by Jane Rogers
*
Now I move quickly, before light dies. I am quick and cunning as a rat. I will succeed. First to Saint Joanna; then to the Elders. Before Sabbath he will be stripped, exposed to the contempt of all.
Joanna is in the dining room. She is cleaning the silver. All the spoons and forks are spread across the thick unbleached swathe of linen she has put down to protect the table top. The knifebox is on the floor by her chair. She is singing to herself;
… guide us, guard us, keep us, feed us
For we have no help but thee …
I enter quietly and close the door.
‘Oh! Sister Leah! You surprised me.’
‘Sister Joanna, may I talk to you?’
She puts down her cloth and knife, and leans forward to peer at me across the table. Her eyes are not very good. I wonderhow much of me she sees. ‘What is it, Sister Leah? Are you in trouble?’
‘Yes, Sister Joanna, I am. I have to tell you of a dreadful wrong. I – I have tried to keep it hidden, but – It is a sin in the eyes of God, it must be made known to all, and atoned for.’
Saint Joanna sits still, staring at me. I wait for her to speak. I am composed, but shortly I shall cry. She will be moved by that. She is soft-hearted.
In my room. Tears coursing down her cheeks. Is it Dinah? No. They do not understand that I still protect my child. While I live. The Prophet calls the future. Knows the unfolding story. But if I break him; God’s Know-all, Mister ‘Now live’ and ‘Now die’ and ‘You are nothing’; if I break him, I make my mark on time. The swallowing of my son, the swallowing of my own life, the swallowing of every dream of happiness – shall at least be registered, by the livid scar I shall make. Mister Dispenser of Futures, I have the power to blight yours. I do not grieve for Thomas. I avenge him.
‘Let us pray for the Lord’s help and guidance, sister.’ She falls to her knees beside the table, and bows her head. Her cap is level with the table-top. When I kneel down too I cannot see her at all, only the edge of the table between us. If I bend right over and look under the table I can see her knees on the floor, it reminds me of hiding with Anne when we were children. We could sit under the table, no one would know where we were. We could just stay there. While tall people walked past, doing what has to be done. All we could see is their legs. Hidden, under the table.
‘Amen.’
I hear her getting up and settling herself on to her chair again. She waits till I get up there too, then she nods to me. ‘Tell me, Sister Leah.’
‘The Prophet is guilty of the sin of fornication. He has made improper suggestions to me. Things not fit to be spoken of.’ She does not react.
‘I am ashamed to speak of it, Sister Joanna. Only I fear God’s anger.’
Saint Joanna blinks. Does she know what is improper? Her innocence swathes her like a thick veil, she struggles to peer through it. ‘What did he say?’
Say? I am not talking about what he said.
‘What did he tell you? What reason did he give?’
I am puzzled how to answer her. What reason does she imagine may be behind fornication? Lust. What can the poor woman imagine may happen between a man and a woman? That a man gives a reason for what he does?
‘He did not speak, Sister Joanna. Only – excuse me, the memory brings me much distress – he removed my clothes.’ I take out my handkerchief and begin to cry. The memory brings me much distress.
‘He removed your clothes.’ She speaks in a whisper, her face is white. I am almost sorry for her now. What dark things must she learn of human behaviour, which has all been clean and good till now.
‘Yes, Sister Joanna.’
‘Where?’
‘In his room.’
‘Was it – was it on a Sabbath? During service?’
What does she imagine? ‘No, sister. While we were away on the missionary tour. One evening. In Whitby.’
‘And when. When he had removed your clothes. Did he –’
‘Sister, I cannot bear to talk of it.’
‘My poor child. My poor child. May the dear God have pity on us.’ She is up from her seat and around the table; she leans over me, cradling me against her side. She is crying too, as if she knew precisely how terrible it was. After we have sobbed together a little while, I blow my nose, and say, ‘There is more.’
She takes her arm from my shoulder and leans forward on the table, then lowers herself on to the chair beside me. She is trembling. ‘You are sure he said nothing?’ she asks, clearly confused.
