by Jane Rogers
‘I have heard some excellent women speakers, in London. A woman may sometimes speak more powerfully than a man. Anna Wheeler, for example; she does not share your faith, but the passion and conviction with which she speaks carry all before her.’
Joanna is not listening. She looks out into the field again, then stands, as if to offer me the chair.
‘It is all right. You can sit there if you like.’
We both stand awkwardly, she would perhaps rather be alone. I pick up my book, intending to go and read by the kitchen fire. But as I am half-out the door she says, ‘Sister Hannah. Do not go.’ She laughs and shrugs, as if to shake off gloomy thoughts. ‘See – I will take the seat again. You may perch on the bed in my old place. Why do you not tell me … you never finished telling me about Edward and your father.’
‘You do not want to hear that now, Joanna.’
‘Indeed I do. Nothing could interest me more.’ The room is chilly, after the warmth of the day.
‘Shall we go down and sit by the kitchen fire?’
‘Sisters Leah, Rebekah and Rachel are down there. I –’ She gives a little laugh. ‘I do not like to spoil their chatter.’ I pass her the blanket from her bed, and wrap my own around my shoulders. It is ridiculous to sit banished in the cold like this.
‘Your father became – grew distant – because of Edward?’ she prompts gently.
‘I suppose so. I did not notice when it began. I … well, the crisis came when Edward asked me to accompany him to America.’
‘Leaving your father.’
‘Yes.’
‘He did not want you to go?’
‘It was not that simple. When I told him what Edward proposed he asked me what I wished to do. And when I asked him for his advice, he told me I must decide for myself.’
‘That was fair.’
‘How was it fair? Would you think me fair if you came to me for advice on a matter affecting the whole of your future life, and I told you it was none of my business and that you must decide?’
‘If your view was bound to be partial, yes. What interest could your father have in your leaving him? For himself, he could only want you to stay.’
‘But it is possible to put one’s own desires aside, to consider what may be the best course of action for another.’
‘You should have prayed. Only God can guide us, in such a choice.’
‘Not only would he give me no advice, he would not even speak to me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He stopped speaking. He no longer told me what he’d read in the newspaper, who he’d seen on the street corner, the strange thought that had come to him while he was buying a cabbage. He stopped talking, all save for essential practical purposes, such as instructions concerning the workshop.’
‘You asked him –’
‘Of course I asked him why. Over and over again, in as many different ways as there are days in the month – angrily, gently, teasingly, pleadingly, laughingly, in tears … I could get nothing out of him.’
‘So you decided not to go?’
‘Yes. I told Edward I could not go. What else could I do? If my father was so angered – or upset – by the notion of my going – that he could no longer speak to me civilly … then how could I go?
She nods. ‘Was Edward grieved?’
‘Not for long. He is a great optimist, he sees the best in every situation. He reasoned that it would be best for him to face the hazards of the initial journey, and the construction of a home, as a single man; in that way he could put his full energies into the establishment of the community, its buildings, its supplies, its equitable government.’
‘That makes sense.’
‘But when he was gone …’ The early summer evening has darkened. I hear Leah, Rebekah and Rachel coming up the stairs, talking in loud whispers, and giggling.
‘How is Dinah tonight?’
‘No better. Sister Wrigley has sent a bottle of her syrup of lungwort. It is the best remedy for wheezing and shortness of breath – but the poor girl can scarcely swallow it … God gives her great courage. I think she must have another room-mate than Sister Martha … I think we must make a change.’
I realize she means either me or herself. ‘What about Sister Rachel? I am sure she could look after Dinah.’
‘And put Sister Martha with Sister Rebekah?’ It would be an unhappy combination, I can see; besides, Leah spends most evenings in their chamber.
‘Why not offer Martha the little servants’ room? She seems to prefer solitude.’
Joanna does not reply. At last she sighs. ‘I think perhaps I should move in to Sister Dinah’s room.’
‘Do not make a hasty decision,’ I urge her.
She nods. ‘God may send me a sign.’ She turns so that I see her face in profile against the deep blue window: I cannot make out her features now, only a black silhouette. ‘You always avoid the end of your story, Sister Hannah. Tell me what happened when Edward left.’
