The Unseen (8 page)

Mrs Avery’s eyebrows arch coldly, her mouth flattens even further. ‘Commendable discretion, I’m sure,’ she says, the words like a whip cracking.

Suddenly, Esme Bullington gasps, her hand flying to her mouth.

‘Mrs Canning! What if the warning was for you? What if this new girl of yours is the one the spirit meant – the source of evil that has entered your home?’ she asks, grasping Hester’s arm with her short, bony fingers.

‘Oh! Surely not … I’m sure the spirit can’t have meant Cat …’ Hester smiles uneasily.

‘Have you any elderly female relatives, recently crossed over?’ Mrs Dunthorpe asks her seriously. The eyes of all twelve women fix upon Hester.

‘Well … my great aunt Eliza, I suppose … She passed away four years ago, of the palsy,’ Hester admits.

‘That’s it, then! That was her – it must have been!’ Esme cries. ‘Oh, Mrs Canning! Do be careful – do heed what was said, won’t you? That a source of evil has entered your house, and will bring dark times upon you … Poor Mrs Canning! Do be careful!’

‘Now, now, Esme. Calm yourself,’ Mrs Avery admonishes the woman, who is dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her
handkerchief. ‘I am quite sure that nothing truly evil would take root in the house of a man of God. Isn’t that right, Mrs Canning?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Hester says. For the rest of the evening she feels glances aimed in her direction, and catches expressions of pity and wonder on the faces of her peers. She smiles more often than she might usually, to make light of it, but the party is ruined; and beneath her façade lies a kernel of deep unease. She thinks of Cat Morley’s black gaze, and the way her shadowy thoughts stay so well hidden behind it; the smudges under her eyes and the painful thinness of her body, as though some blight is indeed eating her away from the inside.

As Hester walks home, she wonders anxiously if she will ever be asked back to Mrs Avery’s. Twice she has lied, in one evening – but surely this second time it was the right thing to do? She had decided not to divulge details of Cat’s past – and she does know more than she said, although not much more – and she stayed true to her vow. Thunder is thudding across the sky, sounding like heavy stones rolling, and the wind comes in powerful gusts, making the late spring branches flail, dashing pollen from the blossoms, sending petals flying into the air. A spattering of rain begins to fall. Hester pulls her coat tighter, and struggles with her umbrella for a while before giving up when the wind threatens to tear it.

With the sky so heavy and low, the road is near invisible. Only the faint yellow glow from the windows of houses lights her way as she passes, and this dwindles to nothing as she comes to the far end of the village, and walks the last stretch to the vicarage. Hester finds herself peering into the darkness beneath the trees and hedges, straining her eyes as she had strained all her senses at the seance. The black depths seem watchful, the wind seems to carry voices, whispered words. Shivering, Hester pauses. Her knees feel weak and unsteady. The wind curls around her, unpins her hair, threatens to carry off her hat; she clamps one hand upon it, eyes
screwed up against the onslaught and the stinging rain. There is a large horse chestnut tree just outside the garden wall of the vicarage, its leaves already full out, broad and young and softly green by daylight. A flicker of lightning lights the tree with the grey tones of the underworld, and there, against the trunk, a figure stands quite still. Hester catches her breath in a gasp. No more than a black shape, a motionless outline, but quite definitely watching her with an implacable patience. Hester tries to cry out but her voice is strangled. She stands frozen, thinking of the violently angry spirit they had conjured that night, and the dire warning of evil which might have been for her. For a moment she can’t think or move, and is wholly seized by a spasm of shock. Then, with a small cry of fear, she bolts for the safety of home, heart beating fit to burst.

Cat waits until she hears the front door slam shut before she relaxes again. She pictures Hester with her back to the door, eyes shut, panting; and she smiles. From behind her back she lifts her cigarette to her lips, takes a long pull. The smoke makes her lungs burn, and she coughs, but perseveres. The doctor whom The Gentleman took her to see upon her release encouraged her in the habit, told her that the hot smoke would help to dry out her lungs. The first taste of tobacco in weeks. She came outside to smoke it to be away from Mrs Bell, and to watch the storm. Never before has she stood beneath a tree whilst the wind throws it about with such violence. Never before has she heard the terrific roar that it makes – a hissing, rushing sound like waves crashing ashore. She shuts her eyes and listens, lets the sound swirl around her, until she feels like one more leaf on the tree, one more helpless, insignificant thing. Like she might fly away in the next second. When thunder hammers out, right over her head, Cat smiles in the dark.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ Mrs Bell snaps at her when she returns to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got the mistress clamouring
for a hot water bottle and cocoa and her wool bedjacket unpacked from the winter trunk, and you nowhere to be found!’

