The Hawk and the Dove Page 13

  Brother Michael, Brother Andrew’s gentle and friendly assistant, did his best to help Father Peregrine with those things that were clearly beyond him. He watched him one morning, struggling to remove the flesh from a poultry carcass for a game pie. It had taken him long enough just to roll and fasten back the wide sleeves of his habit in order to tackle the messy task. He was up to his elbows in grease and once nearly had the whole dishful off the table onto the floor. He stopped and closed his eyes, wearily rubbing his hand across his brow, thereby transferring poultry fat to his face as well as his hands. He sighed, set to work again, and Brother Michael came and stood by him quietly, helping him to finish the job.

  ‘Thank you, Brother,’ he said, but Michael caught the note of humiliation mingled with polite appreciation.

  Father Peregrine did his best to minimise the hindrance he caused by his slow lameness in the busy kitchen, and mainly occupied himself with jobs that involved standing still, or sitting at a work bench, out of the bustle of activity. Even so, he did get in the way sometimes. Things were always at their worst at about eleven o’clock, when the kitchen staff were scurrying to get the main meal of the day to the table promptly after the midday Office of Sext.

  On one such busy morning, Brother Andrew stood at one of the tables making a rich pastry: he was using eggs and butter, and the rare luxury of wheat flour, for a party of visitors who were staying in the guest house. He stood with the flour and diced fat in front of him, and the basin of eggs to one side at the edge of the table. He worked swiftly and deftly with one eye to the incompetent way Cormac was chopping herbs for the stew a few feet away from him.

  ‘Chop those finer, please, Brother Cormick,’ said the Scottish voice sharply. ‘You’re working in my kitchen now, not shovelling in the garden.’

  Cormac looked up at him with undisguised loathing, and continued his work without replying. Out of the corner of his eye, Brother Andrew was aware of a pot boiling too fast over the fire, and seeing on a quick glance round that everyone was fully occupied except Father Peregrine, who had just returned from his task of sorting through the onions in the store-room, he said, ‘You might come and swing this pot off the fire for me, Father.’

  Peregrine, hastening to be helpful, slipped on a little cube of butter that had fallen from the pastry-making as he passed Brother Andrew’s table. He shot out his hand instinctively to the table to save himself from falling, but lost his balance and fell anyway. His hand caught the basin of eggs that stood at the edge of the table, and he sat down with a jarring thump on the floor, hitting the side of his head with sickening force on the edge of the table, the spilt eggs dripping down his neck and arm. He flushed crimson at the hastily suppressed guffaw of laughter that broke out from the two village lads working across the room.

  ‘By all the saints!’ exploded Brother Andrew. ‘It’s worse than having a child around the place! Yes, thank you, Brother Michael, clear it up if you would. John, fetch me six more eggs from the basket, and be quick about it. I’m behind as it is.’

  Brother Michael helped Peregrine to his feet and cleared up the spilt egg from the floor quickly and without fuss. Peregrine stood a moment, his head still ringing from the impact of the table, the slime of broken eggs oozing uncomfortably down his neck and sleeve. Nobody took the slightest notice of him.

  ‘I think I’d better go and find something clean to wear,’ he mumbled.

  Brother Andrew looked up briefly from his pastry-making. ‘Aye, I should think you had, Father, you look like an egg nog.’

  Peregrine bit his lip and limped to the door which led to the most direct path to the clothing room, where he could obtain a clean tunic and cowl from Brother Ambrose. It was a low, narrow door, opened by means of a small round knob, unlike the majority of the doors with their great cast-iron handles. He could not grasp the little knob properly, and he struggled to open the door and failed. He looked over his shoulder at the bustling kitchens he would have to cross to get to the other door, decided against it, and tried again, miserably, to turn the handle; without success. The cringing humiliation and despair of the early days of living with his disablement rose up in him again, and for a moment overwhelmed him. He stood helplessly, with his hand on the wretched little knob. He didn’t know what to do. Brother Michael, seeing his predicament, came instantly to help him, and opened the door. Peregrine glanced once quickly at him and limped out.

  Looking up from his work, Cormac saw Brother Michael go to open the door and return to his task of seasoning and thickening the stew with distress on his face. Cormac came across to put his now extremely finely chopped herbs into it, and Michael said quietly to him, ‘Brother Andrew had almost reduced him to weeping. His mouth was trembling, Cormac. He had tears in his eyes.’

