by Jane Rogers
‘Do you not think God has had a hand in this recovery?’ he enquired. ‘Why should you ascribe it solely to Sister Leah’s own powers?’
‘God does not always comfort the bereaved so efficiently,’ I answered, half intending to tease him; but he replied very seriously, that both Sister Joanna and he himself have besieged God with prayers for Sister Leah’s comfort.
I felt a little uneasy then, for the lightness with which I had spoken. But he suddenly smiled at me, and added, ‘Or it may be that she has had a very kind companion to help her through the early days of her grief.’
The surprise of this compliment brought a blush to my cheeks. He delights in embarrassing me, for he laughed at my blushing, which made it even worse – though it was, I must admit, kindly laughter.
*
Today: this morning. There is a light frost on the grass, a haze of blue across it. The leaves are turning, falling in yellow and red drifts beneath the apple trees. In the shelter of the wall the roses have grown very tall, their leaves are dark glossy green, they are still flowering. I can see two huge rounded blooms, ready to drop their petals at the first breath of wind; heavy, pink, bloated with their own intense smell.
Joanna comes into the kitchen where I am chopping fruit for mincemeat, amidst the sweet scents of cloves, cinnamon and lemons.
‘Was that you?’
‘Was what me?’
‘Humming.’
I cannot remember, but she begins to sing the hymn we practised earlier, which has danced in my head all morning.
The house of Israel are as bones,
Which have no virtue; – or as stone,
They scatter’d are upon the earth,
As chaff by wind is driven forth.
She nods at me, and I join in:
But now the Lord His word doth give
And asks if these dry bones can live;
And makes His chosen servant cry,
And on these bones to prophesy.
Prophesy! Son of man, go forth!
From the four winds come Holy breath!
Breathe on these bones that they may live –
I break off and laugh, because she has heard me miss my note. ‘You see why I would not sing alone for Sanctuary!’ Martha and I were the only two who did not.
She shakes her head, smiling. ‘You are happy.’ There is a note of sadness in Joanna’s voice which makes her words almost an accusation. I am not sure if she is right. Happiness is not a thing I imagine being part of. When I was a child my father and I always stood outside happiness, watching the rest of the world indulging in it. Feeling, I suppose, superior; certainly, sorry for them, because we knew how blind and short-sighted they were to give themselves up to such a thing. Edward looks forward, too. There will be happiness, happiness is to come. Compared to that future happiness, the present is no more than a pale shadow.
Happiness now: I think it is a puzzle. I think it may be like the gigantic puzzle I once saw at an exhibition in Wedgwood’s showroom. There were a tremendous number of pieces, 5,000 or so, depicting the flagship of the fleet, with blue seas and skies behind her, and Nelson and his men on the deck. Who can gather 5,000 pieces together? Or assemble them correctly? If the great puzzle were broken up and scattered among us all …
Last night Mr Wroe and I were talking a long time after I finished the reading. He told me portions of his history, of which I knew nothing before; the terrible illness which preceded his first visions, and of his search for the right church to join. Then he told me about his missionary work in Gibraltar, Spain and France, whither he and Henry Lees travelled alone, speaking no word of any language save English. I was reduced to laughter at the spectacle the two of them must have presented, to the monks, archbishops, and rabbis they sought out, with their message that all faiths must unite because the world was about to end.
‘It pleases you to laugh,’ he said, ‘but that work was commanded by God.’
‘But what were its effects? Were there many converts?’
‘We planted a seed; an idea. Where it fell on fertile soil, it will have grown. The time is coming when I shall do missionary work again, Sister Hannah. God has called me to Australia.’
‘What will happen to this household then?’ I asked.
‘Why on earth should you want to know that?’ he mocked me. ‘You will be long since departed, running your own schools for the enlightenment of the poor – or leading the working people of Ashton on marches to London, to petition for their rights. You will have no interest in us!’
