Remember Me

by Penelope Wilcock

  As the community, reverent and faithful, observed the rite ordained for the office of None and concluded with the beautiful last prayer—“May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace”—William was thinking, “patient and tender, light and slow.”

  “Amen,” he murmured with the others.

  When the office had ended, he lingered on for a while in the stillness and peace of the church, resting his head against the wooden panelling at the back of his stall—but only lightly, because it was carved and therefore uncomfortable. He let his being float and his mind drift, hovering over the prospect Mother Cottingham’s words had conjured in his imagination… wishing… dreaming… He allowed his memory to wander back to the one precious hour that summer night when he had held Madeleine to him and kissed her… and kissed her again. When he reflected upon their comprehensive inexperience in such things, he thought it had been very far from clumsy, and they had both done almighty well. Every moment of that hour was etched on his heart forever, and he revisited it with the most indescribable longing. He knew he should be doing something more constructive with his time, but he just couldn’t bear, not quite yet, couldn’t bear to let it go. And then it began to feel more like torture than reverie, and he thought he’d better stop. He couldn’t have this, however much he wanted it, and if he tormented himself with it too long he thought he might go out of his mind. Nothing seemed more likely to bring him back to inescapable reality than a visit to the infirmary and Father Oswald.

  During the same stretch of time William was sitting in the chapel thinking… remembering… imagining… dreaming… Abbot John was muttering expletives about some of the new accountability practices his new cellarer’s assistant had instigated throughout the whole community. John had agreed to these readily, seeing that they would support thrifty habits and good stewardship of their resources—which were, after all, not their own but God’s—but he had not thought through, at the time of giving his permission, what the impact of the changes on his own life might actually be.

  Today he had to return to the checker a tally of what he had used and when—candles, firewood, wine for his guests, vellum, sealing wax, ink; the list seemed to go on and on and must be produced if he wanted to put in an order for new supplies. It was Brother Thomas’s job really, but at this time of year his experienced help with the harvest was needed as well as appreciated. July had been a dry month in the main, but a few spectacular thunderstorms bringing torrential rain had flattened a not insignificant proportion of the grain crops in the fields. What remained now in September was precious, and this dry warm spell might be crucial in gathering it in. Tom had promised to call in after None, as John had guests in the evening, but from Terce to None he was up on the hill, hard at work in the fields.

  Under pressure and feeling irritable, Abbot John took his wax tablet with the tally of items used across to the checker, intending to raise with William the question of how necessary this might really be. William was not there.

  “God give you good day, Brother Ambrose.” John felt he was beginning to understand the controlled restraint and formality he had often sensed in Father Peregrine. He wondered how often the careful courtesy had been pulled like a blanket over a muddled heap of frustrations and irritations, things left half done and gaining in urgency every minute.

  “I have brought the tally of items we have used in the abbot’s house. Where do you want me to leave it? I imagine Father William would like to see it, but the sun is strong on his table there at this time of day, and I have no intention of writing him another list if he can’t read this because the wax has melted.”

  Brother Ambrose heard the asperity in his abbot’s voice and held out his hand for the thing with a smile. “Leave it with me, Father.”

  “Thank you. Can I take another one, please? Father William has asked that I furnish you with a list of my known guests for the foreseeable future, so he can calculate the necessary extra supplies for the kitchen. Thank you. Where is he, by the way?”

  Brother Ambrose chuckled. “Where’s the wind? Blowing round the abbey causing trouble, I’ve no doubt. He was here earlier on, in more cheerful mood than mostly—oh, yes, that’s where he’ll be. Mistress Hazell was in here to see him this morning and said Mother Cottingham and Father Oswald both wanted to see him. He went directly after we ate to Mother Cottingham, so I suppose he’ll have gone to see Father Oswald now. He said he would go.”

  John listened to this carefully. “Will you ask him to come and see me when he returns?”

  Brother Ambrose had the impression his abbot was even more out of sorts when he left than when he came in. He wondered why, couldn’t think of a reason, shrugged it off, and went back to work.

  Madeleine meanwhile had made her way to the little parlour opening onto the abbey court adjacent to the abbot’s house, to meet Father Theodore and make her confession. She had told him plainly and without reserve what had passed between her and William when she met with Theo a month ago in August. She had left the little oratory that summer day knowing how much she loved William and that he meant everything to her, but knowing as well that devious, covert love was not what she wanted. She could see the sense of discretion; she accepted reluctantly that if her brother got wind of this he would be placed in an impossible position, so he must never know. But her confessor sat in the room with her as the vicar of Jesus himself, and she would not deceive him, whether by what she said or equally by what she withheld.

