The Hour Before Dawn

by Penelope Wilcock

  Abbot and brothers together heard these wise and kind words, letting the generosity and goodness of Benedict’s way feed their hearts and sink into their souls. The silence of reflection lengthened as they meditated on all they had heard. And then they turned their attention to what their abbot had to say.

  John spoke to them with his characteristic straightforward humility.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t a proper homily—I’ve been thinking so hard about what I want to say to you that I hadn’t even read today’s chapter very carefully to think of any comment I could make upon it, though it is beautiful.

  “I don’t know if this is news or teaching or what it is: I’m just telling you about a time when I’ve seen the Gospel meet real life. Friends, tomorrow is Pentecost. Today is the last day in Ascensiontide. My thanks to Father Chad for his pastoral care of you while I have been away.

  “So we achieved what we set out to do. We found Father Oswald and brought him home. You will all have met him by now.

  “When I spoke to you last, all of us gathered together like this, it was the day before Ascension Day. Less than two weeks have passed since then, but so much has changed. I know you have held us—me—steadily in your prayers, and I am more grateful than I can express to you. What has happened has been a kind of miracle, and though I’ve been thinking so hard about how to explain it to you, I’m still not sure I have the words for what I want to say.

  “I don’t delude myself that you hang onto every word I impart to you in Chapter here, but I think maybe you might remember what I said to you before I went away. I was devastated by what happened to my sister. Everything seemed to be shattered and blown to pieces. When I went to see her, she could barely look at me. I was shredded inside by the sense of guilt that my family had been attacked with no one to protect and shield them. I could not bear human company. Nor could she. Father William came with me to Chesterfield, to search for Oswald. You know well what Father William’s trials have been; he has felt lonely and isolated from human society. He is the first to say he brought his trouble on his own head, but be that as it may, he has felt frightened and alone, and for many a year before all this his faith meant little to him and human company even less.

  “Three people, all entirely involved in their own troubles, tormented by their own demons, eaten up with guilt and shame and fear, wanting neither to touch nor be touched, but just to be left alone to heal after all that had happened.

  “We’d all three of us got to the pupation stage, I guess. We had come through what life had handed out to us, deservedly or not, but were each in a strange hermit’s cell of shock, coming to terms with what had happened and who and what that made us now.

  “Then we met Father Oswald, and suddenly everything changed, because he needed our help. Down on my knees in the street at his side, trying to see in the half-light of the alleyway just what cruelty had been worked on him, I forgot about myself and that I couldn’t bear anyone to touch me. He’s blind. He needed someone to hold his hand. In similar wise, Father William had to get over himself and his aversion for all things human because Father Oswald needed his help to eat and manage even the basics of life. So we came to Motherwell, where my sister, Madeleine, had taken refuge with the Poor Clares. Cold and remote in shock and hurt, she remained reluctant to meet us—until she saw Father Oswald. She could not bear to greet me with any kind of contact, but she came to the grille to touch Oswald’s face, to look with care at what he needed to have done. She is skilled in the healing arts, and she sutured his eyes for him, which I was nervous of doing.

  “Do you remember I said to you, before we went away, that one day I would find my way to the Father and be able to bear the vulnerability of human touch again?

  “Now this is where words begin to fail me—when I try to explain the grace I have glimpsed. Please make the best you can of my stumbling offering. God is all compassion. God, three in one, is community in love. God is creator, who goes on making us and remaking us even when our hearts are broken and our lives shattered. He searches for every shard of who we once were and makes something new of all those pieces and his love.

  “It was when we—me, Madeleine, William—forgot ourselves, and our hearts were drawn beyond our own troubles into compassion for someone else, that healing began for each of us. It was when we worked together and drew into a common way that cheerfulness began again: laughter and fresh courage and the reassurance that we were forgiven and no longer alone. Out of the hopelessness came a new beginning. From the black tomb to the cold air of the uncertain light of dawn. Then from that frozen beginning to an ascent into the Father heart of God.

