Nuala a mother! Of course I had known it for all of Conor’s life, but I never knew quite what it meant until I took them to lunch the day she brought him to Toronto to school.
My old school! Here was a boy who would experience at least some of what I had felt and done when I was at Colborne; he would find his Charlie and his Brochwel and think himself a fine young man of the important generation and not the generation of his parents. I was the boy’s godfather—and, it was not impossible, his biological father as well—so when I drove them up to the school it was traditional, it was ritual, that I should give him a tip. And as I did so my heart sank, for I knew I had thereby entered the tipping time of life, when until then I had, without putting it in words, thought of myself as a recipient, and one of those people upon whom unexpected good luck befell.
After we had left the boy I took Nuala back to my clinic and dwelling for the usual tea, but later neither of us had any heart for bed. A touch, not quite of autumn but of a lesser summer, had come upon our lives. Young Conor, who would not have understood anything about it, had come between us without dividing us.
I have done what I suppose is “the right thing” by the boy since then. When he was in the Sixth Form he liked to have dinner with me at my club—he thought clubs rather grand and grown-up—and to go to an occasional concert or theatre. I considered taking him to one of The Ladies’ Sunday receptions.
It would have been mischievously entertaining to introduce him to Charlie. Brocky’s son; my godson. Charlie, the celibate, did not experience this big step as we men of the world do. He was “Father” but he was not, one hoped, a father. It would have jolted Charlie who had the celibate’s affectation of a youthful manner, to see the reality of what he feigned in this tall, handsome youth—a man in every sense except those where his fortunate birth retarded his assumption of manhood—and to understand that time was passing and that on the giant escalator he and I had made fully half our upward journey.
Why should I want to jolt Charlie? He troubled me, and as he was not my patient I was free to resent it. He preached with a tone of certainty and zeal that had just a hint of irrationality in my ear. He went on about saints and saintliness without any consideration for the obvious fact that the manner if not the matter of sainthood has changed since the days of his beloved Golden Legend. If it lay in his power, he would have brought back haloes, and one of the first of the saintly to be fitted for such a distinction would have been poor old Ninian Hobbes, who was certainly a good man and had been a much better man, but who was now a driveller who could barely get through the Eucharist without prompting.
The Bishop should have removed Hobbes. I suppose he thought Hobbes had not long to go and an act which might seem unkind might well await the visit of the Black Angel.
(18)
Glebe House
Cockcroft Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
Dearest Barb:
Extraordinary doings here. Or are they really extraordinary? Dramatic, anyhow. Poor old Father Hobbes has snuffed it, hopped the twig, kicked the bucket, and with what flair! Nobody would have thought the old man had such a sense of effect. What happened was this. On Good Friday there was an unusual ceremony at St. Aidan’s, a thing called the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified, a new dodge revived from long ago by Father Charlie and DeCourcy Parry. Big crowd present. Adoration of the Cross, and Procession of the Sacrament from the Altar of Repose—because the bread and wine had been prepared the night before, hence pre-sanctified. Father Hobbes was celebrant, and after the Host had been censed and elevated, the dear old chap put it in his mouth, turned toward the altar, and fell.1 Of course everybody thought things had been too much for him—stifling incense, my heavy cope around his shoulders, all the fasting he goes in for during Lent—but when the deacons and Father Charlie rushed forward to lift him all hell broke loose. One of the deacons, a black chap who works as a technician in the hospital while qualifying as a priest, said loudly, “He’s dead!” I heard Father Charlie say, “He can’t be!” Dr. Hullah, our tenant, walked quickly to the altar rails, but astonishingly Fr. Charlie waved him back, and they had some sort of murmured exchange. Hullah looked black as thunder, but he stood where he was while the deacons carried the old man into the vestry.
Sensation! as they used to say in melodrama. But St. Aidan’s isn’t to be flummoxed by anything, and in a tick, it seemed, the Gallery Choir burst into something that certainly sounded like Bach—oh, we’re not above Bach at St. A’s, Lutheran though he was—which had a quieting effect and we all sat on burrs till Father Charlie made his reappearance.
