The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  Nerves frayed, patience in tatters, Stephen burst out irritably: “What do you expect me to do? Lie here for the rest of my life, hands folded in cheerful resignation, while my Diocese falls apart and my leg hangs from the ceiling like a piece of condemned pork?”

  John Byrne turned off the heat lamp and sat down beside his brother-in-law’s bed. “What’s happened to you, Steve?” he asked sharply. “I know you’ve been flat on your back for six months. Agreed, it’s tough. From an ordinary man I’d expect the usual writhings—bootless cries to heaven and all that. But coming from you, it’s out of character.”

  With scalpel words Dr. Byrne stripped his patient to the pelt. “Lately, I’ve been asking myself, ‘Is this peevish rebellious Bishop of Hartfield the fine priest I used to know? Has Steve Fermoyle lost his gift of humility? Has he forgotten that suffering is God’s physic to swollen pride?’”

  Crimson shame tinged Stephen’s cheek as he gazed into the mirror that his brother-in-law’s honesty held up to him. Defenseless, he took John Byrne’s chastisement, then reached out for the surgeon’s bony hand. “Thanks for the bitter medicine, John. Dose me again if I need it.”

  Now began the desperate struggle for acceptance of the Father’s will. In daily communion, by incessant prayer, and from pages of saintly works, particularly Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, Stephen earnestly sought to place his life in God’s keeping. Almost he succeeded. For an hour or two he would recapture the power of accepting tribulation. A blessed repose would permeate his heart and mind. Then Ambrose Cannell or Owen Starkey would come in bearing news of parish hazards or some leak in the diocesan dike that only a bishop’s clenched fist could plug. Harnessed to his bed, Stephen would issue a fighting directive. Then the whole structure of his interior life would sway and crumble again.

  Inching progress always ended in stunned retreat. How difficult to find solace in the serene pages of Thomas à Kempis:

  “Thy way is our way, and by holy patience we walk to Thee who art our Crown. If Thou hadst not gone before and taught us, who would care to follow? What would become of us if we had not such a light to help us follow Thee?”

  While Thomas nestled in the very bosom of the Lord, Stephen could not even catch His eye. Desperation was claiming him, when Dennis Fermoyle journeyed down from Boston to visit his son.

  After forty years of service on the cars, Din had been put out to pasture on a meager pension. Age had melted down his once heroic torso; his baggy blue suit hung about him in folds; gun-flint sparks no longer leapt from his eyes. As old men will, he talked of his youth—the earlier years in Dublin before he had come to America.

  “You know, Son, there used to be a Dublin legend that said every clan living on the banks of the Liffey carried some special mark of God’s favor. With the O’Donnells it was hair—men and women of that tribe had yards of silky gold falling around their shoulders. With the Flatleys it was all voice. When a Flatley sang or spoke, the lardy richness of it would drown you. The Desmonds had wonderful muscles. Every tribe had something.”

  “What did the Fermoyles have, Dad?”

  Din’s voice was tremulous with memory. “The Fermoyles were marvelous at games of leaping and running. A proud way of walking they had, too. People used to look out the window to see my father come swinging down Vico Road. It wasn’t a strut or a swagger—no.” Din tried to describe the legendary mark of the Fermoyle bearing. “Corny Deegan once said that my father looked like Adam striding across the first bog.”

  To the loom of recollection Din added the dark thread. “There was a penalty attached to the possession of these gifts, son. The legend ran that Liffey men were always stricken in the place they were proudest of. And somehow, it always turned out that way. The O’Donnells went bald young, Desmond muscle turned early to fat. …”

  “And the Fermoyles?” asked Stephen.

  “Well, like every other clan—they were given their little cross, too.”

  Little cross! From his pillow Stephen saw for the first time the tragedy of the proud-walking Dennis Fermoyle. Sprung of a clan famous for leaping and hurling, Din had early and obediently put on the harness that shackled him for life to the platform of a trolley car. Never a murmur all those years while his leg veins knotted and broke on the job. Could no lesson be learned from this godlike, uncomplaining man?