‘Nothing. Nothing happened. Edward left: eventually I received a letter from him telling me of his safe arrival.’
‘And your father –?’
‘My father nothing. He continued the same. Not speaking, or smiling, or showing the least interest in me or affection for me. We worked together in silence; he went out without telling me where he was going or when he would be back; he did not even cook for me, unless we were actually in the workshop together.’
‘But was this general? Did he speak to anyone else?’
‘Oh yes; our landlady became a great confidante, all his little frets over those customers who did not pay immediately, or who were troublesome enough to request the use of more than one colour of ink, were passed over to her: and with his other friends he became exceedingly sociable and jovial, sometimes even venturing out to pass an evening in the ale house with them – which he had never done before.’
‘You were excluded from this?’
I laughed. ‘You do not understand, Joanna. I was excluded from his life. It was as if I had actually gone to America; he tried to behave as if I was not there. Even when he became ill: even when he lay, weak and choking in his bed, and I had to feed him like a baby – never so much as a smile or a word of –’
She kneels beside the bed to put her arms around me. ‘Sister. Sister. Do not cry. Hush now. He is with God.’
I am not crying. She is warm; it is like coming near the fire after standing in the freezing rain. ‘He never forgave me. Not on his deathbed, not when I asked his blessing.’
She sits up on the bed beside me, leaning against the wall. Her voice is soft as touch. ‘He was not judging you, Sister Hannah. Surely you see that. He judged himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Surely he judged himself? He loved you too well, needed you too much, to express joy at your leaving for America. He did not beg you to stay, but he could not bring himself to wish you to go. So he remained neutral. Forcing himself not to speak, not to influence you. But then when you did not go – he feared you had made the decision for his sake – and that you regretted it.’
My breath has made the space under the blanket suffocatingly hot. I poke my head out into the air. She is a black shape beside me. ‘But why did he not speak – tell me, at the very least –’
‘What could he have told you? That he was afraid he had pushed you into making the wrong decision? When he became ill, and maybe guessed he was dying – how could he feel, knowing you would be left alone, instead of with a husband and a new life before you?’
‘If he thought he was wrong, he could have said so and had done with it.’
‘How, when the wrong could not be put right? When he could not love, or want you to stay at home, any less?’
And so he continued harsh, cold, rejecting every gesture of kindliness and reconciliation; because what could my blundering attempts represent, but further cause for guilt and self-reproach?
‘But then he died …’
‘Y
es, Sister Hannah? We must all die. He had no choice in the matter. He did not die to hurt you, I am sure.’
‘In the darkness I hear the sounds of the house settling, the stairs creak and are silent: over near the canal an owl hoots. Joanna sits quite silent in the dark.
She is right. He did not die to hurt me.
‘Sister Hannah, let us pray for his soul. He was a good man, God will reward him.’
*
Summer. After weeks of unchanging cloud, producing either cold rain or an apparent absence of any weather at all; a day not clear, not hot, but light and with a pale grey haze in its still air, so that on leaving the house I did not see the weather as part of here and now, but as a shaft, clear back, through all those days of my life which have contained precisely this quality of summer. Holding, in their lazy curl, essence of summer smells, holding dust of roads and scent of hay, or the sudden beauty of the workshop window flung open to admit clean balmy air into the chemical interior.
This is the day of all the year I love the best. It has no drama; no romantic thunderstorms or golden sunshine. But this quiet day, when the skies are still grey and one may be deceived, on looking through a window, into thinking it just such another as the ten preceding: this quiet, unpretentious day, makes itself known to my heart and memory as clearly as if a hand had touched my own. The stillness of the air, amplifying birdsong and the rumble of coaches on the turnpike. The haze, both of the lower edges of sky, and in the rising dust of drying earth: the sweet tender green of half-opened leaves, still dwarfed by the massed browns and greys of bare twigs, bare earth: but coming, coming in an unstoppable slow growth. There is no beauty in the sky, no azure blue or fleecy white: it is mute, holding still – on a level which is connected with the ache of longing at the back of my throat. Promises. Promises. It is the sweetest thing, this day at the edge of summer, where all is promised, all is to come, and the sky stands mute, careful, grey.
If I could I would make today stand still, I would hang forever suspended on the edge of the promise – never having to move forward into the bald reality of days ahead.
