‘Guillaume, am I a posturing fraud?’ he asked abruptly. ‘No, don’t smile at me. You have mocked me this day long for my efforts at holy poverty. What humility I have, I tell you straight, is too frail to bear the weight of many gibes.’
Abbé Guillaume looked at him with dawning comprehension. ‘Ah, so that is what it is! Mon frère, I apologise. Would that I had the quickness of compassion you have, to see another man’s distress. I had never intended that my idiot buffoonery cause you pain.’
‘It’s not your idiot buffoonery that hurts. That just makes me laugh, and heaven knows I can be melancholy enough. You do me good. No, it’s not that. It’s the thought that all I had hoped was humility, might be no more than my own stiff-necked pride. That’s what hurts. Am I a Pharisee, a—a shell of religion, a loveless hollow of vanity?’
‘No,’ said Brother Tom, very quietly. It was not his place to speak, but he couldn’t help it.
‘Ah! Listen to your cockroach!’ said Père Guillaume. ‘Let his wisdom comfort you! Speak, Frère Thomas.’
Peregrine looked up at Brother Tom. ‘Yes, you may speak,’ he said.
‘I cannot presume,’ Tom mumbled, self-conscious, ‘to tell you what you are. All I can say is that I love you very much. Whatever you may be, it is not in me to love a man who is a proud hypocrite. And I think you should eat your supper.’
Father Peregrine smiled. ‘Forgive me. I am behaving like a child. It is indulgent self-preoccupation on my part. Of your goodness, overlook my discourtesy. Your jesting has unsettled me, Guillaume, for you, as well as I, are vowed to holy poverty.’
‘Mais oui, holy poverty. To renounce all ownership; to say the tunic on my back, the sandals on my feet are not mine—that is holy poverty. To own no estate, no gold or silver, to dress in simplicity and say of nothing, “This is mine,”—that is holy poverty. But the warmth of a good fire on a chilly night, the savoury juices of a sucking pig roast in honey, the delight of old, rich, red wine—these are the bounties of God’s immense kindliness! Why should we throw them back in his face? Me, I do not like a leaking roof, or the draughty east wind whistling round my hams, or the lifeless frigidity of water at table. Mon Dieu, there must be some pleasure in life! Our flesh cries out for it!’
Peregrine did not reply at once; then, ‘I thought we were supposed to crucify the flesh,’ he said quietly.
‘Ah, mon père, moderation! You ask too much! Your self-imposed penury is not holy poverty. It is like the poverty of the world. It is…’
‘Too much like the real thing, you mean?’ interjected Peregrine wryly.
‘Non, non, ce n’est pas ça… you wallow in it, mon père. That’s what it is.’
‘Wallow in it?’ Peregrine grimaced thoughtfully, pondering the words, I suppose I do. Jesus wallowed in it, did he not? To choose a stable, not a modest mansion; a cattle trough, not a plain, respectable crib; a cross, not a clean, unexceptional deathbed. How do you judge that? Was it an ostentatious waste of his glory? Does it matter? He said, ‘Follow me’ and that I mean to do. Our life here is not the poverty of the cross. We do not pretend to it. We are not naked, we are not thirsty, we do not bleed, but we try at least to find the poor carpenter of Nazareth in all that we do—whatever the folly. You think it an unreasonable bargain to lay aside earth’s pleasures to win heaven? But he laid aside heaven to win the sons of earth.’
Guillaume leaned back in his chair regarding Peregrine with amusement. ‘You have not changed, mon ami. Your rhetoric is as impressive as ever. But you are wrong in one thing. You are too late to win grace, or heaven, or strike any kind of bargain with God. It is not a prize to be won, or a deal to be negotiated. It is a gift, already given. Tu comprends? A gift. Receive it and be glad. Celebrate a little now and then.’
‘I ought not to have said we win heaven. It is, as you say, a gift. The free grace of God, the treasure of his love, precious beyond words, it is pure gift. We do know celebration here, Guillaume. I have seen men’s faces alight with peace, with joy, content. Good, wholesome food, and enough of it, we have that. All right, it’s a bit chilly, I grant you, and we are frugal, but we do not go without. But the dainties of the rich, platters of silver, and fine linen; in the church, altar frontals of cloth of gold, a chalice studded with jewels—such things would shame our vows.’
