The sky is a pale navy with the first flicker of stars in its depths as the procession makes its way out of the church and back towards the house, then down the driveway to where the high wrought-iron gates are firmly closed. The Beloved marches at its head, his faithful following and singing loudly as they go. Letty is half dragged along at the back by her two hostile Angels, who are clearly of the mind that the Beloved will look kindly on ill treatment.
‘Stop pinching, can’t you? I can walk perfectly well if you’ll only let me,’ Letty snaps, and the girls are cowed by her tone, but only for a moment. She realises that it must be after six o’clock. She was supposed to be at the gates to meet Archer, but everything that’s happened has driven it from her mind. As they advance upon the gates, Letty cranes her neck and sees that a makeshift barricade has been built by means of driving the old cart against the gates and surrounding it with bits of old furniture, cart wheels and assorted rubbish. Why a pile of old junk should be any more protecting than stout iron gates, Letty can’t imagine, but the gardener stands ready for action, a rake in one hand and a shovel in the other, while Dickie the errand boy dances around in a state of high excitement shouting, ‘They’re nearly here!’
Is Arthur there? she wonders. Is he waiting for me? How will I get to him? She longs desperately to see him. If he only spots her, he’ll get her away from here in a moment. But how will he, in this crowd?
Now, above the sound of singing and the toot of the Redeemed’s trumpets, Letty thinks she can hear another sound, a kind of roar that is getting louder and louder. Another procession is heading to meet them, and Letty can see the flicker of torches held high above a snaking mass of bodies.
‘Pray, dear ones!’ yells the Beloved. ‘Pray and sing! We have divine protection, and no one may harm us!’
The faithful sing with more gusto than ever, though one or two faces betray anxiety when they catch a wisp of sound: ferocious chants and angry yells growing in strength every moment.
Letty tries to shake off one of the Angels, who is singing loudly but tunelessly and is clearly losing interest in her charge. ‘Let go, can’t you? I won’t run off.’ Just then, she spots Kitty standing close by, lifting up on tiptoe to gaze anxiously at the gates. ‘Kitty, Kitty! Can you see what’s happening? Tell me what’s going on.’
Kitty turns to look at her with frightened eyes, the trial forgotten for now. ‘Oh miss, can you hear them? What can they be wanting with us?’
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Letty reassures her. ‘It’s the people from the village. We’ve known them all our lives. They won’t hurt us.’
‘But they’re in a frenzy, can’t you hear them? There’s been some terrible lies, terrible! They say we have wild beasts in the grounds to eat intruders, and that there’s a huge revolving table in the church where the Beloved selects a woman to be his bride for the week. They say we do wicked, immoral things. It’s not true! Not a word.’
‘You’re right, it’s not true,’ Letty says grimly. ‘But there’s enough strangeness here to feed rumours like that.’
Kitty shuts her eyes. ‘We must pray for protection.’
Letty thinks. It is hard to imagine the local people, most of whom she’s known all her life, doing any real harm to the souls here. When they find it’s mostly old ladies, no harem of virgins or public deflowerings to be seen, surely they’ll calm down. But, she realises, it isn’t the lurid rumours that have caused this protest. Those have been circulating for a long time without much more than stretched eyes and prurient outrage to show for it. No. It is the Beloved they want. Perhaps they’ve heard about Emily and the lake. They most certainly have read the report in the paper. It is the blasphemy and hypocrisy they hate. That is what they are here to destroy.
The sound from beyond the gates is getting louder – the shouts and cries of the mob, working itself up into a righteous anger. They are close now, she guesses.
Suddenly she hears the booming voice of the Beloved. ‘Come, all ye who have ears! Come and heed the word!’
‘It’s him!’ cries Kitty, her eyes shining. ‘He will show them the way!’
Suddenly it is there: a twisting, rolling mass standing at the gates, shaking them so that the bolts rattle and shriek, yelling and shouting in fury. Torches cast an eerie glow over the mob, illuminating faces twisted with rage, mouths open and shouting. There seem to be hundreds of people whistling, calling, howling, deriding the Beloved with open jeers.
‘Come out and tell us all about the word!’ calls one man. ‘We can’t wait to hear it! Come on then!’
‘Come and do some of your miracles for us!’
‘Yes, let’s see you walk on the lake, shall we?’
‘Or let us break your legs, then you’ll see if you can rise up and walk!’
In the darkness, Kitty clutches at Letty. ‘They’re monsters! They’ll tear us limb from limb!’
‘Surely not,’ she says, but she is frightened. She’s never seen a crowd enraged and felt the power of its fury. Some men are trying to climb the gates and Letty sees now that the makeshift barricade is a useful mound to leap for, an easy ladder down on the other side.
We’re not prepared for all this! We’re only a lot of little old ladies singing! Can’t they see?
But just at that moment, the most vicious of the Angels digs hard fingers into her arm. ‘Happy now?’ she demands. ‘Now that your friends are here?’
‘They’re not my friends.’
‘Likely story! You’re the viper in the bosom around here. Our Jonah. You’re bringing this evil on us!’ All their fear and distrust seems to shine out of her angry eyes.
‘Now, girls,’ Kitty says in a tremulous voice. ‘We need to stick together. Let the Beloved deal with her, she’s his kin.’
‘We ought to do something before they break in and take her,’ says the Angel, hardly listening to Kitty.