‘What should he have said?’ I wonder.
‘Nothing,’ she answers quickly. ‘I cannot tell. Only sometimes – an excuse might be found –’
‘That he loved me? But in the eyes of God even that –’
‘No, no.’ Her voice is impatient. ‘Tell me the rest.’
‘It concerns Sister Hannah.’
‘Hannah!’
‘Yes. And it is for this reason I must make these terrible things known. I fear he may have – designs – upon the innocence of others among our sisters. He has – he has committed the act with Sister Hannah.’
She stares at me, her mouth a little open. I can see where the corner of her front tooth is missing, that she cracked on a plumstone in the summer. At last she says, ‘The same? With Sister Hannah?’
‘I know no more about it. I know it is true for I saw evidence, with my own eyes. But you must question Sister Hannah concerning the – the details, and frequency.’
‘Frequency?’
‘If it happened more than once. Which I suspect.’
‘Oh.’ She has stopped crying now. She sits limply in her chair, staring at the fan-shaped spread of silver across the linen. I cannot get her attention.
‘Sister Joanna. Sister Joanna.’
‘Yes.’
‘I am going to tell the Elders. They will decide what is to be done.’
‘Yes. Yes, you must do that. The Elders … they will decide.’
‘Are they meeting today?’
‘Today. Yes. This afternoon, in Sanctuary.’
‘With the Prophet?’
She looks blankly at me. Then I see her make an effort. ‘Yes. We must send a note to Elder Tobias. I will accompany you. Take heart, my poor child. The dear Lord God sees and understands all, He will lead us into His path.’
Yes.
They looked, they listened. Some with shock and distress, a couple nodding to themselves. They know it is not impossible. It has always been in some of their minds. Elder Caleb could not hide his smiles, while Moses was almost drowned in his own salivation. I have seen him at punishment.
I only glanced up at them a moment, then kept my eyes modestly downcast. Saint Joanna, sitting beside me, lent weight to my story by weeping quietly throughout. They were quickly decided upon a trial, in Sanctuary, at which each of the women is to be called to witness. We were sworn to secrecy.
‘For a scandal of this nature, spreading amongst all Sanctuary members, and thence out into the world at large, can do nothing but harm to our church; makes a mockery of our faith.’
In the interests of secrecy the trial is to be held with the greatest haste, on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. As Saint Joanna and I left Sanctuary, a bitter argument broke out between Elders Moses and Tobias, with Moses calling for open publication of the sin and the trial, and the public lancing of this boil of evil. As we left Sanctuary I could still hear his shrill voice crying, ‘Lance the boil! Let all see the running pus of corruption!’ Even Prophet Wroe, awaiting their pleasure within the thicker walls of Inner Sanctum, must have heard him.
*
Now, in the small dark hours of the morning, before he faces his trial, I wonder if he lies awake. I hope he sweats. I have added to the charges of improper behaviour, that he drinks too much wine. Which is almost certainly true; I have noted the number of bottles in the cellar, as to empty and full, and can testify that he alone, or with his guests, has drunk an immoderate amount. The two sins, of drunkeness and de
bauchery, are so insidiously linked that each lends great support to the other.
I am waiting now. There is a kind of peace. I am not afraid of tomorrow: I know how I shall look, answer, speak, cry. I know how I shall sit, at the centre of Sanctuary, with my hair braided and piled high beneath my bonnet, but for the wisps that will escape and curl lightly at either cheek; with my face pale and my eyes black (I have new belladonna, of Mother Fenton). I shall sit upright but with my white neck drooping slightly, like an injured flower. I know their sympathy cannot fail; and I shall make them envy him. They will judge him the more harshly for their own guilty warmth.
And in that moment of his judgement, when I see him thrown down from gloating contempt to lowest mud; in that moment, I shall rejoice. I, Leah Robinson, in the year before the end of the world, make of myself an obstacle to the coming dark. I am not – I will not be – nothing.