  “We have come home different—I mean different because we were hurt as well as because we were healed. Madeleine, William, I—our souls are a bit scarred and knocked about, and we are more vulnerable now. But that’s not a bad thing; woundedness can be a source of compassion, like the sweet water springs that breach the intactness of the earth. And we owe so much—so very much—to Father Oswald, for finding us where we were hurt and bringing us home.”

  When John had finished speaking, and the day’s news and novices’ confessions were shared, the young men of the novitiate rose to leave. They closed the door behind them with anxious care, Brother Benedict, last out, achieving a good result with only a sharp click of the latch to indicate they had gone. Their novice master would follow them at the conclusion of Chapter; for now they went ahead of him up the day stairs to the novitiate, where they took their places in the teaching circle of assorted stools and short benches. This was really supposed to be a time of reflective silence, and sometimes it was. They seated themselves quietly and without fuss, as they had been taught, but then Brother Cassian said, “I can hardly believe the cruelty of all that they did to him.”

  The faint stir among the group affirmed this as their common mind and the focus of their thoughts.

  “Father Oswald?” said Conradus (he thought he’d better check).

  “Brother Michael says we have to be really careful of what we give him to eat.” Conscious of the extra status his work in the infirmary conferred upon him, Brother Benedict enjoyed the immediate attention of his seven fellow novices. “I never thought about it before, but of course you can’t swallow without a tongue; that’s why he dribbles all the time. And because he can’t swallow properly, he just has to poke things down his throat or kind of toss them back. Brother Michael says there’s a huge chance of the food going down the wrong way and choking him—to death even! And even if it doesn’t choke him, it could get right down into his chest and give him pneumonia, like Father William.”

  Brother Robert laughed. “‘Pneumonia’ is quite a good description of Father William—kind of pale and thin with scary eyes.”

  “What? No—I meant—”

  “Yes, yes, we know what you meant. Is that how Father William got pneumonia then? Choked on his food?”

  Brother Benedict stopped, aware he had committed an indiscretion. The world of the novices was kept very separate from the life of the professed brothers, but the infirmary work gave glimpses into everybody’s secrets. “No,” he said.

  Brother Robert looked puzzled. “But you just said—”

  “Forget what I just said! I shouldn’t have. He… no. No, I mustn’t say. Anyway we have to be very watchful for Father Oswald and hit him hard on the back if he goes purple or looks like he’s choking. It’s hard to tell, actually, because sometimes his food starts to go down the wrong way, and then he has to hawk it back up again for another try. Hawking or choking; choking or hawking—it’s a bit tense, especially when it might be a matter of life and death. It’ll be every meal too!”

  The young men pondered this soberly.

  “Father John’s sister sewed his eyes up for him,” continued Brother Benedict, revelling in his role as a mine of information this May morning. “She can do surgery and deliver babies and read and write as good as a priest, apparently. She’s come to live here. I don’t know why
. Perhaps they need her to help look after Father Oswald. Perhaps she was afraid to live alone after she was set upon.”

  They heard the footfall of their novice master on the stairs, and conversation ceased.

  Brother Thomas built Madeleine a henhouse and repaired her gate. William brought her two sheepskins from the store they kept to sell. He fetched her all the provisions she needed to create a home and larder, and she grew to know the sound of his approaching footsteps.

  Quite often, as evening fell and the day’s work in the checker was done, instead of making his way directly to the cloister for Vespers, William would cross the abbey court in the other direction toward the close and make sure that all was well in Peartree Cottage.

  He brought her firewood and linen sheets. “I’m sorry—just now we can only spare two. Can you manage with that? That should see you through the summer; you can wash them and dry them in a day in this weather.”

  Most of all, he brought her friendship. His wit struck sparks from hers, and she liked to see his blue-green eyes alight with laughter and his thin face break into the merriment of his smile.