The Beloved stands near the gates – although not near enough for any missiles to hit him – and lifts his hands high, declaiming about the word and the will and the plan in all his familiar language, the rhetoric that usually serves him so well, but it only enrages those who hear him and sets them jeering harder and louder. More boys are trying to shin up the gates; one is bound to succeed, even with the gardener valiantly pushing them back with the rake. There is noise and tumult and confusion and nothing seems likely to break through it until, suddenly, a loud clanging is heard above the commotion with a voice yelling, ‘Stop, stop, I say!’
There is a sudden sinking of the noise and the tones are heard again, strong and clear.
‘Stop this madness!’
‘It’s Arthur!’ Letty says with delight. Now she can make him out, standing close against the gates, facing the angry crowd, a dustbin lid in one hand and a hammer in the other which he’s been using to make the din.
‘Quiet, I say!’ he commands, and there is a hush. Even the Beloved stops declaiming, and the hymn singing fades away to one or two reedy voices. ‘This has gone too far! You can certainly make known your displeasure, but let’s not go so far as to threaten these people. Most mean no harm. And violence is no answer!’
There’s an angry murmur but Arthur quietens it down. ‘Please, be calm. The police will soon be here – I’m told the force has been dispatched from Goreham – and you’ll be on the wrong side of them. You are good, law-abiding people! You have made your feelings known. Now, go home.’
There is a pause, a murmur. Calm seems close to being restored.
Then, into the relative peace, a voice rips out, fierce, uncompromising.
‘I am the way!’ booms the Beloved. ‘Only by me shall you see salvation! Only the elect shall be saved, and ye chaff and rubbish shall be cast into the fire!’
It is all it takes. The passion of the mob is reignited, more furious than ever. Men scramble for the gates, Arthur’s shouts lost in the melee. The Beloved cries, ‘Brothers and sisters, to the church!’ and the next moment all of the faithful turn on their heels and run, heading for the safety of the high walls and strong doors of the church. They stream around Letty, as she fights to stand still and not be taken off with them.
‘Arthur!’ she shouts. ‘I’m here! Arthur!’
Her guards have gone. Kitty has disappeared. The gardener cannot hold back the onslaught any longer, and the first intruder drops to the ground inside the gates, then turns to start unbolting them.
Then an iron grip seizes her arm. ‘Come with me,’ murmurs a steely voice, and Letty looks up into the icy-blue eyes of the Beloved.
‘Let me go!’ she cries. ‘Arthur!’
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ The Beloved yanks her roughly and drags her after him as he heads in the opposite direction to the church.
‘Arthur!’ she screams, but no one can hear her against the noise. She cannot prevent herself being dragged away.
A moment later, they are skirting the east wing of the house, and the noise level drops at once.
‘Let me go,’ Letty pants, her arm painful in the Beloved’s grip.
‘I’ve had enough of you and the trouble you make,’ snarls the Beloved, pulling her roughly along. ‘If you think I’m letting you out to ferment and stir against me out there, and spoil all we have here, you are quite, quite wrong. You will have to learn to accept your place. Your spirit will be broken and you will learn to accept your fate.’
On the last word, he pulls open the door to the old stable, the one used only for storing packing cases and bits of rubbish. Then, with a great shove, he pushes Letty inside. She trips and sprawls on the floor, finding herself in a pile of straw and filth. Before she can speak, he has slammed shut the door and she hears the iron bolt shoot home.
She looks up helplessly at the door, panting, her arm throbbing where it has been gripped hard. ‘Let me out!’ she shouts, but she knows it’s hopeless. All eyes will be on the gates and on the church, where the mob might already be gathering. She scrambles up and shakes at the door but it’s firmly locked on the outside, so she looks about instead for a window she might crawl through, or perhaps a loose plank in the wall she can prise out, but it is almost entirely dark now, and she cannot make out much at all.
She yells and shouts for what seems like a long time, but guesses that with the noise and trouble outside, no one will hear her. Then she smells it. Her nose wrinkles and she sniffs. It’s unmistakable.
Smoke.
She sniffs again and it is stronger now, getting stronger every second. Then she realises with horror that the stables are on fire.
Is he burning me? Is that his plan?
Surely not. Surely the Beloved is not capable of that! But . . . he wants Letty gone. This way, her money will go to Arabella. She will cause no more trouble for him. Her death will be blamed on the mob.
Panic floods through her. The smoke is growing stronger still, visible now as grey skeins in the gloom. She shakes the door again and shouts. ‘Help! Help! Fire!’
The blaze must be catching fast, though she cannot see flames. The stable is filling with the thick black smothering smoke. Letty starts to cough, her eyes sting. ‘Help!’ she yells again, but her voice comes weak and strained from the smoke in her throat. ‘Please!’
She turns to look for another way out, but now the stable is a mass of dense smoke with a bright heart where, she realises, the far wall is now in flames. It’s too late to leave by any other way. Her eyes are streaming, she’s gasping and choking. Turning back to the door, she bangs again, her fists weak on the wood. She knows now that the smoke will take her long before the flames. The air is almost gone already. She slumps against the door, her eyes screwed shut, gasping. She begins to pray in the way she did so long ago, before the Beloved appeared in their lives. It is all she can think to do.
Then, just as she hardly knows any longer what is happening, she tastes the sweetest thing she has ever known. Fresh cool air is on her face, in her lungs. The door has opened, she has fallen out onto the path, and a soft hand is on her cheek.
‘Come, Letty,’ says a voice, low and urgent. ‘We must go at once. The fire has taken hold.’
Letty looks through swollen lids and reddened eyes. It is Arabella.