‘I agree martyrs can be thoroughly tiresome, but I’m just so afraid that if I complain Lyle will immediately conclude I don’t love her and sink fathoms deep into depression.’ He sighed before adding: ‘Sometimes I ask myself if I regret marrying her but I know at heart I don’t. She presents an endlessly alluring challenge. A good simple woman would have bored me in no time.’
I smiled but said nothing and there followed a long silence which I gradually realized he did not know how to break. At last I said: ‘The time’s come to talk of you, Charles. We’ve discussed your worries about your family; now tell me your worries about yourself.’ And as he responded with relief to my invitation to unburden himself of his darkest fears I found myself slipping back twenty-five years to my days as a Naval chaplain before the great battle of Jutland.
‘I hate to admit it – well, I wouldn’t admit it to anyone except you, but …’
I listened to him confessing his fear of death.
‘… and I feel so ashamed. When I think of all those Christians bravely facing the lions –’
I recognized my cue and interposed effortlessly: ‘Do you honestly think the martyrs felt no fear as they marched into the amphitheatre? After all, it’s only human to be nervous at the prospect of an unpleasant journey into the unknown, even if one has absolute confidence in the reality of one’s final destination. And besides, why shouldn’t you feel fear at the prospect of leaving Lyle a widow and your children fatherless? If you felt
no fear I’d be exceedingly worried about you!’ And I talked on, soothing him yet encouraging him to face his fears until the moment when he exclaimed: ‘How I admire your indestructible serenity – I can’t tell you what confidence you give me!’ Then I had to suppress a shudder of relief that I had managed to conceal my dread from him. I heard myself promise to pray daily for his welfare, and later when I had given him my blessing he said simply: ‘I’m ready for anything now.’
We parted. I felt annihilated. After a while I was unable to stop myself trying to peer into the future but the fear closed my psychic eye, all possible futures were reflected in a blank mirror and I remained in a terrifying ignorance. Then it occurred to me that enlightenment might have been even more terrifying and that God was being merciful by keeping the mirror blank. In panic I retreated to the chapel, but my psyche was so lacerated by distress that I was incapable of achieving the quality of prayer needed to master such a profound anxiety. Instinctively I turned back to my work to keep my fear at bay, and it was then, when my spirits were at their lowest ebb, that I allowed myself to go too far with that proven panacea for all my troubles, my all-absorbing ministry of healing.
The next day I had a visit from one of the farm labourers on Anne’s estate, a man in his forties called John Higgins who lived with his wife and children in a tied-cottage and came to church every week. A simple soul, he had once told me that my services were as good as a visit to ‘the pictures’, and knowing he had intended this dubious remark as a compliment I was well pleased; it confirmed my belief that Anglo-Catholic ritual is more successful in communicating religious truths to the working-classes than the staid Protestant services patronized by the well-to-do. I took an interest in Higgins, and when I learnt that he had been neither confirmed nor even baptized I offered to give him instruction so that he could be formally received
into the Church, but the word ‘instruction’ intimidated Higgins, who was almost illiterate, and I was still trying to persuade him that membership of the Church did not depend on either one’s education or one’s mental ability.
On the morning of his visit I had been praying in the chapel, and it was when I left that I found him waiting patiently, cap in hand, on the steps of the porch.
‘Pardon me for trespassing, sir,’ he said. ‘I did call several times at the church vestry but you were never there so finally I got desperate and came looking for you.’
I suppressed the guilt that one of my parishioners should have had such difficulty in finding me, and doing my best to put him at ease I took him into the chapel. ‘Well, Higgins,’ I said as we sat down together in the nearest pew, ‘how may I help you?’
He twisted his cap and looked deeply embarrassed. I recognized an honest man in confusion, but beyond this elementary deduction which required no psychic skill whatever I was in ignorance.
‘How’s your wife?’ I hazarded, offering a question which could pave the way to a discussion of marital difficulty.
‘Very well, thank you, sir, but I haven’t come about her. I’ve come about Him.’
