An All-Consuming Fire

by Donna Fletcher Crow

  “We need to be going.” Antony started at Felicity’s voice. He hadn’t heard her footsteps. “I brought your scarf and cap. I knew you’d forget.” She held them out to him. “Although it actually feels warmer outside than it does in here.” She shivered, making the bobble on her red knit cap bounce.

  A pale winter sun broke through as they walked hand-in-hand, along the path to the back of the community grounds. For just a moment Antony recalled the day last February when he and Felicity had run along this same path fleeing what they had been led to believe was his certain arrest for murder. How long ago that all seemed. How could so many life-changing events have been crammed into less than a year? He squeezed Felicity’s hand through their gloves.

  Her question brought him sharply back to the present. “Who was your fellow researcher? I didn’t think the community took guests the last week of Advent. Aren’t the monks in retreat?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “That man reading in the next stall. Didn’t you see him?”

  Antony thought. There were five individual study carrels in that wing of the library, each stall completely enclosed with floor to ceiling stacks of books. The Community of the Transfiguration was ever a place of scholarship. People came from around the world to read in their library. Little surprise, then, that there would be another reader there. Except for the fact that the community was, as Felicity suggested, closed to visitors at the moment. And that his fellow reader had been surreptitiously quiet. Antony’s brow furrowed.

  Felicity, however, looked around with carefree pleasure. A lemon-yellow sun shone on drops of moisture clinging to still-green leaves on the bushes lining the path over the hill. Birds chirped as they hopped from branch to branch pecking at the bright red berries. So different from the Decembers of her childhood in Idaho where one fervently hoped for snow to cover the winter-brown grass and bare branches. “You know, this pageant thing might work. If they hold it in the early afternoon and then offer mulled wine in the Common Room afterward. Everyone will be past the Christmas party rush so it could be a really welcome thing for starting off the new year.”

  “Maybe,” Antony’s tone showed that he wasn’t convinced. “I suppose it could be a good teaching moment for people no longer accustomed to celebrating the Epiphany. In medieval times it was a bigger celebration than Christmas.”

  They passed the monks’ cemetery where row on row of brown wooden crosses with little A-frame roofs marked the passing of faithful, holy lives lived in this community over the past century and a quarter. Felicity paused briefly at the cross marked, Dominic, REQUIESCAT IN PACE. Dear Father Dominic. Such a brutal end to a life dedicated to love and peace, but his murder had brought her and Antony together. “Thank you,” she whispered before moving on.

  On the back side of the hill the path descended by way of stone stairs set into the hillside. Here the overhanging tree branches were bare and the fallen leaves and autumn rains had produced a slimy pulp over the already mossy steps. “First thing will be for Corin and Nick’s work crew to clear these stones off. Public safety and all that.” Felicity pulled a notebook from her pocket and jotted a note. “Maybe we could get tiki torches to line the stairs. That would add safety and just think how dramatic it would be!”

  At the bottom of the stairway they came out from under the tree branches onto the wide floor of the quarry. The weed-and-bracken-covered basin sloped gently downward toward the sheer stone wall that had produced materials for the manor house and outbuildings in the nineteenth century when the property had been a gentleman’s country estate. In front of the rugged backdrop a low stone building had been erected with a flat concrete roof that apparently served as a stage in earlier days. She considered the logistics. “People would have to bring their own chairs. We could set the holy family scene on the stage…” She looked back at the stairway they had descended. “But I don’t think we could get a camel—or even llamas—down those steps.”

  “I wish you’d quit saying ‘we’,” Antony objected.

  Felicity gave him a quick hug. “Don’t be a grouch. I know you can see the possibilities. It could be really wonderful.”

  Antony frowned, but after a moment he pointed across the quarry floor to a grassy bank curving away from the stone wall. “The slope looks gentler over there. I suppose a path could be cleared for the animals. But I don’t really recommend it,” he added hastily.

