A Demon Summer (19 page)

“So that is still in the works?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied smoothly. “Just slightly delayed. We need larger batteries to store energy when we have cloudy days. The guesthouse once was lighted by kerosene lamps and heated with wood stoves. But now fire insurance is difficult to obtain unless we modernize. So woodstoves in the guest rooms have been replaced by gas heaters. Electricity is available in all the cloister buildings, although we still rely on candles in the church. For other areas we have rechargeable battery-powered lamps, like the one provided in your room. We can't have guests falling off the mountainside. Although we strongly urge guests to stay in the areas assigned to them—restricted areas are clearly marked.”

“Of course,” said Max. “It is after all a cloister.”

“But we don't want people to misunderstand—it is part of our life's purpose to welcome guests—to provide a place of peace where they can collect themselves.”

“The guesthouse,” Max began. “The bishop has said there may be a question…” How to put this? wondered Max. “A question of the funds being siphoned off” sounded a bit harsh, if accurate.

“Dame Cellaress can answer all your questions,” Abbess Justina said blithely, resuming her hospitality narrative as she twirled her pasta. Her brook-no-interference tone was unmistakable, and Max did not persist, knowing it would push her into a corner from which she might never emerge. She began to speak of daily life in the abbey; he had the idea her descriptions, like the guest-mistress's, might be part of a well-rehearsed lecture for visitors. “On Sundays,” she was saying, “there is no work period except for the cook and her helpers. It's a time for recreational pursuits—the aim is to do something relaxing and not related to work or study. Many of the sisters who enjoy reading or fishing take this time as their opportunity. I often go walking or hiking, especially in summer. I like to collect wildflowers. And of course Rotterdam loves it, don't you, my sweet?” She turned her head, apparently addressing the floor, before returning her attention to Max. “On feast days, we decorate every corner of the refectory with wildflowers.”

“And this is when relatives might visit?” he asked. “You don't miss just being able to telephone when you feel like it?”

“That is where things get difficult,” she replied. Her expression changed fleetingly to one of regret. “Not so much for us—it is a choice we made, after all, even if I would argue that it was God who called us and we simply answered. No, the families have a hard time letting go. They will send gifts that are meant for their daughter alone, or try to ‘game' the system—is that the phrase? Game the system so that there is some family emergency every other week that requires the sister's attention. Once we catch on to this, it is firmly put a stop to. We must be cruel to be kind. They do break my heart sometimes, the parents.”

Mary Benton reentered just then with bread to replenish the basket. This time, several slices fell to the floor. “Leave it for now,” said the abbess sharply. The young woman seemed to be surrounded by chaos the way the cartoon character Pig-Pen was surrounded by dust. Max felt a tug of nostalgia for his own catastrophic housekeeper, that herald of the coming Apocalypse, Mrs. Hooser.

Once she had left them, the abbess confided. “She was recently widowed. We are watching very closely to ensure her vocation is a true one. Many times, people reacting to a tragedy don't know what they want. They cut off old friends, even family, wanting a fresh start, having been reminded of the brevity of life. Mary had thought her vocation was art history, but she came here instead. I'm sure you've seen that for yourself, Father, in the course of your pastoral duties.”

“Many times,” said Max. “It may just be that Mary is not cut out to wait tables.”

The abbess let out a hoot of laughter, startling the dog into an answering bark.

“You are right about that,” she said, lifting him into her lap. “All the postulants have to take turns serving at my table, so I can size them up at first hand. Mary is the definition of a butterfingers, but I'm certain God has plans for her that don't involve breakable items. Her biggest struggle with the Rule, as it is for many, is that she forgets to keep the Great Silence after Compline and is constantly having to be corrected for it. The silence is to be maintained throughout the night. She forgets, and will go bustling about, gossiping and blithering about trivialities and asking if anyone has toothpaste she can borrow. I think she's lonely, poor soul.” She sighed. “And there, I've committed the fault of gossiping myself.”

