The Beautiful Thread

by Penelope Wilcock

  Over supper, he told William something of his time with the bishop in the afternoon. He expressed bemusement at the distinctly odd equerry, who had urged him to smile and let slip his hidden sunshine. He took note of the wariness in William’s eyes as he considered the man – “Don’t trust him, John.” He thought back on their encounter with Lady Florence Bonvallet and her mother, but decided no good could come of mulling over that, and left it alone. And then they ate in companionable silence.

  “John… I’ve a kindness to beg of you.”

  The abbot looked up from his dinner. William seemed unsettled, he thought, out of sorts. “And it is?”

  “I wondered – I do appreciate why the answer should be ‘no’ – but… could I – may I – come to Chapter in the morning?”

  Abbot John finished chewing his mouthful of food, but he was already shaking his head before he spoke. “I’m afraid it does have to be ‘no’,” he said. “Chapter must remain sacrosanct for the community. It has to be that way. You have considerable freedom while you’re here – to be with us in the cloister, sit with the community at Compline and in the early morning. We recognize our special relationship with you; but there must also be boundaries. And Chapter is for the brethren. Anyway, Bishop Eric may well be there, and anyone dressed as a layman would stick out like a sore thumb. I am so sorry. Why did you want to come?”

  William toyed with his broken bread. “I suppose… I just wanted to hear something honest and wholesome and good. It’s been a strange day. The equerry, the Bonvallets. They have their point of view, but I feel… sort of … besmirched.”

  John nodded, understanding, sympathy in his eyes. “I can believe it.”

  “I wanted to listen to the abbot’s Chapter.” William spoke quietly, and John felt the containment of his spirit, the way the man kept himself held inside, furled. The world corroded him, perhaps.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” said John with a smile. “I assure you there are not that many men over-eager to wait upon my wisdom. I am so sorry to deny you access. Sometimes…” He reached for the carafe of ale, and poured a little into his ale-pot to enjoy with the remnants of his cheese. “… it’s not unknown for men to fall asleep in my Chapter talks. These summer days it can be stuffy in there. Fresh air is helpful for staying awake, and good for us anyway. The door – not the entrance from the covered way, the little one handy for the infirmarians and anyone coming down from the farm – sometimes we leave it open on a sunny day. It’s nice to hear the birds sing. I should think we’d be likely to leave it open tomorrow.”

  He saw his friend’s face relax into gratitude and amusement.

  * * *

  There was this nook out of the wind’s way, tucked between the bellying out of the octagonal chapter house and the buttressed wall of the main body of the church. Here William sat on the tufting grass, smelling the fragrance of lavender, sage and rosemary growing there. Herbs were planted everywhere at St Alcuin’s – because they were useful and beautiful, healing and fragrant, low maintenance and extremely easy to grow. Absently, he stretched out his hand and rubbed the leaves of the lavender… the rosemary… breathing in the clean, wholesome scent.

  Screened from view in this discreet cleft, he listened to Father Gilbert reading the chapter of the Rule set for today, his voice carrying out through the small door that this morning stood wide open, propped back with a rock.

  “‘Behold, here I am’,” Benedict quoted Psalm 33. And Father Gilbert concluded the portion set: “‘Behold, in his loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of life.’”

  William was by now familiar with the effect the place had on him, and experienced without surprise the curious reaching forth, the yearning hunger that called from the very depths of his viscera to the unknown blue mystery of the infinite. Amen, his soul in silence saluted the words.

  And then, what he wanted to hear: Abbot John addressed the sons of his house.

  “In loving kindness, the Lord shows us the way of life. My brothers, opposing contrasts are often used to guide us. One such is perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem – perfect love casts out fear. What an interesting opposition. At first thought we incline to perceive hatred as opposed to love. Yet often hatred turns out to be wounded or distorted love, the result of abuse and rejection. It’s a steep task, turning hatred to love, certainly – but the true opposition is fear. You cannot love where you fear – you cannot. Fear is inherently self-concerned, where love of its nature looks outwards, self-forgetful. Fear wants to get away where love wants to connect.