  Further contemplations were interrupted by a cheery “Hulloo!” And two familiar figures came around the corner of the stage, the tall Corin towering over the shorter, stockier Nick.

  Felicity strode through the knee-deep growth and followed the lads to the back of the flat stone structure. Nick disappeared inside the open doorway, then stuck his head back out the window opening. “This is great space in here for storing props and such—well, will be when we get it cleaned out. These stone walls and the cement roof are pretty much water tight. Want to come in?”

  Felicity hesitated. There wasn’t much that put her off, but there would certainly be spiders lurking in there. “That’s all right. Thanks.” She scrambled up the steps leading to the floor of the stage instead. “This certainly feels solid enough.” She looked around.

  “Do you figure we’ll need a sound system? Or will the rock walls of the quarry provide the necessary acoustics?” She asked. Almost a hundred years ago these rock walls had rung to the sound of actors’ voices proclaiming “Murder in the Cathedral.” Felicity added her voice to that of the thespian ghosts:

  “Unbar the doors! Throw open the doors!

  I will not have the house of prayer, the church of Christ,

  The sanctuary, turned into a fortress.…

  The church shall be open, even to our enemies. Open the door!”

  Antony, still back at the foot of the stairs, applauded. Felicity gave a satisfied nod. Right then. Acoustics good.

  “Kendra said she could get whatever we’ll need in the electronic line for the music.” Nick had come out of his burrow and joined her on stage. “It won’t be elaborate. Just a narrator and the audience singing familiar things like ‘We Three Kings’.”

  Corin also joined them. He pushed back his blond shock with a fierce jab that expressed the agitation he was suppressing. “I rang my dad this morning. He’s none too excited about my not coming home for Christmas.” His frustration came out in a cross between a sigh and a growl. “So much pressure being an only child. If I had six brothers and sisters like some—” He shot Nick a half-amused look, “They’d be glad to be shot of me.”

  “Hey,” Nick objected. “My family loves me.” Then he smiled self-deprecatingly, “But of course, my brothers are glad enough to have me out of the bedroom.”

  Corin returned to the subject at hand. “Still, I haven’t given up on talking dad into loaning us some sheep.”

  ‘”Maybe if you went home for Christmas he’d more amenable to your bringing a truckload back,” Felicity suggested.

  Corin shook his head. “It’s more than just a few sheep or one holiday. I’ll probably go for Mum’s sake, but it’s…”

  “His dad’s, um, well—difficult,” Nick tried to help.

  Corin shot is friend an ironic look. “Difficult I could handle. He’s fixated. I’m supposed to follow in his footsteps. Be a sheep farmer.” He shook his head. “He’s sure this ‘priest thing’, as he calls it, is a passing fancy.”

  Felicity nodded. The source of Corin’s moodiness was clear, but she could sympathize with the father, too. “That probably means he has a deep love for the land and wants to pass it on to his son. I can understand that.”

  This time Corin made no attempt to suppress his growl. “Love doesn’t enter into it. Grasping control is more like—not wanting the farm to go to my great, great something grandfather’s line. There was some silly family squabble about a hundred years ago and he’s still living it.”

  “So maybe it would be best not to bother your father about sheep for the pagean
t,” Felicity suggested.

  “I don’t know. I think in some strange way he might be flattered. Show him his world can be important to mine.” He shrugged and executed one of the swift mood changes Felicity was becoming familiar with. “I can but hope.”

  Antony, who had wandered a way across the weedy expanse during that exchange, spoke from beneath the stage, “If you got the sheep early they might be able to graze down some of this undergrowth.” Felicity wasn’t certain whether Antony was being helpful or ironic but was glad enough to leave the uneasy subject of Corin’s family problems, although she could sympathize. Her mother hardly understood her calling.

  Glancing at the notes she had been jotting in a small notebook Felicity shared her thoughts about tiki torches along the path, which Corin and Nick heartily endorsed, “Yes, and we could line the rim of the quarry with torches, too. That would be brilliant!”

  “And be sure any publicity advises the audience to bring their own chairs,” she added.

