Halfway to the chapel I felt dizzy and knew the brandy had been a mistake. I sat down to wait until I felt better, and as I leant against a tree-trunk I thought how beautiful the sunlight was as it slanted through the beech-leaves. I remembered teaching my novices about nature-mysticism. ‘Excellent!’ Father Darcy had exclaimed after eavesdropping in the scriptorium for half an hour during one of his annual visitations. ‘Now admit it, Jonathan – isn’t imparting knowledge to an enrapt audience more satisfying than healing constipated cats?’ And although I had wanted to hit him for this mocking reference to Whitby I had been unable to resist a smile as I savoured such unprecedented approval.
Poor Whitby.
REMEMBER WHITBY, Francis had written, and I was remembering him, murdered martyred Whitby, lying stiff as a board on the abbot’s desk while Father Darcy pointed his finger at me and said:
‘You
killed that animal with your disobedience, your vanity and your utterly intolerable pride.’
I suddenly realized that I had to cancel the service. Father Darcy would be so angry if I held it. I shuddered, reminding myself that he was dead, but somehow his memory seemed to be hardening in my mind and feeding upon my psyche as it sought the strength to project itself upon the ether … But such a projection would have been a mere parlour-trick. Father Darcy was at peace, with God. I could hardly expect to be aware of him as a disturbed discarnate presence, and any ghost I succeeded in conjuring up would only have been a manifestation of my disordered psyche.
‘I never recommend celebrating the Eucharist,’ Wilfred had written, ‘unless a ghost has actually been seen.’
‘That letter from Wilfred was thoroughly creepy and beastly …’
As Anne’s voice echoed in my memory the brandy glass slipped from my hand and shattered on a stone. The sound had the same effect as the click of a hypnotist’s fingers as he awoke his subject from a trance, and struggling to my feet I kicked the fragments of glass into the undergrowth before I stumbled on down the path into the dell.
The chapel faced me at last, and suddenly as its serene atmosphere enfolded me I felt I could not possibly cancel the service. For the sake of the sick I had to cast all doubts aside.
In the chapel I knelt to pray but my mind was blank. Then slowly, very slowly, my battered psyche was bathed in a subtle alluring light until I could see the words of a prayer. It was inscribed on my consciousness in the most beautiful lettering and it read: grant me a spectacular cure today so that I can believe my call is right; grant me a spectacular cure so that Anne can admire me again; grant me a spectacular cure so that I can feel young and vital and successful, dazzling not only my wife but the world with my magnificent glamorous powers.
A second later I was recoiling in horror; I had recognized the Devil’s presence in this travesty of a prayer, and automatically I grabbed my pectoral cross to beat him out of my psyche. Indeed so appalled was I by this spiritual deviation that it was some time before I could whisper to God: ‘Help me. Give me the strength I must have in order to comfort these sick people.’ But then I thought of Anne accusing me of being concerned only with my own wants and I realized that even this prayer was hopelessly self-centred. In despair I retreated to the vestry to change into my cassock and surplice.
When I had dressed I tried to pray for others. I prayed for Anne, whom I had wounded so deeply, and as soon as I remembered her I thought of the baby. I recalled my showing, its joyous aftermath, my absolute conviction that I was on the right road and that all would eventually be well.
The showing had sustained me in the past and now I knew it sustained me still. So long as I could believe in that showing I would survive, and rising from my knees at last with my faith restored I found I had sufficient strength to face the service.
The congregation approached the chapel by passing through one of the side-gates in the wall which encircled the grounds and proceeding for some two hundred yards along a track into the dell. By a quarter to three the chapel was packed and Colonel Maitland’s sidesmen were being obliged to turn people away. However I gave permission for a number to stand at the back beyond the five patients in wheelchairs, and although the Colonel expressed doubts about the wisdom of packing people into this confined space I pointed out that if anyone should be overcome by claustrophobia the exit was conveniently close.
