Grandmother and the Priests (33 page)

“He smiled again, radiantly. He fought for words in his small English vocabulary. Then his eyes shone. He pointed at me with delight. ‘Iss — ’Igh — priest?’ He indicated my Edge of Purple.

“ ‘Monsignor,’ said the Vicar, chillily. ‘
Not
a Bishop!’

“He had relegated me to a low class. I gave him one of my own chill looks.

“ ‘The next elevation,’ I began.

“He gave me a superior smile.

“I was not High Church. I was not really recognized; I should never be recognized. In England. I was without the Pale. I was suddenly sick with anger, and remembrance, and furious that I should be angered.

“We stared bleakly at each other, the Vicar and I. We served the same God, and we looked at each other with superior distaste. The stranger was momentarily forgotten.

“The stranger said, in his wavering, guttural voice, ‘Iss — men of Gott-Holy Iss Nam.’

“ ‘Priests,’ said the Vicar.

“ ‘I am a Monsignor. Of the Holy Catholic Church,’ said I.

“ ‘Men of Gott — Holy Iss Nam,’ said the stranger, delighted.

“We could not understand his delight. We gave each other another bleak glance.

“ ‘Holy Catholic Church,’ said the Vicar to me. ‘On what authority — ?’

“ ‘The Apostolic Succession,’ I said. ‘You do not have it. Yours is a religion formulated by man. Ours is the Church, founded by Our Lord.’

“ ‘There can be some controversy there,’ said the Vicar, knowingly. ‘We claim — ’

“The stranger nudged me again. ‘Iss — man, you — a boy. Gott — ’

“ ‘Many are called but few are chosen,’ said the Vicar, vigorously.

“ ‘Chote-sen?’ said the stranger, bewildered.

“I was feeling a little less hostility to the stranger. I pointed at myself. (After all, the Vicar had used the King James Version of the Holy Bible.) I made a beckoning motion, pointing upwards clearly, then pointing to myself. The stranger looked bewildered again. Impatiently, I pointed outside the window, to the sky, then again to myself.

“ ‘Ahhhhh!’ said the stranger, nodding, and making a rich sound. He folded his hands together.

“At least, I thought, he had some reverence for the clergy. But why had I not spoken in German — if he understood German? However, that reverence! I warmed to him a little.

“ ‘Holy Iss Nam,’ said the stranger, and bent his head.

“ ‘Holy is His Name. The Holy of Holies.’ The stranger understood.

“Then the Vicar leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Not a heathen, apparently.’

“I had not forgotten I was without the Pale. But, as a cultured gentleman I could not show my displeasure, and as a priest I should be as meek and humble as my Lord. I struggled mightily with myself. And I said — and may God forgive me — ‘Not from the benighted, at least.’

“ ‘But these foreigners,’ murmured the Vicar.

“We were again brothers, in snobbery, products of public schools.

“ ‘Ah, yes,’ I sighed.

“The stranger was looking at me intently, with that beaming, brilliant smile of his. “ ‘In England,’ he said. ‘Iss in England — ’ He struggled for the right word. He fought for it. Then, desperately, he made a gesture of beating, of pounding, of cutting of a throat.

“ ‘No,’ I said, understanding all the gestures.

“ ‘What does he mean?’ asked the Vicar.

“I took some pleasure in my answer. ‘He means we don’t kill people here, in England, if they are different from us.’

“ ‘Certainly not!’ said the Vicar, shocked. ‘We are civilized people! But these foreigners! How can we make him understand that, outcast though he is, a foreigner, and peculiar, and not English, he is safe?’

“Safe, I thought. Where, in God’s name, is it safe for a man to live? Safe from his enemy, his fellow-man?

“The stranger had subsided into himself. His hatted head was bent, his hands folded. He was murmuring strange words, rocking back and forth in his seat. My skin began to prickle with an awful warning. And then the train pulled into Manchester station.

“There was a crowd outside, eager, searching at all windows. Running back and forth, shouting to each other, pointing. Not for me. Not for the Vicar. I felt very lonely, and very young.

“Then the eager, searching faces were at our window, and joy lighted them. They raised their voices in loud exultation.

“ ‘Rabbi! Rabbi!’ they cried, and pointed at the stranger with joy.

“The stranger rose, and waved his hand at his welcomers. He lifted his oddly designed luggage. He smiled at us, then pointed to the sky, then to himself.