  “Thinking of kindness, then, of loving kindness – I asked myself, for our guidance, the deepening of our wisdom – what is the opposite of kindness. The first thing that springs to mind is cruelty, naturally enough. Or meanness – mean-spiritedness, maybe. But cruelty… well… it is, you might say, a secondary thing. A fruit, not a root. The same with meanness. They are what we see. They are the behaviour, not the attitude.

  “Tentatively, I want to propose to you, the root attitude in opposition to loving kindness is scorn – contempt.

  “Kindness sees vulnerability, sees someone at a loss or disadvantage, and reaches out to shelter, to help. Kindness sees where someone is hurt or angry, and wants to listen, to understand; if it may be, to heal.

  “Scorn sees the same things and sneers. Scorn turns away where kindness turns towards. Contempt sees someone struggling or out of their depth, and blames them. Contempt sees someone angry, smarting under an injustice perhaps, and punishes them. Above all, kindness draws people together into community, where scornful contempt isolates and divides them, keeps them forever apart.

  “Christ was of no account, once. He was the child of a poor woman, born in shame, homeless. He was a prisoner brought to stand and answer for his words – he who had said, ‘Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again.’ He, the healer, nailed to the cross, attracted derision – ‘Messiah? Save yourself!’

  “He died. But when he rose again, he didn’t come back with a list drawn up of his enemies. Even in dying, what he said was, ‘Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they’re doing.’ He understood, you see. Even then.

  “There’s a fair amount about scorn in the Gospels. I’m thinking of the older brother of the prodigal, of the Pharisee and the Publican, of Simon the Pharisee and the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus, among others. We identify hypocrisy as the sin Jesus spoke out against – but just like cruelty, hypocrisy is a secondary thing. Hypocrisy, like cruelty, proceeds from contempt. The Pharisee held the publican in absolute contempt – as did the older brother regard the returning prodigal. He scorned him. And Simon the Pharisee looked down on the woman of ill repute; she was beneath him. Or so he thought. He made the mistake of expecting Jesus would look at her in the same way. Contempt belittles people, sees them as nothing, as insignificant, where kindness restores dignity, helps people grow.

  “There’s something going on here about the predilection for always being right that afflicts religious people. Wanting to be right and feeling guilty and ashamed when we get things wrong. Anxious to be in the right, we hold in utter contempt those who fail, who fall below the standards we have set. We make them into a ladder we climb, thinking to elevate ourselves. But, in heaven’s name – doesn’t everybody make mistakes? Isn’t that how we learn? Should we not shelter our fallen brothers with kindness? Should we not overlook their follies and lift them up gently when they stumble? Guilt, shame, contempt – this becomes a morass of rancour feeding off itself. It’s a knot you can untangle only with kindness.

  “Kindness. Such a homely, ordinary thing at first glance. But so majestic, so spacious; the thumbprint of a generous God. ‘In loving kindness, the Lord shows us the way of life.’”

  William stayed where he was in the silence that followed these words. He explored the perimeter of the familiar sinkhole – shame – at his well-defended core. He thought of the derision with which he so easily dismissed men he judged to
be weak or mediocre. They drew from him not kindness but contempt. He knew how scornful he could be. He bent his head, quite still, except that the fingers of his left hand strayed among the blades of grass where he sat, plucking at them as his thoughts wandered. Then as he heard the abbot open the business of the meeting, asking for the confessions of the novices, William crept from his hiding place and stole away, keeping close to the church wall where he could not be observed from the chapter house. It would be, he thought, a breach of trust to eavesdrop on the defencelessness of brothers confessing to one another, and on the private concerns of the community. He had no wish to pry.

  He went into the cloister, crossed the garth all blossoming in the flowers of spring, going through to the far side of the cloister, the refectory door, and from there out to the abbey court. He thought Bishop Eric, whom he wished to avoid, would be in Chapter with the community, so he took the chance to find something to eat in the guesthouse, and to move his belongings out to a more discreet lodging, out from under the eye of the bishop. Near its door in the sunshine, he found the bishop’s equerry seated at a garden table with some bread and ale.