This morning after breakfast, when I should have been at my housework, I went out; when I saw the frost on the grass, the clear sun pouring down to thaw it and bring it out into steaming mist, which hung over the canal like a soft white net – energy surged inside me, sending me running headlong across the untrodden silvery field. If I had stood still and silent, containing it, I think I would have exploded into a thousand pieces.
Is it happiness? Is it only me? Martha goes about in the same slow dumb dream; Leah works with frenzied efficiency, keeps to herself, or speaks only to Rebekah; Rachel seems lost since Dinah’s death, is paler and frailer than before, spends all the time she can in prayer. Joanna, like Rachel, retreats into prayer, and the rest of us become irrelevant. There is a dissonance in her; grief? uncertainty? I cannot help but think of it as loss. It seems to me she buries herself deeper and deeper in that inner religious world, and cares less for any connections it may make with the world outside. During our first months here she regularly visited any members of Sanctuary who were ill, with newborn children, or elderly. Frequently there were strangers in the kitchen, filling up on bread and cheese or whatever else she had found for them. I have seen her stop in the street to follow a woman who looked distressed, in order to offer her solace in the two forms of food and spiritual guidance. At Sanctuary on a Sabbath there might be a whole row of Joanna’s waifs and strays, kneeling and standing at raggedly the wrong times, joining uncertainly in at the responses, and staring at the candles and splendour with wide dazed eyes. She moved around the world with enough love to extend to all who came near her. Yet now she is narrowed, shrunken, her warmth is lost. She seems to pass people without seeing them. Beggars are never turned from the door, but they are certainly not brought there by Joanna. The kindness and concern she showed to me – But perhaps that is all I am missing. Perhaps her kindness and concern comes only in response to a need for it: where she sees suffering and grief, there she offers comfort. Has she drawn away from me simply because I am less unhappy?
Albert tells me of great plans among the cotton spinners. When they turned out last year, hunger forced them back to work, at the end, without the satisfaction of any of their demands by the masters. But since then they have joined together with other groups of spinners up and down the country, to form the Grand General Union of the Operative Spinners of Great Britain and Ireland. Now when any area turns out they may rely upon support among their fellow spinners up and down the country. Encouraged by this success, their leader is suggesting the establishment of a general union of all working people.
If there were such a combination, to which every working man and woman belonged, demanding universal suffrage, the rights to decent wages and education, able to back up their demands by withholding labour (what could the magistrates do, if three-quarters of the population turned out? The soldiers would never raise their weapons against them: it is the very circumstances which make another Peterloo impossible, for no one would dare to attack so vast a party) – then how might the world be changed! By those who are in it, and prepared to stand out against its crying injustices; unlike Edward and his fellow idealists, who imagine that they must hide to discover a perfect system, which they can then pass on to the poor ignorant people.
There is to be a great meeting in Manchester, at the new Mechanics’ Hall, which will be addressed by John Doherty, and the leaders of the hatters, and the bleachers and dyers; where this idea of a General Union shall b
e more fully aired. At the night school on Tuesday, Catherine asked if I would go with her. William cannot leave his business, but she and I might get a ride with some of our students. I had not thought of going myself, feeling a slight awkwardness at the prospect of so large a gathering of working people. But Catherine poured scorn upon my fears. ‘We have as much right as any to be there; this must be the end and aim of all educational work – for the people to combine and take back what is rightfully theirs. I would not miss it for the world. Besides, why do you set a division between yourself and them – do you not work for your daily bread?’
I admitted that I do, and she pursued her line of questioning until she discovered that Mr Wroe pays us no wages.
‘You must leave! Immediately! If only there were more night classes you could teach … you could perhaps work in William’s shop for part of the week – which I shall no longer be able to do, nearer to my confinement – and come to live over the shop. You could share the back chamber with William’s mother – there would be almost no additional expense –’
I found myself confused into silence by her rapidity. As regards the union meeting, well, yes, I do work – but I am not, any more than she is, a member of the labouring classes. Nor have I ever suffered the privations, both physical and mental, which they must endure. (In last week’s class Annie spoke of universal suffrage and old Adam Baker called out to know what it was. Before Annie or I could answer, he added under his breath, ‘Ay, th’art an owd fool, ‘tis broad as day. As we are all working folk, so mun we all suffer, ‘tis universal among us.’ A number of them then agreed in all seriousness, that universal suffrage shall be equal suffering for all.)