  Theodore had made no judgments. He had asked her questions, made sure she understood William’s commitment as a professed brother and a priest—that this was in the same category as adultery because William had made his vows and was no longer free to change his mind. Did she know this? Yes, she did. He had asked her if they had plans to further the relationship. Had they arranged meetings? Had they made promises? How did things stand? And she had explained, and he recognized the sadness and weariness in her voice, that they knew they could not be together not only because of William’s vows but because neither of them had anywhere else but this place to go. She expressed her sense of guilt and shame at concealing from her brother that they had met—and left Theodore in no doubt that William did not regard this concealment lightly either. She explained that William had said they must not meet, could not meet, that she was free to find another man for herself if she could, for he must not consort with her at all—both because it was not right and because it was too risky. “But there is nobody else in all the world I want,” she had finished sadly.

  Theodore half wished she had kept the information to herself but felt satisfied that he was dealing with two people who loved each other and had stolen one—well, two—forbidden encounters. He was not being made complicit in a secret elopement or clandestine affair. He thought the pain of separation probably penance enough; it certainly explained the misery that hung like a pall of dark smoke around William and his immoderate diligence and industry in the cellarer’s work. Evidently he was running away from himself, without any success.

  When she came to him again on this day in mid-September, he hoped fervently that Madeleine had no further revelations of similar kind. By no word or look or any other indication would he have even considered betraying the secrets entrusted to him in the confessional, but he could not be any kind of accomplice to an affair between one of the monks and the abbot’s sister.

  She told him nothing of the conversation in the checker earlier that day. She was not sure if it was a sin. She was not sure if it was anything—at least, not anything wrong. To love someone, and long for them, and let them see that was how things were with you, surely that was not wrong? He was solemnly professed, but … in Madeleine’s mind and, she thought, in William’s as well, that was not really the same thing as being married to another woman. Who would be hurt by his loving her? God? Why? How? Or the community? More likely the community would be wounded by the suffering and festering of love suppressed that would not go away. She f
elt deeply conscious of the burden her confession in August must have laid upon Father Theodore; she saw no need to add to it today by relating tales of William teasing her with double entrendres and wooing her with the look in his eyes. They had been in plain sight. If Brother Ambrose was too obtuse to notice, whose fault was that?

  Even so, Father Theodore’s perceptive gentleness felt its way to her unhappiness—that nothing had changed for either of them, and they were living with it simply because they must. He thought it wiser not to allow this relationship to progress from the dominating feature to the defining reality of their lives, and so he moved on to asking her about her other friendships, her work with the villagers, and her practice of prayer as well.

  He blessed her and absolved her, asking her to say her rosary and to keep those things that puzzled her or hurt her always honestly open before the loving face of Christ. And, after a moment’s hesitation, he said he was grateful that both she and William cared enough about her brother and about the community and respected them enough to struggle against the love that had taken their hearts by storm. He assured her he would not fail in praying for the both of them, that their feet would find Christ’s way of life for them.

  Madeleine was not sure she had found anything like peace of mind in the confessional; she did not exactly leave feeling cleansed and renewed, but she knew she had made a good choice in her confessor. Rarely in her life had she met such a wise and compassionate soul, she thought.

  On her way out of the parlour, her eye took in the strong circle of the sturdy protective walls and the open space of the abbey court, warm in the autumn sunshine, and she saw her brother emerging from the checker. Even at that distance she thought he looked cross. If she went straight back home as she’d intended, she would meet him returning to the abbot’s house. She settled for an airy wave and a pretended errand in a completely different direction, walking the long way round by the fishponds, under the trees and past the stables to the abbey gate, and thence to Peartree Cottage in the close.

  William, tearing himself from his private reverie in the choir, had gone out via the sacristy and vestry, through the door in the south wall near the Lady Chapel on his way to the infirmary. He never looked forward to his visits with Father Oswald. It had been at his instigation that the journey had been made to search for him and bring him back here to safety, and he felt glad they had done it. But Oswald, maimed and mutilated by those who hated him, blinded and with his tongue cut out, was a different proposition from Oswald as he had once been—the fastidious, refined aristocrat of elegant manners who had irritated William enough even then but had not revolted him with escaping streams of saliva and hawked-up boluses of food.

  Conversation with him was arduous. The sign language of the silence was designed for brief, practical communications—“Look out, abbot’s coming!” or “Pass me the fish,” or “Give me that breviary—no, the big one,” and so on. It did not serve for social conversation; that was never its intention. William found that everything went better with Oswald if he just started talking and kept going, producing a flow of anodyne chatter about his daily work and life around the monastery, leaving Oswald to contribute as little as possible to the conversation. Having been discouraged all his life from talking when he had nothing to say—and even sometimes when he had—it did not come with any facility to William now to muster a stream of idle chitchat that would go on long enough to fill the best part of an hour. He had to gather a significant level of resolve to leave the peace of the chapel and set himself to make this overdue visit to the infirmary.

