The Wounds of God

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The Wounds of God Page 5

by Penelope Wilcock


  Peregrine bent down in his saddle and gave the abbé the kiss of brotherhood. He stood, still clinging to Father Peregrine’s hand, his chins quivering with emotion.

  ‘Qui se humiliaverit, exaltabitur, non? The man who humbles himself is exalted. God will not forget. Moi non plus. Adieu.’ And he kissed the twisted hand. Standing back from them he waved in salute.

  ‘Adieu, Frère Thomas! Would I were loved by our young brothers as well as your abbé is loved by you! Adieu, Père Chad! Au revoir!’

  They rode home with almost the same urgency of their outward journey, thundering across the moorland turf of the last few miles, Peregrine longing for the haven of his own community. When they arrived, they were greeted by the porter opening the gate with the news that there were distinguished guests staying in the guest house, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Agnes d’Ebassier. Father Peregrine shook his head. ‘Father Chad, you and Brother Ambrose must be their hosts tonight. I’m not eating with anyone—I’m too hungry.’

  Mother pushed the wood together on the fire. A little flame sprang up out of its dying glow. Sitting on the stone in the firelight, wrapped in a shawl, the folds of her blue skirt falling around her feet and her unruly hair tumbling down her back, she looked as though she didn’t belong in this century any more than Peregrine did.

  ‘That was a horrible, horrible man,’ I said. ‘Nobody could behave like that.’

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ She was still not satisfied with her fire, and rearranged it until it was burning well again. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never met anyone like it.’

  Mother sat crouched on her stone, her chin in her hand, watching the fire. The flames illuminated her face. Around us, dusk was deepening into night. ‘Cruelty,’ she said, turning her head to look at me, ‘is part of human nature. An acorn is like an oak. The small, acceptable cruelties you and I might get away with are not much different from Prior William’s spite.’

  ‘How depressing,’ I said gloomily. ‘I don’t want to be like him.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right. When you have no mercy to give, you can always ask for more. For all our cruelty and heartlessness there is a prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.” His mercy takes root in us. Grows like a weed if you give him the chance. Where’s your father? Not still putting Cecily to bed?’

  ‘No, here he comes. Oh good, he’s got a bottle of wine! And Therese has some crisps.’

  Mother smiled and stretched out her feet to the fire’s warmth. ‘Songs and stories and wine by a campfire… people who stay in hotels don’t know what they’re missing.’

  ‘Mother,’ I said, as I reached my hand out for the plastic beaker of wine Daddy offered me, ‘—thank you, Daddy—what was that you said about Brother Tom and a young lady?’

  ‘I said he got into trouble in his novitiate year, after he’d taken his first vows.’

  ‘Will you tell me that story?’

  ‘Some day. Not tonight. Remind me another evening.’

  I did remind her, every evening we were at camp, but the little ones stayed up later and later, playing in the stream and singing songs round the fire, so there were no more stories until the holiday was over and we were home again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Keeping Faith

  Therese had finally been enlisted to help with the Sunday School. Mrs Crabtree had been trying for a long time to persuade her, and in the end she had given in.

  She sat in our kitchen on Saturday morning with her feet up on a stool, the table strewn with papers, preparing a lesson for the seven- to ten-year-olds on the theme of friendship. When I came in to make myself a cup of coffee she was talking about it to Mother, who was sitting in the easy chair topping and tailing gooseberries for dinner.

  ‘And what did they say?’ Mother was asking as I came in.

  ‘Lilian says a friend is someone who is always there when you need them. Daddy says a friend is someone you can trust. Susanne says a friend is someone who likes you. I’ve got down here, “A friend is someone you like being with.” I can’t remember who said that. Jo Couchman says a friend is someone who always understands. Beth says a friend is somebody you know. Mary says a friend is someone you play with.’

  ‘Did you ask Melissa?’

  ‘No, not yet. I’m asking everybody for my Sunday School thing, ’Lissa, what they think a friend is. What do you say?’

  ‘A friend is… crumbs, let me think. Someone who sticks by you, I think. Someone who won’t let you down.’

