by Joan Aiken
Next day, the instruction period over, I was occupied in hoeing around the young bean sprouts, as ordered by aged Father Mathieu, the gardener, when I came across a dead mole. Poor thing, there it lay on its back with all four feet in the air: strange, broad feet, designed for digging, more like shovels or paddles than like pads or paws. Fascinated by its long inquiring nose, tiny eyes, and wonderfully velvetlike black fur, I picked it up to study it more closely. A black-robed monk had just entered the garden, and, believing him to be Father Mathieu, I stepped around a quince tree, holding out the mole to show him.
"See, Father—!"
But the monk was Father Vespasian, who had been quietly standing and watching me.
"When he saw the mole he turned a queer, sick lemon-yellow color and began to let out little sharp cries of distress, while his green eyes, pale-rimmed, shot desperately here and there. His cries became louder, his hands clenched convulsively, and at length he turned and fled, shrieking now in spasms like somebody suffering mortal agony; I could hear his cries dying away in the distance as I stood aghast, still with the mole extended in my hand, wondering what I had done;
Father Mathieu came hurrying out of the tool-house, looking greatly alarmed.
"Mon Dieu, was that Father Vespasian? What occurred—?"
Then his eye lit on the mole in my hand.
"Ah, I understand. Father Vespasian has a horror of death—of any dead thing. Such a sight as that is certain to start one of his attacks."
"Heaven help me, what have I done? I had no intention of distressing him!"
"It is no matter, my boy. Do not put yourself about," Father Mathieu said kindly. "How could you be expected to know such a thing?"
"But he will be so angry with me—he will think that I did it purposely!"
"No, his fits always end in a profound sleep, which may last for many hours. Very likely when he wakes he will remember nothing of what caused his seizure, or even that it happened."
Like me, I thought. You would think that he would have more sympathy with my condition.
We did not see Father Vespasian again that day. The Prior, Father Anselm, a frail, elderly, sad-faced man, took his part at the services and in the Chapter, where the monks had their meeting. But next day the Abbot was about again, none the worse, it seemed. I thought his eye passed over me, if I happened to come in his way, with a strange blankness, as if the sight of me were repugnant to him. He did not send for me again. At intervals, working in the garden, I would catch sight of him, for he often walked for hours on end, back and forth, back and forth, over a grassy shoulder of the promontory which looked down toward the bay and the causeway. To and fro, to and fro, he walked, and I always felt that he was aware of my presence in the kitchen garden. But he never once looked my way.
Father Mathieu told me that he often spent many hours at night on that spot, pacing up and down. "The holy Abbot needs very little sleep," he told me. "One hour a night is sufficient for him. His mind is occupied with deep thought."
On the following Friday, after the service of Sext, the people suffering from maladies and afflictions were allowed to visit the Abbey, and so I had a chance to witness Father Vespasian's power of healing.
As we came out of Chapel we saw the group of sufferers and their friends patiently waiting: a boy with a badly swollen foot, who had been carried up on a litter of plaited osiers by three of his companions; a distraught-looking man whose face was splashed all over with angry red blotches; and a woman holding a shawled baby.
Father Vespasian, wearing an expression of serenity and radiance, walked slowly toward the patients, who all knelt and gazed up at him. Profound trust and hope was written clear on their faces. The rest of us formed a ring around them: monks to the front and novices in the rear. The monks began a soft chant of invocation while Father Vespasian slowly and carefully inspected the man with the blotched face, murmured a prayer over him, and gently laid his hands on the haggard particolored cheeks. Then he called for a vessel of water, blessed it, poured it over the man's face, and bade him dry himself with a napkin.
"After that, hold the napkin over your face, my brother, while you can say the Paternoster slowly twice," ordered the Abbot, and moved on to the boy with the swollen foot, whom he appeared to know.
"You wish to go fishing with the others, Tomas, is that it?"
The tousle-headed boy grinned shyly. "Yes, my lord Abbot! Papa is sick, and we need the money badly—but old Père Rotrou said the bone was broken."
