Three-Cornered Halo

by Christianna Brand

  La Madre drove first, peering out balefully to right and left from her swaddling of black veils and shawls, one skinny hand appearing now and again, to give a sort of dig at the air in response to the pious salutations of the people. El Bienquisto sat in the carriage beside her, complacent in a white satin suit which, however, did not become him. Ladies and gentlemen of the court followed, all in regulation national dress; even the little French friends, packed, like a posy of flowers themselves, into one carriage and waving with blossom hands to the delighted crowd, had been impressed into a decorum of borrowed black cloaks and mantillas. The carriages stopped in a crescent of pawing horses and gleaming coachwork, the old lady was lifted out and carried, muttering spitefully at her bearers, up to the gallery, overlooking the High Altar, reserved for the ladies of the palace. The women streamed after her, the French friends in a pandemonium of giggles as they tripped over the unaccustomed long skirts. To the opposite gallery, the Well-Belovéd marched, a small bull-frog of self-importance, in his white satin suit, the court gentlemen trailing after him with a good deal of surreptitious pantomime behind his portly back. The organ burst into the tremendous pæan of praise (of the Grand Duke) which is the Juanese national anthem, and El Exaltida and La Bellissima came slowly up the flower-patterned pathway through the aisle.

  The Grand Duke had arranged for Miss Cockrill and her friends to be accommodated in the grand ducal galleries: but Mr Cecil, in hurried consultation with El Gerente (who was in charge, under the Cathedral staff, of seating arrangements), preferred to remain closer to the scene of activities—though at a discreet distance from the thurible itself. Not wishing to appear singular, he had arranged for Miss Cockrill and Miss Foley also to be given special prie-Dieu beside him in an ordinarily unoccupied spot; well to one side, but in a line with the Grand Duke’s own. Down in the body of the church, the poor Major, with all his troubles, was tightly jammed amidst his loudly complaining flock, in the heart of the crowd.

  La Bellissima looked like a rose herself, thought Cousin Hat, watching her almost lovingly as she came, slowly pacing up the long aisle, her feet hardly disturbing the pattern of petals which, however, the long cloak swept into little ridges as she passed. Her dress was of rose pink satin, very long and narrow, her cloak of the glossy dark leaf-green of the cathedral hangings. Even her hair, beneath the heavy black lace veil, had the colour of the pollen of a rose, and round her throat gleamed a necklace of matchless pale, pale pink pearls. Beside her, the Grand Duke walked with his dark head bent, his chin sunk in the folds of the cloak thrown, brigand-like, over his shoulder. They came to the prie-Dieu, bowed to the altar, bowed to one another; and knelt and prayed. Before them, the golden thurible hung motionless on its golden stand.

  From his vantage point, long ago strategically chosen, Tomaso di Goya could see the thurible. He had placed himself close to the famous so-called Pisano font, so positioned that by climbing on to it when—when the time came—he would be able to command the whole cathedral. He had noted Guido’s politio stationed, as arranged, in their places, so evidently that man of straw was standing by his word: Tomaso had avoided him all morning so that there should be no possibility of his declaring a last minute change of heart. He could see him now, standing in the place they had appointed, white to the chops and staring as though hypnotised, at the thurible. He too must be despatched when he had served his turn. And Cousin Francisco, having been duly entrusted with an errand or two which would show in his disfavour when he was charged with the crime, was in the special place with which he had been ‘rewarded’; when the moment came for his slaughter, they would know where to find him. He spared a thought for Lorenna, wondering which among all the bent, black-veiled heads below him, could be hers. Poor little Lorenna!—whatever the outcome of this hour, for her there could be no more happiness.…

