The Unseen (15 page)

Robin takes a deep breath, and seems to consider this; then he shakes his head. ‘Oh, no! He really is an old pussy cat. I only meant to say that he has always taught us to believe in ourselves, to expect the best from ourselves. Such an upbringing makes it easy for a child to excel,’ he says.

Hester colours slightly, embarrassed to have misread him.

‘Well, clearly you yourself are excelling at … theosophy.’ She smiles. ‘I know Albert was very impressed by the lecture you gave …’

‘I fear that my chosen sphere is not one that my father readily understands. And it is not one in which, I think, a person can be said to excel – dealing as it does with the creation of a brotherhood of man, a coming together of equals, and the sacrifice of pride and personal gain,’ Mr Durrant replies, quite solemnly.

‘Indeed, yes, of course.’ Hester nods. In the slight pause, the garden shears squeal and clack. ‘Oh! I think I hear Bertie’s bicycle!’ she cries, with some relief.

*

Albert smiles widely as he shakes hands with Robin Durrant, his face alight with excitement in a way Hester can’t recall seeing before. Certainly not on their wedding day, when he wore an expression of terrified concentration, as if in utter dread of doing or saying the wrong thing. She squeezes his hand fondly when he comes to stand beside her, glad to see him so animated.

‘You’ll want to see the site, of course. The hollow in the water meadow. I doubt whether we shall see any of the elementals themselves, of course, this late in the day and with the sun so high. It was early dawn when I first saw them, which was just as you mentioned in your lecture as being the best time by far,’ Albert says.

‘I should be very glad to see the place, indeed.’ Robin Durrant nods. ‘But I need not right this minute, if it will delay your lunch at all, Mrs Canning?’

‘Oh, no, lunch will not be delayed. You don’t mind, do you, Hetty? It needn’t take very long,’ Albert says, before Hester can reply. He does not take his eyes from Robin Durrant as he speaks, though he inclines his head towards his wife slightly, as if he knows he should.

‘No, of course. You must do whatever you see fit, gentlemen,’ Hester says. ‘I will let Mrs Bell know that we’ll sit down at two, instead of one. There’s a lovely leg of lamb in the oven, I believe.’

‘Perhaps … it’s rather awkward of me, I know, but perhaps you might also give fair notice to your cook that I do not consume meat, of any kind.’ Mr Durrant smiles, a touch diffidently.

‘No meat?’ Hester replies, before she can stop herself.

‘Indeed, no meat. Theosophy teaches us that something of the animal nature of the beast that is eaten
physiologically
enters and is incorporated into the man upon his eating of its flesh, thereby coarsening him, weighing down mind and body and greatly retarding the development of the inner intuition, the inner powers,’ the theosophist explains. All with a disarming smile.

Hester is dumbstruck for a moment. She glances at Albert, but he is shrugging on a lightweight coat, and patting the pockets to be sure he has a handkerchief.

‘Well, then. Well. I shall of course let the kitchen know,’ she murmurs, somewhat dreading Sophie Bell’s reaction to the news. The men bustle from the house, and in the sudden quiet Hester is left to shut the door behind them. She stands at the hall window to watch them go up the path and into the lane. Albert talks avidly all the while, his hands moving in quick gesticulations; Robin Durrant walks steadily, and with his head held high. Hester takes a deep breath, and releases it in a short sigh. She finds herself wishing she might have been asked to go along with them. Albert does not look back from the gate, nor wave, as is his custom.

At the window in the drawing room Cat sees the men leave, and turns her face to the sun for a moment. She longs to chase the grey tone from her skin, to burn all trace of it away with the sun’s glare. She has seen the farmer’s wives, and their children, with their faces bronze and gold, and freckles like brown sugar scattered over their noses. That is what she wants. When she is with George, she feels it ebb from her. The chill; the deathly, clinging taint. Memories of fear and pain. George and the sun, these two life-giving things, keeping her going by day and by night. She turns from the window and continues to dust, stroking the soft cloth slowly over the contours of a carved chair. She likes the satin feel of the wood beneath her hand. On the desk is the letter Hester was writing when Robin Durrant arrived. The letter that had her blushing over her pen. Cat walks idly to stand in front of it, and starts to read.