When we rose at four this morning it was already dawn, the sun fresh as a lemon in a pale green-blue sky, where a couple of the brightest stars and a faint crescent moon lingered still.
Wash-day; our third together (for we wash in the week before the feast of the New Moon). And by this third attempt, we are almost into a routine. Our devotions are shortened to half an hour, then we scatter to our various tasks: Martha and I to the pump, drawing the twenty-eight buckets of water it takes to fill the copper; Joanna to Sanctuary in the carriage, to fetch the devotional linen; Rachel to strip the beds, Leah and Dinah to gather the household garments, and sort them into colours. Rebekah lights the fire beneath the copper, and brings up the day’s supply of wood.
Leah is grey-faced and furious in the early morning, we all avoid her. The baby Thomas is still asleep, but I heard him crying in the night. She cares for him with a suppressed anger which suggests she finds it a duty rather than a pleasure. Whereas Rebekah and Rachel, and even Joanna, coo over him and would smother him with soft affection. Leah leaves the room immediately one of them takes him up, as if their dotingness kindled an impatience in her that propels her from their company. I cannot muster any great interest in a baby; the dog is more companionable and intelligent, and the small fragility of the child is almost repulsive to me. I will like it better larger and more robust.
The burden of wash-day lies heavy on Joanna’s shoulders; a hundred small matters lurk in her memory and fret her;
‘Do not forget to bring out the pail I left in the outer office the other night, where Brother Samuel’s pillow slip and night-shirt are soaking, from the nose-bleed.’
‘I have forgot to tell Brother Benson to send us no cream for churning this week; we cannot spare the time, his girl must do our butter for us. Rebekah and Rachel, will you walk up and tell them, before he is put to the trouble of sending the cart down?’
‘There are two pair of worsted stockings needing a quick darn at the heel before washing; Sister Dinah, you might do it instead of your other work.’
‘Be sure to keep the new blue overskirts away from everything else; I am dreadfully afraid of their running. Mine was only slightly damp at the hem, and it has stained my underskirt.’
‘I am afraid we shall run out of starch; I was promised some of Sister Taylor and she has not sent it over. We may leave it for today but it must be fetched first thing tomorrow. Do not let me forget.’
‘Sister Dinah, you are not to overtax yourself again today. You may help Sister Leah with the sorting, and after that you take a rest.’
‘I would have returned those two new washtubs to the cooper for better finishing off, if he had not delivered them so shockingly late. Whoever uses them, take care you do not get splinters in your arms, for I do not think he has sanded the rims at all.’
These little anxieties occur to her through the day, and when they do she breaks off her work to see about them, and we hear her warm soft voice centring that part of the wash-house where she is. When the water comes to the boil, we take our buckets over to the copper to fill them – our washtubs take six bucketfuls. Opening and closing the tap is a difficult business, for it is stiff and becomes very hot, so must be turned with one’s hand wrapped in a towel. Standing behind Rebekah and watching her wrestle to turn it off, it occurred to me that we might get the water direct from the copper into the tubs, if we worked in pairs, carrying a tub between two of us. The advantage would be less time wasted in opening and closing the tap, and hotter water too, for the bucket method allows it to cool rapidly. I tried it with Leah, and aside from being nearly overpowered by the steam, found that we could manage a three-quarters-full tub between us. So this improvement in our working methods was adopted by all. That first lungful of steam, early in the morning, on an empty stomach, brings memory of the preceding wash-day flooding through me; the hollow stomach, aching back and shoulders, sore, raw-skinned knuckles; the pitch of physical exhaustion I reach which is almost pleasurable, for I become light and giddy. Complete happiness can then be found in taking a single bite of bread and cheese.
When our tubs are full we add ashballs and put in the whites; give them a few turns with the dolly and leave them to steep while we break our fast. This is done quickly on oatcakes and cold milk; then back to the serious scrubbing business, with sleeves rolled above the elbow, leaning forward into the steaming heat and grabbing the slippery pink bar of soap, with one knuckle beneath the stiff resistant layers of cloth. The linen of our dresses, when wet, is as harsh as sacking. Leah attacks her tubfull with frenzy, putting her whole body into the motion of scrubbing. She is always finished first. Martha scrubs, but erratically; Joanna takes her tub when she is done, and examines the contents carefully, dispatching Martha to wring out Joanna’s own tubfull. No one talks. The steam in the air seems to cut each one off from the others, and our eyes are kept fixed on the cloth till I see spots where there are none, or stains that move each time I blink. Most of all I hate the hems of underskirts, for that line of dirt where it has swept the ground can never be entirely removed, though one scrub till one’s fingers are raw.
