Grandmother and the Priests

by Taylor Caldwell

  He looked at Father Tim, and there was a strange intensity in his eyes, which were no longer beaming.

  “But,” stammered Father Tim, “if there is no God, and no heaven, there is no hell.”

  Strong hardness came into the voice of Father Sullivan. “There is surely hell,” he said. “There is surely hell. A man can believe in that and not believe in God, for he can say to himself, ‘God is dead.’ ”

  Father Tim shivered, and the raw acid taste was in his mouth again, and vaguely, as if in deep twilight, he saw the great ruins that lay in himself, shattered and dead, thrown down and destroyed.

  He said, with weakness, “But, if there is no God, and all religion is mummery — ah, and you’ll think it a childish question! — why or how are we here, two men before a fire, priests, talking as we are talking?”

  “It is said by the faithless men throughout the ages, and many of the wise also, that it is blind chance and accident. Or delusion. I have no arguments. Faith is a grace; we cannot will it for ourselves. That is the teaching of the Church. It is a gift of God. If it has gone from you, then the grace has been withdrawn.”

  “But why?” cried the young priest.

  “I do not know,” said Father Sullivan, brutally. He looked through the tiny window, staring out at the cold and snowy day. Then he said in a brisker voice, “But, in your arguments — and they are yours, not mine — if there is no God there is no grace, there is no faith. So, there is no ‘why’.”

  Father Tim stared at him again, and he saw that the old priest was smiling oddly and he was — it was not possible! — contemptuous. Father Tim shrank in his chair, and Father Sullivan, murmuring something, threw more peat upon the fire. It blazed at once. Its red light illuminated the old man.

  “You think I am contemptible,” said Father Tim, his heart breaking.

  “I have contempt for a man who does not know his own mind, but must be faithful and full of prayers one day, and full of doubt and rejection the next.” Father Sullivan spoke with slow emphasis, and with a cruel gleam in his eye.

  A different voice entirely spoke within Tim, a voice he had never heard before. It was measured and tender. “Have you not heard the cry to God: ‘I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief’? That is man’s cry from his birth to his death; it is the cry of all mankind. You are not alone. Christ understands. Did He not, Himself, ask His Father, while He was on the cross, why He had been abandoned? It was His human nature that was crying.”

  Yes, yes! whispered Tim in his heart. He smiled a little, tremulously. He looked at Father Sullivan, who was watchful, and yes, surely contemptuous. It was odd that he should also look somewhat disturbed. The sudden light in the young priest’s eyes died.

  Father Sullivan said, “If there is God He surely respects more a man who honestly and openly doubts, and who has not received the gift of faith, than He does the hypocrite. Did He not denounce the hypocrites, Himself?”

  The coldness and darkness and silence took Father Tim again.

  “Tell me what I should do,” he begged. The fire did not warm him. It burst into flame and roared in the chimney, but it did not warm him.

  “Be an honest man. And go away,” said Father Sullivan, with the utmost harshness. “Do you think God, whom you doubt, will have a man at His high altar who doubts as you doubt? If nothing else, you must have respect for what you have been taught, and the multitudes who live by it. They are wrong, you are thinking; it is all mummery, you are thinking. To you, that is the present truth. You are a fine, big lad. You could leave this hour, with a letter for your Bishop for the post, and be on the docks in two hours for the next ship to America. A strong and healthy lad like you.” He sighed. “And you will forget in the new country, and it is rich, they say, and an honest man with some learning can make his fortune.”

  “What are you saying?” cried Father Tim, grasping the arms of his chair.

  “The truth,” said Father Sullivan. “And it’s the truth you are knowing in your heart.”

  “My soul,” said Father Tim.

  Father Sullivan lifted his eyes impatiently. “Have you not said you do not believe in the soul?”

  He stood up. “Think on it,” he said. “The train leaves for the harbor in one hour. Write your letter to the Bishop. You must not be seen in your running — which is an honest running. Go quietly.”

  Father Tim was still young, and he was wounded and bleeding, and Father Sullivan had not helped him as he had wished to be helped, nor comforted him, so he cried like a young boy, “You hate me!”

  “I hate all fools,” said Father Sullivan, and he picked up his coat and hat and fastened his buttons. “But who else lives in this world? Still, it’s a honest man that I prefer.” He took out his heavy silver watch and studied it. “There is but fifty minutes.”

  “And you — you are telling me I should do this?”

  “I do not command,” said Father Sullivan, coldly. “I only suggest.”

  He ambled towards the door and stood with his plump hand on the latch.

  In one last crushed appeal, Father Tim said, “You would have me desert — all this — leave my flock, run — ”

  “Dear boy, you have already deserted; you have already left your flock; you have run since Christmas Eve.”

  “Your blessing, at least,” said Father Tim, and in his childlike despair he fell on his knees. Father Sullivan looked at him bitterly. “I have no blessing for you, boyo.” And he went out.

