Grandmother and the Priests (48 page)

“Oh, my mother had always patronized Mama Florence; they had been roommates at school. And my mother — I’ve told you this — could be very charming when she wanted to be. I’ve told you that Mama Florence was very rich; she was also an orphan. My mother loved rich people; she always wanted them about her. And Mama Florence had no family of her own, and I suppose she clung to my mother when they were girls, and then when my parents were married and had children she adopted all of us — in a way. You don’t know Mama Florence! She is really the saint my mother pretended to be. You see, Father, she wants to enter the Church, to be with all of us, and because she truly believes. But Father McGinnis drove her off, too.”

“ ‘Drove’, Geoffrey, is a very harsh word. I don’t think it was so severe as that.”

“Then, you’re prejudiced,” said the boy, flatly, and got up with resigned despair. “Please excuse us. We’ll go home now. It is no use, is it?”

The priest stood up also. He put his hand on the boy’s tall shoulder. “I think it may be of considerable use. I haven’t chided you, have I? I did not stop you when you spoke of your mother, with such bitterness and, yes, hate. Truth is truth. Geoffrey, I know you want to help your father. I want you to go home to him and tell him that you have told me everything, and that I’d like to see him. And your stepmother.”

Tears came into the boy’s eyes, painfully. “Thank you, Father,” he said.

The priest watched them leave, these wounded children. He had blessed them tenderly. He saw how Geoffrey brooded over his brother and sister, with protectiveness, as he led them away down the road. They were healthy now, and lived in a home of love and happiness. But always, all their lives, they would remain wounded. It was necessary to teach them how to live with their wounds so that they would not be forever blighted. They needed, not suppression of the truth by their father, but full knowledge. An evil thing exposed to the sunlight shrivels up and dies. Sometimes. At the very least it loses some of its terror in mutual sharing. Silence is frequently, thought the priest, the ally of Satan. And it could be hypocritical even though with the best of intentions.

He went into the church and prayed for enlightenment, for help in untangling this awful web of evil, which was also mixed with much good. Evil was like a vine that grew on the trunk of a tree and mingled its stained leaves with the good ones. Neither overcame the other; they lived in a sort of neutrality. It was truly a confusing matter, and one not to be solved by saying nay or yea. Not always. It was not always absolutely clear. Give me wisdom, the priest prayed, the wisdom to see good from evil, and evil from good.

He expected Squire Gould and his wife to call the next day. But they did not come. Nor did they come the next day or the next. Should I call on them? thought the priest, thinking of Christ’s searching for the lost lambs. He had almost made up his mind to go when one Friday afternoon, as he was preparing his sermon, his housekeeper announced the squire and his lady.

They entered the study together, the tall, slightly bent man so much like his oldest son, but gentler and sadder with his years, Geoffrey’s fire dimmed in the dark eyes, Geoffrey’s black curls streaked with white. He was slender and graceful, and Father Shayne’s first impression was of great kindness, sweet temper, and enormous patience. His wife, Florence, tall and slender like himself, seemed plain at first glance, but when she smiled as she did now, she was suddenly beautiful, with fine, large gray eyes and a perfect complexion. Her light summer bonnet only partly hid smooth brown hair, and the mauve ribbons were tied under a firm yet feminine chin. The tight bodice of her pale mauve summer frock showed her youthful figure; ruffled flounces fell to her feet. She moved as gracefully as her husband, and sat down near him with her gloved hands on her furled parasol.

Father Shayne suddenly became aware that the two were studying him as keenly as he was studying them. “I am glad you came, sir, and Mrs. Gould,” he said. “I have learned how much you have done for this church. I’d have called on you earlier — ”

The squire said gently, “I assume that you know what Father McGinnis knew, Father?”

The priest was a little vexed; had Geoffrey disobeyed when he had been directed to tell his father of the children’s visit?

“Yes,” he said. “We may as well be frank. It saves time. I wonder if you know that my Bishop is distantly related to you?”

The squire smiled. “Yes. I always wanted to know him, and intended to seek him out in London. And then” — his smile went away — “difficulties arose. I did not want to embarrass him. Father McGinnis would frequently, and angrily, tell me that he had written his Bishop concerning me and my family.” He paused. “Did the Bishop believe Father McGinnis?” He smiled. “Or shall we stop being frank now?”

“No,” said Father Shayne. “This is a time for utter candor. I am here only temporarily, I believe. I was sent here mainly to know you. And help you. My Bishop does not believe that you are guilty of — murder.” He glanced at Florence Gould. “Nor does he believe Mrs. Gould is guilty.

“Mr. Gould,” he continued, “do you know that your son, Geoffrey, came here to see me and that he told me his own version and — experiences?”

