‘Very. He had a gift for teaching.’
‘But you told me he was quiet and scholarly. Teachers like that often have trouble keeping order.’
‘Not my father. He had a commanding presence – that’s something which doesn’t come over in the photographs – and when he was before an audience he projected complete confidence and authority.’
‘You saw him in action? I assumed that as you hadn’t attended the grammar school where he taught –’
‘He used to lecture sometimes at the Working Men’s Institute and he would take me with him if he thought the subject would be of interest. I was always enthralled. So was everyone else in the room. His gift was very remarkable.’
‘How sad that he didn’t have a brilliant career at a leading public school!’
‘He never complained.’ Abruptly closing both the album and the conversation I retired to my cell again to meditate on Nicholas; now that my attempt to distinguish him as a person
other than my four-year-old self had neither succeeded nor failed I felt more confused than ever, and after rereading Francis’ letter I directed my attention towards the unknown woman whom I had assumed to be Nicholas’ nurse. Was I in fact entirely certain that I had not heard that voice before? Groping in my memory for a Nicholas whose mother I might have encountered long ago I suddenly remembered the Nicholas who had lived three houses away on our sedate little street. We had met at Sunday school but he had been forbidden to play with the son of a parlourmaid, and on the one occasion when I had wandered into his garden to look for him, his mother, a very grand female who bedecked herself with lavish hats, had dismissed me so brutally that I had run home in tears.
I grimaced at the memory, rejected it as irrelevant and decided my careful re-examination of the showing should cease. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary I felt I could assume Nicholas was my future son, and I was still savouring my relief that I had repelled Francis’ unpleasant insinuations when Wilfred’s letter arrived from Ruydale.
Wilfred suggested tactfully that I was making various mistakes and his first concern was that I was being too indiscriminating.
‘You can’t heal everyone,’ he wrote firmly. ‘Nor should you try to. You’re not a miracle-worker. You’re an ordinary man with a special supply of energy but this energy isn’t inexhaustible and to squander it on all and sundry is unwise. You must be discerning. Learn how to say no, not only to those who suffer from a “malade imaginaire” (and I fear they are legion) but also to those who are attracted to you as a source of “magic” which may succeed when doctors fail. You are quite right to refer everyone first to the doctor; this is good. But do not, whatever you do, succumb to the temptation to try to outdo the doctor by taking on every case he can’t help. Accept that some cases really are beyond help. Learn to spot them and by all means
offer sympathy, but don’t waste your special energy when it could be put to more effective use elsewhere.
‘Now let me turn to the subject of services of healing. I’m opposed to such services for several reasons: (a) The Devil can so easily slip into the front pew and cause disruption. (b) A bunch of sick people tends to emanate a melancholy aura which impedes the healing process. (c) The healthy members of the congregation are often present solely in the hope of seeing a miracle, and the aura they emanate is thus essentially negative, creating quite the wrong psychic currents in the atmosphere. (d) The healer tends to exhaust himself before the end and this means that the last people he treats derive no benefit. This exhaustion is also bad for the healer physically, mentally, emotionally and psychically.
Never overstrain your powers.
If you do, you won’t have the strength to fight the Devil.
‘This is how I suggest you should conduct your ministry: heal in small groups of no more than four patients but enlist the support of as many of their friends and relations as you can. This means that when you conduct the healing every person present will be there because he genuinely cares about at least one of the sick and is busy praying for his recovery. You’ll have eliminated the seekers after vicarious thrills and the psychic atmosphere will be pure. Moreover you’ll be in no danger of running out of energy and overstraining yourself, so your powers should be more effective.
‘The procedure should be as follows: (a) See the patient in a preliminary interview. (b) See him again with all the truly sympathetic supporters he can muster and explain to them how they should pray in order to be of maximum assistance. (c) Form a separate prayer-group whose business it is to pray for the sick. This will give you extra support. (d) Hold the brief private service in the chapel when you feel everyone is ready. (e) During the service perform the laying-on of hands as before but in future administer unction as well. Oil has a very soothing effect and is not, as you seem to think, a mere sacramental gesture. If anyone objects to it as Roman Catholic ritual unfit for Protestants say: “Rubbish!” very firmly. Anointing goes
back far beyond the founding of the Roman Church, as of course you know.
