Gideon rapped the table with his hand, startling the women and upsetting the water in the pitchers. At first I thought it was out of anger with what I’d said. ‘Precisely so, Sister Blight,’ he said. ‘We must all ask ourselves how we can remove those obstructions in our everyday life that prevent us sharing God’s love with others, especially those who are different from us. We must be passionate in sharing Christ with relatives and friends, of course, but even more so with our enemies and with strangers. This is why the Lord chose the Samaritan woman to spread his Word to her people. Do you all see?’
Betsy looked as if she’d sat on a pine cone. She and Loveday looked at each other, and I could see they were in no mood to share God’s love with me. The other women stared down at the table in silence, not knowing what to think. But Gideon was not a man overly sensible of the moods of women. ‘This rather conveniently leads me to the matter of the Sunday school class and who is to be the teacher,’ he said.
Grace Skewes coughed to get her daughter Loveday’s attention, so that she’d put herself forward. But Loveday blushed and whispered, ‘Shush, Mamm!’
‘Whatever is the matter with you, my pet?’ asked Grace.
‘Aye, Loveday, speak up now,’ said Betsy, giving her friend a dig with her elbow.
But Loveday only bit her lip and stared into her lap.
‘Well now, do we have any volunteers?’ asked Gideon.
The women fidgeted and tried not to catch his eye.
‘Sister Blight, you read very well, and you have demonstrated in our meetings that you are familiar with the Scriptures. Perhaps we can persuade you to put yourself forward?’
Somebody must have kicked a table leg because a pitcher fell over.
‘Mary’s mother is ailing,’ said Grace, in her most mollifying voice. ‘It is asking too much of her, I seem.’
I could feel all those eyes on me and didn’t dare look any of them in the face. ‘That is true,’ I said, meekly.
‘But we are only asking Sister Blight to give up some of her time on the Sabbath,’ said Gideon, sweeping spilt water away from him with his hand. ‘I am sure Sister Blight would not consider working on the Lord’s day of rest, no more than any of you. And you have a capable sister at home, do you not, Sister Blight? These encumbrances are easily overcome.’
I was cross about how little value he put on my poor Mamm’s illness, but at the same time I was beside myself with excitement at this turn of events. To be put above Loveday and the whole bunch of them so easily! Grace went to fetch a cloth and began to wipe the water from the table. I saw her give Millie Hicks a meaningful look. Millie smiled at the minister, and said: ‘To be sure, Sister Blight is well learned in the scriptures. But she have only lately been brought under conviction and we must ask if the children will show her the proper respect owed to a gospel teacher.’
That settled it for me. ‘I would like to give it some consideration,’ I said. That made their eyes pop. I sounded halfway to being a Sunday school teacher already, the way I put it.
‘Splendid,’ said Gideon, beaming. ‘I am sure we can provide a small stipend for the family. We have sufficient funds, thanks to all of your generosity.’
‘What a turn up this is,’ said Betsy. ‘Why, it be just like the Lord choosing the Samaritan woman with her five husbands, I seem.’ She looked round the table for back-up.
My face was on fire but I kept my resolve. ‘I has no husbands at all, Sister Stoddern, so I cannot think what you mean,’ I said.
‘Betsy, I’m sure you didn’t mean that as it sounded,’ said Grace, with a smile as creamy as her scalded milk. ‘Perhaps it’s time to stretch our legs in my little garden, ladies?’ I suppose she wanted to get outside and start scheming against me as soon as possible.
The women rose from the table and made their way out. I followed them, but as I passed through the little dairy I heard Gideon clear his throat behind me. He asked if I could spare him a moment. We stood a little distance apart. The dairy faced the north wall of the house and the coolness that came off the stone was a blessing after that close and airless kitchen. I kept my gaze on the red-tiled floor.
‘I must apologise for my presumption, Sister Blight,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I should have discussed this with you first.’
‘My mind is made up,’ I said, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I will do it, if you believe I am capable.’
‘I am convinced of it.’
