Grandmother and the Priests (57 page)

When he awoke on another day, free of the fever and cool and with his wits about him, Ginger was sitting on the bed, on the Bishop’s feet over the worn blankets. Her golden eyes gazed at him wisely. The top of her head had been lavishly anointed with Eileen’s pet and odoriferous salve and the smell filled the little cold bedroom, which was full of quiet winter light.

“Mustard,” said the Bishop, and remembered everything. His heart quickened with dread as his whirling mind assured him he had been only the victim of a feverish dream and sick hallucinations. A Lucifer did not come to a very old and starveling Bishop in his little house in Dublin. A Lucifer, the mightiest of all angels, did not waste time in seeking tiny souls; such souls are wooed by tiny demons. A Lucifer could read the minds of all men, and yet, in that dream, he had not been able to read the Bishop’s mind, not even in the simplest matter. Lucifers are not deceived. “It is my wretched pride,” said the old Bishop, “in my thinking that Lucifer would find me worth the tempting! Oh, it’s the proud and wicked heart I have, the black, black heart, and me a Bishop!” He looked at his ring; it was so loose now that Eileen had wrapped the back of it with white yarn so it would not fall from his finger.

Then he began to weep, remembering the young folk in the prisons awaiting death for the crime of defending themselves and wanting the food of their labors for their children and parents, and for the greater crime of a dream of freedom and liberty to worship as they must. The Bishop turned his face into his fat pillow and the coarse linen was soon wet with his tears. Mustard moved uneasily on his feet, then she slipped down and nuzzled his neck gently. He turned his head and stroked the thick gingery fur and saw again the big healing burn on her valiant head. “Was it a dream, Mustard?” he asked her, urgently. Mustard whined a little, consolingly.

The door was flung open and there was Jack Morgan, the middle-aged priest, tall and big and with a ruddy, lighted face, and the fiercest blue eyes in Ireland. “Jack, Jack,” said the Bishop, feebly, “I have been wanting you — ”

The priest, exhaling ice-cold air and briskness and elation, knelt to kiss the Bishop’s ring, and his eyes were dancing with exultation. “It is I who have been here every blessed day,” he shouted in his ringing voice, “praying beside your bed and listening — your lordship will forgive me — to your feverish babblings about Lucifer!” The priest laughed richly. Before the Bishop could utter even a murmur, Jack Morgan roared on:

“Oh, it’s the grand news I have for you, my lord, this morning! The grand news!”

The Bishop began to tremble, and he started up on his pillows.

The priest chuckled heartily, and shook his head with delight. “Ye’ll not be believing it, my lord, but the lads and girls are free and safe! That Sassenagh judge — he was thrown into the deep snow from his carriage three days ago, and broke his da — I mean his two legs! And it was Judge Rafferty who presided for the hearing, a Protestant but an Irishman, and may God love him!”

“Tell me!” cried the Bishop, when his priest stopped to rub his big knees and shake his head.

Jack Morgan’s eyes glittered with joy and happiness. “It was Judge Rafferty who said the young folk had but defended themselves, and it was sympathy he had for them in spite of the stout blackthorns and their rioting against the peace and order of the Realm and Her Majesty’s Government! It was regretting, he was, that the other judge had lost his nephew, but who could swear which lad had cracked his skull? It was the fortunes of war, said Judge Rafferty, and the accidents of war, and his was the straight face, and he said skull-cracking was an old sport in the world and there’d be no end to it. He’d cracked many a skull himself at rugby, and was it a crime in a war but not in a game? Ah, it was the smooth voice he had, smooth as cream and cold as new cheese on a winter’s day, and the Crown Prosecutor protested and down came the gavel and the judge’s wig fell over his eyes, and all laughed in the room. The judge,” said Jack Morgan, with rising joy, “fined each lad one pound and each colleen eight shillings, and gave them a warning.”

“Oh,” whispered the Bishop, and clasped his hands, and was afraid to thank God.

“And there was a fine gentleman,” continued the priest, “who paid the fine for them all, for where should the lads be getting pounds, and the girls the shillings, they who have not even copper pennies amongst them?”

“A fine gentleman?” quaked the Bishop, his heart jumping again.

“That he was, and no name he gave. He spoke of a patron. A gentleman like a Duke.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the Bishop. “Was it a man with the face of an angel?”

Jack Morgan stared at him, puzzled. “No, your Excellency. A man with a big yellow mustache.” He laughed again. “Are the angels growing mustaches now?”

“It is happy I am,” said the Bishop, “that my children are free. But my heart is heavy that I made a pact with the devil for them, and had no trust in God.”

