Awakening (31 page)

Isaiah takes as his text verses from the second Book of Kings, Chapter 2. Elijah, like Mr Kyffin, is taken up to God in a whirlwind. The prophet's mantle falls upon Elisha. Who shall be our Elisha? Who'll be Mr Kyffin's successor? He tells the story of how a rabble of youths mock Elisha in the street. Oh good, they think, here comes a funny-looking old geezer:
Go on up
,
thou bald-head; go on up
,
thou bald-hea
d
!
Elisha turns round and curses them in the name of the Lord.

‘What happens then? A she-bear rampages out of the forest. She kills and eats forty-two boys.'

And Isaiah roars from the pulpit, an incensed bear with an appetite. Nobody titters, though it wouldn't take much to set them off and what a good thing Anna is absent. A baby cries.

‘A scene of carnage – God's terrible judgment!' Isaiah leans forward, his gaze roaming the congregation. What next? More roaring and gnashing? Beatrice has heard of a Welsh preacher shredding a Bible in the pulpit and scattering the leaves, to indicate the pre-eminence of the Spirit over the letter. The pulpit is in danger of becoming a circus, a freak show.

But, with a precise sense of dramatic timing, turning from God's wrath to His Gospel mercy, Isaiah reaches out his arms to the congregation with an expression of yearning. In Pastor Pentecost's time sermons were classically composed, weighted with pithy matter, memorably expressed. And yet Beatrice finds herself fascinated. She too cranes forward to hear the prodigy's next revelation.

‘But
our
Elisha, our saintly and tender Mr Kyffin, did not curse anybody. No bear came dashing out of the Chute Forest to munch you up alive, did it? The man you mocked died loving and forgiving all. He received his death-wound here where I'm standing. Like someone else we know. Who died for me and you on the Cross.'

Silence rings in the body of the church. The majority of the congregation of Florian Street knows already who its next minister is to be.

When the pale shoemaker appears and demands to speak, Isaiah courteously permits him to do so. But he does not descend from the pulpit.

Hat in hand, Mr Prynne raises his eyes to heaven and cries in a loud voice, ‘Oh God, when we hear the shrieks of the damned ascending from the everlasting flames of the bottomless pit, give us grace to shout,
Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
'

There is no response.

*

The boy of West Grimstead has been tutored in Wales by Anna in the use of a napkin; the handling of cutlery; how to pick up peas without shooting them off the table. Now she signals a twofold message: do not saw your beef so urgently and keep your elbows to yourself. She indicates the presence of gravy on his chin. Red-faced, Isaiah demonstrates the use of the napkin, quite correctly.

‘I saw an acquaintance of yours in Salisbury, Anna,' confides Mrs Elias, as they are placing steamed pudding and custard on the table.

‘Oh yes, Loveday, who was that?'

‘Mrs Sala, as she calls herself.'

‘Why do you say
calls hersel
f
?
'

‘You have not heard?'

‘I do not listen to gossip, I never do; it's my rule.'

‘Yes, Loveday,' Beatrice interrupts. ‘We know all about that. No need to discuss it any further.' She continues to pour water from the jug into glasses, shoulders high and tense.

Mrs Elias says no more, though she makes it clear that there's a great deal she could reveal if she chose. She ladles pudding into the young preacher's bowl: he must be hungry after his great work at Florian Street. Have more, do.

Jack and Tom glare at Isaiah's heaped plate, since his plenty means their dearth, and then begin to snipe.

‘Why do you talk so funny anyway?'

Isaiah looks alarmed. During his younger days, preaching at the market cross, he just said whatever came into his head. But the advance of his ministry brings social anxieties – and no Mr Kyffin at hand to counsel him. Becoming aware that his speech is considered uncouth, somehow or other he has managed to add the ghost of a Welsh accent to his Wiltshire burr.

‘Well now, Jack, I do not speak funny, far as I knows.'

‘Knows! Ee knows, does ee? Ee do know, Tom, don't ee?'

‘Ee talks as if ee got a pebble in ees mouth.'

‘Or a pinecone,' Tom suggests.

‘Or a hedgehog.'

‘Or a whole duck.
Wack wack wack
!
'

‘That's quite enough of that.' Anna sees Beatrice come down on the Elias boys in quite her old peremptory spirit. The bowls are swept away. ‘Besides,' Beatrice goes on, ‘Isaiah is about to become a minister of the church now, like your Papa.'

‘Yes,
Mr Minety
might curse us,' says Tom.

‘Ooh, I'm so frightened!
Mr Minety! Mr Minety!
Don't throw an anathema at me!' Jack slides down his chair until only his head shows above the tablecloth. ‘The baker's boy, the baker's boy,' he murmurs through his teeth.

Isaiah has evidently kept the best portion of his pudding, with a dollop of jam, till last. It cheers him to see it there in the middle of his plate, with custard to go with it.
He nudges the last morsel onto his spoon with his thumb, bends his head, sucks it in and swallows, setting down the spoon exactly as Anna has taught him.

‘
Disgusting
boys, those Eliases. So ill-bred!' observes Rose Peck when the children have been taken home. Through the open window Loveday can be heard whining at them and threatening them with a telling-off by their father. ‘Oh yes, I'm sure Mr Elias will correct them,' Rose goes on. ‘He'll play the flute at them. Their hides need tanning. But it's too late now. Spoiled. Tell us all about your honeymoon, Mrs Anwyl.'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Well, what
apparel
did you wear for your wedding journey? Start with the shoes.'

‘Stout boots for mud and rain, Rose.'

‘Oh dear, really? I've heard that Wales is
excessively
wet. But it is said to have some picturesque views. I shall be spending my honeymoon in Paris, shan't you, Lily?'

