“Hello,” says Father John, with simple friendliness. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you safe back. Are you all right?”
Brother Cedd didn’t know what to expect, but not that, anyway. To be spoken to like a friend. He lifts his head, and meets the abbot’s gaze. The man looks happy, genuinely pleased to see him.
Father John gets up from his place in the abbot’s stall, and steps down to the stone-flagged way where Cedd is kneeling. “Budge up,” he says unaffectedly. “Make room for me.”
He sits on the floor beside him, leaning his back against the wood panelling that fronts the stalls. Brother Cedd, disconcerted, abandons his humble kneeling and does the same.
“What happened?” John asks him gently.
And it all comes tumbling out. The wretched inadequacy of his dull ordinariness. Bad at Latin, worse at Greek, only just able to sight-read. Can’t follow some of Father Theodore’s explanations of theology and philosophy. Bored out of his skull by some of the books they have to read. Not really sure how to go about his hours of private prayer – what you should do, what you should say. Nothing mystical happens. And then (now he really hadn’t meant to mention this, it just comes out somehow) some of the brothers drive him to distraction, irritate him beyond belief. Brother Cassian whistling absently through his teeth, Brother Felix always – always – having to be first, having to be right, taking Cedd’s ideas expressed tentatively in privacy and waving them about as if they were his own. Brother Boniface sitting next to him in chapel, sliding the notes like a man paid to sing slushy love songs in a tavern. Brother Robert – oh, save us – Brother Robert! Anything you say to him, anything at all, if there are two possible ways to understand a thing, you can guarantee, every time without exception he’ll take it the way you don’t mean, however far-fetched and unlikely that interpretation might be. How can a man so thick be so inventive?
He stops abruptly. Criticizing the brethren like this is absolutely forbidden. You speak directly or you don’t speak at all. His own sense of inferiority might at least have made his abbot feel sorry for him, like a dog that grovels at your feet hopes not to be kicked. But what is coming out of his mouth now strikes him as sheer sneering spite. And he feels ashamed.
Slowly, in the silence that follows this outpouring, he makes himself look at his abbot to see how it is received. John is sitting, his head tipped back, leaning against the stalls, the biggest grin imaginable on his face as he listens to this.
“Oh, my brother,” he says, “you do me good. You sound exactly like me. Ashes in your teeth, isn’t it, sometimes?” He pauses. Then he says, still without looking at the novice: “And is that all it was? For this you wanted to leave us? Did you truly think anybody else was any different?”
“Well…” Brother Cedd struggles for an answer that doesn’t sound too hopelessly lame. “Everybody else is so patient, so accomplished, so kind. Apart from me.”
The abbot is laughing now, shaking his head. “Thinks every single man of us!” he says.
“Really?” Brother Cedd feels inclined to push this. He recognizes that such a conversation may not too often be possible. Self-preoccupation is wearisome in other people. He will probably have to shut up about this now if he stays; but it frets at him all the time.
“I watch the professed brothers sometimes, here in the chapel. They don’t look ill at ease – well, mostly. They look serene and composed, as though they have it all together, as though they’ve got the hang of it in a way I don’t think I ever will. That’s why I went to find Father William. Because he was the only man I ever saw sitting in chapel with tears running down his face. I thought he’d understand.”
The abbot looks at him then, taken aback. “William? De Bulmer? My brother-in-law? Is that where you’ve been? How did you know where he lives?”
Brother Cedd feels his face grow hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Father. I shouldn’t have been listening,” he confesses. “Back in May when the bishop was here, Father William was up in the novitiate talking with Father Theodore, and saying something about his house in Caldbeck. My family lives near Caldbeck, so I knew where he meant. There was only one place it could be, because I knew all the other families settled there. I thought if I found him, he’d understand what it’s like to feel so out of step, so confoundedly miserable.”
“I see,” says the abbot. “And did he?”
