The Pastor's Sister

The old woman was about to speak. She knew that, if the words came from the old woman’s mouth, she would scream.

She felt the scream rising in her gut. She felt it swim its way up her innards until it reached her throat and threatened to set her vocal chords vibrating.

“You know what they say?” the old woman began.

She stopped her, her tone clipped.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

She hoped that her bluntness would put an end to it, but the old woman looked as though she were about to reel out the adage anyway. She stood up and straightened the skirts of her dress.

“I must be going,” she said. “Choir practice is this evening, and I must have his dinner on the table before he sets out.”

The old woman became obsequious at the hint she gave of the pastor’s existence.

“Of course, dear,” she said. “I understand.”

The pastor’s sister took up her shawl and made her way towards the front door.

“There’s no need to get up,” she said, seeing the old woman begin to stir and attempt to raise her ancient form from the chair she was sitting in. “I’ll see myself out.”

Once outside, she drew in deep breaths of fresh air. The entire time she had been inside the house, she had felt as though breathing were impossible. Whether it was the lack of air in that sealed up semi-mausoleum, or whether it was the agitation at having her business known by the entire town, she had felt a constriction in her chest.

She breathed more freely now, out in the open, away from the claustrophobia of parish visiting.

She began to walk, back towards the manse. The day had been dry and the dust on the road was rising beneath the movement of her skirts. She knew that it was extravagance to wear her skirts so long, both in terms of the expanse of material and in the need to wash the dust away more frequently. She didn’t care, though. She might be the parson’s sister, but that didn’t make her a nun.

She had always been wilful. As soon as she had been able to make a conscious decision, she had tried to go her own way. She had brains enough to be the better of her brother, but it was not yet a woman’s place to do anything other than teach, or nurse, or keep house.

She wondered, as she walked, if it ever would be.

Her boots joined with her skirts in kicking up the dust, and soon there was quite a cloud gathering around her feet as she made her way from the old woman’s house across the main street to the manse.

Her brother, she knew, would be in his study, preparing already the sermon for the Sabbath. There were times when he had barely regained the house after the Sunday service before he began the process of preparation over again.

She despaired of ever understanding how his mind worked.

If she were the one standing up in the pulpit week after week, preaching what was supposed to be good news to the fallen, she wouldn’t want a script. She would want to listen to her heart and let the words form of their own accord. She would speak the only truth she knew; that which came from within.

As she walked, she felt that she did not want to return to the house, with its dark wood panelling and gloomy interior. She found herself wishing she could continue walking along the main street and out of the town, into the fields and down by the river.

Her feet led her forward. She could see the manse approaching on her left. Its gate was firmly closed. The fence kept out those who need not trespass within its grounds.

This was not the home of one who loved God’s flock. This was the home of one who loved words and their rhythms; the clever patterns one could make of them. Her brother had no charity in his heart, no love for the people he was supposed to watch over. He loved only his books and the words that dwelt within them.

Instinct told her that her brother’s position was career and not vocation. Just as her instinct had told her that his opposite would be gone before the year was out.

She was drawing level with the manse. In a few steps, habit would tell her feet to carry her through the gate and up the path to the door. In a few steps, she would have to choose between the habit of duty and the liberation of following her own will. In those few steps she decided that her brother could go hungry. She left him to the indignity of a rumbling stomach and the silent approbation of his choristers as he tried to conduct their practice with nothing in his belly since lunch.

She felt the stretch of freedom across her chest; the burst of rebellious energy sent her feet ever faster on their way through the town and out to the moorlands that surrounded the inhabitation.

She knew that her passage out of the town was being watched from behind windows and curtains, just as it had been watched many times before. This time, however, there was nothing to gossip about at the end of it. Not that that would stop them.

The source of her shame was gone. Only the shame itself remained.

She carried in the pocket of her skirts the slim volume that he had given her; the source material for their conversations; the ethos for living she was eager to embrace.

When he left, he had asked her to go with him, to join him in his work. She would have, but for the fact that what he asked seemed to her to be swapping one protector for another; that was nothing more than playing with the ideas in the book.

If she left, she would leave for herself; she would make her own way. She would not be reliant on him, or anyone.

All of these thoughts carried her, breathless and at speed, to the top of the moors behind the small town where her education had begun.

She stopped and turned to look back at the houses gathered together. She could see the manse quite clearly, and a few houses along was that of the old woman; the place where he had come to convalesce.

She turned again, standing at the edge of the sandstone cliff, looking out over the moors rolling away from her. Men were at work at the open cast coal mine. In the distance was the greyness of the city, where he would be at work among the poor.

