Another curt letter arrived from their father, telling them that Charles Barber was now recovered and a new appointment was being sought for him at the end of the year. William Hanson therefore expected his daughters home by the same date. The letter filled Margaret with pain. She was still under her father’s influence so strongly that displeasing him felt like the worst thing she had ever done. On Sunday mornings, she and Annie walked to the Congregationalist church at Carrs Lane to hear the Revd Jowett preach. In the past, she would have written letters to her father telling him all about the services and sermons, assuring him that she and Annie were keeping up their night-time prayers. But at present she could not even truthfully write the words ‘Dear Father’. And now, this letter, with its cold tone . . .
‘But what if we don’t want to go?’ Annie said, on reading the letter. The two of them were sitting on their attic bed, Annie with her knees drawn up close to her. She looked even thinner and more tired about the eyes than when they had arrived, but seemed to burn with fiercer determination than ever. To the surprise of everyone except Margaret, she was still sticking it out at the pen manufactory.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ Margaret looked at her, startled. Wanting was never an option in their lives. Duty was the call – what should they do? She had scarcely ever asked herself what she might want.
Annie said urgently, ‘Well, perhaps God is calling us for something else. Something greater! I feel God’s call for me is bigger than the village – than Father’s . . .’
‘What – making pens?’ Margaret could hear the sarcasm in her own voice.
‘Not making pens. But being here. If ever there was a place God’s work is needed it’s here – far more than in the village. Think what the pastor said on Sunday, about all those dark places where God’s light does not shine . . .’
Margaret turned away, sighing. Annie was always so sure what God wanted from her. Until recently, she had also been sure, not least because that was all that God seemed to offer. She ached to be home, to return to the quiet, undisturbed life she had known before, when walking in God’s way in the manner of her parents seemed a certain and unchanging thing.
‘Father wants us home,’ she said quietly. ‘We can’t just stay here with Uncle and Aunt for ever. And I have to make things right with him.’
‘He needs to apologize,’ Annie said. ‘Where is his admission of wrongdoing? Believing that hypocrite, that monster, instead of you!’
Annie, with her truth-telling, always seemed to manage to probe at Margaret’s sorest parts, at the feelings to which she did not want to admit. That her father, until now Godlike in her eyes, had betrayed her, she still could not bear. She bowed her head.
‘Annie, just be quiet – please.’
Long after Annie was asleep that night, Margaret lay in the dark, afraid to close her eyes because that was when it started. Not dreams exactly, for she was still wide awake, but images crowding in.
Even with her eyes open she could not prevent it. For months, Charles Barber had occupied her mind, waking and often sleeping as well. He had turned his attention on her and she had felt honoured and chosen. She had felt loved.
Most days, for an hour or sometimes more, they would walk together, along the river and up the surrounding hills. She trotted alongside his striding figure, tingling with excitement at being by his side. Villagers touched their caps, people greeted them. It had become very obvious that Pastor Hanson’s eldest daughter was walking out with the assistant, Charles Barber. What an energetic and exciting young man he was, the other Congregationalists said. Marvellous to see young Maggie Hanson recovered at last.
Charles drew her out of herself by talking. He had a sweeping vision of God’s plan, both for the world and for himself. He cast aside her doubts and filled her with excitement.
One damp winter morning they had gone together to visit an old lady called Mrs Orchard, who was dying. Her daughter had been very distressed. Charles prayed with old Mrs Orchard while Margaret sat with the daughter and listened to her sorrows. From where they were sitting, by a smoking fire, she could just see Charles in the next-door room of the tiny, brick-floored cottage. He was leaning forward, murmuring prayers. She was conscious of him, of his voice, every second of the time, as if they were joined by an emotional thread. She had a strong feeling that she was destined to be at his side, as if their lives could never now be separated.
In the afternoon they took their walk. They stood watching golden willow leaves floating along the river’s glassy surface. Charles had a gentle smile on his face, as if he could see everything, was sure of everything. She was very conscious of him beside her: male, strange, fascinating, his black boots very large beside her button-up brown ones as they stood together on the bank. Being close to him had given her a whole new sense of her body – her femaleness, the melting excitement he could arouse in her.