"Let us see. Perhaps we can make it better, if you trust me."
"Oh, I do, I do, my lord Abbot."
As before, Father Vespasian prayed, laid his hands carefully on the swollen joint, poured holy water, and wrapped a white towel round it.
"Now say two prayers to our gracious Lady, child, while I look at this little one."
The mother holding the baby was desperately thin and sad. She appeared wretchedly weary, too, as if she had come a long way on this last hope. And a last hope it must be, I saw, by the look in the eyes she raised to Father Vespasian.
"Where are you from, my daughter? I do not know you."
"No, my father, I have traveled a long way. From Narbonne ... My husband died of the sickness, and my two elder children. This little one is the last. Hearing of your holy touch, I hoped—I prayed—" With a mute gesture she held out the baby on her two hands. Poor thing, it, too, was dwindled away to nearly nothing; its arms and legs looked thin as the pea-sticks in Father Mathieu's garden, its skin was pale yellow and waxy. I heard Father Antoine, in front of me, exhale a long anxious sigh.
At the sight of it a faint frown crossed Father Vespasian's brow; nonetheless he prayed over it long and earnestly, sprinkled it with holy water, and bade the mother wrap it close and repeat three Hail Marys while she waited for the healing to take effect. She crouched down over it with bowed head, holding the little creature close to her breast while she prayed.
Now, suddenly, the silence was broken by a wild shout from the boy, Tomas.
"My foot! It's better, it's better, it's really better! Look, Pierrot, look, Garvi, look, Tonio! The swelling has gone, it's gone!"
His friends gasped as he stood up waving the white napkin triumphantly; and it was true, the hurt foot was no more swollen than the other, and the dark-red color had paled to a normal brown.
"Can you walk on it?" Father Vespasian asked, smiling.
"Yes, Father, yes, look!"
In an ecstasy of delight he capered across the grassy quadrangle. "I'm cured, I'm cured, now I can go fishing, oh, thank you, holy Father!" And he returned, humbly and reverently, to kiss the Abbot's hand.
"Thank not me but a greater Father than I, my boy; and don't forget the Abbey when times are kinder for your family."
"No, my lord. No, of course I won't! Come, Pierrot, come, Tonio; just wait till I show them down at the village how well I can walk!"
As he ran out through the great gate, which stood open, his friends with the wicker litter had much ado to keep up with him.
Now the man with the skin disease removed the napkin from his face, and a sigh of mingled joy and relief went up from the surrounding monks. The man, not being able to see his own face, squinted painfully along his nose, turning his head this way and that, then demanded, "Tell me, brothers, for the love of God, am I healed? Is it for me as it was for the boy? Am I better?"
"Yes, brother, yes!" cried the joyful monks. "Praise God, your skin is as clear as new-cut oak. The disfigurement is all gone. Look in the fountain pool and see for yourself!"
The man looked and looked into the water, and was finally assured of the truth of his healing.
In deep reverence and gratitude he knelt before Father Vespasian.
"Oh, my lord Abbot, there are no words to thank you! I believed I was stricken by the plague. I felt sure that death was certain."
"No, no, you have plenty more life in you yet, friend," said Father Vespasian. "Only give thanks in your prayers, and remember
the monks of the Abbey when you have money in your pocket."
"Indeed, indeed I will, my lather." And off he went through the gate, beaming all over his restored face.
Now the anxious mother pulled back the shawl that she had wrapped over her baby.
Even before she did so, I felt a qualm of apprehension. For the baby itself had not been able to appeal to Father Vespasian; nor had it understood his words of hope and encouragement. Perhaps it had not even heard them. In fact, as its mother pulled aside the coverings, no change could be seen in the poor thing, and the face she lifted to the Abbot was both pleading and penitent, as if she apologized for its lack of collaboration in the ceremony, and begged humbly to be given a second chance.
Father Vespasian's face became stern and clouded. I saw his eyes flicker to and fro. With a dry mouth I recognized the pinched, indrawn look of his nostrils, the impatient compression of his lips.