  The contrast dazzled him for a moment as he stepped out of the dimness of the church into the sunshine. From nowhere, as he momentarily stopped to let his eyes adjust, came a memory from his first days in religion. His novice master, a peculiarly sadistic man, quick to pass by the Hail Mary and Psalm 51 and move on to the lash, had laid the scourge on him heavy for some offence… what? William couldn’t remember at this distance of time. Insolence probably. Or arrogance. It was usually that. Whichever, or whether it was both, he had been punished with exceptional zeal and then given a hair shirt to wear because they’d been coming into Lent. He remembered the shirt, driving him crazy, giving him no rest and exiling him from sleep, prickling and irritating the stinging welts on his back until… Standing there in the sunshine now, he shut the memory down. But from underneath it slid one ghastly afternoon in his childhood—a day as bright as this—when his mother had dragged him in from playing in the yard to be punished for some misdemeanour he’d forgotten even then, let alone now. He was only a little boy. And seeing his father unbuckling his belt and standing holding the strap end with the buckle end swinging free and realizing what he meant to do to him, he’d… William’s mind recoiled dizzy with shame from the memory even now of the sudden simultaneous voiding of his bladder and bowels that had brought such a holocaust of wrath crashing down upon him as he could not bear to look back on.

  He walked swiftly along the cobbled path that skirted the orchard and vegetable gardens and past the herbs (still attracting bees in good numbers) of the physic garden, trying to go faster than the memories that wanted entrance to his conscious mind.

  But the thing was, though he had never worn a hair shirt again once he’d gained the status to refuse, Oswald’s company itched and enervated him almost as fiercely as that chafing, excoriating garment he had been forced to put on. And the memory of the hair shirt set off the incursion of other memories, and he didn’t want any of them.

  Besides all of which, if he was honest with himself, he knew he neglected Oswald, who was lonely and eager for intelligent, friendly companionship. William felt guilty about it and ashamed of himself, until by the time he’d finished he almost hated Oswald and could hardly bear to go near him. And that brought fresh waves of shame as well. Shame and guilt, he thought—they fed on themselves.

  So as he walked, deliberately he made himself notice everything, obstinately declining to look ahead to his visit with Oswald or search further than those sudden unsought glimpses of memory back into the horror chamber of his youth. He brought his mind to bear on the steadying reality of the exact present: that a few cobbles needed resetting, that some of the apples trees had been badly pruned, that the lavender bushes looked straggly now and needed cutting back, and that the hinge of the infirmary door had started a horrendous creak that probably meant it ought to be rehung and the hinges oiled.

  Oswald was pitifully pleased to see him. Turning his sightless face eagerly toward the sound of William’s voice, he reached out to him, groping for the touch of his habit or his hand. William quelled firmly the unwanted sense of revulsion and reluctance that rose like nausea, and came in from the doorway of the room. He fetched the stool that stood in the corner there and placed it near Oswald—perhaps a yard away—before he stepped nearer to greet him. Then he grasped both those hands to stop their eerie feeling of the air. And impelled by a sudden, unexpected wrench of pity, he bent and kissed Oswald lightly on the forehead. The second he’d done it, he wished he had not. Oswald craved his company too ravenously as it was.

  And then he regretted the silence he had permitted while he struggled with guilt and pity and shame and more guilt, because it gave Oswald the chance to ask him a question, and the less time he spent with him the less he understood his ruined speech. With a gentle squeeze of friendship, he withdrew his hands from Oswald’s grasp and sat down on the stool he had set beside him.

  “I’m sorry, you’ll have to say that again,” he said. And he knew the whole hour would go that way, and so it did.

  He judged by the slant of the sun into the room, and not by his sense of time passing, when his visit had extended long enough. He had gossiped amiably of visiting tradesmen and delayed building works and techniques of extorting money from recalcitrant tenants. He made Oswald laugh (and steeled himself to merely lower his eyes and not physically turn his head away from that); he brought animation and interest and amusement to his brother’
s face.

  And then, just when he judged it reasonable to take his leave, Oswald asked him, taking trouble to make his words as plain as he could, “And you? How are you?”

  William was suddenly still. It occurred to him that if there was anyone you could trust with the burdens of your soul, it had to be a friend with his tongue cut out. His abbot was his confessor, but Oswald was as much a priest as John. This presented an opportunity to keep faith with his obligations as a monk without having to apprise John of the extent of his relationship with Madeleine.

  “Father,” he said softly, on impulse, “would you hear my confession?

  “Just a minute.” He went and shut the door. Returning to sit at Oswald’s side, he saw that his friend sat with compassion clear on his face, ready to hear his trouble. Something in him recoiled from the unwanted intimacy inherent in the interaction, but without allowing himself second thoughts, he took his seat again and told Oswald simply, briefly, holding nothing back, everything about himself and Madeleine. He felt palpitations of panic at what he was doing, but he told him of the agony of loving her and the dust and ashes that monastic obedience had become. He made no excuses, no attempt to justify himself. He did not describe in any detail what had happened in Madeleine’s house that night in July or the sweetness of his stolen kiss in the oratory, but he did not leave those things out. “So I have betrayed my abbot and betrayed this house’s kindness. I have betrayed my vocation and sinned against my God, and I could not confess it, for fear of being flung out. Will you… will you absolve me?”