Children of Fire

by Paul CW Beatty

  ‘Her love for you was not a lie, Josiah. I think she saw in you real hope in what had been a hopeless life. Someone who she could love and respect. I think she dreamed that in marriage to you she could find a way to get out of the cycle of hate and death. She had become tired of it, just as Elijah had been.’

  Josiah remembered what Aideen had said in the hidden garden about forgetting duty. He should have realised then that she had been strangely desperate about her dream of living there with him, but his emotions had been clouded by Rachael’s news about Liverpool and the memory of his dalliance with Maria. What Phelan had said put a different complexion on what had happened that day.

  Aideen had wished to use him to end the burden of her duty to the loyalist cause but he had pushed her away because of his duty to find Elijah’s killer, who was standing in front of him and who he had embraced. At that point she must have despaired of ever being free.

  ‘I have one last question. Why did you shoot me?’

  ‘I was not trying to kill you, and am glad you are still alive. I knew instinctively we were done for, the moment I saw you standing by that lock. I did it for Aideen. If you had saved her, she would have only been brought to a place like this, waiting for the baying mob that will watch me slowly strangle on the end of a rope. Drowning seemed kinder.’

  There was a rattle of the gate at the end of the corridor; time was up. Josiah offered his hand to Phelan through the bars. In his palm, there was the small envelope Michael had slipped to him. Phelan took it from him.

  ‘That is from Mr O’Carroll. He asked me to tell you that if he was to have to travel your path he would want something to remind him of where he had come from and the old country. He hoped you’d accept whatever it is, even though it comes from a Croppie.’

  Phelan opened the envelope and emptied it into his hand. It was a small orange flower. Phelan stared at it, put it back in the envelope and tucked the envelope out of sight before the guard came.

  ‘Thank him from me. I have a gift for you as well. In my sketchbooks, you will find some recent drawings of Aideen. If you can bear to, I would like you to have them. You will be able to remember her when I cannot.’

  ‘Time is up Miss, Constable.’ The prison officer was back. They turned and silently filed out behind him aware that Phelan was standing at the bars of his cell watching them go.

  When they were outside Rachael turned to the prison officer. I believe there is someone else here who was involved in this crime,’ she said. ‘May I see him?’

  ‘You mean the so-called Brother Peter. I’m afraid it’s too late Miss. He left for Liverpool docks this morning. He’s on his way to Botany Bay by now.’

  May I ask something, Officer?’ said Josiah.

  ‘Of course, Constable.’

  ‘Mr Hayes seemed to indicate that he will be executed in public? Is that true?’

  ‘That’s correct. We believe in the old ways here. We use a gallows on the north gate of the city and encourage as many of the public to come and jeer as possible.’

  ‘Poor Phelan,’ said Josiah.

  ‘Oh, that’s just the start, Sir. When he’s dead then we’ll wrap him up snug in a winding sheet, cover him in tar and attach chains. You’ll be seeing him for the next two years dancing on gibbet near where he committed his crimes. Just to remind everyone the consequences of doing the same.’

  They would be the last two human beings Phelan Hayes would ever see who held any genuine empathy with him and saw him as more but than a monster deserving of a violent and degrading death.

  42

  A New Beginning

  The meeting with Phelan made Josiah wanting to return to the familiar. The need for him to be in the Furness Vale was over and he started to be feel sick at heart about all the death, sadness and unhappiness he had seen. Things were coming to an end and even though he would be unable to return to duty because of his arm, he needed to leave.

  The next day Michael said that he would be heading back to Stockport that morning. ‘Mary has been coping well but it is time I went. You will do well enough without me now.’

  ‘How would I have managed without you?’ Josiah said.

  ‘Well you are just about the most inventive chap I know so I daresay you would have managed somehow, lad.’

  After he had seen Michael off, Josiah sought out Rachael. She was doing the washing.

  ‘You are looking much stronger, Josiah,’ she said as soon as she saw him.

  ‘Yes. I am surprised how well my body stood up to our long journey yesterday. I have been wondering…’

  ‘Whether it is time to go home? I agree the things of this phase of our lives are ending but, if you can, please stay until Sunday. When you came, I promised that we would send you back onto the road with our prayers and blessings. I hope that Sunday will be a chance to do that joyfully.

  ‘There is an important meeting for all the Children of Fire and their friends this evening which you may find of interest. And there is one much more solemn task you and I must attend to.’

  ‘The matter of Aideen’s burial? That is also on my mind.’

  He sat under the oak tree and read “Paradise Lost” for the rest of the afternoon. He’d never really finished it at school and he had asked John to bring him a copy so he could remedy this gap in his education. But reading about Satan put him in mind of both Aideen and Elijah.

  For most people Aideen was a villain and Elijah a saint. But Elijah Bradshawe had not been a saint. Indeed if they had known the details of his life, many would consider him a monster beyond God’s redemption, for having put such stumbling blocks of abuse and murder in the way of the children Rachael and Aideen once were. But his founding of the Children of Fire had been a good action, as was his care for Rachael and his scheme to help run away apprentices. Josiah could see them as actions in atonement for his earlier sins.

