“And the congregation?” Fludd took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his lip. “How did they take it?”
“Quietly,” said the nun, with a careless air. “They always do. They’ve a great want of education.”
And whose fault is that? Fludd muttered, behind the muffling folds of linen.
“And if his wild sermons were not offence enough, he sets his judgement up against His Grace’s! Of course, you’ve heard of this ridiculous business about the statues.”
“Oh, of course,” said Fludd. He was beginning to sense which way the wind was blowing. “I think I will have that other cup of tea.”
By now the scuffling outside the door had much increased, and a sort of impatient rhythmic breathing was evident, the concerted effort of six lungs.
“Oh, come in,” Purpit cried, her patience snapping. “Don’t hang about out there snuffling like a tribe of old dogs, come in and meet Father Fludd, the great hope of our parish.”
The three nuns who entered the room in single file were of an age, as Purpit had told him, and of a height, which was little more than five foot; looking from one lined, dim, paper-white face to the other, Fludd knew that he would never be able to tell them apart. They kept their eyes cast down, behind their wire-framed spectacles,
and shuffled their feet. Their habits smelt musty, as if they never went out of doors. Of course, they did go out of doors, walking up and down the carriage-drive; but what they experienced, between the black banks and the dripping trees, did not count as fresh air. They took no exercise, apart from beating small children with canes—which they did fiercely, in a spirit of rivalry. Malice marked their countenances, and a kind of greed.
“Are we not going to have tea?” one of them said. “The pot is big enough.”
“We could fetch cups,” said another.
“You have had your tea,” said Purpit, crushingly.
The three nuns peered at Fludd, from beneath the starched parapets of their headdresses. “They are working on a tapestry,” Mother Perpetua said. “Aren’t you, Sister Polycarp?”
“It is a big one,” said Polycarp.
“We do it
ad majorem Dei gloriam,”
said Cyril.
“It is like the Bayeux Tapestry.”
“But on a religious theme.”
Fludd set down his teacup. He felt uneasy; one of the Sisters wheezed a little, and he felt that his own breathing had become difficult, a pain across his breastbone.
“You don’t sound well, Sister,” he said; and he saw the lips of the other two nuns tighten with wrath.
“She is very well,” one said.
The other said, “She gets linctus.”
The first added, “She has no cause for complaint.”
“Your tapestry … ,” Fludd said, “what is the theme?”
“The plagues of Egypt,” said Sister Cyril. “It is novel.”
“But edifying,” said Polycarp.
“It is an undertaking,” said Fludd, respectfully.
“We have done the plague of frogs,” Polycarp said. “And the murrain, and the grievous swarm of flies.”
Sister Ignatius Loyola coughed a long hacking cough, then spoke for the first time: “Now we are up to boils.”
Perpetua took him to the convent door. It was quite dark now, and he knew that Father Angwin would be anxious. Perpetua touched his sleeve. “Remember, Father,” she said, in a hoarse whisper, “any help I can give you, you’ve only to ask. Any information … you understand? I want His Grace to know I’m loyal.”
“I understand,” Fludd said. He wondered what exactly was the origin of the bad blood between the nun and Father Angwin; but he had already realized, from what he had seen earlier that day, that the quarrels of this community were ancient and impenetrable. He wanted to get away, out of her presence; a powerful aversion welled up in him, and he pulled his sleeve away. Purpit did not notice. She stood framed in the lighted doorway as he trudged up the hill towards the church.
The bishop’s a fair man, he thought; as he put one muddy foot in front of the other. The bishop’s a just man, is he? Well, perhaps so. Perhaps he may be. Perhaps fairness abounds. When people complain of their lot, their sneering enemies gloat and tell them, to make them afraid, “Life’s not fair.” But then again, taking the long view, and barring flood, fire, brain damage, the usual run of bad luck, people do get what they want in life. There is a hidden principle of equity in operation. The frightening thing is that life is fair; but what we need, as someone has already observed, is not justice but mercy.
