It is still dark when I wake. But when I look out of the attic window, I see a smear of light across the horizon and know it is time to leave. I dress in my clean mourning gown and leave the wool dress folded on the stool. I creep down the stairs and into the kitchen. There is the remains of a loaf of bread on the table. I hope George and Ada won’t mind if I take it with me. It is a sin to steal, I know. But where I am going, I will be forgiven for it all.
As I close the farmhouse door behind me, I dare to wish for George and Ada to always be happy. It is the smallest of wishes. It is a good wish; a simple wish and I hope with all my heart that no harm will come of it.
I walk briskly, keeping to the fields and hedgerows that flank the Bristol Road. I wonder if anybody is out looking for me. Eli, or Dr Fox and Mrs Abbot. I wonder if anybody has bothered to look for me at all. A coach rumbles past, its oil lamps still glowing in the half -light. But otherwise it is peaceful out here with just the sounds of my boots crunching on the ground and the early morning chatter of birds. It is beautiful to see the sky lift around me, like a lid taken off a cooking pot to reveal a freshly made, untouched day.
I pass derelict barns and small, tight copses, and as I walk, I try not to think of Papa or Eli, or anybody. I only think of what lies ahead and of how I will be made as clean and fresh as this new day. I stop and rest awhile by the side of a stream. I splash my face with weed-green water and eat George and Ada’s bread. George said that first evening that newspaper men from London had been to the Abode of Love. It must be a place of miracles then: a place full of love and forgiveness.
I start walking again. I am anxious now that the sun is up, and I can see the first signs of Bridgwater in the distance. It is strange to think that I have to go back to where I started, before I can begin to move on. My feet slow, but my heart starts to clatter as I spy chimney pots and wispy plumes of smoke snaking their way up into the pale blue sky. I am scared to be seen in case someone is out looking for me, so I skirt around the edges of town hoping to find a stranger who will point me on to the right road. I pass a small cottage with an old woman sitting on the doorstep. ‘Excuse me!’ I shout over to her. ‘Can you tell me the quickest way to Spaxton?’
She grins a toothless grin and waves at me.
‘The quickest way to Spaxton?’ I try again. But it is no good. She is either deaf or simple or both.
Across the lane, outside another cottage, there is a man loading sacks onto the back of a cart. His skin is leathery and brown as the earth. He eyes me as I walk towards him and for one awful moment, I think I see a glint of recognition cross his face. But it passes quickly enough and I tell myself that it is easy to see things that are not there if you go looking for them. ‘Morning, missy,’ he says to me. ‘I heard you asking old Mother over there the way to Spaxton.’
‘I … I did,’ I stammer. ‘But I don’t think she heard me.’
‘Oh, she’ll have heard you all right. Hears everything, that one does. But seeing as how she hasn’t left that cottage for going on fifty years, she wouldn’t have a clue where anywhere was. In fact, she wouldn’t have a clue where her own head was unless it was pointed out to her.’ He laughs at himself and heaves another sack onto the back of the cart.
‘And … and you, sir,’ I say. ‘Can you tell me the way?’
He laughs again. ‘Well. I ain’t never been called sir in my life! But for that,’ he says, ‘you can hop in the back and I’ll take you part-way if you like. Never had any cause to go to Spaxton meself, but I’ll drop you at the crossroads and you’ll see it’s not far from there.’
‘That would be very kind of you, sir,’ I say. ‘You see, I’m visiting my sister, and I lost my purse and … ’
‘Don’t matter to me why you’re going,’ he says. ‘Your business is yours and mine’s mine. As long as I get these taters delivered. Now stop calling me sir, and jump in the back.’
I nestle down between the sacks, feeling the warmth of the man’s kindness. I didn’t know there were people like him and George and Ada in the world, and it makes me glad that I am part of it now. The man whistles and clucks at his horse and I lie on the sacks, out of view, and watch the endless blue of the sky overhead that is varied only by the occasional smudge of a cloud or a low-hanging branch. I could stay here forever, caught between what was and what is going to be. I smile to myself to think that a cart full of potatoes is the one place that, so far in my life, I have felt the happiest.
But it ends soon enough, as the man slows his horse and the cart judders to a halt. ‘There you go, missy,’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘That’s as near as I can get you.’
I climb down from the cart and look around. There are two dusty lanes crossing each other and a thicket of trees on all sides. It is not what I expected and it feels as though we are nowhere. The cart driver clicks his tongue at his horse and waves his arm to the left. ‘Up that lane there, missy,’ he says. ‘Just keep going. You’ll get there in the end.’ Then he is gone, in a rumble of stone and dust, and I don’t even think he hears the thank you! that I call after him.
The lane is steep and narrow with high banks on either side that are shaded by a canopy of greenery. It seems to go on forever, and I am out of breath by the time the lane flattens out and winds sharply around to the left. I keep walking and the lane keeps winding, this way and that, and I just want it to end. I just want to find this place so the churning in my stomach will stop. Then at last, the lane opens up and I find myself on a quiet village green with a cluster of cottages and a low, white building with a painted sign declaring it to be The Lamb Inn. It is all so ordinary. I look about nervously. There is nothing to tell me I am in the right place.
Then the door of the inn opens and two men step outside. They eye me suspiciously and whisper to each other. ‘Lost yer way, girl?’ one of them shouts. I don’t like the way they are looking at me, as though I have done something wrong just by standing there. I carry on walking, but I can sense they are watching me and judging me. I want to shout back at them, to leave me alone, to mind their own business. But that is not me any more. That is only the girl they see with their eyes. They can’t see inside me. They can’t see how much I want to change.
Just past the inn, the lane widens and on one side is a high red-brick wall. I remember Sarah’s words: ‘He has a place in Spaxton,’ she’d said, ‘surrounded by high walls and guarded by bloodhounds.’ I am excited and eager now. The wall is almost twice my height, but I can see from the glimpses of fancy chimney pots and tiled roofs that there are buildings behind it. I come to a small wooden gate, but when I try to open it, I find it is locked. I walk on, and the wall never varies in height. I wonder what it is trying to keep in, or trying to keep out. Further along, I come to another gate, an enormous studded carriage gate with stone pillars on either side. Across the top of the gate is a row of lacy iron spears and, right in the centre is a large metal cross. I know then that I have found where I need to be.
I know I have found the Abode of Love.