Grandmother and the Priests (26 page)

“What does it mean?” Father Andrew whispered. Father Ifor buttoned his cassock. His fingers were trembling a little. Black. Now he knew, and remembered.

“There are times,” said Dr. Brecon, “that I wish I had had common sense and had become a miner, myself. Sit down, Father Andrew, do.” He glanced at Father Ifor. He said, desperately, “After all, you are priests and you know that life and death — ” His voice stopped.

“Ifor is all that is left of my family. He is all I have,” said Father Andrew, and all at once he was no longer a priest but a terrified old man, lonely and sad. “What is this melan — ”

Father Ifor spoke for the first time, and gently. “Black cancer is the popular term for it, Andrew.”

“Go then, please, Father,” said the doctor, who had lost his courage.

Ifor took his cousin’s arm and looked down into the watering blue eyes. “There is no cure for it, Andrew. It means — death. It has spread. It means I am soon going to die. Andrew?” But Father Andrew had put his worn and spotted hands over his face, and the bent shoulders were heaving.

“We are priests,” said Ifor, pleadingly. “We know death as close as a brother. We know it is our portal into eternal life, and to the Beatific Vision.”

“There will be pain?” asked Father Andrew from behind his fingers, through which drops of tears were running.

“Yes,” said Dr. Brecon. “But it is not a slow thing, not,” he said, in a lower voice, “in the condition it is now.”

“Have we ever feared pain?” asked Ifor of his cousin. But he was a man, after all, and there was a twisting nausea in his bowels, and a human fear. “God’s will be done,” he said, and he was afraid as he had never been afraid before, not even when he had been caught in the mines by an explosion and had been rescued only in the very nick of time.

Dr. Brecon went to his medical cabinets and he shook out a handful of very small gray tablets and put them in a little bottle. He handed them mutely to Ifor. “Morphine?” said the priest, and the doctor nodded.

“I do not have pain yet.”

“You will,” said the doctor, sadly. He hesitated. “May I look a little more closely?” It was to divert Andrew rather than anything else which made Ifor consent. The doctor found more lymph glands invaded, and small lumps here and there. “Yes, pain,” he said, in the flat voice of a man who dares not express his emotions. “Very soon. I suggest you ask your Bishop to relieve you of your duties, Father. I will give you a paper to send him.” He sat down at his desk, relieved not to see the two priests at this task, and wrote rapidly.

“A mistake, perhaps?” implored Father Andrew, when the doctor had finished. Dr. Brecon shook his head.

“Father, I studied in Edinburgh, and I saw many such. There is no error. But if Father Ifor would like to have another consultation in Cardiff, or London, I can arrange it.”

Father Andrew, at this slight reprieve, was all tremblings. And so Father Ifor, who wrote first to his Bishop, then went to Harley Street in London, and was gone for four days. But before he returned to Gwenwynnlynn he visited his Bishop.

When he arrived at Andrew’s rectory he was smiling, and Andrew clasped his hands and cried, “It was a mistake?”

Ifor embraced him and said, quietly and firmly, “No. Dr. Brecon was right. I have the report of two Harley Street men. It is even worse than he had told us. But, we are men, and more than that, we are priests. But I have good news for you, in a way. I am being permitted by my Bishop to remain with you until — ” Then he could not speak, for old Andrew’s face was stricken and he was very still.

“Until you die,” whispered the older priest.

“How many of us are permitted to remain with those we love and are dear to us until we die?” asked Ifor, and tried not to think of the sleepless nights he had passed, and his heavy weariness, and the throbbing in the lumps.

“There can be no operation?” Father Andrew pleaded.

“Not with this, Andrew. They can cut out the — the blackness — but it reappears very quickly. And it spreads. There is no cure. But we could pray that someday there will be a cure for this disease. Andrew? Do not look so. I am only a man, if I am a priest, and I have a man’s fears. See, I am here with you again, and you must comfort me and help me — ” He stopped, for suddenly Andrew’s face was radiant and his eyes were shining.

“I know!” cried Andrew. “How is it possible that I am still stupid? I will ask Oswold to intercede for you, so that there will be a miracle!”

He clapped his hands like a delighted child. Father Ifor was depressed. He sat down, overcome with his tiredness. He was not worthy of the intercession of a saint; priests accepted God’s will. And Oswold had not been acknowledged as a saint, except by Father Andrew and a few in this lost little hamlet. But he said, kindly, “If it will give you some — peace — Andrew. You must expect nothing, however.”

“There has been no miracle since his death that I can concede as a miracle!” cried Father Andrew. “That is already in our reports, which we have not yet sent to my Bishop. Perhaps it is God’s will — the finger of God — that there should be another and incontrovertible one!”

“One must not tempt God,” said Ifor.

Andrew was vividly outraged. “Is prayer tempting Him, devout, humble prayer, that He assure us, his priests, that Oswold is one of His blessed ones, a saint?”

“In this case, I am afraid, yes,” said Ifor. “We have wanted Oswold to be acknowledged as a saint, and declared blessed, and canonized. We are Welshmen, and we are eloquent, and we can plead a good case. That, alone, would arouse suspicion.”