Of course I should attend the meeting with Catherine; she has a task to fulfil there which would validate our presence even if one could give any credence to my silly scruples: for she is to write a report on the meeting for next month’s issue of the Cooperator.
As to the business of Mr Wroe, and wages, and moving to her home – I thanked her sincerely, but this is something that may be put off till another day. To begin with, she must discuss it all with William and his mother – as must I with Mr Wroe. Not that there would be a great deal to discuss, if I really were leaving … Clearly she is right; it would be a sad foolishness for me to stay, and not have those freedoms I should have, to attend meetings and come and go as I please. Certainly, the value of my labour about the house must be greater than the food I eat – and why should I donate my services to the glory of a god I have no faith in? When I think about it, to be sure, it would be a strange choice to stay – if I had any alternative way of living.
Mr Wroe gave permission easily for me to attend the Manchester meeting. Recently he has presented no obstacles whatsoever to my requests for leave of absence. He asked who I should travel to Manchester with, and when I said with Catherine and members of my class, he expressed the hope that we would not walk; at which point we were interrupted by Elders Caleb and Tobias, come on urgent business, and so there was no further time to discuss it.
It was a fine dry day. Albert met me at the canal bridge, to take me to the inn yard where we were to begin our journey – on the back of a brewer’s dray, belonging to a friend of Peter’s. Peter and Annie and a couple of others were already settled in with bundles and some straw to soften the jolting, but there was no sign of Catherine. It was a quarter-hour after our agreed departure time, when a lad arrived with a message for me, from Catherine, requesting me to make notes for the Cooperator article, and giving tiredness and heaviness as reasons for her absence. I was thoroughly irritated with her; though the events of the day were sufficiently distracting for me to forget to tell her so. Peter fussed around me with cushions, offering to build me a more comfortable seat, and making me feel quite ill at ease. But then he and Annie and the brewer settled into an argument over the proper length of a working day, and I was left in peace to describe the scene to Albert. Albert is perfectly simple and natural, I can feel at home with him, he does not mind my accent or my strange dress. As we neared Manchester we saw a good many who were walking, including a deputation of the Ashton spinners, who had set out at six that morning.
I felt a momentary panic as we forced our way into the crowded hall, for Peter and Annie met up with some old friends, and stopped to speak with them, and Albert and I were forced on by pressure of the mass coming in behind us. There were many delegations carrying the banners of their trades; the Rochdale Female Operatives, the Denton Hatters, Bleachers and Dyers Federation, and so on – and all waved their banners and cried out to make a rallying point for any like them. Albert and I were pushed into a space where there was no further room to move forward, and I was very relieved when I looked back and saw Peter forcing his way through towards us. Mr Doherty took the stage and the whole crowd errupted in cheers and stamping for so long that I was nearly deafened. When at last he could make himself heard he described how the National Association for the Protection of Labour, or NAPL, as he proposes to call it, will help the working people. Local unions of all trade clubs will be members, and pay in contributions; these shall be used to support any workers who turn out over cuts in wages. This was greeted by a tremendous roar from the crowd. Their excitement, and roughness, frightened me a little, but I soon perceived there was no dangerous intent anywhere in that packed hall. The sense of power and promise conjured up by the idea of combination lifted them to the absolute heights of dizzy excitement, and the speakers’ words were repeatedly drowned out by the crowd’s enthusiastic roars. It was as if all that was proposed had already come true; on all sides, smiling faces, shaking hands, brotherhood and sisterhood.
