Grandmother and the Priests (46 page)

“She was fond of Mrs. Gould, my lord?”

“Well, you know nurses are very professional and discreet. She said only that sometimes Mrs. Gould was a trifle difficult, which, considering her illness, was to be expected. The nurse showed the charity of her profession. Besides, the girl has her living to make. To blabber and chatter would do her no good in the minds of future patients, and the doctors. Incidentally, the doctor testified and said that the nurse was most competent and careful, and she had been warned to give Mrs. Gould only specified drops of the medicine in half a glass of water every three or so hours. She had been with the family a year.”

“Where is she now?”

“Ah, I know what you are thinking! No, the girl was not attached to Mr. Gould. And she holds a high position now in her old hospital. Her character is impeccable. And she is a good Catholic woman.”

“Has your lordship any thoughts on the subject, or opinions?”

The Bishop paused. Then he said seriously, “I do not believe that Mr. Gould murdered his wife. I do not believe that Miss Osborne did so. After all, the medicine was administered by Mr. Gould at midnight, three hours after Miss Osborne had last seen her. I do not believe that Mrs. Gould committed suicide, or took the medicine of herself. Mr. Gould testified that due to the sedation he had considerable trouble waking his wife up, and the nurse said that was always so.”

“Then, what could have happened?”

“I do not know. But now that I have been so frank with you, my son, you will understand why I am sending you to that village. Geoffrey, though half cousin third removed, is still my relative. I am afraid for his immortal soul. I am worried about his children. I am hoping that you will smooth matters out and bring Geoffrey back to the Sacraments. It will have to be done delicately, and with prudence. You are only ten years younger than Geoffrey; the present Mrs. Gould is only a few years older than you are. I really don’t know what you can do, but I’ve always been impressed by your tact and diplomacy! You see, I don’t intend that you stay in that parish very long. It can be very stultifying to a young man of your intelligence.”

But Father Shayne was still engrossed in the story. “Did no one go in to see Mrs. Gould after midnight, to see if she required anything?”

“What a detective you would make, my son! Scotland Yard is the poorer for your being a priest. Yes. Mr. Gould did look in, at two in the morning. Miss Osborne was with him. They had spent a long time around the fire in discussion, they testified. They saw Mrs. Gould in the dim illumination of the night light. They could hear her light breathing. She was fast asleep, and she never awakened during the night, as the nurse testified, for Rose slept in a cot in the room.”

“Could they have awakened her, and in her dazed condition have given her the fatal dose?”

“Yes, they could. That is why Mr. Gould, Geoffrey, was tried. They both testified that they did not do so. At two o’clock the poor lady was alive. And the examining physicians said she was probably dead two hours later, at the most. You must remember that though Mrs. Gould’s heart was not strong, she was not truly dangerously ill. In fact, she was recovering slowly. So it was not necessary for anyone to look in at her after that hour. Moreover, she had a loud bell by her bedside. The doctor had ordered undisturbed sleep after the midnight dose. And the nurse was there at seven, three hours after the death. Mrs. Gould, she said, was a ‘frightful’ blue, which the doctors said could have come from the massive overdose, which smothered the heart, or perhaps had overstimulated it.”

“If it weren’t for the quick remarriage — those two must have had some fondness for each other, my lord.”

“Well, Miss Osborne stayed to help Mr. Gould with the children for several months, for he apparently had suffered a shock, and the children loved the young lady. Love can grow very quickly under those circumstances. Besides, my son, a guilty man does not remarry as fast as Geoffrey did. He waits, prudently, for at least two years, to avoid suspicion. It is really very tragic.”

Father Shayne thought much about this case, being normally curious, while on his way to the village. No one had given Mrs. Gould a fatal dose of her medicine. Yet she had died of a massive overdose. She was not likely to have awakened between two and four in the morning and have given herself that dose that killed her. She knew she was not to have it; besides, she was partially drugged all the time anyway. She had not committed suicide. Had there been the slightest suspicion of that the priest would not have permitted her Christian burial. No one had killed her, yet she had been killed. The servants had all been questioned. They had slept through the night. They had testified that Mr. Gould was most attentive to his wife, and was greatly shocked at her death. They had been brief and discreet. They were also above suspicion. None of them had had a reason to kill the poor lady, and they had been with the family since Mr. Gould and his first wife had been married.

It was going to be very interesting, in that parish!

It was, in fact, extremely dull. Pleasant. But infernally dull. Everyone was kind, even the working-class ‘Chapel’ folk, who rarely took to ‘Romans’. Everything moved as smoothly as cream over a custard, and Father Shayne regrettably began to think of the village in those terms. He was a vigorous and intellectual young man, and he found little to do beyond his regular duties. The old gardener had shown him at once that he did not care for interference in the garden, and implied that a city man would not be able to tell a vegetable marrow from a carrot, or a rose from a lily. It was high summer, and the weather was unusually beautiful. It was holiday time, also, and the Sisters were relaxing as much as they cared to relax; after all, they had to keep a stringent eye on the new priest. One never knew about these young men, all with new ideas and enthusiasms which could be disturbing to staid middle-aged ladies like themselves. There was some criticism at recreation that he did, did he not? hurry just a trifle when he said Low Mass. And he had an impatient gleam in his eye as he strolled about the village.

