‘We’re in luck!’ he cried, as they hurried down the steps to the platform.
Steam was hissing from the huge locomotive waiting behind them and a sleeve of smoke hung in the air. Along with the other hurrying passengers, they made their way to the small carriages which ran along a corridor.
Charles ushered her into one of them and they settled side by side, Margaret sinking into a seat next to the window, still holding the packet of bread and cheese from Aunt Hatt. The compartment filled up and moments later the engine shrieked and there came the whoomping sound of it getting up steam and they eased off along the platform. Charles stood to remove his coat and flung it up on to the luggage rack.
‘Yours?’ He held out his hand.
‘I’m still chilly,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep it on for now, thank you.’
As he stood there close to her, reaching up, she remembered him acutely, his figure, the strong legs which had always walked so urgently beside her. She remembered the way he had held her in the early days, their first timid kisses. A pang of confused longing and dread went through her. As if sensing her thoughts, Charles looked down at her between his arms. He gave her a long, meaningful look which went right through her. Without removing his gaze, he sank down beside her again.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he said. He spoke softly, for only her to hear, but her face coloured and she looked round at the other half-dozen people sitting with them. The couple opposite were quite elderly and still fussing over their things. Beside them was a woman with two young children and on the other side of Charles sat a man hidden behind a newspaper. She could tell none of them were eavesdropping but their presence did make it difficult to talk.
Charles turned towards her a fraction, as if to enclose them in a cocoon of privacy. His closeness brought him back to her even more: the way his thick hair lay across his forehead, the beard, neatly trimmed, and the way his eyes, tawny in this light, seemed to look deeply into her. His mouth was curved upwards, amiably. She felt the hairs rise on her flesh. She was here again, with him, with his intense look that seemed to gather her up and carry her along with him, as if there was nowhere and no one else in the world. Charles, the real Charles whom she remembered. Then for a second she recalled his face, the feverish, terrible way it had changed on that night, and a shudder went through her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, full of concern.
‘Yes.’ To distract him, she handed him Aunt Hatt’s package. ‘Perhaps you could put that up as well?’ She eyed the rack. ‘Until we want it?’
He nodded politely and did as she asked, before sitting again, and in those seconds she calmed herself, straining for a balance. All she was doing here, with him, was taking this brief opportunity for explanation and apology, for healing. That was all. She thought of Philip, the loving look in his eyes, but at this moment he belonged to another world. First, she had to do this – the old world had to be settled.
‘So,’ Charles said pleasantly. ‘How have you been spending your time in Birmingham? Your aunt seems a very nice person.’
‘She is,’ Margaret said, relaxing a fraction at this positive appraisal. ‘And Uncle Eb. They’ve been kinder than we could have expected. I’ve been working in the office with Aunt Hatt. I’ve learned such a lot about the business and all the things they make. You should see Uncle Eb’s workshop – the “shopping”, he calls it – at the back. It looks all grimy and workmanlike and the men in there hammer and drill away and work with chemicals that burn your nostrils. And then, out of the end of all that come these things which are so fine, so beautiful! It’s astonishing.’
He was watching her, listening, eyes gleaming with a certain amusement at her enthusiasm.
‘And Annie – has she been working there too?’
‘Annie?’ She laughed, feeling more at ease now they could talk the way they used to. There was a pleasure in simply talking to someone who knew her and her family well. ‘You know how headstrong she is. During the first week she went off and got herself a job at one of the pen factories. I mean, they make pen nibs – thousands and thousands every week. There are a great many factories making them in the district – some of them very famous, like Gillott’s. You must have heard of them? Between them they provide the means for people to write, all over the world! You’ve no idea how complicated it is making a pen nib. Or at least –’ she corrected herself – ‘I had no idea before I came here. Anyway, Annie – in the interest of the Lord’s mission in our great cities, you know what she’s like – wanted to see how it is to work in a factory. To see what people’s lives are like. And she’s been there ever since.’
‘I imagine it must be gruelling,’ Charles said.
‘Oh, it is. I should never have survived it. They’re there from morning ’til night on those presses, banging out bits of metal at an astonishing rate. Annie says there are some ladies there over seventy years of age, still working. They’re very tough – but then so, it seems, is Annie. And she has involved herself with helping various people . . .’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that Annie, at least, is so devoted to God’s work,’ he replied. Margaret was taken aback, thinking she heard a barb of sarcasm in his voice, but he was still smiling and she was left confused. Darkness invaded her mood for a moment and she pulled herself up short. The Charles who had attacked her, who had tried to . . . do those unspeakable things to her. Where was he? Was there to be an apology? But she could see that here, in this quiet crush of people, there would be no opportunity.
They were leaving Birmingham, green fields all around. She sat back and took a breath.
‘How long does it take to reach Banbury?’ she asked.
‘An hour or so, I believe,’ he said.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing it.’ As she spoke she wondered why she felt the need to appease him, as if she, somehow, had long ago slipped into the wrong and been the cause of all their troubles. ‘Your new church. Will you be the sole incumbent?’
‘No.’ He looked down, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice, and his face pulled into an angry frown. ‘They have not seen fit to do me that honour. In fact, I am to work with two others.’ He gave a stiff smile. ‘We all have to serve our apprenticeship, even those of us not working in the more material trades. Mine, it seems, is to be prolonged.’
Silence fell for a moment. Charles adjusted himself in his seat. He seemed preoccupied. She wondered whether he was feeling the weight of his conscience.
‘Do tell me,’ she said, ‘about home.’ Swallowing her hurt, she said at last, ‘Tell me about Father. About the work. The Lord’s work.’ The words felt rusty in her mouth and she realized, with something that was almost panic, how little she had been talking about these things lately.
