by Jane Rogers
To bring on man the Fall;
A woman God has chose at last,
For to restore us all.
As by a woman death did come,
So life must come the same,
And they that eat the fruit she gives
May bless God’s holy name!
Leah
By casual questioning of Saint Joanna, and the expenditure of an infinite amount of patience in listening to her replies, I have acquired a somewhat clearer notion of the Prophet’s movements. He leaves the house before we even rise, and goes to Sanctuary, where he meets with the Elders for early morning worship, and to inform them of God’s latest sayings. After that, as far as I can make out from Saint Joanna, he might take any one of some six or seven courses of action, for on some days he will stop in Sanctuary all morning, on discussion of church business; on other mornings he will visit the sick and dying, or conduct a circumcision; on others he will return here to receive individual petitioners, leaders from other churches, and so on and on. However, she did let slip that tomorrow he will return to Southgate by eight o’clock, since there are two young men now fully prepared for missionary work, whose knowledge and faith he must examine before revealing their destinations to them. She refused to say who they were; one I am sure will be Henry Lees, rich William Lees’ younger brother, who reprimanded me for my lack of piety at the last Feast of the New Moon. I hope he is sent to Turkey. Our Sabbath morning service will be tediously lengthened: at the last departure of missionaries, we endured near two hours of well-wishing prayers and commending them to God. However, there is a benefit to all this, for not only do I now know the Prophet’s movements tomorrow morning, but they also coincide with it being my turn to clear and light the fires – which excuses me our household prayers. It will be easy enough, when I have completed the chore, to slip out to Sanctuary (I may take some of our fresh candles, as a reason) at just the time when he must be ready to leave. And so I shall walk home in his company, in the fresh morning light, and perhaps win some advantage.
Thomas, I reasoned, would fit well enough into this happy plan – for he generally wakes before six, takes a feed and sleeps again another couple of hours. But this morning he is not awake. I dress myself in the darkness and feel my way down to the kitchen, which is as dark and cold as the grave. The tinder box is not where I left it in its niche above the fireplace – I feel about on the table, and then the dresser, and succeed in knocking over the tea caddy which was perched on the very edge of the lower shelf. If ever there were a group of slovenly, careless housekeepers, it is these: nothing is kept in its rightful place. There is no need for any of them to touch the tinder box, for it is invariably I who light the first candle of the day. I find it at last beside the sink, where heaven knows what splashing or spills may have damped the tinder. I can generally reckon on a light by the third attempt, but today I must strike eight times, and scrape my knuckles into the bargain, before a spark will take. Now the spill – and now the candle. I keep his milk in the oven overnight, for though the fire is dead and cold by morning, the brick of the old oven still retains its heat. Out in the pantry there will be shards of ice in the milk today; there is a freezing, bitter wind whistling under the door. Clumsy with haste I break a little bread into the lukewarm milk, and bear my bowl and light upstairs. Thomas must be woken.
He is cross and sleepy and will not feed properly. It is provoking, for I cannot remember the last time he was not wide awake and chirruping at six. By the time I am done he has spilt more than he has eaten, and is only just coming properly awake. As I lay him down to sleep again he begins to cry angrily. Thomas, sweetheart, come … not this morning. I am already behind-hand. But as I raise the latch his screams grow earnest. I cannot leave him like this.
And so I must take him to Rebekah – which I would rather had been avoided, for since his circumcision and the attendant distress, he has come to spend more than half his day in others’ arms. First I take a light into their room; I will not have her blundering about in the dark with him. Rachel and Rebekah are not yet dressed, I lay him on her bed. His cries cease as soon as he hears her voice.