  “And blankets.” Yes, this time Felicity was certain Antony was being ironic. Talk about sub-subliminal humor.

  But he had a point, in spite of her enthusiasm, she had to admit that the cold was penetrating. Abandoning her center stage stance she descended the stairs and linked her arm through Antony’s. “Right. Time for a pot of tea. I really should buckle down to writing my essay. Why don’t you bring your books over and we can have a cozy afternoon with our heads in the Middle Ages.”

  Abandoning Nick and Corin to continue their scheming, Antony and Felicity strolled back arm-in-arm, chatting about their work: Antony’s script on Rolle’s time in Hampole and Felicity’s essay on the medieval practice of translating religious works written in vernacular English into Latin. “It seems so backward,” she mused, “until one considers that Latin was the lingua franca of Europe in the Middle Ages, so a work appearing in Latin meant it could travel anywhere. For those with the ability to read, that is, of course.”

  Antony nodded. “And it gave the work literary respectability. It was also considered a way of preserving a work’s orthodoxy—keeping it out of the hands of the hoi polloi who might be more likely to run to heresy than an educated Churchman.”

  “Right. One hopes.”

  “Let’s stop by my room. I’ll get my books on Rolle. And I have a volume on some Cloud translations you might not have seen—they talk about Methley’s translation into Latin.”

  “Great! It would feel good to make some really solid progress this afternoon,” Felicity agreed.

  It sounded like a good plan, but when they entered the bungalow Felicity was met with the astounding sight of her mother in the middle of the sitting room floor surrounded by satin, lace and ribbons. “Mother, what on earth?”

  Cynthia triumphantly held up a small basket covered in white satin and dripping with lace, ribbons and rosettes. “For your flower girl, darling. Isn’t it absolutely perfect!”

  Felicity couldn’t decide which was more staggering, the concept of the mother whom she had almost never in her growing-up years seen without her nose in a law tome, suddenly turning her hand to frilly crafts, or the image of incorporating such ornamentation into their wedding. “Um, are we having a flower girl?” She said weakly.

  Cynthia ignored her daughter’s response. “And I thought we could gather the petals ourselves. I noticed there are spent blooms still on the bushes in the monk’s rose garden. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind and it would be so much more romantic than just having the florist supply them.” She rootled around in her piles of furbelows and produced a satin pillow covered with lace, ribbons streaming from each corner. “For the ring-bearer. What do you call them here? Pageboy, is it? Won’t he be darling?”

  “I’ll put the kettle on.” Felicity turned from the room.

  Chapter 5

  The afternoon did not turn out to be the cozy twosome Antony and Felicity had envisioned. It took much of the afternoon and far more pastoral skills than Antony knew he possessed to calm Felicity down and to convince Cynthia that since there were no available small children in their near connections it might be a bit impractical to add to the wedding party at this late date, but that her creations could be used as decorations for the reception.

  With mother and daughter reconciled—for the moment—Antony turned to his still-rough narration notes. “Um, I wonder, would it be too much of a bore if I went over these with you? I’d really appreciate some feedback before I face the camera.”

  “Oh,” Cynthia jumped to her feet and pulled a piece of paper off the notepad by the telephone. “A woman named Sylvia called.” She held the note out for Antony to peruse.

  “Oh, good. We’re filming tomorrow. That means I do need to get this script in shape.”

  Felicity squirmed beside him. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I forgot—you need to work, too. I’ll be quiet.”

  “No, no,” Cynthia insisted. “Felicity can work best at her desk.” She waved her daughter away. “You stay right there and read to me. I’d love to hear it. This is really very exciting. I do hope the series will make it to American television. I get BBC America, you know.”

