Cat is lifted up. She feels like she’s flying, just for a moment, but then she’s jolted again and the pain clouds everything. Time has disappeared, no longer has meaning. The voice has a new sound now. Wrenching, coughing; as strangled as she. ‘Oh, Cat… Cat. Oh, God…’ He’s crying, she realises. Put me down! Cat says silently. She is uneasy now. She wants to get to her feet; she wants to open her eyes. The booming in her ears is getting slower, and quieter, and while this should be a relief, it is not. It is not. George! she tries. Help me. Please. The theosophist’s breathing is hard and ragged, the jolting faster and harder. There’s a whispering sound, a gentle rushing. Trees? The canal? Robin is gasping and sobbing. ‘I’m so sorry, Cat!’ he says, over and over. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Now Cat is afraid, horribly afraid. With a violence of will she did not know she possessed, she opens her left eye. Light staggers into it, veers drunkenly into her thoughts. Trees, the canal, the bridge by the edge of the meadow where the lane crosses. How did they get here? A figure, in the distance, so familiar, so beloved. George! She screams, without a sound. He is running along the path towards her, fast and desperate. Then she is in the water, feels it closing over her face. For a second it eases the pain, folds her into a cool, green darkness. She does not breathe, no longer seems to need to; she is calm. George is coming. He will help her, protect her, take her up and make good her escape. She waits, and sure enough she feels his arms around her, the familiar heft of them, hard muscles over strong bones. She is lifted up, and the world is once again bright and fierce, spinning. She wishes she could open her eyes and look at him, wishes she could smile. There is a smile in her heart, to know he is holding her. She is safe. The pounding in her ears stutters into silence. She lets it go, and there is nothing else. Not even darkness.
Hester seats herself at her dressing table, stares into the mirror and tries to find some way, with powder and rouge, to mask the corruption of her face. She sees it in the outline of every feature, in every hair of her head. The tiny moist corners of her mouth; the crease of her lower lip into her chin; the space between her brows where a fine line is forming. Traces of the theosophist’s adulterous touch are everywhere. She can’t think how Albert, how everybody, can’t see it too. Except that Albert sees nothing, of course. Nothing but fairies and Robin Durrant. Her eyes are puffy, since she cried again in the night. Hester almost calls for Cat to bring up some slices of cucumber for her eyelids, but she can’t bring herself to. Can’t face the girl’s knowing expression, the way her black eyes see so clearly. She can’t help thinking that Cat will see her guilt – recognise it in an instant and pour scorn on her for what she has done. The thought is unbearable. Because Cat warned her, after all – not to trust the man, and to be rid of him if she could. And instead she’d let him take advantage of her, let him take the maidenhead she’d saved for Albert for so long. So very long. Her eyes blur so she can’t see to put on make-up. What right has she to hide her ugliness, anyway? The ugliness of what she has done. Hester rubs her eyes viciously, and rises to go downstairs.
As her foot hits the bottom step of the stairs, Hester pauses. She knows at once that something is wrong, something is different. As if a strange smell filled the air, or a clock that should have been ticking had stopped. She pauses and listens, and tries to place the source of the feeling. Mrs Bell is clattering the breakfast things as softly as she can in the kitchen, the sound drifting up through the floorboards. The hall clock’s deep tick in fact still plods; the library door is shut; light still pours through the ornate glass above the front door. But not from the dining room or drawing room. These other doorways opening into the hallway are dark, and this is what Hester isn’t used to seeing – what she can’t remember ever seeing. She peers into each room, her stomach twisting when she looks at the drawing room window. The shutters are still tightly closed. She listens, holding her breath. The silence in the house, aside from the kitchen, is complete. More so than usual, she thinks, but can’t be sure. Cat moves on soft feet, just like her namesake. Hester goes to the cellar stairs, and down into the kitchen.
‘Good morning, Mrs Bell,’ she says, as the housekeeper lifts a steaming kettle from the stove and begins to mash a pot of tea.
‘Morning, madam,’ Sophie replies, putting down the kettle and wiping her hands on her apron. ‘How is the vicar? Is all well?’
‘Well, yes – that is, I haven’t seen Albert this morning… yet. Why do you ask?’ Hester frowns slightly. She feels the housekeeper appraising the state of her face – the pallor of it, the purple shadows under her eyes. Hester looks away, ashamed.
‘I thought he might have cut himself somehow – when I came down I found this dish towel by the sink, all bloodied.’ Sophie points to the stained cloth, in a pail of water by the door. ‘I put it in to soak straight away, and Cat can scrub it later, but I can’t promise all the stains will come out of it, madam. There was quite a lot of blood on it.’
‘Oh! How horrible… I do hope…’ Hester pauses. For some reason, her stomach is fluttering so much that her chest constricts, too tight to speak. She presses her fingers into her diaphragm, steadies herself. ‘Sophie,’ she says, in a voice that comes out odd and strained. ‘The shutters are all still closed upstairs. Where is Cat?’
‘Still closed? She’s not still in bed, surely – I turned the lock and banged on the door to be sure she was awake. Well over an hour ago.’ Sophie scowls.
‘But you haven’t seen her?’
‘No, but where else could she be? I locked the door when we went up, just as I’m supposed to…’
They are interrupted by a loud knock on the door. The two women pause, listen for the sound of footsteps going to answer it. There are none. They exchange a glance, and then Sophie begins to undo her kitchen apron.
‘No, no. I shall answer it, Mrs Bell. Please don’t trouble yourself,’ Hester says. She goes up to the hallway, and past the deafening wrongness of the dark front rooms, still shuttered to the bright morning outside. A man in smart uniform is at the door, young and fair, his moustache little more than a reddish blurring of his upper lip. Hester recognises him from church. His cheeks are flushed with excitement.
‘Constable Pearce, isn’t it?’ she says, and her effort to smile produces nothing more than a slight tremble of her mouth.
‘Good morning, Mrs Canning, I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m afraid I come with grave news, very grave news indeed. Is your husband at home? I would very much like to speak with him,’ the young policeman says, all in a rush.