The village had practically no sin, at least as far as Father Shayne could discover from his small flock. It was comfortable, hearty, rosy, and quite friendly for an English village. Many of the old colonels and widows were on holiday in the Lake Country or were visiting relatives in other parts of the country, or were basking at the seaside. So were two of the lawyers; only one doctor stayed on duty. It was a healthy village, too. The countryside was beautiful, the farming folk courteous. Father Shayne had looked forward to some leisure, but not quite so much as this. Now that he had more than he had bargained for, he discovered that his books did not interest him as much as they usually did. Besides, the weather enticed him out. He could walk in his small and excellently kept garden, but he was always aware of the suspicious eye of the gardener, and hardly dared to bend down to sniff at his own roses. He liked to use his hands, but there was nothing to repair in his handsome little cottage. He tried painting some of the lovely vistas he saw about. And yawned, sleepily.

He knew by now that his Bishop did not intend to keep him here long. He understood that he was to do something about the Geoffrey Gould family. He was to be ‘prudent’. And prudent he was, and no one spoke to him of the Goulds, who lived in a fine gray stone house on a fine isolated knoll just at the edge of the village.

Were they off on holiday, like most of the other gentry of the village? Father Shayne could not come out bluntly and ask about them, for he was not supposed to know anything of their existence. Sometimes, at Mass, he would let his eye flash briefly over the communicants, to see if he could identify anyone who resembled the Goulds. The older children would be down from school now; there were many children at Sunday Mass, especially. He waited for any of the Goulds in the Confessional. None came that he knew of. He looked at the church records; the two younger children of the second marriage had been baptized here. Alice, six years old. Gordon, four. There were records concerning the Confirmation of young Geoffrey, now fifteen, and Elsa, fourteen, and the First Communion of Eric, ten. Squire Geoffrey Gould, though having been practically excommunicated by old Father Tom, was noted in the records as giving yearly large sums of money for the support of St. George’s, a sum which would have been respectable in the richest parish in London. He had bought fine new bells for the church only three years ago, which showed that he did not bear too much rancor against the former priest. He had also paid for the really luxurious kneelers, and had given a beautiful Oriental carpet which flowed from the step of the high altar down to the Communion rail, there to be greeted by heavy rose carpeting along the rest of the length of the rail. And that beautiful rose window over the thick and polished door, Italian and precious: he had given that also. In the memory of his late beloved wife, Agnes Brady Gould. (Had that raised the gorge of Old Tom?) The organ, of the most exquisite make, was a gift of Squire Gould; it had a beautiful deep tone and filled the small church with resonant thunder at High Mass. In short, everything of value, and loving offering, had been given by Squire Gould.

Conscience money? An effort at atonement? Father Shayne found, in those first two or three drowsy, sunlit, bee-humming weeks, that he was giving tremendous thought to the whole matter, quite out of proportion. He excused himself by recalling that the Bishop was deeply concerned.

Should he go to that distant house on a friendly call? After all, the Goulds were his parishioners. He would have an excuse. But something made him hesitate.

They were surely off on holiday! Father Shayne ate his breakfasts of strawberries with thick cream, nicely prepared oatmeal and kippers and eggs and good tea, and ruminated. Sometimes he would wander casually, just strolling, in the direction of the house. He saw no one but gardeners, no one playing under the oak trees, no flutter of girls’ bright summer dresses, no wandering of Mrs. Gould, no sign of the squire. The glistening green lawns were empty, the bright windows blank. Yes, they must be away. Or, remembering Old Tom, of whom Father Shayne was not thinking too kindly now, they were keeping away from the church. This, of course, was not only a great sin, but was dangerous for the Gould children.

Father Shayne went to see the Sister Superior, a majestic old lady whose very presence intimidated him. He said, “Sister, I have records of a Gould family here, and their deep love for St. George’s. Yet, I don’t recall — are they away?”

She gave him a long, slow look, penetrating and thoughtful. Then she said briskly, “I think not. I’ve seen young Geoffrey and Elsa and Eric every Sunday at the ten o’clock Mass.”

“Oh?”

“And little Alice, with her nurse.”

“Oh?”

“Mrs. Gould is not Catholic. A lovely lady.”

“Oh?”

She smiled at him tightly. “Mr. Gould was deeply hurt by Father Thomas McGinnis. Of course, that should not keep him from his religious duties. But one can understand.”