  The man raised his hand against the morning light, and offered a jocund smile. “Here’s a merry thing!” he exclaimed, showing William a small spider who had been spinning her thread, using the corner of the table to attach the web she had strung between its silvered oak and the rosemary. It glinted in the sunshine. “Look!” The equerry laughed as he trapped one of her legs beneath his finger, detaching it from her body. He did it to a second leg, a third, a fourth, two more. William stood immobile, watching the futile movement of the last two legs. Smiling, the equerry took these away one by one, leaving only her body and the tiny threads of her scattered legs. Then, laughing, he reached down and brushed the web away.

  William stepped forward to the table, neither looking at nor speaking to the man. With delicate care, he lifted the still body of the garden spider, placed her on the sunwarmed flag of stone where he stood, and with one decisive movement crushed her absolutely. He did not turn his head to see if the equerry was still smiling. He went into the guesthouse; but there he walked past the table where food had been set out for the taking. He took the stairs two at a time and retrieved his bag and cloak from the bed where he’d been sleeping. The house had a kitchen of its own, and by that way he made his exit, to avoid being seen by LePrique or, for that matter, having to look at him. Quietly and swiftly he walked along under the trees to the stables, and climbed the wooden ladder into the big hayloft. He swung himself up through the hatch, and crossed the boarded space, strewn with fragrant grass and seeds. Mice, he knew, would confine their activities mainly to the floor. He climbed onto the hay pile, to the very back of the loft, crouching to make himself a hollow close against the wall just beneath the small window, where the scanty light would find him, he could hear what passed outside, but would be unseen should anyone come up to investigate. He wrapped his cloak around him and lay down, curling up into the nest he had made. There he lay quite still, thinking of the bishop, the equerry, the spider. Even wrapped in his cloak and bedded in the hay, he felt cold now, not entirely sure it had been the right choice to come back here again.

  Chapter

  Two

  “So, you’ve met Florence. Would you like to be there when Hannah and Gervase come to see me? Is that helpful?”

  William shook his head. “The path I’ve taken has created consequences – as all decisions do. It’s not realistic to hope a man can be what I’ve been and do as I’ve done without incurring some associated curtailments and forfeits. That’s not how life is. I think, especially while Bishop Eric is here, there should be no question that I am here too. LePrique was never acquainted with me, neither was Florence, so I’m hoping we can get away with that; but Hannah knows me well. It’s risky to rely even on the community for discretion, though I think we can. They will have the sense – I hope – to give away nothing of my presence. Let’s just leave it like that. Maybe I’ll have a chance to observe Gervase in some casual setting; but I do believe I must concentrate on fading and vanishing while I’m here. I’ve moved my bits and pieces into your hayloft, you know. Out of sight. Best keep things that way.”

  John saw the force of this, and William set off for the kitchens, for Brother Conradus to approve the list he and Cormac had made of provisions still to be obtained in the near future.

  “Will you need me?” asked Brother Tom, setting out the chairs for John’s visitors.

  “Er… no. Probably not. They’re only coming to talk; they won’t need feeding. I’ll need you this evening, because Bishop Eric will be dining with me here, and possibly Brainard too – I’m not quite sure of the protocol; if it would be expected that Brainard eats always in the guesthouse or sometimes with me. I think I’d better ask Francis; he’ll know. And I believe Gervase Bonvallet’s brothers – Hubert and Percival – are coming up this afternoon. Conradus said they have several casks of special wine from France, and they want to move it now so it has time to settle before it’s broached. So I guess they’d better stay for supper too. The daylight lasts to see them safely home afterwards at this time of year. They’ve only got to ride a mile or two beyond the village. Francis will eat with us, and I think maybe Father Gilbert. He can talk to them about the music for the wedding, and he… well, he comes of an aristocratic family. He and Francis will fit in with them better than I do. I did ask William, but he said he’d make himself scarce while his Lordship is with us. So we may be a party of seven here this evening, but nothing that needs your attention during the day.”