‘The point is they’re blocking the exit for the rest of the congregation,’ said Colonel Maitland, but unwilling to be distracted further by trivial details I dismissed him so that I could be alone again in the vestry. I had not ventured out of it to inspect the congregation because I was afraid Anne might have decided not to attend, and by then I felt it was vital that I did not risk becoming further distressed.
Three o’clock arrived. Colonel Maitland informed me that all was ready, and after a brief final prayer I moved from the vestry to the altar.
When I faced the congregation the first thing I saw was the hat in the fourth row.
It was a large hat elaborately bedecked with artificial flowers and it was being worn by one of my ladies, a widow named Mrs Hetherington. But I barely saw Mrs Hetherington. I was too busy staring at her hat, so like the hats worn long ago by our neighbour Mrs Simmonds who had refused to let her child play with the son of a parlourmaid. But once little Nicholas had slipped out of the house when his mother was looking the other way; he had seen me passing down the road and he had wanted to say hullo to me, just as he always did at Sunday school. I could see him now in my memory, a small thin boy with red
hair, and in my memory too I could hear his mother calling: ‘Nicholas! Nicholas!’ as she realized he was missing.
The showing shattered.
I knew then that I had gone horrifyingly astray, and as I stood paralysed with shock before the hushed congregation I felt the Devil himself gently stroke the hair at the nape of my neck.
The temperature in the chapel started to fall.
I stared around, wondering why no one was shivering. I felt deathly cold, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I managed to speak. I said: ‘There’s an enemy among us.’ I did not think before I spoke. The sentence arrived fully formed on my tongue. I had to let the Devil know that I was fully aware of his presence.
The congregation gaped, and when I realized in confusion that they had not understood I heard myself say to them loudly: ‘The forces of darkness are waging their eternal battle against the forces of light.’
Still they stared, and shuddering with the cold I began to move forward to the first row of pews. ‘The forces of darkness,’ I said, speaking very distinctly, ‘are trying to destroy me.’
A gasp finally rippled through the congregation, and at once it seemed as if the rows of faces were transformed into wooden blocks, dry and inanimate, waiting for the spark which would set them ablaze.
Meanwhile my glance was raking each row for the source of the evil which threatened me. I had realized that the Devil was no longer a climate, chilling the chapel. He had become incarnate, hiding from me behind a human mask, but I knew I dared not let him elude me. I had to hunt him down and force him into the open where he could be confronted, overpowered and vanquished.
‘Stand up, Satan!’ I shouted suddenly. ‘Stand up and show yourself!’
A second later I saw Anne’s face, white with terror, but before I could yell at her to escape, the man beside her slowly rose to
his feet and at once all trace of the rational world dissolved.
The man was Father Darcy.
I gasped.
Then I tried to back away but something seemed to have happened to my legs; they were so heavy that I could hardly move them. I wanted to rub my eyes but my arms had become heavy too, so heavy that I could no longer raise my hands, and all I could do was stare at the figure in the Fordite habit. I knew I could not be seeing Father Darcy yet at the same time I knew it was Father Darcy I was seeing. Panic overwhelmed me. Dragging my arm upwards I scrabbled for my pectoral cross but found that in my disordered state I had forgotten to put the cross on again after donning my cassock.
My panic increased. I tried to say: ‘In the name of JESUS CHRIST …’ but my tongue seemed to have disconnected itself with my brain so that I was unable to repel this manifestation of the Devil with the exorcist’s most powerful weapon. Finally fear drove out the shock which had been inhibiting my movements. Backing away I bumped into the altar and swung round to grab the wooden cross but I had forgotten its weight and the next moment it had slipped through my shaking hands. I bent to retrieve it; immediately it assumed the weight of lead and became impossible to shift. Unnerved by this malign displacement of the laws of physics I tried to say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and when nothing happened blind terror overwhelmed me for I had realized that
I
had become the Devil incarnate. The evil lay not among the congregation but in me. Having made a mockery of God’s will by following my self-centred deluded desires I had laid myself open to demonic infiltration and now the Devil himself had stepped forward to annex my soul.
