The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  Ten B’s. H’mm, y’mm … a touch on the narrow side. Will broaden a width or two, maybe. Must recommend ground-grippers with vici-kid tops. … Later. …

  “Arches ever trouble you?” asked Monaghan.

  “Never.” What’s he getting at? Steve wondered. Monaghan’s gait and posture reminded him of a huge ox dragging a remorseless plow. The pastor made another furrow to the window, peered through the lace curtains.

  “I hope,” he said, “that you don’t come to St. Margaret’s all burthened with—attitudes.” (He pronounced it “attichudes.”)

  “Attitudes? What kind of attitudes?”

  Monaghan flung out a heavy arm like a man knocking clutter off his workbench. “Oh—stained-glass attitudes, Gregorian attitudes—the niminy-piminy attitudes they try to come over you with at Rome.”

  Stephen mastered everything but puzzlement. “I don’t understand, Father. All that I feel or know about the Church goes much deeper than ‘attitude.’”

  “We weren’t talking about the Church,” snapped Monaghan. “We were talking about curates. Rome-cured curates, that is.”

  Fuses of anger crackled along Stephen’s spine. Rome-cured! So that was Monaghan’s idea of a body punch, was it?—a coarse, punning attack on the system that produced men like Pecci, Rampolla, Merry del Val—scholars, diplomats, princes of the Church. He wanted to retort with scathements beginning: “Listen, Ox-neck—” But he closed his teeth on these Din-the-Down-Shouter locutions, and what he said was quiet but stubborn.

  “No one in Rome tried to ‘come over me’ with anything. I merely took the regular course of studies offered at the North American College.”

  “Aha!” said Monaghan in a “now-we’re-getting-at-it” tone. “And would you mind running over the list of those studies for me?”

  Stephen decided to keep cool and impersonal. “Not at all. We studied sacred theology, canon law, moral philosophy, and had some special lectures on ecclesiastical diplomacy. Then, of course, there was the usual work in hermeneutics—”

  “Herman who?”

  Steve disregarded the Weber and Fields clownery. “Hermeneutics,” he repeated, “the science of interpreting the Scriptures.” He let fly at Monaghan’s big jaw. “We compared St. Jerome’s translation of the New Testament with the Aramaic and the Greek.” Bang, that should fix him!

  “Did you so?” Unshaken, Monaghan nodded at the silver-framed photograph as if to say, “See the training a curate gets nowadays.” “And what else did they teach you at Rome?”

  “During the last year, some emphasis was laid on liturgy and rubrics.”

  Gleefully, like a prosecutor who hears a witness convicting himself out of his own mouth, Monaghan rubbed his hands together. The mass of mixed evidence pleased him. Father Fermoyle’s fondness for rain and his reasonably large feet were more than outweighed by the fanciness of his education. More testimony must be gathered.

  “In the course of your elegant education, Father Fermoyle, did you ever”—he paused with forensic intent—“did you ever drive a milk wagon?”

  Stephen conveyed large uninterest in his “No, I never did.”

  “Well, there, at least, my experience cries on top of yours. For in my youth I drove such a wagon. In those days we poured the milk from open cans into such household containers as dippers, or pitchers, or whatever our poor Mick customers might have handy. But I will pass over that part of my story and come to the advantage enjoyed by those who have driven a milk wagon over those who haven’t” Pastor Monaghan rubbed a didactic paste into the palm of his left hand with the pestle of his right forefinger. “That advantage lies in being able to tell a good milk-wagon horse ten blocks away. Do you take my meaning, Father?”

  “As a kind of homely parable, yes.”

  “My parable goes on to say, then, that many a fine-spirited animal breaks down between the shafts of a milk wagon. Not gaited to the task. Another breed, of still higher mettle, tries to run off with the milk cart as though it were a tallyho or rubber-tired vehicle of some kind—which, as you can see, Father—”

  “It is not,” murmured Steve.

  “No resemblance. Not the faintest. Now, what is needed on a milk wagon, Father, is a docile, steady creature who can carry the load up hill and down dale, start at a cluck, and stand without hitching. Which, to drop the parable once and for all, is what the work of a curate amounts to here at St. Margaret’s.”

  Stephen’s nostrils flared, but he kept the good silence.

  “This disturbs you, Father Fermoyle?”