She walked away from the edge, further from the town, towards the river where they would sit and discuss; where he would challenge her thinking and welcome the change in her as she considered the things she found written within that slim book.

She sat on the high bank, the heather and the short, stubby grass pricking her through the material of her skirts. She pulled the book from her pocket and placed it beside her on the grass.

Her brother had asked her to visit. It was spring. Green shoots were appearing on the trees and spring flowers were beginning to appear in the well tended gardens of the town. She had walked out of the manse, fully prepared to do her duty and offer spiritual succour to the man her brother dismissed as a non-believer. The great aunt with whom he was staying was a supporter of their chapel, and her brother impressed on her that it was their duty to offer support.

Not that the duty extended to him visiting the house. The nephew was sick. He was up from the city where his work in the hospitals had resulted in his illness. Her brother could not risk exposure to contagion. She, his sister, bound only to caring for him and supporting him in his work, could take the risk instead.

So she went, ill-prepared for what she would encounter.

He was sitting in the window of the front parlour, looking out onto the street. He had a book open on his lap. He did not turn as she entered the room; did not rise from his seat.

The old woman brought tea, and they sat in that small room making polite conversation.

“John is a doctor in the city,” his great aunt said.

“I had heard,” the pastor’s sister replied, looking at the sick man who was studiously avoiding the conversation. “My brother told me.”

“It is a shame that your brother could not come to meet him,” the old woman said regretfully. “They could have had such conversation.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” she had responded, without thinking, a smile on her lips as she thought of her brother trying to converse with a man of equal education to him.

The man had turned to look at her then, his curiosity brought to life by her ill considered words.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

She had smiled fully then. His expression was like that of a child eager to learn, surprised by the fact, but unable to defeat his curiosity.

“My brother is a man who likes conversation only when he knows he is in command of it.” She paused and regarded the old woman’s nephew coolly. “Of course, I do not know you, but I suspect that your education means you would be more than a match for him.”

She felt the heat of interest fill the room. The old woman might as well have not been there. She, apparently, felt no discomfort, but merely sat there sipping her tea.

The man, John, turned from the window and sat forward in his chair, the better to look at her.

“You do not have such a high opinion of your brother, then?” he asked.

“I did not say that,” she replied, “but if you think so ill of your own education, that is your opinion.”

He laughed.

“Shall we walk?” he asked. “I have the need for some air.”

He had been very ill, he told her as they walked through the town and out towards the moors. He had been confined in hospital for months while his body fought off the sickness. Now he was here, stultifying in his great aunt’s house, in order to regain his strength.

“I despaired of having any sort of company at all,” he laughed.

She noticed that he was becoming breathless and urged him to rest. They leaned together against a wall and looked out at the fields that rolled away from the road.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said.

She looked at him. His eyes were grey and clear. His face, though thin and pale from the illness, was a good one.

“There is nothing to tell,” she said. “I am the pastor’s sister.”

He had looked away from her.

“Is that how you define yourself?” he asked. “In relation to your brother?”

She laughed; it was a short, sharp sound.

“In what other way should I define myself?” she said. “My role is to keep house for him unless and until he takes a wife. And then, no doubt, I shall keep house for the both of them.”

“Does that frustrate you?” he asked.

“What would be the point in being frustrated by something I cannot change?” she exploded.

“I take it that your answer is yes, then,” he laughed, looking at her again and seeing the annoyance on her face. He stood. “Shall we walk on?”

He offered her his arm, and she threaded hers through it. She felt the closeness of his body to hers; the warmth of his blood coming through the layers of flesh and skin and clothing, seeping into her.

“You should not tire yourself,” she said to him, when she noticed that his breath was running short again. “You are here to get better.”

He smiled. “Well, then,” he said, “shall we return to my small prison? I’m sure my great aunt will offer you more tea. And perhaps you have other duties you must fulfil on behalf of your brother.”

She understood that he was mocking her, however gently, and she bristled. He felt the change in her and laughed, but did not comment. She kept her arm threaded through his but more stiffly than before. Whatever gentle warmth had been passing between them was made cooler now by her irritation.

At the door to his great aunt’s house, she took her leave of him.

“We men are brutes, aren’t we?” he said, catching hold of her briefly at the elbow to slow her retreat. “I hope you will come back. I have enjoyed talking with you today.”

She had the grace to blush, in spite of herself.

“Of course,” she said.

Her brother, as ever, took little interest in her day. He asked perfunctorily what the good doctor had been like and, perfunctorily, she told him.

