He thinks back to what the abbot said – “These things mean a lot to Brother Cormac” – and something else begins to take shape in his mind.
He felt drawn to this community by what he saw in the brethren – their quiet courtesy, their erudition, the hospitality they offer, their tact and graciousness – so much that he admires, and aspires to learn and emulate. In the short time he’s been here, he’s found the novitiate a cheerful environment. His fellows are good company; reverent but capable of a prank, not slow with their jests nor very tolerant of sanctimonious piety. But still the solemns seem to earn the name: remote in their distant world of full profession they go about their day, and he’s thought of them as “the community”, “the brethren”; which, each one self-effacing, they seem to encourage.
But now he has the first glimmer of an insight into the reality – which is so obvious once he puts his mind to it – that they are only people. Human. Individual. Real. There isn’t – and yet there is – such a thing as “the community”. That is to say, its arising angel is entirely made up of the effort, the faith, the love, of these men. And if they are simply human, people after all, that means they are flawed and quirky. They must have their oddities like everyone does. Some will be easy for him to live with, others perhaps positively repellent. This was always true, of course it was, but right now as he watches Brother Cormac sitting in the sunbeam, surreptitiously slipping Brother Thaddeus his egg, it becomes startlingly clear. The community is not an entity. It’s just human frailty in all its ordinariness stitched together with love. It’s just thirty-one men finding the willingness and the courage to say “Yes”, again and again and again.
Surprisingly often, Abbot John has cause to reflect on how excellent an appointment is Father Francis as prior. Why didn’t I see it myself? he often asks himself. Why did it take William to notice that Francis would be the man?
For in any Rule of any religious order you care to dip into, every detail of the character needed to make a good prior reads like a description of Father Francis. Patient and courteous and diligent? Why, yes he is. Kind and friendly, a peacemaker? Yes, that’s Francis. Adaptable, sociable, humble, intelligent, gentle? All of that. Ready with his smile, tactful, pleasant, a good example as a Christian man? Indeed, he is. He can even speak French and is as much at ease with the aristocracy as with the common man. At first when you read the outline of what’s expected in a prior, you begin to laugh and think, “Good luck with that – were you looking for an angel?” And then when you read through a second time, you can’t help but notice: wait – but that’s our Francis. That is what he’s like.
Second only to the abbot, and often acting as his deputy, the prior has many duties. He doesn’t check everyone’s up for Nocturns nor take round the lantern in the night Office – at St Alcuin’s, that’s the sacristan’s job. He does, after Compline, sprinkle them with holy water as they go past him to retire for the night; but he doesn’t go so far as to herd them up like sheep and see to it that every man’s in bed. That’s not how they do it here. If some want to keep vigil after Compline has ended, that’s up to them. And they, who have to be up again at 2.30 to pray, can usually be trusted to go to sleep.
But he does keep the keys to the cloister buildings, after locking them up last thing at night. It’s about this that Father John comes looking for him on the way out of supper.
The abbot sounds slightly apologetic, looks faintly embarrassed. Another of Francis’s impressive assortment of talents is that he’s exceptionally good at reading people. Sensitive and diplomatic, he avoids putting them on the spot or dragging their vulnerability into the light. But he can’t help noticing – in this instance – that the abbot is uncomfortable with how exposed this makes him feel; that having a novice go missing means so much to him.
“Francis – of your charity – would you delay locking up tonight? In fact, may I take the keys, because you’ll obviously want to get some rest? I don’t expect you to sit up waiting, but… I’m sure Brother Thomas will be home, it’s not that. It’s Brother Cedd. I’d hate it if… I couldn’t bear it if he – well – I keep thinking, if he changed his mind and came home, only to find we’d locked up and gone to bed. I’ll ask Brother Martin to leave the postern door unbolted. But I won’t leave us without a watchman; I’ll stay up, I promise. And if he does come home, I’ll secure everything then. So may I – just this once – may I take the keys?”
And Francis, understanding, obliging, goes directly to fetch them from their nail on the wall in the checker, brings them straight to his abbot, and gives them into his care.