  Antony’s skepticism about Cynthia as a sounding board faded when he reminded himself that she was probably exactly Studio Six’s market target—intelligent, vaguely interested, with no more than a casual church background. “Thank you. I’m afraid you’re rather coming in on the middle of the story, but I thought I’d begin with just a line or two to remind viewers what the first episode had been about.” He picked up his paper. “Having abandoned his university career and ensconced himself in an uncomfortable hermitage under his patron John Dalton, Richard Rolle gave himself with youthful passion to the process of mystical contemplation. After four years and three months Richard reached the pinnacle of the mystical experience which he described as Canor or song.

  “With a burning soul Richard experienced what he termed ‘songful love’. He heard, he said, ‘spiritual music—the invisible melody of heaven.’ With all-pervading holy joy Richard was caught up into the music of the spheres and joined the choral dance of the soul around God.”

  Cynthia blinked. “I’m afraid you lost me there. What does that mean?”

  Antony looked back over his notes. He’d been right to accept Cynthia’s offer. Her woman-on-the-street reactions were exactly what he needed. He marked through the last sentence. “How would it be if I just say: Rolle is the most musical of mystics, and where others see or feel reality, he hears it. Melody was his normal form of prayer. His life was set to music—sunny and carefree.”

  Cynthia considered, then nodded. “That’s better. He does sound the most complete innocent, though.”

  “Yes, I suppose he was. At least at that stage of his life. It was a glorious time for him, though—a shining vision that stayed with him and instructed the rest of his life. One gets the feeling that Richard found a great deal of fun in his life with Jesus.”

  Antony returned to his script. “But Richard couldn’t stay in his hermitage by the manor house and enjoy visions of Divine love for the rest of his life. Now the challenge was to put this great gift to work: apply the love to the world around him, share the vision with others.”

  “Oh, good. Getting practical, is he?”

  Antony cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. Of this part of Rolle’s life we have only scanty information. We know that he traveled from manor house to manor house for his living, conversing with people in a desire to help them, but this mission effort does not seem to have met with much success, or to have lasted long.”

  Antony looked down at his notes. When he had these smoothed out he would have to make some attempt to memorize the main points. He hadn’t really realized this undertaking was going to be so different from university lecturing. “As often happens after one experiences the heights, Richard now experienced the depths. He lost patrons and friends, his writing was rejected, living was difficult, and he was restless.

  “And he apparently
struggled with his chastity. He records having temptations and the nuns of Hampole who wrote his biography record that a young woman loved him ‘in good love not a little’.”

  Antony looked up. “Should I take that bit out?”

  “Goodness no! It makes him sound almost normal. Pity we don’t know more. What did he say?”

  “Nothing more on the chastity issue. He records that he felt that his plans had failed, his labor was lost, and he was of no use to anybody. The very noises of the world gave him a headache.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “He refused to give into his funk.” Antony glanced at his notes. “Richard returned to the joys of contemplation. When his enemies tormented and defamed him he said he fled to God and sheltered under the shadow of His wing. The fire of love banished the power of the adversary.”

  “Nope, too lala. Cut that.”

  Antony grinned and pulled out his pen again. “Sylvia should put you on the payroll.” He considered for a moment. “How about: Now, freed from doubt and renewed with spiritual energy, Richard was free to get on about his ministry and be of comfort to those in spiritual or physical need, especially to the weak, the neglected and the poor. Having come through his own dark night of the soul he was undoubtedly better equipped to serve others.”

  “Sentences too long. You need to give yourself a chance to breathe and your listeners to follow your drift.”

  Antony tried again.

  Cynthia gave a satisfied nod.

  The next morning Antony chose to drive the A road eastward rather than take the more efficient, but far less scenic, motorway. Past Dewsbury and Wakefield the winding road led through a patchwork of farmland. He had allowed himself plenty of time to take a small detour through Kirkby since he would be telling the story of Margaret of Kirkby before the camera later in the morning. Even though the industrial revolution had changed the peaceful farming community of Margaret’s day beyond all recognition he hoped seeing its location would be instructive. Outside the village the road became narrower, more curving and the hedgerows lining the way higher. Antony encountered little traffic other than a few farm vehicles entering from the occasional driveway or field.