  Father Tim slowly struggled to his feet. His heart was beating wildly; he was half mad with despair and terrible sorrow and misery and bewilderment. Mrs. Casey was shopping. She would not return for an hour. Father Tim then thought of Sister Mary Grace, the old woman who served God with youth and ardor. She would help him, as Father Sullivan had not helped him.

  “That foolish old woman?” asked the cold, calm voice. “An old woman like an old soldier, with a hard hand, and no knowledge. You, a priest, would go to such a one?”

  “No,” said Father Tim, in anguish. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. The village was quiet, the men at work, the women shopping for their families, or caring at home for their children. Feverishly, Father Tim ran into his room and wrote an abject (but honest) letter to his Bishop. Then he counted his money. He had five pounds. Was it enough for his passage? Surely not. But he had heard of strong young men working their passage. A savage and disordered uproar had taken his mind, like a storm, through which his thoughts feebly probed and directed him. He threw his few bits of clothing into his bag. He opened his wardrobe door to search the wardrobe. How had his white vestments gotten there? He must have taken them off in the house. He saw his mother’s face, worn, smiling, full of love and faith. He cried out and buried his face in the vestments, and it was as if he had died at last.

  If he had not seen those vestments, which rebuked him, which made him remember his mother, who had bought them with such pride and faith and love, he would have gone. He would have been on the train. He would have fled forever, into the hell of exile from God. But the sight of the vestments overcame him. He sat down on the cold floor and held the vestments to his cheek and he wept, and he said over and over, aloud, and loudly, “God have mercy on me, a sinner! God, Almighty Father, give me Your Grace again — ”

  He held the vestments in his arms as a man holds a life belt, and clung to them. His tears ran down his face and dripped upon his chest and then fell on his hands.

  He heard a loud knocking on his door, and he thought: It is Father Sullivan again, and he derided me and gave me no comfort, and he is said to be a wise man of understanding and kindness. And yet — The knocking became imperative, so he wiped his eyes and got to his feet and went to the door to confront Father Sullivan and say some bitter words to the man of whom he had asked the waters of consolation and hope, and instead had been given Dead Sea fruit.

  But it was Father Dolan of Murtagh’s Woods on the threshold, panting and red from his bicycle ride. He smiled at the sight of the
young priest, then his smile left his face. He came quickly, for an old man, into the parlor, and said at once, “And what is it, lad, what is it?”

  Father Tim bent his head and weakly walked back to the fire and collapsed into his chair. “Ah, then, it is true. There is something wrong,” said Father Dolan. “Am I in time, my son?”

  The clock had moved a half hour. Tim could not speak. The priest waited with loving patience, seeing Father Tim’s haggard face and the agony in his eyes. Then he said, gently, “Yes, it is true. And that is why poor old Jack asked me to come to you, at once, in his letter I had from him this morning. A matter of ‘extreme urgency’, he said. Tell me.”

  But Father Tim had sat up suddenly. “What is this you are say ing?” he exclaimed. “Father Sullivan left me not half an hour ago! He was in this room. He — ”

  “That is not possible,” said Father Dolan, who was a large bear of a man, with a big and comfortable face. “He broke his leg the day before Christmas, and sent for my curate, who has been there since. It was not Father Sullivan you saw, Tim, but a stranger. But who was he?”

  “Who was he?” repeated Father Tim, stupidly. Then he clenched the arms of his chair. “But I know him! I stayed with him in Larney! I could not be mistaken! He said he came in answer to my letter!”

  “Then the angels conveyed him,” said Father Dolan, seeing the younger man’s distraction, and trying to ease it with a joke. “And what did the angel in the guise of Father Sullivan say to you? Or Father Sullivan supported by the angel, with his broken leg?”

  Father Tim turned as white as death. But he said, looking into Father Dolan’s eyes, “He told me to leave the Church, my flock, and to run, and to write my Bishop that I was running.”

  Father Dolan was shocked, but he said, quietly and kindly enough, “Tell me.”

  And so Father Tim told him. Mrs. Casey came into the house with her bags of supplies, but seeing the priests talking so absorbedly, she moved like a shadow into the kitchen. She put the kettle on, and got out the oat cakes and the marmalade. She knew Father Dolan, and what a fine man he was, with his understanding, and his strength for all he was so old. The poor young Faether needed such a man in his strange misery.

  “So,” said Father Dolan, soberly, “it was not old Jack, who will be on his back for months, God love him. But, who was it?”

  They looked at each other in silence, and there was a sudden chill in the room.

  Father Dolan then spoke slowly. “I admonish my flock for superstition. All can be explained, I have told them, naturally. But, I have never truly believed it. Heaven — and hell — are closer to us than we suspect.”

  “Then,” said Father Tim, “it was — a demon.” The evil rustling in him had gone. The shattered column was high and bright and white in him again. There was no cold, calm voice any longer.

  Father Dolan nodded vigorously, then blew his nose. “It was, it was! And God’s mercy saved you, for truly in your heart you did believe. Doubt comes to us all, many times. Do not think it will not come to you again, my son. It surely will. But God has been good to you. He has let you look on the face of the Destroyer, for he knew the child you were, who was not yet armed. He would not let the enemy take you, in your innocence. The next time you will be armed, and will have to fight, for evil does not give up so easily. It will be a stronger testing, then.”

