Awakening (30 page)

Patience, complying, studies the red-faced mother with interest, testing her tension, relishing it. She brings her face too close to Beatrice's, garnering information for the future.

Later that glorious afternoon Beatrice carries the baby out and sits him on a blanket beside a phalanx of daffodils facing the long, low rays of the sun. No one can see them from the house. Why shouldn't Luke's little body benefit from the fresh air? At least let me loosen all this padding. Removing his cap and opening the quilted barracoat she embroidered with such care, Beatrice releases the child from his bodice, unwinds the yard of flannel bellyband, leaving just his vest and the pilch that guards the napkin. Free! Luke waves his bare arms in the air, pointing here and there, cooing. She kisses the silken shoulder and smiles into his face.

The baby bats at the daffodils, tugging them towards his mouth. It's a sign of his curiosity and intelligence. But he mustn't, of course, and Beatrice gently disengages Luke's hand from the petals, making a game of it. His fingers are yellow with pollen.

Sometimes it's as if her love is too great for the world to hold. She has to sit back and take breath, in order to tolerate the throb of tenderness that passes through her. This revelation is all she needed in the world and might have missed, had she continued as Miss Pentecost, living only for herself. She has awakened to the knowledge that one can take pleasure in being no more than a bridge for another life. What I was born for. Thank you, my Maker. Is this what You feel when your children turn to You with praise and thanks? Only do not take my lamb from me.

A jealous God. Do not even think so. It may anger Him.

Now look. The golden trumpet. The stem that stands so tall. Pistil and stamens poking nearly out of its mouth, to attract the bee. Surely I have never seen a daffodil before. Beatrice lies down to share Luke's eyeline. The little boy-girl, for a boy is a girl until the age of five. Later they'll cut your hair and dress you as a manikin. They'll take you out of frocks and frills. Today you are your mother's child. Wispy, blond curls stand up on his head. She'll delay having him shorn for as long as she can.

Luke's head turns; he stares, with fixed enquiry, at her chest.

Why not?

Surrounded by greenery, Beatrice opens her shift and offers the breast. Who's going to see? How can mothers bear to hand over their children to wet nurses? Luke crams his fingers in his mouth, lurches forward. Milk pearls from the nipple; the drop falls; the breast floods. And the baby in a storm of wanting is upon her: lips latch on, dragging in the milk that's there to excess, always. She inserts her little finger between gums and nipple, to put him to the other breast. His first hunger slaked, the baby laps and pauses, gazing up, grinning around the nipple, tonguing, playing. Sun-warmth blesses their naked skin. Pleasure ripples through her veins, his veins.

Thrushes build in the nest robbed last year. The tabby slinks past, prowling for prey. The baby dreams its dreams. The mother dreams hers, one ear open. Sounds of horses clopping down the lane rouse her but the walls are high. Voices murmur from the direction of the house. She buttons herself back into her clothing. If this life could just continue as it is, she'd ask of God nothing more. Thirsty herself, Beatrice dresses Luke in an approximate fashion and carries him back towards the house. His swaddling needs changing; the smell is rather ripe. Amy can do that.

Opening the back door, Beatrice knows immediately: the Anwyls are back.

‘She was in the garden all along! Will went to look and couldn't find you. Oh, dearest, how are you? And look, here's my little nephew!'

Whatever sins and crimes Anna has held to Beatrice's account in the past, she seems to have forgiven in the joy of homecoming. Thank heaven. Anna looks bonny and thriving. And Will too: but Beatrice hardly dare meet his eyes. Later, when Beatrice's brother-in-law is left alone with herself and Luke in the parlour, it occurs to her that he'd been sent out to greet her and bring her indoors. Did he come up behind them; snatch a glance at the baby at her breast, her shift undone, her hair loose from its net, all down her back in the sun? He'll have slipped away, abashed. Beatrice flushes deeply. What he saw, if he did, will never be spoken between them. It will be buried with his other knowledge of his wife's sister.

But then it's piety to suckle one's child. So Luke teaches her, the best of preachers, mute and helpless as he is.

