by Jane Rogers
‘I walked on the beach.’
‘The sea air is very bracing.’ Must I go through the charade of reading, or will he stand up and step towards me?
‘The Bible is on the table, sister. Here, put this candle by your place, the light is poor.’ Our hands touch as I take the candle from him. I look at him, and he cannot meet my eye. He is mine.
I sit at the table; he gives me chapter and verse and I read. All the time I am reading I can feel his eyes. He is in near-darkness, I am lit. He is watching me. He can do nothing but watch me. The reading goes on and on, he has forgotten where it should end. It does not matter, my voice is soft and beautiful, I will read forever if he wishes, nothing can stop us now.
At last he says, ‘Thank you, Sister Leah.’ I close the Bible, and look at him. The look in his eyes makes me blush, which girlishness I would gladly do without. If he do not move now, I must. My whole body is blushing.
‘Are you in some kind of trouble, Sister Leah? Do you require my assistance?’ His eyes are making holes in me. Modestly, I look down.
‘You may assist me, sir, if you wish.’
‘How may I assist you?’
I glance at him. His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows; his hands tighten their grip on the arms of the chair.
I wait. Time is mine, I can make it take what shape I desire. He leans forward, his lips are parted. I can already feel the warmth of his breath on my throat.
Slowly, taking my time, I rise from my chair. I feel the pull of his eyes on every limb as I move, as though we move in water, with the resistance of water all around to slow our movements. Slowly, I move to the door, draw the bolt fast. Slowly, gliding, I move across the room to him; slowly, I turn around.
‘By removing my dress.’ My words float out, they hang like a silver bubble in the liquid air. I hear him struggle to his feet, clumsily, like a creature in a foreign element. He can do nothing but what I say. I feel his fingers fumbling at my buttons, his hot breath on the back of my neck.
Is this how it was with Hannah? No, we are more – more hot, more heavy, our bodies ripe and swollen as summer plums about to drop from the the tree beneath their own soft, insistent purple weight. The dress is unfastened; he drops his arms to his sides. I step forward, away from him, then turn to face him. I shrug my shoulders – a small movement – and the dress slips down. As it slips I give a little twist, so that it does not stop on my hips but slides on down into a soft rustling mass around my ankles. I am naked. Naked, blue white as a pearl, soft and full and perfect. He cannot take his eyes away. Slowly, feeling behind him for its reassuring arms, he lowers himself into his chair. Staring and staring at my pearly body.
Time: minutes, days, aeons, float in and out and past us, while his great hunger stares and stares, devouring my perfection. My body becomes liquid, sweet moon-blue milk, I am dissolving, flowing …
‘What do you desire, Sister Leah?’
‘What you desire.’ How long the words take to float across the water, trailing like strands of a mermaid’s hair.
‘I am afraid I do not understand you. You have removed your clothes. Are you unwell?’
I –
‘You do not answer, Sister Leah. Be clothed, I beg you. I cannot understand you if you will not speak.’
It freezes. Water, milk. Pins me – naked – exposed – voiceless as a fish – before him. My belly lurches. I want to vomit.
‘Sister Leah.’
I break. Crouch, grab my dress, drag it up. Scrabbling and stumbling towards escape.
‘Sister Leah –’
‘You wanted me –’ Do not let me cry.
‘Indeed. Yes, indeed, for you are called of God. To serve Him through your service to His house; in your prayers, in your singing, in your daily work. In virginal chastity, Sister Leah.’
I cannot get the door open – these ownerless fingers scrabble at the latch, oh God my eyes are blind with tears do not let him see me cry –
‘Be comforted my child. Pray to God for guidance. He will ease the burning temptations of the flesh.’
‘Has he eased yours? Hypocrite, fornicator – I saw you –’ That voice is screaming. Let me out of this room. God. Let me out.
‘My poor child. God wants you. You have no need of the desire of earthly men.’
The bolt. Here. The bolt.
I am out. I am out I am out. I fall into my room.
Do I hate him? Hate is not enough. It will never be forgotten. I will poison his life. I will break him.
