Inside, a prayer meeting was in full swing. Ruby got up from the circle and came towards her. “Enid.” She led her to a chair and sat beside her. Someone threw a shawl over her shoulders. The group held hands again, a stranger and Ruby taking hers on either side, and the words began: For Mrs. Smith’s ankle, we bring healing, for John and his three children, we bring healing, for Miss Elizabeth’s gout, we bring healing. On and on it went, in and out of Enid’s head as she rocked and swayed between them.

Ruby sat with her in the library afterwards. They each had a bowl of soup. “It belongs to friends of mother’s. We moved in two years ago. Then everyone did.” Ruby bit off a piece of bread. “Endless bedrooms, we’ve had eighty here at least. Not now, now we’re down to about thirty-three – thirty-four counting you. There’s a heronry, a racecourse and a dairy. The lakes are stacked with trout.”

“I’ve left my children,” said Enid.

“Have you?” Ruby tilted her head to one side.

“I’m a terrible mother,” said Enid.

“Mothers have the greatest task,” said Ruby, as if she could possibly know.

“I am better away from them.”

“We’ll take care of you.”

“My family will try to get me back.”

“You’re safe here.”

“They’re bound to follow me.”

“In Christ we trust.”

“You have to help me if they try to come and get me.”

“We are all one in God’s love.”

“They won’t understand.”

“Christ heals.”

“They’ll try to make me go back.”

“You can stay as long as you like,” said Ruby for the second time.

❦

It was so new, so completely foreign to anything she’d known. There were crowds of them, crowds and crowds of believers, all swamping the mansion in Norfolk, gripping their books and standing in a circle holding hands. A minister from America came and stayed for three weeks. He told them they needed money for the upkeep of a grand church in London. He asked for donations. Enid thought of the money in her purse, all five pounds of it, and went and fetched it.