“Am I… you don’t think I’m being too indulgent?” John looks at him anxiously.
Francis smiles at him. “I believe it has good precedent in the New Testament,” he says. “‘How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?’”23
John listens, reassured. “Yes,” he says. “‘Venit enim Filius hominis salvare quod perierat.’”24 Then he stops, suddenly uncertain. “You don’t think… I’m not meant to go and look for him?”
“Father,” says Francis, calm and reasonable (as a prior should be), “better not be over-hasty. Give him some space. He’s not yet made his solemn vows, and he isn’t our prisoner. Just cut him some slack, stop worrying – see what the morning brings.”
The abbot sees this makes sense, sees this is a sensible, moderate approach; in fact, exactly what you might hope for in a prior. Then he says one thing more, which to John is the best of all, because he really means it: “I’ll be praying for you, John – and for him as well.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
“So,” says Brother Thomas, setting his emptied ale mug down with an air of decision. “Time to make a move. It’s been grand to see you again, Madeleine, William – and my hearty thanks for your generous hospitality. Good bread, good ale, kind hearts, and a welcoming home. What more could a man ask? Still, if I’m not back for Compline our abbot will be asking why, so I’d best be on my way. Now, then: how about you, lad? What’s happening? Are you coming with me, or have you something else in mind?”
He turns his gaze to look Brother Cedd in the eye; and waits for his answer. William says nothing, crumbling his bread in his fingers, looking down at his plate. Madeleine sits quietly, feeling a whole life hanging in the balance, knowing that even now he doesn’t know what to choose. She becomes aware that neither Tom nor William is breathing. She realizes the reason she noticed is because she’s stopped breathing too.
“Will it be all right to come home with you?” Cedd asks tentatively, and Madeleine smiles at the tension sighing out of them. Brother Tom’s face lights up, happy and relieved. “All right? A bit better than ‘all right’ I should think! God be thanked! I thought for a minute there you were going to tell me you’d given up on us. Right then, lad; let’s be stirring. The shadows are lengthening and we’ll have to take it turn and turn about on our abbot’s mare. She’s a solid beast but I’m no slender sapling, and you’re better than a shrimp yourself.”
“Take my palfrey,” says William quietly. “I’ll come over and fetch her tomorrow. Nay, seriously” – he dismisses Brother Tom’s protest before it gets a chance to start. “It’ll be no trouble to me, and you’ve left it a bit late to be walking. I’ll get her fettled up for you. It’s the least I can do after all your help today.”
Madeleine refuses their instinctive help to clear the table: “Nay, go on with you! You’ve worked hard all day, the pair of you. But thank you for thinking of it. Give Adam my love – I’ll be along to see him before the winter.”
They both look puzzled. “Who?” Then Tom’s face clears. “Oh! Your brother! Adam was our abbot’s name as a lad, Brother Cedd – before he took the cowl. Aye, for sure – and he greets you likewise, if I forgot to say.”
The clopping of hooves out on the flags of the yard calls their
attention. Tom ducks his head under the lintel of the house door – it’s not so very low but he’s tall as well as broad, and a tonsured man learns to think of his scalp. Outside in the golden light of evening, William stands waiting, the reins of their mounts one set in each hand.
“Safe journey,” he says. “God be with you. I’ll be up tomorrow.” He flips over the iron latch to undo the gate, and pulls it right back so they can ride out together.
Nightmare, William’s palfrey, is an even-tempered, cooperative beast, strong and willing. Grateful for the loan of her, the two monks make their way.
For the first mile or two, going one behind the other along the narrow lanes, they don’t speak. Then, in a broad place where there’s room to travel side by side, Brother Cedd (who’s evidently been thinking) asks Tom: “Did you… did you ever have doubts about your vocation, Brother Thomas? Did you always know it was what you wanted, or were there times when you wavered?”