  “William never smiles, not really. I don’t know what you’ve done to him!” said Brother Tom.

  And she laughed. “Oh… well, he smiles at me,” she said.

  Brother Tom commented on this with astonishment to Father John as he cleared the ashes from the hearth for the last time now that the evenings could be counted warm enough even for the comfort of guests. “I didn’t know that man could smile! No wonder they thought she was a witch! Then again, maybe it’s a miracle—it’s so hard to tell!”

  He carried on sweeping, unaware he had made any particular impression. But his abbot had stopped what he was doing and was listening to him with greater attention than Tom would have expected.

  Spring moved into summer, and the elderflowers hung heavy on the trees. The lime flowers gave out their beautiful fragrance, the hay stood almost ready for mowing, and the fine days took on a languor of heat as the weather held dry.

  Abbot John came through the wooden gate in the wall, which Brother Thomas had fixed. Finding the door ajar, he went into the cottage to look for Madeleine. Hearing voices from outside at the back, he continued into the scullery, where the door to the garden stood open. Outside he saw his sister reprimanding his cellarer’s assistant in no uncertain terms. He stopped just within the doorway and stood quietly to watch this exchange.

  “No, good brother, that is not a weed! I turn my back five minutes, and you take out some of the best herbs in my garden! Why didn’t you pay attention to what I told you? Put it back!”

  John noticed with a certain astonishment that William looked distinctly chastened.

  “Will it grow again all right even though I pulled it up?”

  “Grow? Of course it’ll grow! It’s a plant! William, have you never done any gardening before in all your life?”

  “You know…” The sun was in William’s eyes, but he squinted in her direction anyway. “… they will never burn you for a witch in these parts, but I have little evidence to stand in the way of their ducking you in the village pond for a scold!”

  “Aye, but they’ll change their tune when they find out who was on the receiving end of the scolding, think you not? To work, monk! Labore est orare!”

  “A shred of respect and a cup of ale wouldn’t go amiss, sweet madam. Oh, God bless us, here’s my abbot. Is it to defend me or am I to be harried now from every side?”

  John came out into the garden and walked between the herb beds and under the apple trees to where they stood.

  “I’m relieved to see that Father William is capable of getting his hands dirty on occasion,” he said. “But there are some matters awaiting his attention. Brother Ambrose is feeling badly neglected. He’s just been holding forth to me at some length about the grading and storing of the fleeces that are coming off the shearing. He says they need sorting, and lanolin brings him out in a rash. He wants to know if he’s to ask Brother Thomas to clean the ditches around the top meadow or if you engaged somebody from the village, and if so, whom? He’s lost the bill for the cruets you ordered for the refectory. Do you know where it is? I think he said they would cost nine shillings and four pence, and I hope that’s not true. He’s also talking to me about one Samuel Walton, rope maker, concerning cords for girths and cords for tethering the horses out in the pasture. He also has things to say about how many ambras of white salt and lump salt we may require. Oh, and he wonders if you intended a hundred and fifty horseshoes or only a hundred, and in consequence, how many nails? I’m impressed at myself remembering that complex shopping list, so I hope you are too; but I’ll be heartily glad if you can come and attend to the business yourself. To set Father William to work pulling weeds is not playing to his strengths, my sister, and I think you might be equal to the task yourself. Is all well with the cottage and the garden? Did Brother Stephen bring you a sheepskin for your bed? Bless you then. I’ll be seeing you anon. Father William, I’ll walk over with you.”

  The two men went back through the cottage, Madeleine waving a cheery farewell as they left her among the garden herbs, preparing to take some cuttings from the rosemary and the pinks.

  “One word only,” said John gently as he closed the cottage gate behind them. “Boundaries.”

  They walked to the end of the close in silence. “She needs a little help to settle in,” said William in casual tone. “She has some ghosts to lay to rest but seems to me to be doing well.” He shrugged, easy, imperturbable. “Still, she’ll do just fine by herself now, for sure.”

