It has been two weeks now since we returned from Bath, and there have been some changes. The routine of the day is the same, the work is the same and the meals on the table are the same. All that hasn’t changed. But it is all better somehow. I feel as though I truly belong. It was my destiny to come here. Our Beloved called to me and I came.
He asks to see me every day now. I go to him in the red room, most often. He spends long hours writing his sermons and he likes to read them out loud to me. ‘You understand me so well, Alice,’ he always says.
It is a wonder to me to know that I will never die, nor suffer grief or sickness, because the Lord has come in his own person to redeem my flesh. That is what Our Beloved tells me every day. And I believe him.
He takes me with him when he journeys out into the world to preach his sermons. We have been to Taunton, to the port of Watchet and along the coast to the town of Minehead. I have never seen anywhere so pretty as Minehead. We stood on a pebbled beach looking out across the great expanse of water that Our Beloved told me was the Bristol Channel, which flowed into the great North Atlantic Ocean, and I felt as though I was standing on the edge of the world. We brought a lady back with us from Minehead. She is a widow named Martha Wright. She was moved to tears by Our Beloved. She said she had seen the light and has promised to sell the house she was left by her late husband.
I have learned my proper place now, and I always stand by his side and never speak to the crowds. ‘If they have heard me,’ Our Beloved says, ‘then they will come to me of their own accord.’
Glory gave birth today: to a boy. Our Beloved has named him Power. Agatha assisted in the birth. ‘Slipped out easy, like a little piglet,’ she told us as she washed her bloodied hands at the sink.
We celebrated at chapel. Mrs Holloway (with the buttonhole lips) thumped extra hard on the organ and we sang until we thought the stained glass windows would shatter. Our Beloved sang the praises of his new son and also of our newest member, Martha Wright, from Minehead. With her kind donations, he said, a new carriage was to be purchased, the Queen’s old equipage no less, and four new horses. For the Lord should travel to spread the word in the finest comfort. Then we all sang ‘Hail to the King of Kings’ until our throats were sore.
Afterwards, we feasted together in the great dining hall of the mansion. There were roast meats and fruits and jellies of all colours. We sat with the ladies and Our Beloved, all as one, and drank to his health with rivers of wine. Only after Our Beloved had retired and the ladies had drifted away to their rooms, did we have to begin our work again.
But it is all done now, and we are back at the cottage resting our weary feet. Agatha has supped too much wine and is goading us into singing again. There is much laughter and warmth. I sit in a chair in the corner and I watch it all. I hug myself tight because I cannot believe how happy I am.
My only sadness is Beth. She is still so cold with me. No matter how often I tell her that Our Beloved cares for us all, she still looks at me with disdain in her eyes. And every night she sleeps with her back to me.
Tonight, as I climb into bed next to her, I try again. ‘It has been a wonderful day, hasn’t it?’ I say. ‘Are you not happy that we have another child among us now?’ But she doesn’t answer. And when I wake, much later, in the thick of the night, I hear her quietly sobbing.