‘The above procedure is no good in emergencies, I admit, but then emergencies should always be referred to a doctor. Concentrate on the cases of chronic illness where you may well alleviate distress and thus induce remissions. Concentrate on the non-chronic but lengthy illnesses where the patient’s recovery can be quickened by your power. But don’t look for miracles. Never keep a tally of successes. Never make the patient feel he’s to blame if the healing is ineffective. Never regard a death as a personal insult from God. (I’m sure you wouldn’t but healers do sometimes get unhealthily overwrought about their failures.) If you do find yourself getting emotionally overstrained,
stop all healing at once
and seek spiritual direction. An overstrained psyche, burdened with undisciplined emotion, can be a very snug little nest for the Devil, so make sure your psyche is fit and rested. You should take the Holy Sacrament every day and make confession twice a week, but of course you’re not in the Order now and such a regime may well not be possible. Nevertheless you should follow it as closely as you can and pray constantly. This all sounds very arduous, I know, but God can’t use a channel which isn’t kept clear for the passage of his Holy Spirit.’ And after giving me his blessing and promising to pray for me Wilfred added in a startling postscript:
‘I think it would be best, while you’re adjusting to your new ministry, to avoid all exorcisms. They take a great deal of psychic energy and may debilitate you too much at this stage. Refer all requests to your bishop who doubtless has an exorcist at his disposal. I mention this subject because the ministries of healing and deliverance go hand in hand, and you may already have had requests to purge houses of unpleasant auras. This is a fairly simple procedure and a little prayer and holy water will usually do the trick (I never recommend celebrating the Eucharist unless a ghost has actually been seen) but nevertheless I think you should abstain even from simple exorcisms at the moment. Certainly avoid all exorcisms of people. Fortunately this type of possession is rare these days as such a large proportion of the
population is baptized, but such cases can be
very dangerous
and exorcism should never be attempted without at least three strong men in attendance to give physical protection.
‘Forgive me if you already know all this. Perhaps you do. The late Father Abbot-General was the most gifted exorcist, of course, and may well have given you instruction. Certainly he and I had many interesting conversations on the subject during his visits to Ruydale. I miss him. He was a great man. The new Father Abbot-General is also a most gifted man, I saw that when he made his first visitation here last year, but his gifts are of a different order.’
This communication interested me deeply, and because Wilfred had accepted my call without question I showed his letter to Anne as evidence of support from someone within the Order. However this move proved to be a mistake since Anne was horrified by Wilfred’s laconic references to the Devil. It is very difficult for a well-educated modern person to believe that the demonic force in our imperfect world does not cease to exist merely because a sophisticated civilization has judged the Devil to be an unfashionable symbol. Even intelligent people are more influenced by fashion than they realize, and I sometimes think that it is only in the cloister, where every effort is made to exclude the ebb and flow of ephemeral fashions, that the fundamental forces of darkness and light can be clearly perceived.
‘Are you going to follow his advice and give up the large services of healing?’ demanded Anne.
‘I must give one more because I’ve promised so many people that I would, but I can see the advantage of healing in small groups,’ I said, and indeed as soon as I tried implementing Wilfred’s suggestions I found that his advice had been sound.
As the summer advanced I became so absorbed with this new approach to my ministry that I postponed the second large service of healing. The biggest advantage of a postponement was that it kept my ecclesiastical opponents quiet, for now that I was healing people so discreetly in my quiet corner of the Manor Aysgarth had decided not to recommend an episcopal reproof; at the same time Cyril could be more easily manoeuvred
to the conclusion that I was engaged in easing my way out of a mistaken ministry, and Francis, regularly dosed with the descriptions I sent him of my life as a dutiful parish priest, could be coaxed to believe the healing was an increasingly minor activity, undertaken solely to alleviate the lot of the chronic sick.
