The Hopkins Conundrum

by Simon Edge

  By the end of the meal, the collective gloom had dampened even Aurea’s spirits, and afterwards Henrica and her companions returned to their cabins and alternately dozed, prayed and read from their breviaries. Sleep remained a refuge from cold and anxiety, and from the incessant thump of waves on hull – softer now the storm had calmed, but always there.

  Henrica woke in the early evening to find the daylight gone. Lighting the lamp, she saw that it was five o’clock. That meant it was exactly twelve hours since they had run aground. It seemed so much longer. It also meant, ominously, that dusk had come and still no rescue.

  From somewhere above them came the same sharp report they had heard in the early hours of the morning.

  The noise roused Aurea too.

  “What was that?”

  “They are firing rockets again.”

  “Because nobody has come.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  Henrica tried to read from her breviary, but it was difficult to concentrate and she got up from her bunk. Donning her veil and wimple, she returned to the tilting saloon in search of news and found the menfolk, looking tired and bedraggled, on a break from pumping.

  “What’s the matter with the English? Where are their lifeboats? Or do they only save their own ships?” Hamm was saying. He spoke freely in front of her now, Henrica noticed.

  “They have lifeboats,” said Lundgren quietly.

  She wondered how he came to speak with such authority.

  “So they will come,” said Meyer. “We must be p-patient.”

  “I hope you’re praying for us all, sister,” said Hamm.

  “Of course we are, Herr Hamm. And we can be confident the Lord is watching over us.”

  “He may be watching, but what is he doing to help us?”

  “It is in darkness that his light can best be seen.”

  It was the answer Mother Clara liked to give when times were tough. She wished she could sound more convincing when she said it.

  She returned to their little group of cabins to assure the others that the English had lifeboats and help would eventually arrive. Barbara had her arms round Brigitta and seemed to be making more effort now to keep her calm, while Norberta was praying silently on her own. She was such a solitary creature, Henrica observed. She knew from Aurea that the pair of them came from neighbouring villages in the east, and she remembered that they had arrived at the convent within a few months of one another. But whereas Aurea had adapted easily to the life of the cloister, it had clearly been more of a struggle for Norberta, who seemed shy even of opening her mouth. She had told Aurea she had always been the outsider at home, teased and then shunned for her height – a girl who nobody would ever want to marry and good only for a nunnery. But joining the order did not seem to have made her any more comfortable in her own skin. Henrica knew that she ought to work harder to integrate her into their group, but for the moment it was enough to lead them through their present danger. If the Lord spared them, she vowed she would make it a priority to draw Norberta out of herself on the rest of their journey.

  A little later, Marta came knocking again to say that the women and children were once more invited to dine in first class, as the men continued to work shifts at the pumps.

  “There is also some good news,” she said. “Our flares have been seen. A rocket was fired from a lightship in the mouth of the Thames, and another from a different light vessel further out to sea. It means they know about us.”

  “So rescue will come?” said Aurea excitedly. “We will be saved?”

  “Not before morning,” said Marta. “No ship can approach at night. But yes, it means they will come.”

  Henrica wondered when she would finally have to tell the others what the Swede had said about the perils of a high tide. Not yet, anyway.

  None of them had any heart for a meal, even with these encouraging tidings. They remained in their cabins, reading and praying.

  Henrica did not dare undress when it was time for sleep. It was better to be ready for any eventuality, and neither she nor Aurea had any inclination to remove even their life-belts. Bulky as they were in the cramped cabins, they offered a certain reassurance, and the two of them also kept their tunics on, as well as their coifs. The tight head covers were uncomfortable, but they at least deadened the thump of the waves.

  “I wonder who she will send instead of us,” said Aurea in the darkness. Her voice was slower and sadder than Henrica had ever heard it.

  “Who?”

  “Mother Clara. When we are gathered, she will have to send a new team to St Louis. The hospital needs the hands.”

  Henrica suddenly felt an overwhelming need for her mother’s embrace. But now was not the time for giving up.

  “Mother Clara won’t need to send replacements,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “We are going to America ourselves. Tomorrow help will come, and we will all be in St Louis by Christmas. I promise you. Now try and get some sleep.”

  Manchester, the present

  Chloe has no regrets about giving Tim her phone number. She doesn’t buy for a moment that he is the enthusiast for the poet that he professes to be, and she has no idea what really brought him to the literary lecture that afternoon. She is curious about that, of course. But she is not hugely bothered that he has over-egged his love for the work. She has had far worse lies from men at first acquaintance, and this one was so laughably inept, it is hard to hold it against him or consider it in any way sinister. If anything, it’s endearing.

  After the long drive from home – slowed by roadworks, a wrong turn on the motorway bypass round Chester, and another on a featureless dual carriageway system somewhere in Flintshire – she walked into that room at the college and was immediately underwhelmed by the sight of her fellow poetry-lovers. With hindsight she is not sure what she expected, but this sparse array of retired teachers and soapy clerics was really not it. She had been more excited about this occasion than it warranted, and the gathering itself came as a deflating contrast to the way her imagination had dressed it up. In that context, the sight of a tall, elegant man with raffish eyebrows and a dress sense verging on the beatnik represented a sudden, dramatic improvement. If it came with a sizeable dollop of bullshit on the side, that is a level of reality check that Chloe is prepared to accommodate.

