The Rapture Read online

  For all who believed.

  And K and F: Here endeth the lesson.

  Bedford, England, 1926

  A vicar’s widow called Mabel believes herself to be Octavia, the Daughter of God – a messiah with the power to bring an end to suffering in the world. For six years she has been gathering followers, who flock to live with her in Bedford. They call themselves the Panacea Society.

  The Great War has claimed their husbands, brothers and sons; but God has told them that women will bring salvation – a panacea for all disease and despair. The answer lies in a mysterious box sealed by prophetess Joanna Southcott more than a century earlier. But to open it they must persuade the church of men to recognise the rule of women.

  The following is a work of fiction based on real events. All sections printed in bold are quoted from correspondence or published works held in the Panacea Society archive, which spans almost a hundred years. Passages of scripture are taken from various Bible versions used during this time, some of which were paraphrased or reinterpreted by members.

  Wouldn’t a hostel – a ‘Land of Goshen’ – be lovely! Really devoted believers could take up nice homes in Bedford, which is a most lovely place and is going up by leaps and bounds. Selfridges is coming and has taken a huge block in High Street.

  Octavia, 1919

  THE PRAYER OF ST IGNATIUS

  Make what is true the truth to me,

  Let fuller light appear,

  All that is evil take from me,

  All that is doubtful clear.

  Let not false confidence betray,

  No foolish fears mislead,

  But in the straight and narrow way

  Be Thou my guide indeed.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  Epigraph

  WINTER

  Winged Messenger

  Pondskater

  Pilgrim’s Progress

  Ugly Ways

  Disciples

  Garden of Eden

  The Yellow Wallpaper

  On Overcoming

  The Box

  To Those Desiring to Join the Community

  SPRING

  Wash Day

  Castleside

  Healing by Post

  The Wireless Room

  Talking Pictures

  Voices

  Anchoress

  Ellen’s Parlour

  The Protection

  Reflections

  Sea of Galilee

  The General Strike

  SUMMER

  The Vow

  A Calling

  Sleepwalking

  Awakening

  Webs for Destruction

  The Opening Room

  The Confession

  Judicial Statement taken down from Donald Ricketts

  The Divine Mother

  Eve’s Shame

  The Trial

  AUTUMN

  The Ten Commandments in the Spiritual Court

  The New World

  Westminster

  Crime and Banditry, Distress and Perplexity Will Increase….

  The Opening

  The Answer

  Branches

  My Dear Children…

  The End

  The Visitor

  The Judgement

  The Betrayal

  The Truth

  The Exorcism

  The Secret

  Dear Mrs Barltrop…

  Deliverance

  Seventy-seven Steps

  Octavia’s Diary: 1915

  The Crossing

  Appendix

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  WINTER

  Were it required of me to emblazon a legend over the gates and doors of these buildings, one which set forth fact and not fiction, it might run thus: ‘Leave Self behind, all who enter here. This is the House of Correction, this is the Era of Reproof.’

  Octavia, The Cleansing of the Sanctuary

  Winged Messenger

  A devil had flown in through Her bedroom window. That was Her first thought. His eyes were black glass: as dark and deep as Lucifer’s soul.

  ‘It was very surprising, I can assure you, to see his little head parting the lace curtains and looking into the room,’ Octavia tells us over breakfast. But now She thinks of it, She remembers seeing him yesterday, sitting atop the high wall that keeps us safe inside the Garden. He had stayed for nigh on half an hour, watching as we took tea and waited patiently for Jesus.

  Octavia looks flustered. The string of pearls which always decorates Her neck is absent; Her hairstyle has fallen a little short of perfection; and She is late, a very unusual occurrence. Octavia is never late. If a chiming clock dares to accuse Her, She is quick to enter a counter-charge: it is running fast or the congregation has gathered too early. Have you no more pressing purpose than to sit here gossiping? But this morning I sat in silence with Emily and Peter for a full twenty minutes before She joined us at the table. That is, I was silent and they compared notes: listing the transgressions they had witnessed in others, each sin recorded neatly in their pocketbooks, ready to be shared with Octavia when they are called to give evidence every fortnight.

  We must all keep an inventory of each other’s failings, and our own. How else will we improve ourselves in time to receive the Lord?

  I’m certain my name is on their charge sheet. Dilys Barltrop, underlined, above a long list of inadequacies and oversights. But I didn’t get the opportunity to find out. Octavia interrupted without apology, and began her story without delay. She had been dressing when She saw a large bird sitting on her windowsill. Her first impulse was to cover Herself: perhaps it had come to spy on Her nakedness.

  ‘Devils can disguise themselves in many forms, and of course its black plumage made me suspect it at once,’ She says, Her teacup trembling as She lifts it from the saucer. I think of feathers, beak and claws. I think of Octavia’s exposed skin.

  ‘Oh! How terrible!’ Peter gasps. ‘You should have called out. I would have come to Your aid.’ But the very idea is topsy turvy. Octavia doesn’t need to be saved. She is the one saving us.