‘Your purity condemns my self-indulgence. You make me blush, mon père!’
‘Guillaume, it’s not funny. Why do you mock our simplicity? Am I pretentious to insist on it? No, no it cannot be right to live like kings when we are supposed to be like Jesus. Can it?’
‘Ah, my very dear friend, it is because you are a little crazy that I love you so. Le Seigneur, yes, he laid aside everything, and became poverty for us. But we are not Jesus. You over-reach yourself. Be realistic. We—’
‘Are we not?’ Peregrine leaned forward, his eyes burning, urgent in his intent face. ‘If we who are the body of Christ are not Jesus, who will ever be? The world has need of the presence of Jesus, in the word of the gospels, in the holy bread and wine and in us. Somewhere in all the cynicisms and disappointments that bind and stunt their lives, men need to find a living Jesus, one who can hear their pain and understand their grief and shame; someone to be the love of God with them. It has to be a poor man… doesn’t it? To touch and heal the pain of men’s poverty? I mean all kinds of poverty: the poverty of their need and their brokenheartedness, of their sin…. It would need a man poor in spirit and poor in means to comfort the loneliness of the poor. It is not possible for a rich man’s hand to dry the tears of the poor—is it?’
‘How should I reply? I admire you. In a way, you are right, mon frère… but… who can live like this? It is not sensible. What would you have me do with my altar frontals? Give them to a peasant who is short of a blanket? What shall I do with my chalices? Distribute them to beggars, that they may fill them at the horses’ trough? And what shall I tell my bishop, my patrons, mes frères?’ He leaned forward and spoke with a frown of vehemence, serious enough now: ‘The poor carpenter of Nazareth, he would not stand a chance in the grand machinery of the church, mon ami. We also have a stable on our estate. He would be at home there.’ He looked at Father Peregrine, shaking his head, as he relaxed back into his chair. He speared a small piece of cheese with the point of his knife, and as he put it in his mouth and ate it, he looked thoughtfully at Brother Tom.
‘What do you say to all this, Frère Thomas?’
Brother Tom had been sitting patiently, wondering if this involved discussion would never end and marvelling that his abbot could become so engrossed in thought as to become indifferent to a plateful of good food. He looked up at the mention of his name.
‘What do I say?’ he echoed uncertainly.
‘Mais oui. To follow Jesus, must a man live stripped of everything as your abbot would have me believe, or can he without sin enjoy the good things of life if his heart is thankful?’
‘Jesus…’ Brother Tom struggled for an intelligent answer. ‘Well, who is your Jesus? I can see Father Abbot’s Jesus in the gospels, but who—where is yours?’
There was a silence, broken by Abbé Guillaume’s bellow of laughter and his fist crashing down onto the table.
‘Mater Dei! You two together—you are dangerous for the gospel! You have caught me in my own folly as you caught that filthy Augustinian, you young rogue! Ahhh, you have finished me! Pour me some more wine, mon frère. Let me drink to your answer.
‘Eh bien, enough! Let us turn our talk to other things or you will have me kneeling in tears, promising to distribute the substance of my house to all the vagabonds of France. I know you of old. You will lead me out of prudence into your own wild extremism.
‘There is a book in your library, mon père, a valuable book. Our library is impoverished for lack of it. Will you lend it—see, I do not ask you to give, though you are rich and I am poor, in the matter of this little book—only lend it, that my scribes may copy it?’
‘What book?’
‘Aha! Is this the man upon whom earthly things have no hold? Why do you enquire “What book?”, mon ami? What is that to you, who have left all to follow Jésus, the real Jésus of the gospels, not the vain idol worshipped by worldly men like me!’
‘I didn’t say you worshipped a vain idol, nor yet that I am free of worldliness, though I wish to God I were. What book?’
‘But a little book, though valuable to me. A little text of Aelred de Rievaulx, a book of sermons I have not seen before. You know the book I mean. I see you do by the possessive glint in your eye!’
‘You want to borrow that book of homilies by Abbot Aelred, written and bound by his own hand?’