The arrival of Father Fludd in the parish was marked by a general increase in holiness. If he thought his parish tour had gone unremarked, he was mistaken; on the next Sunday, and in subsequent weeks, the lukewarm, the reclusive, and the apostate trod in each other’s footsteps on the carriage-drive. He preached a good vigorous sermon, stuffed with well-chosen texts; Father Angwin had thought it on the whole dangerous to disabuse his flock of the notion that the Bible was a Protestant book, and had tended to leave his quotes unattributed.
That first Sunday, Fludd noted the Men’s Fellowship, occupying the north aisle; a dapper man in plaid trews was the first of them to step up and take Holy Communion, and the rest followed. Their jaws were held stiff as they turned from the altar rail, God’s living body cloven to their hard palates. Bestowing the host, Fludd saw the features of the communicants reflected in the polished plate the altar boy held beneath each chin; he saw the shiver of the distorted metal faces.
Only the nuns preceded the Men’s Fellowship, Purpiture marching stoutly from her front pew, the rest rising to follow, peeling off
from the kneeler like black adhesive strips: Cyril, Ignatius, Polycarp, in alphabetical order to save dispute. The round-faced girl-nun brought up the rear; one or two sisters were absent, he noticed, probably down with some digestive ailment.
A hymn then, “O Bread of Heaven”: off-key, a low rumbling hymn, like bad weather coming up.
Ita, Missa est:
Go, the Mass is ended.
Deo gratias
. Another hymn: “Soul of My Saviour,” a parish favourite. High-pitched, this time, a keening wail, the sopranos of Fetherhoughton having their way with it; only the shrillest can hit the top notes, and the wisest do not try.
Soul of my Saviour, Sanctify my breast
… And midway through that first torturing verse, he saw from the corner of his eye how Mother Perpetua leant forward, across the embonpoint of Sister Anthony, and dug the young nun in the ribs.
If she had been carrying an umbrella, she would have used that, but the point of her finger was hardly less efficacious. A startled moan broke from Sister Philomena, and presently it was evident that she was singing.
Deep in thy wounds, Lord, Hide and shelter me …
“Poor Sister Philomena,” Agnes Dempsey muttered. “It’s like a dog being taken poorly.” The young woman blushed as she sang, and cast down her eyes.
When the hymn was over, the congregation rose as one man, and seemed to shake themselves, and passed weightily down the aisles and out into the weak autumn sun, en route to their fast-breaking Sunday dinners; the camphor smell of their Sunday clothes mingled with the incense, and Fludd found himself sneezing uncontrollably, wiping his streaming eyes. There was mud on the carriage-drive, and winter in the air.
Soon the children had new games, of imitating priests. In their back-yards they went knocking from door to door, slow-footed and doleful, pretending that they carried the viaticum. The householders,
informed that they were near death, made their displeasure felt; but the children, having recovered from the blows, re-formed their lines, and began to visit the coalhouses, tapping on each door to solicit last confessions, and to offer the grace of God to the Nutty Slack within.
Even the people of Netherhoughton came to church, and sat glowering at the back; their little heathen children played in the aisles with their ouija boards.
On the Monday, in the afternoon, Fludd was kneeling in church, praying for Father Angwin. He might have been on the altar, for that was his privilege; but he would rather kneel in the first bench, where the nuns had been on Sunday, and watch from that short distance the sanctuary lamp, winking redly at him like an alcoholic uncle.
He wanted peace of mind for Father Angwin; he thought of the hymn “Soul of My Saviour,” of how the ignorant parish mangled the words and sense. He thought of the women of Fetherhoughton, slack chins quivering above their buttoned-up coat fronts:
Guard and defend me/From the formaligh
… Oh, foe malign, he had breathed, his back to them, his thin hands passing over the sacred vessels; from the foe malign. He had glanced down, sideways, and noticed the altar boys’ big black lace-up shoes sticking from beneath their cassocks, and their wrinkly grey wool socks.