Would he fly into a rage, shout at the wretched mother, order that she or the baby should be beaten? I found that my hands were clenched in suspense.
Father Pierre, the infirmarian, was quick to avert the threat.
He moved forward, bowed deeply, if hurriedly, and said, "My lord Abbot, the woman and her child must both be weary and hungry, too, if they have traveled all the way from Narbonne. Let them remain overnight in the guesthouse, and very likely by tomorrow the little one will be in better case to benefit from your healing. Come with me, my sister," he said to the poor woman, who was indeed almost ready to drop from exhaustion and disappointment, swaying as she stood. "Come, you and your babe will be the better for some hot soup," and he led her rapidly away before the threatened explosion from Father Vespasian.
Meanwhile the rest of the monks had struck up a Te Deum of thankfulness for the two wonderful acts of healing, and the careworn-looking Prior Anselm led Father Vespasian away toward his lodge, talking to him quickly, earnestly, and deferentially, doubtless congratulating him on his success in two cases out of three. But I could see that the Abbot remained displeased and unsatisfied; he glanced back sharply, two or three times, in the direction of the woman and her baby, as if he were still of a mind to try further measures on them.
What a frightening gift he has! I thought, mechanically turning to follow the others out of the cloister. How glad I am that I have not such a healing touch, since it seems to bring with it such cares and penalties; and I wondered very much about the woman and her baby, what would now happen to them? If I were Father Pierre, I would be much inclined to smuggle them away from the Abbey before there was a chance of another meeting with Father Vespasian, for, if he had not been able to make the poor child better today, there seemed little likelihood that matters would be any more fortunate tomorrow.
I fear that, all through the hour of dinner which followed the healing ceremony, my mind was inclined to be absent; I swallowed down my lentil soup but paid very little heed to the chapters from the Book of Proverbs that Father Roger was reading aloud to us.
Is Father Vespasian's gift really derived from God? I wondered. Or could it be a trick of the Evil One, and intended to entrap him into sinful pride? In which case, how can it be that the healing takes effect on the sick people?
Can the devil heal, as well as God? Or is it all a trick, a deception, they are not really healed? Or were they not really as sick as they thought, in the first place?
Dearly would I have liked to put these questions to Father Antoine, but feared that he might be horrified and call me a heretic.
Next morning Father Vespasian was not to be seen. And I learned from the novice Alaric, who whispered it in study hour, that the Abbot had paid a surprise visit to the visitors' dorter at dawn, and found the poor baby dead and stiff in its cot. The sight of its tiny waxen corpse had incurred in him a seizure of such terrible violence that the poor mother fainted dead away in terror; and after his fit Father Vespasian himself fell into so profound a slumber that the baby's funeral was conducted and its pitiful little body buried in the fathers' graveyard before he came to himself.
Can there be many monastic communities like this? I asked myself in wonder and fear, joining my voice in the requiem at the baby's funeral service, and then, with a lighted candle in my hand, slowly following in procession to the graveyard. This lay on a grassy seaward slope of the island, enclosed by the Abbey wall, with a distant view of blue water and rolling whitecapped waves. There the unlucky little creature was buried, in holy company, with the small tombstones of dead-and-gone fathers all around him.
"He is certain to go straight to heaven," I heard Father Pierre assuring the mother. "He will be there to welcome you." But she only wept the more.
Next moment, to my great surprise, Father Pierre approached me, giving me a friendly smile.
"My boy: You will not remember how many weeks you lay under my care, halfway between death and dream. Father Antoine tells me that you still have no recollection of that time."
"No, my father; I do not; but—but I am very very much obliged and grateful to you for all your kindness and care; I should have come to thank you before—" I stammered, thinking he must have thought me most uncivil not to have done so.
He shook his head; he was a sandy-haired, pink-faced man who looked like a simple farmer, until you noticed the shrewdness of his small twinkling gray eyes.
"Caring for the sick is my task, and you were my patient; you still are, for that matter, in the eyes of God, until you have recovered your full memory. But now it is my turn to ask a favor of you."