  When they chatted, he made her laugh, sometimes intentionally, and afterwards she was charmed to see his empty old pub, which some people might consider sad and depressing, but for Chloe it’s more a question of unrealised potential. The sorry tale of ineptitude that had brought him there was equally endearing, and she was even amused by the ancient, red-faced trio propping up the bar. Leaving her contact details was a very natural next step.

  He emails first, and they only speak on the phone once she has given him enough tacit reassurance that she won’t brush him off or fail to pick up. When he calls, she takes mischievous pleasure in his obvious nervousness, and she is in no hurry to help him through the silences that punctuate the conversation whenever his confidence falters. Eventually, however, she takes pity, and she is the one who suggests coming over for a visit. He jumps at the suggestion with such eagerness that she is once again struck by his lack of guile. Whatever he is bullshitting about, it doesn’t feel dangerous.

  She thinks more about this on the drive over. She has chosen to turn a blind eye to the obvious nonsense that he is peddling about his interest in the poet, and she has decided to treat it as an entertaining foible rather than a cause for concern. She will get to the bottom of it in the end, she has no doubt. But as someone who spends her working life encouraging other people to evaluate risk and avoid obvious pitfalls, it would be as well to have some idea of what her rubicon, the limit of her indulgence, ought to be. She doesn’t mind if he is nowhere near as keen on the poet as she is. She knows that already and, to be fair, she has set the bar pr
etty high. In any case, she can always educate him – and he clearly has some openness to being educated, otherwise he would never have been there that day. The only point at which she really might have to draw a line and start backing out, she concludes, is if he turns out to be some kind of shameless manipulator, because if there’s one thing she doesn’t like, it’s a cynic. But the idea of someone so obviously inept and see-through as Tim manipulating anyone makes her smile. It really isn’t something she is going to have to worry about it.

  At this point she notices that she is approaching the confusing set of roundabouts where she took a wrong turn last time, and she realises she needs to stop thinking about far-fetched hypotheticals and concentrate on the road.

  He makes her laugh as soon as she arrives. He has planned a programme of sight-seeing before lunch, and the itinerary includes all the places that Alun Gwynne promised to show her. They discover, on a tourist information notice headed ‘Fascinating Facts’, that the church in whose graveyard the 800-year-old yew tree stands has been the site of religious worship since the sixth century.

  “How fascinating!” says Chloe, and it becomes their giggly catchphrase for the afternoon.

  They learn that the earliest brick-built house in Wales was erected in 1567 by the man who helped found the London Royal Exchange.

  “Fascinating!” says Tim.

  It’s childish but fun. Inspecting these modest little landmarks in mock earnestness carries the implicit assumption that sight-seeing isn’t the real reason she has driven all the way here, and she likes that. It makes her feel like a teenager.

  The sun is out and there are small brown birds with white tails darting around on the wind as they walk up the hill behind the village. It’s wonderful to breathe the air and gaze back down on the valley below, with the sea glistening in the distance.

  “Here, let me give you a hand,” he says, as they climb a rocky bit towards the top of the valley. Once she has put her hand in his this first time, it’s an easy progression towards entwining their fingers as they walk side by side.

  “You don’t really regret moving here, do you?” she asks.

  “Less so now than I did last winter. You being here helps.”

  “Oh yes?”

  He reddens. “I mean, seeing it through your eyes. I spend so much time worrying about paying the bills for a failing pub that I forget to look around me.”

  “Don’t worry, I know what you mean.”

  They fall silent.

  “I’m sure it’s got potential though,” she resumes. “Location, location, location and all that. If it’s in a good place, which it certainly is, there will be a way of making it work. You just have to find it.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been looking.”

  “What are the options?”

  He starts to say something, then he seems to think better of it and a cloud crosses his face, breaking the mood. It’s only a small change, but she is pretty sure she is not mistaken. As if to confirm she is right, he looks at his watch and says they ought to be getting back because there is food in the oven.

  He has made a decent stab at roasting half a leg of lamb. It’s partly burnt on the outside, and he hasn’t pre-boiled the potatoes before adding them to the roasting tin, so they’re still hard. But she appreciates the effort, because it’s clear that this kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to him.

  The poet barely comes up. That Complete Works is still lying on the bar and Alun Gwynne – who turns up midway through the afternoon – is keen to chip in references whenever he spots his opportunity. But Chloe doesn’t especially want to discuss the work. The day is going well, conversation with Tim is flowing on all sorts of subjects, and she doesn’t want him to ruin it with a flat-footed attempt to flout his fake literary credentials.

  It’s clear that they will kiss when it’s time for her to leave, and when they do so it’s warm and nice. He tastes of beer and mint sauce, but she probably does too.

  “It’s been great, it really has,” she says. “I’d invite you to mine for a return visit, but it’s so much nicer here.”

  “You’re welcome here whenever you want,” he says.

  She savours the thought all the way home.

