Grandmother and the Priests (37 page)

The priest examined one of the front paws while the dog’s whimpers became frantic. He saw at once what had happened. The brave animal had actually managed to scale the high granite wall about the mansion; the brave heart had ignored the stabbing glass on the top. And then he had leapt down the other side and had come racing for the priest.

Father Alfred did not question how the dog had known where to find him, or why he had come. He said, loudly and calmly, “Yes, yes, I’ll come at once. Be quiet, friend. I must dress a little, and then get my bicycle.” “Come, come quick!” whimpered the dog. “She is in terrible danger!” “I know,” said the priest, his heart pounding, as he pulled on his trousers and then his boots, and then his coat.

He ran to the door, with the dog beside him, then halted, looking about the room. The poker! It was heavy, short and broad. He went out to the shed and got his bicycle, and the two, the man on the light vehicle, and the dog, rushed side by side to the mansion, like two silent and desperate shadows under the ominous sky.

There was not a soul about, not even one of the policemen. There was no time to look for any of them, Father Alfred knew, but how he knew he did not know. He used what breath he had for prayers. And the dog ran as silently as death beside him, fleeter even than himself in spite of the bloody paws, the torn and wounded paws. The priest looked down at the dog, and said, “I will need you. You are better than an army.”

They reached the wall. The dog ran along it, however, to a gate, and waited, panting loudly in the dark silence. It was almost too black to see anything, but the dog’s eyes were gleaming and vivid, as is the way with animals at night. Father Alfred tried the high iron gate, but it was locked. So he began to climb it, the poker dangling awkwardly in the pocket of his coat. It was harder to climb, actually, than the wall itself. The priest heard a scrabbling sound below him, and he called down softly, “No, wait. I’ll open the gate for you, if I can.” He was dripping with sweat halfway up. He could see the upper windows of the mansion, and all was dark. He gave a single thought as to why the other dogs were not howling, and then he knew. The leader had ordered their silence. When he reached the top he could hear the crowded breathing of them, and see the glimmer of their eyes below. Now he had a time with the spikes, but at least there was no glass. He tore his coat, his sleeves, his trousers, getting over the spikes, and one of his hands had begun to bleed.

Then he was over and climbing quickly down. If only he had a lantern! He had to feel in the deep darkness around the lock. Ah, it was a cunning bolt, not a lock, and a bolt that could be reached only from the inside. He pulled it back with all his strength, for it was thick and strong, and the gate creaked open a little. The big dog was at it in an instant, thrusting it wide open with his mighty shoulders. Then he was racing towards the house with the dogs at his heels, and among them, stumbling, raced Father Alfred, with the poker swinging in his hand.

The mansion was totally dark, except for a long vertical sliver of light between draperies on the first floor. Father Alfred ran to it, tried to see within the room. He caught a glimpse of a white wall, the edge of a portrait, a rosy shadow of the fire. He tried the window, and it was locked. He ran to the door, and it was locked, also. Then he went back to the window and shattered the glass with the poker.

There were two thunderous sounds and a whine near his ear, and then the howling of a dog, which had apparently been hit. A gun, then. Father Alfred scrambled over the low sill of the window and was about to drop into the room when he heard another sound. The opening of the outer door, and then a faint stream of light, and in that light the shadow of a man. “Get him!” he shouted, wildly, to his friend the big dog, and the dog flew like a huge moth to the man, and there was a desperate scream. Father Alfred, satisfied, dropped into the rich room.

Lady McLeod, in a long white gown of silk and lace, lay facedown on the red carpet of the room, motionless, her golden head dropped between her outflung arms. Groaning, the priest ran to her and bent over her, and fearfully turned her about. Her face was livid, her eyes staring and rolled up, her tongue partly protruding from her open mouth. There were purple splashes about her throat. She had been strangled. Praying, the priest felt for her pulse, though without hope. It was just perceptible. She was still alive. He raised his voice in a loud shout for help, and then he drew a deep breath and pressed his mouth to that of the girl and blew his breath into her throat. Vaguely he was aware of voices, screams, lights, the yelping of dogs, but all his attention was on the girl. He pressed her ribs in, released them, and blew his breath of life into her. He caught flashes, through the corner of his eye, of whirling skirts and cries for the police. He heard a door banging, then the rattle of harness, then the pounding of hoofs. Someone, he thought with detachment, has finally gone for help.