“He said to us, gently and sweetly, pointing at himself, ‘Iss — Russia. Pogrom. Iss coming to England. Rabbi.’ He searched our confounded faces, and his own saddened and there were tears in his eyes. ‘Iss — wife — kilt.’ He made a stepping gesture from the floor, three times, to his thigh. ‘Iss — child.’ He held up three fingers. ‘Kilt.’ I knew a little Hebrew, and knew what he said when he said it: ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.’

“ ‘What did he say?’ asked the Vicar, whose face was dark red now.

“I did not answer.

“The rabbi watched us. Then he raised his hand, blessing us. ‘Iss men of Gott. Goot men.’

“He left the train and we sat there and we did not meet each other’s eyes. The rabbi was absorbed by his joyous people, who embraced him, and kissed him on his checks. He stood taller than all of them, radiant, happy. Free.

“Then the Vicar spoke, in a low voice. ‘Not good. We. Not good at all.’

“ ‘Not good at all,’ I repeated. I looked at the Vicar. ‘I am not an Englishman, either,’ I said. ‘I am an Irishman.’

“The Vicar extended his hand. And I shook it. In silence we completed our journey to London. We trundled along, in our desperate, guilty silence.

“We rode in silence, in the Pale of our inhumanity. A brother had spoken to us, a man of God, like ourselves, and we had rejected him. We had despised him. We had despised each other, and taunted each other.

“And so it will be, forever,” said Monsignor Brant, “until man learns that no man is beyond the Pale of God. Let us know that, before we die. Before we die.”

Rose, that night, remembered that she had once, when walking with her mother, seen a dusky-skinned man in a long coat and a turban. Curious children followed him, snickering among themselves and pointing.

“Now, Mama,” said Rose to her husband many years later, “may not have been the gentlest of souls. But there was one thing she would never put up with, and that was insulting a man, or belittling him, or treating him contemptuously, because of his race or his color. ‘He is as God made him,’ she would say, ‘and who are we to question God and ask Him why He had not created all men of one color only, and as alike as peas in a pod? And if he has a different religion from us, that is his affair, and between himself and his God. If his religion is not good, then it is up to us to show him his error, but not to persecute him for that error.’ And so, when I went to bed that night I told Sir Oswold — I was still so afraid of God — that never in my life would I despise anyone for being what he was, so long as he was not a wicked man. I felt very virtuous as I fell asleep. It’s not a matter of virtue at all, but human decency and understanding. At any rate, I remembered that about Mama, after Father Brant’s story.”

The next night Rose met a short, very fat old priest with a jolly face and cheeks the color of ripe pears, and eyes like blue grapes in the sun. He laughed a great deal; he appeared to enjoy life mightily. Moreover, he made instant friends with the parrot, a creature who detested everyone. The parrot, however, became quite maudlin over Father Ludwin, and insisted not only on giving him a prized monkey-nut but stood watchfully to see that the priest ate it. Father Ludwin did so. He carefully kept his face polite, though his mouth puckered. He said to them all about the fire, “You never tell your host that you do not care for a particular dish. Animals are especially sensitive when they offer a delicacy.”

“What hae we here? A new St. Francis of Assisi?” chuckled Grandmother.

Father Ludwin chuckled in return. “A kind thought,” he said. “Once I remember that a dog gave me a bit of rotten partridge. I took castor oil after that tidbit. And that reminds me of the ‘demon lady’ and her dogs. It was long ago, near Glasgow. Ah, what dogs she had. But I must tell you,” and he sat down and smiled.

“I was a very downy priest, indeed, when I was sent to a largish hamlet not too far from Glasgow. It was my first parish. The hamlet, I discovered approvingly, was brisk, hard-working, responsible and independent, with a scattering of Protestants, mostly the large landowners who lived on their property and did a great deal, in brotherly love and mutual assistance with Catholics, to increase the general prosperity. In fact, I have nowhere found so Christian a kindness and understanding in my other parishes, where the Catholics and the local Protestants were customarily at each other’s throats.

