The Hawk and the Dove Page 6

  Tom thought it was probably the worst moment of his life. The kitchen was utterly quiet. He felt a bony hand on his shoulder, and looked up into old Brother Andrew’s eyes which were dancing with merriment.

  ‘Brother, I esteem your courage,’ he said. ‘God forgives you, and so do I. Father Abbot is a very hard man.’

  Tom got to his feet without a word, and stumbled out of the kitchen. Once through the door, he stood still, and took a deep breath. For the first time since eating the wretched pie, his heart felt as light as a bird. It was over.

  He set off cheerfully for the vegetable garden, and turning the corner almost collided with Father Peregrine.

  ‘I did it,’ he said, exultantly.

  ‘Did you? Well done. Let that be finished with, then, you need not confess your fault to the community,’ said Peregrine, then stood there, eyeing Tom thoughtfully for a moment, as if there was something more he wanted to say. ‘I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘What did Brother Andrew say?’

  ‘He said he esteemed my courage,’ said Tom shyly, ‘and he forgave me.’ He grinned at Father Peregrine. ‘And he said Father Abbot is a very hard man!’

  Peregrine continued to look at him thoughtfully, and Tom was just beginning to wonder if he’d said the wrong thing, when slowly, awkwardly, Peregrine knelt before him.

  Tom was horrified. He knew it hurt badly for the abbot to bend that crippled leg and kneel—he didn’t even kneel during the Office—and besides that, he was covered with embarrassment, anxious lest anyone should come round the corner and see his lord abbot kneeling before him.

  ‘I humbly confess my fault, Brother,’ said Father Peregrine. ‘When I was a novice, twenty-five years ago, I, too, was hungry in the night, and, like you, I crept down to the kitchen, and I stole three pies, and I ate the lot. I was never found out, and to this day I’ve never owned up to anyone. I ask your forgiveness and God’s for placing on your shoulders a burden I myself was unwilling to bear.’

  Tom was utterly astonished. He could not even imagine this man as a novice, hungry, struggling with temptation and failing. All he wanted to say was, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, get up,’ but he knew that was not what was required of him.

  ‘God forgives you, and I forgive you, Father,’ he said. ‘Oh, please get up!’ and he helped Father Peregrine to his feet again.

  That was not the end of the story, though. That evening, in the hour before Compline when the novices had gathered in their community room in the novitiate to relax and converse, there was a knock on the door.

  Opening it, Brother Cormac was confronted with Brother Michael, Brother Andrew’s assistant in the kitchen, smiling at him and carrying a tray laden with pies, one for each of them, steaming and fragrant and delicious.

  ‘Father Abbot sends these with his compliments,’ he said. ‘He asks me to say that he thought the novices might be hungry. Also he bids me tell you, the recipe is his own, and it is called Humble Pie. He says he has tasted some himself, today, and he finds it very nourishing.’

  The candle guttered, and went out. It had burnt to the end. ‘Goodnight,’ whispered Mother. ‘Come down for a hot drink, Melissa, if you want one,’ and after laying the sleeping Cecily in her bed, and tucking the covers round her, she tiptoed out of the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Clare de Montany

  My eyes opened, and I lay still. All was quiet. I raised myself on one elbow. Mary and Beth had crept out of bed and gone to play, but Therese was still asleep, buried deep under her covers. Cecily was still asleep too, curled up with her cheek pillowed on her hand, her long, dark eyelashes resting on her soft pink cheek.

  Cecily looked delightful when she was asleep. Her mouth was like a little rosebud, and her curls spread on the pillow. She was a picture of vulnerable innocence. No one could have guessed, looking at her now, what utter weariness my parents’ faces wore after a morning of Cecily’s company. Daddy said she was like a natural disaster, a mysterious act of God which we could only suffer patiently and pray for strength to endure. She was only two, but Mother said she felt as though she’d aged more in those two years than in all the other thirty-eight years of her life put together. From the moment those great, china-blue eyes opened in the morning, Cecily was in conflict with the world, fighting her way forward with a dauntless spirit, a will of iron and an earsplitting voice.

