God's Country

Part Eighty-Three

'Bless them which persecute you: bless and curse not.'

Romans 12:14

Brogan could do nothing other than continue to play the game. For a start, Miss Ellis would not allow her to do anything else. The stark reality of her life at Lake House was that she had absolutely no choice. Every aspect of her daily life was closely controlled and continuously supervised, and she was only truly alone in her sleeping gown, although even then Alice Craig slept in the bed beside her. Her character had to take over. Who she really was had to remain hidden and her desperation to promote her betrothal to Harry Trevor only made her situation worse. She threw herself into her lessons and her new persona, thinking only of impressing Miss Ellis, and ultimately Paul Craig, because it was all she could do to save herself. When she was allowed to converse, she made sure that she said all the right things. She said all the right words and seemed to believe them, leaving her guardian and her adopted mother in no doubt about her readiness for marriage.

She mentioned Olivia Trevor at every opportunity, saying how fond she was of her, and she tried to praise Mrs Trevor as an excellent modern example of a willing convert embracing the Reformist doctrine. She did not mention Harry at all by name. Alice had convinced her that it was considered quite inappropriate for a maiden to talk about a possible spouse. She just concentrated on being good and showing her willingness to married off. She felt, she told everyone she was allowed to talk to at least once, blessed in God's love. Her father's tragic death was clearly a terrible blow but God had delivered her to Meadvale and she wanted to repay her adopted parents kindness by making them proud of her. Mrs Harrington and Mrs Craig certainly noticed her newly positive attitude. Mrs Harrington suggested that Brogan had suffered with her parents break up and being packed off to boarding school so far from home. She was, the two Meadvale matriarchs believed, a typical victim of the modern world their husbands were working so hard to change. She had never had a close family before. She had never had a proper home and she had never had any faith in her life. Paul Craig had given her all those things, and she was certainly setting all converts a proper example. Of all the young maidens saved in God's name since the renaissance began, they agreed that Brogan was the most complete transformation and the most blessed in God's love.

Paul Craig remained unconvinced however. He was still waiting tensely for Alistair Forbes to come back to him, although he appreciated that the Clitheroe by-election was taking some precedence. For the same reason, no doubt, if there was interest from Harry Trevor, it had been further delayed by yet another election campaign. But he encouraged Miss Ellis to work Brogan as hard as she possibly could, testing her resolve, to make sure that she was well-prepared for any eventuality.

'Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'

Joshua 1:9

Douglas Prismall was an experienced Westminster hack, a man who had deftly stalked the corridors of power for twenty years, so he was not easily surprised or influenced by anything or anyone. Political journalism was a game. He talked to people, mostly off the record, like collecting pieces of a jigsaw together and trying to find a corner. Politicians loved to talk most of the time, especially when they were bitter or overlooked, and he picked up more rumours in the bars late at night than he ever heard elsewhere. Unlike his colleague Gavin Williams, he had learned to listen more than he drank.

It was not news to anyone that the Labour Party was dead, despite a few diehards trying to insist otherwise. From what he heard, eighty percent of Labour MP's would defect to Ben Cartwright as soon as Cartwright was willing to accept them, and whoever picked up the pieces to carry on would join Nerys Baker and her LibDem's on the sidelines. But Cartwright was in no rush to twist the knife. He was well aware that he had time on his side, and there was no need to organise and commit himself to anything for several years. Prismall had written a long editorial two days previously on that very subject, suggesting that Cartwright would concentrate on raising his own profile, and that of his senior cohorts, before choosing his troops for the big push.