Grandmother and the Priests

by Taylor Caldwell

  “No one knew, the neighbors, the friends, the servants?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps some did. But, at the trial, they wanted to protect Papa. Everyone loved him. They didn’t want to tell about my mother, because then Papa would have seemed to have had a motive for killing her. He was acquitted for the reason that there was no motive for her — murder.”

  The priest rose abruptly and went to the window of his study and stared out at the furious blossoming of his garden. Without turning, he said, “Do you think she was murdered, Geoffrey?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think Papa did it — I don’t know. If he did, then God understands. If Mama Florence did it, she did it for all of us. It isn’t murder, Father, if you kill to defend yourself, or the helpless. The Church knows that.”

  The priest turned and went back to his chair, and studied the back of his hands. The problem of evil. He thought of these children, so terribly injured in body and soul. They would bear the marks of evil all their lives; they would suffer all their lives, even if the younger did not remember fully what had injured them, and who. In dark nightmares, in loneliness, in grief, in difficulty or in despondency, the evil shadow of half-forgotten or wholly forgotten pain and terror would loom over them, heightening their misery, increasing their burden. He, Father Shayne, had often knelt at the bedsides of old men and women, old far beyond the average, who in dying had cried pitifully, like infants, for their mothers, or had screamed out some torment or suffering they had endured as very small children, too young then even to understand, too young to have retained the nightmare in conscious memory. The body, the brain, forgot; the soul never forgot. And, too, he remembered how he had stood beside those stricken with grief or mortal illness, and how they would suddenly exclaim, “Oh, I had forgotten that! I never thought of it until just now! How can I bear it?” The memory, for moments at least, was even more dreadful than their present state, and must have haunted their dreams all their lives, unknown, unexorcised.

  He said to Geoffrey, “Can you not forgive your mother, my son?”

  The boy smiled at him bitterly again. “How can I forgive my mother, when the Church will not believe my father, or, if he did kill my mother, will not forgive him?”

  “The Church requires true contrition, repentance and penance, Geoffrey.”

  The boy thought deeply, his scarred brow wrinkled. Then he said wearily, “How can my father be sorry that he rescued us from our mother? Yes, I know you will say that murder is a most mortal sin. But, he did what he did — if he did it — to protect and save us. How can he be sorry?”

  He waited, but the priest did not answer. Then the boy cried out, “The problem of evil! That is what you are thinking! I have been studying it, myself, and sometimes you can’t tell, can you, Father? You can’t tell!”

  My poor child, thought the priest. There is something that perhaps you do not know, that perhaps your father killed your mother not only to rescue his children but to be able to marry another woman. Perhaps. Who knew?

  “Geoffrey,” he said, “do you think there is the slightest possibility that your stepmother killed your mother?”

  The boy was silent. He said at last, “I’ve thought of it. If she did, I’m grateful to her, too. She loves us; our mother hated us. We never knew why. I think she thought, in the beginning, that Papa was richer then than he was. I remember hearing her scream at him when I was a child. She hated Belfast; she wanted to live in London. She wanted to travel. She wanted to be free, she would shout at Papa. And then she would curse him because we had been born. We had imprisoned her, she said. If we had not been born she should have been able to do all the things, and go to all the places, which she had dreamed about when she was a girl in a poor family. She would curse us, in front of Papa, and slap and punch us.

  “Mama Florence visited us on holidays and for a month in the winter. We’ve always known her; she went to school with our mother. We’ve always loved her, too. She was very rich, herself, and she would bring us beautiful presents. Mama envied her, I know, envied her because she wasn’t married and had no children. She envied her for being rich. The only thing, Mama would say when she was in a good mood, was that she was much prettier than Mama Florence, and then she would frown and say, ‘Much good it did me, after all! Imprisoned in this house with the children I never wanted, and the wife of a man who has no spirit and no imagination!’ ”

  “And your mother was Catholic, Geoffrey, and had not wanted you?”

  “She wanted no one but herself, Father. Do you think that just because she was Catholic she automatically loved children, even her own? Oh, she would make a splendid show when the priest visited us! She would have us dressed up handsomely, and she would hold Eric on her knee, and she would kiss us, and the priest would look sentimental. The moment he had left she would drive us off, undress and go back to bed and moan. She was always moaning. I don’t think she was so sick as the doctors said she was. She was very clever. She could deceive even them.”

  Evil, thought the priest, does not always have a stupendousness about it, or even the dark grandeur described by Milton. It can be meanly venomous and meanly ugly, viciously small. It can have the face of an asp as well as the face of a great fallen angel.

  “My father was wretched with my mother,” said Geoffrey, into the silence. “I can never remember him laughing before she died. Sometimes, at night, I’d look through my window and see him walking up and down in the garden, under the moon, and sometimes he’d do this with his hands,” and the boy wrung his own hands. “The only time he smiled was when he was playing with us, and when Mama Florence visited us. Then everything was happy for Papa and ourselves. It was as if someone opened windows in a musty house and let the sun and air in. You do understand?” said the boy, awkwardly.