Joanna
Dear God. Grant understanding and clarity to my poor female mind, that I may come at this aright.
Leah – Sister Leah – has told me … of a great sin.
Can it be true?
I dare not doubt it. Both for the bitter tears the poor child shed at the telling, and for the circumstantial evidence she brought to bear upon her tale.
The Prophet has sinned. He has taken advantage of her youth, and her beauty, for the gratification of base desires. She tells me that Sister Hannah also …
Dear God. How can such poor frail creatures as ourselves hope to be instrumental in the achievement of Thy grand designs?
Have pity upon Sister Leah. Have pity.
I cannot gather my tumultuous thoughts into any sort of order. The effects of these revelations upon the church … Our future in the Prophet’s household … The Prophet’s own future … circle sickeningly in my head, each question leading only to further questions.
Mr Wroe has sinned. Entrusted by God with a sacred mission – with Mother Southcott’s sacred mission – he has abused that trust. The man in him, the male part (in appearance, close to that guise favoured by Satan himself at the Fall – a serpent) has betrayed all the higher, spiritual trust, repaying God’s favour with the behaviour of a beast.
How great, how far reaching his sin, must be a matter for the Elders to determine. Sister Leah, in the extremity of her distress, believes his sinful intent was first revealed at the very inception of this household, in his request for seven virgins. I have reflected on this throughout the night, praying to God continually for insight into the affliction He has seen fit to visit upon His people. I cannot believe that that initial request was a sinful one: any more than I can believe the Prophet to be simply an agent of Satan. Too often, I have seen the evidence of his God-given power. And did not God himself speak to my heart also, on the day of that first request? I knew I should be chosen, I recognized God’s will. No, I believe the temptation and the urge to sin have grown throughout the weeks of Mr Wroe’s proximity to the beauty of Sister Leah; not that this makes his sin any the less.
I thank the Lord he has never offered a similar insult to my virtue. I thank God I have been spared such an ordeal.
The question remains, how best to protect the name of our church from the slurs the making public of such behaviour will bring? Our household cannot continue, for the virtue of every woman under the Prophet’s roof will fall into question. Dear Lord, help me to divine Thy will, Thy plan, in this. Shall we be returned to our former homes? How might I best then serve Thee? The lesson we must learn is plain already; humility. Even the Prophet – chosen and favoured by God above all others – is susceptible to temptation, and to sin. All human flesh is frail. How vigilant we must each be, constantly on our guard against the wiles of the Serpent. I pray for Sister Leah; I fear for her soul. For must not her sin be judged equal to his?
Now we are gathered in Sanctuary. The trial begins. I thank God that, by staying up till the middle of last night, we were able to complete our preparations. For there were foodstuffs for two days to be made ready – both for the Elders and us women. Now I pray that He will clear my head of petty matters; that He will help us all to honesty, and that these distressing charges may be speedily cleared.
I am called to the stand. May He help me to answer and give evidence in accordance with His divine wishes. Dear Lord, Thy will be done.
Hannah
The Ashton spinners have turned out! My reading class are full of the news; the masters have reduced wages to 3s 9d per thousand hanks, and the whole of the spinners, together with the other hands, have left their employment. The silk weavers have also turned out, and there is tremendous optimism that with the support of the NAPL the spinners can resist the reduction.
Albert tells me that fifty-two factories in Ashton, Dukinfield, Stalybridge and Mossley are already standing idle; and that the spinners are meeting and marching together to any that are still working, to force them to turn out. ‘We shall not see a repeat of last year’s defeat – this time we are set to win!’
He described to me the tremendous number of operatives (near on ten thousand, he reckons) who marched to Mr Howard’s mill in Hyde, bearing tricolour flags and huge signs reading ‘BREAD OR BLOOD’: how they were assembled by the sound of a bugle, and how orderly they marched (some, he says, are armed, for there are soldiers stationed at many points nearby).