“‘How do you solve a problem like Maria?'” said Max.

“Precisely,” said the abbess.

The postulant came in just then with a newly opened bottle of wine. Max recognized the label of St. Martin's from the wines being sold in the gift shop. On the label was a smiling nun framed in silhouette against a vast, sunny vineyard. It was an excellent wine. With an eye on the postulant as she left, the abbess told him, “Not one of us is ever sure of our vocation. As many years as I've been here, I've seen the doubts, and I've felt them myself. But I believe, Father, that we do much good, even hidden away from the world as we are up here. That is why I persist. With or without miracles to reassure me.”

“Miracles?”

“We attracted pilgrims to our church and our holy well from the start, and when we were a Catholic house the pope would grant get-out-of-hell-free cards, as my father called them, to people who made the journey here to pray. Many came in search of a cure. Many
were
cured. It was the source of our wealth but not a complete fraud. You do see.”

She might have been talking about events from yesterday. In this atmosphere, surrounded by smoke-darkened wood and stones, Max could see how yesterday blended into hundreds of years ago, and hundreds more hence.

“We've also survived all manner of natural disasters,” the abbess said. “We even had an earthquake a year or so ago measuring just over five on the Richter scale. Not big by the world's standards, but big enough I watched my own empty shoes march across the floor. I'd never seen such a thing outside of a cartoon.”

“Was there much damage?” asked Max.

She shook her head. “No.
That
was a miracle, really. We had to make some structural repairs to the church. The guesthouse plans had to be put on hold for a while. Perhaps you've met Piers Montague? Yes, I see that you have. Anyway, one old wall in particular came tumbling down. How he loved photographing that wall: we were constantly having to shoo him away. Piers reminds me of someone from my youth.” Absently, she stroked the head of her little lap dog. From her expression, she might have been thinking, “Someone best forgotten.”

“So, Father. I gather you've talked with a few of my sisters already. But I would suggest a talk with our cellaress if you really want to put your finger on the pulse of things here. She manages the day-to-day, you know.”

“Yes, thank you. Everyone has been most helpful. I had planned to talk with—is it Dame Sibil?—tomorrow.”

“The cellaress, yes.”

“I am hoping she can tell me a bit more about your … your various enterprises.”

“You mean our sources of income,” she said candidly, disarmingly. “The inflow and outflow. No need to beat about the bush. I can help you with the big picture, Father. She, of course, knows the details. Much of our income has come from our ties to the local villagers.”

Max, savoring the tomato sauce, which was nearly a match for Awena's, recalled the bishop's saying the abbess had a Reaganesque quality about her: an easy and likable geniality, an air of open honesty. He had known such a person when he belonged to a drinking and dining club at Oxford. Hugh Barclay-Watson was the person everyone wanted to be with and be seen to be with—the man who exerted not a single ounce of effort to win the constant devotion of his legions of followers. Who seemed genuinely unaware that he
had
followers. It was Max's first real encounter with charisma on such a scale. The man's murder had come as a shock to everyone in the club, but Max realized in retrospect it should not have done. That kind of effortless power earned one enemies, and if one was spoiled like Hugh by the gifts of charm, one never saw it coming.

Was the abbess similarly blinded?

“What we strive to accomplish every day,” she was saying, “and of course fail to achieve, is the transformation of our old selves. We fail, but we keep trying.”

Failure, he thought. How badly had a nun failed if she had tried to poison one of the guests?

The abbess might have read his mind. “You are here at the bishop's request to investigate an event that could bring dishonor to this house. A scandal unprecedented in recent history. In fact, to match this, we'd have to look back to the fourteen hundreds, when one of our sisters starved to death in the crypt.”

“Good heaven,” said Max.

