God's Country

Part Three

'The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure."

John Locke

Charles Buckingham sat beside the River Meade, deep in thought, with David Harrington's relatively short summary document open in his lap. He had already read through its twenty pages three times, as well as struggling through the one hundred and fifty pages of Michael Winstanley's original manuscript twice. His scribbled notes filled almost every inch of white space on David's version, but he paused in some surprise. He felt the sudden need to take stock, because he had fully expected to disagree with much more of it, if not all of it, if he was honest. But there was something about the underlying message, about the theme, that he closely identified with, and that made him start to question his own motives. He knew that he was desperate. His political career, the only career he had or wanted, was in tatters and his personal life was a mess of monumental proportions. So as soon as someone tossed him a bone, a chance to start again, however unlikely it was, he was obviously sorely tempted to grab it, regardless of the gory details. He was surely fooling himself, clutching at straws like an addict going cold turkey. But then again the offer was still unbelievably tempting purely in financial terms. He was blithely ignoring minor issues like his personal credibility for the sake of an outrageous salary package and the slimmest of chances that he might one day get back to where he still believed he belonged, and deserved to be.

And yet, however unreliable, his instincts were telling him that there really was something there. He tried to make himself see sense, going back over the money being dangled before him like a bribe, and the fact that he was not earning anything else, not to mention the sheer security and stability accepting the offer would give him and Elizabeth, but he just kept on coming back to the underlying message beneath the opaque Christian veneer. It was extreme in many ways. Neither Michael Winstanley's original or David Harrington's summary were fit for circulation outside of the Church elders in their current forms, but regardless of that there was something meaningful there. He was not just thinking that to cover himself against the feeling that he was selling his soul, if not to the devil then to something else he could not quite bring himself to describe. Sitting back against the hard wood of his riverside bench he watched the slow water drift by and remembered telling Elizabeth that David Harrington and his friends were fanatics. But the more he thought about what Harrington was trying to say he found himself rewording the arguments, testing the ideas, breaking down the meat of things into manageable bites. It really did hang together. He tried it all from yet another angle, doing his best to think like a socialist, or even a liberal, imagining all the objections any opposition would surely raise. And it still worked; it still seemed like a plausible alternative. He could not get past the overriding sensation that he had something important in his hands, if he could just find a way so that people could appreciate its merits.

He picked the pages up again, feeling the light summer breeze on his face, and made one more attempt to smother his doubts. He had his own faith and maybe God had sent him there for a reason, to do something no one else could or would do. He had to empty his mind of his own problems, and his own beliefs, and focus on the words, on the plan, and then maybe he would see the light.

'The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.'

Galileo Galilei

"Only takes about an hour or so...and whilst I am moulding everything in this nifty little machine, my hygienist will give all those pretty teeth a really good clean for you, Miss Buckingham." Meadvale's resident dentist, Dr Donovan, smiled warmly as he took the key from Miss Scott's gloved hand and inserted it into Elizabeth's muzzle. It was another surreal experience. Henrietta and Georgina had been left in the waiting room, sitting side by side still dressed in their cloaks and bonnets, but the guardian had actually added another layer to each of them, which looked like a small blanket but was described as a blinding mantle by Miss Scott, who gave Beth a running commentary. Having already taken their voices and denied them the use of their hands, not to mention restricting their mobility, the guardian calmly removed what was left of her charges sight and left them to pray to themselves, ardently earning God's love whilst she accompanied Elizabeth in to see Dr Donovan. Once in his consulting room, Beth's cloak, bonnet and veils were gently removed and she was helped to settle in the dentist's chair. And she definitely needed assistance because it was not at all easy to sit in her gown, hampered by her tight corset and the shaping plastic cage. But Miss Scott was obviously quite accustomed to handling maidens and she soon got Beth into the right position, so that the chair could be reclined to get her into position so that Dr Donovan could work on her, starting with the removal of her borrowed muzzle.