  ‘Thank you, Peter,’ She says, with an indulgent smile. ‘But it should be obvious that this was a creature of God. In the next second I could see very clearly what it meant.’

  ‘A messenger …’ Emily says theatrically, bringing a hand to the faded lace collar on her throat. ‘A winged messenger of Heaven …’

  It’s a line from Romeo and Juliet if I’m not mistaken. Octavia loves it when Emily quotes the Bard. It’s proof She has succeeded in moulding her, improving her. God made man in His own image. And Octavia is doing the same with Emily; she knew nothing of Shakespeare before she came to us, found God and joined the middle classes.

  ‘Emily, I knew you would be the one to see it,’ She says, stroking back a strand of grey that has fallen from her chignon. She repositions a hairpin with sufficient force to punish its laxity. ‘When I looked into its eyes, God’s purpose was obvious. I sprinkled some crumbs of biscuit just below the window and suddenly he jumped into the room!’ She is becoming agitated, excited, eager for us to see the significance of what has happened. And Emily, as usual, is keen to oblige. ‘No mortal bird would be so tame. He sat quite happily indoors?’ she asks.

  Octavia laughs. ‘I should say so. He took a bath in my basin, did his business on the top of my looking glass, and after a contented squawk to tell me that the rooms would suit, he went to sleep on one leg.’

  Octavia names him Sir Jack Daw and tells us something strange and significant has happened. ‘It is proof,’ She says, ‘a sign that Christ shall soon fly down to us
, just as the Lord has promised.’

  She is convinced that a message has arrived in the Garden; that God Himself has posted it through Her window.

  I must believe it too.

  Pondskater

  They are watching. I must concentrate on walking, one foot in front of the other, down the length of Albany Road. Head up, back straight, like I’m wearing a corset. Though Octavia doesn’t believe we should wear them: we should have the faith and discipline to contain ourselves. Using whalebones would be cheating.

  It is not as if I am doing anything I shouldn’t. Walks are permitted in Octavia’s list of Wholesome Exercises for Body and Soul, but my thoughts might betray me. The Devil plants doubts in my head and guilty looks on my face, and that is what they will be looking out for. Fifty-eight believers live around the Garden now, all chasing the same prize: the glittering treasure of a sin or scandal they can unearth and present to Octavia. Today is the Sabbath, so all work is suspended, except the most important job of all, which is to keep an eye on each other’s souls and report back where we find them lacking. Behind those net curtains there will be pocketbooks open, pencils poised:

  Sunday. 1.38 p.m.

  Dilys seen leaving 12 Albany Road. Looking furtive.

  Octavia calls it Overcoming. She tells us Jesus will not return unless we are colourless, faultless, zero. So we must evaluate one another. It is for our own good. She says secrets are like splinters, they need to be wheedled out before they start to fester. But it is not that simple. Some are far too deep, they burrow into flesh, the skin heals over, the stab of pain is gone and in time you wonder whether they were ever there at all. Those are the secrets that I keep. Secrets from before the others came. Secrets in the box at the back of my wardrobe.

  I walk past their windows. Past Mary Massey on this side of the street, and Mary Beedell on the other. Past Florence, Hilda and Agnes at Number 19: three sisters who plainly cannot stand the sight of one another, and spend their days picking over old squabbles like vultures over bones. Then on past Ethel and Mildred Keeley whom I find almost impossible to tell apart, and their lodger whose name I can’t remember. I lose track of who they are or how they came to be here. At twenty-five years old I am the youngest by at least two decades; a peculiarity among the band of increasingly indistinguishable middle-aged ladies, the colour receding from their hair and the definition from their waists.

  Even the houses look the same, terraced, like their occupants; joined together. One may have a little stained glass in the front door, another fretwork like lace along the eaves, or a chequerboard of black and white tiles leading callers up the path. But these are just details. Stand back and they become a single row. They rely on each other to stay standing: if one brick came loose, everything could come crashing down. But they stand firm. Stand guard. And so must we.

  We’re almost all women here. Only a handful of men have been allowed to join. Edgar Peissart, whom God sent as an emissary from America. And Peter, who came to us from Australia, though whether he really is a man is questionable: a tiny, frail creature, careful never to have an opinion in case it is the wrong one, non-committal even on the question of his own sex. Anything to please Octavia.

  But I must not have these thoughts, they are not good, not of God.

  The Devil is whispering again. Doubts and suspicions. Octavia says he pours them down our throats like poison. And a trickle can turn into a torrent. Then sooner or later you drown in his lies.

  No, Peter is good and kind. But I was surprised She let him move into Number 12 with us. Four of the bedrooms were already taken and the fifth in use for nightly meetings. But Peter said he would make a room up in the attic. I think he imagines himself as a guardian angel suspended above Octavia as She sleeps. And as he stands at little more than five feet tall, the sloping ceilings haven’t proved to be much of a problem.

  Emily came to Number 12 as a maid, two years ago, but the Lord revealed that He had bigger plans for her than making meals and washing sheets, so Octavia advertised for domestic help, and Betty moved into the box room last year. She is not a member but she understands the need to follow Octavia’s commands without question or complaint. If she wants to keep her job.

