The Hourglass

According to the guide, this had been Agnes Ganley’s bedroom.

The young visitor — about the same age Agnes had been when she lived here — paused before a framed picture: a cluster of mostly older women in dark cotton dresses, looking fiercely solemn. She was drawn to the woman in the back row, and not just because she was younger. There was something about the fragile yet resilient figure; she was holding an hourglass that looked like the one on the walnut chest of drawers standing next to the window. Typically Edwardian, the drawers had swan-necked brass handles, each centred above a small keyhole. They were all locked, the keys long gone.

For Agnes, the visitor felt an immediate affinity.

England, 1938

Trying not to laugh, Agnes turned up a corner of the curtain while the woman on the bed lay panting, her stomach heavily distended beneath the covers.

“Can you see anything?” Agnes held back the bubbling that threatened to rise up from her diaphragm and make a mockery of everything.

“Erm, no. Not yet.”

“Anything at all?”

Marnie, one of the women skilled in arts and crafts, peered under the blanket as close as decency allowed.

“Afraid not.”

***

Not long after she’d learnt to read, in a rare moment of closeness, Agnes had been shown a copy of the special writings of 1850 as revealed to Louisa Cove, by her mother. Agnes later discovered that elements of Louisa’s vision were disputed — though most followers of the prophecies agreed on two key dates: November 1938 and January 1, 2000. The first marked the birth of a special baby to a woman of middle years; the second foretold that he would lead them to paradise after the world’s systems collapsed in 2000.

Gradually, the doubts came. Creeping at first — then searing like a branding iron. Whenever her mother read aloud from the Book of Prophecy, Agnes would find herself counting the dust motes drifting through the sunlight — small rebellions of mind she dared not name.

In one sense, the dark cell that enclosed Agnes was of her own making. In another, it was rooted in an all-too-painful reality.

The women in the house tended to wring their hands and say, “Oh, Agnes,” whenever her mother wasn’t around. Everyone, that is, except Tabitha, who had always been an ally.

In her late teens, Agnes’s mind had closed down after being released from hospital; semi-broken, sometimes her former spirit seeped through unseen cracks. However hard she tried to hide it, fragments escaped. The effort of sealing in her true nature was exhausting. When the cracks showed, she claimed ill health and kept to her room.

***

Within the bay-windowed respectability of a large Victorian house, a community of mostly middle-aged, middle-class women dreamed of a future without war. The radio was their main link with the outside world; other news came from the broadsheets, much needed with political storm clouds gathering over Europe.

Time was running out in other ways, too.

A robust woman with iron-grey hair and cornflower eyes named Izzie was to be the receptacle for the Special One. The women centred their lives around the imminent arrival. Marnie had fashioned a cedar-wood crib, ably assisted by the group’s leader, Era Ganley. Izzie embroidered the bedclothes where the babe would lie, and Agnes’s prettily knitted clothes lay folded in her wardrobe awaiting the Great Event.

A date in October 1938 had been prophesied for the birth. Although eagerly anticipated, apart from keeping to her room and offering the odd piquant remark during daily House Meetings, the well-rounded Izzie showed no other obvious signs of pregnancy. No one said anything publicly — at least not in Era’s hearing.

Tabitha, a servant who ventured into the outside world for shopping, privately heard other opinions. Indispensable and childless, she had been granted a room in the house for life. Era particularly valued her.

At twenty, Era’s daughter, Agnes, was the youngest woman in the household. She tried and failed to recall the shadowy presence of her father. An army captain during the Great War, he had never recovered from the experience. Era, frightened by such loss of control, buried herself in domestic tasks and spiritual matters. He died when Agnes was only a few years old. She still couldn’t remember him.

***

One Saturday morning, Agnes opened her attic window and breathed in the balmy air. Clouds scudded across the sky; house martins shrieked overhead. The end of the breeding season was in sight, and many of the garden’s winged visitors were beginning their migration to warmer climes. Agnes, chafing at restrictions, secretly envied them.

Her commodious, well-furnished room felt like a gilded cage. Rarely venturing beyond the backyard, she lacked friends her own age. She had been privately educated by her mother, who, before her conversion, had taught at an exclusive girls’ school in London.