“The hamlet had already developed a machine-woven type of tweed which amazingly simulated the tweed woven on home looms. Moreover, it was less harsh and had less tendency to stand away from the body as if it had a dour life of its own and it would be — er — damned if it conformed to the confines of any figure. Consequently the tweed was much in demand in the Isles and the colonies and even in America, where gentlemen and ladies prefer not to itch violently, in tweeds, when the temperature rises slightly above freezing. This tweed was more pliant and complaisant and agreeable, woven in a spirit of intelligent compromise. The factory weaving it employed many men, and some women, at good wages, and had enlightened ideas as to the relationship between employers and workers. The product was cheaper than the usual Scottish tweed, for Glasgow was close at hand for shipping abroad.

“The hamlet had three good schools, one High Church, one grammar and one parochial. So cordial were all relationships that the Anglican priest, a Presbyterian minister, and myself took turns visiting the schools to deliver kindly talks to the pupils. I confess that my own were often couched in the loftiest language, which the children politely received, if with some bewilderment. But then, as I have said, I was young and downy, and convinced that I must never miss an opportunity to Enlighten and Edify the Young Mind, as the saying was then. I am afraid that I frequently bored the young people to death, but they had been rigidly trained in courtesy.

“While we were all so very cordial it was understood that none of us — Catholic, Anglican or Presbyterian — must encroach on the other’s territory. It was an unspoken and gentlemanly agreement, but firm, I discovered. We sallied forth to the schools only when invited, and we visited each other only when invited. My dreams of a personal Apostolate began to wither. And then I discovered that my hands would be quite full enough with my own people. For my parish was near the edge of the hamlet, and quite rural, and the farmers were more prosperous than the majority of farmers in other places. The prosperity gave them much independence of mind, and there is nothing more independent than a Scotsman with a bank account and a private little hoard somewhere in the house, and a large joint of beef or mutton on a Sunday, or a large fat fowl. My countrymen are by nature cantankerous and inclined to irritability, and endlessly looking for what they call ‘discussions’ but which are really arguments, frequently bloody. They were, of course, all lawyers, for, as it has been said before, every Scotsman is either a lawyer or a deacon, or a wee minister.

“My people were all three of them, and they were all, without exception, bluenoses. This is not extraordinary among Scotsmen. While not averse, occasionally, to straying up the garden path, they don’t enjoy it very much, and they hate it among their neighbors. The most fanatic of the bluenoses, naturally, were men who had dallied more frequently than others. And their wives, who were never deceived, hated the gay girls and ladies who threatened the warmth of the hearth, but, more than that, the shillings and gold pieces in the tea caddy or under the sugar or in the mattress. A Scotswoman will forgive a husbandly stroll, if not too flagrant, but she’ll sit grimly on the family private hoard to be certain no part of it ends up in a trollop’s skirt pocket. Adultery to a Scotswoman, I am afraid, is less a violation of one of the Commandments than a violation of the shillings and pounds in their hiding places. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that prostitution is a little less rife among Scots gay ladies than in other races. The lady of the house is usually the Keeper of the Purse.

“So, while I discovered sober husbands who sometimes found business in Glasgow, I found no girls in any quantity who were too beguiled by the hard and reluctant springtime to ‘forget themselves’ for a romp in the buttercup fields. They, too, were hard-headed. Love has always had a rough time in competition with savings, in Scotland. ‘Throwing her cap over the windmill’ rarely netted a buxom girl any cash, and there was always the danger of not getting a virtuous husband in the hamlet, for men do talk, you know, even Scotsmen. So virtue in Scotland is never too endangered, the virtue of chastity, of course.

“My parish was not too sure of me in the beginning, and I certainly was not too sure of myself. After all, it was whispered, my mother was a Sassenach, and I had spent more time in England than in Scotland. (How they found out these things I do not know, but a Scotsman, though he would deny it, is a vigorous gossip, especially in the hamlets.) They were afraid, too, that when I discovered the prosperity abounding everywhere I’d begin talking severely of tithes, and there is nothing a Scotsman hates more than a tithe, which makes him think of the English tax-gatherers. At least, that is what he says. But I knew, instinctively, that the whisper had gone about: ‘Hae a watch on the new pastor. He’s but a lad, and lads are improvident.’ So, while I was eloquent in my pulpit on the needs of the Church and foreign missions and perhaps another school, and the propagation of the Faith, I was uncomfortably aware that the women’s purses were tight-shut and the men had buttoned down their pockets. I was vexed, at first, for these were fat people. Later, I used more devious means to obtain cash. Did I say devious? I was wrong. I had to learn brutal tactics. But that is another story.

