The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Seven

Ellington Manor

Meadvale

Surrey

Sebastian Osborne stood in the doorway of his private chapel, surveying the scene. His beloved wife, his two daughters, three daughters-in-law and eight of his older granddaughters were offering their daily devotions, all on their knees, heads bowed, hands together and their gowns arranged neatly around them. Eight keepers in their grey uniform gowns stood around the edges of the room, supervising proceedings, and the silence was deafening. Because the prayers and sermons were delivered straight into their heads through the digital earpieces all women over the age of twelve were equipped with, by law. It gave them all perfect hearing and allowed the easy broadcast of audio content directly to them, but it also gave anyone with the right codes the power to turn their hearing off. It was not a power Osborne himself had ever abused, and he never allowed the keepers who worked for him to go beyond their own legal responsibilities, so he had never really worried about the practise before. He was a man of faith, and he wanted everyone to pray. He had always believed that women were more easily tempted than men, and the concept of a Daughter of Eve had always made sense to him since he first met Michael Winstanley. Girls needed to have focus and routine in their lives, and they needed to be protected from their own proclivities. He had lived almost forty years in the modern world, before the renaissance saved Britain for God, and he knew what could happen to young women if they were not protected and kept on the right path. His own family shared his faith in the doctrine. His girls were fine Daughters of Eve, earnestly devout and gladly conspicuously pious. Even his wife, who was not raised in God's love, had come to enjoy her devotions.

"Miss Cooper tells me that Mama only prays for an hour these days, Pa? I was surprised...I thought you asked for more?" Joshua Trevor-Montague asked, joining his stepfather in the doorway, checking on his own wife and his two oldest daughters.

"I used to...but I was part of the committee who set the legal minimum...and we enjoy our morning coffee together in normal circumstances," Osborne replied, his eyes lingering on Brogan, elegant in brown velvet, not moving a muscle as she concentrated on whatever her keeper had chosen for that morning's lesson. "Semi-retirement was agreeing with us...with me...much to my surprise...but it seems I still have a purpose...perhaps she will have more time to pray in the coming weeks."

"Florence and the girls are used to three hours...on Miss Cooper's recommendation...they will be surprised to be disturbed so early?" Joshua said, resting a hand on the old man's right shoulder, worrying about him, just a little. Sebastian Osborne was eighty-one, and still fit and in robust health, but the last week had been rather difficult for him, for everyone. Like any son, Joshua was starting to see his ageing father from a different perspective. He was used to being the one worried about, to asking for advice or help, but all of a sudden, the boot seemed to be on the other foot. And his mother's rather lax routine really was quite surprising to him, because his father was a bishop, after all. "Pa...are you okay?"

"I am here...you are all here...and I think young Nicholas will see sense...but I am afraid that Michael will never forgive me...and I think he will fight me all the way?" Sebastian said as he turned away from the family chapel, heading for his study with the oldest of his three stepchildren at his side. "And our actions...whilst certainly justifiable and necessary...have caused a lot of very real distress...I regret that, Joshua? People trust the church and admire the Order...I am risking all of that?"

"They don't yet know what we found inside the Priory...or why we had to go in?" Joshua insisted, trying to reassure his stepfather. But that was hard, because he was still reeling from the shock of what his father had asked him to do. Invading the Priory was the right thing to do, considering the things that they had discovered inside, but they had broken several serious laws and defied the doctrine. No man had ever set foot inside a consecrated convent, and to do so was a mortal sin, a heinous crime against God and the church, and Joshua was appalled with himself, and wracked with guilt his own prayers could not assuage. He could only imagine what anyone else would think, say and do when they finally knew what he had done with his father. "Yes...like us, the faithful will be distressed...but your actions...our actions will be forgiven once the truth is known? At least, I hope so?"