‘But this is just the smallest part of the impurity surrounding us, Hetty! It lies everywhere, in the hearts of all men, and women! Just the other day I called unexpectedly upon the Smith household, only to find the reason for their oldest girl’s absence from church all too apparent – she is with child, Hetty! Heavy with child and only seventeen herself, and unwed.’ Albert shakes his head, casting a look of desperation up at his wife. Hester sinks onto the arm of his chair and grips his hands tightly.
‘Albert! Many a young girl has been led astray by the sweet whisperings of her beau… it’s to be lamented, of course, and is a tragedy for her, but she may yet atone – she may yet return to God’s favour, if she repents. And by far the majority of people here are good and kind and honest folk. Dear Albert, what’s brought on this dismay?’ Hester presses her hands tenderly to the sides of his face. Albert pulls away slightly, as if unwilling to meet her gaze, but Hester does not relinquish her hold.
‘It was something Robin said to me, yesterday morning,’ he confesses, wearily.
‘What did he say?’ Hester demands, more sharply than she intends. Albert glances at her, startled, and she smiles. ‘What did he say, dearest?’
‘He asked me not to go out to the meadow with him in the mornings any more. He suggested that he might have more success with his photographs if I were not there with him. In case my untuned and impure vibrations are off-putting to the elementals.’ Albert’s voice is laced with unhappiness.
‘Your impure vibrations? But this is nonsense! There is nobody purer of spirit than you, Albert…’
‘He means more that I am untrained, theosophically speaking. I am not able to tune my inner self to… harmonise with them. It may be why we have not yet managed to capture them on film, and I have not managed to see them again. Because of my lack of initiation.’
‘But… it was you who found them in the first place, Bertie! How can you be the reason that they stay away?’ Hester asks.
‘They granted me a glimpse of themselves, it’s true. Perhaps I had indeed stumbled unaware into some trance-like state that I cannot recapture…’Albert speaks as if to himself. ‘Perhaps that was it. Perhaps since seeing them my mind has been too unquiet, and I too caught up in the selfish desire to see them again, and to learn more. I must be a rough, clanging cymbal to them, so great has been my desire! Yes, I see it now – I have been foolish, and unworthy!’
‘Albert, stop that at once! You have never been foolish in all the years I have known you – since we were children, Bertie! And never once unworthy. Only ever good and kind and generous. And if this theosophy is teaching you anything other than this, then it is plain wrong, and perhaps it would be better to learn no more!’ Hester cries.
‘Hetty!’ Albert snaps, sharp with sudden anger. ‘Don’t say such things!’ Hester recoils, stung.
‘I do hope I’m not interrupting,’ says Robin Durrant, appearing in the doorway as if he’s been there all the while, one hand in his pocket, the other curled around his Frena camera. Hester jumps up from the arm of the chair and turns away, startled. Her skin prickles beneath her collar, and she feels breathless.
‘Ah, Robin! No, of course not. Of course not,’ Albert says, his cheeks colouring. In the uneasy silence, Hester takes a steadying breath.
‘Good morning, Mr Durrant. I trust you slept well?’ she says at last, her voice tight, higher than it should be. Robin Durrant smiles at her, in the languid way that he does, the curling shape moving slowly outwards from the centre to the far corners of his lips. For an instant his gaze seems to look right through her. She feels her face glowing hotly, and longs to look away, to put her hands over her eyes like a child. But that will not do. Her pulse beats hard in her temples, blood thronging to her cheeks in a blush she knows he can see. He holds her this way for a second longer, and then blinks, letting his eyes roam the room, quite at ease.
‘I did, thank you. I always do here – the quiet of the countryside is such a tonic for body and mind. Don’t you think?’
‘Oh yes, quite so,’ Hester manages. She clears her throat, knots her fingers together in front of her skirts. ‘I’ve always found it very peaceful,’ she adds, but Robin Durrant is looking at the vicar, and that same slow smile has quite a different effect. Albert seems to catch his breath, and a tentative smile of his own rises up to his eyes.
‘Well?’ he asks, and Robin Durrant smiles wider.
‘Yes, Albert. Yes. I have seen them!’ he says. Albert claps his hands together in speechless joy, holding the tips of his fingers to his mouth as if in prayer, his earlier anxiety evaporating. A sour worm of something fearful coils itself around in Hester’s gut, but she cannot for the life of her either define it nor think what she should do about it.
6
In the sunshine late on Monday morning, Cat scrubs Hester’s undergarments in a wooden butt of warm soapy water. She has come out into the courtyard to do this, where she can splash with impunity, and feel the sun on her face. These items are considered too fragile to be sent out to the laundress, and cleaning them is a painstaking process. Cat removes the stays from the corsets and washes them one by one; then she uses a soft scrubbing brush to gently sweep the satin fabric lengthways until all stains and marks and odours are gone. Each one must be rinsed under the pump, pulled and stretched back into shape along its whalebone pins, and laid flat to dry where the sun will help to restore its whiteness. She must check them every half an hour until they are dry, tweaking and coaxing and teasing them back into their proper shapes.
Hester’s drawers are stained this week. Dark, bloody scuffs on the gussets and legs that turn brown in the water, and give off the smell of rusting iron. Cat wrinkles her nose as she scrubs, squeezes, rinses, repeats, her hands aching and puffy in the water. She is glad George can’t see her in this labour.
‘Haven’t you finished that yet?’ Mrs Bell remarks, leaning her head out of the scullery door. Cat angrily waves a stained garment at her.
‘A twelve-year-old child could manage her courses better than the vicar’s wife!’ she exclaims.
‘Hush your mouth!’ Mrs Bell glances around, scandalised.
‘I heartily wish the vicar would get his leg over and do his duty by her, so I would have fewer bloodstains to scrub for a term. Or don’t men of the cloth do that?’
‘It is hard to picture it, the two of them…’ Mrs Bell chuckles, before remembering herself. ‘Just you… show some respect,’ she reminds Cat, hastily.
‘I’ve never heard them at it, though. Have you?’ Cat smiles, impishly.
‘For shame! I’ve never listened out for it!’ Mrs Bell replies, her eyes merry for once.
‘One would have to listen closely, I suspect. More like the snufflings of a pair of bunny rabbits than the mighty roaring of a stag, I should think,’ she says, and Mrs Bell laughs out loud, unable to stop herself.
‘Cat, you are a devil!’ she wheezes, and then coughs hastily and falls silent as Hester enters the courtyard from the far side gate, and walks towards them.
Hester has spent the morning teaching the smudged and bony children of the Bluecoat School, a small charitable school run for the poor families of the parish. The school house was once a chapel. A small and ancient stone building with a steeply pitched roof and low, narrow doorways, it huddles all alone, and rather forlornly, Hester always thinks, on the London Road at the edge of Thatcham. But on school days it lights up with the voices of twenty little girls, all chattering and laughing, their words skittering to and fro, rising up to bounce amidst the gnarled beams of the roof. When Hester arrives, the ragged girls quickly seat themselves at their desks, fall quiet and watch her with their big eyes shining like glass beads. Hester loves that moment. She stands with her hands clasped in front of her, feeling her heart bubble up in her chest.