In and out, breath upon breath, pressure slowly but firmly on the delicate ribs. He had learned this method at school; it had saved many lads fished from pond and stream. He concentrated all his effort, all his silent prayers, all the extreme exactitude of which he was capable, to saving this life. Were the ribs beginning to contract and expand a little, on their own? He did not stop to see. He breathed in and out. And he prayed mentally.

Then the cold and swollen lips under his began to warm and stir. He gave himself a swift glance at the girl’s face now. The ashen color was being replaced by a whiter and clearer shade. The staring eyes were closed, and the golden lashes were fluttering. The priest continued his ministrations, until the girl started convulsively and strained for breath of her own, and caught it, and expelled it. She did this several times, and then the priest knew she would live. He tried to rise. The room swung about him, and he fainted.

From far off, after a long time, he heard a voice say, “It’s all over, laddie! Here, drink this.” There was a cold glass at his lips, and he obediently drank the brandy. “A brave laddie,” said the Chief Constable’s voice, and another man answered, “Aye, and he’s a’ that, sir.” Another masculine voice said, “Don’t drown him or strangle him with that, Bob. Let him swallow slowly.” Father Alfred swallowed slowly and gratefully, his eyes still closed, for a heavy weight seemed to be lying on them. He did not know where he was and it was not until he had swallowed all the brandy that he could remark to himself, “What is all this? Where am I?”

He opened his eyes painfully to a glare of many lamps. The room — what room? — appeared to be seething with men and women, though actually there were only the Chief Constable, three policemen, the doctor, and two of the servants. Then the priest recalled everything, and tried to sit up. He was lying, he noticed vaguely, on some long couch covered with green velvet.

He tried to cry out, to speak. The Chief Constable put his hand on his shoulder, and Father Alfred fell back, weakly. “Her ladyship is in her bed,” said the Chief Constable, “with one of her women with her (who is a nurse), and under a drug. She’ll be as right as rain, laddie, before another day is up. And it was you that saved her life!” he added, admiringly. “How did ye get on to it, at last?”

“I didn’t,” said the priest in a croaking voice. “The dog came for me, and told me.” He started. “The poor, brave dog! Where is he?”

The doctor said, “Bound up nicely, and sleeping, I trust, in his kennel. So he came for you, did he? Because he could not get into the house himself, and knew himself helpless against a gun. And there’s some that calls them dumb animals!”

“The man?” asked the priest, after a moment, and with fear. The Chief Constable’s face darkened with hate and rage. “The dog was holding him like death, with the help of the others, when we came. It’s young Laurance Highland.”

The priest could have wept. Laurance Highland, only son, only child, of Sir William and Lady Highland, the child of their middle age. The Highlands, vigorously practicing Catholics, devout people, good people, kindly and simple and charitable people. They so loved their son, the handsome, gay, laughing son, twenty-six years old, who had never injured a living thing in his life, not even a fox or rabbit, until the night he had killed Lord McLeod, for love of his wife.

The priest had to hear it all, even while he told himself over and over, I’d never have believed it! He was the only one I never really suspected. Not Laurance, who in a state of mortal sin had received Holy Communion piously every Sunday, and who had confessed in the Confessional only to the lightest of the venial sins. Why had he done this? To direct any suspicion anyone might have had of him, if anyone had suspected at all?

Apparently not even Lady McLeod had suspected him very much, for so she had whispered when they had gotten her into her bed. But he was unmarried, and young. He had also treated her with respect and deference and kindness, unlike the others who were actively wooing her. However, on this night, she had confronted him as she had confronted others, with drink, then with soft words, then with pretended love. And he had responded, and almost with pride had told her the truth, thinking that for what he had done she would fall into his arms! Into his drunken, groping arms, with exclamations of love!