  In the days that followed Din’s visit, Stephen searchingly examined the nature of his own “little cross.” Whether his illness was an outcrop of the Liffey legend (he smiled at the idea) or whether it was a harsh purge to his pride made little difference. The essential lesson that had to be learned over and over again (how many times, O Lord?) was that no man could understand the agony of Christ until he had suffered a similar agony in his own heart. Only then would he be able to bear his cross with fortitude; only then would he be worthy to hear the Father’s comforting promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.”

  On these foundations Stephen began to build anew. The wisdom of à Kempis, once so shadowy, became luminously clear in the light of Din’s example. From the chapter entitled “Temporal Sufferings” Stephen read:

  Lord, because Thou wast patient in Thy life, herein most of all fulfilling the Commandment of Thy Father, it is well that I, miserable sinner, should patiently bear myself according to Thy will. For although the present life seemeth burdensome, it is nevertheless made very full of merit through Thy grace; and to those who are weak, it becometh easier and brighter through Thy example and the footsteps of Thy saints.

  My own father high among them, thought Stephen.

  His fever hung on; the calf of his inflamed leg now measured thirty inches, more than twice its normal size.

  Meanwhile the economic wheels of the richest nation in the world ground to a virtual halt as swarms of panhandlers shuffled along the streets muttering the refrain of the year’s theme song: “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

  From his bed a stricken bishop administered such aid as he could to his people. The diocesan coffers were almost empty now. The depression, settling over the nation like a blight, might have crushed the Bishop of Hartfield had he not accepted with perfect trust the teaching of à Kempis:

  A man may give away all his goods, yet that is nothing; and do many deeds of penitence, yet that is a small thing. And though he comprehends all knowledge and has great virtue and zealous devotion, yet much is lacking unto him, yea, one thing which is the most necessary of all. What is it, then? That having given up all things besides, he give up himself and go forth from himself utterly, and retain nothing of self-love.

  IT WAS on a man who retained little of self-love that Dr. John Byrne performed a surgical operation in mid-April, 1931.

  John Byrne came in quietly that spring morning, took the latest copy of The New England Medical Journal from his pocket, and showed his brother-in-law an article entitled “Surgical Management of Chronic Lymphatic Disorders.” “The Harvard people have come through,” he announced, the veriest minim of excitement in his voice. “I’ve studied their results, Steve.” John Byrne was professionally candid. “Three out of eleven cases died on the table; the risk of postoperative infection is great. …”

  “I’ll take my chances,” said Stephen.

  Adhering closely to the Harvard technique, Dr. Byrne made a long incision on the outside surface of his brother-in-law’s leg. From these areas the surgeon removed an affected mass of lymphatic tissues and fasciae. He then placed the patient’s skin in direct contact with the leg muscles, sewed up the wound with “interrupted sutures,” and bound the leg tightly with surgical bandages.

  Blood transfusions, intravenous injections of sugar, and nurses on three shifts helped Stephen survive this pioneer adventure in plastic surgery. Three days after the operation The Hartfield Item carried a conservatively encouraging headline:

  “Bishop Fermoyle Improves Steadily.”

  On an inside page of the same edition, the Item ran a short news st
ory reporting some rather odd goings-on in Topswell, fifteen miles southeast of Hartfield.

  “It appears,” said the report, “that events of a miraculous nature are taking place at one of the graves in the Gates of Heaven Cemetery. Many cures have been effected, and afflicted persons in great numbers are flocking to the burying ground.”

  CHAPTER 5

  ON THE MAPS given away by gasoline companies, the town of Topswell is indicated by neither a circle nor a star, but by the merest decimal of a dot. And the macadam road that winds down from Hartfield becomes a dusty soft-shouldered thing long before it reaches a dead end at the Gates of Heaven Cemetery, two miles east of town. In ordinary times not a hundred cars a year make the trip to the burying ground. But on a certain May afternoon in 1931, the road was so snarled with traffic that Father Owen Starkey had to park his Ford a half mile down the road, and make his way on foot to the iron gates of the cemetery.

  Bright drops of perspiration beaded Father Owen’s forehead, and buttercup pollen made a yellow dust on his shoes when he reached the entrance. Around the open gates surged a tide of automobiles; a dozen cars were parked inside. Disapproving wrinkles corrugated Father Owen’s brow. As overseer of cemeteries he felt a certain responsibility for this undignified traffic. Joe Dockery, the grounds keeper, should have kept the gates closed. The man would have to do some tall explaining.