Will bends above the crib, studying Luke Ritter in a long unbroken silence.

His hair's longer and he has sprouted a scrubby apology for a moustache. She has seen Joss looking at it with amused pity. Beatrice remembers the feel of Will's hair between her fingers. So soft for a man; too soft maybe. Sleeping with her sister, does he register the likenesses and differences between their physiques? How could he help it? Perhaps he has banished those sensual memories from his mind. But Beatrice remembers that she dreamed last night; dreamed that Luke was her brother-in-law's son, as he would have been, had the enigmatic right words been spoken, at any moment during any one of a thousand days. As the silence lengthens, Beatrice casts her mind back and cannot pinpoint the moment at which she chose for Christian and against Will.

Providence chose for her and doubtless chose wisely. Had Will been hers, Beatrice would have burned with jealousy whenever he looked at a woman or a woman looked at him. However could she have trusted him?

‘A beautiful, gracious child,' Will says. ‘You are greatly blessed, Mrs Ritter.'

For a moment he speaks and even looks like a pastor. It was what she always desired and thought would never come, that gravity and grace.

*

She never expected to love her husband like this, to take his hand when no one's looking and stroke with her fingertips the thin skin of his wrist. Maybe, if it hadn't been for the visit to Wales, Anna would have been able to keep her neutral, friendly distance; to tolerate his capers and caprices; to nourish a genial contempt for him, as someone less intelligent and serious than herself – as many wives do. They go their own way, live their lives within the domestic sphere, outwardly toeing the line with an inferior mate. Lip-service. Standing at the door, she sees Will and Beatrice bending over Luke.

Beatrice is altered: motherhood absorbs her. She glows with her love of the boy and smiles quietly to herself as if nursing a secret. The lioness would kill for her cub. She'd maul the lion himself if necessary or die in the attempt. Anna, entering the room with a rustle of skirts, smiles radiantly and is allowed to hold Luke.

‘Is this all right, love? Am I holding him right? Such a bonny boy. Our little nephew, Will.'

Beatrice comes over and kneels at Anna's feet. ‘Look, Annie, he's smiling. He likes you.'

Such a little creature has no likes or dislikes, Anna knows. She recognises Beatrice's goodwill. The baby's hand grips her forefinger and drags it to his mouth; sucks hard. Blood floods the fingertip. Luke means to live. A robust lad.

‘I was asking Beatrice who she feels Luke resembles,' Will says.

‘In the early days his face seemed to change from day to day. At twenty-four hours old he looked so old and sage, I could see Papa. To the life. It was comical but it made me cry.'

‘Oh Beattie, I wish I'd been there with you.'

‘I do too. You'd have seen it. Though Joss of course pooh-poohed it. And then Mama appeared and Grandmama – they came and went – just fleeting resemblances, as if they visited for a moment. How I wish they'd lived to see him. And you, Annie, I can still see you now … his lips, the set of his jaw – can you see her, Will?'

‘Yes, I do believe I can. How Anna cried when your letter came, Beatrice! She sobbed so much I thought I'd better join in. But I can see you yourself, Beatrice, quite clearly – about the eyes. Can't you see it, Annie?'

‘And his dear Papa, of course,' Anna reminds everyone.

‘His Papa is so proud. He has mighty plans for Luke. It's a shame he has to be away so often and miss the little daily changes. But of course I write and keep him informed of every detail. Mr Elias came in and read to me from Genesis.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters
. I thought, Yes, I've been there, I've seen that, God has shown that to me. But then this terror came over me – and I thought, My lamb is mortal. I've made someone live who's born to die. Which I have. He is. What have I done?'

Anna sees in her sister the child she once was, standing in her smock at the edge of the wilderness, holding up her wrist with a bee sting and a discovery: they give us honey and they wound us too.

‘Not for many, many years, dear heart, I hope,' says Will. ‘And even if our Father thought it best to take him before his time, dear Luke is a Christian child; you would sustain it, you'd only be waiting. He'd be safe with the Father. You would expect to see your darling's face again, in Jerusalem.'