“There was a landowner of impressive property on the outskirts of my parish. My women parishioners immediately informed me, on my arrival, that the landowner, a Scotswoman like themselves, was a ‘besom’, which is not a complimentary term and can be used to indicate a bad-tempered woman, a girl who laughed and danced too much, a prostitute, or a lady of openly questioned virtue. This particular landowner was the latter. She was Jezebel incarnate, a lady of such vices and such mischief as to make my people wonder why Satan did not appear in a cloud of fire over the mansion and carry off the poor female in flames and with a stench of brimstone.”

A Catholic lady? Father Ludwin asked at once. Aweel, if ye hae a mind broad as the Atlantic. Earlier she had come with her husband to attend Mass every Sunday, and showered (disapproval here) gold coins and banknotes in the plates, and could be seen at Confession every Saturday. “A fair fanatic,” one of the ladies assured Father Ludwin, “and always with the nuns about her. But,” they added darkly, “it was nae for long. Not mair than six months. It was her that drove the old priest to an early grave, and it’s nae wonder, with her carryings-on, after her husband died. She wouldna see him after that, nor the good Sisters.” And then, not more than a month after her husband had died, she had launched on a career of great wickedness. “Full of mortal sin, an’ a’ that, Father. Mortal sins a penny a dozen.”

The lady’s husband, through a series of deaths, had inherited the broad lands, the moors, the fine meadows, the glorious house, the cattle and the sheep, the fat fields, and the title. It was unexpected. He had been only fourth in line for the title, and a barrister in Glasgow, and his lady, though poor, had been gentry in her own right, in Glasgow. Oh, there had been great doings in the mansion on its small hill, among the vast old trees, before young Lord McLeod had — died! All the local gentry had been constantly invited, and there were riddles and dancing, and many came from Glasgow to spend weeks. It had ended when George, Lord McLeod had — died. It was some time before Father Alfred’s young ear heard something peculiar in the intonation of ‘died’. He was too puzzled before.

What was the ‘mortal sin’? The ladies cast down their eyes and delicately referred the priest to their husbands. Their husbands, though cautious, were more explicit. Mortal sin — constant adultery among the local gentry. No Sunday Masses attended any longer. No Easter duty. No more frolics on the green on Whitsuntide, to which everybody had been invited. Blasphemy. Curses on the ‘auld Faether’ when he presumed to attempt to visit her. “It’s a hard face she’ll have on her now,” the new pastor was informed. “A face like the divil, himself, all wild-like, and furious.”

“Children?” asked Father Alfred. There were knowing smiles and shakings of heads. Aweel, now, the lord and his lady had been married but a little time. And nae doot her master, Satan, had informed her of methods to avoid the contretemps of a bastard in spite of her beddings-down with the local gentry every night. “One mon is always after another. She’ll nae see too much of one; she must hae changes for her diviltry and amusement.”

Her age? The women shrugged. The older spitefully guessed it as at least thirty. The younger generously reckoned it was much younger, perhaps not more than twenty-three. Appearance? The older women shrugged and talked of demon-faces. The younger wistfully suggested incredible beauty. “She’ll hae that, Faether, for who else could draw the men to a living divil in human flesh?” She was rarely seen any longer. But always, every night, the mansion was aglitter with lights and alive with laughter and music. And then, at midnight, when decent folk were abed, the lights would finally go off. Father Alfred mused who was moving around, or awake, to see lights go off at midnight.

Servants? Aye, that. Three auld women from Glasgow, and Protestants who never had a civil word nor stopped to speak in the shops or on the streets. Tall, silent women in pony-carts, who ignored the most pleasant of greetings. “Divils, theyselves, Faether, nae doot.” There were gardeners by the day, from the hamlet, who were paid well, and never saw the mistress. They affected to be much frightened, but the pastor decided this was pretense or the wages too high.

Lady McLeod slept all day, long after her lovers had left, and she arose only when the sun went down. It was rumored that she walked within her high walls, alone, wringing her hands and weeping, before her guests arrived. She walked, and walked always, in the forests, in the glades. And the gardeners reported eerie wailings and cries. Lady Martha, no doubt, was accosted by devils in her solitary walks, and received her daily orders from them. “And she never attends Mass, not even on Easter Sunday?” asked Father Alfred. Heavy shakings of heads. One farmer, more informed than others, suggested Black Masses, and blessed himself, shuddering.

