3 helpers in stables
3 carpenters
a mason
a groom
a post-boy
a shoe-maker
a tailor
“An excellent beginning — really excellent,” said Starky, “Though, alas, the All our brothers and sisters are willing to donate is less that the amount our greater Abode requires.”
“Because some are not donating their All, like we in this room!” said Julia sharply, “Our lawyer James Rouse is withholding a very great deal. His income must be much larger than he admits — he says nothing about the savings or the value of his properties. Which of us should speak to him about that?” she asked Henry. He murmured, “Nobody, as yet.”
“It would be unwise to estrange him,” said Mayber, “while he is drawing up deeds of gift for signature by our Belovéd’s other followers.”
“Then what about the Nottidge girls?” demanded Julia, “Each offers the thousand a year interest on her capital, but not the capital itself.”
They glanced toward Henry who said quietly, “Do not worry; the Lord will provide. Show me the plans again please.” Cobbe laid them on his knees saying, “The church at least is completed, apart from the spire.”
“It needs no spire,” said Henry, “It needs, however, a conservatory or at least a corridor joining it to the main residence.”
“What a good idea!” cried Mrs Starky, “Because, you know, we can then go back and forth to divine service quite untroubled by the weather until. . until. . ”
She frowned uncertainly. Thomas suggested, “Until time stops, eternity begins and the weather is as heavenly as God will make it?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I meant.”
“I too look forward to that blesséd day,” said Starky, “though I am sorry for the doomed multitude who will never enjoy it.”
“You should not be sorry, they will have brought it on themselves,” said Julia.
A few weeks later Starky told the Nottidge sisters that the Spirit required them to travel with him, Henry and their wives to view the work going forward at Spaxton. They went by coach into Somerset and stopped in Taunton where the Princes and Starkys rested at Giles’ Hotel, the three spinster ladies at the nearby Castle Inn. Early next day Henry sent for Harriet. She put on her bonnet and crossed to the Giles’ Hotel where he received her kindly but solemnly. In the presence of Julia and the Starkys he explained that it would be for the Glory of God if she married his young friend, the Reverend Lewis Price. Harriet blushed and agreed. Henry bade her return in peace to the Castle Inn and lock this secret closely in her heart. This she did.
Then Henry sent for Agnes, a less biddable woman. In a voice as kind as he had used with her sister but more solemnly he said, “Agnes, God is about to confer on you a special blessing; but ere I tell you what it is, you must give me your word to obey the Lord and accept His gift.”
Agnes gave her word after the slightest of hesitations. Henry said, “In a few days you will be united in marriage to our Brother George Robinson Thomas.”
Agnes, confused by the news, cried out, “In a few days?”
“Such is God’s will.”
“But — but — but I have relations to consult, legal settlements to make!”
“You need none of these things. You must not think of the world, but of God.”
“But my mother must be told!” Agnes pleaded.
“God is your father and mother,” said Prince.
“But lawyers take time. . ”
“Why do you want a lawyer, dear?” asked Mrs Starky, looking up from her knitting.
“Well. . for the children’s sake.”
“You will have no children!” said Prince, patiently. “Your marriage with our Brother will be spiritual only; your love to your husband will be pure, according to the Will of God. And now,” he added more warmly, “take tea with us, Agnes, and know that this blesséd moment is a happy one.”
Later in the day the two sisters dined with the Princes and Starkys at the Giles’ Hotel where they met their new fiancés, Thomas and Price. Two days later Clara was similarly engaged to William Cobbe. The three sisters now wished to return to their mother’s home in Stoke for a while, but Henry said God forbade that and also forbade them to tell anyone by letter before the marriages. Meanwhile Harriet and Clara willingly signed their fortunes over to Henry. Agnes refused, but finally signed an agreement that her husband Thomas could invest her property in their joint names. All these details were arranged through communal prayers led by Henry. A fortnight later the three marriages were solemnized in Swansea by one of the Brethren, Starky giving the brides away and Henry looking on.
By these means eighteen thousand pounds of Nottidge money was added to the Agapemone fund. Continuous inflation during the twentieth century has made it almost impossible to convert such a sum into a modern equivalent — in those days servants who ate and lodged with a family were often paid a pound a year or less. Postal rates may give another clue. In Victoria’s reign an early Socialist had organized the Royal Mail to deliver any letter in Britain for the price of a penny stamp. It was a first class service — there was no second class. In 2006 a first class stamp costs 33 pence, but multiplying the Nottidge £18,000 by 33 would still be too little, for in Britain’s pre-decimal days a pound contained 240 pence. By a conservative estimate Henry acquired by these three marriages more than a million modern pounds sterling, which was a fraction of what he got from other followers when income tax was so small and such a recent innovation that important statesmen (Gladstone was one) proposed abolishing it. The estate was now perfectly solvent.
Henry called Julia and the Starkys, Thomas and Price, Mayber and Cobbe, “my seven-branched golden candlestick”. One evening, after calculating all the moneys transferred to Henry’s account, an awestruck silence befell them. Mrs Starky broke it by saying, “Well, Belovéd, you must now certainly have your own carriage and pair.”
Henry had hitherto hired a carriage when he needed one. Owning a one-horse carriage was then a mark of middle-class prosperity: a carriage and pair signified a much higher social standing.
“No!” cried Julia, “A carriage and four! With outriders! Your dignity demands it, Belovéd.”
The idea astonished and excited nearly everyone present — a carriage drawn by four horses was seldom used except by royalty and lords travelling in state processions. If it occurred to the horsemen present that a carriage and four would need unusually skilful management on the twisting roads of southern England they did not say so. When, with a slight chuckle, Henry asked, “What is the sentiment of this meeting toward Sister Julia’s somewhat audacious suggestion?” they all smiled, delighted that the Spirit was allowing their Belovéd to unbend in a joke.
“Yes, you must have a carriage and four Belovéd!”, cried Starky, “It is owed to the Spirit moving you!”
“Hear hear!” cried the others so Henry, amused yet resigned, murmured, “If I must, I must.”
Julia and Mrs Starky devized sober yet eye-catching suits of livery in two shades of grey for the Belovéd’s coachman and footmen. These were cut by Samuel Tricksey, the Agapemone tailor, a small man who fancied himself as a jockey. To stop the harness tangling at sharp bends he gladly rode one of the foremost horses when Henry drove outside Weymouth. This splendid equipage astonished commoners who had seen nothing like it and annoyed gentry who thought it a vulgar display of ill-gotten wealth.
One day Henry urgently summoned George Thomas to the Weymouth Agapemone, and Thomas answered that he could not come at once as he and Agnes were going on holiday to his mother in Wales. Henry had not met such disobedience since his days as a Charlinch curate and had never before found it in Thomas, one of the earliest Lampeter Brethren and also the preacher on whom, after Starky, he most depended. Thomas was obviously now under his wife’s bad influence. When the sinful couple came to Belfield Terrace on the way back from Wales they were put on trial before Henry and Julia, Sam and Mrs Starky. The main accusers were Agnes’ sisters and their husbands. Thomas had never been rebuked by Henry before. He wept, knelt on the floor, confessed his sin and begged forgiveness. Agnes stared at him in astonishment tinged with contempt that struck the rest as open defiance. Thomas leapt to his feet and cried out in as terrible a voice as he could manage, “Agnes! I command you to obey henceforth the Spirit of God in me, made known to me through our Belovéd servant of the Lord!”