The Unseen (52 page)
Eventually, Tess turns to walk on into town, but just as she does a steamboat chugs slowly into view from the east. She pauses to watch it, as the boatman whistles a shrill warning through his fingers, and the boys make way for him, scrambling onto the banks to clear a path. The boat is old and battered; wreathed in clouds of steam and smoke. But it has fresh paint, half-finished. The cabin has been done up in Romany colours – greens and reds and yellows. The sides are still faded and flaking, except for the name of the vessel, done neatly in white against a dark blue ground.
Black Cat
. Tess’s heart leaps and she runs back to the side of the bridge to see it better. The man at the tiller is weathered and strongly built. He smiles and thanks the boys as he passes, but his eyes are sad. Tess’s eyes stay fixed on him, and she has the sensation that she knows him – so powerful that for a second, when he is close, she almost calls out to him. Tess watches until the boat slides out of sight, and suddenly she grows calm. The autumn sun shines softly on her face, and she walks on into Thatcham with a feeling that things will be well. That she will be well. She feels as though a friend is walking beside her.
My love and thanks to Mum and Dad, Charlie and Luke for all their support, patience and enthusiasm; to my wonderful editor Sara O’Keeffe for all her hard work and vision; and to my equally wonderful agent Nicola Barr for counselling, reading and plain speaking. Finally, my thanks to Ranald Leask at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for answering my questions relating to its work and processes.
For a better understanding of theosophy, I have referred extensively to
Theosophy
by Rudolph Steiner (1910);
The Key to Theosophy
by H. P. Blavatsky (1889); and
The Secret Life of Nature
by Peter Tompkins (1997). There is also an excellent overview by John M. Lynch in his introduction to the 2006 Bison edition of
The Coming of the Fairies
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. All and any mistakes in the interpretation of theosophy are mine and Robin Durrant’s alone.
Robin Durrant’s retelling of Geoffrey Hodson’s encounter with undines is taken from Hodson’s account of the incident, as recounted in
The Secret Life of Nature
(see above) – although this encounter of Hodson’s did not actually occur until 1922.
Cat’s experience of force-feeding is based upon a report on its use in the
British Medical Journal
from August, 1912, and upon the first-hand account of her own experiences by Mary R. Richardson in
Laugh a Defiance
(1953).
Whilst some of the places and buildings around Thatcham described in
The Unseen
do exist, including The Bluecoat School, and whilst some of the information concerning these places is historically accurate, all storylines and characters linked to them are entirely fictional.
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Orion Books
This ebook first published in 2011 by Orion Books
Copyright © Katherine Webb 2011
The moral right of Katherine Webb to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor otherwise circulated in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition,
including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN
: 978 1 4091 1262 4
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