Agnes’s one treat was a fortnightly visit to the library — disapproved of by her mother, who insisted the house already held plenty of books — even if they weren’t the kind Agnes liked. A stash of racier novels lay bundled beneath her bed. Discovering them while tidying, Tabitha had quickly put them back.

***

Agnes heard the chime from the grandfather clock in the hallway. Seated with her mother in the office beside their faithful typewriter, diligently attending to packets of mail, she imagined the river snaking toward the town’s park, visible from her bedroom window.

Era was often occupied with supporters in the wider community. Ever since a prominent newspaper had denounced the “Middle England sect,” mocking their belief of an alabaster box kept in some hidden location containing the founder’s prophecy, letters had poured in. Some were sympathetic, some lonely, some eccentric; a few were hostile, even threatening.

Another hour of Agnes’s life passed — like the sand in the hourglass.

The previous day something had come over her. She had picked it up and flung it across the room. The picture of her mother, shawled and severe, holding tight the Book of Prophecy — the foundation of their faith — had been knocked to the floor. Despite Agnes’s rage, the hourglass had not broken. She had stared at it, mystified.

What did it mean?

***

Her most serious outburst two years earlier had ended with a precious vase smashed against the wall. The doctor, a benefactor of the cause, had given her a sedative and sent her to a psychiatric hospital for a “rest.” There she endured months of insulin-induced comas to treat her “hysteria.” Only Tabitha’s visits kept her sane. When Tabitha threatened to leave the community if Agnes wasn’t released, Era finally relented. Agnes returned weak and shaken, but alive.

***

The daily gathering at 8 p.m. in late October 1938 was a lively affair. Neither Agnes nor Izzie attended, yet discussions abounded round the long oak table about when the Birth would come. Each day brought new “signs.”

Meanwhile, Agnes’s radiance daily faded and her depression deepened. Observed staring into space, she seemed to have retreated again into darkness.

Padding down the winding staircase, avoiding the creaking step, Agnes moved like a midnight ghost through the sleeping house. She slipped into the room where the radio was kept.

Her trembling fingers found the dial. The BBC World Service cracked through the airwaves. The news failed to comfort her. Feeling she was nearing some inner Rubicon, Agnes longed for the courage to make a fresh start, but fear drove her back to her bed.

***

Agnes hadn’t time to hide her book under the pillow when a familiar knock sounded.

“Come in,” she called, falsely bright.

As always, Tabitha entered carrying a mug of cocoa on a tray. “There you are, my dear.”

“Thank you, Tabby.”

The servant perched on the bed’s edge, eyes on the book. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Oh, just a book.”

“I can see that! Nothing that’ll land you in trouble, I hope.”

“It’s nice to read something other than religious texts for a change.”

Tabitha looked serious. “I’m not sure your mother would agree.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Of course not.”

“Sometimes I just want to know what a normal life would be like — away from all this.”

“The world out there isn’t always rosy,” Tabitha said gently. “But you know that. No one knows better than me how much you suffered in that place.”

“Incarcerated — that’s what it was.” Agnes’s voice hardened. “Hidden away, given awful drugs, restrained, watched even in the lavatory. If you hadn’t got me out, I’d have died. The morgue was the only escape for some.” She grasped Tabitha’s hands. “Without you, I wouldn’t have survived.”

“I couldn’t let you stay there. I made your mother use her influence to get you released.”

“My mother would have left me there if it wasn’t for you. Sometimes I think she wishes I hadn’t been born.”

“You don’t mean that. Your mother loves you.”

“Then she has a funny way of showing it.”

“Once she realised she’d made a terrible mistake, she moved heaven and earth to free you.”

***

Two days before her planned departure, Agnes felt clearer than she had in months. She was determined to leave, come what may.

Even so, the meal with Tabitha and the servants felt like a Last Supper. Agnes had known these women all her life. She tried to act normally, grateful her mother was away, but she could hardly wait to get away. Couldn’t they see how obsessed they’d become — the subject of ridicule in the press as “middle-class women with too much time on their hands”?