  Cormac scowled. ‘Tears! It’s a punch on the nose the old scoundrel needs. Tears won’t move him!’ And he took himself off to the scullery to scrub pots violently on his own.

  After that incident, the tension between Brother Cormac and Brother Andrew grew even worse. A storm was brewing. When Cormac came that afternoon to work on Father Peregrine’s hands, his jaw was set with anger, and he hardly knew what he was doing. Peregrine winced under his handling, but Cormac’s mind was on his own thoughts, and he did not see. As he left them to go to the novitiate chapter, Edward and Peregrine looked at each other expressively.

  ‘There goes a miserable, angry young man!’ said Brother Edward.

  ‘I know. There’s more tension in his hands than there is in mine,’ said Father Peregrine ruefully. ‘But let it be for now. This thing must be seen through somehow.’

  It all exploded on the Thursday morning, three days later, about a month after Brother Cormac had come back to the kitchen and Father Peregrine had joined him there.

  Peregrine was sitting at a table attempting to cut up a cooked beetroot with a vegetable knife. It was the middle of the morning, and Brother Cormac came in from his lessons in the novitiate.

  ‘You’re very late, Brother Cormick,’ said Brother Andrew.

  ‘Cormac. My lesson has only just finished,’ muttered Cormac. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Slice this ox tongue finely and put it on a platter for the infirmary,’ said Brother Andrew.

  Cormac looked at the ox tongue and was nearly sick. His hand trembled as he worked, and he prayed silently, desperately, ‘O God, please don’t let me vomit. Help me. Please, please.’

  An exasperated exclamation from the corner of the kitchen suddenly cut across his thoughts. Half of Father Peregrine’s beetroot had escaped him and rolled onto the floor. The other half lay in drunkenly cut slices on the table in front of him. The knife had slipped, and he had cut his finger. He addressed Brother Andrew humbly: ‘Brother, my hand is bleeding. I’m sorry to trouble you, but have you a rag I could bind it with?’

  ‘Aye. You’ll find some in the cupboard yonder,’ said Brother Andrew, ‘but pick up that beetroot off the floor, or you’ll be falling over that next.’

  Peregrine obediently retrieved the fallen beetroot, and then limped across the kitchen, his finger in his mouth. Cormac, watching him, saw he had no hope of managing the cupboard door, the crutch and the rags, when blood ran down his finger every time he took it out of his mouth. He moved to help him.

  Deep inside Brother Andrew knew it was mean, even though he was busy, to leave Father Peregrine to fend for himself. He was justifying it by telling himself that if Peregrine had come to learn to use his hands it was better to let him do so, when he saw Cormac go to help him. ‘And where do you think you’re going, Brother Cormick?’ he asked, acidly.

  Cormac’s self-control finally snapped. ‘My name is Cormac!’ he bellowed, ‘and I was going to help him, which is more than you would, you ill-tempered, uncharitable, miserable, sour old troll!’ He said a lot more besides, which was even less polite, and Brother Andrew, bristling with fury, opened his mouth to reply.

  Before he could do so, Father Peregrine spoke. ‘Brother Cormac, that wil
l not do,’ he said firmly. ‘You will beg his pardon, please,’

  Cormac stood, trembling with anger, glaring at Brother Andrew.

  ‘I said, my son, please beg his pardon.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cormac muttered woodenly, still glaring, still trembling.

  ‘Brother Cormac, please look at me when I’m speaking to you,’ said Peregrine calmly. Cormac turned his head slowly to look at him, the blue eyes still icy with rage, hardly seeing him. ‘Please beg his pardon properly,’ said Peregrine.

  ‘I said, I’m sorry,’ ground out Cormac from between clenched teeth.

  ‘It comes better from you on your knees, my son,’ persisted Peregrine quietly.

  The blue eyes blazed at him with their cold fire, and Cormac slowly shook his head. ‘Kneel?’ he said. ‘To him? No.’

  Brother Andrew again drew breath to speak, quivering in his indignation. Father Peregrine stopped his interruption with a peremptory gesture, without looking at him. His gaze still held Cormac’s. ‘Son, do it,’ he said.