‘Are you getting married, dear?' asks Anna.

‘Well, some day, of course. I have nobody in mind
au moment.
'

And besides, Rose's eyes seem to say, you've removed the only man worth playing for: it's too tragic. I know Mr Anwyl would have married me if you and your sister had not been so forward. He used to take my hand when you weren't looking. He tickled my neck with a feather. He taught me
amo amas amat
behind the outbuildings after the tea meeting.

But the Pentecosts knew all about his fun and games. We were never in the dark, thinks Anna. Nothing can happen in Chauntsey that escapes the network of spies. What we didn't see for ourselves we were sure to hear about, doubtless with embroideries. Will's dallying and flirting and what Mr Montagu called ‘concupiscence', apparently incorrigible, was the reason Beatrice couldn't allow herself to marry him. And why she wished him on me, Anna thinks. Her mind carries back over the patched items she has received over time from her elder sister: this used thing will do for Anna.

The human hand-me-down, just arrived from Fighelbourn, slips into his seat and grins across at his wife. And I'm beginning to love him, Anna thinks. So much. I never expected to and thought myself safe. But surely I am safe? He doesn't go off into corners with girls any longer. At least as far as Anna knows.

‘
Prynhawn da,
Will.
'

He likes it that she greets him in Welsh, the language of Paradise and of Heaven, according to him.
‘
Ti
'
n iawn, cariad?
'

Rose and Lily turn up their snub noses. You're welcome to his gibberish, their looks say. And besides your husband's hair is growing thin; he has no true distinction: we can do better.

‘
Ydw
,
diolch
,
cariad. Beth wyt ti eisiau?
'

Will accepts bread and cheese and a glass of wine, since he's so late. He's always obliging like this: makes no fuss about his meals and is happy with simple food, which he enjoys wholeheartedly. Having seen where Will was raised, Anna understands this more readily. She has never experienced the least want. Even on the few occasions when Anna was sent to bed without supper, the servant would be sent upstairs with a portion of rice pudding or toast. Joss would fill his pockets with cake which they'd share together. What entitlement does Anna have? None. Will has taught her to relish dark bread, good butter. What could be more delicious? Will eats hungrily and never forgets where he came from. Anna is grateful to have seen his home and to feel that in some sense it is – at a suitable distance – hers too.

Last night: it's in Will's eyes now. His gaze reaches for hers and says,
Remember?
Anna smooths the tablecloth, brushing spilt salt into her hand. Yes, I remember. He is tenderness itself, his hands delicate on her skin as if softened with lanolin like the shepherd's after the shearing. She looks at Will's tapering fingers. The Ritters sleep only a wall away. How does Anna's sister feel when the Anwyls bid her goodnight and mount the stairs together? Beatrice speaks off-handedly: ‘Oh, are you going up already, isn't it a bit early?' And they yawn and say how tired they feel. ‘Very well, good night then.'

Only one thing is lacking with Will. There is none of that spiritual aftermath she shared with Lore, lying in one another's arms, tender as breath; the sadness and poetry of Lore, the strange bitter-sweetness of their encounters.

He slept, a sudden collapse. She lay awake. The candle had not been snuffed; the flame stood tall and still. Anna, slipping out of bed, padded over to her portable desk; opened the diary where Lore had adapted scraps of Sappho.

You burn me, she said, you burn me

& she wept & said, Neither for me the honey – nor the honey bee

She whispered, Of all stars the loveliest

she lied when she said, Yet I am not one who takes joy in wounding. Mine is a quiet mind.

No, there will never be such revelation again on this earth. Nothing as elusive as the poetry in Lore, for no child could spring from it. A kind of perfection is buried – but at least it is buried in
me.
And when I die I shall go to
her
.
It makes Anna sad for Will. I was married before I married you,
cariad.
And I'll make sure you never know.

Her husband cuts another hunk of cheese. Anna offers to bring in more, since he's so famished. He declines. ‘I'll get fat. Spherical. You'll be able to roll me down the street.'

‘You'll have to eat the entire table to get fat – you whippet.'

Last night he said, ‘This will make a baby.'

She's seen that he's mesmerised by their nephew, more attached than Luke's own father, that cold fish. Poor Christian Ritter: his mind's too lofty and he talks to his son as if he viewed him as a budding theologian. Christian, quaintly ill at ease in holding Luke, is grateful when he can restore his son to his mother – perhaps in case the baby possets on his saintly shoulder or sleeve. But Will likes nothing better than to cradle his nephew and ponder his face. He admires the babbling sounds the child makes, echoing them back to Luke. ‘Hallo, little book: Uncle's come to read you.' Is it that Will has been thinking, ‘This is the part of Beatrice I'm permitted to adore?'

Anna is not uneasy, no, not really. Not at all. Why should she be? She too has loved before. Why not be generous? A married couple can be like a living hearth, inviting outsiders to warm their hands at the fire. That's how it was with Mirrie and Baines. Both seemed to love Anna.
And they do still love her, surely? Now more than ever, while the whole world censures them with blackened tongues, having sucked the licorice of
Schadenfreude
, the Salas need friends
.

‘Will,
cariad
,' she asks when everyone has gone into the garden to have tea and Will is polishing off a dish of strawberries, ‘are you busy this afternoon?'

‘Well, no, I don't think so. But I have to be back to assist Mr Elias by teatime. Why, love, what are you thinking?'

‘My friends – our friends – are back at Toplady's. I've not seen them for so long. The Salas. Might we pay a visit this afternoon? – or, if you're too busy, could you drop me on your way to Cressington?'

There's a pause; he doesn't look up. Then, ‘Oh, well, dearest, that's a painful question.'

‘How come?'