‘That night when I was asleep Whitby was waylaid outside his favourite mouse-hole, taken to the water-butt and held under the water till he drowned. The next morning I was summoned to the Abbot’s office but Aidan wasn’t there. Father Darcy was alone and on the table in front of him was Whitby’s corpse. Father Darcy just said: “I performed the execution but
you
were the one who killed that animal with your disobedience, your vanity and your utterly intolerable pride.” Then he rang the bell and Aidan came in. Father Darcy pointed to the corpse and said: “Burn it in the furnace,” and without a word Aidan picked up Whitby and took him away.
‘I was sent to my cell to reflect on what had happened and at the end of the second hour Father Darcy came to me. He said: “You need to be healed, don’t you?” and I broke down, spewing out all my grief and rage. I even said I couldn’t go on as a monk. Father Darcy let me talk, but gradually I became aware of his silence stroking my psyche, soothing it, until at last the verbal haemorrhage stopped. Then he said a few sentences. There wasn’t a single wasted word and although the words were firm, even severe, his voice was kind. While he was speaking I saw clearly that in order to keep my powers under control I had to live within the disciplined framework he offered me but although I tried to tell him that, I couldn’t find the words. I could only kneel down in front of him, and when he laid his hands upon me in a formal sacramental gesture to complete the healing I knew I’d be able to go on in the Order. He knew it too, but afterwards all he said was: “Keep away from the next cat and never, never discuss this incident again.”
‘And I never have discussed it. Even now I never talk of Whitby. Indeed why should I? Who could possibly understand? He was just a cat who came to an untimely end. It happens all the time everywhere, so what’s so remarkable about the incident and why should it matter now after all these years? I often ask myself those questions and tell myself the answers are no longer important, but then sometimes when I lie awake at night I think of him – proud arrogant Whitby, such a wild undisciplined kitten and yet such a first-class gifted cat – and it’s as if he’s reflecting my own career as a monk until suddenly
I’m
the one who’s drowning in the water-butt and
I’m
the one who’s burning in the furnace, and I grieve over his death as if it were my own.’
I stopped speaking.
I had not been looking at her during my long monologue. I had been watching the sunlight as it slanted through the trees, and when I stopped speaking I was too ashamed to face her. I saw I had been behaving in a most unbalanced manner, talking for minutes on end about a dead cat, and in horror I asked myself how I could possibly have been so stupid. No doubt she had long since regretted her offer of hospitality.
The silence which followed my monologue lasted ten seconds. Ten seconds can seem a very long time when one is inwardly writhing with humiliation, but at last my torment ended. She said unsteadily: ‘How very dreadfully you must have suffered when he was killed and how very dreadfully you must have missed him since he died.’
Struck by the passion in her voice I turned to look at her, and it was then, as I recognized the profound understanding etched in every line of her face, that the scales fell from my eyes at last and I saw that she was beautiful.
‘Love is the great reality.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion
‘I’ve fallen in love,’ I said eight days later to Francis.
‘At the risk of infuriating you I must say that I’m not in the least surprised. Every time you wrote insisting that you found the lady unattractive I wondered how long you could possibly go on deceiving yourself.’
I had presented myself as planned at the Fordite headquarters at the conclusion of my first month in the world, and Francis had welcomed me not in his office, which was in the enclosed section of the house, but in the Abbot’s Parlour, the room in which he received guests from outside the Order. It was so opulently furnished that I was reminded of the gaudy chambers of Brighton Pavilion. Francis, resplendent in his perfectly cut habit and bejewelled pectoral cross, looked quite at home there.
A young monk chose that moment to bring us some refreshment but as soon as he had departed I said: ‘Of course I’ve fallen victim to Monks’ Madness.’
‘Do you take sugar in your tea?’
‘You know perfectly well that I don’t take sugar in my tea!’
‘I thought you might have acquired a taste for it along with falling in love.’
‘Francis –’
‘Now Jon, you must calm down. You seem to be expecting me to show violent disapproval but at the moment I have
insufficient information to show anything except a profound curiosity. Why don’t you bring me up to date with what’s been going on? Begin: “I arrived at Starrington Magna,” and proceed from there.’
I talked in a disordered fashion for some minutes. Francis sipped his tea and looked inscrutable.
‘Of course I can’t possibly marry her,’ I concluded in despair after I had reached the point where the scales had fallen from my eyes. ‘Yet how can I endure it if I don’t?’
‘Let’s set all speculation aside for the moment and stick to the questions which can be answered with hard facts. Have you been to bed with anyone yet?’
‘No. And maybe – this is a terrible thing to say, but maybe this is exactly why I’ve lapsed into such insanity.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily follow at all; grand passions can strike the lechers and the chaste with equal ferocity. But don’t let’s make “a priori” assumptions. We haven’t yet established either that you’re insane or that you’re in the grip of a grand passion. To what do you attribute your chastity?’
‘Prayer.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Francis impatiently, very much the worldly priest. ‘Of course you prayed and of course your prayers were important – obviously, since they’ve been answered – but we both know that the sexual drive of a man who’s been celibate for a number of years is capable of grinding even the most cherished moral principles into the dust no matter how hard he prays for self-control. How do you explain your chastity in psychological terms?’
‘I don’t. It’s all been a matter of luck. As soon as I met Miss Barton-Woods and realized she was the key to the mystery, sex – for once – took second place. Of course I was still plagued by impure thoughts –’
‘Of course, but nevertheless I think you’re being a little hard on yourself when you say your chastity’s been a matter of luck. In the circumstances a month’s self-control represents a considerable achievement, and I can’t help thinking that if you were genuinely suffering from Monks’ Madness you’d have
bedded at least half a dozen women by this time. Now tell me this: why do you believe Miss Barton-Woods is so unsuitable for you?’
