Grandmother and the Priests

by Taylor Caldwell

  As he walked the priest pondered on what he had learned of the Squire’s truly magnificent charities, and his great solicitude for the old, the sick, the crippled and maimed of the village, the blind and the suddenly destitute. (The priest had an insight as to why the Squire had been so vindictive to the young orphaned girls who had ‘obliged the lads’ when left without funds. He was against ‘sin’. The girls had not appealed to him in their stunning plight. In the Squire’s view, this was unpardonable, for was he not ready at all times to succor the helpless?) Among the many other things he had done was to establish a small and sound and free library, a thing unheard of in those parts. The school was truly fine. One of the small rooms contained replicas of works of art, all pure however. The children were served hot soup and bread and meat or fish for their midday meal, so that none should starve and none should be forced to race home in the furious winter weather. The Squire had attempted to buy up the old houses from their individual owners, so that he could renovate and repair them and ‘keep them up’. As a Scotsman, thought the priest, he ought to have known his countrymen’s fierce pride in property, but he had failed in this instance.

  The streets were kept in splendid order. He paid the wages of the constable, the teachers in his free school, the cleaners of the streets. He had introduced a method of farming among the farmers which prevented the erosion of their land, and lent them money at low interest to keep the bankers in the cities at bay. He had established a small bowling green outside the village. In short, there was nothing he had overlooked to make the villagers happier and healthier and literate.

  However, he had been a tyrant. His word was law, even above that of the mayor’s, whose salary he had increased without benefit of taxes on the inhabitants. He had not suffered sin tolerantly, and his intolerance had been far in excess of the usual Scots intolerance. He could not close the pub, for that would have aroused more opposition, and would have endangered his small czarship. He opposed drinking. He violently fought against smoking, would permit no man, however old or weary, to smoke in his presence and enjoy his pipe.

  He was feared, though praised. When a harmless lad such as the priest had challenged him his very beneficiaries had raised a small cheer; they had beamed at the priest at Mass — the Catholics. They had beamed at him, all of them, in the little shops, on the streets. There was, thought Father Tom, no love for any despot, however benevolent, especially among the Scots, and the priest rejoiced at this, knowing his Edmund Burke. But despots, whether benevolent or cruel, never learned that the love for liberty was steadfast in every man’s soul except for the naturally craven and servile, who had suppressed their gift from God in pure greed and the satisfaction of immediate appetites.

  There is no understanding man! thought the young priest suddenly, and in that moment he lost his youth forever, and the souls of the dead and wise old priests gathered to help him, as they always must. His thoughts depressed him. He had believed that man was intrinsically simple, that good and evil are definitely defined with a wide area between them, that men have the capacity for gratitude and that they prefer the true and pure above the false and the impure, and God above the devil.

  He paused a moment to look at the sky and earnestly pose a question at its cold and darkened imperviousness. An enormous answer began to stir in the depths of his mind but it was still shadowy. He went on, still pondering, and very slowly. A dog barked somewhere, and the stark hills behind the hamlet echoed the lonely sound. The sun was dropping; it was a scarlet smudge in the westering sky, amorphous behind the clouds.

  Why, thought the priest, had Squire MacVicar, a literate and intelligent man, come to this isolated and desolate spot to live, this hamlet poised on the lip of a cliff rearing up from the sea? What was here to stimulate and fill his mind? What companionship could he have among these small farmers, shopkeepers, sheep-herders, wool-gatherers, whiskey-makers? What voice answered him in accents he knew and in words that were not utterly plain and simple? He was obviously a man not only of substance but of education and breeding. Why had he come here of all the places in the world?

  The priest had reached the Squire’s house. It was no larger and no more ornamented than its sound small neighbors. But the gardens in front and in the rear were crowded with color and with the dark thickness of old trees. There was even a greenhouse! The knocker on the oaken door was not the simple one of the other houses — iron. It was a fine affair of polished copper in the shape of a sea nymph’s head. The doorstep was of copper, too, covered with small drops of crystal water. The priest lifted the knocker and the sharp sound was repeated all up and down the winding street.

  A little woman with a cold and costive face appeared almost at once, a white frilled cap on her gray hair, a white frilled apron over her black bombazine dress. She stared at the priest inimically. “And what would ye want — sir?” she asked, in a most forbidding voice, glaring with contempt at his habit.

  “The Squire hae invited me to tea this day,” said the priest.

  She rejected him with her bitter eyes. “He hae told me nothing of it.”

  “Ask him,” Father Tom suggested, and was surprised at the irritability of his voice.

  She hesitated. Then her face changed. “I will gi’e ye a little advice,” she said. “Come another day. The Squire — he is not himself.”

  The priest thought. Had the Squire ordered that he be turned away? He said, “Hae he told ye not to admit me?”

  She shook her head. “Nay, not that. He is joost not himself.”

  “Sick?”

  She was so relieved at this offer of delivery that she answered too quickly, “Aye, that! He is sick.”

  The priest gently reached over her shoulder and pushed the door open. “Then, I will see him. He hae invited me, and will wonder that I did not come.”

