‘I’ve never been out to sea.’ George puts his arm around her shoulders, his hand up into her hair.
‘Neither have I. But I’ve read about it.’
‘There’s nobody around for miles. Apart from old Clement, who sleeps under the bridge,’ George tells her softly.
‘Then I am quite at your mercy.’ Cat smiles. Their hushed voices are loud in the quiet night. There’s a rustling beat of feathered wings in the tree next to them, as roosting birds are roused; the slightest touch of a breeze to cool their skin.
‘No, Cat; I am quite at yours,’ George replies. Their kisses are urgent, hurried. Cat pulls the shirt from George’s body, runs her mouth the length of his torso, tasting salt. At first George is tentative and handles her gently, in spite of the need that lights his eyes, until Cat says:
‘I’m no invalid, George Hobson.’ He puts his hands through her cropped hair, pulls back her head to kiss her throat, and in one easy motion swings her up to sit astride him, tight to him; to make love with the quiet night air coaxing goose flesh along their arms.
The day of the fête to mark the coronation of King George V dawns without a cloud in the sky, and by mid-morning the ground shimmers with heat. The beech tree leaves are curling, twisting slightly as they scorch to show their silvery undersides; and the brass band plays with streaming red faces, suffering in their smart uniforms. On the church field an array of tents and awnings have been set up, their sides rolled up and tied back in an effort to allow air to circulate. Brightly coloured cotton bunting is strung all around the village green and along the lane to the church; and Claire Higgins, who is in charge of the flower arrangements, darts anxiously from spray to spray, fretting as the blooms shrivel in the heat.
‘Claire, dear, alas but I fear there’s nothing you can do. Come and have a glass of lemonade before you fall down,’ Hester calls to her.
‘If I can just get the sweet peas into the shade of the tree, they might last another hour or so…’ Claire says, shrilly, and won’t be led away.
‘At least carry your parasol!’ Hester calls after her, and retreats into a white tent. The sun burns as soon as it touches. ‘Cat! How is the tea coming along?’ Hester smiles. Cat has been sweltering inside the tea tent all morning, keeping a small stove alight to boil kettle after kettle of water to fill the urn. The back of her dress is soaked and her hair is plastered to her head, but she may not take off her cap. On her neck is a mark where George kissed her too hard, and bruised the skin. Her hair is almost long enough now to cover it, and she tucks it hurriedly behind her ear to this end.
‘It’s ready, madam. But everybody wants lemonade. It’s too hot for tea,’ Cat says, flatly.
‘Nonsense! I find tea most refreshing on a hot day. In fact I’ll take a cup now, if I may.’
All day, Cat makes and serves tea to the people of Cold Ash Holt. Hester and the other women arrange pastries and scones on pretty tiered cake stands, and give out bowls of strawberries and cream. Children with water ices lick them with desperate haste as they melt in seconds, dribbling down their arms to the elbow. Thus sugared, the children are pursued around the field by frenzied wasps. Robin Durrant proceeds from stall to stall with his hands clasped behind his back like a visiting dignitary, the vicar and a small knot of men and women following in his wake. Cat watches him, nonplussed, and wonders that he has made such an impression, in so short a time.
‘So this is the Cannings’ new maid. Catherine, isn’t it?’ Mrs Avery intones, on passing by the tea table with some companions. She raises her spectacles to the bridge of her bony nose, and peers down through them at Cat.
‘I’m known as Cat, madam,’ Cat replies, not liking Mrs Avery’s manner.
‘Well, I wasn’t talking to you, girl. Pert, isn’t she? Only recently down from London, and for reasons best left unmentioned, as I understand it,’ Mrs Avery remarks to her friend. Irritation flares through Cat. She holds the teapot high in front of her, puts an empty smile on her face and affects a broad cockney accent.
‘Tea, madam? A drop of the empire’s finest?’ she chirps.
‘No, thank you,’ Mrs Avery snaps, and saunters away with her nose wrinkled in distaste.
‘Haughty old cow,’ Cat mutters under her breath.
‘Smile now, ladies! Look this way!’ a man in a brown linen suit and bowler hat calls to them. He has a camera on a tripod, all set up pointing at the tea tent.
‘Oh, it’s the newspaper man!’ Hester says. Cat walks to the front of the tent, still holding the silver-plated teapot with which she accosted Mrs Avery. She peers out from beneath the pungent canvas as the vicar’s wife and the other gentlewomen of the village straighten their backs and tip their parasols prettily. The camera gives a loud clunk.
‘And another one, if you please!’ the photographer calls. ‘Stay right as you are, big smiles now!’ Cat stares into the lens of the camera, glowering in the bright light. She stares right down it, and seeks to corrupt the picture somehow. The ladies in front of her are a mass of white lace and frills, and gauzy muslin veils; they simper and smile for the photograph. It amuses Cat to know that she will be in the background, small and dark and bad tempered. She fights the urge to put out her tongue.
Her bad mood isn’t only due to having the hottest, dullest job to do. There’s also the fact that she won’t have a moment free to enjoy the fête herself; and that when it’s over and the clearing up and packing away done, she’ll still have all her work at The Rectory to try to get done somehow. In Votes for Women that week, there had been glorious pictures of the Women’s Coronation Procession, which had taken place in London the week before, on the seventeenth of June. Horse-drawn floats adorned with the colours, magnificent with swags and ribbons and garlands of flowers. Suffragettes from all over London wearing wonderful costumes; dressed as Liberty and Justice, and as the four corners of the British Empire. Cat wishes she’d been there with them. Walking alongside the white ponies with a garland of red English roses, or carrying an eagle-topped staff. She wishes she’d been part of something so glorious and beautiful and above all meaningful. She gazes out of the tea tent as the village men begin a tug o’ war, and the women gossip and fill their faces with cake. Then the man who has just taken her photograph ducks into the tent in front of her.
‘Afternoon, miss. Is there some tea on the go?’ he asks, unloading his camera onto a table and pulling out a handkerchief to mop his face.
‘Plenty of it, and I’ll give you the fresh, not the stewed, since you’ve got to spend the day working as well,’ Cat says wearily.
‘Hotter than Satan’s toenails, isn’t it?’ the little man grins. He has a sharp face, boyish but beady, somehow feral; his cheeks and jaw sport a fur of auburn whiskers.
‘That it is, and no cooler standing next to this tea urn, I’ll tell you.’
‘Will I still get the fresh brew if I tell you that I’m about done with work for the day?’ he asks. Cat makes a show of pausing as she pours his cup, and the man grins again.
‘Which paper will the pictures be in?’ she asks.
‘The Thatcham Bulletin. I’d hoped to pick up some gossip for the society pages while I was here, but everybody is being terribly polite and patriotic. In other words, dull.’ He takes the cup of tea from her and slumps into a wooden chair with it.
‘Haven’t you met Cold Ash Holt’s newest pet? The theosophist?’ Cat asks.
‘I met him briefly. He was quite keen to have his picture taken.’
‘That sounds about right.’
‘He and the vicar are working together on some academic paper or something. I couldn’t really find out much about it. Sounded very dry, I have to say. You never could rely upon a vicar to give you a scandal.’ He sips his tea, then looks up and catches Cat’s thoughtful expression. ‘Why do you ask, miss? Do you know something more?’ She flicks her eyes at him, and considers.