Awakening (16 page)

‘Your boy is a credit to you, Mr Gosse,' says Mirrie. She looks at the child hungrily as if yearning to hug and kiss him.

As Miriam and Anna take their leave, Mr Gosse is edifying his son by a comparison of the scythe jaws of the
Sagitta bipunctata
with the torture implements used by the Papal Inquisition against the Protestants of Belgium.

‘Mr Gosse is an eminent member of the Plymouth Brethren,' Miriam tells Anna. ‘His zoological work is truly wonderful. And yet he clings to an old system that is dying in front of everyone's eyes.'

‘But Miriam,
I
cling too.' Anna has stopped in her tracks, one hand on Miriam's arm. She can't help saying it; the words escape the more compulsively for the doubts that have beset her. Gripping Mirrie's arm harder than she intends, she swings her round, face to face. The wet sands stretch away, tobacco-brown, to the distant sea. Gulls stand still on the gale. ‘I
cling to the cross of Jesus. I cling. Whatever forces act to sweep me away, I cling on tight. Nothing – absolutely nothing and nobody – even myself – will persuade me to let go.'

Perhaps it's the first time Mirrie has encountered the stubborn force of Anna Pentecost, so familiar to Beatrice. A second's recoil is followed by swift adjustment. Miriam takes Anna's straight gaze: ‘Oh but, my dear Anna, I cling too. To the
human
Jesus. Whatever would I be without him?'

‘But for me that's not enough, Mirrie. He is also God.'

‘Yes. Yes, I understand. And he is all I know of God. I was brought up in a narrow neighbourhood amongst ignorant bigots. Sects who were always going for one another's jugular vein. Unitarianism freed me from this zealotry – for bigotry is not what the Gospels teach. They teach humanity. We are not so far apart, dear Anna. Are we?'

‘Aren't we?'

The red-noses are so soft, Anna thinks, and yet they are able to eat into rock. Are you feeding on me, Mirrie? And passing on what you've digested from me to Baines, who writes it and whatever else you collect into his novels? Everything in solution with yourself. She thinks of
Freedom Seeks Her.
The story of a woman whose qualities are far above her peers and wants what's best for the world, flouting the laws of her society. An innocent transgressor. She'll have to pay for her anomalies.

The two of them, Miriam and Baines, are like an enormous intellectual stomach, she thinks, converting what they glean from their world into the substance of themselves. They can't help it. They're always hungry for reality. Just as I am myself: that's why I'm carping at them. Suddenly the beach seems flooded with lady naturalists, bending for live molluscs and empty shells, minerals, seaweed, stripping it bare.

*

Anna steals in through the back door. There's no one at home, a rare thing at Sarum House. Good: she can catch her breath.

Light slants through the tall windows; it edges the dark curtains of the morning room with scarlet and calls out swirling green patterns from the carpet's obscurities. The faintly dank, always welcome smell of an ancient house, in which generations have followed in one another's footsteps, lightly entering and lightly quitting a common space.

The fire has been banked up and guarded. Anna takes off bonnet and gloves; removes the fender and crouches to enjoy the warmth. She finds plum cake in the pantry and pours sherry to wash it down. Then she prowls the house, looking into each room: several visitors, all male, all rather tidy compared with her messy brother. Standing at her own window, Anna takes in the gentle tumult of the wind in the trees. Already the leaves are beginning to turn. Ewes browse the grass; the geese swim on the pond in a moody gaggle. Everything's just as it should be and always was. In her sister's room, Anna pours water into the ewer and splashes her face; pats it dry with Beatrice's towel, breathing in her scent. Perhaps it can all be forgiven. Would that be so impossible? One craves affection. Your sister is your sister. She collapses on Beatrice's bed; rolls over and lays her head on her pillow.

Hearing the front door open, Anna charges downstairs; hurls herself into her sister's arms.

‘Where have you been? Oh,
Annie
,
I've been so worried about you, so terribly concerned. Are you ill?'

‘No, of course not. I wrote to you, Beattie, at Mr Leek's. From St Ives and then from Tenby. Surely you got the letters?'

‘Anna, I've been back here for a whole week.'