‘Francis, she’s thirty-two.
Thirty-two!
I don’t mind people whispering that I’ve sunk into an undignified dotage, but it would be so terrible for Miss Barton-Woods if her neighbours decided to cut her –’
Why should they? They’d probably be delighted she’d at last got off the shelf, even if her rescuer did turn out to be a man twenty-eight years her senior. Contrary to what you seem to suppose, the real question here is not: what on earth will the neighbours think? But: what does Miss Barton-Woods think of you being sixty?’
‘She doesn’t know that I’m sixty.’
‘My dear Jon –’
‘I know, I know, but I just haven’t yet found the opportunity to tell her –’
‘Then create one fast! She’ll feel deceived if you frolic around like a forty-year-old and then reveal, as you eventually must, that your children are in their mid-thirties. But let’s leave the problem of age now and consider any other difficulties. What else makes this marriage undesirable?’
‘The difference in class. I don’t want to marry into the landed gentry and live in a big house littered with servants.’
‘Jon, I’m well aware of your sensitivity on the subject of class, but are you really saying you’d have trouble facing the landed gentry in order to marry the woman you love?’
‘I trust I’m gentleman enough to face anyone, prince or pauper, with equanimity whenever the need arises,’ I said grandly, pride well to the fore, ‘but I’m just pointing out how ill-suited I am by background, experience and inclination for that kind of life. And I couldn’t talk about agriculture with Miss Barton-Woods, couldn’t help her run the estate –’
‘That would probably suit her very well. If she’s been successfully running her estate for some years the last thing she’d want would be a husband who interfered. She’s hardly a helpless little miss, is she?’
‘No, she’s a rich woman with a horror of fortune-hunters, and here I am, poor as a church-mouse –’
‘Yes, but from her point of view all that matters is that you’re obviously a man of integrity who wouldn’t dream of marrying her for her money. However –’ Francis, who had been enjoying the challenge of demolishing my difficulties, now became more cautious, ‘– don’t misunderstand; I’m not saying the disparity in your financial and social positions is unimportant. Nor am I saying that the difference in age doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is that these very real problems needn’t be prohibitive. Is there, in fact, any difficulty which you regard as truly insuperable?’
‘She’s resolved to be celibate.’
‘But surely she’ll be willing to change her mind!’
‘She may be psychologically incapable of changing it.’
‘Ah, I see. What an alluring challenge for you!’
‘I hope,’ I said, trying not to sound annoyed, ‘I don’t see her merely as a challenge.’
‘I don’t believe you do, but nevertheless it might be salutary for you to be reminded that men who are successful with women are always fascinated by the ones who don’t fall grovelling at their feet. However let’s suppose that all inhibitions are overcome on both sides and that you marry Miss Barton-Woods. What makes you think you won’t wake up one morning and find that she’s “invading your psychic space”, as you put it to me once?’
‘She couldn’t. She’s too sensitive. She always knows when to be quiet and she never pesters me with unwelcome questions – and that’s why I know beyond any doubt that I could be happy with her.’
‘And would you remain happy when she was bearing your children?’
After a pause I said: ‘If God should choose to bless the marriage with children I’d accept the situation and pray for the grace to be a good father.’
‘That’s the sort of pious remark,’ said Francis, ‘which I suspect has very little to do with the painful and complex reality to
which it’s supposed to correspond. Is this where we reach the one insuperable difficulty?’
‘Certainly not! It’s simply a bridge which I’m sure I’ll be able to cross when I get to it.’
‘Well, make sure you have your bridge-crossing ability developed well before the wedding. Presumably at some stage you intend to confide in her fully about your past?’
‘Of course!’
‘You greatly relieve my mind. So the crucial question at the moment, I think, becomes this: will Miss Barton-Woods help you or hinder you in the pursuit of your new call? Obviously it’s no good if you marry a woman who’s deeply entrenched in her family home and then find you’ve been called to be a missionary in China.’
I said in despair: ‘I’ve received no enlightenment.’
‘None? Are you sure?’
I stared at him. That sounds as if you disagree.’
‘I can have no worthwhile opinion until you complete your account of your recent activities. So far we’ve only reached the point eight days ago when you made your long speech about the unfortunate Whitby and Miss Barton-Woods revealed herself as irresistible. What have you been doing since?’
Taking a deep breath I resumed my narrative.
‘As soon as I realized I was in love,’ I said, ‘I knew I had to expend as much energy as possible elsewhere so that evening I asked Miss Barton-Woods if I could clean the chapel. She was horrified at the idea of a guest on his hands and knees with a scrubbing brush, but when I reminded her that as a monk I’d often done heavy cleaning and when I assured her that I’d enjoy making the chapel sparkle she reluctantly gave her consent.’
‘You must be enthralling the servants. But don’t let me interrupt you. There you were, scrubbing away in your clerical suit –’
‘I bought a pair of dungarees. For a while I wondered if I might uncover serious structural decay beneath the grime, but the place seems to be in reasonable condition despite the years of disuse.’ And I told him how Miss Barton-Woods’ grandfather had quarrelled with the local vicar, who had been influenced by the Oxford Movement, and had built the chapel in order to avoid being subjected to ‘Papist ritual’ at the village church. ‘He picked the site next to the ruined chantry,’ I added, ‘because he thought he’d be building on consecrated ground. The chantry, of course, was destroyed at the time of the Reformation.’ I hesitated but eventually concluded: ‘I can’t help wondering if I’m to have a ministry centred on the chapel, a ministry which will require the removal of the back pews so that the chapel corresponds in every detail to my vision.’
Francis said briskly: ‘That sounds most improbable. Although you may –
may –
have seen the future state of the chapel in your vision, that doesn’t mean your own future necessarily has any connection with it. The chapel could be just another signpost along the way, like the bag.’