  The others live in neighbouring properties. Those with the means to take their pick of houses made offers too generous to be refused. Ellen Oliver bought the four-bedroomed house to the left of us; Rachel Fox the one on the right. On it went until Octavia had followers on all sides. She called the first of them Apostles, but soon they numbered more than twelve. Word spread, women came to hear Her speak and once they heard Her voice they knew the Truth. And so they stayed and took their place in the society, as landladies or as lodgers; house after house along Albany Road, Castle Street, Newnham Road and the Embankment; four roads that meet to form a square like soldiers in formation. Where they do break ranks there’s a high wall that runs between them. So we are completely enclosed. Safe. Contained. And inside the boundary lies Paradise. We thought Octavia was speaking figuratively when She told us that. But She wasn’t. This is the Garden of Eden. Hidden in plain sight. It was here in Bedford all along.

  Those who came later had to make do with houses several streets away. Messengers rush between them to share Her Word; typists, like me, put it down on paper; those in the Printing Room make copies to be sent all over the world. Some of the ladies scour the papers for signs that the End Times are upon us: hurricanes in the Tropics or earthquakes in Italy. Then there are letters to be written and healing to be administered. And the tea and cake is not going to serve itself. I see their relief when they hurry past with an envelope in their hand, raising it as proof that they cannot possibly stop and chat to me. ‘I must catch the last post,’ they call back over their shoulder. ‘No rest for the wicked!’ If they asked me how I am there’s a risk I might answer truthfully. Besides, there are rules about what we are allowed to say out loud. Limit all dialogue to pleasantries and practicalities. Do not question. Only obey.

  *

  I have left the house in too light a coat: the mouse-grey velvet that was hanging in the hallway. I hadn’t planned to walk, but I had to get out; away from the whispered judgements and scribbled accusations. But even here I am not free of them. On the other side of the street I see a familiar figure. It is the top hat that gives him away, as much a part of his silhouette as the gold-topped cane he carries. Edgar Peissart touches a gloved hand to the brim to acknowledge that he has seen me. But he does not slow his pace, perhaps as much in need of solitude as I.

  At the bottom of Albany Road the grey sky opens and meets its own reflection on the River Great Ouse: a ribbon of water as wide as the road that runs beside it. A crew of schoolboys rows by, gliding in a mist of frozen breath, their blades moving together like the legs of a giant insect. A pond skater: that’s what they look like. Edgar says that in America they call them Jesus Bugs because they walk on water, unaware that they are performing a miracle. The river is so close I could touch it, dip my toe in first, then wade in after. There are no walls or sloping banks to stop me; there is nothing to stop me except the cold. When spring comes I shall sit at the water’s edge and watch the twigs and blossoms that it carries to the distant sea. Then in summer the spectacle of day-trippers out on punts, a splash, a shot of laughter, another young man boasting, cock-sure and trying to impress. I will see him panicking as the punt pole gets stuck in the mud.

  Sometimes we cling to the very thing that is pulling us under.

  There’s a couple on the path ahead. From the way she turns her head to his I suppose they must be sweethearts. He is walking on crutches, an empty trouser leg hanging limply as he moves. I cross the street and turn up Newnham Road away from them. I don’t want him to meet my eyes and see what I am thinking: imagining how he looks beneath his clothes, pale skin puckered like fingertips that have been too long in the bathwater. I picture him lying in No Man’s Land, his torn flesh, the smell of earth and iron as he bled into the wool of his uniform. When we go
t the news that the war was over, I half expected that the lost limbs would grow back; that the fallen would rise. But seven years have passed and none of my brothers has returned home. Ivan moved to Canada, Adrian went to India and Eric is in France. Well, his body is, but not his soul. That has gone to Heaven.

  Pilgrim’s Progress

  Perhaps it was the thought of my brothers that brought me here. We used to play in the gardens of the Bunyan Meeting Church: the boys took turns with a spinning top and I would make do with a single pebble, tossing it onto the path, playing hopscotch on the paving stones that carve a walkway between the sparsely filled flowerbeds. It is one of those January days where the air hangs perfectly still, where no breeze shakes the bones of the trees; a day when it feels that time itself is frozen. I can hear the hymns we used to sing when I was young. We’d walk into church together: my brothers first, me following behind. I was the youngest and the only girl: two frailties that induced their affectionate contempt. Would it be wrong to go inside and sit with my memories of them for a while, to remember the days when we’d sit and listen to Father preach to his flock?

  The church is made of red brick. It is sturdy, practical, unremarkable – like most men, that’s what Octavia would say. But inside it opens into a palace of pale light, coloured glass scattering rainbows onto the canvas of muted walls. Everything is made of wood, every surface painted in pastel shades of contemplation: warming from the purest white of snowdrops to the butter-yellow of daffodils. I take a seat at the back. When I get home I can tell Octavia I wandered into church to witness the folly of men; to hear them spill the Lord’s words carelessly, like drunks. I can say I came to spy on their ignorance and remember how lucky I am to know the Truth.