  But where was Joe Dockery? Father Owen rapped at the door of the grounds keeper’s lodge. “Joe … Joe Dockery,” he cried. No answer. Must be down at the grave, thought the young overseer. Maybe I’d better go down, and take a look for myself.

  He fell in with the stream of foot traffic winding down an alley of copper beeches—dark, good-looking trees that were the only distinguishing feature of the cemetery. For the rest there was little of quality: the plots were small, unfenced; the monuments, if they could be called by so grand a name, were markers of no style or period. On the headstones were carved proud tribe names borne by former kings of Ireland: Flaherty, Dignan, Boyle, and O’Connor. “‘Requiescat in pace aeterna,’” murmured Father Owen. “If,” he added, “they’ll let you.”

  In the lee of the tool house—a low green shed with a Dutch door—he saw Joe Dockery. A clay pipe, black with age, jutted from the grounds keeper’s mouth, and his legs were crossed in the relaxed manner of an Irish squire surveying his estate. He arose as Father Owen approached and touched the visor of his leather cap with easy respect.

  “A good afternoon to you, Father. A good warm afternoon to you. Sit down out of the heat here, while I draw a cooling draught from the spring of Tubber Tintye.” He turned the faucet of a pipe at his elbow, and handed the priest an iron mugful of tap water.

  “Thanks, Mr. Dockery.” Owen Starkey needed that drink. He had another, then sat down on the bench beside the grounds keeper.

  “What do you think of the crowd we’re gathering, Father?” asked Joe. “Eighty-two cars yesterday. Ninety-six so far today. They’re beginning to come in now.”

  Father Owen started to choose stern words and ended by uttering characteristic mild ones. “I scarcely know what to think, Joe. Before I can form an opinion, I’ll have to hear more. All the Bishop gets is rumor—and he wants very much to learn the facts.” Stephen’s secretary waved a hand at the dusty procession. “How did all this start, anyway?”

  Joe Dockery’s smile had a benign “all-in-good-time-if-you’re-patient” quality about it. “You’ve heard the beginning of it … about Tom O’Doul’s arthritis, that is?”

  “I’ve heard nothing.”

  “Would you have the tale from O’Doul himself?”

  “If you think he can tell it better than you, yes.”

  Joe Dockery put two fingers in his mouth and whistled the first three notes of “The Hearty O’Doul.” “That’ll rouse him.”

  The vibration had scarcely died when a sepulchral male came out from behind a grassy mound. The brush hook in his hand predicated weed cutting of some kind, but everything else about him suggested chronic fatigue. He stepped charily as if begrudging his joints the drop of oil they needed for movement. The hearty O’Doul touched his cap to the cloth, and waited for Dockery’s instructions.

  “Tom,” said the grounds keeper, “tell Father Starkey just how all this began. Start with the Friday I put you on the lawn mower.”

  Thus briefed, O’Doul entered upon his tale: “Like Joe says, he took me off the sickle that Friday and put me on the lawn mower, cutting grass on some plots under the blasted elm. I was a sufferer from arthritis,” explained O’Doul in the voice of a professional testifier. “Untractable pain it caused in my principal joints—ankle, knee, elbow, shoulder, and hip socket.”

  “It was that bad,” said Joe, “his fingers were caking up with chalk.”

  “On this particular Friday, after I cut the grass on a certain grave, I felt queer. Good queer. I said to myself, Tom, the pain’s gone.’”

  “Flew,” said Joe Dockery, opening his hand as if releasing a bird. “But it came back, Tom?”

  “It did, Joe. A day or so after.”

  “Tell Father Starkey what you did then. You don’t mind, Father, if Tom sits down on the tub?”

  “Not at all … sit down, Tom.”

  Gingerly, O’Doul settled his bony posterior on an overturned tub, and proceeded with his tale. “In a spare hour I went back to the grave, trimmed it a little around the edges, and sure enough …”

  Joe Dockery opened his hand in the bird-releasing act. “Off it flew again,” he said.

  “Like a crow off a pine tree,” testified O’Doul. “And it hasn’t come back since.”