Tom considers this question carefully. It is, he knows, his responsibility as a fully professed brother to protect and nurture the vulnerable unfolding of a novice’s vocation. He must also bear in mind that this lad, though he’s taken his simple vows, has not yet made his solemn profession. He could still leave the community. This being the case, any information entrusted to him now could leave with him – and thereby be noised abroad. It pays to be cautious in confiding. Even so, he thinks it’s likely true that it may help to have some insight into an older man’s journey, to realize that we all stumble, we all waver. No one’s vocation drops fully formed into his lap, rolling faultlessly through to a triumphant, unblemished conclusion. Obviously.
“You… you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Cedd glances anxiously at Brother Tom, not sure why he isn’t replying. Perhaps he didn’t hear the question in the first place.
“I don’t mind telling you,” says Tom then. “I’m just thinking it through – what I’m free to disclose, what should be kept within the community. But… oh…” He shrugs. “Well – why not? All right, then. When I reached the same stage you’re at now, I walked away too. With me, it was about a lass who came as a guest to the abbey. I fell in love. I went to find her.”
Brother Cedd’s eyebrows travel upwards and his jaw drops as he looks at Tom. A new thought occurs to him. These men, the black-robed community in full profession, with their grave and dignified demeanour as they filter with such sobriety into the choir or the chapter house – they are only people. Each one must have his struggles, his weaknesses, his personal history. He feels vaguely stupid that this revelation should have been so slow to arrive in his imaginative grasp.
“So… what happened?” he asks. “Didn’t it work out?”
“Well, like you I’d made my simple vows to be Christ’s man. I didn’t want to break my promise. It’s not that it didn’t work out; she felt for me much as I did for her. Linnet was her name. Sweet Linnet. She was lovely. Assuredly it was something I wanted; but I couldn’t feel right about it, deep down. St Alcuin’s was my home. So I came back.”
“And your abbot then, he just accepted that? How long were you away for?”
“Oh, I was out quite a while. He had some searching questions, and then the community needed convincing I could still be trusted. The night I came back, he made sure I had a good sleep and a hearty breakfast, lent me his warm winter cloak – it was freezing, snow on the ground – and sent me out to ask admission. And then they made me wait. Three days, three nights. One bowl of soup. A mighty lot of snow and frost and ice-cold wind. Never been so starving cold in all my life. When they finally let me in to beg admittance, I folded up on the chapter house floor in a crumpled heap, and they carted me off to the infirmary. Back then Father John was not so very long professed himself. Brother Edward was our infirmarian in those days, and Brother John – as he was then – still finding his way with it. But he took good care of me.”
The novice absorbs this story, impressed and alarmed. “Do you think… might that happen to me?” He looks extremely worried. Tom laughs.
“No. You’ve only been away a day. That’s a minor blip of a very different magnitude from an extended love affair, don’t you think? And besides, even if Father John did the exact same thing, the experience wouldn’t have the same effect in September as it did in the middle of winter. You’d get through it.”
“Yes,” says the lad, still thinking about it. “Yes, of course.” He lapses into silence. They ride along together, making good progress, as the sun sinks down towards the western rim of the sky.
“Did you… have you… since you came back, did you ever wish you hadn’t? Has it been the thing you wanted, after all?”
Again, Tom weighs his answer. He thinks of Peregrine, and the journey they made together. He wonders how much it might be helpful to say, and what should be left unspoken. “I loved my abbot,” he says eventually. “I was his esquire, as I am Father John’s. But Abbot Columba – Father Peregrine, we used to call him – he needed help. He had a bad leg, needed a crutch to get about, and twisted hands. He was set upon, grievously hurt. His hands were broken, beyond mending. And you know how it is when someone needs your help; you get very close to them. You asked about doubt and vocation – well, there was a man who struggled, who wrestled with God. But though he doubted the worth of his own soul, and some of what he went through dragged him down to bitter darkness – almost broke him – he never wavered in his vision of Christ crucified. And he never wanted a different life. I loved him, and I learned from him. I guess you could say my vocation grew out of his faith like a weed grows out from a crack in a stone wall.”