It was beyond her.

On the eve of her escape, she checked beneath the bed for her case and bag. She’d saved enough money to survive a few months until she found real work.

The hourglass on her dressing table was half-empty, the sands as timeless as the sea from which they’d sprung. Agnes had never been to the sea. She turned it without thinking, watching the sand slip through. How many times could she turn her life over before it ran out completely?

But one thought tormented her: how could she leave the only people who had ever loved her? Especially Tabitha. They must already know she didn’t belong here, but the idea of never being forgiven was unbearable. The price of freedom was high. The cell she entered now would be of her own making.

***

The next day, after walking through the town’s park with its gothic monuments and ornamental ponds, Agnes returned to a house in disarray.

Era stood clutching the banister at the bottom of the stairs, face white and contorted.

“Oh, Agnes! We’ve been looking for you. Something terrible’s happened! Where have you been?”

“Just watching the carp in the pond,” Agnes lied. “One seemed unwell earlier.”

“Oh, what a time to worry about fish—”

Something in her mother’s expression stopped her. Era appeared rudderless, as if the life had been crushed out of her.

“Whatever’s the matter?”

“Tabitha has fallen down the stairs. She’s in a bad way.”

“What! Oh no.” Agnes was distraught. Her knees gave way; for a second, she thought she might be sick. The bannister bit into her palm as she steadied herself. Her mother’s eyes bore into her, stricken.

“She’s in the living room. The doctor’s with her — he wants privacy.”

Moments later the doctor appeared. “I’m so sorry. She’s broken her back. In cases like this, long-term care will be needed. She may never walk again.”

For once, mother and daughter were united. Sadness pierced their hearts.

“Oh, Agnes,” her mother wept, “how ever will I cope?”

“I don’t know, Mother.”

For a moment, Agnes stood quite still, her mind an aching void. The half-packed case under her bed seemed to call to her — the promise of a future that wasn’t heavy with duty. Yet she thought of Tabitha lying broken below the landing — the one person who had truly seen her. If she left now, she’d be abandoning her too, just when she was most needed.

A tremor passed through her. Freedom suddenly looked smaller than she had imagined, like a door opening onto nothing but a howling wind and lifting stones. Perhaps this was what she was meant for — not escape, but endurance.

And then something descended upon her like the light of a hundred white doves. She realised how much of her mother’s strength had come from Tabitha’s constancy — as if she was being called upon to refill that well.

***

The next day, Agnes rose early and set about her duties with new resolve. She discarded the material around the baby’s crib as “woefully inadequate” and began again. By the time she finished, the crib was swathed in voluminous folds of fabric.

As November ended, it became quietly accepted that the prophecy had failed. Unperturbed, Izzie returned to her crafts, but Agnes’s belief that it had been a minor setback sealed the matter.

For the first time in her life, Agnes felt needed. A weight lifted. The idea of leaving now seemed almost ludicrous. She knew, with a calm certainty, that she would remain in the house and serve the community until she died. Her life was no longer one of confusion but of light and purpose.

Agnes could not have known, as she stood beside her mother and looked up the staircase where Tabitha had fallen, that her decision to stay would alter everything. What began as a small act of pity — a quiet turning from the half-packed case beneath her bed — became the thread that bound the whole house together.

Because she stayed, the house endured. Its rooms remained filled with the faint scent of mothballs and purpose. The women’s hope of a better world — their quiet defiance of time marching. Agnes herself lived on through that act of staying, a moment that reached far beyond the storm clouds of the age into the unknown hopes and dreams of a different future.

Present Day

The young woman in the museum placed the hourglass back on the dresser. It must have been the one in the photograph.

Outside the window, the same river curved toward the park, the same restless sky glinted beyond the trees. She could almost see Agnes standing with her hand on the glass, wondering whether to stay or go.

She thought of her own life: the man waiting at home, the fear that kept her imprisoned, the baby she wasn’t sure she wanted.

Maybe Agnes’s decision had reached through time not as a warning but as a whisper: you can still choose.

She turned the hourglass over and watched the sand fall. Outside, a single gull wheeled through the brightening air.