Awakening (11 page)

The two of them are like brother and sister. Anna feels easier with Will because of his feet of clay. Look, mine are clayey too. With him she doesn't have to be forever watching herself in case her oddities escape, like urchins truanting from school. There's something about a man pocked with an acne of visible blemishes that reassures a common sinner.

The arrangements are all made; Beatrice has not been informed. Anna will pack her bags and on Saturday she'll board the St Ives train. Many hours later, doubtless more dead than alive, she'll step out into the salty Cornish air and be greeted by Mirrie and Baines. Anna tries to contain her excitement; her heart thrums as they pass the familiar woods and fields, thatched cottages, cabbage fields and farm labourers. A pauper woman carrying a baby in a shawl, followed by barefoot children, tramps the verge. A flock of sheep from Butterfurlong Farm blocks the road. Anna's ordinary world: farewell to it. Tomorrow is reserved for a visit to poor Mrs Kyffin. And then. Freedom.

At Sarum House Will, alighting, reaches to help Anna out. She steps down; he does not release her hand.

‘What is it?' she asks.

‘Oh … nothing. You. Your eyes. What's going on? What do you have in mind?'

‘Come in and have tea.'

A weighty letter from Beatrice arrives as Will leaves. Anna sees his eyes fasten forlornly on the handwriting. He hasn't heard from her in London and has no expectation of doing so.

*

‘How is dear Beatrice?' asks Mrs Kyffin, hollow-cheeked. She has always been a plump, bustling body, happy with her world, fond of millinery, kind to children, proud of her immaculate home. The close-fitted waist of her bell-shaped blue-black dress hangs limply to her figure, for not only has she lost weight but she has clearly abandoned tight-lacing. The wedding ring is loose on her finger.

‘She's enjoying London very much, thank you.'

‘And yourself, Anna? We've been most concerned for your health. Beatrice tells us your
nerves
… she worries about you so.'

‘I'm much restored. Out and about, as you see. But how are you, dear Mrs Kyffin?'

‘Quite well; I'm quite well. I don't complain.'

‘You never do, I know.'

‘Oh, but Anna, yes I do. Too often I have grumbled, when my life was cushioned and everything was done for my comfort. And now comes the tempest. But,' she reminds herself, ‘I do not complain.'

Antigone prowls the room, as if searching for something mislaid; she cannot think what. She touches each of the ornaments on the mantelpiece, picks them up, frowns. The attractive parlour, with its large-leaved plants in their polished urns, seems to have flown asunder and nothing adds up. The ornate walnut clock ticks morosely. All but one of the children being out, the house is hollow. ‘Now comes the storm, my dear, and I must bow before it.'

‘Whatever can be done for you? What have these poisonous Prynnes …?'

‘You must faithfully promise never to vilify the dear Prynnes.'

The
dear
Prynnes? That's hard to swallow. The shoemaker and his family, frugal, upright and severe of countenance, deacons of the church for three generations, have always impressed Anna with their appetite for mastery. Prynne prides himself on speaking his mind ‘in all charity' and ‘under correction'. A canny and philanthropic businessman, he has a finger in every pie and is forever licking it in public, a mirthless smile on his lean face.

‘I can see what you're feeling, Anna. But it won't do. I fully believe that the Prynnes have acted as they have solely out of Christian love.'

Mrs Kyffin allows herself to sit down with her guest. She talks in a rapid whisper, twisting a sodden handkerchief between her fingers. Her husband is accused of embezzlement of church funds as well as of heretical doctrine, causing faction and ignoring the elders and deacons – and ‘something else, something not to be spoken'. And now he proposes to convert to Methodism.
She whispers the word.

‘But how is Mr Kyffin taking his trouble?'

‘If I raise the matter, he quits the room. He has
resigned
. Just like that. What would my father say? But luckily Papa is dead and cannot see what his daughter has come to.'

Tears seep from Antigone's red eyes; she doesn't bother to wipe them away. Beside her on the sofa is a green sateen cushion embroidered in gold silk with the motto
‘
Here rest, weary traveller'. Shame upon them, Anna thinks, for causing this shame. For shame can kill
.
Anna chafes Mrs Kyffin's hand.