She did not return to the old woman’s house for some time. Each member of their chapel community had their turn in receiving a visit from the pastor’s sister. It was known that the pastor would only visit if a member of the flock was close to death, but still a fair proportion of his parishioners would have been glad to welcome the man himself into their homes. Instead, they made do with her.

She listened to their ailments, prayed with them, received their gifts of cake and herbal cordial. She drank tea and asked after children. She discharged her duties with all the grace she could muster.

A few weeks had passed before she remembered that the invalid should have received another visit from her. She remembered because she saw him walking towards her, quite healthily, down the main street as she returned from placing fresh flowers in the chapel for the next day’s service.

They met in front of the manse.

“I thought I had imagined you,” he said.

“I have had my duties to attend to,” she replied.

“And even on a Saturday,” he noted. “You are quite the woman of virtue.”

He was mocking her again, just as he had that first day. This time she maintained her composure.

He held a book in his hand. He tapped it against his leg as he stood and watched her fight against the urge to express her annoyance with his tone. She refused to speak but looked at him steadily, watching his eyes twinkle with mischief.

“Well done,” he said, eventually, holding the book still against his leg. “That took some effort.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she told him, trying to walk past him to the gate so that she could go into the manse and not have to suffer his presence a moment longer.

“Your struggle to maintain your composure in the face of my impudent comment,” he replied, preventing her from attaining her goal merely by shifting from one foot to the other and barring her way completely.

She could not help but gasp in exasperation.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “am I in your way?”

“Yes,” she responded, flashing her anger at him with her eyes.

“I was going for a walk,” he said, ignoring her. “I wonder if you would care to join me.”

She stood still, staring down at the ground. She understood frustration. Almost every day, she felt the frustration of being her brother’s helpmeet. This frustration was different, however. Here was a frustration borne of being offered a challenge and not allowing herself to take it.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said, still staring at the ground, willing him to move out of her way before she had to put a hand to him and remove him physically as an obstacle.

“Why’s that?” he asked, not moving.

“I have things to do.”

“What things?”

“Duties. Obligations. Chores.” She looked up at him at last. “Things.”

“It’s such a fine day. Surely things can wait?” he said.

“Perhaps for you, but not for me. Now please excuse me.” She put her hand to his arm and pushed him from before the gate, almost hurling herself past him. He stepped neatly away and she almost stumbled at the sudden loss of resistance.

He caught her by the arm.

“Careful,” he said. The concern in his voice was genuine.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Please.”

He released her arm. “For someone so duty bound,” he said, “you are certainly headstrong.”

She looked at him, then nodded at the book he still held at his side.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

He looked down at the book, as though surprised it was still there, then lifted it slightly.

“The Subjection of Women,” he replied.

She laughed. “Is it something you need to learn?” she asked, filling her tone with scorn.

“Not when there are such willing helpers to be found,” he replied. He held the book out to her. “Here,” he said. “Read it before you judge.”

She hesitated. He continued to hold the book out to her. She did not move, so he took a step forward, lifted her arm and placed the book in her hand.

“Read it,” he said, “and then walk with me. Tomorrow. Or another day.” He began to walk away. “Whenever your duties will permit it,” he said over his shoulder.

She looked at the book in her hand. It was more of a pamphlet than a book. An essay. She looked up and saw that he was already back at his great aunt’s house.

She returned to the gloom of the manse, placing the book into her pocket and forgetting about it for a while.

That evening, while her brother was locked in his study putting the finishing touches to his sermon, she sat in the parlour by the window. The light was fading, so she lit an oil lamp. She took the book from her pocket and began to read.

Far from being an instruction manual on how to manage women in the home and in society, the essay was a treatise on the equality of the sexes and the need to emancipate women for the greater good of society.

She thrilled as she read the radical text. She knew there were men who called for women to have the same rights as men, the same claim to education, the same right to vote; she had read stories in the newspaper; her brother had even grumbled about it one day and then built a sermon around the Pauline tradition of women being second class citizens.

As she read, she found that she wanted to question the doctor, to ask what he thought about the contents of this essay. Why was he reading it? Who was he? What were his beliefs, that he rejected Christianity and embraced such radical political thought?

She knew that meeting him the next day was out of the question. To be seen walking with a man not of the congregation on the Sabbath would cause tongues to wag. No matter that he was the great nephew of a stalwart of the chapel.

I would be Monday, then; and she would have the excuse of it being his turn for a visit as part of her duties.