‘It’s a thunderstorm, not a blizzard. She hardly needs a bedjacket,’ Cat says, fetching milk from the cold store and pouring it into a copper pan. The white liquid looks gorgeous against the bright metal, and she swirls it around as she sets it on the stove.

‘Whether or not she needs it, she wants it, and who are you to argue, girl?’ Mrs Bell grumbles. ‘You go and find it – it’ll be in the trunk on the far landing – and be sure to find all the mothballs from it before you give it her. I’ll do that – move away before you scald the milk!’

‘Yes, Mrs Bell,’ Cat sighs.

‘Don’t you “yes, Mrs Bell” me …’ Mrs Bell says, but can’t quite put her objection into words. She falls silent, whisking the milk vigorously and shaking her head. The whisking shakes other things too – sets up a wobble that shifts her from bosom to thigh. ‘Take a lamp with you – he doesn’t like the lights on upstairs after she’s retired,’ she calls after Cat.

‘I don’t need a lamp,’ Cat calls back, as she makes for the stairs. Within a few paces of the kitchen, her eyes have adjusted to the dark.

Hester sits shivering in bed, her toes and fingers tingling as the blood returns to them. Her head is aching after the frights of the evening. In spite of the lamps filling the room with yellow light, she thinks she can still see shadows, lurking figures in the corners of the room that vanish when she looks full at them.
An evil force has entered one of our houses
… Hester longs for Albert to come home and banish her fears with his calm faith and soothing presence. Gradually, she begins to relax, and has just picked up a book of homilies when a soft thump outside the room makes the breath freeze in her lungs. She waits, ears tuned for the noise to come again. And come again it does – a scuffle, a slight thudding. Hester
berates herself for her fears, for believing that anything ghostly has followed her home from the seance.

‘It’s probably one of the cats, you silly girl,’ she tells herself aloud, and the very ordinariness of her own voice gives her courage. To prove that she is rational and not afraid, she gets up and crosses to the door. But with her hand on the latch she pauses, and swallows. Her throat is entirely dry. She opens the door as quietly as she can. Outside the room, the corridor is in complete darkness, and a noticeable draught noses along it, east to west. Hester makes a show of looking to either side, though her eyes see nothing but pitch blackness, an emptiness from which anything might spring. Her skin crawls and she turns to go back inside, and as she does, a figure appears right by her elbow. Hester screams, then sees the glint of dark eyes and dark hair in the light from her bedroom door. ‘Cat! Why, you scared me half to death!’ She laughs nervously.

‘Sorry, madam; I didn’t mean to. I’ve brought you your bedjacket,’ Cat says, holding out a knitted cardigan ripe with the stink of camphor.

‘Thank you, Cat,’ Hester says, her pulse still racing. Cat stands still, watching her. Hester glances at her, and again feels a rush of unease. ‘What were you doing out here in the dark? Why didn’t you bring a lamp, or put the lights on?’ she asks. Cat blinks, and regards her steadily.

‘I can see quite well in the dark,’ she replies.

‘“Black Cat”,’ Hester murmurs, the nickname coming unbidden to her lips. She sees Cat stiffen.

‘Where have you heard that?’ the girl asks abruptly. Hester swallows nervously.

‘Oh, nowhere … sorry, Cat. I didn’t mean to … Thank you for bringing me this. Please do go to bed yourself now. I won’t need anything else,’ she says hurriedly.

‘I’ll bring you the cocoa you asked for as soon as it’s ready,’ Cat contradicts her.

‘Oh, yes, of course. Of course. Thank you, Cat. Sorry.’ Hester retreats back into her room, unsure what she is apologising for. Cat is still standing in the dark corridor when she shuts the bedroom door behind her.

Albert returns not long afterwards, with a distracted look on his face. He pats Hester’s shoulders uncertainly when she flies into his arms the second he enters the room.

‘Albert! I’m so pleased to see you,’ she murmurs into his chest.

