by John Moss
They were walking about slowly, absorbing the atmosphere of what seemed, away from the murals, a vast, grey sepulchre robbed of its resident bones. Alexander Pope apologized for being abrupt with them, which struck them as odd, since he seemed quite relaxed. He explained that he had had interruptions not so welcome as theirs and his work was impeded by what he described as his natural inclination to be hospitable. All three laughed at that and they were friends.
“Beneath this floor,” he said, “lies the body of a saint. Her story is inscribed on the walls. She was never sanctified, canonized, or beatified and she died in disgrace. But for many she was a folk saint, the people’s saint, and to this day there are believers who come here in defiance of their Church and pray for her intervention with God. They have kept the place up for over a hundred years, carefully leaving no sign of their presence. That in itself is a miracle. If the Vatican requires three miracles as the prerequisites for sainthood, their quiet devotion is a good place to start.
“Imagine, people coming here to pray and pay homage. They are not supplicants, they are pilgrims. They ask for nothing. They come singly, sometimes in twos and threes. They come at all hours. Sometimes in the dead of night, when I’m working late, I’ll turn around and find someone just behind me, staring at the revelation of their venerable saint. Often, when I return in the mornings, I’ll find my instruments have been carefully cleaned, the floor underneath my scaffold meticulously dusted. In the daytime, they tend to stay clear of me, labouring quietly, especially the women, sweeping and scrubbing and dusting and polishing. The men sometimes pick up bits of debris. They seem more distant — they follow the women as helpers or stand by, passively observing. When I try to engage any of them in conversation, they are shy. They listen, but they do not ask questions. When I tell them something from my research about the church building itself or about Sister Marie Celeste, they nod knowingly. I’m not sure whether I offer nothing new, or merely nothing surprising.
“These pilgrims converge on this place from other worlds and treat it as home. I look forward to them, although at times I do find them intrusive. They are not a community, a secret society — as far as I can tell, they are absolutely independent of each other, some of them meeting here openly for the first time ever. It is impossible to say how many there are. If they gathered, would there be multitudes or only a handful in each generation? These are not zealots, yearning for the End of Days and the Divine Rapture. They are modest followers of a compromised saint.
“No one has objected to my restoration project. The Church has no interest, claiming they no longer hold title. Yet there’s no record of sale, and the property remains tax-exempt. Curious, isn’t it? Almost like it doesn’t exist. The people who look after the place, I think they’re pleased with what I’m doing. Turning up the light on their darkened world.”
“How very strange,” said Miranda. “What a wonderful notion, that such things go on in our midst and we don’t even know.”
“It would not be so wonderful if we did.”
“What about the manse, the parsonage, the rectory… whatever they call it? And what about the cemetery?”
“The rectory, Morgan. It is derelict, of no interest. The cemetery, no interest.”
“How so?”
“It is all in how the story unfolds,” said Pope, somewhat cryptically. Then, in a sudden shift, he inquired, “What time is it?”
“Half-past nine,” said Miranda, glancing at her watch.
“Saturday?” he inquired.
“Yes, Saturday, 9:30 a.m.”
“Then you two are here for some other reason.”
“How do you mean?” she responded.
“You would not be here this early for a casual visit. It’s close to a four-hour drive.”
“It’s about Shelagh Hubbard.”
“The anthropologist from the museum. You say she took a course from me in London.”
“Yes,” said Miranda. “Apparently she’s missing.”
“Pardon me,” he said, “but you’re looking for her a long way from home.”
Morgan, who had been gazing about, absorbed in the atmosphere of the abandoned church that struck him as at once very sad and somehow still sacred, returned to their conversation. “She has a farm near Owen Sound. She appears to have been abducted, although there is a strong possibility it’s a set-up.”
“A set-up?”
“A con. She may have arranged her own disappearance.”
“And why is that of concern to the Toronto Police, Detective Morgan? You two are a long way from home.”
“The Owen Sound constabulary called us in as reinforcements,” Miranda quipped.