  “A little.” Rising from the sag-bottomed chair, Stephen unconsciously put his feet in the furrow worn by his pastor, and paced off the width of the room. “I know, of course, that a curate is not a steeplechaser, and that my job at St. Margaret’s is no rubber-tired sinecure. I expected drudgery. I welcome it. But”—a trolley car rumbled past, and Stephen waited for the crystals in the chandelier to stop jangling—“but do you have to be so horribly explicit about the milk wagon?”

  “Vagueness,” said Monaghan, “would be no help at St. Margaret’s. Better to be clear—explicit, as you say—at the beginning than to lallygag around with attitudes.”

  For God’s sake, Stephen wanted to cry, stop using that word. So I’m a milk horse. Fine. I’ll start at a cluck, and clop about the parish till I’m a wind-broken old hack like yourself. But, meanwhile, what about scholarly exercise of the mind, personal dedication to God the Father, spiritual fellowship with the saints? Are these unavailing at St. Margaret’s?

  The questions surged toward utterance, but went unspoken as Stephen gazed about the dreary room. How could he convey himself to the heavy-footed man who inhabited it? How breach the ghastly wall of Monaghan’s parochialism?

  Tr-ranggg!

  Someone was yanking hard at the front doorbell. “I’ll answer it,” volunteered Stephen. He flew down the rickety stairs and opened the front door. A breathless little man, with the flannelette collar of a nightgown showing under his jacket, and deathbed news in his eyes, began to gasp out a telegraphic message:

  “Mrs. Fitzgerald … sinking fast. … Dr. Farrell says for Father Monaghan … come right away.”

  The pastor’s hoarse voice rumbled down from the head of the stairs. “Would that be Annie Fitzgerald of 14 Brackenbury Street?”

  “It would,” said the flanneletted messenger. “This is me, Owen Fitz, her husband. Come quick, Father, please.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” said Monaghan.

  In a double bound Stephen was up the stairs. “Let me go, Father,” he pleaded. “I’m dressed.” He could not bring himself to add, “I’m younger … my arches are springier than yours.”

  “Dollar Bill” Monaghan, buttoning on his rabat, shook his head. “Thank you, Father Fermoyle,” he said, “but this call I must take myself. Annie Fitzgerald has lived in pain for three years, and the dear woman wouldn’t know how to die without me now.” He pulled on his No. 13 vici-top shoes with the elastic inserts. “But if you’ll be so kind, Father, just run down to the sacristy—the key is hanging on the bulletin board—and fetch me up the case of holy oil. Mrs. Annie Fitz will be needing the last sacraments tonight.”

  Stephen ran. When he returned with the case, William Monaghan was backing his new Packard out of the garage. “Get a good night’s rest, Father Fermoyle,” he advised. “You’re saying your first Mass at St. Margaret’s tomorrow, and nothing gives greater scandal to our Saviour than the sight of a priest yawning and gawping all over the altar. You take my meaning, Father?”

  “I do,” said Stephen. He stood bareheaded in the driveway till the crimson flicker of Monaghan’s taillight disappeared in rainy darkness.

  IMPARTIALLY gilding objects sacred and profane—the cross on the pinnacle of St. Margaret’s and the ugly brown cylinder of the municipal gas tank behind it—a May sun was well sprung from the Mystic Flats when Father Stephen Fermoyle in cassock and biretta, breviary in hand, came down the three steps of the parish
house next morning. His chin glistened from the razor as he inhaled the fresh spring air and breathed it out again in a canticle of thanksgiving to the Maker of Days in general and this spring day in particular. For on this day, indeed in a few minutes—at six-thirty A.M., to be exact—Father Stephen Fermoyle would enter into the special glory of a priest’s life. He would celebrate his first Mass as a curate in the parish of St. Margaret’s.

  He crossed the narrow strip of brick courtyard between the parish house and the church, unlocked the door of the sacristy, and let himself in. Odors of myrrh and spikenard lay on the almost chilly air; in the ruby flicker of the sacristy lamp he saw the high, broad chest containing the vestments of his priestly office. Stephen was glad that the Sexton Val McGuire had not yet opened the basement chapel, and that the altar boy hadn’t yet arrived. The young priest wanted to be alone while he prepared himself for the central act of his being, toward which he moved now with secret exaltation and almost tremulous joy.