"Anything that I can do for you, Father, of course," I began, somewhat startled.
"This poor sister of ours"—Father Pierre indicated the bereaved mother, who was being led back to the visitors' dormitory by the guest brother, Father Ambroise—"she should leave this place, I believe, as soon as it is possible for her to do so. It—it would not be at all advisable for her to be here, still, when Father Vespasian next wakes. He"—Father Pierre gave me a flicker of a glance, then looked away again—"he becomes distressed when he has failed to cure somebody's affliction."
"Yes, I understand. Why, then, can she not leave?"
"She is tired and sick. She has not the strength to set out on her journey today. But Father Antoine could take her as far as the inn at the village of Zugarra, over the hill, where she could stay a day or two—only, she has no money. And I cannot draw from the Abbey funds without Father Vespasian's permission. But—along with your clothes, my boy, which I have in safekeeping there is a money belt—"
"Of course," I said, remembering the eleven English gold guineas and the three silver crowns that I had carried with me for my journey. "Take one of the( guineas; she may have it with my goodwill, poor thing."
"Tut, tut! A crown will be sufficient," said Father Pierre. "But I will not handle your belongings in your absence; come, and you yourself shall give me the money."
He led me to the infirmary, which lay off the main cloister near the kitchen, at right angles to the chapel.
"This was once the visitors' parlor," he told me. "But when our numbers dwindled, and the old infirmary became too large for our needs, this building was thought more convenient."
There was a surgery downstairs, with wooden closets for blankets and bedding, shelves of medicines, pots of unguents, and bundles of herbs. Upstairs were the sickrooms where ailing members of the Community could be nursed.
Father Pierre opened the closet where my clothes hung, carefully put up in a linen bag with sage and comfrey leaves to keep moths at bay. It gave me a queer feeling to handle my striped jacket with the steel buttons, and remember how I had first put it on in my English grandfather's ducal mansion at Asshe, in England. "What a distance from there had I now traveled; distance on land and in the mind, both! The gold English guineas seemed like fairy gold as I took them from the money belt and counted them, wondering greatly at the honesty of the people who had picked me up and brought me here, that the money should still be in the purse.
"Here, my fat
her, this is for the poor woman; and should not I give you money, too, for the Abbey where I have been tended and sheltered for such a long period? Indeed I would not wish to be thought ungrateful or unmindful—"
"No, no, my son," he said hastily. "We require no payment from our patients, no indeed! And one crown will be plenty for the woman. Besides, are you not rendering payment to the Order in the form of service—tending the garden, helping Father Antoine? No, keep your store for when you set out on your travels again! Here it shall stay, safely guarded with your clothes, you see, in the third closet from the stair; I carry the keys on me always, and at night sleep with them under my pillow just here—"
He replaced my clothes in the linen bag, and the bag in the cupboard; it struck me, at first idly, then with some force, that he had taken considerable pains to impress on me just where my things were kept. Was there a purpose behind his words and actions?
"You are an excellent boy," he went on, quickly blessing me with the sign of the cross. "I was certain of it. One cannot tend a person in sickness without forming a strong notion of his character. Now you had best run along to your work with Father Mathieu. And—it were better not to speak of this generous act of yours to any person here. It is our secret—between you, me, and k bon Dieu. Just in case Father Vespasian, waking, is displeased to find her gone."
"Of course, Father; I perfectly understand."
He gave me a quick smile; if he were not a monk I would have said he winked.
"Good boy! Run along with you, then; you can go through this side-door, which will be a shortcut to the vegetable garden."
The door opened into the monks' recreation ground, a stretch of rough turf, studded with sea pinks and nodding yellow poppies, which lay between the cloister and the walled garden.
There, on the stretch of flat land at the foot of the wall (here about thirty feet high) it was their custom to play pelota a mano, a very ancient game of the Basques. Most men now play this game with a pala, or wooden bat, with which they strike the ball against the wall, but the monks kept to the oldest form of the game, using nothing but the bare hand, for which reason their hands were all tough and callused and thick as oak roots.