In destrier moments, make me only thine …
What are they talking about? What do they think they are singing? He pictured the formaligh, a small greasy type of devil with sharp teeth, which lurked on dark nights in the church porch. Of all the small devils, Fludd thought, ignorance is chief of the horde; their misapprehension had embodied it, given it flesh.
Now—Monday, kneeling here alone—he could hear the rain coming down, as hard as on the night he arrived; drumming unseen behind the stained glass, splashing and gurgling from the downspouts,
falling alike on the just and the unjust. He closed his eyes, would have closed his ears to shut out the sound, to sink himself into that trance-like state where he would hear, if God were willing, some small recommendation; some recommendation as to how he should proceed, as to what, having found this place, he ought to do next:
Images flitted through his mind: the nine-runged ladder, the railwayman’s kerchief that snapped on its fence pole in the moorland wind, the black arm of Mother Perpetua uplifted in the twilight; and Agnes Dempsey, standing inside the front door mute like a dog, waiting for his return. One by one the pictures chased each other, and he held open his mind’s door, and let them pass through, until the house was empty; his pulse slowed, his breathing deepened, the rain stilled itself to a whisper and faded into a profound silence.
Am I alive? the small voice asked itself. What is, you know by what is not; for as Augustine says, “We have some knowledge of the darkness and silence, of the former only by the eyes, by the latter only through the ears; nevertheless we have no sensation, only the privation of sensation.” In the realm of Taut, the underworld of the Egyptians, there were twelve divisions; one of the twelve was guarded by a serpent with four legs and a human face. Here the darkness was so thick that it might be felt; but this is almost the only instance we have. When we say the night has a velvet darkness, we romance. When we say the soul is black, we are turning a phrase.
Now, coming to himself a little, Fludd thought he heard behind him a ragged breathing; something had come in at the far door, and stood watching him while he prayed. He did not turn his head. I am breaking down, he thought, dissolving into destruction and despair; this is my nigredo, this is the darkest night of my soul. Just as the statues lie in their shallow graves, taking on the hue of the soil and the smell of mortification, so my spirit is buried, walled in with corrupting agents. Agnes had said to him (busy with the kettle, her face averted, her voice cracking with the strength of her sentiments), “When I walk over them, Father, I shudder. We all shudder.” He
had said, “They are symbols, Miss Dempsey. Symbols are powerful things.” Miss Dempsey had said, “It’s like walking on the dead.”
But everything that is going to be purified must first be corrupted; that is a principle of science and art. Everything that is to be put together must first be taken apart, everything that is to be made whole must first be broken into its constituent parts, its heat, its coldness, its dryness, its moisture. Base matter imprisons spirit, the gross fetters the subtle; every passion must be anatomized, every whim submit to mortar and pestle, every desire be ground and ground until its essence appears. After separation, drying out, moistening, dissolving, coagulating, fermenting, comes purification, recombination: the creation of substances that the world has until now never beheld. This is the
opus contra naturem
, this is the spagyric art; this is the Alchymical Wedding.
The creature, behind him, was advancing with a heavy tread, coming up the centre aisle. His hands still clasped before him, he turned and looked over his right shoulder.
It was Sister Philomena, a sack over her head to keep off the rain; her habit was girded up to her knees with an arrangement of string that caught it into sculptural folds.
Father Fludd stared at the nun’s feet. She said, “I’ve got a dispensation for wellingtons. A special permission, from Mother Provincial. It’s always me they send out in the wet, not that I’m complaining, I like to get out. I’m getting a dispensation for a rainmate.”
“What are those?” Fludd said.
“They’re plastic hoods that you can put over your head. Seethrough, they are. When you fold them up you can concertina them as small as that—” she put out her damp fingers, and showed him—“and put them in your pocket.”
“I hate plastic,” Father Fludd said.
“You would. You’re a man.” She corrected herself: “You’re a priest. You never have to clean. Plastic’s easy-clean. You just wipe it. I wish the whole world was made of plastic.”
Philomena emerged into the light, the pool of light cast by the candles that burnt before St. Theresa, the Little Flower. “I see Mother has been up lighting candles,” she said.