  I lay down again cautiously. I did not want to wake her up. Today was Sunday, nearly the best part of the week. The best part was waking up on Saturday morning to the realisation that the whole weekend lay before me. No school for two whole days. Freedom. But Sunday was quite good: half the weekend left, anyway. Any minute now the house would erupt into chaos as Daddy tried to get everyone ready for church, tried to find the little ones’ socks and cardigans, tried to convince Mother that ten more minutes in bed was ten minutes too long, and finally lost his temper with everyone.

  It was the same every Sunday. Our family would arrive at church, still slightly breathless, Mother looking deceptively serene and composed as she swept up the aisle in her voluminous skirt, finding the first hymn for the little ones just in time to sing the last verse. Nobody could have imagined, to look at her, the terrible virago of twenty minutes ago, whose eyes flashed fire and whose tongue lashed us all, who had snatched up a bellowing Cecily, and dumped her unceremoniously into the car.

  It was the same this Sunday. Mother took our hymnbooks from the sidesman at the door, flashing him her radiant and disarming smile, and then sailed up the aisle to our pew, with us children trailing behind her, and Daddy bringing up the rear with Cecily clinging round his neck, still hiccupping and sniffing, her tragic face peeping over his shoulder.

  It is a curious thing how an hour in the swimming pool, or an hour in the theatre, is gone in five minutes, whereas an hour in church on a Sunday morning seems to drag on for eternity. The worst part of all was always Father Bennett’s sermon. Never in the history of mankind had one man been able to make fifteen minutes seem so long, of that I was sure. Daddy said the trouble was he had nothing to say, but he loved saying it.

  He stood up now in the pulpit and closed his eyes. Daddy gave Cecily a jelly-baby and a book about farm animals to keep her quiet.

  ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight,’ boomed Father Bennett, ‘O Lord, my Redeemer and my Rock.’

  He opened his eyes, and gripping the edge of the pulpit, looked down on us. ‘Simon, son of Jonah,’ he announced, taking his text from the reading we had just heard, ‘you are a happy man.’ He allowed his gaze to sweep slowly round the congregation. ‘And why was he a happy man? Not because he was especially rich, because he was not. Not because he was especially well educated, because he was not. Not because he was especially important, because he was not. Yet our Lord said to him, “Simon, son of Jonah, you”,’ (here he stabbed his index finger forcefully at an imaginary figure standing a few feet in front of him, suspended in mid-air above the heads of the congregation) “—are a happy man.”

  I glanced at Mother. Her mouth was twitching slightly, but she sat upright in her seat, and her eyes did not waver from the preacher’s face. I looked across at Daddy. He was smiling encouragingly at Cecily, slipping her another jelly-baby, a green one because that was her favourite, and silently mouthing ‘Moo! Moo!’ and ‘Baa! Baa!’ at her, as she showed him the pictures in her book.

  Beth was looking at the pictures in the children’s service book, and Mary was watching the little jewel-coloured pools of light that freckled the pew as the morning sunshine streamed through the stained-glass window. Therese was looking at the congregation with her eyes slightly crossed to see if she could see two of everybody.

  I sighed. Father Bennett was well launched into his dissertation on the exact source of the happiness of Simon Bar-Jonah. I looked at the war-memorial plaque, with its painted relief of a golden sword stuck through a coiled red dragon, and read through all the names written there. Daddy had
told me, when I was only seven, that the list of names referred to all those who had died in the services, and added that I need have no cause for anxiety since they had all been men.

  I looked at the flowers, gladioli and carnations and roses, that stood in front of the pulpit. They were quivering slightly from Father Bennett’s emphatic thumps on the pulpit desk. I looked up at him with curiosity. He didn’t mind kneeling down in the church service, to confess his sins to God. I tried to picture him kneeling in front of Daddy, saying, ‘I humbly confess that I have bored you with tedious sermons, and made God seem very small and far away like looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.’ I tried to imagine him kneeling before Stan Birkett, the dustman—a small, weary, disillusioned man—saying, ‘I humbly confess that you wanted me to be your friend, but I would only be your vicar….’ No, it didn’t fit. And yet, he didn’t mind kneeling down to God. Unless… perhaps he wasn’t sure God was there at all?