Brother Cedd hesitates. “He… well, he didn’t seem all that keen to talk about his own experiences. He said life is mostly about ordinary things – just the daily round and the work we do. He said nobody can ever live up to expectations. That if I found anything lacking in the community I should put it there myself, and that could be my contribution. And he said… well… I think ‘sulkiness’, ‘petulance’, and ‘self-pity’ were the words he used.”
The abbot digests this in silence. “That… erm… that doesn’t sound so very understanding,” he says then. “Not what you’d been hoping for, I’d guess. Was that… it sounds as if it could have been extremely hurtful.”
“I know.” Brother Cedd nods. “Doesn’t it! But somehow, it wasn’t. There’s something about him, that man. He’s quite frightening in a way, and not very approachable. And, yes, he didn’t pull his punches. But that wasn’t the main thing, Father.”
John waits.
“He said… that the whole point of life is coming to know Jesus – to actually meet him, he said. Live every day with him. He meant, be with him like you and I are sitting here together now. He said all I had to do was ask, and that would happen.”
He lapses into silence. John takes this in, asks: “And – did you?”
“I wasn’t sure how to, or what to say. I asked if he’d say the prayer for me, so I could just say the Amen. And he did. Just talking to Jesus as if he was really there with us, up in the apple loft! And, Father… I can hardly put this into words, it seems so personal – but when he did that, when he spoke to Jesus I mean, his voice was so full of love and trust. It brought out into the open the thing that made me want to go and find him, though I couldn’t have put my finger on it before I heard him make that prayer. It’s partly because one way and another you can see he’s been through the mill, but it’s also that hidden thing inside him… I’m not sure what to call it… but the thing it most reminded me of is love. I think it somehow makes him into a living link to Jesus. I can’t put it any better than that. But that prayer of his – I did say ‘Amen’, and it has made a difference inside me.”
Both men feel the quality of silence undergo a subtle shift. This happens sometimes. Silence becomes presence, something holy, a place you don’t want to leave and don’t easily forget. Holy ground. The abbot closes his eyes. Thank you, William. Thank you, Jesus.
Then he brings himself back to the question he must ask. “So. What do you want to do? Things got bad enough that you had to take some time out. That’s all right. I understand. What do you want to do now?”
Brother Cedd swallows. “Well, I’d better explain myself to Father Theodore in the morning. And I’m very sorry I just walked off without saying anything. But will it be all right if… can I just come home, and carry on?”
The abbot nodded. “You can indeed. If ‘home’ is what it is to you, then here is where you should be. And, Brother Cedd, I don’t want to put any kind of unhelpful burden onto you, but I think you ought to know, you are not the only man here to feel inadequate. This day long I have been asking myself what kind of a useless abbot must I be that you couldn’t come and talk to me, and I know Father Theodore has been worried to death about you. And Father Clement, sitting outside in the dusk near the porter’s lodge all this evening, waiting – do you not know how much he depends on you? Haven’t you realized how vital to him is your skill in lettering and illumination, now his sight is fading? I think it just about tore him in two when he saw that you’d gone. It’s been a long day for him.”
Brother Cedd looks at the abbot, shocked. “But… my work in the scripto
rium is nothing special! Anybody could do it.”
“Oh, aye, of course,” says the abbot, getting up, reaching out his hand to Brother Cedd to pull him onto his feet: “but that’s not what Father Clement says. Still, what would he know? Come on, lad, it’s getting late now. Time for bed.”
Cupping his hand round the candles near his stall and then Cedd’s, he blows them out. Father Bernard wouldn’t let that pass, thinks the novice. “Always snuff, lads; never blow.” Still, at least the abbot does pinch out the smouldering spark at the top of each wick before he leaves it.
As they reach the archway through to the south transept and the night stairs, the abbot blows out the last candle, stoops, and picks up the lantern. But then he pauses. Brother Cedd looks at him in enquiry. When John meets the young man’s gaze, his eyes are very serious. “Brother Cedd, I’m in two minds whether to mention this. What I’m about to tell you now is a great trust. You must never pass it on, not to anybody. Do you understand me?”
Cedd nods, round-eyed, wondering what on earth this can be.