  The organ music changed. All over the cathedral, the lights went out: as though the whole galaxy of the stars had been suddenly extinguished, leaving only the domed and shadowy immensity of the night sky. Only the great High Altar blazed with its ordered pattern of innumerable candles, and here and there in the darkness of the aisle and naves, more candles glimmered before the altars of the saints. In the gloom of the darkened doorway of the sacristy, two points of light appeared and then two more and two more, like glow-worms in the dark, moving slowly forward, lengthening at last into a long, double row of candle flames as the choir filed slowly in behind the uplifted crucifix, in their crimson surplices and sharp-pleated cottas trimmed with deep hems of lace. Behind them came the acolytes and altar boys, behind them again, the celebrant priests in their splendid vestments, red and white and gold for this day of roses: the Obispo, the Arcivescovo—and El Patriarca, head bent, lips moving, bearing the covered chalice in his hands. At the foot of the altar steps, he knelt for a moment. The attendant deacons dispersed about him, the altar boys took up their positions, anxiously rehearsing their coming parts in the ceremony in their minds, the choir opened their throats and sang, full-hearted, tossing up the lovely gift of their music to heaven. The Patriarch intoned the first splendid words of the ceremony of the Mass: ‘Introibo ad adaltare Dei …’, ‘I will go in unto the altar of God …’; and Miss Cockrill thought with determined superiority of nice, clean, bright, electric-lit St Asaph’s at home, of the simple oblong altar with its well-starched altar cloth, of the clipped voice of the vicar, fresh from his triumphs (‘That I fear, will be three and six, dear lady!’) at the bridge tables the night before.

  In the body of the church, packed close as matches, the people stood to involuntary attention, their arms pinned to their sides by the press of their neighbours. ‘Juanita … Juanita …’ The low hum of many voices murmuring in the self-same prayer, swelled above the voice of priest and acolyte, moving about the altar; by the time that, standing with upheld hands, the Patriarca had read the epistle for the day, it had risen to a gentle roar. It was impossible to follow the Latin, for no one could unpin his arm to hold his Missal: the rest of the Mass was familiar and they could follow it easily enough, but the epistle changes each day and with it their attention wandered, their prayer redoubled in fervour and at last in open audibility. ‘Santa Juanita, margherita del isla nostra.… Blessed Juanita, pearl of our island home, grant the prayers of your people, send us a sign.…’ The Patriarch moved back to the centre of the altar, the deacon went up the four shallow steps to remove the great book and carry it with its attendant candles to the gospel side: and the murmurings grew and grew and grew—grew at last into a great, rumbling roar.…

  Mr Cecil, kneeling in acute discomfort on his rush-bottomed prie-Dieu, dragged his eyes from the thurible and looked over at the Arcivescovo who waited, across the sanctuary from him, to receive the book and there read the gospel aloud to the people. For this was the moment when, with his own attendant candle-bearers, the Grand Duke would rise, kneel before the golden censer, lift it from its stand and move forward again for the ceremonial incensing of the book. The Arcivescovo met his glance across the wide sanctuary and gave him a rather wild look, accompanied, however, with a nod of would-be reassurance. He would make his protest, he would prevent disaster, even at the cost of his life. Mr Cecil clasped two hands together in a boxer’s gesture of encouragement. The time had come.

  The Grand Duke rose.

  But the thunder of the voices would not be stifled, they rose with the rising of the Grand Duke to his great height, towering over their heads, to an hysteria of shouting. He stood for a moment, uncertain. The Patriarch, sitting now, unrelaxed, on the Patriarchal throne on the epistle side of the sanctuary, frowned angrily. Over the general cry of ‘Juanita! Juanita!’ a woman’s voice cried, the sibilants hissing above the rest, ‘Bellissima—ask now! Bellissima—pray!’ and in a moment every voice in the crowd cried out, ‘Bellissima—Bellissima—ask now …! Ask now for the Sign …!’

  Grouped about the altar, priests, deacons, acolytes, paused, confounded. But the Patriarch stood up suddenly, there before his car
ved and gilded throne, and held up his hand in a gesture so commanding, so almost threatening, that the sound faltered and, ebbing out and out towards the far end of the aisle, petered into silence. When the silence was complete he spoke. “Let there be no more of this! You offend against God by this interruption of His Holy Mass. La Bellissima will pray to Juanita when the Mass is ended.”

  “Let her pray now,” cried the woman’s voice again; and voices echoed, ‘Let her ask now! Let her pray now …!’