  Just now he was beaming at his congregation with a confident smile, saying: ‘… and assuredly, as we confess the divinity and supremacy of our blessed Lord, we too can rejoice in his promise of blessedness, and lay hold of that coveted commendation, “Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man!” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen; Hymn 452, “Oh Happy band of pilgrims, if onward ye will tread”. Hymn 452.’

  ‘We are a happy lot this morning,’ murmured Mother cynically, as she picked up her book. The congregation sang boisterously: the hymn following the sermon always had the holiday air of young cows let out to frolic in the grass after a long winter spent cooped up in a barn. We roared the words:

  The trials that beset you,

  The sorrows ye endure,

  The manifold temptations

  That death alone can cure—

  What are they but his jewels

  Of right celestial worth?

  What are they but the ladder,

  Set up to heaven on earth?

  Mother looked down at me and smiled. ‘Peregrine,’ she said softly, and I smiled back; but at the time, I didn’t understand what she meant.

  Then came the long, long prayers. Pages and pages of them. Cecily never made it through to Communion but always had to be taken out at some point, because she insisted on banging her foot loudly on the pew, or imitating the cries of the seagulls outside. This morning, she was removed halfway through the prayers of intercession, hysterical with rage because the last green jelly-baby had gone. If I listened carefully, I could hear Daddy playing ‘to market, to market to buy a fat pig’ with her, outside in the porch, but I forced myself to concentrate as Father Bennett’s voice droned on.

  ‘This is my body, which is given for you,’ he intoned. I wrestled with the thought. How could he speak about it like that? What had it to do with us? A man, so long ago, beaten, dirty, exhausted; his face streaked with tears and blood and spit; pinned to a cross with nails through his hands and feet. What had it to do with us? The compelling defencelessness of his courage and his vulnerable love had, so far as I could see, left us unmoved. Father Bennett, whom Daddy described as a fatuous twit, had nothing anywhere about him that reminded me of the struggle and self-abandonment of Jesus. When it came to it, nor did I.

  ‘Draw near with faith…’ boomed Father Bennett, and I got up from my knees and sat waiting until Mother stood up and we all followed her into the Communion queue. Therese had been confirmed two years ago, and I had been confirmed last autumn, but Mary and Beth were too young to receive the bread and wine, and instead Father Bennett laid his hands on their heads and blessed them.

  We knelt in a row at the altar rail; first Therese, then Mary, then Mother, then Beth, then me, and I held out my hands to receive the Communion wafer.

  ‘The body of Christ, broken for you,’ said Father Bennett, as he pressed the white, translucent wafer, with the little imprint of a crucifix on it, into my hand.

  ‘Amen,’ I said, and as I tried to swallow the dry, tasteless thing before old Father Carnforth got to me with the wine, I asked myself, ‘How? How is it the body of Christ? What has happened to his hurting, his smile, his hands, his sore, dusty feet?’

  ‘The blood of Jesus, shed for you,’ said Father Carnforth in his aged, asthmatic wheeze, and I took the chalice and sipped the deep red, rich velvety wine. The delicious, intoxicating taste of it spread round my mouth, fiery and sweet. That seemed a bit more like Jesus.

  I got to my feet and walked back to our pew, hands folded and eyes downcast, as Mother had taught me. In the silence before the prayers which ended the service, while the rest of the people took Communion, and then Father Bennett consumed the remains of the wine and washed and dried the chalice, I abandoned my questioning and played a whispered game of ‘I Spy’ with Beth.

  At last it was time for the final prayers. I was itching to be out in the sunlight, and feeling light-headed with hunger.

  We sang our last hymn with gusto, during which Daddy judged there was enough noise going on for it to be safe to re-admit Cecily, and then it was over.

  We all shook hands with Father Bennett and said what a lovely morning it was, as we left, except Cecily who refused even to look at him; and then we went home to a huge dinner of roast lamb and new potatoes and greens, with apple pie and cream to follow.

  After lunch, Cecily went up to bed for a rest, and Therese took Mary and Beth out to the park.