‘Are you all right, Hetty?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s just … the storm. It startled me as I walked home, that’s all,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I had to drink some cocoa to warm up again.’

‘Come now, there’s nothing to be frightened of. As Saint Paul said: “God makes His angels spirits – that is, winds – and His ministers a flaming fire.” In the wind that blows, there are living spirits; God’s angels guide the thunderclouds, and the mighty thunderclap may be a shock vibration of the air, as today’s men of science tell us, but it is also
more
than that – it is the voice of God Himself!’ Albert smiles, his eyes alight. Hester smiles back at him, unsure how to respond.

‘Let’s get into bed. It’s chilly tonight,’ she says.

‘Very well. It is rather late – I shan’t read for long.’ His habit is to read scripture for at least half an hour every night; with quiet concentration, like a pupil who knows he will be tested.

When at last Albert closes his book, lays his spectacles upon it and places both on the bedside table, Hester smiles. He turns out his lamp, slides lower in the bed, meshes his fingers across his chest. But his eyes stay open. Hester leaves her lamp on, and lies facing him. The storm is abating, but still the wind blows, and throws rain hard against the window pane. The room, with Hester’s lamp the only light, seems like a close cocoon, shielding them from the wild night. Perhaps it is this, perhaps it is the fright she had earlier in the evening, but Hester feels a powerful need for comfort. She yearns
to be touched, to be held by her husband. She looks at his smooth face, at the warm glow of his skin, coloured from all the time he spends out of doors.

They have never even lain naked together, he on top of her or vice versa. She has never felt the press of his skin against her chest, and thinking of this makes Hester’s throat dry, makes her heart rise up and half choke her. Without a word, she moves closer to Albert, until she can lay her cheek on his shoulder. He does not move, or speak. He can’t claim to be tired when clearly his mind is oddly alert tonight. After a minute, when there is no protest at her touch, Hester raises her face again. Albert is so close she can’t focus her eyes on him properly. He is a creamy-coloured blur, soft shades of gold and brown and milky white in the half light. The smell of him fills her nose. The soap he uses to shave with, the gentle tang of his skin underneath it.

‘Oh, Albert,’ she breathes, and all her love and desire for him rush into those two words, making her voice deeper, more resonant. She lets her hands run over his chest, pressing them into the cloth of his shirt, seeking the heat of the skin underneath, the slight resistance of the sparse hair growing there. Reaching up, she presses her mouth to his, feels the wonderful warmth of his lips, the softness of them, just for an instant, before he pushes her away.

‘Hetty …’ he begins, looking at her with something like despair, something almost fearful.

‘Oh, Albert!’ Hester whispers desperately. ‘Why do you always push me away? Don’t you love me? It is no sin, for man and wife to touch each other, to lie in each other’s arms …’

‘No, no; it is no sin, dear Hetty,’ Albert replies.

‘What then? You do not love me?’ she asks, stricken.

‘Of course I do, silly thing! Who could not love such a sweet wife as you?’ He releases her arms, clasps his hands across his chest again in a seemingly casual manner; but it is a guarded gesture, putting a barrier between them.

‘I’m not silly, Albert; I … I don’t understand. Are we husband and wife in name alone?’

‘We are husband and wife in God’s eyes, and that is a sacred thing, an unbreakable thing,’ Albert says, his voice almost fearful. His eyes roam the room, as though he longs to escape it.

‘I know it, and I’m glad of it; but … our union is not consummated. And what of children, Albert?’

‘I …’ Albert shuts his eyes, turns his head away slightly. ‘A family … a family is what I want. Of course it is, Hester …’

‘Well, though I do not pretend to know a great deal about these things, I know we shall never have one while you will not touch me, or kiss or hold me.’ Without meaning to, Hester bursts into tears. They are hot on her cheeks, and make her eyes burn.

‘There, there now; stop that, Hetty! We shall have a family, all in good time! We’re young yet, and … perhaps we are too young. Perhaps it would be better to wait a while longer, until we are both more tutored in the ways of the world …’

‘I am twenty-six on my next birthday, Albert. You will be twenty-five. Many women younger than I are mothers thrice over already!’ She sniffs, blotting at her eyes with the cuff of her nightdress. ‘But it is not just that – not only that! I need … I need
tenderness
from you, Albert!’

‘Hetty, please. Calm yourself,’ Albert begs, and he looks so strained, so trapped and awkward that Hester relents.