There is a great sense of excitement and danger in the streets, which were thronging with people still when we set out on our way home after class. William came to meet Catherine, and I was glad of Peter and Annie’s company, besides that of Albert, for he is only a boy. Annie tells me that this latest reduction is absolutely the last straw, for the wages will not feed a family. But she fears that hunger may force them back sooner rather than later, ‘for half a loaf is better than no bread’. Peter is confident that the NAPL will help them, from their funds, but they are also discussing ways of advertising their grievance and so winning support from other parts of the populace. A group of them are to meet tonight to draw up a letter to the Manchester Guardian, setting out their case.
I told Annie (rather shame-facedly, for it seems little enough) that I should be able to put together a basket of foodstuffs from the table and pantry at Southgate each night – which she welcomes; Albert and his younger brother are to come and fetch it.
*
Now everything changes. Now our household stands poised on the brink of self-destruction. Leah’s accusations are transparent, conjured out of thin air by her own insistence that life should conform to her imaginings. But she may be believed by the elders; and it seems to me that that is what Mr Wroe wants. He has finished with this little world here, and now his prophecy will fulfil itself. He will supervise (indeed, become the cause of) the destruction of all that he has so painstakingly created.
We women must all appear before the elders; we must all submit to their prying questions. Joanna tells me that Leah has lodged other accusations, concerning myself and the prophet. How ironical.
I cannot entirely suppress a desire to fight. Why should he have it all his own way? Why should all that has been good, and hopeful, be blotted out by the dark ink of Leah’s accusations? This household has nurtured … has helped to … Look at Rachel, and Rebekah! And Dinah was happy, before she died. Take Martha. Even if she is a little strange; yet in comparison to what she was! She was a brutalized slave, and now she can sit at table, speak, understand, recite her prayers, even read a little. It may be Joanna’s work, but it is Wroe who made that possible. To be sure, any person inspired by common human decency might have done the same, but nevertheless, it was he who did it. At the very least the elders can be reminded of this, by way of contrast to the black picture Leah will present to them. I am sure Martha may be persuaded to tell her past. How could she desire the collapse of this household?
I am still angry. But as fire burns, so it purifies. If I admit there is a wound, then I may be allowed to cauterize it, knowing that at least it will then heal clean.
Joanna is ag
ainst me. Tonight in our room I sit in the old place by the window; she will not even sit while I talk, but pretends to busy herself with tidying and undressing and shifting objects about.
‘Joanna, we must talk.’
‘What about, Sister Hannah?’
‘You know Leah is lying. You know these things are not true.’
‘Sister Hannah, she accuses the Prophet of things not fit to be spoken. I am not one of the Elders. I do not sit in judgement.’
‘But her accusations are unfounded. Concerning myself, for example. There has never been anything improper in my relations with the Prophet.’
She raises her head from the heap of clothes she is arranging, and looks at me. Her eyes are dull – distant, as if my words scarcely reach her.
‘Joanna – listen. It is not true. Surely you know better than to take the words of a giddy girl like Leah, against the Prophet, a man of God. You more than any of us, have invested so much in his mission –’
She remains still, staring, for another little while, then she slowly shakes her head. ‘I cannot tell, Sister Hannah. One may fear one’s own motives; one must subject every impulse to scrutiny. The devil is cunning, and he is at large among us.’ She lapses into silence again.
I get up from my chair and lean on the bed beside her, trying to get her to pay closer attention to me; it is as if she is behind a wall. ‘Joanna, your impulses have always been good and true. You have had courage, and faith, you have created this household as much – more, than him, because it has been built on your willing labour and love. Joanna – why let a girl’s spiteful jealousy destroy it?’
She smiles wanly, but I am glad at least to see a sign of the old Joanna in her eyes. ‘It is in the hands of God, Sister Hannah. We are no more than His servants. What purposes must work themselves out, I will not begin to guess. There is a wrong here somewhere, and God is displeased. I cannot answer it; the salvation of my own soul must be my study now, I will neither sit in judgement upon others, nor seek to prove their innocence.’
