What happened next sticks in my mind, and no amount of logic has yet reconciled it. When I entered the vestibule of the church I was surprised to find Fr Sheridan, whom I had heard not five minutes earlier bustling about in his room. But here he was before me, covered in dust, broom in hand and hard at work sweeping the final heap of debris into the dustpan. Yesterday the vestibule was an insurmountable mess, a task that would have taken a single man the better part of the day without break to accomplish, and to-day it was without so much as a muddy footprint. ‘You are awake, Fr Corrigan/ he said, surprised. ‘I thought you might sleep into the afternoon. I was unable to sleep myself, so I thought I might get an early start on the vestibule. I have been at it all morning.’
As he spoke, a most terrible thought crossed my mind, and I must have gone visibly pale at the notion. ‘Do sit down for a moment, Fr Corrigan.’ But Fr Sheridan was the one who needed to sit, for his body wracked with a coughing fit when I told him that an intruder might be in the presbytery.
Together we raced to his room, startling Mrs Maguire as we flew past her on the steps without word. The door to Fr Sheridan's room was still closed, and when he twisted the knob he found it to be locked. He seemed puzzled, and I did not ask him then whether he had locked it himself. Using his key, we entered the room without further difficulty. We were met by absolute disarray. Fr Sheridan's usual clutter of papers had been scattered and shuffled about, dumped from their folders and loosed from their bindings so that not a single patch in the room was uncovered; the towers of books that sprouted from the floor had been toppled like Babel; and the vase of lavender lay smashed below where it once stood on the windowsill. The window was wide open, and I overheard Fr Sheridan quietly scolding himself for not having closed it.
Fr Sheridan spent the remainder of the afternoon sorting through his scattered effects, a chore that will occupy him for a week if not two. There are questions that I still cannot resolve, and will ponder into the night. Surely I would have seen or heard Fr Sheridan leave the presbytery this morning had he done so while I was speaking with Mrs Maguire. If Fr Sheridan were inside, then how could he have finished the not trivial task of cleaning the vestibule? And what caused his papers to be strewn about in such a way? Fr Sheridan attributed this to an open window, but the air was calm the entire day without so much as a light breeze.
17 Leinster Sq.
Mon., Oct. 24
Dear Father Corrigan,
We are in terrible sorrow. Our eldest boy, Howard, has been taken from us. I have already told you the long story of his ill health Sc the operations he had to go thru. On the night Father Sheridan visited 2 weeks ago Howard was feeling better Sc even well enough to sit upright in bed Sc speak briefly with him. By the following Monday Howard's condition worsened Sc for this last week all doctors had given him up. The doctors call it lung disease but I do not trust in their verdict. On Sunday night Howard s temperature went down so low that no clinical thermometer would register it. This morning again the temperature went down Sc by noon our dear boy was taken from us.
Father Sheridan had been a comfort by visiting each afternoon with fresh lavender to brighten Howard s room Sc by praying with us. It had come to a point where we hardly knew whether to pray for Howard s recovery or his release. Thank God however he no longer suffers in pain.
Yours sincerely,
Howard Grubb
Tuesday, October 25th, 1881
There is still dust everywhere. Fr Meagher's fever broke, and though he still remains unconscious, he no longer needs constant observation. We are now able to spend more time performing our churchly duties. We dust statues
in the side-altars and wipe the windows. On some windows the dust is sometimes so thick that the little sun we do get is virtually blotted out. It is tiring work, and as Mrs Brenane said, we shall only be glad when the construction is finally finished.
Fr Sheridan is still unwell, but the excess work he takes on thankfully does not erode his health further. And he has certainly not shied from his duties. I see him tending to Fr Meagher just as often as I see him about the church. If idle hands are the devils playthings, then Fr Sheridan need never extricate himself from infernal persuasion.
This evening I will visit the Grubbs. I hope I can be of some small comfort in the loss of their son. Fr Sheridan has volunteered to sit with Fr Meagher until my return.