  The moment of violent conflict that took place then in Cormac’s soul nearly wrenched it out of orbit. Anger and rebellion and disgust at the self-abasement required of him boiled inside; but yet he had not forgotten the self-control and ability to humble himself that he had seen in Peregrine, and he knew instinctively that that was the stronger thing, stronger than anger, stronger than hate, stronger than Brother Andrew. He had a sudden intuition that if he could not kneel before his ill-mannered old adversary, it was he who would have lost the battle, not Brother Andrew, not Father Peregrine. It was the moment he made up his mind, late, that he really did want to be a monk. He knelt. The kitchen was utterly still, watching in fascination.

  ‘I confess…’ he said, gratingly.

  ‘I think “humbly” is the word you’re looking for,’ said Father Peregrine quietly.

  ‘I… humbly… confess,’ said Cormac, shaking, dizzy with pent-up rage, ‘my… fault… of disrespect… and… rudeness. I ask God’s forgiveness and….’ He stopped, looking down at his hands, which were clenched into fists, the knuckles white. The saying of the next word seared him to the soul. He felt as though it cost him everything he had as he whispered, ‘… yours.’

  He looked up, but it was Peregrine’s face he sought, not Andrew’s. He was rewarded by the admiration and respect that shone in his abbot’s eyes. Peregrine nodded at him, almost imperceptibly.

  Brother Andrew cleared his throat, slightly shaken by the situation. There had been a moment when Cormac had looked almost mad, when Brother Andrew had realised he was more likely to get a black eye than an apology.

  ‘God forgives you, my brother, and so do I,’ he said as required, but the dry irony of his voice betrayed that it was the formula only, and his heart was not in it. So far as he could see, the rebellious and disobedient boy had been as defiant to his superior as he had been appallingly rude, and had had to be forced into submission to an extent that any other abbot would have had him whipped for. Only Father Peregrine, looking into those ice-blue eyes, had known quite well that neither he nor anyone would ever be able to make Cormac do anything: the lad’s battle was with himself, and he had won it, too.

  ‘Brother Cormac, I think it may be better if you go and help Brother Edward in the infirmary for the rest of the morning,’ said Father Peregrine, and Cormac stood up, nodded his assent and was gone. The quiet hum of activity began again as the kitchen staff hastily took up their work.

  ‘Brother Andrew, please will you come and see me one hour after the midday meal,’ Father Peregrine said pleasantly. ‘I’m sorry to have so delayed and hindered your work. I think I may have caused enough trouble for one morning. I’ll leave you in peace.’

  It was not long before the bell would be ringing for Sext, and Peregrine made his way slowly to the chapel. There was a fine mist of rain, and the winds blew in fitful gusts, driving dead leaves into little drifts against the foot of the stone walls. Inside the chapel, the air was damp, and the light dim. On the wooden stalls, there lay a rime of moisture. Winter was closing in. Peregrine sat in his stall, feeling suddenly cold and weary. He looked down at his hand. His finger was smarting, and he cautiously unclamped his thumb from where he had held it against the cut. The bleeding had ceased, but it stung. He sucked it, looking sightlessly ahead of him, his thoughts drifting.

  Cormac… Andrew… he smiled, shaking his head. What a pair! A letter that must be written after lunch. Better eat in his own house, because he must be back from the infirmary in time to see Brother Andrew an hour after the meal… Brother Andrew… Peregrine’s eyes focused on the great wooden crucifix that hung over the altar. ‘What would you do with him?’ he wondered. ‘I have to resolve this somehow, my Lord. Help me to make him see. Poor Cormac, I can hardly blame him losing his temper. I’ve had to bite my own lip a time or two these past weeks. Dear Lord, he was angry. I thought he’d not obey me. Thought I’d pushed him too far. Brave lad. Brave, and very hard work. Help me to treat him right.’ He gazed at the crucified Christ, the bowed head, the hands splayed back against the cross, pinned with great, cruel nails, and he shuddered. ‘My God, what a price! Follow you? The thought makes me sick. Lead me, then, lead me. I haven’t got what it takes to walk that path on my own.’