  “Yes, I think so.” The priest hesitated. “Did your mother ever resent your — the lady you call Mama Florence?”

  The boy stared at him. Then his face colored quickly and brightly, and his mouth twitched with disgust. “I know what you mean! But it isn’t so! They tried to bring that out at the trial; I read it, myself. Papa and Mama Florence would take walks in the afternoon together, sometimes alone, sometimes with us, or they’d take us for a treat into the city in our carriage. That was after Eric was born, and my mother was almost always in bed. Before that, my parents and Mama Florence would go together.”

  The priest fell into thought again, while the boy watched him with deepening impatience and despair.

  “Geoffrey,” said the priest, “if your mother had been completely evil how could it have been possible for your stepmother to have cared for her and visited her?”

  “Oh, my mother had always patronized Mama Florence; they had been roommates at school. And my mother — I’ve told you this — could be very charming when she wanted to be. I’ve told you that Mama Florence was very rich; she was also an orphan. My mother loved rich people; she always wanted them about her. And Mama Florence had no family of her own, and I suppose she clung to my mother when they were girls, and then when my parents were married and had children she adopted all of us — in a way. You don’t know Mama Florence! She is really the saint my mother pretended to be. You see, Father, she wants to enter the Church, to be with all of us, and because she truly believes. But Father McGinnis drove her off, too.”

  “ ‘Drove’, Geoffrey, is a very harsh word. I don’t think it was so severe as that.”

  “Then, you’re prejudiced,” said the boy, flatly, and got up with resigned despair. “Please excuse us. We’ll go home now. It is no use, is it?”

  The priest stood up also. He put his hand on the boy’s tall shoulder. “I think it may be of considerable use. I haven’t chided you, have I? I did not stop you when you spoke of your mother, with such bitterness and, yes, hate. Truth is truth. Geoffrey, I know you want to help your father. I want you to go home to him and tell him that you have told me everything, and that I’d like to see him. And your stepmother.”

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nbsp; Tears came into the boy’s eyes, painfully. “Thank you, Father,” he said.

  The priest watched them leave, these wounded children. He had blessed them tenderly. He saw how Geoffrey brooded over his brother and sister, with protectiveness, as he led them away down the road. They were healthy now, and lived in a home of love and happiness. But always, all their lives, they would remain wounded. It was necessary to teach them how to live with their wounds so that they would not be forever blighted. They needed, not suppression of the truth by their father, but full knowledge. An evil thing exposed to the sunlight shrivels up and dies. Sometimes. At the very least it loses some of its terror in mutual sharing. Silence is frequently, thought the priest, the ally of Satan. And it could be hypocritical even though with the best of intentions.

  He went into the church and prayed for enlightenment, for help in untangling this awful web of evil, which was also mixed with much good. Evil was like a vine that grew on the trunk of a tree and mingled its stained leaves with the good ones. Neither overcame the other; they lived in a sort of neutrality. It was truly a confusing matter, and one not to be solved by saying nay or yea. Not always. It was not always absolutely clear. Give me wisdom, the priest prayed, the wisdom to see good from evil, and evil from good.

  He expected Squire Gould and his wife to call the next day. But they did not come. Nor did they come the next day or the next. Should I call on them? thought the priest, thinking of Christ’s searching for the lost lambs. He had almost made up his mind to go when one Friday afternoon, as he was preparing his sermon, his housekeeper announced the squire and his lady.

  They entered the study together, the tall, slightly bent man so much like his oldest son, but gentler and sadder with his years, Geoffrey’s fire dimmed in the dark eyes, Geoffrey’s black curls streaked with white. He was slender and graceful, and Father Shayne’s first impression was of great kindness, sweet temper, and enormous patience. His wife, Florence, tall and slender like himself, seemed plain at first glance, but when she smiled as she did now, she was suddenly beautiful, with fine, large gray eyes and a perfect complexion. Her light summer bonnet only partly hid smooth brown hair, and the mauve ribbons were tied under a firm yet feminine chin. The tight bodice of her pale mauve summer frock showed her youthful figure; ruffled flounces fell to her feet. She moved as gracefully as her husband, and sat down near him with her gloved hands on her furled parasol.

  Father Shayne suddenly became aware that the two were studying him as keenly as he was studying them. “I am glad you came, sir, and Mrs. Gould,” he said. “I have learned how much you have done for this church. I’d have called on you earlier — ”

  The squire said gently, “I assume that you know what Father McGinnis knew, Father?”

  The priest was a little vexed; had Geoffrey disobeyed when he had been directed to tell his father of the children’s visit?

  “Yes,” he said. “We may as well be frank. It saves time. I wonder if you know that my Bishop is distantly related to you?”

  The squire smiled. “Yes. I always wanted to know him, and intended to seek him out in London. And then” — his smile went away — “difficulties arose. I did not want to embarrass him. Father McGinnis would frequently, and angrily, tell me that he had written his Bishop concerning me and my family.” He paused. “Did the Bishop believe Father McGinnis?” He smiled. “Or shall we stop being frank now?”