She closed the book and lit a candle before turning down the wick on the oil lamp. She carried the book to her room, placing it safely in a drawer in her desk. Her mind was racing with the thoughts the tract had stirred up in her, and it took a while for her to fall into sleep, but eventually she did and knew nothing more until morning.

Her brother’s sermon the next day was on the benefits of faith. She sat through it, his droning monotone washing over her. She thought of the book, waiting for her back at the manse. She knew that her brother would think poorly of her for having it, and for letting it take her mind from the contemplation of the Lord; but her brother and his good friend St Paul were two reasons why she was finding it more and more difficult to contemplate a God who would allow such creatures to be part of His church.

She thought back to how she had tried to push past the doctor; how he had caught her arm when it seemed that she would stumble. She imagined that same look of concern on his face when he treated his patients.

She mocked herself for such thoughts; building him up to be a romantic hero, such as the ones depicted in novels, on the face of two brief meetings. She was no better than any of the women in this town.

She checked herself and wondered if her harsh criticism of her own sex was because society had conditioned to believe it. That she could only hold her arrogant belief that she was superior by sharing the views put forward by men.

She did not have a single friend in the town. None of the other women would have discourse with her on any topic other than domestic life. How could they, when domestic life was all that they knew?

She sighed, waiting for the sermon to be over, for the service to end, so that she could be out of this place. Even preparing lunch and reading in her brother’s company was preferable to her current situation.

She stood at the door to the chapel by her brother’s side, bidding the congregation farewell and listening to the mournful tones of Mr Entwistle at the pump organ. There was no cheer here. It was as though each person who attended this chapel believed that joy should be left at the door.

When the last person had left and the chapel was again silent, her brother took his leave and left her to tidy up the hymn books and Bibles.

She finally emerged from the chapel into bright sunlight and saw the doctor leaning against the sandstone wall at the bottom of the chapel steps. He was looking up at her.

She blushed to think that he had sought her out and fumbled with the key as she locked the great wooden doors to the chapel.

He had with him a small knapsack.

“I took a chance,” he said. “I brought food. I hope it won’t be an imposition on your time.”

“You hope what won’t be an imposition?” she asked, covering her shy delight with brusqueness.

“I thought, perhaps, we could picnic on the moors above the town,” he said simply.

“You forget that I have duties to attend to,” she replied, closing the gates to the chapel and beginning to walk down the main street towards the manse. She paused and looked behind her. He was still leaning against the wall. “You would be quite welcome to join us for lunch at the manse, however.”

One corner of his mouth curled upwards wryly, and he pushed himself away from the wall.

“I would be delighted,” he said.

Her brother masked his irritation well. He was unused to intruders into his domain, especially ones as well educated as John.

His sister busied herself with preparing lunch, leaving the two men sitting in an awkward silence in the parlour. Her brother would usually hurry up to his study, reappearing only when she had announced twice that lunch was ready. Today he was forced to show hospitality to a man she suspected he saw as his natural enemy.

She set the dining table with an extra place, enjoying seeing that fresh set of cutlery against the white of the cloth. She opened the dining room window to let some of the fresh spring air in and wished that she had some flowers to set in the middle of the table.

She brought the dishes through. Cold cuts from yesterday’s roast. Bread, potatoes; standard lunchtime fare.

She opened the door to the parlour to see her brother’s face quite red with anger, and that of their guest smiling with genuine amusement.

“Lunch is prepared,” she told them, her brother hurrying from the room and brushing past her awkwardly.

The doctor rose from his seat and left the room in his turn, strolling past and winking at her in the doorway.

Her brother was silent throughout the meal. Only his sister and the doctor spoke, behaving as though the brooding presence at the head of the table simply wasn’t there.

The subject of the book was avoided. She had a sense that it was a conversation on such a contentious issue that had stirred her brother’s ire. At the end of the meal, the pastor excused himself, barely managing to be civil to the guest at his table, and removed himself to his study.

The doctor helped the pastor’s sister to clear the table. She began to heat water so that she could wash the dishes, but he stopped her.

“The day is too good to spend washing dishes,” he said, placing a hand against her arm. She had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse in preparation for the task, and the touch of his hand against her skin was cool and light.

“And who will do them if not me?” she asked, not moving lest he took his hand away.

He removed it anyway, flinging his hand and arm towards the window.

“Look at the day, Catherine!” he exclaimed. “Why would God want to keep any of his creatures indoors on a day like this?” His eyes were glittering with near-rage. “If you could see the lives people live in the city. If you could see the conditions people have to toil in. Well…”

He stopped, dropping his arm, dropping his head, dropping his gaze.