*
We were dragged across the countryside, then, in the uncomfortable, ill sprung carriage, from Whitby to Robin Hood’s Bay to Scalby to Scarborough, from Beverley to Hull to York to Harrogate: along roads so hard and dusty we were at times half smothered, and rode with scarves tied across our faces to save our throats from clogging with the dust. In places the one-track roads are so deeply rutted, and the ruts so baked in by the summer’s sun, that the carriage once in them cannot easily be drawn out; and so when we meet a conveyance travelling in the opposite direction, we must all dismount – even to the removing of our boxes from the roof – to give the horses a chance of success in hauling it up on to the verge.
But I watch. Every opportunity that Hannah may have with him, I know before she knows it herself. I watch her movements; I count the minutes they spend together. I observe her scrawny, stunted shape. I imagine the sight the pair of them must make, and feel inclined to laugh. With his dwarfish height, his long straggling beard, and his disfiguring hunch, he cuts a sorry enough figure clothed; unclad, he must resemble nothing so much as a troll, a bogey to frighten children. He has little enough time for her, in which I do not blame him. He always rests in solitude after we have travelled; then comes the preaching and conversions, either in some draughty half-empty Methodist hall, or outside in a market place or on a street corner, where every idle-Jack who is passing may pause to leer at us. After we have made an exhibition of ourselves with the signings and hymns, we are generally dismissed to our lodgings, but he will stay out – sometimes for hours – disputing with new converts, or laying plans with leaders of the local meeting, if one already exist.
I miss Thomas cruelly. I pray he is recovered from that cough. We should be back for the feast of the New Moon before the end of this month; I count the days.
Wroe is certainly diseased. His perceptions and desires are perverted. At Hull Hannah and I were lodged together, sharing a room, while the rest of the party were at a house across the street. From the moment we walked in to the house the husband (a tall, handsome man with a shock of blond hair) had eyes for none but me. I gave him no encouragement, beyond coolly returning his stare: but later in the evening, when his wife was chatting with her neighbour in the yard, and Hannah gone to read to the Prophet – he slipped into my room on a very slender pretext. ‘What hour shall we wake you in the morning?’
I knew as clear as he why he was there: it needed no further words. After, as I was pulling down my clothes, and him still panting on the bed, his wife’s voice came to me again, still rattling on beneath the window, chatting to her neighbour about the cost of keeping pigs. The man was half mad for me, and took me in the kitchen, on the table, next morning. For Hannah was in our room, and his wife in bed with a sick headache.
Who looks at Hannah? Wherever we go, men stare for me. I could have anyone. I will make him sick with regret, I will make him choke on his own poisonous hypocrisy. He is blind to the eyes that follow me everywhere, but I will make him feel it, I will make him feel the loss of me.
*
At last, bruised, weary, sick at heart, I am back at Southgate. Beyond the presence of my darling child, I feel no joy at returning to this prison, nor shall I remain here any longer than it takes to engineer Wroe’s downfall. Dreary and sombre enough to suit my spirits, the house is muffled, turned in on itself. Dinah is dying. She will be gone before the week is out.
My poor wee Thomas is not well. But not in the same case as Dinah, I thank
God. Just a little unwell, just a slight cough. It is nothing too serious.
The routine starts up: the duties; scrubbing, singing, praying. A black thread leads me through this maze. I will destroy him. I will have patience. I have wasted enough of my life on him, I can afford to wait a little longer, for evidence none can deny. Evidence of his fornication with Hannah; evidence which I may take to the Elders, and so discredit him before them all.
I can wait, and watch them. I can destroy him.
I seem to be very tired. I cannot tell how it is. There seems to be almost no daylight. The winter evenings are drawing in. But they draw up so tight I could swear I have not seen the white light of day this week. Thomas is not sleeping well. It is just this tiresome little cough. Nothing to worry about, only that it wakes him. He wakes and then he is restless. I take him into my bed but straightaway he is too hot. So I hold him over my shoulder and pace up and down my room. I pace this maze. Lead a thread through. I will weave a plot to destroy that Prophet. I will weave a trap which will catch and hold him fast: pilloried, to their contempt. I give the child a sip of sugar water but he coughs, and cannot swallow. It is a weary thing, this cough, I wish it soon gone.