There was a maddening steady drip as milk plopped out of the tap in the side of the churn into a tin pail on the floor. The rich smell of the butter made me queasy.
‘I will need help,’ I said.
‘My wife teaches our Sunday school in Newlyn,’ he said. ‘She will provide some basic instruction.’
‘Your wife will come here?’ I said, taken aback.
‘No, you will have to come to Newlyn. I’m sure we can give you lodging for a few days. After all, it’s only what you once did for me.’ He smiled. ‘At a brisk pace we can cross the moor in six or seven hours.’
‘Are we to cross the moor alone, the pair of us? What will people say?’
‘Bringing a chaperone would imply I cannot be trusted, surely? Unless you request it?’
I shook my head. ‘I have to tell you that some hereabouts will say I am unsuited to the position of teacher,’ I said.
‘Your knowledge of the Scriptures is exemplary.’
‘I know my Bible well, for sure, but there are those who will say I am not in such good standing as a teacher perhaps ought to be.’
‘You have shown yourself capable of Christian sacrifice and charity. How many others would have risked their lives to save me in the way you did? Who among them would have taken me into their care, regardless of the censure of their neighbours? We may need to smooth out a few rough edges, but that is a small matter compared to these virtues.’
‘If you say so,’ I said. Bright sunlight cut across the room from the little window so that I cringed before this man as he looked down on me.
‘Perhaps I can give you one instance of how you might improve,’ he said, in a kindly, coaxing way. ‘I heard a woman singing the other evening, and something drew me towards the sound; curiosity, I suppose. I didn’t know who it was until I reached your home and recognised that narrow alley.’
‘I have a fondness for certain hymns,’ I said quickly. ‘I suppose it was likely “Praise the Lord ye Blessed Ones” or another favourite.’ I shuddered at the thought of this man standing under the eaves and listening to me singing, and prayed it was not some whores’ ditty he’d overheard.
‘Indeed, but with so many trills and, shall we say, sensual flourishes, even a song such as “Praise the Lord” cannot in all truth be sung with sincere devotion. I only remark on the matter, because, as you have implied, we must not give any envious person a stick with which to beat you.’
‘I suppose even the winding songs I am so fond of must be outlawed, even though they sing God’s praises?’
‘Such songs are the Devil’s music, Sister Blight.’ But he smiled as he said it.
‘Then I shall put these faults behind me,’ I declared. ‘From this day on I will mend my song to make it more pleasing to the Maker.’
When the meeting was over, I was in a sore temper, for all my triumphing over Loveday and winning the trust of Gideon. I fled the village to break free of all the idle gabbing about me that had spread like chicken pox, to the top of Uplong Row and past the miners’ cottages, where the narrow lane pressed so much upon a person’s thoughts. Once I was higher up on the moor, I could see halfway round the world. It made me wish I was a man so I could sail the seven seas and be out of sight of all those prying eyes.
The higher I climbed, the more vexed I grew at Gideon’s ban on me singing whatever harmless ditty took my fancy, until in the end I couldn’t stop myself singing at the top of my voice, knowing I was out well of his earshot.
I was heading for Tombstone Point, where I’d always escaped to
whenever my thoughts were in a fearful knot and I wanted to let them untangle. I heard the curlews’ falling call, queer and unearthly, and was carried back to when I was a girl of nine or ten, my pockets full of treasures from the hillside or the beach, shells, dead field mice with the softest fur, white cuttlefish scoops, mermaid’s purses with beetle claws at the corners, shards of glass whose sharp edges had been worn smooth by the tides.
I saw myself when I was older, in my thirteenth or thereabouts, when I’d often sit atop Tombstone chewing a blade of grass and watching the shifting currents down below in the cove until a calm mood washed over me. I’d wave at Johnenry down below in his jollyboat, rowing the fish ashore after fetching them from the bigger boats. I envied him, because no man would let a woman on a boat, not even a girl, for it was bad luck, like seeing a hare before putting out to sea. From time to time I saw foreigners’ boats come to grief down there, too tiny to seem real, forced into a spin and slipping into the ocean’s depths in a kind of dream.