‘Oh no, that's the limit. I'm so sorry. Leek should have forwarded them. Well, anyway we're both here now. Oh, it's Joss – hallo. How are you, Amy? And – it's Christian. You're back.'

‘
Liebe
Anna. I hope I did not alarm you. We have spoken of you so often. And I am a blissfully married man. Well, almost.'

‘Oh … yes. How lovely.
Ich gratuliere
. And who …?'

‘Goodness me, Anna. Can you not guess?'

Christian has removed his cloak with a flourish. His presence seems to fill the room; he stands rhetorically as if about to address them all, sofa and mantelpiece and the watercolour portraits of Papa and Mama at either side of the chimney. Christian's resemblance to Lore is fading with time, yes, it's going. And then Anna realises.

‘Oh no!' is all that she manages to squeak. ‘Not Beatrice?'

‘
Anna!
'

‘Sorry. Just … I'm overwhelmed, that's all. I'd no idea. Well, of course, I
did
.'

‘She's unwell. Sit down, Anna,' says Beatrice, bitterly hurt. I must be careful, Anna thinks, not to arouse her resentment. We need to live in harmony from now on, if I'm to have my freedom and come and go as I wish. Anna cannot help but shiver as once she did peering through a partly open door at Christian jouncing her sister on his knee, a child, her cheeks hot and red, wrinkling her nose, her hands caught up at her chin like a mouse. His too large hand stroked the place between her shoulder blades. His face buried itself for a moment in her ringlets, breathing in her scent. There were others in the room, a ring of ladies, all, it seemed, in thrall to the glorious young man, all leaning forward, going
Aah …
as if it were the sweetest thing in the world. It was not sweet. It is not sweet now.

My cousin is always hungry and thirsty; he wants to swallow the world, said Lore, for its own good. He needs to suck blood.

There's nothing to be done. It's too late now to explain to Beatrice her new and favourable view of Will Anwyl. Anna stands up; smiles; shakes her brother-in-law-to-be by the hand, asking about his work, his travels, the happy couple's plans. All the while the walls are closing in and Sarum House takes on the staleness of a sick-room, in which one has suffered whooping cough, dreaded ghosts and feared the touchy Deity who was incensed when you asked for extra plum cake. Whereas in Cornwall she expanded, now Anna shrinks.

Do not, whatever you do, relinquish your territory, Anna warns herself. But the parlour narrows further. She can't stand it. Anna brushes past Beatrice, a rigid smile on her face. In the kitchen Amy's chopping carrots and a kettle's boiling on the range, before which a stray tabby basks. Leaving by the back door, Anna strides down the garden, telling herself to be calm, all will be well. Unhappiness is just a habit.

Beatrice isn't far behind. ‘For goodness' sake, Anna, what on earth are you doing? What an exhibition of yourself you've made. Come back in, you'll catch cold.'

‘Cold will have to catch me first.'

‘What on earth have you been doing?'

‘What have
you
been doing, I could ask you the same thing.'

Beatrice takes a step backwards through the mulch of fallen leaves. ‘I would have told you if I'd known where you were. And, oh, what a shock when I got home and learned that you …'

‘Told me what?'

‘About my engagement.'

‘But what about Mr Anwyl?'

‘Anna, I could never marry him now. Never.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because
you
will have to marry him.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Anna, how can you be such a baby? How can you not realise what you've done – running off with him like that. Did you not for one moment think what the consequences of that would be?'

‘Of what?'

‘Running away with your sister's …'

‘Sister's what?'

Beatrice turns away. Whispers, ‘Love.' She seems overwhelmed by her own acknowledgment; holds her face between both palms.

‘But if Will is that … how can you think of marrying anyone else?'

They're both hot and red-faced – ready to rake their claws down one another's cheeks as in distant girlhood when briars were readily blamed for wounds. And the wounds, generally on the face of the younger, would represent a victory for Anna, especially if she picked the scars until they oozed pus and bore the stigmata with the appearance of uncomplaining patience – which produced fury in the belly of the aggressor and seduced her to renew her attack. All this is remembered here at the end of the garden where cultivated lawns give way to wilderness, glorious with poppies and cornflowers in the summer and where brambles yield a heavy harvest of blackberries that persist into early November.