He was calm, but seemed almost to glow, if you know what I mean. “Dear Father Hobbes is dead,” he said, “and we who are here are greatly blessed to have been present at the death of a dearly loved father in God, and one who many of us thought a saint—not just saintly, but a saint indeed—and who we may now be assured stands in the presence of the Saviour he served humbly and greatly while he was among us. Holy Eucharist, which he began, must now be completed.” And with that he turned to the altar, elevated another Host—in this sort of Communion the priest gets a big bikky which he eats himself, and then the rest of us get a small bikky and a sip from the cup—and he ate his big bikky and then raised the cup, and the service continued. Everybody took Communion. It would have been extraordinary not to do so, after what had happened. Even Christofferson who I would not have thought would be affected, but probably I misjudged her. More and more I think I misjudge a lot of people.
That afternoon the church was crammed for the Vigil, which takes place during the hours Christ is supposed to have hung on the Cross before he died. Everybody was thinking about Ninian Hobbes of course. I swear to you, my dear, I have never felt such holiness in any gathering, in my life. Charlie presided, but he spoke never a word about what had happened in the morning.2
Then Saturday, a dead day in the church. Then Easter Day itself and a Mass at seven (Whimby) and a High Mass at half past ten and such music and such ritual goings-on as you’ve never seen in your entire puff, and a magnificent spirit of life and love in a packed church.
You felt it even before the procession. But when the choir burst into The strife is o’er, the battle done; / Now is the Victor’s triumph done / O let the song of praise be sung; / Alleluya! I swear to you I felt that for the first time in my life I knew what religion really meant! It was a kind of amazing lightness in the buzzem—O hell, I can’t write about it in this campy slangy way I’ve got into—this way that tries to turn everything into a joke! It was no joke. But it wasn’t religious-serious either. It was as though I’d been renewed and wouldn’t need to play the fool all the time to hide real feeling. Lots of people were blubbing. And I felt as if for the first time I could just be me, and wouldn’t have to play the giddy goat so that nobody could really get near me. I don’t think I’m making much sense, but I hope I’m getting it across to you that it was a revelation. Am I now a believer, a religious person? I can’t tell, but I know I’ve never felt like that before and want to feel that way forever.
The cream on the strawberries was Charlie’s sermon. Short, but the best ever. Ninian Hobbes, he declared, was a saint indeed. He had spent every waking hour since Fr. Hobbes’ death thinking about the death, praying and waiting for God to speak. And he truly and humbly believed God had spoken. Not in words, but in a burning conviction that it was true. We had known a saint who had walked among us and touched our lives, and that saint was now a partaker of the splendour of God’s Eternity. The man we had known and spoken with a few days ago, was now truly with God. Charlie told us this, not as a man who had himself been assured of the truth, but as one entrusted with a message for everyone his voice could reach. And we too were given the message in order that it might be told abroad. We must make it known in our city that a saint had walked among us.
Strong stuff, but you should have heard Charlie! I’ve told you I thought he was going off his nut, but in that serm
on, which couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes, he was a man transformed. We all left the church with a powerful sense that we must do what he said—tell everybody. But how?
Luckily I knew how. That Sunday afternoon we had our usual salon, as Hugh McWearie calls it—half joke, half compliment—and Hugh McWearie was there, as he always is, greedy pig! No, that’s unkind, but he does eat like a refugee. Hugh is the most important lay voice in matters of religion probably in Canada. He knows what he is talking about—he’s a spoiled parson—Presbyterian I believe and learned in that thorough Scots way—and he writes so even devil-worshippers pay attention, it is so interesting and unexpected. So I got Hugh cornered by a plate of my amethyst tarts—grape jelly in feathery wee tartlets and just a touch of whipped cream—and told him what had happened. Charlie’s sure the old man was a saint, and everybody must be told, and that’s your job Hugh, said I, so do your total utmost.