Sunday, October 30th, 1881
Mrs Maguire's scare on Friday is not to be overstated judging from the enduring effect it will have on her. Though truth to tell the precise details of what happened are still a mystery to us all, save for Mrs Maguire and, perhaps, Fr Sheridan. What we do know with certainty is that Mrs Maguire, with her customary discreetness, now refuses to be alone in the same room as Fr Sheridan. Even with others present, she avoids direct or lengthy interactions with him. She refuses to enter the church now too, though she made an exception for Mass. Thankfully she still continues to serve us in the presbytery with admirable fortitude. I have tried to speak to Fr Sheridan, but he shows a reluctance to talk with anyone on private matters these days. Mrs Maguire has not spoken with me about the incident, and to my knowledge made no attempt to engage Fr Whelan this afternoon.
Monday, October 31st 1881
To Mrs Maguire's unpleasant incident I am afraid I must now add one of my own. Like what Mrs Maguire suffered, the episode I am about to recount, even now, seated here at my bureau in the familiarity of my room, fills me with a dread. Unlike Mrs Maguire, the gravity of my experience dictates that I must alert Fr Whelan if we are at all to preserve Fr Sheridan's well-being. I will record what I saw and heard if only to be clear in my own mind, although I do not think that I risk forgetting something so horrible. The entire morning seemed to me uncanny, and so I shall start at its beginning.
The baptismal font had been neglected for several weeks, as we have had no cause of celebration to use it. This morning I found myself in the south transept tending to the build up of dust that clung to every ornament of the fonts surface. Fr Stafford watched me from the memorial on the north wall, his eyes, like the font, covered with a film of grey residue. With the aid of a step-stool I elevated myself to the same level as the Canons stony visage. Damp cloth in hand, I wiped the dust from his eyes. The unsoiled brightness of the bone-white circles on his ashen face burned with strange intensity such that filled me with unease. Fully neglecting the font, I tended to Fr Stafford's other features, wiping his brow and cheeks, and making the collar of his shirt white once again. As I cleaned the words that recounted the good deeds of his life, the cloth slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor. Upon returning to my perch I made a startling discovery, although I hesitate to call a detail as such when I must have previously overlooked or misjudged the detail in question. Fr Stafford s face was no longer facing straight
ahead, as it was in even my most immediate memory, but was now angled slightly towards the east, so that I fancied his gaze rested upon Fr McCarthy's memorial.
Fr McCarthy’s piety and virtue have long been of great inspiration to me, and the inscription from Job writ upon the stone is likewise writ upon my heart. ‘The ear that heard him blessed him, and the eye that saw him gave witness to him/53 Often in my duties I have seen the image at the bottom of the memorial. It depicts a ship caught in the stormy waves of the bay in which Fr McCarthy drowned. I find it illustrative as much as I do allegorical, and often I have meditated on its meaning, seeking refuge in Fr McCarthy’s memory. Today, as I looked upon the ships impending fate, a peculiar phrase entered my thoughts: Navisfluctibus devorata, navis flammis devorata Why such a thing should enter my mind, I cannot say, but I did not have time to consider its provenance for I was interrupted by the sounds of a door opening and someone entering the church.
I quit my mundane task, eager to offer assistance to this unexpected caller, yet when I entered the nave I found the church to be quite empty. Not even the votive candles flickered and disturbed the unbroken stillness. Yet I was cer
tain someone was present, and when I again scanned the room I spied a faint movement in the north transept. It was the penitent-side door of the confessional, and it was being pulled gently shut. I knew of no confession scheduled today, and my puzzlement was further compounded when I began to wonder how anyone could have spanned the considerable distance from the vestibule to the confessional in such a brief time. Of course I had no intention of skulking, but the stealth of my footsteps attested otherwise, and I soon found myself drawn nearer the confessional. My suspicion of a visitor was confirmed when I heard a mans voice speaking in low tones within the stall, and although I could not make out individual words, I could hear the anonymous penitent muttering his constant and fevered confession with hardly a pause to breathe. The strained whisper made my own throat ache with hoarseness.