  “Have I your permission, then, to be out with Brother Stephen?”

  “Remind me of what you were doing.”

  “We need to go up onto t’ moor to gather a goodly lot of bracken for a first layer under the hayricks when we build them – it keeps the damp from the hay so it doesn’t rot, and the rats don’t like it. We always spread a thick layer of it first, but it’s tough work gathering it – rough old stuff. It’s a help if there’s two of us.”

  “But…” John frowned, puzzled. “Wouldn’t you get it in during the autumn?”

  “Aye, we do. But we ran so short of hay and straw for animal bedding last year, because so much of what we had went mouldy with all that rain. We had bracken set by for when we built the ricks, but we used it up. It doesn’t matter. Bracken doesn’t harbour damp like grass. If we gather it now, it’ll dry out as much as it needs to and be ready for when we fetch the hay in. And Brother Walafrid said, would we get some for him to make his next lot of soap.”

  John hesitated.

  “I don’t have to go,” admitted Tom, but his abbot perceived the moral effort it cost him to say it, and he laughed.

  “No, that’s all right – of course you can. But will you call by the kitchen and see to it that Brother Conradus brings some cakes and wine for the bishop this afternoon? And make sure he’s aware of how many we’ll be, eating here tonight.”

  Tom grinned cheerfully. “Aye, I will! I should be back by the afternoon, anyway. We’ll take some bread and cheese with us, and go this morning. I’ll look around the ditches on the farm as well, see if there’s any meadowsweet blooming yet, to strew in here for your supper guests. Bit early in the year yet, but I’ll see what there is.”

  John felt his enthusiasm, the tug of the outdoors on his spirit, and was glad he’d not required him to be confined inside, patiently waiting on his abbot’s guests.

  “I’m grateful to you, Tom,” he said. “Thank you for helping me and steering me through. I know it’s not easy.”

  “Nay, it’s a privilege – a joy, really,” replied his esquire. “Don’t fret; I’ll not be long away.”

  No sooner had Tom left by the cloister door, bound for the farm and the open moorland that rose above it, than John heard the knock on the door to the abbey court, heralding the arrival of Hannah and Gervase.

  “Welcome!” He gestured them in.

  Gervase, withou
t really thinking about it, took his seat in one of the two chairs available that John indicated. Hannah paused, then changed direction and chose to sit instead on one of the two low stools, the only other seats. She left the remaining chair for the abbot. He smiled at her. “Thank you.” He took his seat in the chair she left him. “Now, then. How’s everything going? All well? Happy? Looking forward to it?”

  Hannah grinned. Gervase looked at him as if John had lost his mind.

  “It’s a nightmare,” he said. “My mother – you have no idea! When I’m by myself, it all seems straightforward. When I’m with Hannah, I come home to myself, I start to be who I really am. Everything falls into place. Then my mother starts up, and by the time she’s finished I’m overflowing with shame and guilt and misery, worried that I’m ruining Hannah’s life and destroying my children’s chances of happiness, disgracing the family name and disappointing my father –”

  “Has he said so?” John interrupted.

  “My father? He’s said barely a word. Shrugged, looked away, muttered things along the lines of ‘On your own head be it’, and retreated into silence. Yes, if I’m honest, I think I probably have disappointed him. But then again, I think there may have been something inevitable about that from the day I was born. I’m not like him. I don’t think like him. I let him down by being the lad I am. But what can I do about that? I have tried. I’ve done what I can to please them. But this… I really want this, Father. I really do. I think my family will not actually disown us. I believe my father has plans to give us a small farm of our own a few miles away. He just doesn’t want us anywhere near him and my mother. He won’t be unkind. He won’t disinherit me. So long as we keep our distance and don’t do anything to embarrass the family.”

  John let the bleak chill of these thoughts settle into his marrow like wet snow.