The squire looked apologetically at his wife as he said, “Yes, he did. Florence, Geoffrey remembers. He remembers how he came to be scarred, and he remembers what injuries the other two received. He remembers everything.”

“Oh, no!” said Florence, with deep sorrow and misery. “I thought he was too young. And you did so try to protect him, Geoffrey, and I did, too.” There were tears in her eyes.

“I thought he hadn’t remembered, myself,” said the squire. “I was shocked when he told me last week. I had prayed so hard that he would not remember.”

“But why didn’t he tell us, the poor child?” said Florence, her voice breaking.

“Because he knew that we wanted to believe that he did not remember. He wanted to protect our lovely little daydreams.”

“And Elsa and Eric?”

“I don’t know, Florence.” The father’s voice dropped. “I’m rather sure Eric doesn’t know. He was hardly two when it happened to him. And Elsa — you know how quiet she is.”

“And what nightmares she has!” said Florence. A tear ran down her cheek. “I thought that they were just the usual nightmares children have, and I would comfort her.”

“It seems,” said Father Shayne, “that there has been something a little less than candor going on in your house, also. Mr. Gould, I am a priest, and I have frequently been at the bedside of the dying, and I’ve heard their cries and all they said. The mind forgets, for it can endure only so much. But the soul never forgets. In life, the memories of the soul color all existence. In death, they are sometimes unendurable. Do you want your children to keep their silence, to protect your tender sensibilities about them, or do you want to be candid with them, speaking without rancor and bitterness but telling the factual truth, so that they will have less to bear in their future lives, which will be hard enough, God knows.”

They looked at him in mournful silence.

“Your son, Geoffrey, is not a child. Within a few years he will be a mature man. Someone, somewhere, will remember that — murder — case, and connect him with it. You ran away to this hamlet, to bury yourselves quietly, for your children’s sake. But you can’t immunize them from the world. I am not speaking only of Geoffrey, Elsa and Eric, but of your mutual two children, too. Will it be pleasant for them, to hear from strangers, that their father had been tried for murder? They will wonder why you had never told them. And they will begin, in spite of their love for you, to ask themselves questions. Such as: ‘Is my father guilty? Is my mother guilty? Of murder?’ Do you want that to happen?”

“Oh, my God,” said the squire, prayerfully, “no, no!”

“Then you must begin to give the matter the most severe thought. I suggest that you speak to Elsa, soon, and tell her how she acquired her injuries. It is more than possible that she remembers. Speak to her reasonably, without blaming or exonerating her mother. Children, above all, like facts, for they are realists. Tell her you have forgiven your wife for what she did to you and your children, and that Elsa must learn to forgive. Then when she is slightly older, tell her the facts surrounding her mother’s death. She will have more confidence in you from the very beginning, then. She is entirely too quiet. The child did not say a single word to me when she was here. Such silence in a child is a signal of danger. She possibly, even now, mistrusts you, for she may not have the charity of your oldest son.

“So, after a year or so, when she knows about her mother, tell her that no matter what she hears later she must believe you, and that you were not guilty of your wife’s death.”

The squire’s dark face became very pale. He looked at the cane he held on his knee. Then, softly, he said, “Florence, will you leave us alone for a moment?”

His wife sat up very straight, her face white, and she cried, “No! Father Shayne is right. Let us be frank. Geoffrey, Geoffrey! You have nothing to conceal.”

Father Shayne had become rigid with shock. He stared at the squire. “Mr. Gould, you did not kill your wife, did you?

The squire still gazed at his cane. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice.

“Geoffrey!” His wife’s exclamation was loud and terrible.

“You don’t know!” said the priest. “How is it possible that you ‘don’t know’?”

Florence was staring at her husband, her eyes wide and glittering, her breast rising on a deep breath. But the squire was looking at the priest, open anguish on his face.

“I simply don’t know,” he repeated. “Do you know the details of my wife’s death? Yes. I’m glad I don’t have to repeat it all.

“The day before Agnes — died — she had been up for several hours. Florence was visiting us. Agnes had unpredictable rages; she would be smiling and gay one moment and then the next she would be in a fury. It was — unsettling, to use the English manner of understatement. The house was always in a tension, for one never knew.” The soft Irish voice faltered, became hoarse, as the squire remembered. “Geoffrey told me that he had told you all this. Agnes could be superficially sentimental and affectionate. Dear God, I have tried so hard to forget!”

The priest was still in a state of bewildered shock, but he said, “It never does any real good to forget. It is best to remember, and then try to forgive.”

“Yes. Yes. You are quite right, Father — ”

“Geoffrey!” his wife cried. “You didn’t kill Agnes. You did not! You did not!”

The squire touched her arm briefly and said, “I don’t know. Please let me continue, and don’t cry so hard, my darling.

