God's Country

Part Thirty-Five

'Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.'

James McHenry

"From now on we are in a race." Pastor Michael Winstanley informed his congregation as he built towards a climax, standing in his magnificently carved oak pulpit and looking out over a sea of upturned faces. "Charles Buckingham needs us to galvanise local support, and this really is God's work my friends...the start of something important which we do in His name. Meadvale, our beautiful home, has been our proving ground, if you like. It is the ideal community we would like to bring to the rest of the country...but we need to reach out and show our brothers and sisters what can be achieved if they only can have the faith and the courage."

Alistair Forbes was still not sure it would ever be enough, in a Conservative heartland, but if every adult in the village canvassed for Buckingham it would be a powerful army of foot soldiers to have on their side. Seven hundred, Winstanley had promised, prepared to knock on every door in the constituency. But as much as Forbes was inspired by the integrity and the passion of his new employers, he still felt that they might need a little help to get across the line. He had some ideas, but he knew he needed to take care. He was demanding the highest possible standards from all of his candidates, so he could not afford to get caught with any blood on his hands himself, so he had to stay in the shadows.

Not that he ever intended to do otherwise. He had a chance with the Reformists, a chance he would not have got with the Conservatives for many years. But he did not like chance. He liked to tip the scales in his own favour if at all possible and he would happily do so. Charles Buckingham was a piously honourable man, but he had poached Forbes for three times his old salary because he knew he needed a Rottweiler to deal with the press and the other pond life. He would not ask too many awkward questions about how it was done, because that was the relationship between politicians and the press. Everyone leaked when it suited them and squealed like a stuck pig when it did not, and the art of the spin doctor, a term Forbes rather liked to be fair, was not to be caught by any drips. He was not sure whether he admired his new masters. He felt some warmth towards Buckingham because of his salary increase, if nothing else, and he could see some genuine political merit in a far right manifesto, which he considered Reformism to be if one took away the packaging and the froth. But he was not religious and the service was not moving him in any way. He did not need anything to believe in other than his own merit, and as always he would have to nudge the odds in his own favour if he got the chance. And he would get the chance. He would make sure of it.

"My dear friends I have always had a dream, inherited from my dear father, of restoring the Christian faith to the very centre of life in this country. It is why this Cathedral exists, in the middle of this rather special place. But the doctrine...our project...has to be more than this; it has to reach out to the rest of the country. In fact, in many ways, Britain has always been and still is known for its Christian values, but we have allowed the vast majority of people to stray far from God's loving embrace. Reformism, as we call it, stems from the basic desire to change the way we all live, to bring us back into line with scripture, and to follow God's inspiration...but we cannot force our beliefs on anyone. Instead, we have to show them that there is a better way and the work of Charles and his friends...our friends...is to win us hearts and minds. It is the same journey each of you has followed at one time or another to join us here as part of what I think of as our First Congregation...because there will be many more. In recent weeks five pastors have started working in some of the most deprived areas of our inner cities and today our first church outside of this county opens its doors in Birmingham under Pastor Sebastian Osborne. We are reaching out a friendly hand to anyone in need, for the good of us all...and I urge you all to put your broad shoulders to the wheel and give us the push we so desperately need, in God's name."

'The Bible – it's sort of the other person in the room. There's this book, the reader and the Bible.'

Anita Diament

Elizabeth Buckingham stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower and stared down at Paris as best she could, her veils and mantle fluttering in the cold breeze and her huge bonnet pulling against the ribbons tied in a tight bow under her chin. It was five months since she had left Deepdene swearing never to return, only to find herself in another prison in Meadvale, in another gilded cage. She had kidded herself that she could persuade her father to let her make her own decisions, putting up with her initial transformation as a test of her growing maturity to show him she could fly the nest, but to her horror she was still there. No one would listen to her, least of all her father, and after a long week spent in Paris, supposedly on holiday, with nothing much else to think about, she had finally realised that she would never escape. It was impossible. His decision was final and she faced a future earning God's love.

She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the bitter tears, and heard some shouting behind her. Turning her entire body, because her bonnet would not allow her to look back over her shoulder, she saw four girls messing around by the lifts. English girls, she assumed, on some school trip, as they were dressed in a uniform, as she had been back in June, when she left Deepdene one last time. But all of a sudden, in what felt like little more than a blink of an eye, she was a dutiful maiden, learning to yearn for God's love. She had to obey her father of course. Her lessons taught her that, every day of her life, the words always deep inside her head, screaming at her.

Miss Ford was a kind and considerate guardian, perhaps a little less severe than Miss Scott could be, but she still kept Beth on the shortest of leashes, as a good maiden should be kept by tradition. If she was allowed the use of her hands, she was never ever left alone. In front of strangers, she was always muzzled and often deaf and blind, to protect her from sin, to keep her isolated so that all she could do was focus on her pious purpose. Her lessons taught her that she was blessed, but no one asked if she felt it, because she was just a young Daughter of Eve, with her God-given propensity for giving into temptation, so her opinions were tainted with sin and therefore of no importance. Beth stood completely still, a skill she had certainly learned from Miss Scott, watching the schoolgirls laughing and joking and just occasionally staring back at her. She had no idea what the outside world thought about Reformism at all from inside her gilded cage, but her she knew that her father was fighting an election on a Reformist ticket, and that he seemed to expect to win his seat. It did not make sense. She wondered if the whole world was going mad, not just her.