“The OPP, actually,” Morgan said. “It turns out Dr. Hubbard may be important to our investigation of the Hogg’s Hollow murders.”
“She’s a suspect!” said Pope, apparently delighted. “How very droll. She was one of your forensic experts, wasn’t she?”
Morgan flinched imperceptibly. “She was. As were you.”
“My dear Morgan, you must find such a convoluted case intriguing. What happens when you find her?”
“At this point she is wanted to assist in an ongoing investigation,” said Miranda. “That’s how we say it to protect ourselves from libel and the public from hysteria.”
“But you are in fact quite sure she’s your murderess.” The word seemed to hiss from his lips. “I do wish I could remember the woman.”
Miranda and Morgan exchanged brief knowing looks. Murderess is a term of diminution, suggesting something less on a semantic scale than murderer. It exoticizes the crime, lending an air of titillation. They had discussed this before, noting that it was a word frequently used in the tabloids. They were surprised to hear it issue from the rather fastidious mind of Alexander Pope.
“We may eventually need your testimony,” said Morgan. “If she acquired skills from the master, then perhaps the master will confirm his influence on her work. I’m surprised you didn’t see it at the scene.”
“In retrospect only. At the time I was not looking for signs of my own inadvertent complicity. Of course, I will testify — ”
“We have to find her, first,” said Miranda. “At this point, we can’t even issue a warrant. She’s still in the category of ‘missing.’”
“One mystery at a time,” said Morgan, trying to swing the conversation around. “Tell us more about your secular saint.”
“Not secular, Morgan. Merely not sanctioned nor sanctified by Mother Church.”
“She had a vision, I assume. An encounter with the Virgin Mary?”
“She did. In 1891. The church building was completed in 1867. There were plans to bring the railway through to a Georgian Bay terminus at either Midland or Penetang. This was the median point between. The whole province was swarming with promise. Rail beds were being laid every which way. Confederation promised prosperity. This seemed a likely place for a church, in anticipation of settlers and commerce. Mills no longer determined townsites. The church would provide the locus. At one time there was a school beside the rectory and a Presbyterian church across the road. They burned down years ago.”
“1891? Her vision?” Miranda was anxious to hear the story, more than the history, although to Alexander Pope, as to Morgan, the two were inseparable.
They walked at an ambling pace about the empty building as Pope continued.
“There were two resident priests. The school had been built, but students were not forthcoming. The nuns who had been sent here to teach were recalled to Toronto until the population of the area grew sufficient to the enterprise. The priests had a series of housekeepers — usually elderly widows who needed their beneficence. In 1890, a young woman named Lorraine Eliott from a farm several concessions over appeared at their door. She was quite simple, apparently, and could not find work as a domestic until such time as she got married, as girls then often did. Her family, she confessed, were lapsed Catholics. She would work for the priests in exchange fo
r upkeep and religious instruction. By all accounts it was a satisfactory arrangement. Lorraine’s family started coming regularly to church and she, herself, learned her catechism slowly but well.”
“Where did you find an account of such things?” Morgan asked.
“I have spent large portions of my life in local archives, Detective, pouring through bundles of fading correspondence, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, records. It is surprising how much of our past awaits us, if we take the time to explore.”
“And she became devout and had a vision,” said Miranda.
“Exceedingly devout. One day, Lorraine was praying at a small grotto she had constructed from boulders against the cemetery wall. The Virgin appeared to her. In radiant glory, as they say. The girl took holy instruction from Mary, her divine mentor, in a vision of sustained ecstasy. She returned late to the rectory. The priests had company — three nuns from Toronto who were negotiating to reopen the school. All five were annoyed that supper was not yet on the table, but the girl appeared before them and spread her arms open with her palms exposed. They were bleeding at the centre, as if nails had just been withdrawn. She spoke, and the nuns reported she was cast in a splendid light and an odour of violets filled the room.
“‘I am Sister Marie Celeste,’ she said in a soft voice. And then, she was struck dumb, and never spoke again. She collapsed on the floor.