In our younger days, Johnenry and I would lie on the turf on Tombstone and tell each other our heart’s desire. He still had dreams back then, of joining the navy and fighting the French or sailing to the Americas and finding gold, or being the captain of his own ship with fifty men under him. I said I’d bind my breasts, put on the blue jacket and be his first mate, but he laughed and said I had nothing to bind.
One summer the boys had taken to diving off Tombstone Point on days when the sea wasn’t too rough. They’d hurl themselves over the cliff edge, sometimes turning somersaults, or diving with their arms straight ahead of them or else rolling themselves into a ball before they hit the water so the surf blasted around them like cannon shot. Johnenry would open his arms and legs wide and swoop down like a bird.
A dark mass of clouds had gathered a mile off the coast and rain as black as soot was falling into the ocean. The storm was heading towards me. Why had I come out on such a day? I had seen the warning signs and ignored them – Aunty Merryn’s stinky old cat lying on a step giving its ass a lick, a sure sign of rain; the rooks diving towards the trees and the geese honking; and a spider darting into a hole in the wall. A hard rain began to sting my face and soon there was a deluge like in Noah’s time. I could barely see through the downpour and feared losing my way and never finding the path back. I couldn’t go to Tombstone Point on a day like this or I’d risk stepping over the edge into the vacant air.
At the end of the lonely rock coomb I saw the ghostly shape of the little church tower and ran towards it. It had stood there since the times of the saints, and was haunted by them still. Mass was rarely held there any more, unless there was a funeral or wedding. On such occasions the rector would come over from Paul, for a price. I crossed a stubble field where the first green shoots of the year were peeking out of the sodden earth. Reaching the churchyard, I leapt over the wall and jumped between overturned gravestones. Two cows stretched their necks down over the crumbling wall and chewed on wiry plants, the rain dripping from their eyelashes and rolling down their long, black faces.
At the top of the tower was the little old hag, carved out of stone, squatting under a turret, her legs wide apart and her hands holding the gaping hole between her thighs open to the four winds. Rain was shooting out of her as if she was pissing down on the big stone cross that stood directly beneath her. Over time the hag had loosened the moorings of the cross and now it was listing. How I loved that old hag!
I rushed over to shelter in the porch, but more water was dripping through the old porch roof than out in the open. The church door was swollen with damp and needed a push to get it open. Inside, an ancient chill came off the musty stone, making my nose run. Little puffs of mist poured from my mouth, and a thin film of steam rose from my shawl. Up above, rain rattled on the slate roof, a pleasing sound when you were indoors and not outside getting drenched. When my eyes were able to see better in the gloom I walked further into the nave, my footsteps echoing. People were buried underneath the granite flags, their names and dates of birth and death almost worn away as if time had forgotten them. I heard something move high above and started, but it was only a pigeon roosting in the roof beams.
Down the aisle I went, humming to keep myself company. A spirit echoed me, so I stopped. I passed the row of spindly stone arches and reached the back of the church where I could look up into the shadows of the tower. Plaster was hanging off the walls. Folk said there was once an older temple on that same spot, where animals and even people were sacrificed to the ancient Gods. Thick straw bell ropes hung down around me, the ends frayed as if they’d been chewed. Up above me in the tower, the cracked old bells were hanging somewhere in the darkness where the hoot-owl hid. The bells had never been taken and melted down because nobody had ever thought it safe to climb such a tower. You sometimes heard them toll late at night when the ghosts of dead fishermen returned from the sea. I wished I could climb up those ropes to Heaven and see the face of King Jesus. But when I closed my eyes and tried to summon the Jesu, it wasn’t him I saw. It was the face of Gideon Stone, with a crown of thorns around his head and his life blood rolling down his face. I had to sit down on a rickety pew to quiet myself.
The Maker had shone a light into the darkest shadows of my soul and brought my hidden desires into the light of day. I wanted Gideon to save me, but not so that I could kneel at the throne of King Jesus and kiss the holes in his feet. I wanted him to help me flee the village so I could parade among the snots in all my finery in a grand town. I longed to be able to look down with scorn on the bettermost of Porthmorvoren cove. Other desires lurked in my heart as well, dark longings that I dared not let out into the light.