  They both looked at Father Starkey. “Whose grave was it?” he asked.

  “Tell him, Tom.”

  “There was a headstone on the grave all cracked and weathered. When I scraped away some of the moss I could make out the lettering. ‘Here lies the body of Reverend William J. Flynn, 1805–1877, a priest forever according to the order of McChisideck.’”

  “Melchisidec,” corrected Father Starkey absently. He turned to Joe Dockery. “Did you check it in the records?”

  “I did, Father. The cemetery books show that a Reverend William Flynn was once pastor here. My mother, God rest her soul, used to speak of him with awe.”

  Owen Starkey wet his handkerchief under the faucet of Tubber Tintye and cooled his face and hands. “I’d like to see more,” he said. “Let’s go down to Father Flynn’s grave.”

  “RESTING COMFORTABLY,” ran the official bulletin on Bishop Fermoyle’s condition four days after his operation. “The patient is doing as well as can be expected,” said the bulletin three days later. “Some improvement noted.” “Surgeon hopeful.” “Bishop recuperating slowly.” “Temporary setbacks to be expected.” These and other canting medicalisms were handed to the press in lieu of the sad truth that Bishop Fermoyle was having a rugged postoperative time.

  The pain wasn’t so bad; morphine could control that, and since no well-established mortality figures existed for this type of operation, one had to face the possibility of death with Christian resignation. The thing that bothered Stephen most was the gaunt tension in Dr. John Byrne’s facial muscles. Having done all that a creative surgeon could do, John Byrne was now undergoing the special torment of waiting for nature to do the rest. He had made a gambler’s throw. Stakes? Stephen’s power of self-locomotion. At the end of a week the coin was still in the air.

  When the bandages came off, the coin would fall.

  Till then, in some suspended fashion, life had to go on. With complications, of course—financial, administrative, personal, and disciplinary judicial. Money complications first, as always. In the second year of the depression, with sixteen million unemployed persons in the United States and two hundred thousand of them in Hartfield, dollars were scarcer than ox bile. Ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-nourished, the people were pleading for food, shelter, and medical attention that only local charity could provide.

  From the heap of docu
ments on the low table beside his bed in St. Andrew’s Hospital, Stephen selected a long cardboard tube, unscrewed the metal cap, and examined a roll of blueprints. The plans for a new wing on the Diocesan House of Refuge. Good plans, too. Father Jed Boylan’s plans. Father Jed would be in pleading for them again tomorrow. Stephen could hear him now. “But, Bishop, where’ll we put the people? They’re broke, sick, hungry—and bitter. We’ve got to take care of them. Let’s start building anyway … we’ll get the money somewhere.”

  Hard-working Jed, a wonderful director of charities. Too bad he’d have to take no for an answer. “Sorry, Jed. The Diocese is strapped. The banks won’t lend us the money. Next spring, perhaps. Jed, you heard me. I said ‘no.’”

  It would be no to Mother Alicia, who was tired of shoveling coal into the firebox of the Poor Clares’ wornout boiler. It would be no to Brother Gregor Potocki, who needed fertilizer for his tobacco co-operatives. Always no. Stephen rolled up the blueprints, slipped them back into the cardboard tube, and wondered whether two legs would really be better than one in begging or borrowing money for his down-at-the-heel Diocese.

  He picked up The Hartfield Item. The usual melancholy grist of news. Banks failing all over the country, people jumping out of windows in New York, marathon dancers entering their thirty-second day. Would the papers ever print good news again? A front-page box caught his eye:

  “New Miracles Reported at Topswell Cemetery”

  Grounds Keeper Dockery Makes Statement

  Almost, this Dockery persuadeth me, gritted Stephen, flinging the paper aside. If Owen Starkey’s report warranted disciplinary action, Dockery would be relieved. And what, incidentally, was delaying Father Starkey? The usually punctual secretary should have been back an hour ago. Bishop Fermoyle opened his mouth to accept the clinical thermometer from Sister Frances Veronica’s cool, waxen fingers. Her noncommittal glance at the column of mercury told him he was running a temperature again. She was expostulating on the folly of trying to manage a diocese from a sickbed when Father Starkey, dust-grimed and sweaty, came through the half-open door.