“Father Shayne, my wife was in good spirits the day before her death. She had confessed her sins to our priest and had received Holy Communion. She was feeling much better, though she had to take a mild sedative to relieve her pain. She was suffering from angina pectoris, and it is painful, I have been told. She was not in danger of death, but she was languid, a semi-invalid, though she persisted in believing that she was a true invalid. I think that was to discourage me,” and he smiled sadly, “from asking for conjugal relationships. She never wanted children, and she disliked those she had. Oh? Geoffrey told you? How much the poor boy knows, and I never knew he knew. How piteous for him.

“I always believed that children should say good night to their parents, and so I brought them into my wife’s room. Eric was a restless little boy, just under two, and he raced about the room in his usual way, which always annoyed my wife. He accidentally turned over a tiny table she had, which was covered with exquisite miniatures, objets d’art. They were badly smashed, of course, falling on the bare, polished floor.”

The squire squeezed his eyes shut, tightly, as if to try to shut out the memory. “Geoffrey remained; Elsa — she could not seem to be happy in her mother’s presence, had left, and now I know she remembers something. My poor children. So, only Geoffrey and I saw what happened after that accident. Agnes jumped from her bed, screaming, and before I could stop her she had seized Eric in her hands, had thrown him to the floor and was savagely beating his little head on it. Over and over and over. It happened like lightning. When I could finally reach them the child was unconscious. Unconscious.

“I carried him out of the room, leaving my wife still screaming behind me. Her nurse, who was having tea in the servants’ hall, came running, and closed the door after me. I took Eric to his room, and then called Florence. You see, we didn’t ever want the servants to know about — Agnes. We were afraid they’d then gossip, and that Geoffrey and Elsa would overhear them. I’m afraid, though, that they must have known something — ” He opened his suddenly sunken eyes and looked at the priest.

“They knew,” said Father Shayne, grimly. “That is why they testified so generously in your behalf at your trial, Mr. Gould. They must have been devoted to you.”

“Well,” said the squire, in a voice that had become an old man’s voice. “How good of them . . . I put Eric on his bed and his nurse came and I said the child had had an accident, had fallen badly. He was still unconscious, and his face looked — dead. The nurse wanted to call a doctor immediately, and then Eric opened his eyes, his color returned, and he began to cry. I thanked God. I thought I should not have to send for the doctor. Doctors’ eyes are very keen. Our doctor would have known at once that the child had not had a mere accident; there were too many — too many swollen and bleeding places on the back and sides of his head. I thought it would be well for him, for he did appear to be quite normal.

“I told Florence, only. She would have suspected, under the circumstances, knowing Agnes. She knew how the other children had come to be so — injured. I had to tell someone!” cried the desperate father. “It was too much to bear alone! And I needed help with Geoffrey, who had seen it all. He had run screaming out of the room when Agnes had begun to — So Florence spent hours with him that night, soothing him.”

“And lying to him,” said the priest. “You knew he was an intelligent child, and yet you lied to him. What he must have thought of you both!”

The squire groaned. “I know. Now. But how can you let a child understand the enormity of such a thing?”

“Children have much more strength than we have,” said the priest. “They can understand everything. Except those they love lying to them. Children are not only realists but they are natural cynics. They expect anything from the world and are never surprised. They fear, but they expect; it is their instinct. But no one they love should ever lie to them, for they never forget lies, and they color all the rest of their lives. But, go on, please.”

“Thank you,” murmured the squire, stricken. “I remember when my mother died; I was Geoffrey’s age then, about eight. I knew she was sick; I listened at doors, as all frightened children do, and as I suppose Geoffrey and Elsa did. I knew when she died, though I was not near her room when she left us. But my father came to me and said that my mother was very sick, and that someone, one of the servants, would take me to my aunt’s home some two miles away. My mother must have quiet, my father said. Didn’t he know that I could see his pale face and his red eyes? Didn’t he know that I knew all about death? I loved him, but I never really trusted him after that, though I understood that he had lied to spare me. And so, I suppose, Geoffrey is the same. I wonder how I had forgotten!

“At any rate, Florence stayed with Geoffrey until he fell asleep, long after his usual bedtime. And I remained with Eric and his nurse. The little boy appeared to be quite normal by midnight, though the nurse was worried about the wounds on his head. He slept quite peacefully, however. But in the morning he took a turn for the worse.

“I stayed with him for hours. He was restless and feverish, and sometimes he appeared not to know me. I am so guilty! Of course, the damage had already been done to his brain — but still I am so guilty. Agnes, of course, had recovered her good spirits. She laughed about the episode, and I was afraid to tell her that Eric did not seem well. You see, Father, I was always trying to protect her against herself, too.”