‘Him?’
‘Him who follows me about and gives me orders.’ More cap-twisting followed but finally he blurted out: ‘He’s not a real person, he’s a Thing in my head. He wants me to murder the cows and I’m afraid to go to work in case he forces me to obey him.’
I made the diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia. Aloud I said: ‘Does this person – this presence in your head – talk in words?’
‘Yes, sir. He says: ‘Take the scythe and cut the throats of the cows.”’
‘How often has he done this?’
‘Twice. I told him to go away each time and he did. But I’m afraid that one day he’ll come back and won’t go away when I tell him to.’
‘Exactly what words did you use when you ordered him off?’
‘I said – excuse the language, sir – I said: “For Christ’s sake, fuck off, you bloody bugger.”’
I noted that Christ had been invoked, albeit with a blasphemous irreverence, but all I said was: ‘Had you been drinking?’
‘I don’t drink, sir. My father died of it and my mother made us all take the pledge.’
‘I see.’ I paused to consider the situation.
‘Can you lay your hands on me, sir, and make me strong enough to keep him out?’ said the poor man with a touching faith which was very hard to withstand but I answered as kindly as I could: ‘I’d have to be sure that was the best way of dealing with the problem, Higgins, and I can’t be sure until you’ve taken medical advice. Do you have the money for the doctor?’ I added, for by this time I was accustomed to people who regarded me as a cheap alternative to Dr Garrison, but Higgins said with admirable dignity that the money would be found.
I wondered what Garrison would make of the case, and the next day I was just debating whether I should call at Higgins’ cottage when Anne returned greatly perturbed from the Home Farm. She had by this time reduced the number of hours she spent in the estate office, but she still liked to look in every day to talk to the agent. ‘What do you think’s happened?’ she exclaimed as soon as we met in the drawing-room. ‘Garrison’s packed off Higgins the cowman to the lunatic asylum at Starbridge! Sane, stolid, respectable Higgins! I feel utterly shattered – do you suppose Garrison’s finally gone off his head?’
‘Much as I’d like to say yes I’m afraid the answer’s almost certainly no,’ I said reluctantly, and without disclosing any details of the case I told her that Higgins had visited me in a disturbed state of mind. ‘He certainly wasn’t mad when I spoke to him,’ I added, ‘but possibly I caught him in a lucid interval. I did wonder if he was possessed, but there were no outward signs of possession and the most likely diagnosis is some form of schizophrenia.’
Anne blanched. ‘But what’s the difference? I thought possession
was just the old-fashioned way of saying someone was mad!’
‘In the old days when little was known about mental illness there was undoubtedly much confusion, but now it’s easier to see possession is quite distinct; for example, mental illness usually has an incapacitating effect on the sufferer, while the person who’s possessed remains capable of holding a job, supporting a family and leading an ostensibly normal life. He’s also sane enough to realize that he’s being periodically invaded by an alien presence and he desperately wants to rid himself of the invader. Many victims of mental illness, on the other hand, have trouble admitting there’s anything wrong with them.’
‘But have you ever actually met someone you thought was possessed?’
‘Good heavens, yes!’ I said surprised. ‘Cases of possession haven’t ceased to exist just because doctors like Garrison fail to recognize them! I sought permission to perform exorcisms when I was a prison chaplain but the governor turned the request down and the victims were all transferred to hospitals for the criminally insane. However I dare say it was just as well my request wasn’t granted. I actually knew very little about exorcisms before I met Father Darcy, and ignorance can be dangerous when you deal with the Devil.’
‘How absolutely
foul,’
said Anne vehemently, and to my consternation I saw she was profoundly upset. ‘Jon, I don’t want you to have anything to do with Higgins’ illness.’
‘But my dearest Anne, I’ve already said that Higgins showed none of the outward signs of possession –’
‘What are they?’
Belatedly I decided that this was the most unsuitable conversation for a pregnant woman. ‘That’s not important,’ I said firmly. ‘All that matters is that I don’t think Higgins needs to be exorcized.’
