‘Where are you going?’
‘It’s morning!’ she snaps, anxiety making her curt. ‘I can’t believe I slept so long… I have to get back! They’ll notice… and I look like a vagrant!’
‘Don’t fret so… the sun’s not yet up, you’ve time.’ George sits up, twists his shoulders to free up the muscles. ‘Tell you what, for a slip of a thing you aren’t half heavy after a while.’ He smiles.
‘I can’t believe you let me sleep on like that.’
‘You needed it. I was going to wake you when it got late, but you looked so peaceful. So I shut my eyes for five minutes, and must have drifted off as well.’
Cat rakes her fingers through her hair and brushes roughly, pointlessly, at her skirt and blouse. Pulling on her shoes, she turns to climb the steps. George catches her hand.
‘Wait! Wait a second, Cat. You never did answer me. My proposal.’
‘There’s no time now, George,’ Cat says, trying to pull away and be gone.
‘Yes or no – both very short words, and quick to say,’ he counters, and his tone is guarded now. ‘I would be good to you, Cat Morley,’ he adds when she hesitates, won’t meet his eye.
‘I know it. I know you would. But I can’t marry you, George.’
‘Why not?’ he asks, his face falling. Cat hugs her arms tight around herself, suddenly cold and queasy. ‘Why not? Do you love another?’ he presses, sounding both angry and afraid.
‘No!’
‘Am I not good enough for you?’
‘You would be good enough for any woman, George, and that’s the truth,’ she says, sadly.
‘Then why won’t you marry me?’
‘Because you would own me! I won’t be owned, George! By you or anybody… bad enough that I am slave to the vicar and his wife. I would not swap that one kind of slavery for another.’
‘I’m talking of marriage, not slavery…’
‘But it’s the same thing! If you’d only heard some of the accounts I have, from women in London – how marriage has served them, how they have been treated. If I wed you it would be your right to beat me! To take my money, my children, everything I own, though God knows I own precious little… It would be your right to take your pleasure with me, whether I wanted it or not! To shut me indoors and never let me see the light of day… It would be your right to…’ She runs out of breath, and coughs; finds her hands shaking in fear at her own words.
‘I would do none of those things! Is that what you think of me?’ he asks, stricken.
‘No! I don’t think you would do any of them, George; I speak only of the state of marriage, and why I will not enter into it. With you or any man!’ she cries. ‘I will not be owned!’
From outside the boat, in the wake of her words, comes silence. George turns away from her, sits back down on the bed and does not look at her. Cat swallows, her throat parched and painful. She hesitates a moment, then climbs out of the cabin and makes her way back towards Cold Ash Holt.
The Rev. Albert Canning – from his journal
TUESDAY, JULY 18TH, 1911
Today Robin has gone up to London. He sent a telegraph ahead to propose a meeting with the upper echelons of The Society, and although he had not had a response before he left, I am sure they will be most thrilled to see the evidence he has procured here, and to think and plan in which way best to use it, to further the teaching and enlightenment of the people. It is like walking in God’s very shadow, to know such things are so close at hand. It is a constant distraction, and a glorious one. I can think of little else. I yearn to be in the meadows at dawn, with Robin at my side; to be suffused with the overwhelming sense of rightness which overcomes me at such times. Yes, I yearn for it. Afterwards, the human race, in the full light of day, seems a paltry and unworthy thing indeed. I find my parishioners almost disgust me, with their sicknesses and their impiety and their material obsessions and their lasciviousness. Bringing them to the truth would be a task indeed, and I confess, to my shame, that some selfish part of me would rather not try, and would rather keep this exquisite discovery between myself and Robin. But this is not the way of theosophy, and I must work to oppress such thoughts.
I have not been able to sleep of late. I lie awake until the birds begin to sing, captivated by thoughts of the wonders of the earth, and how close I am coming to communing with them. For knowledge is the first step to enlightenment, and from enlightenment the path to a clearer inner vision and higher consciousness unfurls. I think that I cannot sleep because my inner sight is awakening. When I do sleep, in the first hour or so after dawn, I am beset by dreams, most troubling dreams. My own human doubts and fears return to mock me, and to test my resolve. Robin Durrant’s face comes to me often in such dreams, as though he has reached out, and wishes to guide me. Even when I wake, his face remains. He is in all my thoughts, and I feel his benign influence in my every action. The days will be long indeed, and empty while he is away. I wish he had asked me to go with him, so that I could remain at his side and help him in this time of great change.
I cannot sufficiently explain the aura of blissful harmony and knowledge that emanates from the theosophist. He is an exemplary man. This is how a person should be! His patience and learning, and how in all things he is both passionate and rational. He is the actual embodiment of an unsullied human spirit. How else to explain the feelings of completeness, peace and joy when I am in his company? Hester does not understand. When she speaks of him she is petulant, and is at times foolish. I should not reprimand her for it, since she does not know the truth, and can have little understanding of such esoteric ideas. Women were ever less pious than men, ever less studious, ever less able to commit to serious thought. Wisdom is not in their make-up, and they are not to be blamed for it. Though theosophy teaches that, within The Society, no such discriminations are made between the sexes, I do not claim to agree with every one of its tenets.
While Robin is away I will go myself into the meadows, and I will recapture the quietness of spirit that first allowed me to see the elementals. I will do this. I must not fail. For if I cannot do this I am no better than the gamblers in the pub, the fornicators in the dark corners of the streets. I will fight their assaults on decency, and I will fight my own impurities, the materialistic urges that have made it impossible for me to see again what I first saw. For as Charles Leadbeater himself says, for the elementals to be near an average man is like to be assaulted by a hurricane – a hurricane that has first blown over a cesspool. I will not be an average man any longer. If I can achieve this, Robin will truly have something to come back to. A proper companion, a proper acolyte to his teachings. For he must surely come back.
1911
For a while after she wakes, Hester can’t quite place what is different. Downstairs, she hears Cat opening the shutters quietly, the gentle clonk of wood against wood as they concertina away into the panelling. The air is still, and close, and too warm. Her skin itches slightly, hot and clammy wherever the sheets touch her, and her thoughts feel drowsy and slow. Then she realises – she is not alone. For the first time in as long as she can remember, she has woken up before Albert, and he remains in bed beside her, asleep on his back with his jaw fallen slack and the tiniest of frowns puckering his brow. The soft sound of his breathing fills what would normally have been silence. It has been six days since Robin Durrant went up to London, and there has been no word from him; and while Albert seems agitated and impatient at this, Hester is pleased, and feels happier than she has in weeks. She rolls over gently so that she can lie facing him. With the curtains still closed the light coming through the thick fabric is a rich, shady ochre. Albert has kicked the covers off in the night, and lies with his legs and arms jumbled wide, carelessly. Hester smiles fondly at him as he murmurs something unintelligible, and shifts his head a little.