‘What is it?’ she asks, warily. Mrs Bell is breathing hard, her nostrils flaring whitely. She almost looks afraid.
‘I’m to accompany you to your room. To make sure you go into it,’ she says at last, the words clipped.
‘Ah, so you’re to be my warden now? They have pitted us against each other.’ Cat smiles resignedly.
‘I may not like it, but that is what I am instructed to do. To see to it you go to bed at the end of the day, and not out to any dens of iniquity…’
‘The vicar’s words?’
‘The very same.’
‘And I suppose nobody will take my word on this any more?’
‘I think you’ve done that to yourself, Cat,’ Mrs Bell replies; and Cat smiles again, just fleetingly.
‘Very well then. Let us go up.’
Walking ahead of the housekeeper on angry feet, Cat is up both flights of stairs and outside her room, arms folded defiantly, by the time Mrs Bells puffs her way laboriously along behind her.
‘Well then, here I am. All ready to be tucked in,’ Cat says.
‘I’m to see you inside your room, and ready for bed.’ Cat steps over the threshold, walks to the bed and sits upon it.
‘Will this do? Or must I strip off and get beneath the sheet?’
‘I don’t like it much, Cat. But you’ve brung it on yourself,’ Mrs Bell replies. She reaches out, takes the door handle and begins to close the door.
‘Wait! I never close it all the way… I can’t stand it. Leave it ajar, if you please,’ Cat says. Mrs Bell hesitates, her face falling even more, a troubled frown making deep folds between her brows. Her spare hand fiddles with something in her pocket, and then she reaches for the door handle again, and her other hand emerges from her apron, and Cat sees a glint of metal in it, a warning flash of reflected light that she has no time to react to.
‘I’m sorry about it, girl,’ Mrs Bell mutters; and then the door is shut and there is a telltale click in the lock.
Cat is on her feet in an instant, and flies to the door.
‘No, no, no!’ she shouts, twisting and heaving at the handle, which creaks in protest but does not yield. Behind it, Mrs Bell’s weighty footsteps recede as hastily as they may along the corridor. With sudden violence Cat doubles up, her stomach lurches, and a thin string of bitter mucus drips from her mouth to the floor. When the spasm passes she finds the walls pressing in around her, her heart squeezing as if it will burst, and black shadows of panic swelling up inside her head. The floor seems to lurch beneath her feet, rolling like deep water. She throws her arms out for balance, such a buzzing in her ears that she can’t even hear her own voice as she shouts for Sophie to come back. She hurls herself at the door, scrabbling at the wood, heedless of the splinters that drive themselves beneath her fingernails. She pounds her fists against it, feels the shock of each blow rattle her bones. But the door does not yield.
Hester, on the floor below, lies sleepless and alone in her bed. Albert retired to his study after dinner, and shows no sign of emerging. So Hester lies and listens to Cat’s shouts, her sobbing and swearing and the way she begs, until she can hardly bear it a second longer. The girl calls for Sophie for a long time, then she pauses, and Hester pictures her catching her breath.
‘Mrs Canning! Mrs Canning! Please let me out! I can’t be locked in! I can’t!’ Cat’s ragged voice comes clearly through the ceiling. Hester goes cold. She holds her breath, prays she will hear no more. ‘Please… I won’t run off! I won’t! Please, let me out!’ On and on it goes. Hester shuts her eyes and puts the pillow over her head, but she can’t block out the girl’s distress completely. She has no choice but to hear it, and finds in it, as the night progresses, an echo of feelings deep inside her own heart.
2011
Leah stormed back to her car, climbed in and slammed the door. In the sudden quiet she caught her breath, and the wind whipped a scattering of damp yellow tree blossoms onto the windscreen. Her scarf was too tight around her neck, her gloves were making her clumsy. The car was stuffy, the air stale, and Leah felt a huge irritation boiling up inside her. She groped in her bag for her mobile, and dialled Mark’s number.
‘Yes?’ he answered with a bark; his default setting of suspicion and barely contained hostility.
‘It’s me,’ she replied, just as shortly.
‘Oh, hello… how did you get on?’
‘I’m at the library now – well, I’m in the car park. Apparently you have to book an appointment to use the microfiche machines, and the local papers from 1911 aren’t online yet, and the machines are booked up all day. The earliest I could get one was tomorrow. How ridiculous is that?’
‘Steady on, Leah – it’s not long to wait. You’re not in London any more,’ Mark said, sounding amused.
‘I know. It’s just really frustrating to get held up like this… perhaps I should go back up to London for the day, and look in the national press?’
‘What’s the rush? The guy’s not going to get any less dead. Or any deader, for that matter. Are you always this impatient?’ he asked, slightly too quickly.
‘Yes! Probably. With a story, anyway.’ She took a deep breath and let it go. ‘How did you get on with the schools?’
‘Stroke of luck there, actually. I rang most of the schools in the area and was getting nowhere – several of them weren’t even founded until the fifties and sixties – but then the headmaster of the last one, a primary school, by some miracle wasn’t too busy to talk to me, and happened to be a local history buff. I told him what Hester said in the letters, and he thought it pretty unlikely that a vicar’s wife would have worked full-time as a teacher – it just wasn’t really the done thing once a woman was married. He says it’s more likely she was volunteering a little time each week – perhaps for Sunday school classes, or cookery – and he suggested we check out The Bluecoat School.’
‘The Bluecoat School? Where’s that?’
‘It’s in Thatcham. It’s not a school any more, but it’s still known by that name. I’m standing right outside the building now, as it happens,’ Mark said.
‘You’re there? Without me? Where exactly?’ Leah demanded, starting the car.
‘Relax – it’s not going anywhere. Come along the A4 into Thatcham and you’ll see me.’
As Leah drove the sun began to break through widening cracks in the clouds – dazzling shards of light that hurt her eyes. She waited impatiently at traffic lights, fingers drumming on the wheel, and was almost out the other side of Thatcham before she saw Mark, hunched into his raincoat. He pulled one hand from a pocket and waved to her, and she swerved into the kerb, the car behind giving her a loud blast of its horn. She waved vaguely in apology as it sped past, and wound down the window.
‘I almost drove right by you! This is the main road – are you sure this is the right place?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. It’s probably best if you pull off here – there’s parking just a little way up that street,’ Mark said as a lorry squeezed past, narrowly missing her rear bumper.
‘OK, hang on a second.’ She pulled back out into the traffic, got more angry gestures and honks, and followed Mark’s instructions.