I run down to the kitchen again, to rake out the fire. Filthy, choking work: little did I imagine I would be reduced to the same status as our girl Ruth at home, in my brave new life. Not one of the others raises her voice against such menial tasks – and so I must not either. But once I have his ear the Prophet shall know how demeaning it is to his standing and the honour of the church, for the Prophet’s women to be toiling like servant girls. There are four fires to clear this morning – his study, the great hall, and drawing room, besides this. Four laborious journeys out the back into the icy grey morning, where the wind whips the ash up into a whirlwind that sticks in my nose and throat. At least there is a system now for kindling and fuel, and it lies, dry and to hand, beside the kitchen range. But the hearth stones in the drawing room and in his study must be whitened after the soot is scrubbed away – already the hall clock has struck seven, and I am not half done. In the kitchen the straw and twigs blaze up swiftly, but soon dull back to a smoky hissing mass, under the weight of a couple of logs, and I must work myself into a sweat with the bellows to get them to flame. Saint Joanna will buy nothing that can be got as a donation; at home, peats would be glowing by now, but since logs are given and peat is not, our work is made the harder.
I have not lit the drawing room fire before; it is a fine-looking hob grate in steel, set in a marble chimney piece. But it will not draw; I nurse it into flame, but it dwindles and dies as soon as I stop blowing. There must be a blockage. I poke at the chimney opening, but meet no resistance. Soot falls upon the fresh-whitened hearthstone, spoiling my work. This must be done. If I do not catch him at Sanctuary this morning, when will be the next opportunity? He may not be alone again for the rest of the day, save in his study where none may enter. And tomorrow? A meeting with the Elders may take up the morning, who knows what duties the afternoon – and the day after he will probably be off on another preaching tour to some distant village. My hands are black, my nails chipped and filthy. How many more days of this must I endure? Dumbly, patiently, as if this were life.
‘Sister Leah. Are you having difficulty?’
The last person I need. ‘Sister Dinah. Are you not at morning prayers?’
‘I felt a little faint. I have excused myself.’
‘And you are going to lie down.’ My precious time is slipping away with each slow word she utters.
‘I was on my way upstairs. But I heard you sobbing, Sister Leah, and I wondered –’ I am not sobbing. I wish to be done with this, but I am not sobbing. ‘– if I could help you?’
‘I cannot – the fire will not draw.’
‘Let me see.’
It takes her half an hour to cross the room. Now I am well and truly trapped, for while she peers up the chimney and remarks on the lack of a register door and wonders whether a bird may have nested there, I must watch and listen politely: instead of hurling the fire irons, down, ripping off this filthy apron and running out to wash myself. Her slow movements are like something you would crush, out of pity or disgust, if you saw it crawl across the floor.
‘It can burn brightly, Sister Leah, for I have seen it.’ So have I, Dinah, but today it will not burn at all.
‘Let me try it again, while you tend your other fires, Sister Leah. No, do not worry, I think it was standing to pray on an empty stomach that caused the dizziness; it will make me feel better to be of service.’
‘Thank you, Sister Dinah, you are very kind.’
‘If I cannot get it to burn I will tell Sister Joanna and she must arrange for it to be swept. This opening at the top is very narrow …’ Her slow voice trickles on as I run out of the room. It is seven-thirty by the clock: if I can be clean and out of the house in five minutes I may yet catch him before he is half-way back. Then what is my excuse for not going on to Sanctuary with my candles? I will think of something on the way. I have to brea
k ice on top of the water-pitcher in the outer office – the cold makes my hands ache.
As I pause for a moment to slide a bunch of candles into the wide pocket of my cloak, I hear the sound which must finally ruin my plan: a sudden loud splattering of rain against the office roof. I run to the back door and look out. The heavens have opened, and freezing rain spouts down as if from a pump. I would be soaked to the skin within a minute.
The sudden sharp disappointment to my hopes, after so much haste, brings angry tears to my eyes. And now here is the day, the rest of the day to get through. I hear the women’s voices raised in the morning hymn.
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows, their thirst to assuage –
Grace which like …
If he do not speak to me today: if he do not look at me today, so help me – I think I shall burst.
*
The product of this past two weeks’ hard work is now complete: we have a number of hideous, ill designed dresses. Saint Joanna tells us we must wear them all the time, not just for Sabbath; it is our ‘uniform of God’. A pity God has not more taste, say I.