In the morning (is it morning? there seems to be no daylight. The clouds so low, the continual rain, there is no distinction left between day and night) Saint Joanna at my door. I have missed prayers, will I not come down to breakfast. But Thomas is so sad and tired, his night has been so wakeful. No, I thank her, I will stay with him a little, soon he will drop into a peaceful sleep. The worst of his fever is past, you may see, only look into his face.
Later she comes back (is it afternoon? It is already dark, to be sure – but was it light?), she brings me bread and cheese and tea on a tray, and a small basin of gruel for Thomas.
‘Can he try a spoonful?’ she asks me. There are tears running down her cheeks, this is a puzzle. I think he will not take the gruel just now. Perhaps when he has slept a little. Tears are coursing down her cheeks. I struggle to remember.
‘Dinah?’
‘Yes, Dinah is – is also – she suffers. I pray He may take her in the night. Oh my poor child!’ She tries to stroke Thomas’s head but he is hot, she will bother him with her clamour. All he needs is a little peace and quiet, a little rest. I ask her to leave, but she falls to her knees and begins to pray. How can he sleep with that noise going on? I beg her to be quiet; she lowers her voice to a whisper, while I wipe his poor hot little face with a damp cloth, and soothe him against my breast. He is cooler now, and calmer. He is nearly asleep. I motion her to be quiet, and she creeps from the room. Look, he is sleeping now.
Joanna and Hannah. The two in front of my bed. Joanna is still crying, crying again. Is it still dark? Is it always dark?
‘We must make him ready, Sister Leah.’ Hannah is speaking. I do not like Hannah.
‘Come, he is at rest now. You can do no more for him. He is with God.’
I wonder at its being so dark.
When I slept I had nightmares. Saint Joanna sat with me, but she was praying. I was glad when she went and it was quiet. Quiet and dark. They leave food and drink beside the bed. Later they take it away, and then they bring more. Everything here is still. I am still. The shadows are still. There is a dark still shadow in his cot.
But when I look, his cot is empty.
Hannah
Since our last conversation about my reading class, Mr Wroe has shown the keenest interest in my students, wanting to know about them by name and in detail: wanting me to relay exactly what happened in each class. He is busier than ever, engaged in endless meetings in Sanctuary: in the training of missionaries for Scotland, Spain, Eastern Europe and North America; in discussions with Jewish leaders in Manchester; in receiving God’s word, of course, which keeps Samuel Walker busily writing for the greater part of every morning; in raising money toward the construction of a sanctuary for the Bradford Israelites (for at present they have no building large enough to take their numbers, and when he holds a service for them they must gather in the old cock-pit); and in the daily stream of converts and penitents, lapsed or stricken Israelites who come to him for advice, comfort, prophecy, protection. This activity alone leads him into further loss of time arguing with the elders. He has told me, half-jokingly, that he can do no right at present. ‘Elders Moses and Caleb fear my laxity, Sister Hannah. They urge the expulsion of all backsliders from our church. Did you know that only 144,000 may sit with Christ during his blessed reign? All who have shown the slightest deviation from right principle must be cast out: we tarnish our own purity by clutching sinners to our bosoms. Should I cast you out, Sister Hannah? If Elder Moses knew of your beliefs, I am sure he would despatch you straight to hell.’ He pokes vigorously at the fire with his iron rod, but his voice is weary. ‘He would despatch us all to hell, if he could, and reign alone himself with God.’