  The Patriarch raised his hand again. “You are impious! Will Juanita listen to you at such a time? Be silent, let the Mass continue.…”

  The Arcivescovo stood, hands ceremonially held apart, waiting for the book to be brought to him; but his thoughts were far away. Fool, fool and faithless that he had been! Juanita!—Juanita would save them, how could he have forgotten, how could he have presumed to place faith in his own poor human meddlings, when Juanita was even now looking down at them from heaven, in pity for all their wickedness and folly; perhaps, indeed, had deliberately let all this come about, that through these means her miraculous sign might be vouchsafed. And indeed—might this not in itself be a sign, this intervention of the people at the very moment that the Grand Duke stretched his hand out for the thurible …? With all his strength, he prayed to her to come to them now: offered up his life into the hands of God, if He would but send his servant to the succour of these poor, wicked, frightened, hurt and helpless children below. As the Patriarch ended and from the packed church came a still rebellious muttering, he dragged himself from the clouds of prayer and spoke. “Beatitud, Exaltida—in humility I submit that the people have their wish. The canon of the Mass has not yet begun, there is no real interruption. Let us ask now: let the Mass be a Mass of thanksgiving. Let La Bellissima ask now for the Sign.”

  Once more the Patriarch’s hand urgently uplifted, stilled the clamour. He looked doubtfully towards the prie-Dieu. “Exaltida …?”

  He stood still in his place, considering, a giant among pigmy people standing on eager tiptoe behind him in the darkness. His handsome face was stern and dark above the folds of the cloak. He said nothing for a long time. Then he spoke. “Very well. We will ask now instead of later.” He turned back towards the body of the church and raised his voice. “Yes. We will ask now. The Grand Duchess will offer prayers to Juanita for the gift of a son: and I promise again now what I promised before: if Juanita will give us some sign that the prayer shall be answered, I will this day make application to Rome, with proof of the miracle of the sign; and beg his Holiness to consider her canonisation.” He turned back to the altar, bowed, and knelt down at his prie-Dieu in an attitude of prayer. Mr Cecil too knelt, and something very much like a prayer—a prayer of thankfulness—escaped from his unaccustomed heart. The moment had passed.

  The group about the altar, also knelt, the Archbishop at the prie-Dieu before his throne. The Patriarch moved slowly down the four shallow steps from the altar, turned and, kneeling, prayed aloud. “Blessed Juanita, Pearl of San Juan, hear and answer the prayers of your people, hear the prayer of your daughter here below.…”

  There was a long, long, long silence. Nothing will happen, thought Cousin Hat rather desperately, and then what will they do? She looked with compassion at the slender figure, kneeling with bowed head, lit only by the gleams from the altar candles falling on the shining gold hair beneath the black veil, on the jewels that shimmered on the tight-clasped hands. The Grand Duchess lifted her head at last and her voice shook; and yet, in the hush of the great domed shadowy building, though small, was sweet and clear. “Santa Juanita,” prayed La Bellissima in carefully rehearsed Juanese, “here before our people, we pray that you will intercede for us before the Throne of God for the gift of a son—an heir to the dukedom of our belovéd island; and that in token of hearing this, our prayer, you will vouchsafe the miracle of a sign.” Her voice died away. The Grand Duke said, loudly and strongly: “Amen!” A hush fell, so profound that it seemed to Miss Cockrill, kneeling rigid with apprehension in her corner by the sanctuary rails, that if a candle-flame had but flickered, she must have heard.

  In the shadows to the east of the altar, and above it, something flickered that was not a candle-flame—that was not so bright as a flame and yet as faintly, faintly luminous, something that stirred in the shadows above the High Altar. La Bellissima’s voice took on a new note, a note of doubt, which was yet a note of something like dawning awe. “Juanita … Juanita, hear our prayer …” And in the shadows, slowly, indefinitely, something began to take shape.…

  Slowly, slowly—slowly taking shape. The shape of a woman in the long cloak of Juanese church-going, the black lace veil pulled half across the lower part of the face.… From the great crowds came a great gasp, the sighing intake of a thousand breaths; and only here and there a woman cried out with a little sharp, yelping scream. Until suddenly, in the surrounding darkness, there was a brightness all about her; and clear and vivid for all to see, she stood there—stood there on the nothingness in the shadows above the High Altar: a little stocky woman in a long cloak and a black veil, worn like a mantilla over her dark head.