“The nuns took her into their bedroom and dressed her wounds. When they changed her clothes into the best habit they could spare, they brought her again to the parlour. The priests seemed distressed by the intrusion on their ordered lives. They did not understand, but the nuns knew what had happened and were deeply moved.
“One nun, the most profoundly affected, kneeled beside the young woman and took her hands, palms upward. She began to speak, and it was in a voice altogether more resonant than her own. She spoke in the first person, but the words were those of Sister Marie Celeste: ‘The Virgin Mother appeared to me, and told me of many things so wonderful I cannot express them. She asked me to share with her the sorrowful burden of our Lord’s crucifixion and the glory of His resurrection, our Son’s blessing for all the world.’ One of the priests was incensed. ‘This is blasphemy,’ he said. And Sister Marie Celeste smiled, and through the nun holding her hands, she said, ‘Our Heavenly Mother forgives her priest his innocence.’
“The priest who had not spoken was so taken aback by the inspired authority of the voice that he dropped to his knees in submission, and was joined almost immediately by the other. The remaining two nuns, not to be outdone, prostrated themselves fully on the Persian carpet. Only the young nun holding the hands of Sister Mary Celeste with the stigmata exposed remained still. Again, the voice spoke: ‘It is not by my words or my deeds but my very life that you shall be redeemed.’”
Morgan was uncertain about how much of Pope’s story was artistic licence. The question of authenticity never crossed Miranda’s mind, although, like her partner, she did not consider herself a person of faith, and certainly not a believer in visions — at least, not those of the Virgin Mary.
Pope had stopped speaking, gathering his resources. They continued in their meandering journey inside the church. The vast interior space seemed smaller, more intimate.
“Someone wrote this down, then?” Morgan inquired.
“The youngest nun did. She lived until the 1950s. She insisted in later years that when she was the voice of Sister Marie Celeste, who in turn proclaimed herself the voice of the Virgin, she was possessed — ”
“By the Devil?” exclaimed Miranda.
“By God. She went to the grave a believer, despite excommunication.”
“She was excommunicated?” exclaimed Morgan. “For what?”
“For believing. The word spread of Mary’s appearance. It happened in April. By September there were crowds each Sunday, and even during the week, if the weather was bad, when the farmers could get away from their fields and their herds. The bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal, all sent investigators. Even the Vatican was aware of Sister Marie Celeste. Naturally, the clergy was cynical. Miracles are much better received out of history than as immanent experience. They demanded further miracles. The vision was not enough.
“All that summer Sister Marie Celeste was a holy terror. Through the youngest nun she made pronouncements on spiritual matters, urged reform in the Church, commented on local politics, on matters of weather for the benefit of farmers, offered advice on affairs of the heart and marital discord, and in direct contravention to dogma and doctrine she declared female submission anathema to the Mother of God.”
Miranda, who had grown up in the Anglican branch of the wholly Catholic church, gasped in delight. Morgan, whose parents were lapsed Presbyterian before him — which, he felt, placed him on a theological spectrum closer to atheist than agnostic — thought the sister’s radical feminism eminently sensible.
“The two priests were very well pleased to see their collection plates brimming,” Alexander Pope continued, “but they resented their servant’s success. They had to get a new housekeeper, for one thing. The nun and Sister Marie Celeste took over a wing of the rectory as their own quarters. Sister Marie Celeste’s stigmata healed over. Her companion spoke for her in a normal voice, in arranging quotidian details of their lives, but still, occasionally, the voice of Mary spoke through her when Sister Marie Celeste was inspired or provoked.”
“Why have we heard nothing of this?” asked Miranda.
“Why would you? There are small miracles all over the world every day, and cults of one sort or another are constantly forming and reforming. The Church is a cult of epidemic proportions that subsumes lesser cults for replenishment. Others fade, some virtually explode, some are erased.”
“And this cult of Sister Marie Celeste,” said Morgan, “was erased.”
“Indirectly.”
“You said she died in disgrace, Alexander. What happened?”