Father Alfred was young. And avidly curious. He called it concern about a Christian soul that apparently was quite damned. Or, possibly, mad. But what had driven her mad, then?

The fanatic bluenoses talked quite openly to the priest of setting fire to the mansion and driving out the ‘divils’. Arson, said the priest sternly, was not approved by the public authorities. Then, he had some inspirations. He would make queries elsewhere. He had now become curious as to how and why the young lord had ‘died’. Was Lady Martha another Lady Macbeth?

He went to the Chief Constable, who was not Catholic. Father Alfred had had enough, for now, of talk of Satan, Black Masses and devils in the green woods and copses and in the fat fields. He had seen the holdings from very afar, rolling gently, vividly vernal, and he had seen the distant wide, high walls which hid the great ‘hoose’, and the shut gates, and had heard the constant howling and snarling of many watchdogs prowling the territory within the gates. The menacing sound had come to him on the winds from the west, an ugly clamor as of jackals.

The Chief Constable was a thin, sinewy and ‘black’ man, with a sharp grin. He was much older than Father Alfred, but even the downy priest was not as unsophisticated. So Father Alfred had to press his lips tightly together to keep from smiling when the other man immediately informed him, with a worldly gesture, that he was no ‘believer’, but ‘belonged to the agnostic school’. The priest doubted very much that Mr. Marshall could define agnosticism, but he gave Mr. Marshall the expected, and delightedly received, admonishing frown, feeling himself considerable of a hypocrite while doing so. He must be very careful not to let the Chief Constable suspect for an instant that the young priest knew him for a most unworldly man, if competent in his duties.

“And what will be your business, sir?” asked the Chief Constable, unable to keep from his ‘agnostic’ voice the inevitable reverence for and the secret envy of the Scotsman of the clergy.

The priest looked about the brown and dusty office reflectively. “It will be the matter of a certain lady,” he said. “A lapsed Catholic, perhaps. Lady Martha McLeod.”

“Ah, that one!” exclaimed the Chief Constable keenly. “A rum business, there. I hope ye hae no listened to the folly of your own congregation, and their tales.”

“Tell me, yourself, please,” said Father Alfred. He paused. “I prefer to come to authentic sources and not to listen to rumor.”

The Chief Constable expanded, regarded him with favor, glanced about his office, puffed, and became pompous. Nevertheless, he told a meticulous story, free of wandering details.

The young lord had taken over the estates and had brought his young lady to the mansion. “Ah, there will be a rare beauty, that one,” said the Chief Constable. “Lovely as a rose in bloom. Nae wonder the lassies aboot detested her on sight, and their mithers, and the unmarried spinsters. Her age? Not more than twenty-two, even now, and it may be less.”

George, Lord McLeod had been a shy and retiring young man, in his middle twenties, a little shorter than his beautiful wife, fair, thin, delicate of feature and hand and voice. Though indubitably a Scotsman, and a lover of the countryside for all he had been a city man, he had some characteristics that offended both the local gentry and the people of the hamlet in general. He would kill nothing, no matter the necessity. The estate had been overgrown from neglect. “The auld laird had been doting,” said the Chief Constable, and the gardeners had taken advantage, and had engaged in open poaching, which they called hunting, in broad twilight after their day’s work was done.

The ‘pesties’, too, had flourished. Weasels, rabbits gnawing on young trees, foxes, squirrels — all. And cuckoos decimating the broods of the song birds, and rooks in such quantities in the great oaks and larches that they were a curse to all the farmers in the neighborhood. But the young lord would permit no shooting of any of them, no hunting whatsoever. He had been known to say that God had blessed animals before He had created and blessed man, and that the earth was as much their home as it was the home of fallen man. Many had been the arguments between him and the old priest, whose own tiny garden was being destroyed by the ‘pesties’. Man, said the old priest, had been given dominion over all the earth and all the animals. “But not to kill them wantonly,” said the young lord, with obstinacy. “Only man destroys his own species. The fox, the wolf, are more moral than man, for they commit no mortal sins.” Sometimes the old priest shouted; the young lord was invariably respectful, but stubborn. He was also a vegetarian. When he and the young lady had guests there would be fish on the table, and good egg-dishes, but nary a joint, a roast or a fowl. He ate sparingly, refused the fish, ate the eggs, and consumed abnormal amounts of vegetables.