Looking round me, I saw an old stone tomb on one side of the nave. A knight of old in a suit of armour lay on top in deep shadow. A heavy mood fell over me as I remembered the time the boys had wheedled me into playing a trick on Pascoe Hurrel. They’d been teasing Pascoe because he was a soft and sickly boy and afraid to jump off Tombstone Point. The truth is Pascoe was afraid of everything. The boys put me up to saying I’d meet him in the church and let him kiss me. We were to meet by the tomb of the old knight. When he came looking for me, the others jumped out from where they’d been hiding and chased him out of the church and down the hill, jeering all the way. A week later Pascoe leapt off Tombstone Point. I don’t suppose he meant to drown himself, only to show he was as bold as the others. As I sat alone in the pew thinking back to that time, rain water dripping off my skirts onto the stone flags, my eyes filled with hot tears for I knew I shared the blame.
There was a sudden loud crash behind me and I near jumped out of my skin. The church door had wrenched open and a flurry of leaves and twigs burst inside. I fled that place with a righteous haste and ran home through the pelting rain.
The next day I was summoned to Aunt Madgie’s house on Back Street to attend a meeting of the Methodist Society that had been called without notice. I was in a dark mood as I turned off Downlong Row into that dreaded lane, knowing a gathering behind the minister’s back didn’t bode well for me. The old woman’s house stood in the middle of the street, held up only by two stout columns to the fore that supported the upper floor. The place had once been grand, but had long since fallen into rack and ruin. People said it was the only building left standing after the Spaniards put the village to the torch in olden times, so it went back even further than Aunt Madgie herself. On dark winter nights when neighbours gathered around the fire, an old tale of dark imagining was told, about a room in the back of the house that had long been kept locked. At nights, the spirit of a dead noblewoman was heard inside that chamber, pacing up and down in all her finery, her heavy skirts rustling and her jewellery rattling.
I hadn’t set foot in that house since I was a child and had no wish to do so now. It was where I’d first learnt my letters, under Aunt Madgie’s instruction when she was Sunday school mistress. She had kept a stick hanging over the door but seldom reached for it, not even for the boys. A look was
enough to quell us. I was the best learner among the children but the crone would always save her praise for Loveday Skewes, who was her kin. That was more than ten years ago, before the first minister fled the cove and left his chapel behind, with only the foundations built. He wasn’t tall and handsome like Gideon Stone, but old and ruddy-faced with a dusty smell off him. It was said Aunt Madgie scared the old fellow off after he tried to put a stop to free trading and wrecking. The old dame was devout, but not when it took food out of the villagers’ mouths – or tobacco out of their pipes. With the old parson gone, we children dropped out of the school one by one and went back to our old ways. But I carried on reading in the years after, the Bible and anything else I could lay hands on.
I stepped between the two stone columns and took a deep breath before reaching for the rusty knocker, dreading the moment when the door would creak open and Aunt Madgie’s face would loom before me. It was a relief when Dolly Stoddern opened the door instead, but her false smile told me all was not well. I followed her through the dark hallway with its queer echoes, my heart fluttering the same as it had done in the days I came there as a child. The kitchen door was ajar so I could hear the women’s voices. The talk was always the same in those weeks, about that wretch the Porthmorvoren Cannibal. The women broke in on one another to have their say.
‘If you ask me, ’twere one of they tinners from up the lane. They’ll stop at naught . . .’
‘What makes you so sure ’twere a man though?’
‘’Pon my soul, no woman would do such a thing, surely.’
‘Whatsoever, ’twill only end when the culprit’s flushed out. Someone round here knows who did it, you can be sure of that.’
‘Aye, but nobody will snitch on a neighbour. ’T’ain’t done. ’Tis one and all in this village . . .’
‘And yet all our good names are blackened. I’m ashamed to show my face at the market in Mousehole.’
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