Jack Morgan gaped. He was a man of good and earthy common sense, and he thought his Bishop feverish again. So the Bishop put his hand on Mustard and pointed to her burned head. With painful word following painful word he told his favorite priest of that howling winter night. Finally he ended with a hoarse whisper, “Is there forgiveness for me, I am wondering, Jack?”

The priest rubbed his thick gray head, and stared at the Bishop, and coughed. He appeared bewitched by the tale, though he doubted its verity. He wanted to know of Lucifer’s appearance, and the Bishop described him. The priest was enchanted, and the Bishop thought, with dismay: Is Jack a little envious, as well as curious?

“Well, well,” said Jack Morgan, in a loud and burly voice, “it was not the devil, I am thinking, for does he not have horns and hoofs and does he not wear red, as red as scarlet?”

“I am no authority on his apparitions,” said the Bishop. “And it’s doubting, I am, that if he appeared so to man there’d be many lost souls, for very fear. I think I saw him, and it is all true, and he was the most beautiful creature I have seen in my life. For, is he not an archangel, and was he not the greatest of them all, with a face like the morning? And was he not full of grief and sorrow? I found it in my heart to pity him.”

“That is a snare,” said Jack Morgan, suddenly remembering that he was a priest.

“Sure, and that is true, perhaps,” said the Bishop.

“It was not himself,” said the priest. “If it was not a dream, it was an angel of God.” And he blessed himself.

The Bishop smiled wryly. “Would an angel of God burn poor Mustard’s head? Would poor Mustard, from thence on, refuse to sit in her favorite chair? No, it was Lucifer, and I made a pact with him for my children.”

“Your soul?” exclaimed Jack Morgan.

“No. My dearest treasure. And he’ll be calling for it soon.”

The priest glanced nervously over his shoulder. Then he coughed again. “The devil takes only souls, my lord,” he said. “He is not tempted by — treasures. For, does not all that is valuable in the world belong to him? It is not possible that he would make a pact with you for anything but your soul.”

“He does not know what my treasure is, Jack.”

The priest was greatly relieved, and his high color returned. “Was it the devil, my lord, he’d have known, and there is no doubt, for does he not read the minds of men like a book?”

“He could not read mine,” said the Bishop. “I tested him, and he could not read it.”

The priest was even more relieved. “Then it was not Satan, or even one of his demons — if there was anyone at all, and you with the fever and the hunger. For no human mind is closed to him.”

The Bishop wanted to believe it was all a dream. Perhaps a coal had fallen on Mustard’s head, when she went too close to the fire. And it was God’s mercy, alone, which had saved the young folk and set them free, and the mercy of an unknown benefactor who had paid their fines. Nothing could happen, thought the Bishop vaguely, without God’s permitting of it. On this comforting thought he fell into deep sleep, for he was still weak.

When he awoke again it was midnight, and he felt his ancient strength returning. He begged Eileen to go to her bed, she who looked not ninety now, but one hundred and ninety. It needed little urging; she put a clapper on the table at his head, and went, bowed and very old and lean, to her own room and bed. It was cold in the Bishop’s bedroom, though the door was open to his small parlor so the heat of the fire could enter. Someone had been kind enough to send coals to heat the Bishop’s house, or ‘palace’, as the poor people liked to call it in their hopeful fantasies. The bed-warmer was cosy against the Bishop’s feet, against the long wool stockings he wore to bed in the winter, and the candlelight flickered and there was a lamp burning on a table in the parlor, within sight of the Bishop’s eyes.

He pulled himself to a sitting position with only one gasp, and he turned his head and looked at the crucifix on his wall, and then at his prie-dieu, and then he pushed his thin old legs out of the bed and tottered to the prie-dieu and fell on his knees and bent his head over his clasped hands. Could he ask forgiveness for a dream, for are men responsible for the nightmares of their nights and the phantoms of their fevers? If it was not a dream, could he still be forgiven? He had made no pact, in the meaning of the word. He had offered his dear treasure, and Lucifer had accepted it, and this was puzzling, for he must have known what it was and how could he then have agreed?

Mustard suddenly yelled and dived between the floor and the Bishop’s ankles and cowered there, and the Bishop knew, even before he lifted his bowed head, whom he would see. And there, surely, was Lucifer, himself, more beautiful than memory, his clothing covered with a cloak of rich velvet edged with ermine, the velvet as black as night and the fur whiter than snow.

“I have come for your lordship’s treasure,” he said, in a very kind voice. “For, I have kept my bargain, as you know.”

“Are you a dream?” asked the Bishop with fresh terror.

“I am every man’s dream,” said Lucifer. “Infant or ancient, saint or sinner, I am all men’s dream.”

“And you cannot be deceived?” said the Bishop.

“No, I cannot be deceived,” said Lucifer. “May I assist your lordship to your feet?”

