The Unseen (32 page)

I cannot sufficiently explain the aura of blissful harmony and knowledge that emanates from the theosophist. He is an exemplary man
.
This
is how a person should be! His patience and learning, and how in all things he is both passionate and rational. He is the actual embodiment of an unsullied human spirit. How else to explain the feelings of completeness, peace and joy when I am in his company? Hester does not understand. When she speaks of him she is petulant, and is at times foolish. I should not reprimand her for it, since she does not know
the truth
,
and can have little understanding of such esoteric ideas. Women were ever less pious than men, ever less studious, ever less able to commit to serious thought. Wisdom is not in their make-up, and they are not to be blamed for it. Though theosophy teaches that, within The Society, no such discriminations are made between the sexes, I do not claim to agree with every one of its tenets
.

While Robin is away I will go myself into the meadows, and I will
recapture the quietness of spirit
that first allowed me to see the elementals. I will do this. I must not fail. For if I cannot do this I am no better than the gamblers in the pub, the fornicators in the dark corners of the streets. I will fight their assaults on decency, and I will fight my own impurities, the materialistic urges that have made it impossible for me to see again what I first saw. For as Charles Leadbeater himself says, for the elementals to be near an average man is like to be assaulted by a hurricane – a hurricane that has first blown over a
cesspool
. I will not be an average man any longer. If I can achieve this, Robin will truly have something to come back to. A proper
companion
, a
proper acolyte
to his teachings. For he must surely come back
.

1911

For a while after she wakes, Hester can’t quite place what is different. Downstairs, she hears Cat opening the shutters quietly, the gentle clonk of wood against wood as they concertina away into the panelling. The air is still, and close, and too warm. Her skin itches slightly, hot and clammy wherever the sheets touch her, and her thoughts feel drowsy and slow. Then she realises – she is not alone. For the first time in as long as she can remember, she has woken up before Albert, and he remains in bed beside her, asleep on his back with his jaw fallen slack and the tiniest of frowns puckering his brow. The soft sound of his breathing fills what would normally have been silence. It has been six days since Robin Durrant went up to London, and there has been no word from him; and while Albert seems agitated and impatient at this, Hester is pleased, and feels happier than she has in weeks. She rolls over gently so that she can lie facing him. With the curtains still closed the light coming through the thick fabric is a rich, shady ochre. Albert has kicked the covers off in the night, and lies with his legs and arms jumbled wide, carelessly. Hester smiles fondly at him as he murmurs something unintelligible, and shifts his head a little.

To sleep in, Albert wears a long, loose shirt of unbleached linen over a matching pair of trousers. These are rumpled now, from a restless night, and lie bunched and creased in a way that would be most uncomfortable had he been awake. Hester puts out her arm and rests it gently on his stomach, and then recoils in surprise. There is a hardness at his crotch, beneath the pale linen, that she
has never felt before. Albert murmurs again, more softly now. Hester stares at her husband’s body, but try as she might she can’t think what form of thing it might be that would feel that way – odd and almost unnatural, as if wholly disconnected from the rest of his relaxed, supine form. With her pulse quickening, Hester, ever so gently, fumbles at the buttons that fasten Albert’s trousers. The fabric is rough and she has to use both hands, though she does so with her lip gripped in her teeth in consternation, in case he should feel it and wake. He does not. And there it is. A curve of hardened flesh, arching up to rest against the soft down of his stomach, the skin satin smooth over an array of ridges and vessels; a deep, flushed, pinkish-brown colour, and a musky smell unlike any she has ever noticed him having before.