  He stepped into a small hall, bricked and shining with wax. A series of small rooms led from it. The priest was now familiar with the design of such houses and he went at once to the room he knew to be the parlor.

  Here the gloom of the day was intensified to a heavy dusk. And the air was filled with the unmistakable acrid odor of whiskey. It smelled like a busy pub. The draperies had been drawn over the little windows. Shapes of furniture could hardly be seen. Only the smallest of coal fires glowed on the polished hearth, and it was like a red eye in the dimness.

  The housekeeper thrust herself past the priest and stood in front of him and shrilled, “Master, it is nae my fault! He would force himself! I did try to keep him oot!”

  What little light there was in the house flowed from the hall and outlined the tall thin figure of the youthful priest. He felt himself under some grim inspection from somewhere in the parlor. Then he heard the Squire’s voice, thick with drink, and slowly harsh. “Let him be. Come in, man, come in, and rejoice your eyes. Be off, woman.”

  “Tea, Master?” she asked timidly.

  “Nay, no tea. If he willna drink whiskey with me, he willna have anything. Light the lamp before ye go, woman.”

  The little woman scurried into the parlor and lighted one lamp. Its dull and murky light only increased the airless gloom. And there was the Squire, himself, slumped in a big chair, a bottle at his side, one on the floor, and a glass in his hand.

  Father Tom was shocked. He could hardly believe that this great and rumpled man, monolithic in his chair near the fire, uncombed, unbrushed and very much unshaven, was the Squire MacVicar he had known, arrogant, and lordly and straight as an oak on his horse. The fierce eyes were sunken and reddened; the chin lay on the chest. The big nose had a squashed look. The mouth, only, retained its strength.

  “Ye dinna like what ye see, perhaps,” said the Squire. He pulled himself upright in his chair. He might be excessively drunk, but he was conscious, and now there was even a little malign amusement in his dragging voice. “And ye will be the first to know, other than Mistress Foy, that I am a drunkard.”

  The priest stared at him with a sudden and mysterious pit
y, profound and painful. And the Squire stared back at him, his eyes glinting with mockery and contempt. The Squire said, “Weel, now, come ye in and seat yourself, and join me in my celebration.”

  “Ye invited me,” murmured the priest.

  “Sae I did,” said the Squire. “Weel, come ye in. Are ye waiting for something, ye loon?”

  The priest went into the parlor and sat down near the Squire. With one part of his mind he acknowledged that the chair was large and soft and that the rest of the furniture could be described not only as luxurious but elegant. But his eyes were fixed on the Squire. He was about to say, “Perhaps I should come another day,” when he was stopped. It was as if a strong hand had been placed firmly over his mouth.

  “Hae a drink. It will do ye good,” said the Squire, and fished about on the table at his side for another glass. He found it. With the careful and intent precision of a very drunken man he filled it almost full and extended it to the priest. Father Tom took it; the Squire watched him. The priest sipped the whiskey. It was the very best he had ever tasted. The cold in his bones, which had come not only from the weather, began to ease.

  “Ye like my whiskey?” said the Squire.

  “I do that,” said the priest, and it was as though someone else were supplying his words and he was only repeating them obediently.

  The Squire’s filmy eyes wandered about the room very slowly, focusing now on a table, now on a picture on the paneled walls, now on the floor, now on the fire. They finally came back to the priest. “Ye will be telling of this to the town, nae doubt,” he said.

  “Ye know better than that,” said Father Tom.

  An extraordinary change came over the Squire’s face. He sat up very straight. He appeared galvanized by some unknown wrath and hatred which overcame even his drunkenness. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “It is true, ye will not tell! But in your black heart ye will condemn, ye will turn away, ye will lift your pure skirts! Ye will pray for me, perhaps, but in your wicked superiority ye will think I am a lost soul! I know you priests! Damn you, do I not know ye!”

  The new mysterious prompter in him made the priest take another careful sip of the whiskey, roll it on his tongue, then swallow it with a judicious expression.

  “Very good whiskey,” he said.

  The Squire stared at him, watched him for the slightest quiver, the slightest look of repugnance, the slightest fear.

  “Damn ye,” he said, in a soft voice.

  “ ‘Tis not for ye to say,” said the priest. “Nae man is condemned by any but himself.”

  “I know your jargon!” shouted the Squire, and he struck his big knee with his fist. “ ‘Nae man is rejected by God! He, himself, rejects God and estranges himself from Him!’ ”

  “That,” said the priest, lifting his glass to study the whiskey in the light of the fire, “is nae Presbyterianism.” He drank a little more, and took an instant to marvel at his new self. A month before this he would have shrunk in fear from the Squire; his shyness would have made him retreat, trembling. Yet here he sat, before a wild and drunken and blasphemous man, and could speak calmly and feel only the most aching of compassions!

  The Squire refilled his own glass. The whiskey splashed on his hand. He said, speaking aloud to himself in a rough, pent voice: “Why do I bother with this silly, stripling priest, this lad with the down on his cheek, this piping creature just from his mither’s skirts? Why do I not throw him from my hoose, this puling mouther of lies? Why hae I suffered him sae long, in my hamlet, this troublemaker, this scorner of authority? What is he to me?”