  ‘That’s good; thanks. Make me a cup of coffee, too, will you? Oh, Mother, you haven’t said. What do you think a friend is?’

  Mother frowned thoughtfully and carried on nipping the little stalks off her gooseberries without replying. She said eventually, ‘Well… I’ve had friends who’ve disappointed me. Sometimes, even the ones who loved me have let me down, and not understood, and betrayed my trust. That’s only human nature, isn’t it? I daresay I’ve done as much to them. No, I would say… I learned it from a story great-grandmother Melissa told me… I would say that because we all have our failings and weaknesses, because each of us is only human, a friend—a good friend—is someone who helps you to persevere.’

  ‘What?’ said Therese.

  ‘A friend is someone who helps you to persevere. When the going gets tough and you’re on the point of jacking it all in; by the time you reach my age, Therese, you will be able to look back at lots of times when you nearly gave up and walked away from a difficult situation; and the people you will remember with thanks and love are the ones who helped you, in those moments, to persevere.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ve got it; don’t preach a sermon at me, Mother,’ said Therese. ‘A friend is someone who helps you to persevere. I bet they won’t even know what “persevere” means.’

  ‘Well if they don’t,’ said Mother drily, ‘it’s time they learned. It’ll come in handy.’ She finished her gooseberries and took them to the sink to wash.

  ‘What was the story, then, Mother? Here’s your coffee, Therese.’

  Mother looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. ‘Come for a walk after dinner, up on to the hill, and I’ll tell you the story. There’s not time now, and anyway I’ve got to make this pudding, which needs thinking about because I’ve never made it before.’

  It was a warm, lazy day and Cecily fell asleep after dinner. Somebody needed to stay at home and mind her, and Daddy wanted to read the paper, so he was very glad of the excuse she gave him to stay at home. Mary and Beth went along the road to play in a neighbour’s sandpit, and Therese was still struggling with her Sunday School lesson for the following day.

  ‘Looks like just you and me then, Melissa,’ Mother said after the dinner things had been washed up. ‘Do you still want to go?’

  ‘Course I do! I’ve been waiting for this story since before dinner!’

  We took the dog and set off up the hill to where our road forked. Leaving the houses behind, we took the left-hand fork and followed the narrow unmade track to the heath at the top. It was a clear, warm day, and the breeze smelled of the sea. After five minutes’ walking the sound of traffic was no more than a hum in the distance.

  We were in a place of seagulls and gorse, rabbits and sea-pinks among the rocks and wiry grass.

  We walked in silence up the hill; it was steep enough that you needed your breath for climbing and had none to spare for talking. Our dog ran ahead of us, his tail curled over his back, a flag of happiness. He trotted in zig-zags, his nose snuffing the track of rabbits along the ground.

  As we breasted the rise of the hill, Mother paused to get her breath back and look out over the sea. The other side of the hill fell away sharply from the plateau of gorse and turf on the top; a cliff face that dropped down to the sea shore. From where we stood, we could see for miles. On the one side the pebbly beach lay below, where the fishing boats were drawn up and their nets spread to dry near the wooden shacks where the fishermen sold their catch. On the
other side spread the patchwork of allotments, and the parish church, and the winding terraces of houses that clung to the hillside.

  ‘Let’s sit down here for a while,’ Mother puffed. ‘I’m still too full of dinner and it’s too hot to walk far.’

  We sat down on the grass near the gorse bushes at the cliff edge. Mother reclined on her elbow, shaking back her mane of hair. I noticed for the first time that it had strands of grey in it here and there.

  ‘The story,’ I prompted.

  ‘Oh, just a minute, let me get my breath back!’

  We sat there for a while, listening to the long pull of the surf, and the cry of the gulls overhead, watching the bees visiting the gorse flowers, industrious and content.

  Then she began her story.