Just as I began to feel less alarmed, and to enjoy the spectacle of that tremendous swell of hope in the crowd, the group in front of us were pushed back and a large heavy man staggered against me, stepping on my foot. I cried out with the pain and would have fallen, but Peter steadied me, and half dragged me through the crowd towards the nearest exit. I began to feel better as soon as the first breath of air from the open doorway reached me, and remonstrated against being taken any further. But Peter made me sit on the top step, ‘to get some fresh air in you’. As soon as he had assured himself that I was comfortable, he darted back into the hall again. I eased my shoe off and examined my foot. It was very painful, and already beginning to swell. If Peter had rejoined the others, I should have the greatest difficulty in finding him in the midst of that crowd – and the idea of putting weight upon my foot was not appealing. I reckoned I had enough material for my report: in truth, little that was new was being said, only different ways of expressing that euphoria and hope for change which the sense of strength-in-numbers was giving to the whole crowd. There was no doubt that a General Union would be formed, nor that those present were completely in favour.
As I sat in the cool air considering these points, a gig drawing up on the road opposite caught my attention. It caught my attention because it was familiar – the driver even more than Elder Tobias’ gig. For the driver was Mr Wroe. He had not seen me, but the gig was stopped by the side of the road there, as if he were waiting for someone. I could not imagine who that might be – unless myself. If he were here to meet me, it would be extraordinary, though; for he had said nothing about it, nor could he have had any reasonable expectation of finding me, amongst so great a crowd. He remained sitting on the box, so I hobbled down the steps and crossed to him.
‘Ah, there you are. What have you done to your foot?’ He was not at all surprised to see me.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I can give you a ride home. I had to come on urgent business to see Mr Zion Ward, who is preaching in Manchester tonight.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Yes. I am done and ready to return to Ashton.’
I found it hard to believe him, for he was still in Ashton when we left. We would surely have noticed if he had overtaken us on the road?
‘Where is Samuel?’
‘Are you going
to stand there asking questions all afternoon, or climb up and take a seat?’
‘But Peter and Annie will be worried, they will be looking for me –’ I could think of no way round this difficulty for a couple of minutes. How on earth could I find them, to tell them, in such a crowd?
‘Come up and sit while you think,’ he urged me; and it is lucky I did, for from the height of the gig I could see the brewer’s dray, standing among a group of other conveyances, on a patch of waste ground at the side of the hall. It was an easy matter to leave a message with the lad who was minding the horses.
The meeting had not yet broken up, and we set off at quite a pace. He asked me a few questions about the Grand Union, and what I expected of it – not mockingly, but in a fair and considered way. I asked after his meeting with Zion Ward, a fanatical, hell-fire preacher who spoke once at Sanctuary in the summer, and who is reputed to have announced in recent times that he is the promised Shiloh – but Mr Wroe seemed irritated by the subject. All I could get from him were some venomous remarks concerning ‘Elder Moses and his party, who seek to burden the church with that maniac’.
‘Will they take Zion Ward as prophet?’ I asked.
They may do as they like, but not till I am gone.’
As we approached Failsworth he expressed concern for my hurt foot, and said he would stop at the coaching house there, so I could bathe it in cold water. I said there was no need, but he ignored me. Once indoors he found a serving girl who led us upstairs to a private apartment. Mr Wroe instructed her to bring us a bowl of cold water, and some towels, and something to eat and drink. ‘I have not yet broken my fast today – have you?’
‘I – yes. I had some oatcakes and milk before I left the house this morning.’
He nodded. There was a feeling of awkwardness between us. We have been alone together often enough, in his study at Southgate. But there was something … not quite tasteful about the furnishings of the room, the pink plush settee and heavy drapes, the soft fat cushions. I sat on the edge of the settee and he brought a footstool for my hurt foot. Then the maid came with the water, and he sat down to his food, while I retired into the bedchamber to remove my stocking and soak my foot. The cold water did bring some relief, but I could not quell my sense of agitation at our situation. In what was it strange? What more natural than that Mr Wroe, on finding himself called to Manchester, should offer to bring me home? Or that, seeing I had hurt my foot, he should stop at the first inn so that I could bathe it? But the strangeness of us being in such a place together swam before me continually, and when he knocked firmly upon the bedchamber door I nearly jumped out of my skin.