Charles also sat back, giving the impression of being appeased by this. As they journeyed south, stopping at Warwick and Leamington Spa, he gave her news of their little church. Though he talked about their work in the village, the progress of the word under himself and her father as shepherds of the flock, she thought she heard a bitter edge to his voice, a touch almost of scorn. She realized that he had been hoping for more, to be sent back to a large mission in one of the great cities – Birmingham, Manchester or London. And it had been decided that these were not the right places for him. Who had said what to whom? she wondered. Had her father, although not able to confront the truth directly with her, spoken to someone, hinted, or more than hinted, at Charles’s lingering instability?
The more he talked, the more she felt an attitude of disapproval towards her coming from him. So, to convince him that she had not spent her time in Birmingham mixed up only in worldly matters of commerce, she told him about the Pooles.
Charles shook his head on hearing this, in a manner of pastoral sadness and concern.
‘The life of the poor is endlessly hard,’ he said. ‘It is our task and our mission field.’
‘At least at home people can more easily keep livestock and grow a little something,’ she said, wanting to impress her new knowledge upon him. ‘In the quarter where the Pooles live, the houses are in a most dire state, all crammed together amid smoke and fumes, and there’s not a house which has running water and scarcely a blade of grass or a garden to be seen. Although –’ she smiled – ‘there is a man in the next court of houses to the Pooles, who somehow manages to keep a pig!’
Charles smiled politely. ‘Gracious me. Though I did see such things when I worked in the city myself.’
‘Of course,’ she said, still trying to appease him. ‘You have had so many experiences of ministry.’
‘Not enough, apparently, to warrant having my own congregation.’ The bitterness was now very clear.
‘Oh, Charles, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know that’s what you would most like. Perhaps they think you need one more stage of preparation before being given such a heavy responsibility?’
‘There are those younger than me charged with greater responsibilities,’ he said sulkily.
‘But you were unwell. You . . .’ She stopped. ‘You were not fit.’ It sounded too cruel. But she felt for him, felt his misery and sense of disgrace, when she knew him to be gifted and devoted. And yet . . . How could such a man, a man who had attacked her, be allowed to . . .
All the darkest of thoughts invaded her mind. Thoughts she had forced away, tried to deny. The things her father had said, his blame of her . . . It was she who had been made into the problem! In a career otherwise unblemished, it had only been with her that Charles had run aground. Only with her – because of something in her – had he become an animal who could not be trusted. A twisted, self-hating sense of guilt welled in her. The curse of Eve! Father said . . . He said she was to blame . . . In those moments, she was infected with self-disgust . . . But then had there not been a mention of something else happening – another incident . . . ? She had never been told what.
‘Ah, well – yes,’ he was saying. ‘It’s true – I was a little exhausted.’
He became gentle suddenly, smiling again, touching her hand for a moment. ‘I have to remind myself not to be impatient. Or ambitious, for that matter. The Lord sees and measures our achievements very differently from the world.’
‘Yes, indeed – though I’m sure He sees your dedication,’ she said. The words sounded trite, even to her.
Charles glanced out of the window. There was the beginning of a town. Turning to her, he spoke very softly. ‘It would all be so much easier to bear if I had you at my side, as before.’ He looked down, apparently tormented and contrite. ‘Margaret, my dear Margaret,’ he murmured softly. ‘I know I have wronged you. I have caused hurt and confusion between yourself and your father. I . . .’
A spasm of pain passed over his face. ‘I still do not know of what I am accused. I woke and found myself lying in a bed in your house and since then all has been confusion and desolation. Whatever it is – I . . . I regret to the very heart of my being that I have no memory of it.’
They were moving so close to it, to that night, and her pulse was uncomfortably fast, blood banging in her ears. Rage boiled up in her. Rage and shame and confusion. Not remember? Had the blow Annie gave him genuinely injured his memory? How could he not remember? And if he did not remember, how could he take responsibility?
‘I don’t . . .’ she began to say. But the pound of her blood, the distraught tears which wanted to pour from her, her longing to beg him to remember, to apologize properly, to be honest and true, all stopped her speech.
She put her hands over her face, so that the slowing of the train, the stirring of the other passengers and their reaching to find their belongings was all lost to her. She had no idea whether they could hear her and Charles’s conversation, but it seemed not to matter. It was as if there was no one but him; he was sliding through her thoughts, possessing her as he had before, and she longed with all her soul somehow to make things right.
‘Margaret – my dear . . .’ He sounded distraught. ‘Please, say you forgive me – for whatever I have done.’
She removed her hands from her face, wiping her eyes, about to say, How can I forgive you, if you say you do not know what you have done? But as she surfaced, hands limp in her lap, she realized that the train was sliding to a halt. Charles, his eyes boring into hers, grasped one of her hands, pressing it so tightly that she flinched.
The train jerked, brakes screeching, to a standstill, and a voice outside called, ‘Banbury!’
‘Oh!’ she said, thrown into panic. ‘We’re here, look. We must get off!’ She looked round, trying to gather their things. The mother and two children were already stepping out into the corridor.
But he gripped her hand harder. The look in his eyes had changed. There was something cold and forcing, which chilled its way through her. They needed to move, to get off the train . . .
‘No,’ he said, in a soft, smooth voice which was quite unlike the chill look in his eyes. ‘Not here.’ He tightened his grip another fraction on her hand. She let out a small sound of pain and he relaxed the hold again slightly. ‘Now, don’t go making a silly lot of noise. Just be sensible. We are going to go a little further, that’s all. There’s someone I want you to meet.’