For a second, Hester is stunned, then revolted and afraid. She thinks that perhaps this deformity is the reason her husband has never wanted to hold her, or lie truly close to her at night. She lies rigid, propped on one elbow, transfixed and bombarded with questions and anxieties. But the more she thinks about it, the more some of the things Amelia has written to her drop into place, and she begins to understand that this … state is what is needed for their bodies to enmesh with one another. And now she is witnessing it, finally, for the first time. Cautiously, with one eye on Albert’s sleeping face, she touches it, letting her fingertips brush lightly against his skin. It feels feverishly hot, satin smooth, and strange. Albert whimpers quietly and arches his spine a little, twisting as if in nightmare. Hester considers waking him, but in the end is too fascinated by this new exploration of his anatomy. She curls her hand around it and squeezes ever so slightly, testing its rigidity, trying to discern what makes it so. Albert sighs, squirming slightly beneath her caress. The thing in her hand seems to grow yet harder, and she fancies for an instant that she can feel the beat of his heart within it. Running her hand along to its tip, which feels like the finest chamois, Hester smiles, surprised and pleased to finally learn something new about her husband. If he
had been shy about this organ of his, then surely now she has seen it, he will not be? A warm tingling begins between her thighs, and spreads to the pit of her stomach, and on impulse she leans over and kisses his mouth.

Albert wakes with a sharp inhalation of breath and a look of extreme bewilderment in his eyes, as if he expected to see somebody entirely different. The look persists even as he moves his head away from her slightly, and draws breath to speak. With her hand still circling his shaft, Hester feels, very precisely, the moment that its hardness begins to soften, and its size to diminish. Albert leaps away from her, scrambling from the bed and fumbling with the buttons of his trousers.

‘Hester!
What are you
doing?’
he cries, his voice breathless and tight, either with fear or with outrage.

‘Nothing, my love – it’s perfectly all right, really … I was so delighted to wake up beside you for once … I merely wanted to touch you, and I saw …’ She gestures at his lower body, her smile falling from her lips as she sees the thunderous expression spreading over his face.

‘Silence!’ he snaps, finishing with his fly and pulling on his dressing gown with desperate haste. He knots the cord around his middle with such ferocity that he will struggle to undo it again. ‘You must never touch me like that when I am sleeping! Or ever!’

‘But, Bertie, I only—’

‘No. We will not discuss this! We will forget it—’

‘I don’t want to forget it! Albert, this is nothing to be ashamed or … embarrassed about, my darling. It’s perfectly natural,’ she says, still hoping against a nagging uncertainty that this is so. ‘And I am your
wife
… we are married. There should be no secrets between us, nothing that the one does not understand about the other …’ She trails into silence. Albert goes to the window and throws the curtains wide, as if inviting the world in, unwilling to be
alone with his own wife. His arms hang limply at his sides, fingers flexing occasionally.

‘It was most improper and … indecent of you, to touch me like that!’ he says, his voice charged with some emotion she cannot define.

‘Bertie, please—’

‘We will not speak of it,’ he says.

‘But I
want
to speak of it! We must start to talk about these things, Albert, or remain forever in the dark!’ she cries in desperation.

‘What do you mean, in the dark? It’s you who will bring darkness upon this house, with such indecency!’

‘Indecency?
Is it indecent for a wife to touch her husband – the man to whom God has joined her? Is it indecent to want to live as man and wife, rather than as … brother and sister? You are a man of the cloth, Albert. I know it, and I respect it. But you are not a monk! What is the point of marriage if not to allow us to … lie together, and touch one another, and to make a
family
, Albert?’ Her voice shakes with emotion.

Albert stands and stares at her for some time, his jaw working, knotting at the corners. ‘You don’t understand … how could you?’ he says at last, his voice hard and low.

‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand this, and increasingly I don’t understand you, Bertie, or what I have done to make you treat me in this way … Please, explain it to me!’

‘I … I have always been kind to you, haven’t I? And a good husband?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then please, Hetty, don’t
pester
me like this all the time! Is this … physicality all you want from me? Are you so desperate for it that you’re willing to steal it from me, against my knowledge while I sleep? Like the worst kind of wanton strumpet?’

‘How can you accuse me like that? How can you use the word
wanton when I, your wife of over a year, am still a
maid
?’ she gasps at him, struggling to speak as sobs take a stranglehold on her.