  The bell began to ring for Sext, and the brothers were coming in silently to their places, their faces shadowed by their cowls, their sandalled feet whispering on the stone floor. ‘Chad… Ambrose… Fidelis… Theodore—Theodore! He’s in good time, well done, lad… John, Peter, Thomas, Edward, Cormac, Mark, Francis, Cyprian, Gilbert, Clement (must have a word with him about that new manuscript), Stephen, Martin, Paulinus—he’s limping badly; his poor old knees are stiff and swollen in this weather. Matthew, Giles, Walafrid, Thaddeus, young Gerard, shaping up nicely, I think there is a vocation there, Dominic… Denis and Prudentius both laid up with a racking cough, and Lucanus won’t stir from the infirmary again now, dear old soul. No Andrew, no Michael, that’s my fault, causing a commotion in the kitchens just before the meal. No one else late or absent, old Brother Basil slipping into his place, back from ringing the bell.’

  ‘Deus in adjutorium meum intende,’ rang out the cantor’s chant.

  Abbot Peregrine gave his mind to the Office.

  Brother Cormac presented himself at the infirmary as instructed, and sought out Brother Edward, who was checking his supplies of medicine. ‘Good morning, Brother, what brings you here? Remind me to ask Brother Walafrid for some more of his soothing brew for poor old Brother Denis. He’s coughing fit to break himself apart.’

  ‘Father Abbot sent me,’ said Cormac cagily.

  Brother Edward glanced at him sideways. ‘Did he? Why ever did he do that?’ he enquired innocently.

  In spite of himself, Cormac was amused. For the first time ever that Brother Edward could recall, a brief flicker of a smile lit his face. Almost instantly, it clouded over again.

  ‘I quarrelled with Brother Andrew,’ he said. ‘Father Peregrine cut his hand, and Brother Andrew wouldn’t let me help him get a rag to bandage it. I lost my temper with him.’

  Brother Edward turned to look fully at Cormac. He regarded him silently for a moment before he replied. Then, ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘day by day you tend that man’s hands with me. Have you not eyes to see the state of them? They are blistered with burns and sore with scalds and little cuts, and bruised too from those kitchen tasks he simply cannot manage.’

  ‘Well, I know,’ replied Cormac, ‘but he said he needs to use them to keep them moving freely. I suppose he’ll manage better in time.’

  Brother Cormac was taken aback by the sudden flash of anger on Edward’s kindly face. Edward stood, contemplating him, until Cormac began to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘He would not wish me to say this,’ said Edward slowly, at last, ‘but somebody needs to tell you. He’s not working in the kitchen for the sake of his hands. The damage done to those hands can’t be put right by work; they’re beyond repairing.
Believe me, I know they are; it was I who struggled to save them when they were smashed and broken and bleeding; and every day as I do what I can to ease the discomfort in them, it breaks my heart that I had not the skill to do a better job. No, he came because he saw you and Brother Andrew had bad feeling between you and he wanted you to sort it out; but between your sulks and Andrew’s ill humour he knew there would be trouble, and he thought he should be there to keep an eye on things. What else could he do? Stand in the corner, arms folded, tapping his foot, watching you sternly?’

  Cormac looked at him, appalled. ‘Are you saying,’ he asked, horrified, ‘that he doesn’t need to be there for himself at all? That he came only for Brother Andrew and me?’

  ‘That’s about it, young man. You maybe thought, did you, that the abbot of a monastery has nothing better to do with his time than while away the morning in the kitchen, hindering the meal preparation?’ Cormac just gazed at him, dumbly. ‘Oh, but hark at me,’ said Brother Edward repentantly, ‘I sound as scathing as Brother Andrew, now; and there goes the bell for Sext and these chores not half finished. Never mind, lad. Come, let’s go to chapel.’

  The midday meal over, Father Peregrine came to the infirmary as usual, and Brother Cormac and Brother Edward sat in silence to work on his hands. Cormac took the right hand and Edward took the left. Brother Cormac looked attentively at that hand for the first time. Until now, he had been too full of his own problems to see properly beyond them. The cut from the morning, which never had been bandaged, was still open a little, and grubby, and getting slightly inflamed. It was on the side of the first joint of the second finger.

  ‘That looks painful,’ said Cormac.

  ‘I had to write a letter,’ replied Father Peregrine. ‘The pen just catches it and makes it a bit sore.’