“One can’t understand not attending Sunday Mass,” said Father Shayne, sternly. Sister gave him an even grimmer smile. “After all, it is his duty, and a sin to be absent.”

“One,” said Sister, in his own tone, which made him flush, “can be afraid of Scenes, Father. I declare that it is quite sinful of Father McGinnis, and I told him so.”

“Scenes?”

“It is not my affair, Father. There was some trouble between Father and Mr. Gould. I am not a busybody.”

Rebuked, and feeling ten years old and with a distinct sensation that the Sister Superior had whacked him with a ruler for his impertinence, Father Shayne went back to his study, fuming. The old lady was definitely on Squire Gould’s side, even though she understood, clearly, that he was committing a grave sin by absenting himself from Mass. But then, it was possible that Old Tom had actually forbidden him to come, a grave sin in itself. The Church receives sinners with tender warmth, not ravings. She asks only repentance and penance. Old Tom, then, not hearing of repentance and penance for what he believed mortal sins, had been outraged. It was a very untidy business, indeed, and very wrong of the Sister Superior to take sides with Squire Gould when she did not know the circumstances. Father Shayne wanted to call her and chide her, but he shrank from the thought. He was still smarting.

Father Shayne went for a walk through the village, admiring, as always, its smart little shops, its good buildings, its charming houses — even the poorer ones — all aglow with summer flowers, its clean and winding streets, its air of contentment under the summer sun. A pastoral, he thought. He was bored to death. He would be glad when the absent ones returned, though it would mean rainy autumn and winter.

How had Old Tom gotten the story from Squire Gould? Had it been in the Confessional his lips would have been sealed. He must have heard it confidentially, without the seal of the Confessional. If Squire Gould was at home, he was afraid to come to the rectory for more Scenes, for doubtless he knew that Old Tom had confided in the Bishop, and the Bishop in the new priest.

Father Shayne went to Windsor Castle on a fine day. Trippers were down from London. He stood, yawning, in the long line. He thought Windsor Castle extremely dull, too. The Queen was in residence, of course; she hated Buckingham Palace. Her standard flew from a gray tower. The only exciting things there were the Grenadier Guards, with their bearskin hats and red uniforms and ostentatiously stamping feet. He looked at the vast gardens, the view over the wall. Lovely. But the priest was restless. The Bishop would be waiting for at least the first letter, and there was nothing to write. But — prudence, prudence. And, of course, discretion. Silly things, really, when a man’s soul was at stake. When the Church had not been so prudent, she had gone, like her Lord, to look for the lost sheep in the most perilous places, and had brought them tenderly home. And ‘prudence’ and ‘discretion’ be hanged! Possibly more civilizations had fallen to the barbarians through a policy of prudence and compromise and gentility than anything else. Diplomacy was truly Satan’s most effective gift to governments.

Father Shayne, with some hot thoughts, bicycled back to the village. When he went into the rectory his housekeeper told him, with a meaning glance, that he had visitors in his study. At once, the priest had a sudden high hope, but it was squelched when he found three children awaiting him. But, as he loved children, he greeted them affectionately, and sat down near them, smiling.

The children consisted of a boy about fifteen, a girl probably nearly fourteen, and a boy child about ten. The older boy, in a controlled voice, introduced himself as Geoffrey Gould, the girl as his sister, Elsa, and the younger boy as his brother, Eric. Father Shayne sat up, alertly, and his thin and intelligent face flushed with new hope and interest. He said, “I think I overlooked you at Mass — at Confession — ”

“We were at Mass,” said Geoffrey, gravely. He was a tall dark youth, very thin and obviously very intense, for his fine olive-tinted features were mobile and expressive. His black and curly hair fell over his forehead, a little girlishly, the priest thought, or a little Byronically. But he was obviously aristocratic, and his manners were perfect. The priest glanced at Elsa, a lovely child, with a mass of smooth golden hair, a still and saintly face, and remarkably beautiful blue eyes. Her mouth, however, was in a continual tremor which she pathetically tried to suppress.

The younger boy, Eric, immediately caught the priest’s alarmed attention. He sat politely enough on his chair, but he was in constant motion, frail though it was and controlled. A perpetual trembling kept his muscles in almost imperceptible rippling; his fair eyebrows, over his very wide dark eyes, jerked up and down; his silky brown hair kept dropping over his white forehead; his mouth quivered; his nose twitched; his hands jerked noticeably; his feet had a little jumping movement. When he smiled at the priest, his timid mouth actually lurched sideways.

All the children were abnormally thin, though otherwise they appeared healthy enough and were dressed expensively.

“I’d like to speak to you alone, Father,” said Geoffrey. Immediately his sister and brother got to their feet. Then the priest noticed another thing; the girl, Elsa, leaned to one side and he saw, as she stepped back, that she had a limp. Not a pronounced one, but one quite bad enough, for her left leg was shorter than her right.