“My brother-in-law, William de Bulmer – it is of utmost importance that we be discreet about where he lives. I don’t know if word reached you of this, but during the time he lived as part of this community, he attempted to take his own life.”
Brother Cedd feels this information jar through his whole being in brutal shocks. John, holding the lantern, sees it in his face. “Oh. You didn’t know. Maybe I should not have told you. Never mind.”
That image flashes back in Cedd’s mind again as if it were playing out before him right here and now; the white, strained, exhausted face, and the tears rolling down unchecked. Tried to take his own life. Whatever happened?
“The thing is,” the abbot continues, “as I expect you realize, that is a felony; and by some unfortunate mishap – we do not know how – the bishop got wind of it. For one reason and another he has a very low opinion of my brother-in-law. He has tried quite hard to track him down. So, though William comes and goes, we are discreet; we do not discuss who he is or where he lives. And we are vague about his personal history, if asked. His life depends on it, do you see? Please don’t tell anyone – apart from Father Theodore, who also knows where he is. Don’t let it be known where you went, or to whom. Just keep it close, keep it safe. Brother – can I trust you? I do hope so.”
“I will never tell anyone but Father Theodore, upon my life,” the novice promises soberly: “ever.”
Father John looks at him carefully, and nods. “Thank you,” he says as they come to the bottom of the stairs: “because I love that man. He is very dear to me. He’s not easy company, but you couldn’t wish for a stauncher friend. In any time of trouble, he’s like a rock. I’m glad you found your way to him. He gave you good advice.”
He is speaking one shade above silence. They must not violate the holy peace of the night with conversation. The abbot gives the lantern into Cedd’s hand so he can see to climb the stairs. The moon lights his own way along the cloister to the abbot’s lodge.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
“Did the day go well?” asks Madeleine, as she gets down the linen bag with her spindle and carders, pulls out the big sack of fleece from behind the chair. “It was good of Brother Thomas to bring us down those sacks of grain and clothing – well, good of my brother to send him with them, I suppose. He just does as he’s told. Still, it was kind and a big help that he fixed the scythe and sorted out the fence for us. And I think you got quite a bit more fruit picked, you and Brother Cedd, didn’t you?”
“Aye, I think it went well,” says her husband. “I hope so anyway. I hope that lad doesn’t give up on the path he’s taken. It’s always such a sadness when someone leaves.”
She laughs. “What? If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is! Surely, if it’s not the right thing for a man to stay then it must be the right thing to leave. What matters is not if he goes or stays but if he comes to know his own soul, follows his guiding star, is true to the voice of his heart.”
“Aye,” he says. “Of course,” he adds. By the tone of his voice and the aversion of his face, Madeleine knows she’s annoyed him now. She tries to make it better.
“While I was picking the blackberries along the hedgerow, I saw you took the baskets of apples up with the lad to the big loft, and you were there ages. Did he tell you something of his trouble, when you had that moment to yourselves?”
“Aye, he did.”
She waits to hear what that trouble might have been, but evidently he’s not going to tell her; so she probes further, curious: “Did he say what it was made him decide to come here?”
“Aye. He did.”
“So – why then?”
Shadowed in the shadows his eyes meet hers. She can’t see his face properly, his back is to the window, his face is obscured in the dusky failing light. But she can feel the tension of his reluctance to tell her. Why? She’s his wife – wouldn’t he want to share it with her, talk it through?
With a quick sigh of impatience, he says: “Apparently, him sitting on the other side of the choir from me at St Alcuin’s, he had opportunity to see tears flow that I could not help. So he thought I’d understand. That’s what he said.”
And now he has her absolute fixed attention. “Tears? About what?”
“Oh, heaven! Madeleine, surely you know! About you, about lying to John, about the mess I made of the money and the whole damned tangle I got myself into. It all about tore me to shreds. Some days it was too much for me.”
“So you would sit in chapel weeping, in the Office?”
“Sometimes. Not too often, I hope.”
“And nobody saw? No one cared or did anything about it?”