“Your reports from Harley Street, and Dr. Brecon’s report!” said Andrew, not listening. “Let me put them away safely. And then, Ifor,” he said, with a young man’s passion, “you must go with me into the church and I will pray to Oswold to intercede, to cure you by the Grace and merits of Our Divine Lord!”

Ifor thought of the learned Devil’s Advocate in Rome, who would dexterously question the ‘sainthood’ of Oswold Morgan, and look askance on two simple priests who were apparently hoping that one of their countrymen would receive the great accolade of the Church. Ifor, the Welshman whose pride had never really been crushed, thought of the ridicule that would come to Wales. He could see himself and Andrew, who was almost doddering and senile, in Rome, and the Archbishops there, and the Cardinals, and the questions, questions, questions. He shivered.

“Do not do this, Andrew,” he begged. For to a Welshman death is preferable to humiliation. And he thought of the ‘sharp young priest’ in Cardiff, who was probably not even a Welshman, who would smile in a superior fashion at two lowly Order priests with obscure parishes, and would imply that they wished to make themselves ‘singular’, with a miracle of their own. Ifor winced. Then he was relieved. There would be no miracle for himself, certainly, and so he would never he questioned. “Very well, Andrew,” he said fondly, “let us go into the church, and let us pray as we always pray, that God’s will be done only.”

They went into the church, and Father Andrew hurried like a child, pulling at Ifor’s hand.

It was a cold bright day and every window in the little church — each window very high and very narrow — glowed like a multicolored gem. They had the aspect of the illuminations on vellum of the medieval monks rather than of glass, for there was depth to them and living color. They stood, vivid and intense, in the rough gray stone walls, like ardent prayers made visible. The walls rose narrowly to a rude groin-roof, from which hung the golden chains of ancient chandeliers, fitted for a multitude of candles. The Stations of the Cross, which Ifor had often knelt before, appeared alive, so delicate and fine and pure and precise were the mosaics. The people spoke of the statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph as ‘stone’, but they were of the finest Carrara marble, exquisitely executed, as were the panels of the altars. But inevitably the eye was drawn to the great high altar, surmounted by an enormous crucifix evidently of ebony and ivory so that one was certain, when abstracted for a moment or two, that there stood the actual original cross and He who was on it was of flesh. It drew the eye away from high silver candelabra glimmering with tall white candles. It drew the eye from everything but itself.

Someday, thought Ifor, as he knelt beside his old cousin, this will be a shrine, a place that must not be missed, whether or not Oswold Morgan was a saint — which Ifor could still not quite accept. Certainly there had been forbidding saints and irascible saints and saints who castigated with eloquent tongues, and saints full of holy anger, and saints who were not loved or even liked in their lifetimes, but surely none had been so dark and surly as Oswold Morgan, so universally hated except for an old priest and a doctor — well, yes, there were the children, but Father Andrew was a romantic and he could possibly have read in that episode of the silent children and the gift of the ribbon something which was not really there. Perhaps Oswold had been in the habit, in his isolation, of tossing coppers to the little rascals in the streets — out of sheer human rebelliousness against the universal dislike that surrounded him — and so the children had merely gone to the carriage in greedy expectation. A whole hamlet could not hate a man so thoroughly, one and all, if he had any saintly qualities discernible to a keen eye. Yes, he had done much for the hamlet, but that may have been a perverted revenge. So shrewd and clever and intelligent a man, capable of amassing a fortune through inventive genius, must have known that someday his benefactors would discover who he was, and then would suffer in their souls for their lack of charity. That would nourish a revengeful soul exceedingly! And he had taken care — note that, dear old Andrew, deep in your fervent prayers now — that the request that his name never be known to those he had helped had not been included in his will! Eventually, he had wanted to be known, even if it were only after his death, and he had wanted his revenge, not only on the hamlet, but on the Church. Was he laughing in — ? Where was Oswold Morgan this hour?

Half ashamed of his thoughts, when he should be praying, Ifor glanced at Father Andrew, who was gazing at the mighty crucifix, his lips moving, his rosary hanging from his hands, the beads slipping one by one through his fingers. His tired eyes were bright and clear and believing; the ardor of his love for God made a light shine on his features. Here, thought Ifor, is a saint if there ever was one, and perhaps we need look no further.

But still — There were strange things, not to be explained. To attribute the cure of the dying and the crippled to the works of Satan, to deceive the people, was to stand with the Pharisees and cry, “He has a devil!” And it was quite notorious that when Satan and his angels created a sensation they never chose a little hidden spot far from the regular paths of men. They liked panoply and amazement and trumpets; the saints did what they did almost in stealth, asking nothing except that men love God. And certainly the beautifying of a church containing the Holy Eucharist would hardly be on their program of deceit! But still —

Ifor brought his thoughts sternly back to his prayers. He submitted himself to the will of God, but he thought of the ignominy of a painful, screaming death. If only, he prayed, that it is Your will that I die in the silence of the night, with only Andrew beside me! Or even alone, in Your Presence, with Your Most Holy Name on my lips. The proud Welshman, thinking of the nearness and agony of his death, was still proud, and he was afraid that in his dying he would forget that he was a priest and be only as other men.