A saint, and a Protestant saint at that, said he. That’s very interesting and you can be sure I’ll follow it up. So I left him with the tarts with a sense of having done my bit and perhaps a little more, because I had the Ear of the Press. I had to get on with my job as hostess, and stop young Frangipani, who sounds Italian but is really Swiss and has all the Swiss determination, from making poor Arne Gade miserable by insisting that the piano is really a percussion instrument and that all Arne’s exquisite phrasing and nuance is a denial of reality. (When he can get a word in Arne rebuts that Frangi can’t do anything with the piano but pound and that explains his opinion.) A lot of people present had known Fr. Hobbes and really were sorry, but they didn’t buy the saint bit—except as an expression meaning a really good person.
So what now? Things are looking up. Dear One’s head of the Governor-General is being shown in every important city in Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Club, and thus her name is being spread Far and Wide,3 and perhaps this break in the clouds is really a dawn at last! She gets news of it from Gussie Gryll, but I suppose there’s no harm in letters.
Yours till Niagara Falls (ha ha)
CHIPS
VIGNETTES
1. A brilliant isometric view of the Chancel at St. Aidan’s, with Fr. Hobbes in the act of tumbling to the ground.
2. The chancel again, the figure of Fr. Charlie in shadow, as opposed to the rich candlelight of the morning view.
3. Emily standing beside the head, eyes modestly lowered, but looking like the cat that has swallowed the cream.
(19)
Oh, my dear Chips, I knew you were touched to the heart by Charlie’s sermon and the events of the great Easter days. The afternoon of Easter Sunday, when you were stoking McWearie—yes, he does tend to gobble the sweet things, but I don’t think women quite comprehend how desperate some men become for sweets—you seemed to me to be transfigured. All that awful schoolgirl, field-hockey playing, daring-driver-in-the-Transport Corps, fake manlydom that made you look like a fool to so many people was dropped for that brief time, though it came creeping back in the days to come. (Ha ha, indeed. Oh, my poor Chips!), I was astonished that Emily Raven-Hart did not seem to share your enlargement of spirit. But I always thought that Emily was a better head and a poorer heart than you were. She was intelligent in a way you were not, under all her limp mannerisms and chronic depression. And, of course, as you say in your last paragraph, she was a success at last, even if not in quite the way she would have chosen. Nor would it be wise to discount the renewed contact with Gussie Gryll. There seemed still to be quite a bit of warmth in those ashes, and Emily did not conceal that fact from you because—did you never see it?—Emily liked to tease, and Emily rather liked to hurt. It is one of the Lesbian dreads, I suppose: some wretched man may come sneaking into Paradise, with troubling insinuation.
You were disappointed in Hugh McWearie, and I must take the blame for that. As so often, he came to my upstairs sitting-room, smoking-room, talking-room after your soirée had come to a close. It was a little earlier than usual, for so many of the musicians were tired from the demands made on them during the Easter time. Even the Jews, for during these festival times they are summoned to serenade the Christian Pantheon, and do it with artistic integrity, and not a shade of an ironic smile on their faces. Hugh and I settled down, he to one of his stinking pipes (for, though under my direction he had thrown away the old ones, he had by now made disgusting a whole array of new ones) and I with an excellent cigar. And whisky, of course, for Hugh declared that whisky was one of the elements in which he lived.
He wanted to talk. He wanted to know what I thought about the death of Ninian Hobbes. He thought of me as a man who had been exposed to science, even if I had not been consumed by it, and perhaps I had not fallen so much under the Good Friday Spell as most of the others in the church.
The Good Friday Spell—yes, the atmosphere in St. Aidan’s at the death, and again at the Sunday morning High Mass, might well be recalled in terms of the magic Wagner raises in Parsifal, when the Grail descends. Hugh and I were both sensitive to music and that expression was a useful shorthand term for what we were talking about.
I had felt the Spell, certainly. I had observed its effect on others, and not least on Miss Pansy Todhunter. But had I felt it as the others did?