‘I envy you your Christian spirit, Antigone, I really do,' she says. ‘And yet …'

‘It's my one consolation, Anna. Don't attack it.' Antigone sits up and blows her nose; tucks the handkerchief away in a pocket. ‘Promise me you won't.'

‘Of course not. Not for the world.'

‘I enjoy a deep sense of the divine presence, Anna, in this hour of travail. But – let me offer you a cup of coffee and some gingerbread Ellen has made.' She rings for the maid. Tea arrives and so does Mr Kyffin, bluff and hearty as ever, glad to see them, asking after Beatrice and Jocelyn. Anna squeezes his hand, which he withdraws as if scalded. He takes a step back onto the tail of the cat.

Mr Kyffin regrets that he cannot stop for tea, murmurs an apology; his face works; he digs his hands in his pockets and vanishes into the study.

‘Come and see my Ellen before you go.' Mrs Kyffin leads the way to the parlour where all this while Ellen Kyffin has been amusing herself. It's a lovely room, set aside for sewing and the children's study, with a globe, cottage piano and table, lit by a central conical gasolier. It has always been Mrs Kyffin's project to educate not only her sons but her daughters so that, if necessary, they can earn their own bread as teachers or governesses. All are sent away to school and in the holidays coached at home. This must cost a great deal of money, Anna thinks. Wherever has that money come from?

The youngest Kyffin, kneeling back on her heels, gravely assesses the visitor. ‘Would you like to come and look at my dolls' house with me, Miss Anna?'

Nine-year-old Ellen's careful fingers reach into a dolls' house, whose miniature people live a wholly superintended life. Anna peers into a parlour papered in a miniature version of the frondy swirls that curve their way up the walls of the Kyffins' parlour. A nursery, with a thumb-sized crib, is decorated with an alphabetical design. Toy people sit at mathematical intervals round a table.

‘It's wonderful. A perfectly ordered world.'

‘Did you ever have a dolls' house, Miss Anna?'

‘No – but I had a little place in the garden where I used to go that was my own little world. Not as well organised.' Anna is intrigued to recall the mound or hillock where she'd play her secret games. Now whereabouts exactly was that? ‘And you've been reading too while your mama and I were busy talking. What have you been reading, Ellen?'

‘I am reading
Pilgrim's Progress.
'

‘She is a child of grace. Aren't you, angel?'

‘I hope so, Mama.'

The shadow of a dark wing flits across Mrs Kyffin's face. A child so biddable may not be long for this world. The one your heart treasures is the one God is likely to envy you. The white ewe lamb, if it survives, is the daughter destined to stay and comfort her Mama and Papa in their old age. This was the destiny wordlessly assigned to Anna by her family, from which their deaths released her.

‘You cannot know what a consolation Ellen is to me. What with Charlie smoking. He owns five pipes. And shouting at his father.'

‘I shall never shout at my Papa, Mama,' says Ellen in her singsong voice. She looks up devotedly into her mother's eyes. ‘Or at you. Or at anyone at all.'

‘I know you will not, angel. It is not in you to do so.'

‘And Charlie's a good boy really, Mama. He doesn't mean to vex you.'

Ellen turns to Anna with an expression of anxious triumph. Filial Christian obedience enables her to conciliate and to a degree control the Kyffin household: at least her corner of it. As Anna leaves, mother and daughter close the door gently on their visitor, returning to their fragile sanctuary.

The carriage to Chauntsey jolts on. Something has disagreed with Anna. She tastes a sourness in the throat; sweetness rising in the mouth, a desire to open the carriage window and spit. Oh no, I can't be ill again. Just now that I'm ready to live. There's nothing you can do for people.

They pass through Alderbury and Fighelbourn. Not far now. But how slowly the horses creep. They're passing the Hanging Meadow where there was once a temporary gallows. Huge crowds, she overheard Papa telling Mr Elias, came out to see the girl hang – and she took so long to die, for women get only a short drop. Infanticide was her crime. She was an ignorant girl, an illiterate pauper. Is this a Christian country? Mrs Elias asked. Or are we barbarians? We must speak, she said, speak out.