“Madeleine, what could they do? How could I have told anyone about you and me? And what was to be done about the money except for them to pull their belts in and make the best of it? They didn’t berate me or beat me; they understood. And tears aren’t especially uncommon in a monastery. There’s much that’s difficult to swallow and precious little privacy. You can’t always keep it back until you’re alone in your cell.”
“Oh. So – what was it Brother Cedd thought you’d understand? What’s he done?”
“He hasn’t done anything, he’s just struggling.”
“With what?”
“Oh, great God in heaven give me patience – you don’t give up, do you? Why don’t you mind your own business? Just leave it alone!”
“William, that’s really rude –”
“Rude? I’m rude? Not you’re over-inquisitive, poking about in what’s not yours to know?”
“What? That’s so mean! Why do you have to be so touchy? What’s the matter with you? Get over yourself!”
He draws breath to reply, then he stops, completely, standing absolutely still. Madeleine is familiar with this by now, but not sure she will ever get used to it. She has realized it is part of what it means to share a life with a man thirty years a monk. At first when she saw him do this, she thought he was overcome by anger – that’s what’s usually happening, in her experience, with people who stop dead and stand in total silence when you criticize them. Mostly, it means trouble brewing; they are fomenting outrage. But not, she has learned, with this man. It is about anger, but he is not getting ready to let fly. She knows what his silence means now. It’s the time it takes to humble himself, rein in his natural responses of defensiveness, cancel the instinct to a sharp retort. These short silences are her windows into his self-mastery, and she has learned to esteem them, give him time, not assume he’s holding out on her and get ready for a fight. Neither does she try to intervene with physical closeness – a hug, an apology, an endearment. She knows (now – she didn’t at first) it’s all he can do to cope with himself in these moments; he’s already trying his very best and has nothing left over for cuddles.
So she waits. And, quietly, as he always does, he apologizes. “I am so sorry, Madeleine. I was disrespe
ctful and churlish in what I said. I humbly ask your forgiveness.”
And although what fits right in with monastic life sounds almighty strange in an ordinary household, in this cottage, she thinks every time he does it, Oh, I love this man.
She knows, because he’s told her about it, that these few moments of struggle it takes him to find the self-control he needs, have made trouble for him his whole life long; not as a monk only, but as a child as well. What they wanted – his father, his mother, his novice master, his prior – was absolute immediate obedience: in his attitude, in his demeanour, in his face; not in his words and actions only. There was no “as soon as you’re ready” about it; they meant “now”.
Those few unresponsive seconds, they have got him thrashed times past counting; but he can’t seem to get it down to “now”, no matter how hard he tries. It just takes him a moment to get past the black fury, the red rage, wanting to have the upper hand when someone admonishes him. It’s not that he believes himself to be always in the right, but too many years living under excoriating injustice and mocking cruelty make it hard to live with any kind of reprimand. It makes him flare up inside, it burns, snarls. And it does take those few short seconds to control it.
It isn’t fear that returns him every time to this habit of self-discipline, this stilling silence. The regimes he lived under drove him beyond fear. The child who lives each day with fear becomes simply used to being frightened all the time. It is a given, and no longer determines choices and actions. It’s very hard to dominate someone who is habitually afraid. Anything new comes too late to frighten him. He’s scared already, and what he does will make no difference to that. The man who is always afraid will dare and imperil anything, unable to evaluate risk in a life already terrifying.
He persists with his obstinate effort to get self-mastery down to a perfect art. In part he does so for shame – he feels bad that he can’t immediately achieve it, that this rage always boils over inside. But it’s also simply habit; it has become reflexive, to stop, to breathe, to wait, to get himself under control. It is the discipline of a lifetime. More compellingly, a long time ago he learned contempt of violence; and he cannot bear to see it. Cruelty and pain, screaming terror – they sicken him to his stomach. He cannot stand it. Even thinking of the slaughter of a pig, an ox, makes him vomit. He can only just cope with Madeleine breaking the neck of a pot-boiler.
A Day and a Life Page 19