‘Oui.’
‘For how long?’
‘How long? Since it must be only the spiritual substance of the text you value, and not the book itself, I would have thought you could preach your own homilies the equal of Abbot Aelred’s, mon frère. It is a book, only a book. Maybe you will let me keep the original. I can have a very nice copy made for you. Our Frère Jean has an excellent hand…’
‘Stop it, Guillaume! How long do you want it for?’
‘Three months.’
Peregrine hesitated.
‘Oh! Regards, Frère Thomas! Quelle avarice!’
‘Oh, very well. You can borrow it. I know you will take care of it. Three months only, though. I will hold you to it.’
‘Three months. I will return it myself, guarded in my bosom as though my life depended on it.
‘Is that your Compline bell already? Mon père, I am sure that bell has a little crack in it somewhere. It sounds like a bucket…’
‘Guillaume! No man would find silence a hardship if he had you to live with. ’Twould be sweet refuge from the endless abuse. Come then to prayers.’
The Abbé Guillaume held the door open with all courtesy for Abbot Peregrine to pass through, and winked at Brother Tom as they followed him out into the cloister.
In the autumn of that year, as the evenings were drawing in, and the nights were beginning to tingle with the threat of frost though the afternoons still basked in gold, Brother Tom came one afternoon to Father Peregrine’s house with a package that Brother Martin, the porter, had asked him to deliver.
‘Who has brought this? This is from Père Guillaume. Stay a minute.’ He undid the parcel, which contained the little book of Aelred de Rievaulx’s homilies and a letter. Peregrine read through the letter swiftly, and looked up at Tom.
‘Do you read French? No? Let me tell you what he says, then. He sends you his greetings. He remembers you with affection; says he has no cockroaches in the whole of his house; he has searched it nostalgically. Enclosed, the book—his apologies for keeping it these six months. He is sure I am not surprised. (No, I’m not. I’m surprised to get it back this soon.) He would have brought it himself, but his circumstances have changed. He could not forget our conversation here, and when he went back he proposed the sale of all the treasure of his abbey. All of it! Oh Guillaume, bless you, you never did anything by halves. They laughed him to scorn, he says. He resigned himself to accepting their rejection of his proposal, tried to forget the whole thing, but could not. He’s made an enemy of his prior and upset the bishop. Dear heaven, that was rash. He has left his community, and gone to live with the Carthusians at St Michel. He says their library is second to none, especially now it has a copy of Abbot Aelred’s sermons in it, and he has his own little garden with bees and vegetables. He is rearing a little pig—his mouth waters every time he looks on it. It is good wine country, he says, but not the best, which he laments. He has made some friends among the peasants there, who bring him cheeses and olive oil. How did he manage that, I wonder, in such seclusion? He’s bending a rule somewhere if I know him! He has a peach tree in his garden. He says he also has peace in his heart and loves us for what we said. He bids us share a pot of wine by a good fire to remember him, and guard against chilblains in the abominable English cold. The poor carpenter of Nazareth, he says, is teaching him the tricks of his trade. He ends, Quasi tristes, semper autem gaudentes: sicut egentes, multos autem locupletantes: tamquam nihil habentes et omnia possidentes. In our sorrows, we always have reason to rejoice: poor ourselves, we bring wealth to many: penniless, we own the world.
‘Guillaume de St Michel. Oh Tom, I hope he’s done the right thing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he’s given up all he had—status, comfort, wealth. The Carthusian Rule is very austere.’
‘And he has exchanged it for peace in his heart. I thought that was the bargain you urged him to make.’
‘It was. Yes, it was. What looks like sacrifice is the richest treasure of all. I know it, I know. I have chosen Jesus to be my heaven, and him in all his poverty, all his grief. It’s just that sometimes I get cold feet.’
In the quiet bedroom, I listened to my sisters breathing and the wind blowing round the roof of the house outside.
Mother leaned down and picked up the tall candlestick from the floor.