  Brother Francis finished off the little red dragon he had painted at the foot of the page. He had intended it to glower at the reader with an intimidating scowl from the margin of Psalm 102, ‘For my days are consumed away like smoke and my bones are burnt up as it were with a firebrand….’ Francis looked doubtfully at his dragon, a perky little beast with an endearingly quizzical expression on its face. He didn’t understand why Brother Theodore’s illuminations reflected the passion and loveliness of the sacred text, but his own always managed to introduce a note of unseemly comedy. The problem was not restricted to the art of manuscript illumination either. Since first he had entered the community, Brother Francis’ irrepressible cheerfulness had caused consternation to Father Matthew, the master of novices, who took his responsibility of watching over their souls with a seriousness bordering on obsession.

  ‘I must answer for them before God,’ he said earnestly to Father Peregrine. ‘I must account for them on the judgement day. And how I shall account for Brother Theodore and Brother Thomas and Brother Francis, I do not know. I have rebuked them, exhorted them—“Brethren be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour!” And Brother Francis says to me, “Yes, Father Matthew,” as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but there is a twinkle in his eye and I can’t get rid of it.’

  Father Peregrine hoped desperately that there was no such damning twinkle in his own eye, and did his best to adopt a suitably grave expression, but he couldn’t be sure. The thing that was worrying Father Matthew above all else about Brother Francis was the way he walked.

  ‘Have you seen him, Father?’ he demanded of Peregrine, shaking his head in bewildered sorrow. ‘He walks along the cloister with a step that is as merry and light as a Franciscan friar! It’s not dignified, it’s not edifying, it’s not right.’

  ‘He has a naturally sunny temperament, that’s all,’ Father Peregrine consoled his novice master, ‘and I’m glad he’s happy here.’

  ‘But he shouldn’t be so happy, that’s just it. He should be reflecting on his sins and the awesome judgement of God. He came here to live a life of penance and prayer, not to enjoy himself.’

  ‘And does he not pray?’

  ‘Yes indeed, I have no complaints of his diligence in prayer or in work. On the contrary; but the more he prays, the worse he gets.’

  Peregrine bent his head in an attempt to disguise the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I think, Father Matthew, you worry yourself unnecessarily,’ he said finally. ‘Your conscientious vigilance will save him from much levity, and much mirth, I am sure.’

  Father Matthew looked at his abbot with a glimmer of hope in his troubled eyes, ‘Do you really think it might?’

  ‘I am sure of it,’ Peregrine replied solemnly, but there was something in his manner that caused a faintly suspicious look to cross the novice master’s face. ‘You don’t think I am too hard on the novices, Father?’

  ‘Well—now and again, maybe,’ said Peregrine gently.

  ‘But their souls, their young souls that are constantly tempted to sin!’ Father Matthew leaned forward in his chair, his eyes glowing like coals.

  ‘Yes… yes, I know. It’s not easy.’ Peregrine nodded sympathetically. ‘They—we all—respect your devotion to God and to your duty, Father. But don’t lose too much sleep over Brother Francis. I think his vocation is secure enough.’

  Francis, who had no wish to cause offence to anyone, did his best to comply with Father Matthew’s attempts to mould and discipline his character, and struggled to adopt an air of appropriately sober monastic recollection. The effect was more that of adding an easy urbanity to the original impish good humour; a sort of charming serenity which Father Matthew could never be sure was an improvement or the reverse.

  Brother Clement, an artist and a scholar, in whose charge were the library and the scriptorium, had no fears for Francis’ soul, but was frustrated by his manuscript illumination. He looked in vexation at Francis’ alert and interested little dragon.

  ‘Brother, the text you have copied well enough—your hand is not excellent, but it will do, it is passable. But this! Have you read the thing you are illuminating? Your purpose is to illuminate, not to obscure, the text. Here, where the psalmist says, “Percussus sum ut foenum, et arnuit cor melim; quia oblitus sum comedere panum meum.” Do you not know what that means? “My heart is smitten down and withered like grass so that I forget to eat.” He goes on, “I lie awake and moan.” The man is in pain, Brother Francis, not in fairyland.’

  Francis looked chastened. ‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t mean it to look like that. It was supposed to look threatening. I could do its eyebrows a bit blacker after the midday meal, perhaps.’