Albert’s face is pale, and shining with sweat. He looks unwell. ‘I … I’m sorry,’ he says at last, quietly. His eyes are wide and unfocused. He swallows, and looks down at Hester as she weeps as though she is a wild and unknowable animal. At length, he turns and walks slowly away towards his dressing room, and Hester flings out her hand, clutches the fabric of his robe.

‘Albert, wait! Please, don’t go … stay and talk to me!’ she begs.

‘Now, now, Hetty,’ Albert murmurs vaguely. ‘I must get ready.’ He goes into his dressing room and shuts the door, his expression both fraught and distant.

Kneeling on the bed, Hester puts her hand over her mouth and catches the musky smell of him clinging to her skin. She is still sobbing, and though she tries to stop she can’t. She shivers in the warm room, and sits until these symptoms ease. In their place come confusion, and doubt, and desolation; and with them the new, unwelcome realisation that it had been when he’d opened his eyes and seen
her
that Albert’s state of arousal had waned. Hester moves to the edge of the bed, and sits with her feet dangling over it. She ought to get up, and get dressed for breakfast, but it all seems so pointless. Entirely as pointless as she feels herself to be.

Cat hears the jeering before she sees the unfortunate butt of the abuse. She has walked to Thatcham, and posted letters and a parcel for Hester, and now has to pick up fresh meat from the butcher. This she has to do more regularly than ever, since the weather continues to seethe and stew, and they can’t keep it from spoiling at The Rectory. After more than a day hanging in the well it comes up silvery green, and slick with a wet shine that greases the fingers, smells sharp and vinegary, and turns the stomach. As Cat walked past George’s boat, just now, her heart lurched and her throat went dry. But the cabin door was firmly shut, with no sound from
within or signs of its occupant. She walked on past with a slight fluttering in her stomach – butterfly wings of panic, threatening to grow stronger. She wonders what they mean. At the far end of The Broadway, where a wide open area between the flanking rows of shops forms something of an unmade square, a plump woman is standing on a rickety wooden platform. Her bonnet is no match for the powerful sun, and her face is flushed and shining. It’s the colours that draw Cat’s eye, make her catch her breath: a banner of white, green and purple hanging in swags behind the woman; a sash to match, draped over her; ribbons in the colours hanging limp in the still air.
Arise! Go Forth and Conquer!
the banner reads, painted by hand in purple letters that stand bold from the white sheet. A smaller placard propped beside her reads
Newbury WSPU – Bicycle Corps
. Licking her dry lips, and with a strange longing inside – almost like when her mother died, though not as strong – Cat makes her way over to the crowd.

It’s mostly men making all the noise, though some women join in too; laughing, passing remarks to one another, firing scandalised looks through their eyelashes. Those folk at the front of the crowd who might have wanted to hear the speech have little chance to. The strain of making herself heard above the din is forcing the plump woman to fight for breath.

‘As Mrs Pankhurst herself explained … as Mrs Pankhurst herself explained, the vote is first of all a symbol! Firstly, a symbol; secondly a safeguard; and thirdly, it is an instrument! Sisters! Comrades! Your lives will never improve until the government of this country is made accountable to you all!’ she shouts, to a fresh round of whistles and abuse. The speaker, short in stature with curly brown hair and a wide, gentle face, casts a glance over the hostile crowd with a helpless look in her eyes. ‘The vote is the instrument by which we may redress the imbalances in education, and law, and employment, all three of which remain to this day weighted so very heavily in favour of the male sex!’ she says, the words all but lost in the din. ‘They say that men and women
occupy two different spheres of existence – the home for women, and work and government for men – and that these spheres have been ordained by God, and should remain separate. They say that the political world is too dirty and raucous a one for women. Well, if the home may benefit from a woman’s gentle nurturing and purity, then surely public life could not help but be benefited by the same? If it is so dirty and raucous, then let us cleanse and civilise it!’ she cries gamely.

‘Be quiet!’ Cat says, the words seeming to arrive directly upon her tongue, without first passing through her brain.

‘Yeah, stop your mouth up!’ a man next to her says, looking down at her and grinning his approval.