This morning as I was walking along the gallery with my arms full of clean linen the hubbub below caused me to pause and look down. The housebody was crammed with people – all the elders of the church on seats alongside the fireplace, and the rest of the place filled with more than thirty people standing patiently or leaning against the walls. As I watched Wroe came in at the door beside the stairs. The room fell silent, immediately: he stood just inside the doorway for a moment, taking them in, then invited the elders to enter his study, where he would join them in twenty minutes. With those remaining in the room, he at first said a short prayer, then divided them into three groups, telling each a time later that day when they might return and find him at leisure. He concluded by offering his remaining ten minutes to any whose business was urgent. As the room emptied two young men drifted forward to speak with him. After some earnest conservation they thanked him and departed, and he turned into his study to join the elders. What held me there, at the side of the gallery, was his authority. He remains absolutely calm, his deep voice always even: and people trust him. What is that influence he carries about, to make people listen, to calm them, to suggest the possibility of peace and safety and comfort – no, all those are wrong – to suggest that he knows best? Why, at the sound of his voice, or the raising of his iron rod, do they fall silent?
I watch him now. I watch without that first astonished rush of enthusiasm, without that uncritical desire to also fall under his sway: but when I see him with other people I know it is not possible to deny his authority. I do not know whence it derives – whether from God, or from some inner source; and certainly it does not matter, to any great degree. What matters is that he has it, and it is not, as he has claimed (as I have claimed) a performance. If anything, he is more genuinely himself when speaking to and directing a crowd of people, than when he speaks to one person alone. For it is then he seems to waver, and become contradictory. The mockery, the continual slicing away at each blade of grass we stand on, only happens when he is one to one.
Is that true? Not entirely. I have heard him before a full congregation in Sanctuary mock and denigrate their view of the church, themselves, and himself – their Prophet – but so skilfully, with such conviction and authority that they followed every step of the way, trusting and confident that he would bring them out at solid ground again.
I have moved off my line of argument, which was simply to show that he is busy with a thousand cares – not to mention those presented by Dinah and Thomas’s deaths – and yet he has the memory and attention of a keen young scholar, for he does not forget so much as the name of one of my pupils. He retains details of each of my anecdotes more clearly than I do myself, so that he has on a couple of occasions caught me out embellishing the facts.
Last night Leah was the subject of our conversation. I felt no surprise when he told me that Thomas was Leah’s own son; I think we have all known that, without its ever being spoken. I was glad to be able to report that she is entirely recovered from her grief at the child’s death. Sister Joanna was quite frightened by her first reaction, for she seemed to sink into a stupo
r and would not shift from beside his cot, nor could she be persuaded to eat or drink. Joanna herself was so clearly distressed by Thomas’s death – besides bearing, as she always does, the brunt of the practical arrangements for the funeral feast – that I offered to take charge of Leah. I found her rather like a person in a trance, for though she would do nothing of her own accord, she put up no strong resistance when I took her by both hands and led her from the bedchamber, to the warmth of the drawing-room fireside. And when I repeatedly placed a cup in her hands, she did at last sip the contents. I attempted to encourage her back to some interest in life by prattling on about small matters; a mouse was found swimming in the milk-churn that morning; Elder Caleb’s horse bolted with his gig last night, and a wheel is smashed. I obtained from Catherine a tonic which is very popular with their customers, and fed Leah on spoonfuls which she took quite obediently. William advised against the use of leeches, in a case like hers.
She never made any reply to what I said, but when I went out to my meeting on Thursday night, Rebekah sat with her, and when I came home I found that they had spoken together. Next day (two days after the funeral) she asked if she could move back into Rachel and Rebekah’s room, and now she has taken up her normal household duties again.
I am amazed to see such a recovery within a week, for, like Joanna, I honestly thought her nearly deranged by grief. Now it seems she has quite forgotten the child, it is as if he never existed. She seems to avoid me; indeed, she has not spoken to me directly since before his death. I can only ascribe this to her sensing that I tended her when she was at her lowest. She is maybe uncomfortable at the thought of obligation towards me. I have taken my cue and kept my distance: I certainly do not wish for any thanks from her, I am only glad to see she has recovered so fully, from a distress which might have haunted a more sensitive person for months. I admitted my astonishment to Mr Wroe, adding that I must be a poor judge of human emotions.