This appalling truth flashed through my mind in a single second but I could not pause to dwell on it. There was no time. Looking back over my shoulder I saw Father Darcy not as the
Devil incarnate but as God’s servant the exorcist. He was as fit and active as he had been when we had first met, and all the jewels glittered in his well-remembered pectoral cross as he moved silently, eerily, purposefully up the aisle to annihilate me.
I whispered: ‘Keep away!’ and edged around the altar-table, but I knew I would be powerless against him. In desperation I shouted: ‘No one must touch me! I’m the Devil – I’ll kill anyone who touches me!’ and at once the naked flame blazed in the tinder-box as someone screamed in terror.
Hysteria erupted. Screams, shouts, yells, cries, howls – we were all plunged straight into hell. A chaotic stampede broke out as everyone plunged towards the exit, but although I was aware of the noise increasing as the hideous wave of violence struck the packed crowd at the back of the chapel I found I could not watch what was happening. I was mesmerized by Father Darcy. Oblivious of the pandemonium behind him he had reached the altar and was now facing me across the table. I sensed the power of his will as his concentration deepened, and when his psyche wrapped itself around mine I felt disorientated because it was not as I remembered it. Father Darcy’s psyche had been muscular and powerful but subtle and sinuous. This new psyche was muscular and powerful but blunt and abrasive. Realizing he was trying to disguise himself I thought: how clever! But I knew I had to let him know I was not deceived. Raising my voice above the chaotic noise I shouted: ‘I know who you are! You think you can destroy me just as you destroyed Whitby, but I’m going to put you back in your coffin, I’m going to burn you to ashes, I’m going to –’
Father Darcy suddenly moved with a speed which terminated my power of speech. He stooped. He grabbed the oak cross. He slammed it down on the table between us. Then he cried with a force which knocked the breath from my lungs: ‘In the name of JESUS CHRIST, I command thee, Satan, to depart from this man to a distant savage and never return!’
All the power drained from my body.
I lost consciousness.
When I awoke I thought I was in the London punishment cell. Then I recognized the bare walls of the chapel’s vestry. I was lying on the floor with an object which felt like a pillow beneath my head but which turned out to be my surplice, folded and bunched to make me comfortable. I was still wearing my cassock.
As I stirred, a chair scraped on the floor behind me and someone dressed as the Abbot-General of the Fordite monks quickly knelt at my side.
‘Francis! Oh my God –’ The return of memory and the return of sanity were equally horrifying.
‘Here,’ said Francis, shoving his bejewelled cross into my hands, ‘hold this. You’re all right.’
I grabbed the cross, gabbled: ‘Jesus is Lord!’ and collapsed back on the surplice, but fear soon elbowed my relief aside. ‘Francis, don’t let them take me away – don’t let them put me in an asylum –’
‘No one’s taking you anywhere. Calm down.’
But I was in a frenzy. ‘Where’s Anne?’
‘She’s not here at the moment.’
‘Has she left me?’
‘Of course not!’ Francis sounded scandalized.
‘Francis, promise – swear – she hasn’t left me –’
‘I promise. Swearing’s quite unnecessary.’
‘But Francis, Anne doesn’t love me any more –’
‘Nonsense! It’s because she loves you that I’m here. She wrote to me.’
This was very difficult to digest. ‘She wrote to you? Anne? But what on earth did she say?’
‘What do you think? She said you needed help and she was desperately worried about you.’
I said dazed: ‘You must have been the guest at luncheon.
I saw the extra place laid in the dining-room but I never dreamed –’
‘Cyril had also written to me, of course – he even sent me a blood-curdling cutting from
The Starbridge Weekly News,
and we’d just decided that one of us should intervene when I received the appeal from your wife and realized the intervention had to come from me.’
I struggled for words but since I was now inundated with a shame which saturated the length, breadth and depth of my being, speech was quite impossible. I could only cover my face with my hands, abandon the last vestige of my pride and shudder with the most profound humiliation.