There are prohibitions against every aid to beauty, for we are not to insult the Lord by attempting to improve upon his handiwork. (And yet one needs only to glance at Martha, or at Hannah, to understand how vastly in need of improvement it is.) Injunctions against hair pieces and false curls do not trouble me, since no addition is needed to improve my own hair. Though it may be against the spirit of the law, I shall continue to use my belladonna – it is not against the letter, for I do not think the Prophet or Elders even know of such a thing. What gives me most cause for irritation is the prohibition concerning stays. Every item of our undergarments is detailed (is this the Prophet’s work? I wonder that he has no matters of greater significance with which to occupy himself, than the enumeration of petticoats. I wonder also at the intention behind this. Does he desire us to be ugly? And if so, is this to discourage the attentions of other men? To foster modesty in us, by obliging us to lose interest in our appearances? To put a damper on his own desires? Or does he prefer ugly women? The wandering of his eyes seems to deny it). So the design of our stays is prescribed. We are to have no whalebone, or stiffening of any kind. A simple, wadded cotton, laced under-bodice. I tried this garment today; it fulfils the requirements absolutely, since it conceals every natural curve of the body, covering all with a generalized shapeless fatness. Am I to walk about like a pudding? I have worn myself into a temper trying to adjust the thing so that it goes in at the waist. I have complained to Saint Joanna of the discomfort, and told Rachel and Rebekah its prolonged use will ruin their figures. But my best course of action can only be to take matters into my own hands. I will wear the wretched thing on the Sabbath, and when I am likely to be inspected. The rest of the time I shall leave it off, and, now my own stays are taken from me, I shall wear a plain, unlined cotton underbodice. It will not enhance my figure, but at the very least it will not deform it.
I am making a dress, at night. A dress which is not at all allowed; from a length of brightly sprigged muslin which came like a gift, wrapped up inside the dull plain lengths we have had delivered from the draper’s. How it came there, or what it is for, we do not know. Saint Joanna unrolled it, and all gathered round to exclaim forlornly at the prettiness of the colours (pale yellow, with a delicate pink and green flower). All we are allowed is plain colours. No mixtures, no patterns. And only drab, green or blue. I wanted it. I know I wanted it more than any of the others – nor had any of them the wit to take it, like it never so much. Saint Joanna murmured something about giving it to a girl in her Bible class, who has poor relations that are not Israelites: it was left lying there when we went to singing practice. So I slipped back when the others were gone, and hid it in Thomas’s bedding. I have cut it out now, and last night Rebekah helped me pin it on. Sewing by candlelight makes my head ache, but I have a half-dozen extra candles (the benefit of cleaning in Sanctuary this morning) and so we shall burn them profligately. Little Rachel stares at me with her sheep eyes and says, ‘But is it not forbidden?’ and ‘When can you wear it, Sister Leah?’
I shall find opportunity, I shall make opportunity. If I must be always dressed in ugly clothes, then life is not worth living.
Saint Joanna came out from reading to the Prophet tonight in a state of some excitement. I was in the kitchen feeding Thomas, and Rebekah and Rachel sitting with their sewing at either side of the fire.
‘I have heard something strange,’ she says, and sits herself at the table; then seems lost in a trance, staring into the fire and not saying a word.
‘What is it?’
‘Sister Joanna, tell us.’
For a long while she did not reply, almost as if she regretted having spoken, and was considering how to keep a secret. At last she said, ‘The Prophet’s wife is dead.’
We looked at one another. The Prophet’s wife is dead.
‘When did she die?’
‘Was she ill?’
‘What did he say? Is he distressed?’
Joanna shook her head. ‘He only mentioned it as an afterthought. He told me he would be away a day or two this week, visiting the Huddersfield meeting, and settling his wife’s affairs.’
‘Did you ask him –’
‘Did he not go to visit –’ Rebekah and I spoke at once, and fell silent together.
Joanna continued with her own train of thought. ‘The comfort God provides to His chosen people is a marvellous thing. He reminded me that we should rejoice at death, for the soul is brought to a place of delights. I asked him when he heard this news, and he said she has been ailing this past six months, and that he knew of God that she could not survive long.’