“Has she a particular devotion to St. Theresa?”
“Well, Theresa was a nun, of course, and she was a very humble sort. Humility was what she specialized in, she was more good at it than anybody in her convent, she was famous for it. Mother reckons we all ought to be that humble. St. Theresa went into the convent when she was very young. They weren’t going to let her, but she put her foot down about it. They tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. There was no holding her. She complained to the Pope.”
“You must have been studying her life.”
“We have a book in the convent library.”
“Is your library extensive?”
“Well, there’s some lives of the saints. Oh, and a
Turf Guide
, that’s Sister Anthony’s.” Philomena put out her hand and leant heavily on the back of one of the treacle-stained benches. She seemed a little out of breath. “St. Theresa eventually pegged out from her chest, like my Aunt Dymphna. In St. Theresa’s case it was the penances she used to do that brought it on, but I don’t think that was the case with my aunt. Humble to the last, and wanting to offer her mortal agony up as a sacrifice for sinners, the saint refused those medicines that could have relieved her final distress. So the book says. I don’t know whether Dymphna was offered any morphine. I expect she took some whisky.”
Fludd leant backwards, sliding imperceptibly from the kneeler to the bench. He sat looking at the nun. She had taken off her sack and shaken from it a few dead leaves that had fallen on her as she ploughed her way up the carriage-drive. “I’ll pick them up,” she said. “I’ll sweep.” She took out something from her pocket. “I’ve come to have another go at the nose,” she said.
Fludd followed her gaze, up to the statue of the Virgin. It seemed a hammer-blow had taken the tip of her nose clean off. “I
did that,” Philomena said. “It didn’t seem reverent altogether, but I needed a flat bit to start with, so I borrowed a chisel from the Men’s Fellowship, from Mr. McEvoy. The first nose I put on was with modelling clay, and then I thought I could paint it, but of course it would have to be fired first, so that wasn’t a success. So now I’ve been trying with plasticine—”she held it out on the palm of her hand—“kneading different bits together to try to get the shade.”
“I think she should be darker,” Fludd said. “Realistically. She came from an eastern land.”
“I can’t think the bishop would take to that idea.”
“I have seen black virgins,” Fludd said. “In France they call them Our Lady
sous-terre.
In their processions, only green candles are burnt.”
“It sounds pagan,” she said doubtfully. “Will you excuse me, Father? I have to get up there. On that bench.”
“Of course.” He stood up quickly and moved away. Philomena made a deep genuflection to the altar, then sat down on the bench opposite and began to pull off her wellingtons.
“I would help you, Sister,” Fludd said. “But. You know.”
“I’ll have them off in a minute,” she said, kicking and wrestling. He turned his eyes away. She laughed, grunted, and tussled. “There.” The boots fell over onto the stone flags. Spry and nimble now, she stepped up on to the bench where he had been sitting, and stretched out to reach the Virgin. “What would you think?” she asked. “Make the nose first, then slap it on, or try to work it while I’m up here?”
“I think you should model it
in situ
. May I try? I am taller.”
“Hop up then, Father. You will certainly have a longer reach.”
He stepped up on the bench beside her, and she took a sideways step to accommodate him, then gave him the plasticine from her fingertips. It was the colour of bloodless skin, and cold to the touch; he worked it in the palm of his hand. He faced the Virgin at point-blank range, and stared into her painted blue eyes.
Sister Philomena watched intently as he reached forward and planted his model on the statue’s face. He could feel her attention,
fastening on his hand; he could smell the wet serge of her habit, and, when he looked sideways, in an unspoken request for her opinion, he could see the white-blonde down on her cheek. As if to steady herself, she put out a hand to the Virgin’s slippery narrow shoulder, and it lay there cold and blue-veined against the blue of the painted cloak.
For a moment, Fludd supported the girl, a hand under her elbow; then he leapt backwards to the floor. He stood off, to consider. “Not a success,” he said. “On the whole. Will you come and look?”