‘Yes, yes of course, Will. Thank you for reminding me. It's so silly of me. I hope to see him born again in conversion and be baptised. Christian has all but put his name down for Regent's Park College to train for the ministry – to which I say,
Festina lente
,
hasten slowly. One of the few bits of Latin I know.'

Anna settles Beatrice's mortal boy back in his mother's arms. Luke roots with his mouth, hungry now, whimpering and peremptory. Rejecting the little finger his mother offers him to suck, he breaks into urgent shrieks. A hale, strong lad, nothing like poor Magdalena.

Glances of tenderness pass between Beatrice and Will. His sister-in-law has called out to him from her heart; her brother-in-law has ministered to her. She is eased and comforted. Good then, that the Anwyls are back. Anna feels some justification for coming between her husband and his calling in Wales, if there was a calling. For every choice there's a charge. A down-payment, followed by further drafts in the future, should a woman elect to follow her own will. Anna understands that Will and Beatrice have at last reached the point at which they could have married. Paradoxically – for they have had to lock themselves in cages first. And surely this love is something she ought to – and can – respect. It's family love, the sort of affection that can be accepted without danger to other loyalties. Especially if, as Anna trusts and vows, there's to be peace between herself and Beatrice.

Chapter 17

Sabbath dawn; clement weather. Way up in the pear tree, the rambler roses at Sarum House are lemon-yellow. The corn fields are ripening; if the good weather holds, a fine harvest is due. Beatrice walks with her husband down Florian Street to the church, her arm in his, their son having been left in the care of his aunt. She dislikes leaving Luke but there are times when you're obliged to do so; she represses the thought that all time not spent with her son is time lost.

The saturated earth is already drying, releasing scented steam from the lavender hedge at Florian Street. The Kyffin congregation has risen at first light to rendezvous before the usurpers gather for Morning Service. A crowd stands outside the doors of Florian Street Church, where a blacksmith is making light work of chiselling out Mr Prynne's locks.

The Kyffinites are soon in at the side door; they unbolt and throw open the main doors. In pour womenfolk with baskets of flowers. Beatrice helps to adorn the interior of the church. Scandal has leaked beyond the local press to the national newspapers, exposing a factionalism that gives satisfaction to nobody but the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bradlaugh the atheist. A spirit of violent bigotry reigns at Florian Street, where Mr Prynne is overreaching himself. Since Mr Kyffin's martyrdom, he has caused his adversaries to be excommunicated. Setting himself up as the church's acting minister, the shoemaker preaches hellfire for the unbaptised and the apostacised. Cross him in trifles and you're damned. Prynne's faction has itself splintered and there have been secessions. Meanwhile he has appointed a new set of deacons, folk he can control, like the young match-manufacturer, Mr Carter, and Mr Short, the retired tanner.

The body of the church is packed, not only with the remnant of the Florian Street congregation but with dissenters from several sects looking for Revival. Beatrice watches her husband mount the dais after the deafening first hymn.

Christian's opening message is brief and crisp. He preaches full and free grace to all who confess their sins to Christ, repent and ask for mercy.

No one's excluded from Heaven – except the excluders.

And yet even the excluders' stony hearts must melt when they see the sacred fire of Awakening crossing continents, from America to Wales, from Wales to Wiltshire, and thence to London, Prague, St Petersburg, Peking.

The service is well into the second hymn when the Prynnites begin to appear. A mighty wall of sound stuns the latecomers as they stumble into a packed church. Absorbed into the body of the congregation, they seem to surrender the will to protest. There's no sign of Mr Prynne himself.

‘Isaiah Minety of West Grimstead has agreed to speak to us about his experience of Revival on his recent visit to Wales.'

The lad has shot up into gangling young manhood. His voice, in the process of breaking, executes bagpipe skirls when least expected, lapses he accepts with remarkable equanimity. Although Isaiah's sleeves are too short for his bony arms and acne flames on his face, he has grown in confidence, following in the steps of Mr Spurgeon and learning the lessons of that great man's meteoric rise, without the Calvinist theology that goes with it. Or any theology, as far as Beatrice can tell.