Then the novice asks what Tom hoped he wouldn’t feel his way to finding. “So… wasn’t it hard, after Abbot Columba died, to change your allegiance to Abbot John, and be his esquire instead? Didn’t you find that upsetting?”
Honesty, Tom thinks, is usually the wisest course. “Short answer,” he says: “yes, I did. But only because love and grief are very painful. Not because there’s anything amiss with Father John. You see… Father Peregrine was my mentor, really. My guide. I was only a boy when I met him, and he made a deep impression on me. To a large extent, the man he was formed my faith, set my path. Whereas John – er, Father John – feels more like my friend. But you know, what’s drawn us close – the thing that’s been the seed of real, lasting love and brotherhood – has been struggle, vulnerability, human frailty, call it what you like. These are strong men, Brother Cedd. No spiritual wimp gets elected abbot. When they break, when they stumble – and they all do, make no mistake, they’re only human – it grabs you by the very gut.”
“Father Abbot – Father John – he’s had his struggles too, hasn’t he?” Cedd speaks timidly now, feeling himself to be encroaching on intimate and tender territory, even though the man in question isn’t there to hear. “His mother,” he says: “how she died. And his sister. Nobody told us in the novitiate exactly what happened. All we knew of it was bits he explained in Chapter. But we could see what it did to him.”
“Oh, aye,” says Tom. “That and plenty of other things to worry him and cause him to search his soul. He treads no easy path, that lad. It’s why he needs us. Abbot he may be, but on another level of course he’s only John. That’s what we’re here for in truth – to try to understand, to help a bit, offer what kindness we can. There are times when we, each one of us, need to know we have companions on the journey. It’s not so much what the other man is to us, or what he does. More that we’ve taken the road together. Just that he’s there, doing it with us. It’s not that any other man can solve our problems or carry our cross. But having him simply be there, even if all he does is see past all our nonsense of silly attitudes and annoying habits to the soul of us. That’s the thing about community: not to do any particular thing or live up to our expectations, but just to be there with us. Like you and me, taking this road together, seeing each other home. That’s what it is.”
“Father William…” Cedd pauses, turnin
g these thoughts over in his mind. “He left. So that… is it a shameful thing? Did it feel like a betrayal you had to forgive?”
It surprises him when Brother Tom laughs. He looks at him, reads the affection and amusement as Tom contemplates the thought of William. “Ah, no, it wasn’t him leaving that set me all at sixes and sevens,” he says. “It was when he showed up in the first place that upset me. See, we have a history, me and William. But we got through it and, it astonishes me to hear myself saying it, but we’re the best of friends now. I look back and I think, how can that be? Just shows you shouldn’t be too quick to judge a man. Take time to hear his side of the story. Walk a mile in his shoes. In the end, I guess, the faithful life isn’t about any kind of moral superiority, but in noticing we’re all only human. I was going to say we’re all the same, but we’re not that. Which is another wonder of community – the individuality, the human oddity. Endearing, irritating sometimes, just baffling on occasion. But when you see a man’s soul stripped bare, see him reduced by circumstances, exposed and defenceless, how can you help but love him?”
“When we are in our teaching circle in the novitiate,” Cedd confides, “I sometimes look at Father Theodore and wonder who he really is, if you see what I mean. He’s so calm and so wise. He’s gentle, but none of us gets away with anything. He can be very direct. And I wonder what made him, what path he travelled. I suppose he had his struggles too.”
“Father Theodore? Indeed he did. Nobody had a harder time in the novitiate, that I know of. Our novice master didn’t care for him one little bit. He – Theodore – he had the same problem so many of us have. Thought he was no good, useless. Ended up sobbing uncontrollably on our abbot’s floor, in complete despair.”
Cedd gapes at him. “Father Theodore?”
“Aye,” says Tom: “him. So who knows? If you stick at it, mayhap you’ll be our next novice master one of these days. Anyway, come on, lad. Time we picked up a bit of speed. The sun’s right down on the horizon. Nearly home. Let’s see what these beasts can do.”
A Day and a Life Page 15
