The Unseen(99)

‘Robin’s – Mr Durrant is coming back again, this evening?’ Cat asks. Hester glances at her sharply, and though the neutral look is there, something else that she cannot read is written in the maid’s eyes.

‘He is,’ she replies, and cannot keep her own discomfort quiet. It makes her voice higher than normal and pinches the words uncomfortably, makes the phrase slightly shorter than she means it to sound.

‘You must be so pleased,’ Cat says, and an expression passes swiftly over her face, just for a fraction of a second – a twitch of the brows, and one corner of her mouth – that loads her statement with irony.

Hester’s cheeks colour slightly, and she is not sure how to answer. ‘Indeed,’ she says.


With Cat gone from the room, Hester crosses to the window. At least, she thinks, she has dealt with the little crisis calmly and sensibly, and all can now return to harmony. Keeping the house running smoothly, and keeping the servants cheerful and discreet about their work is very much a part of being a wife. It does not do to allow your husband to witness housework half done, laundry half dry, or the servants bickering or being reprimanded. She is glad Albert stayed away, so she could deal with the matter efficiently, away from the tin-tack gaze of Sophie Bell. She looks out at the parched garden, where her crimson roses are dropping petals like waxy tears onto the lawn.

It is no good. She can’t convince herself, even with this piece of wisdom, that she is glad Albert has been out all afternoon. Since she woke him with her unwelcome caress … since she set eyes upon that one part of his anatomy that until then had been such a mystery, he has been more out of the house than in it, and his early mornings have begun again. So early that she woke that morning to find it still dark outside but her husband already up and gone. She has no idea where he has gone, or why, since he no longer talks to her about his day. She watches a blackbird dash a snail to death on the flagstones of the path. The sharp crack crack crack of its last moments feel like fine fractures shooting through her thoughts, splintering them until none make any sense. Something has gone very, very wrong, and is driving a wedge between Albert and herself, but she can’t tell exactly what it is, nor see a way to make things right.


Cat deliberately doesn’t look at Robin Durrant as she serves them their dinner. The vicar is all animation. He has burnt the skin across his nose and cheeks, giving him a look of constant excitement. He asks question after question about who the theosophist has spoken to, and what they have said, and what is to be done next about the grand design to bring truth to the masses, and whether Robin would review the pamphlet he has been working on regarding their discoveries. Robin’s answers seem somewhat subdued in comparison to the vicar’s urgent questions, and it is only with great force of will that Cat can keep herself from studying him, from trying to find the truth of things in his face when she knows it’s not to be found in his words. She knows where to meet him, and later, when she goes out to the courtyard, she sees him waiting in the far corner, smoking, pacing; his shoulders hunched.

‘Well? How well did they swallow your lie?’ Cat asks him, smiling mirthlessly. Robin shoots her a censorious look, flicks open his packet of cigarettes and offers her one. She takes it, holds it between her lips as he lights it, cupping his hand to shelter the match from a lively breeze that comes curling through the courtyard, blessedly cool.

‘You make it sound awful,’ he says, distractedly. He shifts from foot to foot, as if at any second he might be called upon to run, or fight.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No! All I have manufactured is a representation of the truth. A tangible proof, for those that struggle to accept the more intangible ones …’

‘Manufactured. Everything that needs saying about this sorry matter is in that one word. And you know it,’ Cat says, blandly. She takes a long pull on the cigarette, exhales blue smoke into the streaming air. Robin smiles, and then laughs shortly.

‘Do you know, it’s almost a relief to hear you speak of it? Such decisive dismissal, when all I’ve heard for days has been prevarication and dithering and uncertainty,’ he says.

‘They didn’t go for it?’

‘Some did, but not altogether; some wanted to, but weren’t quite able; some didn’t, but thought it was possible …’ He shakes his head. ‘It did not go quite as I had hoped, no. I think more is required.’

‘More?’ Cat asks, instantly on her guard.

‘I might need you again, Cat. Some members of The Society hinted that … perhaps the image of the elemental had been painted onto the film before development. Though I am no artist, as I tried to explain. Maybe they think I have an accomplice. They might send somebody to witness the production of another set of pictures, if I succeed in meeting and photographing the elemental again …’ he says, letting the implication of this linger.