of his face dark brown but for little pale lines around his eyes, where during the day he squints.
‘No, no, I’m not ill. Just tired. I have not slept,’ she says, smiling drunkenly up at him. He searches her face for a moment; runs his hands the length of her as if to check all is in place; brushes back the short wisps of her hair; plants a kiss on her mouth.
‘Sit down, Black Cat. You look done in, girl.’ He smiles. ‘Look – I bought some beer while I was away. Will you have some?’
‘Ginger beer?’
‘Yes, though I bought plain ale as well if you’d rather.’
‘No, I like the ginger,’ she says.
‘What happened while I was away?’
‘Need anything have happened?’
‘I can see it in your eyes, Cat. Is it bad news?’ George takes two cups from hooks, pours their drinks.
‘It’s all bad news. I am bad news,’ she says, and he waits for an explanation. ‘My good friend Tess, who was arrested and gaoled with me – on account of me, if truth be told – has found herself in the workhouse, with nowhere else to go. She’s only a child! Not yet eighteen, even. And I would have gone to see her today, since today is the only visiting day, but the vicar’s wife would not allow it. And it is all my fault! And The Gentleman … he could have kept her out of it. He could have let her have her old job back … he knows she was no trouble, not really. Not like me. Or sent her here, that’s what he should have done! Sent her here in my stead. I deserved the poorhouse, perhaps, but she did not. She did not.’ The words tumble over one another, and before she knows it, tears are sliding down her cheeks and she can’t keep her throat from closing.
‘Hush now, stop that! It won’t help her to tear yourself up over it,’ George says softly, holding her face in his hard hands, catching the tears with his thumbs.
‘I must help her, though … I must. Perhaps I spoke the truth just now … perhaps that’s it!’ she cries, her eyes widening.
‘Cat, love, you’re not making sense …’
‘She should come here, and take this job. I hate it … I can’t stand it. It’s all lies and … and captivity! But Tess doesn’t fight things like I do. She would be a good maid to them, and grateful as people would say she should be. They must hire her!’
‘And where will you go, if they do? They’ll not keep you both on, I’ll warrant,’ George asks, frowning slightly and catching Cat’s hands as she gesticulates wildly.
‘I’ll leave. I don’t care. I’ll just go … I don’t care where,’ she says, then falls still as she considers her words. ‘I can’t stay there for ever. I can’t be like Sophie Bell. I will turn mad,’ she murmurs.
‘I have an answer to this, perhaps,’ George says quietly. He lets go of her hands, crosses to the far side of the cabin where his kitbag is stowed beneath the narrow bed. He pulls it out, rummages inside for something. ‘I had meant to ask you another way, and perhaps not this evening. But still.’
‘I could find some other job, perhaps. Not as a servant. I could learn to type … Or I could work in a factory somewhere …’
‘That’s just another kind of servitude. Cat, listen to me.’ He kneels in front of her, so that their eyes are level. ‘I have the answer, I’m telling you.’ Cat frowns, struggles to focus her eyes on him, her thoughts on him. There’s a flash of silver in the palm of his hand. ‘This ring was my grandmother’s. I called in on my folk, while I was away. They’ve kept it in case I ever had need of it, which now I do.’
‘You mean to sell it? The money … would not be enough to support …’ Cat shakes her head, gazing at the thin white band.
‘No, I don’t mean to sell it, you dunce. I mean to wed you with it!’ George exclaims. Cat stares at him. ‘I mean to wed you with it, Cat. I love you, truly. I would have you with me always. And you can leave your post, if that’s what you wish. We can take rooms in Hungerford, until I can save enough for the boat … Find other work if it pleases you, or I’ll keep you, as a man should …’ In the face of Cat’s silence, George’s words stumble to a halt. He looks hard into her eyes, which are inscrutable. ‘Have you no answer for me, then?’ he says, anxiously. Cat puts her hands through his hair, runs them the length of his thick arms. She kisses his neck, his eyes, all over his face, and puts her arms around him. He is more real and alive than anything else she knows, and though she is asleep within seconds, she wonders, at the last, how she will explain her refusal.