‘Don’t heed those whisperings of the devil,’ he said to her, suddenly.
Margaret was startled. She had been thinking about boots and the sweep of his coat and how nicely it hung; of the masculine form that stood beneath that coat . . . She looked up at him, trying to appear as if her thoughts had been rather more theological.
Charles turned to her, looking intensely down at her.
‘If I ever saw a woman chosen by God it’s you, Margaret. The ways of the Lord are always narrow. People – ungodly people at least – think we’re fools or obsessives. But we know, don’t we, the calling of the Lord in every atom of our bodies? You and I, together – we can move mountains.’
His gaze blazed at her. Her cheeks flushed and she felt a thrilling, shameful sensation of heat in the private parts of her body. She was astounded at what he seemed to see in her. There she was, a frail girl, soon to be nineteen years old, while he was closer to thirty, yet he appeared to view her as a grown woman and his – if not equal – at least potential helpmeet. Under this gaze she knew she had begun to grow, to feel herself older and more substantial.
Another afternoon, bright and crisp, he was in a less earnest mood. They tramped up the hill looking down on the valley and when they had looked from the top, over the frosty woods and fields, Charles seemed in a wild, energetic mood. Suddenly he took her hand and said, ‘Come on – let’s run!’
He set off, tugging her hand and she dragging behind until her legs found their rhythm, dodging hummocks of grass, trying to stay upright and not slip. She was frightened but exhilarated, almost flying in a way she had not done for years, the downhill running almost effortless until they were going so fast she was veering out of control.
‘Stop!’ she gasped, laughing so much she felt she might become hysterical, as if something was trying to break its way out of her chest. ‘Stop – we’ll fall! I can’t breathe!’
‘You won’t fall – I shan’t let you!’ he shouted, grasping her hand more firmly as she panted and gasped, and at last, as the hill bottomed out, they slowed to a walk, their breath gusting white on the air. She felt uplifted, in a heavenly state of happiness and excitement.
‘Oh,’ Charles cried, laughing, ‘it’s a marvellous thing to be outside! I can’t stand being cooped up inside for long.’
When they reached the stile, he said, ‘Come – up here.’ He handed her up the step, then commanded, ‘Stop! Turn around, dear Margaret. That’s right. Now sit on it and face me. That’s right – one ankle crossing the other . . .’
Feeling slightly foolish she obeyed, humouring him as if posing for a photograph, though there was no camera.
‘So lovely – that green scarf against your hair. So fine.’
After staring at her for what became an uncomfortably long time, so that she started to fidget because she felt silly, he stepped up on to the stile, suddenly very close. His eyes bored into her.
‘My goodness, my dear, you are so lovely.’
She was leaning back a little, startled. Charles, who was not wearing gloves, laid his hand against her cheek. It was surprisingly warm. He tilted her face up towards him. Her gasp was stifled as his lips joined forcibly with hers and she realized to her horror that his tongue was beginning to push between her lips. She was paralysed with confusion. What in heaven’s name was he doing?
And as suddenly he pulled back, his eyes burning into her. She sat trembling, looking back at him.
‘You have never been kissed before?’ he said, and there was something in the way he said it that sounded pleased. He watched her. ‘You did not know . . . ?’
She shook her head, her pulse forcing hot blood into her cheeks. Was that kissing? All she had ever seen between her parents was a chaste kiss on the cheek.
‘My dear girl, how sweet you are,’ he said. He seemed about to say more, but he lowered his eyes and drew back abruptly, stepping down to the ground. ‘Climb over,’ he said, suddenly curt.
From then he was silent, seeming moody, and for Margaret the afternoon was spoilt. She felt she had done something wrong, but did not know what it was.
As she lay in bed that night she tried to train her thoughts away from him, from the excitement that had risen in her body when he came close to her. He gave off a feeling of pent-up desire that became more and more unmistakeable . . .
Blushing with shame, she forced her mind to pray . . . If she did not, she knew where her thoughts would go, their steps taking her across the yard behind the church that evening, into the darkness which followed.