I did indeed try to be a dutiful parish priest, but I was very mindful that Wilfred had urged me to conserve my energies and soon I was reducing my parish work to a minimum. The reduction gave me a twinge of guilt but I countered it by reflecting that since I had done too much too soon to introduce my parishioners to more fruitful forms of worship a touch of benign neglect would now do them no harm and might even help them to adjust to my less extreme innovations. Since Aysgarth had advised me to keep to the rubric I had eliminated some of my Catholic touches but I found I could still practise a muted version of Anglo-Catholicism. It is one of the ironies of history that the Church of England emerged from the Reformation with Protestant Articles of Religion and a Catholic Prayer-Book, and although my opponents might still grumble I had a perfect right to make the most Catholic use I could of the Book of Common Prayer.
I am uncertain even now, with the wisdom of hindsight, when my psyche began to slip into a serious dis-ease. Some would argue that it began when I tore up the last letter from Francis and manipulated the crucial confession to Cyril, but although I was without doubt gravely at fault I was still sufficiently aware of my errors to make my gesture of humility and seek advice from Wilfred. Indeed since my skill as a healer improved, thanks to Wilfred’s counselling, my psyche must have been in tolerable working order for some time afterwards, but I can see now that my spiritual health was steadily degenerating. I was like a consumptive who, ruddy-cheeked and bright-eyed, looks the picture of health all the time the shadow is darkening across his lung, and like the consumptive I was in a position where any additional strain on powers already weakened could only accelerate my deterioration.
I suspect this acceleration began in June when I had to say goodbye to Charles. I had been seeing him regularly since my marriage but now his regiment was on the move and rumoured to be heading either for North Africa or the Far East. As soon as I heard this news I found myself tormented by the memory of my vision of the prison-camp, and when he came to see me for the last time before his departure I hardly knew how to conceal my dread.
At first he talked of his family. His wife and children had been installed in a rented house on the outskirts of Starvale St James where Dr Romaine, clever Dr Romaine, continued to charm and beguile his way into Lyle’s confidence. ‘Awful old villain!’ said Charles, who was very fond of his elderly friend. ‘But I have absolute faith in his ability to look after her – and of course it’s also a relief to know that you and Anne are so near.’ He then began to talk about his sons. There were various worries associated with the older one whose volatile temperament made him difficult to manage. ‘He needs a great deal of loving attention and Lyle is somehow inhibited about giving it to him …’ I listened and thought how often a tragic streak ran through even the happiest of families.
‘How far have you confided in Dr Romaine?’ I said at last.
‘I said nothing for a long time. Then when I learnt I was going overseas I did tell him, but of course he’d already guessed. He thinks Lyle’s secretly paralysed by guilt that she should have produced such a difficult child.’
This struck me as a shrewd judgement. ‘If that’s true,’ I said, ‘then you may find she’ll be able to cope with Charley much better in your absence. She won’t have to exhaust herself by worrying that you secretly find him a bore.’
‘But I’ve told her and told her –’
‘Obviously your assurances aren’t quite ringing true, and the most likely reason why this is happening is because you’re not, in fact, telling the exact truth. After all, let’s be honest; difficult children can indeed be a bore, so instead of protesting nobly to Lyle that you love him no matter what he does, might it not help her to relax if you were to say instead: “Yes, he’s a thorough
nuisance sometimes, but never mind, I’m still absolutely committed to his welfare.”’
‘I don’t like to complain –’
‘People make a great mistake when they never complain,’ said my professional persona, the accomplished spiritual director. ‘Whatever they gain by patience they lose in honesty. Conversations begin to ring false. Suspicions are aroused. Resentments multiply. Relationships are poisoned. I always look askance at a man who makes a virtue of never complaining no matter how great the provocation to do so.’