Page 136 of The Armor of Light

Outside the building, Spade said: ‘You were absolutely magnificent in there!’

Sal was no longer concerned about her own performance. ‘Hornbeam is completely stubborn, isn’t he?’

‘I’m afraid he is.’

‘So there has to be a strike.’

‘So be it,’ said Spade.

20

INARABELLA’S GARDENthe prickly bush of the Scotch rose – always the first to bloom – had produced a snowstorm of fragile white flowers with yellow hearts. Elsie sat on a wooden bench, breathing the cool, damp air of early morning, with her two-year-old son, Stevie, on her knee. He had ginger hair that must have come from Arabella, his grandmother, bypassing dark-haired Elsie. Together Elsie and Stevie watched Arabella, kneeling on the ground in her apron, pulling weeds and dropping them into a basket. Arabella loved her rose garden. In the years since she had started it she had seemed happier – more energetic, yet calmer.

Stevie was named Stephen after his grandfather, the bishop. Elsie had nursed a secret desire to call him Amos, but had not been able to think of a plausible pretext. Now he wriggled in Elsie’s grasp, wanting to help his grandmother. Elsie put him down and he toddled to Arabella. ‘Don’t touch the bushes, they have thorns,’ Elsie said. He immediately grasped a twig, hurt his hand, burst into tears, and came running back to her. ‘You should listen to Mummy!’ she said.

Arabella said quietly: ‘Just like Mummy never did.’

Elsie laughed. It was true.

Arabella said: ‘How are things at your school?’

‘It’s such an exciting time,’ Elsie said.

It was no longer just a Sunday school. All the children who worked in Hornbeam’s mills were now on strike, so Elsie was giving lessons every day. The parents sent the children to school for the free dinner.

‘This is such a great chance for us,’ Elsie enthused. ‘It’s the only time these children will ever be in full-time education, so we must make the most of it. I was afraid my supporters would say it’s too much work, but they have all rallied round, bless them. Pastor Midwinter is teaching every day.’

There was a pause in the conversation, then Elsie said: ‘Mother, I’m pretty sure I’m expecting another child.’

‘How wonderful!’ Arabella put down her trowel, stood up, and hugged her daughter. ‘Perhaps it will be a girl this time. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

‘Yes, though I really don’t mind.’

‘What would you call a girl?’

‘Arabella, of course.’

‘Your father might want Martha. That was his mother’s name.’

‘I won’t fight him.’ After a moment Elsie added: ‘Not about that, anyway.’

Arabella knelt down again and resumed weeding. She was in reflective mood. ‘It seems to have been a fertile spring,’ she mused.

Elsie was not sure what she meant. ‘One pregnancy doesn’t make a fertile spring.’

‘Oh!’ said her mother, vaguely embarrassed. ‘I...I was thinking of the garden.’

‘The Scotch roses have put on a lovely show this year.’

‘That’s what I meant.’

Elsie felt that her mother was hiding something. And, now that she came to think of it, she got this feeling more often nowadays. There had been a time when they told each other everything. Arabella knew all about Elsie’s hopeless love for Amos. But Arabella had become less confiding. Elsie wondered why.

Before she could probe further her husband, Kenelm, appeared, washed and shaved and full of bustling efficiency.

Elsie and Kenelm were still living at the palace. There was plentyof room, and it was more comfortable than any house Kenelm could afford on his salary as the bishop’s aide.

Elsie had learned, in three years of marriage, that Kenelm’s great strength was assiduousness. He did everything meticulously. His work for her father was done promptly and carefully, and the bishop could hardly praise him enough. Kenelm was dutiful with their child, too. Each evening he knelt with Stevie beside the child’s bed and said a prayer; though otherwise he never spoke to the boy. Elsie had seen other fathers toss their children in the air and catch them, making them squeal with delight; but that kind of thing was too undignified for Kenelm. Sex was another duty he performed conscientiously – once a week, on Saturday night. They both enjoyed it, even though it was always the same.