Then he heard a stern voice within him, “A Pharisee?”

He struck his breast with his clenched fist and prayed for forgiveness. He was sweating lightly even in the chill of the church, and he could feel the ominous throbbing in his cancerous glands, a throbbing like little drums. He could also feel that draining within him, quickening day by day, almost hour by hour, the draining away of his life into the sands of death. His whole human body started, as it started so often now, in primeval alarm, aware of its awful peril, aware of the steady approach of its enemy. The body knew, long before the soul. The enemy was not far away; Ifor could hear its footsteps in the throbbing of his flesh. The body instinctively cried for flight, but it had no place to go but the grave.

The sweat became heavy on Ifor’s forehead and between his shoulder blades, where death had already set his seal. It is natural for me to be afraid, he said to himself, as he had said to others so many times before. Did not Our Lord, Himself, know human agony and human recoil from death in Gethsemane? Ah, it was easier to say that to others than to one’s self!

He felt a touch on his shoulder, and Andrew, smiling, whispered to him softly that he must visit old Mrs. Forde, but that Ifor should stay, if he wished. Ifor, weak with his fear and his slow dying, nodded, and Andrew left him. He could hear Andrew’s rustling tread and movement on the stones, and he pressed his feverish forehead on the top of the pew before him, grateful for the coolness as he knelt.

Finally, he lifted his head. He could not tell himself that he was at peace; this numbness of mind and soul was not peace. It was not even resignation. There was no one else in the church but himself. He looked at the flickering candles on the altar, sighed, glanced away, then looked again.

He had not heard that man come in, that man standing before the rail and gazing up at the great crucifix. He must have entered when Ifor and Andrew had been praying side by side, and had seated himself in the foremost pew, and then, having completed his prayers, was examining the altar. A stranger, then. Andrew had never seen him before, this tall stooped man in a very dark gray city suit, his white head glimmering a little in the scented light, the curve of his cane hanging on his arm. His back was to Ifor, and the excellent tailoring of his clothes was evident to Ifor’s faintly curious gaze. Then the man knelt at the Communion rail and clasped his hands and dropped his head. For what was this stranger praying? And coming to it, what was such a man doing here, in this lonely hamlet? There were no grand houses or inns where such as he would remain, and visit. An owner, then, from England? Peculiar that he should come, for owners sent their agents, and it was the rare one who ever appeared even in the best of the mining districts, and Gwenwynnlynn was not one of the richest mines.

Or, he was a stranger who had heard of this beautiful, narrow little church, and had come to it as to a shrine?

The stranger rose, looked at the crucifix again, genuflected. Then, very slowly, as if in deep thought, he moved up the aisle towards Ifor, who pretended to be absorbed in untangling his rosary. It was not good manners to stare at strangers, and especially not for a priest. Those who came to pray were deserving of their privacy.

The slow footsteps came firmly up the aisle, then they stopped. Ifor, through the corner of his eye, saw finely polished boots, the end of the ebony cane, and the excellent tweed of the trousers. The man wanted to speak to him, to exchange at least a smile. So Ifor, after a moment or two, looked up.

He saw a dark, withdrawn face with the bluest eyes he had ever seen — a grave face and melancholy eyes. The nose was strong and belligerent, the chin massive and cleft. The wide thin mouth was serious and unsmiling. Then, as Ifor helplessly continued to stare, the stranger smiled, and instantly the gravity and sternness were gone and the manly face was sweet and kind.

Ifor involuntarily began to rise, but the man kindly shook his head. Then he looked steadily into Ifor’s eyes and smiled again. It was a smile of brotherhood and understanding. Then he left Ifor’s side and went up the aisle into the far sunshine of the open door, and was gone.

Ah, well, thought Ifor in surprise. He stayed for a few moments longer, then left the church. The street outside was almost empty, except for a few distant playing children, for mothers were preparing tea, and it was not time for the men to be leaving the mines. Ifor went into the rectory. Mrs. Burke was laying the cloth in the kitchen for the priests’ tea, and the kettle was humming on the hob. The old woman smiled at him with an anxious, maternal smile, for all knew, now, that Father Andrew’s younger cousin was very ill, indeed. Ifor knew that the doctor had not told, but he suspected that Andrew had asked his parishioners for their prayers.

“Well, now, it’s refreshed you look, Father Ifor,” she said, “and I do hope you have some appetite for the good tea.”

Ifor began to smile, then stopped. “Coming to it,” he said, in fresh surprise, “I feel uncommonly hungry, Mistress Burke.” He examined his sensations; why, certainly, his stomach was not turning, as was usual these days, at the fragrance of kippers heating in their pan and at the sight of a little platter of pink ham. In fact, he actually was hungry! “I’ll have a wash,” he said, “and then Father Andrew will be here, and I’m looking forward to that tea!”