That night Anne had a nightmare. ‘It’s all this beastly talk of the Devil,’ she said, shuddering in my arms. ‘I’d never thought twice about the Devil until you turned up with all your talk of charismatic corruption and demonic infiltration and religious
hysteria and drowned cats and sinister exorcisms and brutal old monks –’
‘Anne, Anne –’
‘All right! All right! I know I must calm down, but I hate all this talk of the Devil,
hate it –
that letter from Wilfred was thoroughly creepy and beastly –’
I was astounded as well as shocked. ‘But it was a model of down-to-earth common sense!’
‘If you think that, you’re mad. Or maybe I’m mad. I don’t know, I don’t know anything any more except that you’ve become much too peculiar –’
‘Peculiar!’ I was horrified.
‘You were all right before you took up the healing – you were unusual and eccentric, I know, but you were normally unusual and eccentric and I felt I could cope. But now I’m absolutely out of my depth and I’ve got an awful feeling something ghastly’s going to happen and oh God, if only there was someone I could turn to but I can’t think of anyone who could possibly understand –’
Although I was profoundly distressed I knew how important it was that I should remain calm so I made no attempt to argue. I merely held her close, stroked her hair and repeated soothingly, using a mild hypnotic technique, that I had no intention of embarking on a ministry of deliverance. This reassurance comforted her, but when I had at last succeeded in coaxing her back to sleep I lay awake worrying for some time. Anne was not normally the sort of woman who tottered on the brink of hysteria, and I was driven to wonder if she had been overtaxing her strength as her pregnancy advanced. Perhaps now was the moment when she should retire completely from her work at the estate-office. I toyed with the idea of seeking Dr Romaine’s advice, but as always I felt lukewarm towards this medical cynosure of so many admiring feminine eyes. I had not yet met him. I had been too busy shunning the social occasions where we might have encountered each other, and Starvale St James, although nearer than Starwater Abbey, was still too far away to be visited quickly by bicycle.
However the next morning I found to my relief that Dr Romaine’s advice was not needed; Anne had even recovered sufficiently to be ashamed of her irrational outburst.
‘I didn’t mean what I said about the healing having a malign effect on you,’ she said. ‘After all, how could it? A call from God can only be benign.’
‘But if you’re worried and unhappy –’
‘I’m not! Pregnancy just makes me fanciful and silly sometimes, that’s all. So long as you’re happy in your work then I’m happy too.’
A great load rolled off my mind and I found myself saying impulsively: ‘I won’t hold another large service of healing after this next one in July, and I’ll take on fewer small groups. Then you won’t have to worry about me overstraining myself.’
Anne looked relieved but said: ‘Do you really have to hold this service?’
‘I don’t see how I can cancel it – I’ve already postponed it once and disappointed numerous people.’
‘Can’t you write and ask Francis if he thinks it’s advisable to go ahead?’
‘Well, I intend to write to him, certainly, but I’m rather busy at the moment and –’
‘Quite,’ said Anne flatly, and turned away.
I suffered a sharp pang of anxiety. ‘I’ll discuss the service with Cyril, of course –’
‘Cyril doesn’t have your respect as Francis does.’
‘Well, I concede there may be an element of truth in that, but nonetheless he’s a very competent priest and –’
Anne suddenly seemed to lose interest in the conversation. ‘I’m being neurotic and stupid again, aren’t I?’ she exclaimed as if she were exasperated with herself. ‘For heaven’s sake don’t take any notice of me!’ And having given me an affectionate kiss she added: ‘Don’t worry, I do understand how busy you are and I quite accept that you haven’t the time at present to write to Francis.’
Some days later I was just reflecting in relief that Anne’s moodiness had been entirely conquered when an event occurred
which made me fear its revival: Higgins was discharged from the mental hospital. The doctors had been unable to find anything wrong with him.
Without telling Anne I called at Higgins’ cottage and sat drinking tea with him in the front parlour.