back, please?’ Cat asks at last.
‘You may.’ George nods, passing it to her.
Cat scrabbles it open, tips out water, weed, coins and the letter, which she blots hurriedly against the front of her skirt. ‘Oh, blast it. You can scarce read the address it’s to go to. The ink is quite washed away,’ she murmurs, half to herself. ‘Perhaps there’s hope – I could write over it, perhaps, if somebody would lend me a pen. Here – do you think it’s readable, still? Can you make out the name?’ she asks, holding out the letter to George Hobson. The big man flushes, looks at the letter with a frown of bafflement.
‘I don’t rightly know, Miss Morley,’ he mutters.
‘Is it ruined?’ she asks. George shrugs one shoulder, noncommittal, and Cat understands him. ‘Can’t you read?’ she asks, incredulously. George hands the letter back, shrugs again, frowns at the look on Cat’s face.
‘Not much call for a bargeman to read,’ he says. ‘I’ll bid yougood day, then.’ He turns back to his boat, is aboard in one wide, assured stride.
‘Well now, you can laugh at me but I can’t laugh at you, is that the way of it?’ Cat calls to him from the bank.
George pauses, smiles a little. ‘Well, you have me there, Miss Morley,’ he admits.
‘My name is Cat,’ she tells him. ‘Nobody calls me Miss Morley except—’ She breaks off. Except the policemen who took her, the judge who tried her. She shrugs. ‘Nobody does.’
‘You’ll be about town, will you, Cat?’
‘Now and then, I dare say.’
‘Then I shall look out for you. And that sharp tongue of yours.’ He smiles. Cat eyes him, tips her head to one side. She likes the sparkle in his eyes, the way she abashed him like a schoolboy. With a quick smile, she walks on into town. After the post office she buys the madeleines, which she carries carefully, still warm and sticky; the scent of vanilla oozing from the paper wrapper. She buys herself some cigarettes, and a copy of Votes for Women for a penny from Menzies. She will hide it under her skirt when she gets back, spirit it up to her room, and read it after hours.
One Thursday, Hester and Albert eat an early supper of lamb steaks as evening falls outside and bats replace the birds, wheeling across the lawn. Cat serves them, walking from one end of the table to the other with the soup tureen, then the plate of meat, then the vegetables. In London she was to be silent, invisible; servants were not acknowledged at table. But each time she puts something on Hester’s plate, Hester smiles and thanks her softly. Cat was startled the first few times this happened, and did not know how to respond. Now she murmurs ‘madam’ softly, each and every time, like a gentle echo after Hester speaks. Albert seems not to notice any of this, eating his dinner with a diffuse, faraway look punctuated now and then by traces of a frown, or a smile, or an incredulous lift of his eyebrows. He is quite captivated by his ownthoughts, and Hester watches him fondly as they proceed across his face.
‘What is the subject of tonight’s lecture, my dear?’ Hester asks, once Cat has withdrawn. ‘Albert?’ she prompts him, when he does not reply.
‘I do beg your pardon, my dear?’
‘Tonight’s lecture. I was wondering what it was about?’ There are lectures once or twice a week in Newbury, and Albert tries to attend at least one of them, especially if they deal with matters philosophical, biological or spiritual.
‘Ah – it should be a most interesting one. The title is “Nature Spirits and their place in the Wisdom Religion”. The speaker is a rising star in theosophical circles – Durrant, I believe his name is. He hails from Reading, if I remember correctly.’
‘Nature spirits? What can he mean?’ Hester asks, puzzled. She doesn’t ask the meaning of theosophical – is unsure that she could pronounce it right.
‘Well, dear Hetty, that is what I intend to discover,’ Albert says.
‘Does he mean
A D Holland
Grif Stockley
D. W. Collins
Jane Rusbridge
Christine Warren
Lily Evans
Selene Chardou
Samantha Young
Gary D. Svee
Unknown