  “No,” said Father Shayne. “This is a time for utter candor. I am here only temporarily, I believe. I was sent here mainly to know you. And help you. My Bishop does not believe that you are guilty of — murder.” He glanced at Florence Gould. “Nor does he believe Mrs. Gould is guilty.

  “Mr. Gould,” he continued, “do you know that your son, Geoffrey, came here to see me and that he told me his own version and — experiences?”

  The squire looked apologetically at his wife as he said, “Yes, he did. Florence, Geoffrey remembers. He remembers how he came to be scarred, and he remembers what injuries the other two received. He remembers everything.”

  “Oh, no!” said Florence, with deep sorrow and misery. “I thought he was too young. And you did so try to protect him, Geoffrey, and I did, too.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “I thought he hadn’t remembered, myself,” said the squire. “I was shocked when he told me last week. I had prayed so hard that he would not remember.”

  “But why didn’t he tell us, the poor child?” said Florence, her voice breaking.

  “Because he knew that we wanted to believe that he did not remember. He wanted to protect our lovely little daydreams.”

  “And Elsa and Eric?”

  “I don’t know, Florence.” The father’s voice dropped. “I’m rather sure Eric doesn’t know. He was hardly two when it happened to him. And Elsa — you know how quiet she is.”

  “And what nightmares she has!” said Florence. A tear ran down her cheek. “I thought that they were just the usual nightmares children have, and I would comfort her.”

  “It seems,” said Father Shayne, “that there has been something a little less than candor going on in your house, also. Mr. Gould, I am a priest, and I have frequently been at the bedside of the dying, and I’ve heard their cries and all they said. The mind forgets, for it can endure only so much. But the soul never forgets. In life, the memories of the soul color all existence. In death, they are sometimes unendurable. Do you want your children to keep their silence, to protect your tender sensibilities about them, or do you want to be candid with them, speaking without rancor and bitterness but telling the factual truth, so that they will have less to bear in their future lives, which will be hard enough, God knows.”

  They looked at him in mournful silence.

  “Your son, Geoffrey, is not a child. Within a few years he will be a mature man. Someone, somewhere, will remember that — murder — case, and connect him with it. You ran away to this hamlet, to bury yourselves quietly, for your children’s sake. But you can’t immunize them from the world. I am not speaking only of Geoffrey, Elsa and Eric, but of your mutual two children, too. Will it be pleasant for them, to hear from strangers, that their father had been tried for murder? They will wonder why you had never told them. And they will begin, in spite of their love for you, to ask themselves questions. Such as: ‘Is my father guilty? Is my mother guilty? Of murder?’ Do you want that to happen?”

  “Oh, my God,” said the squire, prayerfully, “no, no!”

  “Then you must begin to give the matter the most severe thought. I suggest that you speak to Elsa, soon, and tell her how she acquired her injuries. It is more than possible that she remembers. Speak to her reasonably, without blaming or exonerating her mother. Children, above all, like facts, for they are realists. Tell her you have forgiven your wife for what she did to you and your children, and that Elsa must learn to forgive. Then when she is slightly older, tell her the facts surrounding her mother’s death. She will have more confidence in you from the very beginning, then. She is entirely too quiet. The child did not say a single word to me when she was here. Such silence in a child is a signal of danger. She possibly, even now, mistrusts you, for she may not have the charity of your oldest son.

  “So, after a year or so, when she knows about her mother, tell her that no matter what she hears later she must believe you, and that you were not guilty of your wife’s death.”

  The squire’s dark face became very pale. He looked at the cane he held on his knee. Then, softly, he said, “Florence, will you leave us alone for a moment?”

  His wife sat up very straight, her face white, and she cried, “No! Father Shayne is right. Let us be frank. Geoffrey, Geoffrey! You have nothing to conceal.”

  Father Shayne had become rigid with shock. He stared at the squire. “Mr. Gould, you did not kill your wife, did you?

  The squire still gazed at his cane. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice.

  “Geoffrey!” His wife’s exclamation was loud and terrible.

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sp; “You don’t know!” said the priest. “How is it possible that you ‘don’t know’?”

  Florence was staring at her husband, her eyes wide and glittering, her breast rising on a deep breath. But the squire was looking at the priest, open anguish on his face.

  “I simply don’t know,” he repeated. “Do you know the details of my wife’s death? Yes. I’m glad I don’t have to repeat it all.

  “The day before Agnes — died — she had been up for several hours. Florence was visiting us. Agnes had unpredictable rages; she would be smiling and gay one moment and then the next she would be in a fury. It was — unsettling, to use the English manner of understatement. The house was always in a tension, for one never knew.” The soft Irish voice faltered, became hoarse, as the squire remembered. “Geoffrey told me that he had told you all this. Agnes could be superficially sentimental and affectionate. Dear God, I have tried so hard to forget!”