There's so little a woman can do. You keep silent because you walk on the mute, the distaff, side of the road, muffled in shawls and bonnets. No excuse. A woman has a voice. She should raise it. Throne, pulpit, magistrate's bench: if these fail, a woman should speak out if she sees injustice or cruelty. But, Anna thinks, so far I have said very little.

Chapter 7

‘The Christian name of the young lady beside me,' announces Christian Ritter, with a theatrical gesture, ‘is Miss Jewel Randolph.'

On the platform of Regent's Park Baptist College, she glances up at him with shy eyes; lowers them again. Miss Randolph's hair is flaxen, her face pale. She wears a pale blue crinoline. Gloved hands clasped at her waist, she stands before a college packed with ministers and their wives. All eyes are on Christian, who seems to Beatrice astonishingly changed, flamboyant in a flowing cloak. He has grown his blond curls to his shoulders and flourishes a wide-brimmed slouch hat. His great height displays itself to towering effect. Clean-shaven among the mighty beards on the platform, he suggests – disconcertingly – something of the showman, resembling nothing so much as the familiar engraved portrait of the great but controversial Mr Beecher.

‘Miss Randolph,' explains Christian, ‘was the third lot to be sold at auction by Mr Henry Ward Beecher at Plymouth Church, New York.'

Gasps.

‘You heard me correctly. This Christian child was sold. Mr Beecher's congregation donated thousands of dollars that she might be free.'

The splendid auditorium is silent. There's a single unspoken question: are they now selling white women in the slave markets of America?

Christian has always commanded perfect English: he and Lore had been taught by a classically educated English tutor in Lübeck. Now Christian's accent has taken on a slight American brogue. Isn't he somehow making an exhibition of this young lady? And yet,
and yet,
Beatrice reminds herself, if slavery is not a spectacle of outrage, what is? How else are we to know, really know, what goes on in the world? Wilfully obtuse, we require theatre. And I must enquire and know, and see my bleeding Saviour in the flesh. As He appears to me in this girl.

‘How old are you, dear heart?' Christian bends to Jewel, who whispers a reply behind her gloved hand. ‘Miss Jewel's exact age is uncertain. Perhaps fifteen. She has been sold by her father, a Virginia physician. Let me repeat:
sold
by her
father
. The Plymouth Church in New York bought Jewel's freedom. I repeat, the legendary Mr Beecher's church
bought
Jewel's freedom. This
father
traded Jewel's mother and sisters downriver to cover his debts. Are there words to express the depravity of this
father
? Tell the good people the names of your sisters, if you will.'

So that is why she is blonde and fair: a white father and a dark-skinned mother.

‘My sisters are Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald and Pearl. My mother is named Mary.'

‘And do you know, darling, where they are?'

She shakes her head.

‘Miss Jewel's paternal grandmother, a worthy evangelical lady, intervened on her behalf. Jewel was sent north to be bought by Mr Beecher's church. And sold she was! And free she is! Redeemed in every sense! Show these good people your freedom-ring, dear.'

Jewel raises her hand: a plain gold ring, contributed by a wealthy member of Mr Beecher's congregation, sparkles on her little finger. Men as well as women shed tears and cover their eyes in silent prayer.
Collection plates go round for the cause.

Afterwards, when Christian forces a path to Beatrice through the crowd, she can hardly speak for trembling. He bends to her, the suitor who was tutor and mentor, uncle and friend.

‘My
dear
Beatrice. At last. And thank you for coming. For your letters. They have meant everything to me.'

Her hands are in his and his face is above her face. It's where it has been since she was ten: a sun looming above her small planet. The power of him over her.
His banner over me was love.
From the first Mr Ritter wooed her with passion suited to a lover, addressed to a child. Seating her on his knee, gently jouncing her up and down. ‘Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
.
'
Papa didn't object, though Mrs Montagu took it upon herself to counsel that Christian suspend such fondlings. Something in Beatrice objected, loathed it, found no voice to express her cringing distaste. She was found sticking pins in a portrait of Christian muttering, ‘Beattie hates! Beattie loathes!' In his long absences, she daydreamed about him, writing letters brimming with devout affection. He educated her to be his wife while waiting patiently, impatiently, for her to reach the age of consent. Which she desired and abhorred.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart.
Once grown up, Beatrice gathered herself together; found ingenious ways to prevaricate.