  Juanita.

  There was a rustling and surging of sound as with one accord the packed mass of the people forced itself, tumbling forward, down on to its knees: the clicking of innumerable beads as hands holding rosaries crossed from forehead to breast, from shoulder to shoulder; the sighing moan of a woman here or there, fainting, unobserved, unattended, remaining pinned upright on her knees by the press of her neighbours. On their splendid prie-Dieu, the Grand Duke and Duchess were motionless, staring up into the circle of light, all about the altar the priests and acolytes knelt stricken into awe; and the old Archbishop remained, unmoving, the terrible, wounded old face raised up, lit to radiance, the face of a happy child. Mr Cecil was open-mouthed with astonishment and doubt, Winsome Foley gave a great sob and buried her face in her hands; and even the arid heart of Cousin Hat was pierced with a thrill that seemed to cut her through to the very soul.

  She stood for a long time, absolutely without movement, silent. Gradually all sound in the cathedral ceased, it was as though time stood still, so intense, so mass-concentrated was the effort of the people, willing her to remain with them. When the silence was absolute, the figure slowly moved: slowly the upraised hand was lowered. A deep voice said: “My children …”

  A voice cried out sharply: “Her voice! Juanita! Juanita’s own voice.” From aisle and nave, from chapel and clerestory came a thousand echoes, whispering out, almost in terror: ‘Juanita’s voice!’

  The vision raised its hand. There was silence again. She said again: “My children …” Now no one spoke. “My children—I, Juanita, speak to you in answer to your prayer. You pray well, daughter of France, belovéd of the island of San Juan: they do ill that speak against you. To you shall be granted the gift that you pray for, the gift of a child, so that all may know that your prayers find favour in the sight of God. My children, pray: pray with me in thanksgiving to God for these His mercies.…” The figure raised two hands, palms together, fingers upward-pointing. “Say after me … Te Deum.… Te Deum, laudemus, te Deum confitemur.…”

  Under the bursting hum of the many voices stumbling after her through the great hymn of praise, Mr Cecil, very grey about the gills, nevertheless leaned over towards Miss Cockrill. “All done by mirrors?”

  Cousin Hat, also rather pale, contrived a broad wink. She jerked her head meaningfully to where the Grand Duke knelt with clasped hands, his chin buried in the folds of the great black cloak. When Juan Lorenzo sued to heaven for miracles, he evidently took no chances of being refused.

  And yet … Mr Cecil thought of the evil thing hidden in the golden censer, of which only he and three others in the world had knowledge. He thought of what by now might have happened, had not this most aptly timed ‘vision’ appeared to them. “Well, I wouldn’t know; there are miracles and miracles,” he said.

  And so thought also Tomaso di
Goya, standing with his back against a pillar, propped up above the heads of the kneeling people, one foot in a crevice of the carving of the marble font. A lot of childish poppy-cock, a parcel of priests preying on the minds of these poor, credulous, simple fools, like a pack of wolves: salving their consciences, no doubt, with the old excuse that it was ‘for their own good’; wrecking his own plans, throwing them into confusion—for the Gerente and his men would have deserted their places, who knew but what Francisco also might be displaced in the shifting of the crowd?—and not standing there, meek as a tethered bullock, to be butchered when the time came.… He climbed up higher on the font, ruthlessly clambering over the lovely marble, braced himself against the pillar, out of the way of anyone reaching up to try to silence him; and when the canticle ended, cried out into the silence that followed: “A fake! A plot of the priests! This is no vision, this is not Juanita at all!”

  A groan of horror came up from the darkness below him like the shrieks of the damned rising up out of hell. The Patriarca, kneeling at the altar, leapt to his feet, sweeping aside the heavy red, white and gold vestments. There was a scrimmage in the darkness about the font, men clawed up at his ankles trying to find and drag him down. But the light about the vision never wavered and her voice rang out, cutting as a lash, above all their heads. “Silence! Who dares to speak thus to the messenger of God?”