‘You should lead us in a hymn practice as we work,’ I said to Joanna. I was half in jest, but she took up the idea, so we sang our way through the next half hour’s labour, and our throats – opened by the heat and the steam – never made a sweeter sound than in the echoing stone wash-house.
The water cools, a thick grey scum lies across the surface. At last, by common consent, a common, red-faced, raw-fingered exhaustion, we begin to wring out the washing, taking sheets in a long snaking line from tub to bucket, wherein they are coiled; dripping (or pouring) water down between tub and bucket to wet our skirts and feet. My bodice is already soaked by my efforts, from splashing and from sweat. I am warm, sodden, limp with fatigue. And we are only at the morning. Now we take up in pairs again the half-empty tubs, to hoist and pour
their filthy contents back into the copper. The buckets of washing are added in, the bellows applied to the fire, and the whole stinking mass set to boiling up again.
While it boils we fill our tubs at the pump – again with the innovation of working in pairs. I work with Martha, who is tremendously strong but also clumsy. There is no natural rhythm in her movements, simply a forcing forwards – through – each action. Waiting her turn at the pump, Rachel sprawls out on the sunny grass.
Rebekah has gone into the house, and calls to her sister as she returns; ‘Rachel! Thomas is crying, will you do him?’
‘Can Dinah not see to him?’
‘She is alseep.’
There is a brief silence then Leah moves off towards the house, leaving Joanna alone with the tub at the pump: Rachel has to get up to help her.
A great change has come over Rachel and Rebekah during their time here. At first they stared at everything with wondering eyes, barely replying to questions, never speaking of their own accord. Now they chatter together all day long, and find something to giggle over every other minute. They are utterly and unthinkingly obedient to all the rules, and yet are cultivating a kind of carelessness (as shown in Rachel’s sprawl upon the grass, which she would never have done even a month ago), a relaxedness which was completely missing from their characters before. Their mother calls once a week to speak with them – on a Sunday morning, when we have the dishes and tidying from the Sabbath on our hands. At her knock upon the door they are transformed again into timid silent creatures. Leah spends much time with them, in the evenings; going past their door I sometimes very much wish to enter and join in their laughter. But I know it would stop if I did.
We cannot rest. Strong-armed Martha hoists our washing out of the copper with long wooden tongs, slopping it into our buckets. We heave the buckets across to tip into the fresh cold-water tubs and rinse. Martha empties the scummy slops from the copper, a bucketful at a time. We rinse, scrub, wring: those items which remain soiled are heaved back into the copper, with another load of fresh water, and boiled up with a muslin bag of white wood ashes to lift the stains. The tubs are emptied and filled again – blue is added to the final rinse. The water now is numbingly cold, and all our hands and forearms purplish red and mottled. Leah mixes the starch over the kitchen grate and brings it round to us. Helping one another we empty our final rinse water out on to the grass and wring the clothes between us taking an end each of each item and twisting until it is quite knotted up. Now at last we shake and spread them over the hedge and over the lines strung between the wash-house and the office wall. My shoulders are a hunch of pain; I stumble against Rachel and she totters, regains her balance, turns and giggles at me. I drop my sheet on to the dusty path. At this Rachel giggles harder, causing Rebekah, Leah, Joanna to all stop and turn. Each of them begins to laugh, as I gather up the sheet, trying to save it from further dirtying and only succeeding in smearing a dusty mess right down the front of my sodden dress. We are all laughing; foolishly, helplessly, uncontrollably. I am so weak I have to lean against the door to get my breath, and Rachel, clutching a wet towel to her chest, and wheezing with laughter, sinks down on to the grass. We laugh so much I think I shall never stop. Then I see Martha’s plain red face turning from one to another of us. Her expressionless eyes watch each staggering move we make.
