The Telling

Adam, they took it from us, and they lie to us about what it means, they lie and say God wills it, and who are we to know better?’
    Mr Aitken and Mr Forster came in, and stood just inside the church door. To be back so soon, they must have left all the ladies at the vicarage; it was the nearest suitable dwelling.
    ‘We must join together, we must arm ourselves!’ my father cried. ‘We must take back the land.’
    No one moved. The church was filled with a strange tension, as if this were somehow familiar to some of those assembled there. Thomas’s eyes were narrowed on my father; he half shook his head. The movement seemed involuntary.
    ‘What is this? What is he playing at?’ I whispered at him. ‘Do you know anything about it?’
    He glanced at me, and when he replied, his voice was low, distinct and careful, and it did not sound like him.
    ‘Your father is a drunkard and a fool.’
    I sat back. I looked at Thomas differently.
    ‘Ya bunch of worthless layabouts,’ Dad spat. ‘Spineless bastards.’
    ‘Idiot,’ someone muttered.
    ‘Sit down, Frank.’
    Someone coughed. My mam was slumped and shrunken beside me, her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes.
    Mr Wolfenden spoke: it seemed as if it were for the first time in an age. ‘Jack Gorst, Joe Stott, bring this man to the Old Hall, and have him locked in the strongroom there.’
    Someone coughed again, self-consciously. Nobody shifted. My father staggered off the chancel step, cursed, and came back down the aisle.
    ‘Anyone, any man, you are on your honour,’ the Reverend asserted, his face pinkening.
    No one stirred. Not a finger was lifted.
    ‘On our honour be damned,’ Joe Stott said.
    The impact of the words made Reverend Wolfenden flinch. When he spoke again, his tone was different, colder.
    ‘The man is clearly intoxicated. He is threatening violence, and has terrified the ladies. Any honest man. Stand up.’
    No one moved. Someone mumbled something; it sounded very like do it yourseln . There was anxious laughter, quickly stifled. Dad was making his way down the aisle still; he passed us without acknowledgement. I twisted around to follow his progress to the back of the church, where Mr Aitken and Mr Forster still stood guarding the door. He came to a halt there, facing them, drawn up as tall as he could manage, which wasn’t particularly tall. No one spoke. Everyone in the church must have heard as he gathered the rheum in his throat, as he hoiked the phlegm from his chest, as he spat it on to the floor at the two men’s feet. The silence was terrible. My dad grabbed the handle, swung the door open, and was gone before the men could act. The door slammed shut behind him; the noise echoed through the church.
    ‘I’m sure you know yourselves who is on the cleaning rota for this week. Would you be so good, gentlemen,’ the Reverend addressed Mr Aitken and Mr Forster, ‘would you be so kind as to summon Mr Moore?’
    They left. The door clanged hollow behind them. Its echo faded, and the silence afterwards seemed threatening. It seemed to throb with my blood. I was very conscious how close Thomas and my mam were to me; I could not let them see that this affected me.
    The Reverend stood in the pulpit. He did not speak. His expression was closed and cool. After a while, he shifted on his feet. Someone in the congregation muttered something behind me and to the left; someone gave a reply, and there was a low, restrained laugh. Someone else spoke, and then there was another voice, and soon the congregation was boiling with conversation. I could hear the two men behind me; I didn’t turn to look but I knew from earlier that it was George Horsfall and Matthew Williams, Thomas’s cousin. George was saying that Frank could never be trusted, the big meeting was only next Sunday, could he not have waited another week? Just another week and then they would have begun to see things done. Frank always had been a fool when he had drink in him, Matthew replied, but then fools sometimes did wise things; all the meetings in the world would have changed nothing. And all the while the Reverend Wolfenden stood there, gripping the railing of the pulpit, his knuckles getting whiter and whiter, and his face becoming more and more flushed, and then his face cracked into pained lines, and he opened his mouth, and he roared:
    ‘Silence!’
    A hush fell at once. There was an uneasy shuffling of feet and adjusting of clothes and prayer books. Then the