‘They’re asleep,’ she whispered. ‘Shall we go downstairs?’ I nodded. We tiptoed out of the room and went quietly down the stairs. As I opened the door of the living room, and the lamplight shone out into the passage, Mother blew out the candle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Road Climbs Upwards
Father Carnforth, the retired priest who acted as curate in our parish, had come to tea. He sat in the middle of our sofa, by the fire, Mary on one side and Beth on the other. Cecily had already greeted him, and her conversation with him had been, as usual, brief, factual and to the point: ‘Have you got any pepppermints today?’
Father Carnforth smiled at her, and laughed his wheezy laugh. Beth liked to watch his face when he smiled. ‘A thousand, thousand smile wrinkles,’ she said to Mother, ‘are hidden in his face. Then he smiles and you can see them all.’
Father Carnforth had no objections to Cecily’s straightforward method of approach. Mother said he was one of the few adults who could have a conversation with Cecily without Mother having to stand there saying, ‘Hush, Cecily. Don’t be rude, Cecily,’ every five seconds like a parrot.
‘I have a new bag of peppermints in my pocket, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘I had an idea when I woke up this morning that today I might be needing some. So I went to Mrs Sykes’ shop and I said, “Mrs Sykes, I need half a pound of peppermints. Not a quarter today, Mrs Sykes. Half a pound. If you please.” Why do you ask? Would you like one?’
‘Two,’ said Cecily.
‘Here you are, then. Two, and one for luck.’
There are some grown-ups who offer you sweets and you’d love one, but somehow all by itself you hear your voice saying, ‘Oh, not for me, thank you.’ Father Carnforth was not one of them. We were soon all sucking peppermints happily, watching the fire blaze up.
‘Ah, I do like a log fire, my dear,’ he said to Mother. ‘My housekeeper will only buy coal, I regret to say. She says it burns hotter, which is true of course, but what evil, sulphurous smoke it has. This is like incense by comparison.’
Mother had baked scones for tea, which we had with strawberry jam and cream cheese, and she had made an enormous fruit cake and some coffee meringues. We ate everything, the whole fruitcake even. Nobody spoke much while we were eating except to say things like, ‘Yes please,’ and, ‘Pass the butter.’
Afterwards, Father Carnforth wiped his mouth with his napkin and sighed contentedly. ‘I think I could just manage one more cup of tea, my dear,’ he said. ‘Would it offend you if I were to light my pipe?’
Father Carnforth smoked a lovely fragrant blend of pipe tobacco. Mother said she had sometimes been tempted to follow him up the road just to go on sniffing it.
‘My doctor says I should give this up,’ said Father Carnforth as he held the match flame to the tobacco and drew at his pipe. ‘He says my wheezy chest is all down to smoking. I expect he’s right. “You’re going downhill this year, James,” he says to me, but I am
eighty-three. What can you expect? “If you mean my chest is worse,” I said to him, “I will accept your judgement as a medical man, but don’t tell me I’m going downhill. The road climbs upwards, upwards to the light. It must do. It wouldn’t be such hard going if it was going downhill.” You have to be positive about this life, my dear; you know that. Bother, it’s gone out already. Pass me my matches, Mary, my sweet. That’s it. My dear wife, God rest her soul, used to tell me this was the filthiest, most time-consuming way of wasting money she could possibly think of. She was right, of course; she was right. But there we are; it has given me a lot of pleasure. Good food and good conversation, and a pipe by the fire: what better riches could life have to offer? What’s that Cecily? Still room in your tummy for one more peppermint? Here you are, then. One more, and one for luck.’
Mary snuggled up closer to Father Carnforth. He was the oldest person she knew and she was always afraid he was going to die. She often asked him about it. He put his arm around her now, and looked down at her, smiling a kindly reassurance.
‘What have they taught you at school this week, little Mary?’
‘We are doing a project on dinosaurs. Mrs Kirkpatrick has been telling us what the world was like in prehistoric days.’
Father Carnforth laughed so much he began to cough.
‘Dear me, dear me,’ he wheezed. ‘That must be useful to you. And how does Mrs Kirkpatrick know what the world was like before history began?’
Mary looked nonplussed. ‘She does know. She tells us all about it. About the dinosaurs, what they did and what they looked like, and how people used to have tails and lots of hair.’
Father Carnforth looked at the dark grey hair growing on the back of his hand. There was a lot of it.
The Wounds of God Page 16