I confess that I was acting out of curiosity when I decided it was then time to dust the pews in the nave. Fetching the cloth and bucket, I took a position at the end of the church opposite the confessional, where I crouched down low and began dusting the nearest bench. Despite my sincerity at the time, I admit now that I positioned myself in a way that afforded a clear view of the confessional, though whoever emerged from it would not have the same view of me.
After a wait that could not have been more than five minutes, the confessional opened and the penitent emerged. He left the church in the same swift and determined silence in which he had arrived, and he did so at such an astonishing pace that I scarce had time to identify the unmistakable shape of Er Sheridan. At long last, I thought: ‘He did heal them, and from their destructions He delivered them.' I sat in wait for Fr Whelan, for the confessor could have been no other. I had by then decided to speak with him about Fr Sheridan’s health, but for as long as I waited, the confessor’s door remained closed.
When I could wait no longer, I approached the confessional. I tapped the panel on the confessor's door, but the dark wooden stall yielded only hollow echoes by way of response. My concern, unfounded though it was at the time, grew by degrees to the point of frenzy. There was little I could do to control myself, and when I could no longer endure the anxiety, I flung the door open wide.
Tiny bits of tom paper, fanned by the swinging door, whirled into the air and spilled forth onto the floor. I picked up a handful of these scraps and saw written upon them random words and numbers in Fr Meagher's own heavy script. This was, without doubt, what remained of the ledger stolen some two weeks earlier. But it was not this act of destruction that disturbed me most. The true evil was to whom, or rather to what, Fr Sheridan had uttered his confession - an inconceivable blasphemy, offensive to the sensibilities of both God and man.
The odour of putrefaction wormed across my tongue, and I nearly left the church for it. Upon the bench lay Fr Sheridan's mysterious confessor: a slender black shadow the length of a man's arm; one all too familiar to my heart's memory. Four tiny paws stretched and its stomach pulled taut as if in its final moments it basked in the warm sun; its sleek tail, bony and absent of once lustrous fur, still curled at its tip with unhesitating approval. I fled that church, now suddenly dark, and wept to remember the name I had once given my beloved companion.
Tuesday, November 1st 1881
Fr Sheridan was nowhere to be found this morning, and secreted himself from prying eyes for the remainder of the day. When I arose early from a restless sleep, I already found him to be absent from the presbytery. His bed-room door was ajar, the bed appeared to be disused and the room showed no sign of recent tenancy, save for the ever-present fresh bowl of lavender on the windowsill. Its sweet fragrance, to which we are all accustomed, filled the room with its usual potency, but on this morning the odour elicited an unsettling notion.
How, I wonder, or rather, where does one locate fresh lavender in the autumn months?
I toured the church and grounds with the partial hope of locating Fr Sheridan, but my lack of good fortune was merciful. Had I found him, would I dare approach him? Would I speak to this new stranger? Surely he knows I saw him in the church yesterday?
Fr Whelan arrived late this afternoon to visit Fr Meagher and sort through some papers. Fr Sheridan's absence proved beneficial as it provided me with the opportunity to speak with Fr Whelan in confidence. He sat at Fr Meagher’s desk, myself seated before him, and I related the events of these past months culminating with the horror in the confessional, which I committed to these pages yesterday. He listened with sage-like concern, running his aged fingers through his ivory-white hair or lightly tapping a stack of papers at the story’s more worrisome turns. When I told him about the fate of my Blackmouse a shadow of darkness overtook his face. Never before had I seen the reassuring calmness of Fr Whelan's face so disrupted by confusion and alarm. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, and twice the words retreated. Finally he spoke, though his words of comfort thinly veiled his more substantial and unshared thoughts. Fr Whelan assured me that he would invite Fr Sheridan to accompany him on his constitutional and speak with him then.
I sit here now at my bureau accompanied by the scratching of my pen. As I write, I can hear the floorboards in the hall groan under the weight of someone’s careful tread.
Fr Sheridan has returned, for if not Fr Sheridan, then who?