“Patience, Miranda. She died. It is as simple as that. In November she died. There was no warning. The doctor could not determine the cause. She expired one night, just over here.” They moved up onto the chancel, a stone platform hardly a step above the rest of the floor.
Miranda felt a tremor run down her spine. “Where?”
“Under these slabs, right here. The priests were afraid to disturb her body any more than necessary. She lay in state in an open casket for three days on a catafalque erected over the spot where she died. Here. People came from miles around to grieve, to pray for her, and many, to pray through her to God. When it was time, her casket was sealed. The floor was laid open, and a crypt was prepared in the solid rock underneath. When the crypt was ready, some weeks later, a solemn ceremony was held, during which her casket was reopened and a strong odour of violets rose from its recesses and washed through this entire building, and her flesh was not corrupt but gleamed in the candlelight and her hands lay in the shallow casket at her sides, the palms turned upwards, and small pools of fresh blood glistened at their centres. The nun who had been her acolyte and companion stood beside her and placed a hand on Sister Marie Celeste’s breast, which appeared to rise and fall from the beating of the nun’s own heart as she spoke for the final time the words of Mary in her own voice, which resounded through the hearts of all who were crowded in this building to listen.”
“What did she say?” asked Miranda, totally enthralled.
“No one knows. Perhaps she was speaking in tongues — each heard in the voice a clear message, but for each it was different. It was not glossalalia, since for everyone present it made sense, yet none could agree on what had been said.”
“Not unlike most conversations,” said Morgan. “The more engaging the utterance, the more likely we hear whatever we want, or need, to hear.”
“Morgan, you’re a cynic,” said Miranda.
“Not at all. I’m on the verge of conversion.”
“What happened next?” asked Miranda, more interested in Pope’s story
than her partner’s errant soul. She relished the way Pope’s words seemed to express something deep within that had little to do with faith, and a lot to do with how humans believe.
“The entire church became her shrine,” declared Alexander Pope, turning and facing the gloomy interior of the building, his arms raised — whether in supplication or as a rhetorical gesture, Miranda couldn’t be sure. “In death, her fame took flight. The walls on one side were painted with her story, and on the other were images from the Virgin’s life. And people came — a makeshift town spread like contagion over the surrounding fields. It was like a gold-rush bonanza. Houses made of canvas and boards sprang up helter-skelter along the road allowance. The schoolhouse was turned into a hospital to care for the sick and the dying who came seeking Marie Celeste’s intervention. Some claimed to be cured or relieved, just by pressing the robe of the nun who had been Mary’s voice.”
“Why doesn’t the nun have a name?”
“Oh, she does, but somehow the story seems more authentic if her name is generic. Her name was Sister Mary Joseph. When Sister Marie Celeste died, Sister Mary took to wearing a pale-blue habit, quite unlike the black prescribed by her order. Even after she left the church, she called herself Mary Joseph, and continued to wear a modified blue habit. Her original name was Katherine Morrison, if memory serves. She became known as the Blue Nun.”
“You said she was excommunicated. It all ends in disgrace?” Miranda was anxious for more, torn between wanting every possible detail and wanting to get on with the plot.
“The Church was not amused. There was too much about this folk saint that made them uneasy. On the one hand, they like adding saints to the canon; on the other, a saint too familiar — who speaks directly to the people with the voice of the Holy Mother, and directly to God — was, as you can imagine, unsettling.
“The priests for whom she had been housekeeper became her most dogged believers, second only to the Blue Nun in their devotion. When they altered the celebration of Mass to admit the adoration of Marie Celeste into prescribed ritual, however, the Church was incensed. This entire edifice, as I’ve said, was transformed into a shrine with a hierarchy of its own, featuring Marie Celeste as the principal object of veneration, even before Mary, and certainly before the Holy Male Trinity. Echoes of the voice rang through the revised liturgy, and women were celebrated and sexuality was removed from its burden of wickedness, set free from the pseudo-castrato divinations of a celibate priesthood.”