  He knelt at the worn prie-dieu, bowed his head, covered his face with his hands, and inwardly supplicated the Divine Father to make him a worthy priest. This private devotion over (he kept it brief to avoid sentimentality), Stephen offered up the Mass for the special intention of his mother. Arising, he washed his hands, murmuring the humble “Da, Domine,” as he did so. Then he laid his biretta on the prie-dieu and approached the vesting bench to attire himself for his office as celebrant.

  Stephen Fermoyle had received his instruction in rubrics—the prescribed rules for the conduct of sacred ceremonials—from that great perfectionist, Guglielmo Zualdi, S.J. Under Zualdi’s tutelage, Stephen had acquired a full and intimate knowledge of the august tradition surrounding the solemn sacrifice of the Mass. Exactness and reverence, combined with a high degree of esthetic sensibility, were focused now in the clear white flame of the celebrant as artist. Every inflection of voice, every movement of head, hands, and body, would be perfectly executed in this first essay of his priesthood.

  Stephen placed the fine linen amice over his shoulders, and arranged the alb evenly, so that it fell chastely white to his ankles. He girded himself with the cincture, saying in Latin as he did so, “Engirdle me, Lord, with the cincture of purity, and extinguish in my bowels every libidinous desire, that I shall be filled with the strength of continence and chastity.”Taking up the maniple, he kissed the cross in the center and placed it on his left forearm as the symbol of the worldly sorrows the priest must bear. Then taking the stole in his two hands, he said, “Give back unto me, Lord, the stole of immortality, lost by the sin of our first parents.” He was about to place the sacred vestment around his neck when the sacristy door burst open, and a breathless small boy rushed past the prie-dieu, knocked Father Steve’s biretta to the floor, picked it up again, and stood panting in the middle of the sacristy floor.

  “All right, Jimmy,” said Father Steve without turning his head. “Get your surplice on.”

  In the act of crossing the stole on his breast, Father Stephen looked around and saw a nine-year-old boy unwashed and uncombed, covered to his knees by an emerald-green coat-sweater buttonless and clasped at the middle with a horse-blanket safety pin.

  “I’m not Jimmy,” panted the youth. “I’m Jemmy.”

  “Jimmy was sick last night,” gasped the boy. “He threw up twice all over the bed. Pa said it was the pig’s knuckles Ma gave us for supper, and they had a fight, but anyway Jimmy told me to come down and be the altar boy this morning.”

  Jimmy looked in amazement at the biretta he had picked up. “Must’ve knocked it off,” he volunteered.

  Father Stephen tried not to be unduly distracted. “Put it on the prie-dieu, and get into your surplice, Jemmy. You’ll find it in that closet by the door.” Calmly Father Steve put on the chasuble, passed the strings behind his back, and tied them inside on his breast.

  Out of the corner of one eye he saw Jemmy Splaine fighting his way out of the oversized sweater. Behind him he heard Sexton Val McGuire peeping into the sacristy to see what was holding up the Mass. Annoyance began to gather between Father Steve’s eyes. But he let none of it appear in his voice as he addressed his young server: “You know the responses, of course, Jemmy?”

  “Pretty good, Father.”

  A dubious instrument, thought Steve. “Hand me my biretta, please.”

  He took the chalice in his left hand, placed his right hand over the burse and veil, and held the sacred vessel in front of him, neither touching his breast nor far removed from it. Motioning to Jemmy to lead off, then falling in behind the boy, Father Stephen walked gravely toward the altar, his mind fixed on the sacred ritual of the Mass.

  Scarcely had he uttered the Introibo ad altare Dei when the quality of Jemmy’s Latin was revealed as something less than elegant. For the first two responses, Jem’s memory served him moderately, but at the Quia tu es Deus, it began to crack, and long before the Introit, the substitute acolyte was floundering hopelessly. As the Mass progressed, the boy’s responses, his mismanagement of his feet, hands, and tongue, became pitiful. A minor catastrophe occurred while he was transferring the missal from the Epistle to the Gospel side: ascending the steps of the altar, he stumbled, and only Father Steve’s outstretched hands saved Book and boy from an ignominious tumble.