  In the end Rachael was the only person alive who had any clear right to speak for or against Elijah Bradshawe and she forgave him. That would have to be enough for Josiah Ainscough as well. He would extend his forgiveness to Aideen and Phelan in the same spirit.

  They buried Aideen’s body near the Forester’s cottage. Peter and James dug two graves on Rachael’s instructions. A simple wood coffin was provided by the Hailsworth estate. Josiah went over on the Long Clough wagon to bring her back to her last resting place.

  When they took her body from the ice house, she was already in the open coffin. Her corpse was pale and deathly but the hair was still red and beautiful. Josiah took a red rose from the garden at the Hall and placed it between her fingers before they fixed the coffin lid down for the journey. While at the Hall he took the opportunity to take from Phelan’s luggage the sketchbook, which contained the last drawings of Aideen by her brother.

  Steven and Barbara Hailsworth followed Josiah in the brougham as he drove the cart with the coffin slowly back past Long Clough and then up behind Pulpit Rock. Rachael and James were at the grave. The inscription of the small tombstone simply said:

  Aideen Hayes

  1816–1841

  Rest peacefully

  Bible passages about hope and forgiveness were read over the grave. Rachael summed up their thoughts.

  ‘I never spoke with Aideen Hayes but from what Josiah has told me and what I heard from her brother in Chester, Aideen could have had very little hope of choosing a less murderous path than the one she walked. As a child those who should have cared for and nurtured her through the loss of her mother poured hatred and desire for revenge into her; she was made into a weapon. We lay her here without condemnation and offer her up to God, as the only proper judge of the choices she had and made. Her brother’s body now swings on a gibbet in this valley but today, in hope, we open a grave for his bones too so that when they can be retrieved he may lie here in peace with her.

  With James’s help, Josiah t
hrew in the first shovel load of earth onto Aideen’s coffin. Then all those present shovelled in some more earth until James took the spade and closed the grave.

  That evening, the Children of Fire filed into the chapel, reminding Josiah of the evening he had presented himself to explain his presence in the community. That had been on the day Elijah’s body had been found. But this evening he did not have to let himself in and no one turned to stare as he entered; he was an accepted member of the community. All he had to do was withstand a battery of sympathetic questions about his arm and wait to see why Rachael thought this an important meeting for him to attend.

  There was a pause and then, in single file, Elijah’s inner group entered. The oldest male member of the community, Brother Simon, headed the procession with Esther, James and Louise. A few steps to the rear came Rachael, a black bible in her hand. The inner group lined up at the front and Rachael sat alone in a front pew.

  ‘Would Sister Rachael please stand forward?’ said Simon. Rachael stood facing him. ‘Sister, a month ago the community called you into this chapel and presented you with our view, arrived at after much prayer among us, that you should become the leader of the Children of Fire to succeed our founder Brother Elijah Bradshawe. At that time you asked a month for prayer, personal reflection and study, to discern whether this was truly a calling placed on you by God. This day, that month is up. Have you come to a decision?’

  ‘I have,’ said Rachael. ‘I have thought, prayed and considered this very carefully. At first I did not know if this was what God wanted. I felt too young and inexperienced. I felt I could not possibly bring the fire to preaching that Brother Elijah brought. I have also wondered if a woman can lead a community such as this, given the times in which we find ourselves.

  ‘Then, unexpectedly, God placed me in the way of a helper. As Constable Ainscough, our friend Josiah, lay with his life in the balance, his guardian Rev. Thomas Cooksley came to see his adopted son, waiting patiently at Josiah’s bedside, never trying to wake him, though as any father’s heart would he yearned to see Josiah well. He had the strength to simply wait in hope and prayer. As I watched with him, I saw a man of God and after hesitating I told him of the choice I had to make.

  ‘First, he reminded me that very few who God calls do not doubt themselves at first, but one serves as a leader not in one’s own strength but in God’s. He advised me to read the experiences of the Prophets to see that.

  ‘Second, he showed me that while women do not lead churches in this day and age, the Bible has many stories of women called to lead communities, even nations, in God’s name. He reminded me that though in the church he serves only men are ordained, that today there are hundreds of women leading Methodist meetings and societies up and down the country. God has called them to leadership just as much as he has called any man.

  ‘I have pondered what I have learned in this month and the promptings of my own heart. I will serve as leader of the Children of Fire, relying on the help of God and on your love.’

  ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!’ Josiah was on his feet shouting at the top of his voice in an outpouring of praise that he had not felt since a child. In normal circumstances, he would have been embarrassed at such a display of enthusiasm, but everyone around him was doing much the same in joy, hope and faith in the future.

  Then suddenly and perhaps too soon, it was Saturday evening and the last opportunity Josiah would have to help Rachael clear up in the kitchen and share with her the day just past.

  ‘One last drink when we have finished?’ he said as he put cooking pots on the high shelves she had difficulty reaching.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and as it is a significant evening shall we have tea?’

  ‘That would be splendid. You rest and I will brew up.’