  North Wales, 1876

  The days and weeks went by for Hopkins in the obedient rhythm of the community. There was a freeze in early January, although not cold enough to prevent wettings to the waist for two reckless young theologians who skated too far out on the fishing lake. Then the thaw came, and with it a flood that made the entire valley glisten. Milk and eggs fell scarce as the local farms suffered, making a table that could barely be any plainer suddenly even more so. The sky took on a permanent drear, giving the surrounding hills a depressing sameness of colour and tone, and blanketing out the farther peaks. The only virtue of the heavy cloud cover was that the breath no longer steamed so obviously at early meditation. But when the first lambs were at last spotted, there was a lightening of mood all round.

  He was normally the most excited of anyone at this season. He still set distance records on his afternoon excursions, but now he was less inclined than ever to make conversation with his companions. Head down, in the modest way that they had been taught as novices, he was occupied with word-lists: same-sounding, same-meaning, same-initialled. His discoveries had convinced him that he was tapping a new seam of poetic wealth. Was it not extraordinary that lush and plush both brimmed with the same rich bounty, a bounty that might gush or flush if it burst out? Convention obliged the poet to place each of the rhyming words at the end of a line. But a revolutionary poet with a new system of metrics would jam them together, quite separate from the rhyme scheme, in a quick-fire series.

  Soft, sift; goal, shoal; wheel, whirl; was whorl a word?

  “Hi, Hopkins! Oughtn’t we to turn back now? We’ll be late.”

  Yes, yes, as you wish.

  Beat, bank, bow, beam. Breast, braid. Flange, flame, flood, flesh, fall.

  “Look, daffodils!” the companion went on – Clarke or Purbrick, O’Rourke or Bacon, it scarcely mattered who it was. “Spring has well and truly sprung!”

  Spring, sprung.

  “Sing a song that spring has sprung,” Hopkins beamed suddenly.

  “I’m not sure the Rector would approve of singing,” said Clarke, or Purbrick.

  That made him giggle.

  “I didn’t mean you should. I simply liked the sentence.”

  There were times when he found his fellow theologians aggravating. One Sunday evening after the dominical sermon, the talk in the recreation room turned to walking holidays. Someone had received a letter from friends planning an expedition to the Dolomites. This prompted general reminiscences about trips they each had made before joining the Society, and Hopkins threw in his twopenn’orth about his own happy tour of Switzerland. It didn’t do to express regret that all that was behind them now, because it would lower everyone’s spirits. But Barraud said he would love to see the Loire valley again, and Clarke chipped in to say it would be the Pyrenees for him, whereupon O’Rourke said he had always had a hankering to see Germany.

  “Not a country you’d want to go to nowadays,” said Hopkins, assuming general assent.

  “Why ever not?” said O’Rourke.

  “Surely, the persecutions. Everything Bismarck has been doing against Catholics.”

  “But that’s politics. It doesn’t stop me wanting to see the country.”

  “Nobody who cherishes religious freedom should visit the place so long as the Kulturkampf persists,” said Hopkins, looking around the rest of the company for support.

  “What’s Kulturkampf?”

  That was Reeve. How could he not know?

  Hopkins continued to address O’Rourke. “International disapproval is a powerful tool. A stand needs to be taken, and if people like ourselves don’t take it, even at the hypotheti
cal level, then who will?”

  “Kulturkampf is the name that Bismarck uses for his campaign against the Catholic religious life,” Rickaby explained to Reeve.

  “It’s not a campaign, it’s a persecution,” said Hopkins, feeling he ought to get his hackles back down, but unsure how to do so. “Bismarck says it’s his response to the Vatican Council, but that’s tosh, utter tosh, because it’s just an excuse to turn against Catholics. And it’s the reason so many are fleeing Central Europe, especially from the religious orders.”

  “I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the Vatican Council,” said Splaine. How he loved to show off his superior grasp of everything. “The doctrine of papal infallibility was the Pope’s response to Garibaldi’s provocation in Rome, and had nothing at all to do with Catholics outside Italy. Bismarck isn’t stupid, he knows that perfectly well, so I agree it’s an excuse. But I don’t even think it’s about persecution. Bismarck’s coffers were empty and this was a good way of getting his hands on monastic property. It was about balance sheets, not sovereignty.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Hopkins, “he has turned brutally against our counterparts in Germany and we can’t pretend it’s not happening. Some of the consequences have been tragic. Need I remind you that emigration by sea can be a perilous business?”

  The dissent fell away, but he knew he had been too passionate.

  In his room afterwards, trying to ignore the pain in his eyes, he sat up late poring over a copy of The Tablet that he had sneaked from the recreation room. It contained an account of the requiem Mass after the shipwreck, which by uncanny coincidence had been held very close to his own birthplace in the East London suburbs. He had tried to picture the church, which should be less than half a mile from their house. They had moved away just before his eighth birthday, giving him excuse enough not to remember, but he was disappointed with himself: it would have been nice to think that he had some latent Catholic sensibility even then. It had taken his mother to point out in a letter that the church was probably a more recent construction, because she herself would certainly have remembered it. And given it a very wide berth, she might have added.