It was her turn to place a hand upon his arm.

“You’re tired,” she said.

“Not in the way you think,” he replied. He looked up at her again. His face was pale, and she wondered how well he really was.

“Come and sit in the parlour,” she said. “We can talk for a while, then maybe we can take a walk. Perhaps a short distance will do no harm.”

“You’re right,” he answered. “It doesn’t do to grow passionate on a full stomach.”

She led the way to the parlour, standing to one side to let him enter first. He took her brother’s chair, and she sat down on the window seat. She curled one leg up under her, sitting so that she could gaze out of the window as well as talk to him. It was her natural position.

“Did you look at the book I gave you?” he began.

She was looking out of the window as he spoke, thinking how different it was to sit here with him, knowing there would be conversation. She made the comparison with the usual afternoon silence in this room; her brother’s heavy presence in that chair; her own silent reading, punctuated by daydreams as she gazed through the window.

She turned to him. “I did,” was all she said.

“And what did you think?” he asked her.

She was silent for a moment. She wanted to choose her words.

“It was not what I expected,” was her honest reply.

“But what did you think?” he asked again, leaning forward.

She looked away, back through the window. She did not want to tell him what she thought; not yet. When he realised that she was not going to reply, he sat back in the chair and chose another topic of conversation.

He was a lively conversationalist, and he made her laugh with his statements and the way she could not tell if what fell from his lips was intended as serious opinion or was merely a tool to test her own. After a while, he stood.

“Let’s walk,” he said. “I have no desire to remain cooped up in your gloomy house for another minute. The day is fine and bright and should not be wasted.”

As they walked through the town and out towards the moors, the colour returned to his cheeks. Life seemed to surge through him with more strength. He spoke passionately about his work in the isolation hospital, telling her of the people he treated. The poor and the needy, the backbone of society. He spoke of the injustice of capitalist society, of the need for more equality.

“All men should be seen as equal,” he almost shouted at one point, becoming carried away with his own beliefs. “No matter what their social standing. All men should have the opportunity to improve themselves through education. All women too!” He stopped and looked at her. “I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely,” he quoted. “Do you agree?”

They had reached the moor edge and should have been standing, looking down on the view of the town beneath them. Instead they were staring intently at each other.

“If you mean that women are as capable of thought as men and should be given the opportunity to think freely alongside men,” she answered, “then of course I agree.”

“Of course she agrees,” he said to the sky before looking back at her. “What is the of course about it? What do you know of thought? What opportunities have you been given to think? To really, truly think?”

She realised that he was carried away by his own polemic, that he was not really launching an attack on her own abilities, but rather on the restraints of society that meant she could not possibly have had the same opportunities as men. Still she began to bristle defensively. She wanted to answer back, to prove her worth as a thinker. She bit down on her tongue.

“Well?” he said. “Have you no answer?”

“I have read the texts in my brother’s library. I have questioned my own mind to find my own opinion. I have not, it is true, raised debate with my brother, as I know that it would be pointless. I have found no society in this town willing to discuss theories and theologies with me. I have only my own understanding as my guide,” she said calmly, refusing to rise to his bait.

“Exactly!” he exclaimed. “You have had no opportunities to think beyond what your own understanding will allow. You have been hidden away as too many women have, prevented from taking a full role in society, with no chance to prove your full worth to the greater good.”

That had been the start of their regular meetings. The beginning of her education; the freeing of her mind. The end of her standing within the society in which she lived.

Her brother had challenged her on the basis that she was neglecting her duties to the congregation. He did not dare to accuse his own sister of the base things he knew were being gossipped about among the people of the town. He was, in any case, more ashamed of her for wanting to learn and to challenge, as he saw it, the very foundations of society.

She looked down again at the book as it lay beside her on the grass. The day before the doctor had left to take up his post again in the city, he had told her that he wanted her to go with him.

“You have a mind,” he told her. “You have abilities. You could help me in my work. We could live well together. Happily, even. Equals in everything.”

Her answer had been a simple “No” and he had accepted it.

When he left, her brother had been relieved. He thought it was an end to it. For two months she agreed with him. She continued in the old ways, supporting him in his work, visiting the faithful; and then the packages began to arrive. Books from the city that revealed more to her of the sort of liberalism John believed was the way forward.

Sitting here now, beside the same river where they had talked so often, she knew that it was only a matter of time before she made her own way to the city.

She knew, too, that it was not necessary for her to be with John.

© J R Hargreaves February 2007