Wednesday, November 2nd, 1881
My brother once told me that it is always best to start at the beginning. If I write down to-day's events and examine them with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps I might be able to look upon the summation of their parts. Perchance a pattern, or some piece of hitherto overlooked trivium will suggest itself and allay my suspicions and unease. What is done cannot be undone, and we must all eventually meet our Maker. But Fr Whelan's drowning will still no doubt sadden many in our congregation. Even now I cannot accept that he is no longer with us.
Fr Whelan found cause to join us for dinner this evening, citing more work in Fr Meagher’s office, though his true motive was to speak with Fr Sheridan. In his inoffensive way Fr Whelan suggested that he join him on the walk, and Fr Sheridan, without looking up from his dinner, calmly agreed. He even suggested that the brisk autumn air might invigorate his health. I do not think he suspected Fr Whelan's plans. Fr Sheridan excused himself from the table to finish packaging some chorister robes in the sacristy that we are sending to the Nativity in Chapelizod. After Fr Sheridan left the table, I had a brief word with Fr Whelan, and then also excused myself to finish some work in the church.
Once there I busied myself dusting the side-altar in the north transept. Not work that I enjoy, but work that must be done before the public unveiling of the new portico. Fr Sheridan was still working in the sacristy, and had not once emerged since I started.
I had long lost sense of the hour when Fr Whelan entered the church. The vestibule door startled me when it slammed shut behind him with an echo. 'I am starting off early' he told me. 'I would like a chance to think. When Fr Sheridan is ready, please tell him to catch up with me.' I remember his next words exactly. They were the final words he ever spoke to me. 'I think to-night I shall walk east, along the south side of the canal towards Ranelagh Bridge.’ I looked at my timepiece as he left. It was nearly nine o’clock.
All was quiet until fifteen minutes later when I chanced to look up from my work. I knew Fr Sheridan was in the sacristy, so I thought it odd to see him emerge from the unlit comer of the south transept, as I had not seen or heard him go there in the first place. I meant to call out to him and relay Fr Whelan's message, but Fr Sheridan glided across the nave in such a hasty manner that I wondered if I would have had time to recite the message at all. Even had I alerted this strange man to my presence, I still would not have been able to muster the boldness to speak to him.
With these thoughts swirling around my head I continued polishing. As I worked, the once cavernous dome began to feel close and restrictive, as if it descended on me like the bell of a candle-snuffer. Not much time had passed when I felt the weight of a hand resting upon my shoulder. I reeled around. I felt faint and almos
t crashed into the candles at the sight of my visitor. Are you all right, Fr Corrigan?" It was Fr Sheridan who asked this question. I had seen him leave the church not five minutes earlier, yet here he now stood before me. ‘I thought you had already gone to find Fr Whelan' said as I swayed on the spot. He grasped my elbow and helped me onto a pew. When I regained my composure, I relayed Fr Whelan's message. ‘He left without me?’ asked Fr Sheridan with a look of concern. ‘Perhaps you should go back to the presbytery. You do not look well. You will forgive me, but I must go.' He adjusted the lavender pinned to his coat, and then made his way to the vestibule; the door slammed shut behind him. I followed his advice two or three minutes later.
Mrs Maguire brewed a pot of tea and set me next to the fire. And that is where I sat for the next half of an hour with a rug draped over my legs to bar the chill. My eyelids had nearly shut when I heard a distant thumping on the door. Subsequently Mrs Maguire rushed in with a boy aged about eleven or twelve in tow. I recognised him as young Robert Harrison, son of the architect Mr Lloyd Harrison, who lives at number 1 Cheltenham-place along the canal.56 He did not have to speak for me to know that something was horribly wrong. He shuffled on the spot as if he had been caught committing some roguish prank and then, bolstering his confidence, he said, ‘Please, Reverend, my father says to come quick, I don’t think he’ll last much longer.' His vague message was troubling enough to greatly upset Mrs Maguire. I helped her into a chair and made sure she would be all right until I returned. Without so much as putting on my jacket, I raced down Rathmines-road as fast as I could. Young Harrison was already far ahead of me.
The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories Page 9