God's Loving Embrace

Part Thirty-Seven

'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'

Ephesians

Brogan sat with her adopted parents in the best seats, right in front of the altar. She was not blinded for once, despite her status and importance. Archbishop Winstanley had very publicly urged the faithful to enjoy the Cathedral, to feel God in His house. She sat enveloped in her gown, cloak and veils, helpless to avoid her fate. Bishop Osborne was the star of the show in front of her veiled eyes. He spoke with some passion about the need to live every minute for the love of God, and to dedicate every breath to His glory. Harry had that same faith, but his passion was politics and the building of a new society. But that seemed to be done. Certainly in Meadvale. In three short weeks, Brogan would walk down the aisle to marry her very own bishop, and take her place at the very centre of the epicentre of the modern renaissance. She did not even pretend to hope. She could not fool herself with any positive thoughts. Harry had been her choice after a fashion. Her trust in him had been largely misplaced, and her own reasons for choosing him certainly erroneous, but that did not make it any less true. She was at least complicit in her own fate at the time. But it was different the second time around and she could not pretend otherwise. She felt lost without Harry. She knew she could not protect herself, let alone the girls, without him at her side, and she feared for the future. She had not had much say in her own life but she had some whilst he was alive, but that had died with him on Westminster Green.

But it was more than that, of course. With Harry she had been close to Westminster, close to the politics, a world she had always wanted to be a part of. Even as a Daughter of Eve she had been a part of it all, even if she was little more than a decoration, and almost every night Harry brought the inner workings of the government into their bedroom, giving her mind something to ponder, giving herself something else to think about other than the relentless pursuit of God's love. In Meadvale there was very little of that available to her, and since Sebastian Osborne was a cleric, not a politician, and regarded as a truly pious man, she did not have much hope of a life. She was not only facing life with a man she did not really know let alone love, or even like, but in a pious household, far away from the real world in London like a bird of paradise in her gilded cage. Hidden behind her veils, she cried for herself and for Harry, the bastard who despite himself had given her a life.

۩

Buckingham enjoyed the service. It allowed him to switch off, for the first time in weeks. It also allowed himself to lose himself in the perfection of Meadvale. It was a microcosm of his blueprint for the whole country. Great schools, a fantastic hospital, good housing for all and a thriving business community, all working with the Church at the centre of things and sharing a united purpose. Meadvale had almost no crime, no litter at all, and no unpleasantness. He had never caught one, but he was told that even the buses ran on time. He had never been a religious fanatic in any true sense. He did not have the zeal of a Harry Trevor, or the passion of Michael Winstanley, but he did believe in the need for a renaissance and his faith in the word of God was genuine. Modern Britain had been sorely in need of a reboot, to put things back in place. Someone needed to restore some balance. He believed he had done that, and he believed that they needed to take a few more steps to set everything in concrete.

He told himself that the loss of democratic safeguards in the short term was a price worth paying for Meadvale. In his head, the ends still justified the means. He looked at his own daughter, and saw her thriving with Peter Munroe. He had saved her from the permissive society. She had felt repressed at first but she was happy enough with her life. It was not about individuals in real time, it was about the greater good over time, and the vast majority of people had better lives in God's love. He did not really expect his opponents to understand that, because he was beating them hands down, and he was getting so tired of the game. Peter Munroe believed it would all calm down after the referendum, when they could change the political landscape forever, but Buckingham was not so sure.