And there's something here, the precious objects she collected and buried. Anna scans around. Now, which was her mound? I buried them for my mother, she thinks. For Mama in the other world, the other life. The tumps, like waves in a green sea, look alike; none of them seems to call. I need to dowse for it, she thinks. I need divining rods.

‘What are you looking at, Anna? For goodness' sake. I can't marry him now, can I? – I couldn't, how could I?' Beatrice hisses. Her fine new London gown is saturated in the long grass. ‘He's soiled. Like you. Only you are worse. Anna,
what
is the matter with you? Have you gone out of your mind? You ran away together. You were witnessed. At the station. On the train. You and Mr Anwyl. I was told.'

‘But what were you told, Beatrice? That Mr Anwyl was concerned for my health and insisted on coming to take care of me?'

‘Holding hands. I was told. That he was …' – Beatrice turns her face away, her tears overflow, she speaks small – ‘rubbing the palm of your hand with his thumb.'

‘What?'

‘With his thumb,' Beatrice repeats, ridiculously, despairingly, as if the whole issue turned upon this one observation. ‘Like this.' She mimes with her own hands. ‘Stroking. Fondling. Secretly. The inside of your hand. The whole of Chauntsey and Fighelbourn is talking about you and him. How can you show your face?'

‘I just wonder,' Anna says evenly, although her face flames, because she remembers, yes, she does remember now and had no objection then to this tenderly playful gesture, to which she ought to have objected. And it must have been the elderly man in the carriage on the first leg of the journey who took silent note as she and Will jested and bantered and were taken for man and wife. Anna felt as if she were flying above her own head with the thrill of holiday. ‘I just wonder how anyone could have seen a person's
thumb
doing
secret
things in the
palm
of someone else's hand? Does it sound likely to you, Beatrice? Quite honestly?'

Beatrice shakes her head. She sees the point but her closed face says that it makes no odds what actually happened. What signifies is that Anna Pentecost has exposed herself, her family and her denomination to reproach.

‘And then,' Beatrice goes on. ‘To cap it all. You went off with Miriam Sala, so-called, and her … paramour. Behind my back. Atheists. You could hardly wait to get me out of the house – scheming with this creature. You do know, do you, that they are not legally married.'

‘They
are
married, Beatrice.'

‘I was told they were not. On good authority. Mr Montagu is not a gossip or a liar.'

‘How does that old busybody know anyway? They are
married
.'

‘Not legally married. Ask your friend where and when they were married.'

‘It's tattle. You should be ashamed.'

Beatrice says, ‘She denies Christ! That woman is rotten with sin. She has seduced you – yes, Anna, yes, she has – she's a blasphemer. She will never enter my house again. Not if she comes crawling to the door and begs.'

‘Oh, very Christian of you,' Anna sneers. ‘Oh yes, I like
that.'

‘And, Anna, this is my house. I shall never allow atheists and fornicators under my roof.'

‘Your house for another three weeks apparently.' Anna no longer guards what she's saying. She just wants to hurt her sister. The words of Barbara and Bessie echo in her memory. They were discussing the campaign to amend the marriage laws. And Mirrie was very silent. A married woman owns nothing under the law. It's a crying shame, everyone agreed. ‘In three weeks apparently you'll be handing your property over to another person. Sarum House becomes your
husband
's – to whom you're lying in your soul, for you cannot love him. And you become your husband's property, bag and baggage. And any children you have are his. And the clothes on your back are his. And you'll be pretending to love him while you're thinking only of Will. You'll be taking Pastor Will Anwyl into your marriage bed. You'll be committing adultery yourself, Beatrice. Every single night of your life. So don't judge. Just don't. And the only way you'll get away from Christian will be through death. And, no, I'm
not
marrying Will Anwyl. Why the
hell
should I? I don't want to marry any man and I shan't. And I don't care if my friends are married or not, I don't care. I'm sorry for you, Beatrice Pentecost – I shall possess my own soul but you'll have nothing.'