No, I could not say that. But was my failure to succumb to an extraordinary experience the result of personal pique? When Fr. Hobbes fell, I had—I thought I had broken my firehorse response to emergency, but it seemed I hadn’t—I had gone at once to help. After all I knew Hobbes, respected him greatly, was a neighbour, was a doctor—why wouldn’t I hasten to his side when he was plainly in great trouble? But I had been waved away by Charlie Iredale. If it had been another priest it might have been different, but Charlie and I had been through much together, and not least the dark hour when he underwent his fenestration operation without anaesthetic, and I had tried to distract him from his pain by reading from The Golden Legend. If we had been anywhere other than where we were, Charlie within the altar rails and I outside them, I would have told him not to be silly, and done what I could for the dying man. Was I Simon Magus, the false magician, being warned off by St. Peter, the true one? Whatever, I was warned away from the sacred precinct; my kind of magic was not wanted. I was angry.
My professional magic was wanted later, however, when Charlie sent a deacon to catch me at the church door to ask me to come and certify that the old priest was truly dead. Silly as this seems, it was required by law. I made as much of it as I could, examined the body as thoroughly as was conformable with decency, and then provided the necessary certificate that Ninian Hobbes had indeed died of cardiac arrest. But why? Charlie knew. It was the bliss of celebrating the Eucharist once again, at the altar he knew so well, and on such a day.
I suppose bliss can be fatal, though instances of it are very few in medical literature.
Hugh had not been present on this great occasion, and he wanted to pump me for my impressions of it. Pansy, as her letter makes clear, had been hounding him about his journalistic duty to give the story a big play. He was too good a journalist for that.
“I am of the old school,” said he. “My job is to give the facts, so far as I can discover them, and leave the reader to make up his own mind. I am not in the saint-making business. I shall say that many of his people regarded Fr. Hobbes as a saintly man and felt that his death at the altar was a striking culmination of a fine life. But I shall offer no opinion of my own.”
I could not accept that. “Hugh,” said I, “when it suits you you slant and load your stories unconscionably. The pretensions of you journalists that you deal simply in fact would be nauseating if it were not laughable.”
“That is called shaping public opinion and it is actuated by journalistic philosophy not easily grasped by the layman,” said Hugh. “You doctors deal in particularities; we journalists are concerned with the broad scene. Anyhow, what do you think it would look like if I declared a saint tomorrow and some coroner finds he died of hobnailed liver on Tu
esday?”
“There will be no coroner. I have declared him dead and that’s all that’s needed. But I wish to God I had demanded to see his false teeth.”
“I saw all of them that I wanted. Did you want to see if they had ‘Made in Japan’ stamped on them somewhere?”
“You have no proper reverence. Journalism has covered your soul with a hard brown crust. No, I would simply have liked to analyse anything that might be clinging to them.”
“Oho! What do you suspect?”
“I don’t suspect anything. But I might have been able to attribute his death to something a little more interesting than cardiac arrest. That just means his heart stopped.”
“I am acquainted with the term. You have a suspicion?”
“No. But I have professional curiosity. I do not like to sign legal forms simply because somebody tells me to.”
“Charlie? Ah, yes; Charlie can be peremptory. Now, do you suppose he will succeed the late Father Hobbes as vicar at St. Aidan’s? If he does, we must expect lively doings. Charlie is determined to take no nonsense from the Archdeacon. You heard that sermon he preached on Ceremonies? Threw the Thirty-nine Articles right back in Allchin’s face. That’s one of the beauties of Anglicanism; you can pretty well have things both ways. I find no fault with that. A good faith ought to leave lots of leeway. But I must get along now, down to my paper to prepare the great news that a saint has died among us, for the humble folk of Toronto. My guess is that the editor will think it worth three inches on one of the duller inside pages. So don’t look for a front-page spread and pictures.”
I had been perfectly honest with Hugh; I did not suspect anything out of the way in the death of Ninian Hobbes, but I felt I had not been professionally careful in ascribing a cause of death. What I did suspect was that my invaluable nurse and colleague, Inge Christofferson, was developing an unexpected and wry sense of humour. She had been at Mass on that Good Friday, and sometime when I was out she had put an envelope on my desk on which was written:
The Cunning Man Page 34