  A tide of anger rose in Father Stephen Fermoyle as he saw his first Mass being ruined by this mumbling, stumbling clown. The spiritual work of art was being daubed by dirty paws; the oblation conceived as a masterpiece of rubric, and offered up with purist punctilio, now lay hacked to pieces around his feet.

  Desperately Father Stephen fought to ignore the distractions arising from the sorry movements of his altar boy. During the Canon of the Mass, he strove to forget all else but the Host that he held in his hands. Secretly, and with particular attention, distinction, and reverence, he uttered the five words, Hoc est enim corpus meum, from which the mystery of the transubstantiation radiates into the lives of men.

  Mercifully, Jemmy did nothing to destroy the moment, but later at the Communion he again disgraced himself by failing to extend the paten while Father Steve placed the sacred wafers on the tongues of the few early communicants.

  So exasperated was Father Steve as he left the altar at the conclusion of the Mass that he yearned to plant his boot squarely in the seat of Jeremy Splaine’s corduroy pants. As he entered the sacristy, sharp words of rebuke sprang to his lips. But he choked them down, placed the chalice on the sacristy altar, and began taking off his sacred vestments. At first his wrath could barely consume itself, but as he removed the handsome garments—the brocaded chasuble, heavily embroidered with gold and silver, the rich satin maniple, and the alb of fine linen—a strange realization came over him.

  He saw that he had put on these garments not in humility but in pride, and that he had approached the altar in a spirit of haughty elegance fatal to the fulfillment of his priestly function. From a complete display of vanity he had been saved by Jemmy’s uncouth stumbling. Unconsciously the boy had stretched his frail body like a living bridge across the pit of arrogance that had yawned at Father Stephen’s feet.

  “Jemmy, come here.”

  With uncombed head bent in consciousness of failure and disgrace, Jemmy obeyed. He had removed his surplice, and had not yet donned the sweater of emerald green. His upper body, thin as a picked pullet, was covered by a torn and dirty undershirt; a piece of clothesline, in lieu of a belt, held up his corduroy pants.

  Vestments of a kind, they were—vestments not spiced with myrrh and spikenard, nor stored away in the cool precincts of the sacristy, but worn next to sweating, corruptible flesh in the heat and dust of common day.

  Stephen put a consoling finger under the boy’s peaked chin, lifted the large head with its wild shock of hair, and gazed into the tear-streaked face.

  “That was a pretty bad performance all around, Jemmy.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “But before we’re through, Jem, you’ll be a better altar boy”—salt dim
ness blurred Father Stephen’s eyes—“and with the help of God, I’ll be a better priest.”

  EXACTLY what it was that Sexton Val McGuire whispered into William Monaghan’s ear, no one will ever know. But somehow or other Sexton McGuire conveyed the impression that the new curate didn’t know how to celebrate Mass properly.

  That noon the rector sat down to the luncheon table, hungry for his meat and potatoes. He cut a large triangular wedge of veal from the cold joint and turned the silver-plated Lazy Susan till he came to his bottle of caper sauce. “I hear,” he said, not using his Arcturus-blue eyes on anyone in particular, “that the six-thirty Mass this morning was turned into a circus.” The pastor sliced his veal slowly. “But with this difference”—he shot out his indictment—“that a circus starts on time!”

  Father Paul Ireton, having slept until seven that morning, said nothing. Just an innocent bystander, not even in the line of fire. Milky Lyons put on a brightly surprised expression as if to say, “Can such things be?” The silence left Father Steve exposed on both flanks, a position especially reserved for new curates in Monaghan’s house.

  Yesterday in the lustihood of his young powers, Steve might have offered half a dozen parries. Even now he was tempted to say: “So, we have talebearers at St. Margaret’s?” Instead, he looked quietly at his pastor. His tone was apologetic as he said:

  “There was a bit of delay, Father. I wasn’t quite familiar with the vestment racks.”

  Pastor Monaghan was out for a disciplinary ride that noon. “How about the antics with the Book? I hear”—it was a favorite elocution with him—“that you and your server were practically juggling it between you. Is that the latest thing with the American College crowd at Rome?”

  Paul Ireton came to the rescue. “It was the altar boy’s fault, Father. Jimmy Splaine got sick last night and had to send his young kid brother as a last-minute substitute. I got the whole story, along with several yards of other material, from Mrs. Splaine in the Square this morning.”