They had been alone in the drawing-room, after all the guests had gone and the women were asleep high in their rooms under the roof. Lady McLeod, laughing, and with hate and murder in her heart, had disentangled herself with some excuse, and had run to the gunroom for the very pistol which had blown out the life of her husband. She had returned here, to find Laurance sprawled sleepily, but smilingly, on the green velvet couch. And she had told him that she was going to kill him.

He had, apparently, pretended to be sleepier and drunker than he actually was, for he had let his face become empty and slack and had raised himself a little on the couch, looking directly at the gun pointed at him. He was slender and athletic; from that half-reclining position he had hurled his body like a missile at the girl, and she had staggered back under the impact and had dropped the gun. He had then seized her by the throat, in his terror for what he had revealed, and had begun to strangle her thoroughly to death when Father Alfred had smashed the window. He caught a glimpse of the priest’s head, dropped the girl to the floor, picked up the gun, and had fired. Believing that he had hit the priest, because of the sharp howl of the dog, he had run to the door, and had been seized by the great dog.

“He has confessed it all, and is now in gaol,” said the Chief Constable. “And he will be hanged. There’s nae fight in him any longer, now that his parents know, may God have mercy on the puir souls.”

“But how could the dog, that big brute, have known, and have gotten over the wall so quickly, and brought the priest?” asked the doctor, marveling. “It’s not possible, of course, but the dog must have known, watching his mistress through the window, that she was in danger, long before Laurance had confessed, pridefully, to her in his drunkenness, long before she had gone for the gun, long before Laurance had taken her by the throat. It’s not possible — ”

“It’s a’ that,” said the Chief Constable, with solemnity. “We hae the evidence.”

The doctor shook his head again, marveling. “We shall never know,” he said.

“It is an evil thing to call an animal a brute,” said the other. With pity, he gave Father Alfred another drink of brandy, then, on second thought, gave one to himself and one to the doctor, and, after a pause, to his three men. They let the priest sip alone for a while, and wondered at his thoughts. He was thinking of how good the Highlands had been to him. It was they who had built the parochial school in the time of the ‘auld Faether’. It was they who were so generous for the missions. It was they — Tears filled the young priest’s eyes. He had never loved any woman but his mother, his three sisters, and one old aunt. In the abstract, he knew that men sometimes killed for a woman; he had never encountered the actuality before. Yet, though Laurance had killed for Lady McLeod, he had attempted to kill her also. The lust to murder, then, was stronger than love.

Man was utterly dark in his soul, vile in his thoughts, treacherous of speech and action, more beastly than any poor beast, not to be trusted. Yet One had died for him; One had considered him worth saving.

“Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us — Lord, have mercy,” whispered the young priest, while the tears ran down his face and he bent his head and clasped his hands.

He came the next day to see Lady McLeod, ringing the gate-bell and being admitted at once by the policeman on guard. But first he went to see his friend in the kennel, and was greeted by the bandaged one with love, laughter and pride. “We saved her,” he said. “We two.” The priest kissed the large shaggy head and rubbed the rough ears. “No, you did,” he said. Then he went to call on her ladyship, who was sitting up in her bed, her throat bandaged.

Her eyes began to brim with tears when she saw him and she held out her hand to him, and the woman with her discreetly left the room. But Father Alfred did not take the offered hand. He did not listen to the painfully whispered words of gratitude. He waited until she had finished. And then he looked into her eyes, sternly.

She bowed her head and clasped her hands, and whispered, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I accuse myself of attempted murder — ”

She made her full, if halting, confession, and then a perfect Act of Contrition. And the priest absolved her of her sins.

“Still,” said Father Alfred to his friends about the fire, “had she not done what she did the murderer would never have been caught. She was a brave woman. But, as St. Paul has said, we see through dark glasses now — She married one of George’s friends two years later, and they had four fine children.”

“And the good dog?” asked Grandmother.

“Oh, Lady McLeod gave him to me, in her gratitude, and we were fast friends until he died of a great age, in my arms. I never had a better or more understanding friend. And I sometimes wonder — It is possible that George, Lord McLeod was right, after all.”