  The priest was silent. He turned the glass in his hand. He looked at it. He sat quietly in his chair, listening as if he were in the Confessional.

  “Damn ye!” shouted the Squire. “Why do ye not answer me?”

  “It is not I ye question,” said the priest.

  “Who, then?”

  “God,” said the priest.

  As if that Name had been a terrible precipitant, the Squire jumped up from his chair, and so violent was his movement that it overturned with a crash. He fell upon the priest and seized him by the shoulders and shook him with even more violence.

  “Oh, curse ye!” he stammered in fury. “Look at me! I am a priest! An ordained priest! A Monsignor! That I am! And who are ye!”

  The glass fell from the priest’s hand and shattered on the hearth.

  A cold horror filled him. His mind whirled. He wanted to rise, to flee. But it was more than the Squire’s powerful hands which kept him pinned to his chair. It was more than fear that dried his mouth, his tongue, his palate. He could not believe what he had heard, but he knew he must believe it.

  The Squire released him after another savage shake. Then, like a man possessed, he sprang away. With almost demonic strength he dragged a long narrow table into the center of the room. He flew to a cabinet against a wall and tore from it long lengths of altar cloths, white and fine as silk and flowing with lace. He flung one upon the table. He rushed to the cabinet again and brought from its depths a candelabrum and put it upon the table; he brought forth a tall and exquisitely beautiful crucifix, with the Corpus gleaming on it with the gleam of gold. He put this on the table, too. He brought out a huge Bible bound in leather, glinting with gold letters. He brought out a chalice, pure gold, an exquisite Tabernacle, a ciborium, fine linen, a Monstrance such as the young priest had never seen. They glowed in the lamplight and the firelight.

  Moment by moment, before the young priest’s aghast eyes, there appeared the high altar, complete in every detail, every article of the most elaborate artistry, and brilliant with golden lights. He sat, unable to move; he told himself he was witnessing blasphemy, but he could not move. He was terrified, but far in his mind there was a comforting and reassuring murmur. I knew; in some way I knew, he answered the murmur meekly, and trembled.

  Now the raging Squire went to the cabinet again. He pulled from it an alb and a vestment which shimmered with silver and exquisite embroidery. He put the alb on over his clothing, and it fell about him. He lifted his hands to the crucifix.

  The Squire said, in a loud and agonized voice: “Make me white, O Lord, and purify my heart so that, being made white in the Blood of the Lamb, I may deserve an eternal reward!”

  He staggered. He caught the edge of the table, steadied himself. He looked at the crucifix. He caught its base in his hands. He bowed his head against the holy Feet. He groaned, “Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctus.” He groaned over and over, until every object in the room vibrated with that loud and awful groaning.

  Slowly, still half staggering, he turned about and faced Father Tom. His eyes were wild and far, as if looking at a sunset, and anguished.

  He began to speak, faintly, distantly. “Dextera Domini fecit virtutem dextera Domini exaltavit me; non moriar, sed vivan, et narrabo opera Domini!”

  He reached for the shining vestments and put them on. He stood, robed as a priest. He stood, tall and brilliant, his face tormented.

  Then he saw Father Tom. His mouth fell. His face became that of a stricken old man. He staggered to the priest and fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

  “Bless me, Father,” he moaned, “for I have sinned!”

  Father Tom, in Grandmother’s parlor, sighed this night. “If I had run, as I had first wanted to do, then this man’s soul should have been lost. Great are the mysteries and the mercy of God!”

  The Squire’s story was the story of demonic pride.

  From his earliest boyhood he knew he had a vocation for the priesthood. But his teachers in Edinburgh had been doubtful from the start. They admitted that he had great devotion and piety and absolute faith. But, there was his pride. He was of a proud, haughty and wealthy family, and of the Clan of MacGregor. The ancient blood of Scottish kings ran in his body. The ancient pride was even stronger. He had tried to be meek and simple. Eventually, he had convinced even the Bishop that he would make an excellent priest. The Bishop, of the Clan of MacGregor himself, knew what
it was to be proud. He had transmuted his own innate pride to the joy of serving God and His Church. He had thought this would occur to young Ian MacVicar also. So, the aspiring priest had gone to his Seminary, and had tried to subdue his arrogance and his hauteur. He had, over and over, reminded himself that his Lord had washed the feet of His Apostles. But, in his heart, he had thought it a demeaning gesture. He had even thought, in the recesses of his heart, that Christ should not have walked with the humble, the obscure, the illiterate, the sinful. He, Lord of all, should not have condescended to such rabble, the howling, sweating rabble of the market place and the fishing waters. The mighty Lord of Heaven had incomprehensibly associated with the outcast, the mean, the inglorious, the laboring.

  At one blasphemous moment years later he had questioned God. Were such of His Kingdom? If so, he wanted nothing to do with it. He committed the sin of Lucifer.