  “Then, it was not an illusion? I did not dream it?”

  Father Dolan hesitated. Superstition must always be rooted out. Then he was flooded with surety, and he said, “It was not an illusion. You did not dream it. Ah, and look at the fine tea Mrs. Casey has brought us, and shall we not enjoy it?”

  Father Tim had a fleeting but joyous thought that a tea was a homely comfort after confrontation by the eternal Adversary. But God’s love came in a good tea as well as in an ecstatic revelation.

  He and Father Dolan enjoyed their tea heartily. While doing so Father Tim said, “Sister Mary Grace had her anxieties. It is truth that she said, that Satan would be near; he comes every twenty years or so, with a young priest in his innocence and arrogance, who believes he knows more than old ladies worn in the service to God. I must go to her tomorrow, and tell her, and beg her pardon.”

  “You must not!” said Father Dolan, helping himself to another cake and marmalade. “I know these old nuns. It’s on my own neck they are, forever carping and finding fault. Do not puff them up. I have known Sister Mary Grace a long time; a lovely, wonderful Sister, a true daughter of God. But it does not do to let a woman know she was right all the time!” He chuckled. “There are some things which must be kept discreetly from women, even saints like Sister Mary Grace.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was inevitable, of course, that Rose had to return home to her parents, who greeted her fondly and were in a state of high euphoria about each other. Rose did not trust these states, but regarded them with the wise detachment of childhood. It was a summer that was unusually cold and dreary, and in consequence the tempers of Rose’s parents did not remain blissful. However, they never reached the state where it was necessary to ship Rose ‘off again to the old devil’.

  ‘The old devil’ was enjoying herself mightily among her kinfolk in Ireland, and then after a hearty row with some of her older sisters she took herself off to the Mediterranean in high spirits. She sent one postcard to Rose’s parents: “Am enjoying myself here. Pity you will never visit this lovely place. But you would not appreciate it, I’m sure.” This so aroused Rose’s Mama’s anger that she vowed that never again would she speak to her mother-in-law, nor give that lady the pleasure of ‘little Rose’s’ visits in the future. Rose was so distressed that the dreary summer seemed part and parcel of her. She even longed for Grandmother’s old parrot, and his way of catching a little girl’s hair in his beak and pulling with glee.

  The lonely child had few playmates, for she found their boisterous games disagreeable, their rude humor infantile, and their native cruelty too much for a sensitive little girl to endure. They reminded her of Grandmother in some respects, and once she asked her mother: “Do some people not grow up, Mama?” Mama said, “Of course they don’t. They die young.”

  “Grandmother didn’t,” said Rose, reflectively. This so amused Mama that the remark became a family joke, or at least as much of a joke as the grim Covenanters could appreciate. One of the uncles referred to his mother thereafter as ‘the auld child’, to distinguish her from the real children of the family.

  It was years later that Rose found that indeed ‘some people do not grow up’. Grandmother was one of them, for which Rose in many ways was thankful. Grandmother might be unlovable to her family, but to those tired and weary men who visited her in her house she was a benefactor.

  A drearier autumn followed the dim and dreary summer at last, and Rose was off to school to worse miseries under the eye of Miss Brothers. When she should have been learning her sums she was thinking of the strange tales she had heard at Grandmother’s. Then she began to ask Sir Oswold Morgan, and all the other saints of which she had heard, to deliver her and return her to the splendor of Grandmother’s house, the comforting cakes of Cook, and, above all, the kind and holy men about the fire.

  But it was November before Mama’s and Papa’s tempers were sufficiently irascible at the weather to provoke them into another row. For a day or two the row was only sullen, and Rose began to fear that it never would reach the explosive state, and she would never again see Grandmother’s house. She recalled, too, that Mama had said that she would never go there on another visit.

  On the last day of November, a particularly vile day, the simmering tempers of Rose’s parents broke into flames. It was sad that little Rose rejoiced, and eagerly watched and waited for the moment when Mama would drag her luggage from the small closet under the stairs. She came home from school one day, wet and wan, to find her luggage already packed, her best blue velvet coat laid out (with the white fur at the wrists) and her new umbrella. Mama’s eyes were spa
rkling with anticipatory wrath, and Rose, looking at the luggage, did not mind the smack she received for ‘coming in all wet like a drowned puppy’. She did not even mind the injustice. She was going to Grandmother’s again.

  It was as if she had never been away, except that Grandmother had new dresses to show an awed little girl, and some fine new jewelry she had bought in Biarritz. She said to Rose, “So they’re at it again?” referring to Rose’s parents. Rose said, happily, “Yes. Are any Romans here yet, Grandmother?”

  There were, for dinner. Grandmother had apparently accepted the fact that Rose would be present about the fire, or at least she did not notice her small granddaughter in the chimney corner. She was much ‘taken’ by a youngish priest, an Irishman with an elegant English accent, who had a tale to tell and one which Rose was never to forget, though she forgot many others over the years.