The abbess nodded complacently, gratified by his reaction. “She was an anchoress—you know, a recluse—a mystic. In those days extremes of penance and fasting were allowed, even encouraged among ascetics, the sort inclined to extravagant self-denial. The abbey attracted a few of those. Probably she would disappear for a week or more, eating little, doing penance. Then she died and I suppose no one realized … it's not as if she were expected for supper. Her body was left where they finally found it in the crypt—they simply sealed off the area rather than disturb her remains. We know of her only that, due to her great piety, she acted as the sacrist, entrusted to look after the plate and ornaments, the vessels and ornaments and relics.

“I suppose,” the abbess added musingly, “I suppose it was a natural job for her, to guard the most sacred objects, since she never wandered far from them.”

“I guess thievery was a commonplace.”

“It was always a problem,” she agreed. “You would think the abbey's reputation for holiness would inhibit people, but it doesn't seem to work that way. It would be difficult to overstate the wealth and power of the abbey. Which is, of course, what led the church in those days into all manner of folly. Would you like more salad, Father?”

Max nodded, and the postulant, Mary, materialized from the shadows to serve him. He reached for the salad bowl but the abbess stilled him with a raised hand.

“Let her,” she said. “It is our privilege to serve, and it is also how Mary learns. Isn't it, my dear?”

 

Chapter 16

THE NOVICE

The novice should be warned in advance of all the hurdles on the path to God.

—The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

Max slept well that night, attributing his rest to the abbess's excellent wine and to the calming silence that surrounded the abbey. Waking early the next day, he joined the nuns for Lauds, spent some time adding to his notes on the case, then decided on a walk to acquaint himself with the grounds and simply bask in the purity of the bright gold morning air.

Sunshine fell like fingers of light through the trees, making patterns on the grass in dark and pale greens, and there was the slight suggestion of a breeze that he tried to will into stronger action. The nunnery was so high up he felt he was walking on Olympus, quite alone. The only sound was the bleating of sheep in the distance, which now he became aware of it was a constant, a simmer of discontent carried on the transparent, gentle wind.

Beware,
he thought idly,
of those who come to you in sheep's clothing
.

Walking slowly, passing the abbess's lodge and the infirmary and the back of the nuns' dormitory, he came to the cemetery with its yew trees. Time had obliterated most of the information on the headstones, although a recent entry to the presumed company of saints was the abbess who had been succeeded by Abbess Justina. A line of Thomas Gray's came into his mind, and he stopped for a moment in reflection: “Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade … each in his narrow cell forever laid.”

He tried to avoid walking on the graves themselves, an avoidance he saw more as a courtesy to the dead than a superstitious dread of waking them, even though whatever lay under these old stones had long since turned to dust. This avoidance was not so easy to do, as the stones were scattered willy-nilly, time and geologic upheaval presumably having moved them out of alignment. He did a sort of jitterbug across the area and, shaking off the melancholy of the sad old place, plunged through brush and bushes, heading toward the cliff edge of the grounds. Finally he emerged from a grove of trees beyond the cemetery into a sunlit meadow where goats and the unhappy sheep were grazing. In the water far below, two men went by in a boat. It was a motorboat but they were paddling, their silence probably in deference to the nuns. Max waved, but they didn't see him, intent as they were on navigating the choppy water.

Max walked to the mountain's edge and looked down and along the stone wall that rose straight from the river running beneath the abbess's lodge and the infirmary. A small black door flanked by mooring rings was set into the wall. Presumably it was used for offloading goods or even for catching swans, back in the day when they were prized as much for food as for their beauty.

Max squinted into the sun, peering across the rolling vastness like some ancient mariner, taking in the woodlands and heathlands of the fertile area, imagining that as far as the eye could see was abbey land. He knew Glastonbury Tor sat in the misty distance behind him, pulsing with all the tie-died colors of the rainbow, a sort of small, bare Twin Peak to the wooded tor on which he stood. Archeologists were convinced there was some connection between the two sites but could only guess at what the link might have been.

He came nearer to the grazing animals. Watching the black-and-white-spotted sheep, Max recalled a documentary where a ewe had been tricked into thinking she had given birth twice, so she could be given another ewe's lamb to nurse.