She reads that she might be checked upon in her room, to be sure that she sleeps. This makes her heart jump up into her throat, chokingly. Then it beats hard with rage. To be checked upon, kept watch over, kept captive. She is breathing hard, is too angry to enjoy Hester’s concern over her health, or her worries about hidden perversions. When she reads the final paragraph an
incredulous smile breaks over her face. She almost laughs aloud – not cruelly – but to read of the vicar and a rutting stallion in the same sentence … Then she hears a noise outside the door and hurriedly steps back from the desk. The duster had been clamped under her arm, and she can’t quite get it to hand fast enough, can’t quite seem to have been dusting, blamelessly, as Hester enters the room. The vicar’s wife’s expression is one of troubled distraction, but when she sees Cat she smiles, hesitantly. Cat smiles too, quick and curt, and hurries from the room.

She and Tess were discovered, of course. One of the footmen saw them, one Sunday afternoon, handing out leaflets outside the Liberal Party offices. Or rather, trying to hand them out. Men brushed past them, rudely knocking their hands away, barrelling by as though they were invisible. One or two gave them dark looks, muttered ‘For shame’. They had been wearing the best version of the uniform that they could manage – green, white and purple regalia, draped over their right shoulders, passing under their left arms. Ribbons in the colours tied around their bonnets. They could not afford the white golf coats they ought to have had, at seven shillings and sixpence; nor the short, daring green or purple skirts that brushed the leg just on the ankle bone. They were working class, as all could see, but they were still recognisably suffragettes.

They stuck together, working side by side, laughing at the men’s rudeness, exchanging comments on their figures and dress, airs and graces. None of them took a leaflet, of course; but the girls called out their slogans nonetheless, and managed to give the literature to a few female passers-by. Then Cat saw Barnie coming along the street towards them, tucking a new packet of cigarettes into his pocket. She froze for a second, saw him recognise them, saw his expression change. He did not stop to speak to them, of course; would not be seen doing so in public. But as he made his way past he could barely contain a grin of stifled joy at his discovery. Barnie was excitable, and liked to make trouble, which
he called ‘joshing’. Both Tess and Cat had spurned his advances since he’d arrived at Broughton Street, so he dubbed them ‘the sapphos’, and his lust turned to spite.

News of what the parlourmaid and the second kitchen-maid were up to passed from Barnie to the housekeeper, then to the butler, then to The Gentleman. He called the pair of them to stand before him in his study. Tess shook from her curly hair to the worn-out soles of her shoes, but Cat squeezed her hand, and tipped her own chin up defiantly. She knew she could not easily be dismissed. Her mother had told her that, before she died.

‘Well, now, Catherine and Teresa,’ The Gentleman began. Upon hearing her name, Tess trembled even more; as if until that point she had been half hoping to go unnoticed. Cat met The Gentleman’s eye and refused to look away, even though it took all of her nerve to do so. The study was an imposing, book-lined room; all dark mahogany on the walls and dark red carpets on the floor. Weak autumn light filtered in through the high windows, making the room reminiscent of a church. The quiet, dusty air was cool and still. The Gentleman was in his sixties, tall, broad and barrel-shaped. His jawline was described by grey whiskers, the bones themselves long since lost in a fold of flesh; but his eyes, though small, were jovial and kindly. Unless he had been drinking, or gambling of course. He was notoriously bad at both. ‘I hear the pair of you have become rather hot politicos,’ he said, smiling as if the idea amused him.

‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ Cat demurred. Tess stared intently at the floor, as silent as the grave but for the snuffle of her anxious breathing.

‘Come now, Catherine, don’t play the ignorant serving wench with me – it just won’t wash,’ he reprimanded her. Cat blinked and let her iron gaze relax a little, seeing that they were not to be given a roasting.

‘We were doing no harm. Our Sunday afternoons are our own.
It’s no crime to join a political union, or party; no crime to canvass on their behalf.’

‘I understand that your Sunday afternoons are intended to be used for the visiting of relatives, or for getting on with some sewing or reading, or other such useful activity,’ The Gentleman suggested mildly.

‘Our Sunday afternoons are our own,’ Cat replied, bullishly.

‘Catherine! Why, you are every bit as stubborn as your mother.’ He chuckled briefly.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Cat replied, with the ghost of a smile. The Gentleman took off his spectacles and laid them on the open ledger in front of him. He leant back in his chair, folded his arms and seemed to think for a while. The girls stood in place, like sentries.

