Thoughts of Marian Ansell led Henry Cathcart, with a sort of inevitability, to thoughts of another attractive woman: Amelia Slater, the wife of Felix, the residentiary canon. He had first encountered Amelia in his own store, Cathcart’s. She -
He was interrupted by the appearance of his wife’s maid, who told him that Constance was awake and would welcome a visit from her husband.
‘How is Mrs Cathcart, Grace?’
‘She is not too bad this evening, Mr Cathcart, not too bad at all.’
Grace spoke reproachfully, as if Mrs Cathcart’s condition, whether better or worse, was his fault. Wearily, Cathcart climbed the stairs. The upper part of his right leg was beginning to ache. As he approached his wife’s chamber, the atmosphere seemed to grow more gloomy although the lights in the passage burned no less brightly. He tapped on the door and entered, without waiting for a response.
Constance Cathcart was sitting up in the single bed. She was reading. She looked up and smiled at her husband’s arrival.
‘How are you this evening, my dear?’ he said.
‘Oh, I am bearing up, Henry.’
She patted the bed as a sign that he should sit down at the end of it. He did so with care, knowing that he must avoid stretching the bedclothes tight over her slight body. Mrs Cathcart put down her reading matter. It was a religious pamphlet. Henry could see the name of some Reverend, followed by a string of letters, on the cover.
‘It’s a sharp evening,’ he said.
‘Yes, Grace said it was cold out.’
The room was hot and stuffy, not only because of the coal fire which radiated a steady heat from behind a screen — placed so that Constance should not be disturbed by the ministrations of the housemaid who tended it — but also because the windows were rarely opened even on the warmest days of summer. The advice of Constance’s doctor was for fresh air to be admitted to the room on a regular basis so as get rid of any impurities but Constance felt the cold very easily, complained of being chilly most of the time.
‘Henry, I have been thinking of something I should like to do when I am better.’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘I have been reading in the papers about these Americans who have been preaching and singing in Liverpool and Edinburgh.’
‘I have read about them as well. Moody and — and — somebody else.’
‘Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey. Mr Moody preaches the Gospel while Mr Sankey plays the organ and sings hymns. He has a fine, strong voice. Together, they have brought many people to Christ. I would give anything to hear them preach and sing.’
‘Liverpool and Edinburgh are a long way off, Constance.’
‘But they are to visit London. The papers said so. London is not so far by train.’
‘Well, we might consider the trip. As you say, when you are better, my dear.’
‘Only consider.’
‘We will go to London then, I promise, if this Mr Moody and Mr Sankey make an appearance there.’
Cathcart didn’t remind his wife that she had barely stirred from her room for the last six months. This was a promise he was most unlikely to be required to keep. He glanced around. Apart from the narrow bed and table next to it with with a bible and a stack of tracts, the room — the sickroom — was sparsely furnished: an armchair, a wash-stand and a chest of drawers cluttered with little boxes and bottles, all containing the many medicines which Grace had charge of. Grace was a combination of nurse and lady’s maid. She slept in a small room next door.
Constance was pleased with her husband’s promise and reached forward to pat his hand where it rested on the bed-cover. Under the white crown of a bed-cap, her large eyes fixed on his. They were the most notable feature of her pallid face. Great dark pools in which he had once taken pleasure in drowning himself.
They chatted a little more about the day. He told her that, by an extraordinary chance, he had met the son of an old friend from his campaigning days in the Crimea. He explained that Tom Ansell was in Salisbury on some legal mission. Talking about the encounter, Henry Cathcart grew lively, as Constance had been when she mentioned Moody and Sankey. She was quite interested and said, ‘You must bring him here. I should like to meet this Mr Ansell if my health permits. I should like so much to glimpse someone who reminds you of your dead friend.’ Then she seemed to grow tired and suppressed a yawn.
Henry stood up and leaned forward to kiss his wife on the forehead. As he was about to leave, Constance suddenly said, ‘Mrs Slater called at the house yesterday. Grace told me she did. You didn’t mention it to me when I saw you last evening.’
Henry Cathcart paused, his hand tight on the door-knob. He said, ‘I didn’t mention it because you were tired, Constance. In fact, you were almost asleep when I came up. I didn’t want to bother you with unnecessary news.’
‘But I always want to hear who has visited you, Henry. No news is unnecessary news. It is very tedious being isolated up here. Everyone forgets about you and the world goes on turning as if you weren’t here at all. I wonder you did not mention Mrs Slater’s visit.’
‘She came to give me some advice on fabrics and colours,’ he said. ‘As she has done before. It is very useful having someone who is able to tell me about the latest fashions, useful for business.’
‘But Mrs Slater is the wife of a cathedral canon, isn’t she?’ said Constance. ‘I don’t know what she should have to do with the latest fashions.’
‘Well, there it is,’ said her husband. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’
He closed the door quietly but firmly. In a moment Grace, always on the lookout for the welfare of her mistress, would be up to see to Constance, to prepare her for another restless night, to dose her with something or other, to turn out the gas lights, no doubt to say a final prayer.
Constance Cathcart’s illness was a mystery to her husband, to her doctor and to herself as well. She’d never been strong even in the early days of their marriage but it was only in the last couple of years that she had suffered from bouts of debility and ‘nerves’ which were bad enough to keep her confined in her room for much of the time. And recently she had hardly emerged from there at all. The doctor was a frequent visitor, often spending longer in her room than her husband, and followed later in the day by his ‘boy’ bringing the prescribed medicines. Henry Cathcart left all these visits in the hands of Grace. He devoted himself to his shop business, which seemed to expand and prosper even while his wife languished and declined.
Tonight, as he made his way to his bedroom several doors away from that of his wife, his mind wasn’t on Constance but on Amelia Slater. What he’d said to Constance was true enough, that he valued Mrs Slater’s opinion on the latest styles and fabrics. He’d not given much thought to the idea that it was odd, or inappropriate, for the wife of a cathedral canon to have views on fashion. And, if he had, he’d probably have put it down to the fact that Amelia wasn’t quite English, that she had grown up in foreign parts.
But the conversation had taken a quite different turn on her latest visit, the one that Constance had found out about from Grace. The two of them, Henry and Amelia, had been looking at a catalogue of mourning wear for women. Cathcart had been considering expanding the department in his store which sold mourning outfits. He had in mind a smaller version of Jay’s or Peter Robinson’s in London, a local place to which all the widows of Salisbury would naturally turn in their bereavement.
They were in the drawing room. The door was closed. Mrs Slater was an occasional visitor but she was not there often enough to excite comment from the servants. Or so Henry hoped. They were standing at a table on which the catalogue was open. On one page was an image of a child in mourning costume, on the other was small-waisted woman in a well-fitting black dress made of crape.
‘I would like bombazine,’ said Amelia. ‘It wears better than crape.’