“No, no!” cried the Bishop, horrified, and shrinking. He pushed himself to his feet. He stared at the great, dark angel. “You will not want my treasure,” he said, pressing his hands to his chest, in which his heart was shaking.

“Surely I will want it,” said Lucifer, “for is it not dearer to you than your life?”

“And you are knowing what it is?” said the Bishop.

“Certainly. I know all things.”

He looked smilingly at the Bishop, then courteously drew aside so that the Bishop could precede him into the parlor. The Bishop tottered to the threshold, then glanced back fearfully. Lucifer was regarding the crucifix in enigmatic silence, and there was a deep cleft between his eyes. The Bishop went into the parlor, his long nightshirt blowing about him in the drafts which no mortar could stop, and he supported himself with bits of furniture. He heard no sound, but all at once Lucifer was at his side.

“The treasure,” he said, patiently.

The Bishop bent his head and went to his little chest of drawers and opened the one at the top. A silver-gilt box lay there, very old and dim. He took the box in his hands and his eyes filled with tears. He lifted the lid.

A delicate rosary lay on pink cotton-wool. It was made of silver-gilt, with pearly beads, and the cross was large and the Corpus was exquisitely cast in pure yellow gold. The rosary had been the christening gift to his grandmother by her own mother, ages ago, and in turn it had been given to his own mother on her christening day, and it was rarely out of her blessed hands until the day she died. She had told her son, long before he was a priest, that she must not be buried with it. It was her heart’s desire that he have it as his own, and be buried with it, for he was very dear to her. He had received it from her, finally, when she was dying.

He had cherished the rosary because of his darling mother. He had received his First Communion with it in his hand. It never left his person, even during the skull-cracking days. It was with him when he was ordained as a lowly priest. He felt that it was a talisman, the guardian given him by his mother. Once he had lost it, it dropping through a hole in his pocket, and his distress had been overwhelming. He had prayed feverishly to St. Anthony for its return, and one day the sacristan had brought it to him, saying he had found it in a crack near the high altar. Yet every corner had been searched over and over long before. The Bishop considered it a miracle. After that he kept it in its box, waiting for the day when he would lie in his coffin, with the rosary in his hands.

Now his tears fell on the precious rosary, and he put his fingers gently over the lustrous pearly beads and the cross, and turned to Lucifer. He closed his eyes and mutely offered the box to him.

The box did not leave his hands, and after a little he opened his eyes. Lucifer was gazing at the crucifix, and he was frowning.

“You know I cannot take this,” he said in a very ominous voice.

“It is my dearest treasure. It belonged to my grandmother and her mother before her; it was blessed, so long ago, by the Holy Father, himself, so I was told. It belonged to my sweet mother, who gave it to me with her dying hands. My heart is in it; it is the dearest thing I ever owned.” The Bishop’s voice trembled. “Not even for bread would I have sold it. Not even for my life would I have sold it. It is my treasure, for thousands of prayers were said with it, and every bead is holy.”

Lucifer looked into his eyes, which were filled with tears.

“Yes,” said Lucifer, “it is your treasure. And it is this treasure that you pledged to me. Tell me, my lord, did you know, when you promised it, that I could not accept it, for very excellent reasons?”

The Bishop thought with all the honesty that was in him. Then he confessed, “I do not know. I was in much misery; my mind was not fully in order. But, I must speak truly: I hoped you could not accept it.”

“You hoped to deceive me?”

The Bishop again considered. “I prayed that I could. Yes, that I prayed, though I had heard you could not be deceived and could read the minds of all men.”

Lucifer was silent. The Bishop said, “Did you read mine?”

The great dark archangel began to smile. “Shall I tell you that? That will be my secret. As a penance, you will wonder all your life. It will enliven your idle moments. There is nothing like endless speculation to give interest to one’s existence.”

The Bishop gently closed the precious box. He looked down at it. “I am speculating now, Lucifer.”

Suddenly Lucifer laughed. It was not an evil, boisterous laugh, but a hearty one, mirthful, delighted, masculine. It was incredible, but the Bishop found himself laughing with him, and he had not laughed for many months.

“Tell me,” said the Bishop, aching with his laughter, “Did you truly save my children?”

“That,” said Lucifer, his beautiful face merry, “is something else I will not tell you. Am I not called the Great Deceiver?”

His mighty blue eyes sparkled and flamed with his mirth, and his teeth glistened in the lamplight.

“Farewell, Bishop Quinn. You will not see me again, not in this life nor in the next. I have enjoyed your conversation as I have enjoyed the conversation of few others. You are not entirely honest, but I doubt if that will be held against you, for I now hear the laughter in heaven.”