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Back Sisters of Gold
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication page
  4. A Week’s Work in Birmingham
  5. I
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. II
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. III
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Forty-Nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-One
  59. Fifty-Two
  60. Fifty-Three
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Further Reading
  63. About the Author
  64. By the Same Author

As the weeks passed, when he delivered such lines his eyes would light on Margaret, below him in the congregation, marking her out as the chosen focus of that love. It was not that he did not ever talk to Annie, but she was sixteen and saw him as impossibly ancient. With Margaret it was different.

There was the talking, the walks she had shared with him. This in itself had been like being swept along by a force that was almost too much for her. Charles walked very fast and her unaccustomed legs strained to keep up. Quite soon it became less of a struggle. Her body strengthened and her health returned. And it was he, with his vigour, his vision and his favouring of her, who had brought her back to life.

One glowing day in late October, they paused together on a low hill facing the village. Charles stood with his hands in the pockets of that long black coat, his hair blown back and eyes fixed on the horizon as if all the world was his responsibility.

‘I feel the Lord has asked things of me which are almost too much for my frame to bear,’ he said, in his low, intense voice. ‘Such responsibility can only be the charge of the very robust of body and faith – and sometimes I wonder if I am too weak a vessel.’

Margaret was unsure what to say. She was in awe of him, of the force of him. Even the sight of him made her whole body pulse faster.

‘The Lord gives us only what we can bear,’ she said, wondering if this was true though it was what she had always been told. At times, during her long illness, she had wondered whether she could really endure any more of the sapping of her young life.

‘Do you believe that?’ Charles had turned to her, speaking with such burning urgency that she blushed. It seemed so strange that he would place any value on her opinions.

She looked down at her black buttoned boots. Who was she? For a moment she felt she had no substance compared with this flame who stood beside her, whose physical presence made the hairs rise on her flesh. She had to find some conviction to match his!

‘Yes,’ she said calmly, staring ahead of her. ‘We must not fear. ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear . . . He who fears is not perfected in love.’

She felt Charles’s gaze like a ray of light on her cheek as the lovely words of John’s epistle poured from her.

‘Of course,’ he said. His voice seemed to tremble with humility. ‘Of course you are right. You in your quiet way, Margaret, have a faith more splendid than my own.’