  But the dragon was spared his cosmetic surgery, because after the midday meal Brother Dominic, the guestmaster, waylaid Brother Clement. ‘Brother, I wonder if you could spare me a pair of hands from the scriptorium for the guest house? We’re almost rushed off our feet there, what with Father Gerard laid up sick and a great party of folk that’s just arrived today.’

  Brother Clement’s eyes brightened. ‘I’ll send you Brother Francis directly,’ he replied.

  That evening, the visitors from the guest house dined with Father Peregrine, as was customary. There were one or two travelling south to Canterbury on pilgrimage, and a family passing through who had asked for hospitality and help because one of their horses had gone badly lame. There were two little children in the family, who had been left tucked up asleep in the guest house, but the mother and father and their two older children supped with the abbot. Their eldest was a girl of sixteen, Linnet, a vivacious, pretty girl with dark brown eyes and rosy cheeks. She had glossy black hair coiled demurely in a net, wisps of it escaping to curl on her neck and brow. Her brother, four years her junior, excited and proud to be included in adult company, sat beside her, and they chatted happily to Brother Edward sitting opposite them.

  ‘You’re all settled in, then, and comfortable, over the way?’ he asked them kindly. ‘The brothers are looking after you, I hope?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Linnet smiled at Brother Edward, causing two delightful dimples to appear in her rosy cheeks. ‘Oh yes. Brother Francis has been looking after us. He’s made us very welcome. I like him, he makes me laugh; he’s got a lovely smile—like sunlight dancing on the water.’

  Turning her head to speak to her brother, she did not see the look Brother Edward exchanged with Father Peregrine.

  As Compline ended that evening, and the brothers in silence filed out of the chapel, the abbot stretched out a hand to detain his novice master.

  ‘A word with you, Father Matthew. Have you sent Brother Francis to work in the guest house?’

  Father Matthew looked surprised. ‘No, Father, but Brother Clement may have done so. They are very short there just now with Father Gerard sick. No, I never send any novices to work among the guests, as you know. Such worldly contacts do them no good.’

  ‘Is there anyone else who could go in his stead? One of the older brothers?’

  ‘Well…’ Father Matthew looked thoughtful. ‘There’s Brother Giles. He’s usually helping Brother
Mark with the bees just now, but maybe…’

  ‘The bees?’ the abbot interrupted him. ‘That would do admirably. Brother Giles can go and help out in the guest house, and Brother Francis can help Brother Mark with his bees.’

  Father Matthew looked doubtful. ‘Brother Mark is very particular about his bees, Father. He won’t let any of the novices but Brother Cormac near them normally. He says the others don’t know how to talk to them. Brother Cormac can handle them bare-handed and without veiling his face. They like him, but the others get stung.’

  ‘Send Brother Francis to help with the bees,’ said the abbot firmly. ‘It would be no bad thing to have his glory veiled for a few days. If Brother Mark has any objections he can bring them to me.’

  So after their studies in the novitiate the next morning, Brother Francis walked along as far as the vegetable garden with Brother Tom. Tom worked in the vegetable patch, which lay between the abbey buildings and the orchard. The orchard was the bees’ kingdom.

  The bees?’ said Tom in surprise. ‘Brother Mark won’t want you near his bees.’

  ‘No, I know,’ Francis replied. ‘I don’t understand it either. It was only yesterday they sent me down to the guest house, and I was enjoying that. There’s a beautiful girl staying there. She took quite a shine to me, too.’

  There was a silence. ‘What’s her name?’ asked Brother Tom casually.

  ‘Linnet. She—oh, no, Tom. No! Put it out of your mind. There now, go and recite the psalms at the cabbages and forget I said it.’

  Tom grinned at him. ‘Try your charms on the bees, then. Brother Cormac said to tell you they like the 23rd Psalm and Gaelic love-songs.’ He went in to the great sun-trap where the vegetables grew, protected from the wind on three sides by stone walls, and on the fourth by the lavender hedge which grew alongside the path to the infirmary. ‘Linnet,’ he murmured to himself, ‘that’s a pretty name. Heigh-ho. Those were the days.’

 

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