  John walked slowly, and William suited his pace to his abbot’s.

  “William,” John said, “you’re falling in love with my sister, and throwing dust in my eyes is not going to work. Your place here is precarious, but hers is even more so. You put one foot across that boundary and you put her home at risk, and possibly yours as well. You can’t afford to do this. The path you’re treading is ill-advised. You have to let this go.”

  He stopped. “Are you hearing me?”

  “She is in need of friendship.”

  They walked on.

  “She’s in need of our friendship, not your friendship.”

  “How does that work then? We are but people, individuals. It’s not possible, surely, to be a friend to someone without spending time with her.”

  John shook his head. “She must make her own friends among the folk she finds here—layfolk, not the monks—where are you going?”

  “To the checker—that way. You told me to sort out the purchases with Brother Ambrose.”

  “Oh, never mind Ambrose! He can wait five minutes to find out about his cords and his ambras of salt. You’re coming with me because this is important.”

  They continued in silence toward the principal buildings of the abbey, the abbot’s lodge opening onto the court as well as the cloister. Just before they reached the door, they were hailed from behind. “Ah, Father William! I’ve been looking for you all over!”

  They both turned to respond, and William looked at his abbot as Brother Ambrose stooped momentarily, his hands to his knees, out of breath.

  John shook his head no, just the slightest movement, and William waited without speaking.

  “Better?” said Abbot John in a friendly, genial tone as Ambrose righted himself. “I have apprised Father William of the things he must attend to, and he will be with you presently,” he continued before Ambrose could say anything. “Do not fret. He knows and will give this his proper attention within the hour. I’m sorry, Ambrose—I’ve kept him busy with other things, but he will be all yours in a little while.”

  Brother Ambrose nodded, still puffing. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  William still said nothing. Ambrose turned back for the checker, and John opened the door to his lodge. They entered to find Brother Thomas sweeping the floor. “Thanks, friend!” said John cheerfully. “That looks better, but can I ask you to set the task aside fo
r a brief while? I have to speak with William.”

  Brother Tom swept the dust he had gathered to the edge of the room and propped the broom against the wall, standing with its bristles on the dust to keep that anchored. He moved obediently toward the cloister door, and John caught the expression on his face. He saw that Tom was beginning to feel hurt by the intimacy he perceived between his abbot and William.

  “Sit down, William,” said John. “Wait a minute.”

  He followed Brother Thomas, stopping the door with his hand as Tom began to pull it shut. Tom looked back in surprise. “Brother, tonight I still have no one to dine with me and intended to do as I told you and eat in the frater. But why don’t you come and eat supper with me? I think I’ve seen less of you since you’ve been my esquire than in all the years we’ve been together in community.”

  John felt relieved to see the warmth in Tom’s eyes. “Aye, gladly. I have to finish off a repair to a worm-eaten chest I started yesterday for Theodore, so I’ll go and do that while you’re busy now. I’ll come back and clean up here once it’s properly fixed, if that suits you.”

  With a smile and a nod of thanks, John closed the door behind him. “Where were we?” he said.

  “I believe you were in the middle of telling me that I am falling in love with your sister and ought to keep out of her way.”

  “Don’t go frosty on me, William; that’s a power game. Are you telling me I’m wrong?” John found it hard, always, to hold the gaze of those pale eyes regarding him thoughtfully, but he did. In the end it was William who looked away, saying “No, I’m not.”

  John sat examining this ambiguous reply, suspecting that he had been offered it as a dodge to secure time. He decided that if time was what William needed, he could have it. So he said nothing.

  “Oh—I’m sorry!” said William, suddenly realizing John thought he was being evasive. “I meant, ‘no, I’m not telling you you’re wrong,’ not, ‘no, I don’t care for Madeleine.’”

  John took this in. He knew it was true, but at the same time he almost wished it had not been said. Naming anything brings it one step further into manifest reality.