‘Well, you are quite right that there is no crime in what you do, handing out leaflets and such. I assume that you take no payment for this work? Good. But I can’t pick up a newspaper these days without reading of some girl being arrested for some silliness or other in connection with these bluestocking rabble-rousers. They go too far. Unnatural creatures – quite unwomanly, what they get up to. But I am not the type to banish free thinking, not even amongst my servants. Carry on with it, then, if you must. But I will not hear of you out in the streets again, shouting slogans or harassing good citizens as they attend their own political meetings. No more of it, I say. I will not have you bringing ill fame on this house with any more extreme behaviour. Do I make myself understood?’

‘May we attend the meetings still?’ Cat asked.

‘You may retain your membership of the WSPU, and attend the meetings, yes. You may read their literature, if you must; but do not leave it lying around for the other servants to see. And I will not hear of you encouraging any of the other girls to join in this latest hobby.’

‘May we wear a small token of the colours about our persons?’

‘Whilst you are within the walls of this house, no, you may not,’
The Gentleman replied, his eyes sparkling. He always had enjoyed a negotiation.

‘Emma is allowed to wear a crucifix. Why may we not wear an emblem?’

‘Emma is devout. Should you wish to wear a cross of Jesus, you also may. I hope you are not comparing our Lord God to Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst?’ He smiled. Cat tried hard to keep her face straight, but could not prevent the corners of her mouth from twitching.

‘Certainly not. For if God were a woman, we would certainly not have to fight so hard for basic social justices,’ she said.

‘If God were a woman! If God were a woman!’ The Gentleman laughed. ‘Catherine, you are a card, you really are. I should never have taught you to read. It’s true that in women, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!’ he chortled. Cat stopped smiling, and resumed her steely stare. The Gentleman fell silent for a while. ‘And with your mother’s glare, to boot. Begone the pair of you, about your work.’ He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. ‘Let me hear no more about it.’ Cat turned to go, rousing Tess with a tug on her hand. The girl seemed to have fallen into a trance. ‘Wait, Catherine – here. Read these, if you please. Perhaps we shall turn you into a thoughtful socialist, rather than a scurrilous suffragette,’ The Gentleman said, passing her a selection of pamphlets printed by The Fabian Society. Cat took them eagerly, and read the front of the uppermost:
Tract No. 144 – Machinery: its Masters and its Servants
. The Gentleman knew her love of reading – it was he who had fostered it.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, genuinely pleased. He gave her a vague pat on the shoulder, and turned away.

Once they were back below stairs, Tess let out a massive sigh, as if she’d held her breath for the entire interview.

‘Oh, sweet Lord, I thought we were out on the streets, so I did!’ she cried.

‘Don’t be silly – I told you we wouldn’t be, didn’t I?’ Cat said,
taking her by the tops of her arms, giving her a little shake. Tess wiped tears of relief from her eyes, and smiled.

‘I don’t know how you have the nerve to speak to him the way you do, I really don’t! I thought I would die of fright!’

‘You don’t know? Can’t you guess?’ Cat asked, solemnly.

‘Guess what, Cat? What do you mean?’ Tess asked, bewildered. Over her friend’s shoulder, Cat saw Mrs Heddingly hovering in the dark doorway of her room. The housekeeper watched her with a censorious look on her face.

‘Never mind. Come on, we’d better get back to it,’ she said. After this incident, they did not go canvassing again for a couple of weeks. And when they did start again, they made sure that they were well away from any of the shops Barnie visited for his fags or matches.

Hester finds Cat at the top of the cellar stairs, frozen, quite lost in reverie. Her stillness is unnerving, and for a moment Hester hesitates, unsure how to proceed. At last she clears her throat pointedly, and sees the girl jump.

‘Ah, Cat. I wonder if you would be good enough to see me in the parlour?’ she says, and retreats with the dark-haired girl following behind.

‘Madam?’ Cat says, coming to stand in front of her, hands hanging loose at her sides. Hester wishes she would clasp them either in front or behind her, but she does not know how to phrase such a request. It just seems so unnatural to leave them hanging in that way. As though she expects to have to use them in sudden violence.