  He made the tea and brought it over to where she was sitting near the window. He poured it for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and took a first sip. ‘I will miss the washing and the duties I have here in the kitchen. Sister Louise will be taking over from me as housekeeper. My time will be taken with the study and the relationship of the community with the outside world.’

  He sipped at his own tea. ‘Are you content with your choices?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated slightly. ‘Nervous of stepping into Elijah’s shoes, particularly those concerned with preaching but yes I am content.’

  ‘I am sorry that you found out from Phelan about the affection that had grown up between me and Aideen. I should have told you myself.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh really, Josiah, for someone who has intuition in abundance yourself, you underestimate intuition in others. I realised that something was happening between you and Aideen before I met either her or Phelan.’

  ‘This may be impertinent but I need to ask, when you were considering succeeding Elijah did you consider if we had a future?’

  ‘Of course. Every time I looked at you in that bed or tried to get you to drink or to take the smallest amount of food or heard you groan in pain when we changed the dressings, I wondered how I would feel if you died. I was afraid that in some way my coldness had driven you to be reckless and that in confronting Phelan and Aideen you had hoped to die. I also worried what would happen if you woke, were healed and then rejected me.

  ‘But when you woke up I realised that what I felt was a dream. You had your path and choices to follow and I mine and that they do not run together, at least not at this time.

  ‘Josiah, you are called to be a policeman. Do not lose that thought. There was a desperate need for you to be among us at Long Clough at this time. You will be needed elsewhere in the future.’

  ‘I shall not be of any use to the police with only one arm.’

  ‘Then there will be another path for you.’

  The next day James walked up the path to Pulpit Rock and, for the first time since Elijah’s murder, the warning bell rang, announcing that a sermon would be preached that afternoon in the name of the Children of Fire. Josiah waited with Thomas and Martha Cooksley for Rachael to lead the community out for she had decided to take the head of the procession and not make a dramatic appearance on top of Pulpit Rock as had been Elijah’s custom.

  Rachael was dressed in a leather belted cassock but unlike Elijah’s hers was a deep, vibrant green. She did not wear the white tabs or a clerical collar but she had her own embroidered preaching cloak. On it was a tree with all types of birds singing in its branches. There was a picture of children piping and playing games in a dusty street. There were pictures of lilies, and corn growing at the borders of fields. A rich man was begging to be allowed to enter a castle keep through a small door but he would not leave his riches behind to find safety, and an old woman having searched a house for a lost coin, was holding it up in joy. There was a sad looking young man eating with the pigs and also being embraced by a man who was his father. As she passed Josiah he saw that on the back was a green hill, with a man in the far distance standing before a hopeful sky talking to a great crowd and in the foreground, there were children playing round an empty tomb in a beautiful garden bringing gifts to the same man whose garden it seemed to be.

  He and the Cooksleys fell in behind the community. A little way on they passed Abram and Elizabeth with Robert. Frederick was there with a man who bore a striking resemblance to Mr Bridges as well as the same mix of old and young, poor and well off as Elijah had drawn. The last face Josiah saw before Rachael and the inner group started the climb to the top of the rock was Sarah Arlon with her maid.

  They found a comfortable place to sit at the foot of Pulpit Rock and waited. The bell rang again twelve times then Rachael walked slowly to the edge of the rock. Only one thing had changed in her appearance. When she had been in the procession, her hair had been contained in a bun. She had unpinned it and it flowed as free in its gold as Elijah’s had done in its white. There was to be no doubt that it was woman who was pr
eaching. There would be no confusion on this matter. Those who thought a woman could not command the authority of a man were welcome to depart; she would be heard in the name of her God and her convictions.

  ‘My brothers and sisters, welcome.’

  The voice was clear and demanded attention. She could not dominate with her volume like Elijah but the wonderful acoustics of the rock brought her words to all as if she had been sitting next to them.

  ‘This is an important day. No one has spoken to you from this place since Brother Elijah Bradshawe was taken from us. In these weeks, it has been unclear as to whether the Children of Fire would be able to survive after his passing. But little by little we have regained a measure of confidence and I have acquiesced to the request of the other members of the community that I lead the Children of Fire, in succession to Brother Elijah.

  ‘Friends I do not do this for my own aggrandisement but because there are so many matters in these times of change we live in that require to have shone upon them the light of the truth of God. I take up this challenge, not in my own strength but in the strength of God who has called me forward. I offer my service to you in humility and modesty, for I am resolved to be a faithful servant to you and this community.’

  ‘And we’ll do our best an’ all!’ shouted a man at the back of the crowd who all laughed as Rachael smiled at the remark.

  ‘And even before I made my choice to serve, it seems the Holy Spirit was moving in front of me. When Brother Elijah preached his last sermon from here, he condemned Mr Abram Hailsworth for the pollution entering the river Goyt from the powder mill. Mr Abram has promised to stop that pollution and the fish of the river will be safe again. We praise God for this change of mind and we pray for Abram and his new wife Elizabeth in their future life together.

  ‘But God’s providential action did not stop there. The Children of Fire have always held caring for children as important.’ She held up her left hand in which was the black bible that she had carried from Long Clough. It was open and she offered to them the word contained within.