  ‘I’ll come and help you in a minute!’ I called to Daddy. I could hear him beginning to tackle the huge pile of washing-up in the kitchen.

  Mother was in the living-room, curled up in the corner of the sofa, sipping her coffee. I sat down beside her.

  ‘Tell me a story,’ I begged.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ she said, ‘my brain’s full of dinner, I can’t think!’ But she had that faraway, meditative, remembering look on her face, and I waited hopefully.

  ‘About Peregrine?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, please!’

  She sipped at her coffee again, and then cupped her hands round the rough pottery as she thought.

  Then she began her story.

  The Benedictine Rule laid down that guests of the abbey, who were to be received with honour and courtesy, especially pilgrims and the poor, should always dine with the abbot. Father Peregrine found this duty particularly trying, because the awkwardness of his hands made it difficult for him to eat in the refined and tidy way such occasions demanded of him. He found the effort of concentrating on preventing his hands from letting him down, while at the same time sustaining an intelligent and witty conversation, extremely tiring. In addition, he had to try to finish his dinner at the same time as his guests finished theirs, so as to avoid a ghastly ten minutes of silence while his fascinated guests watched him struggle with the remains of his food. The mere thought of entertaining guests gave him a headache. In the end, he hit upon the plan of going into the kitchens before the meal, where Brother Andrew would give him a plate of food to stave off hunger; then he could be served a minute portion of dinner when he sat to eat with guests of the abbey. This alleviated his difficulties considerably, though he was embarrassed by the way his guests looked with alarm at the pathetic amount of food on his plate, and could later be overheard by the brothers, commenting on what a holy and self-denying man the abbot was.

  It was a day of bitter cold and wind, towards the end of February. It had been raining for nearly a week and the light was weak and grey even at midday, and almost dark by late afternoon, when Father Peregrine was sitting in the infirmary with Brother Edward, who was working on Peregrine’s hands with his aromatic oils. It was a good place to be, on a day like this, because the infirmary was one of the few places in the abbey which was always kept warm, and today a brazier of charcoal glowed comfortably in the room where they sat.

  Brother Francis was sent to them with word from the porter that a family had arrived at the abbey requesting hospitality and a bed for the night.

  ‘Father Chad has received them, and is
seeing to their comfort. He says he will bring them to your lodging to dine after Vespers. It is a lady with her daughter and two sons, all of them between eighteen and twenty-five years of age as I judge, travelling to Iona on pilgrimage for the Easter Feast. Besides these are their servants; a groom and a lady’s maid.’

  ‘Thank you, brother. Did you enquire the name of the family?’

  ‘Oh, forgive me, Father. I forgot. Father Chad saw to them straight away, I had no conversation with them.’

  Francis left them, and Uncle Edward put away his vials of essential oils; near the brazier he placed the bowl which held the remains of the mixture of almond oil and essential oils he had been using, that it might slowly evaporate in the warmth, scenting and disinfecting the room.

  ‘Terrible weather for a party on pilgrimage,’ he commented.

  ‘It is indeed. Iona is a long way in this foul rain. Still, they have a night to rest and be refreshed. Join us for dinner, Edward,’ said Father Peregrine. ‘You have more of a gift for conversation than I.’

  ‘Is that a compliment, Father, or a back-handed insult?’

  Peregrine grinned at him. ‘As you will,’ he answered. ‘Now I must go to Brother Andrew and beg some bread, for I shall be fasting more or less if we have guests tonight, and what we ate at midday was nothing to compose poetry about. Thank you for your ministrations, Brother. My hands ache, this raw, wet weather. You have eased them indeed.’

  Resigned to a difficult evening meal, Father Peregrine took refuge in the kitchens, where Brother Michael was kneading a huge mound of dough. Quiet and friendly, he was a welcome alternative to the irascible Brother Andrew. He heard Peregrine’s request with a smile, and found him a hunk of bread, some cheese and an apple, which Peregrine retired to a corner to eat. The kitchen staff had no leisure to watch him, and in any case were not fussy about table manners, and he ate the food gratefully and peacefully, then made his way to chapel for Vespers.