‘How does he know she is dead?’ I asked.
‘Her brother was here yesterday. I do not know … I did not notice him. There were so many petitioners waiting in the housebody in the afternoon …’
We sat silent a while, then Rachel asked, ‘Will there be a great funeral?’
Saint Joanna shook her head. ‘He said she is to be buried quietly, in her own parish. She was never properly of our faith. His exact words were, “God, who saw into her heart, knows her merits and her place in eternity.” It was her wish, and her brother’s, that she should be laid to rest in the churchyard beside their childhood home. Let us pray for her, sisters.’
We bowed our heads, and Saint Joanna prayed for the Prophet’s wife, and asked God to give her a place in heaven.
‘Are there not children?’ I asked.
‘There are three. They stay with the brother and his wife.’
So the Prophet is rid of his entire family at one blow.
‘His strength and fortitude are an example to us all. I hope he will make a sermon of this on the Sabbath: never have I seen the Lord give a man such support, such composure, in what would to many of the weaker sort, be a time of grief. Truly, He is a rock.’ The Prophet did not make a sermon of it on the Sabbath, nor is it at all widely known among church members. While Saint Joanna is impressed by his God-given fortitude, there is one fact above all that impresses me. If his wife is dead, he may take another.
Not now. Not hastily. But in time – when his bravely concealed grief is overcome, if he finds a woman to suit him, there is no reason to suppose he will not look to marrying again. A woman inside the faith, clearly. A woman who might make a contribution, through her skills, to increasing the comfort and standing of this house of God. A woman who might be admired for her beauty, and respected by the Elders for her position in the Prophet’s favour. This makes another matter entirely, out of winning his attention.
Does Thomas count against me? I think not. Once the fact is known, and accepted – and he did accept it, easily – it is just as easily forgotten. The child is part of the household now. I am sure the Prophet does not think of him.
The question comes back again – again and again – how to secure some time alone with him; how to encoura
ge him to more than staring at me from the opposite side of Sanctuary? A futile question at this present time, for he is off to Huddersfield today, and who knows how long the arrangement of his wife’s affairs may keep him there occupied?
*
Thank God for a little excitement! Rachel and I were despatched to Ashton this morning on household errands (in itself exciting, after being incarcerated in this mausoleum since the Sabbath) and met there with one I little expected to see again. I was glad enough to be out, with a purse of eight shillings at my waist, and no sharper a companion than little Rachel, who must be taken by the elbow and dragged along the street, to save her from standing ignorantly gawping. Their mother never let them out of her sight, poor chickens, and they move abroad like lost creatures. Joanna instructed me to inform Sister Wrigley at the haberdashers, and Brother Taylor at the forge, that their goods are particularly requested for the Prophet’s house: this to give them an opportunity of increasing their favour with the Lord, by choosing to donate said goods to His service. I had it in mind to add in dozen small pearl fastenings to Sister Wrigley’s list, for the neck of my muslin gown, which is all but finished now. I tried it on last night for Rachel and Rebekah. Little Rachel said, ‘Sister Leah, will it be allowed?’ but Rebekah told her to hush, and pinned the hem for me. She wanted to know when I should wear it. ‘I shall find a time,’ I told her; little thinking how delightfully soon that time would be!
If Wrigley as well as Taylor could be prevailed upon to make God glad, I thought I should take four shillings for my labour; and I passed the time walking into Ashton, planning how I might help Fat Wrigley to her good deed. It would be more amusing to mention it at first, and watch her anxiety mounting with my pile of goods on the counter. But this would give her a longer space to find a way out, and might also give her reason to question the (forbidden) pearl buttons. Oh, what is not forbidden? Why, only that which is dingy, colourless, ugly. All pleasures – even to the taking of snuff! – are a sin. I decided I would spring it on her at the end, when she had already reckoned my bill and was opening her greedy palm. Surprise and embarrassment, not to mention fear for her immortal soul, might propel her into sudden generosity.
