Green Darkness (27 page)

“
Bene, bene—sed festina lente,
” said Julian, who found his patient’s ready knowledge of Latin one of many agreeable traits. He had grown fond of Stephen, partly from natural sympathy towards one whose life has been saved through personal effort, and partly because he recognized a lonely spirit much like his own.

“They’ll be glad to have you back,” Julian continued. “Lady Jane still weeps because her poor babe had to be buried by the Midhurst vicar.”

Stephen nodded sadly. “I have prayed for its soul. Master Julian, how is Celia?”

“Celia? Ah, yes, Celia Bohun. Why, I hardly know. I glimpsed her flitting around now and then with the young Dacres, until they all left for Hurstmonceux, and also with Mabel Browne. She’s still in the castle with her aunt, Lady Ursula.”

“To whom I’m grateful, indeed,” said Stephen. “She’s nursed me as a mother would.”

“A fine woman,” agreed Julian rather absently. “She pesters me to cast little Celia’s horoscope, and I shall do so today since I’ll soon be going back to London.” He sighed, and Stephen was jolted from the self-absorption of illness to consider the doctor. A portly, middle-aged, bearded man, with a long Italian nose and sharp gray eyes which he knew could be very kind, an air of diffidence curiously mixed with authority.

“Aren’t you Sir Anthony’s new physician, don’t you live in Midhurst?” Stephen was astonished—and more so when Julian briefly explained the mission which had brought him to Cowdray.

“The King would have none of you? And none of me either,” said Stephen grimly, “though for different reasons. I submitted to what my conscience told me was God’s will. You must do the same.”

“Bah!” cried Julian. “Now you speak like a monk. God—if indeed there be one—can have no part in the irritable whims of a foolish, sickly boy! True, that boy has power, and it is also true that as Machiavelli writes, ‘A prince has need for neither humility nor scruples, nor need he hide the selfishness which forms the true kernel of every heart.’”

“That remark is overweening,” said Stephen sharply. “Those who have found devotion and humble obedience to the divine will are not selfish. There are many who sacrifice self when they adore.”

“Because to adore is more pleasurable than
not
for such. Man seeks only pleasing sensations, the gross physical ones if that be his nature, subtle appeasements if he be more refined . . . 
you,
dear Stephen”—Julian’s look held affectionate mockery—“would
you
say prayers, recite offices, invoke saints, worship a female deity, if you did not find it pleasurable?”

Stephen flushed angrily. “You’re too glib. Too near the twistings and specious arguments of heretics. I’m not trained in dialectics, nor wish to be. For that matter, was your motive selfish when you spent all these days in curing me?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Julian smiling. “I enjoy practicing my profession. I enjoy the struggle against the final enemy. I enjoy victory. You enjoy thinking that you save souls. I—bodies. I’ve never seen a
soul,
have
you,
my friend?”

“No—Credo . . . 
et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.
” Stephen spoke so earnestly that Julian, whose mind was both probing and limber, suddenly abandoned the irony which he saw to be unfair. And mentioned a topic which had given him occasional thought.

“Well, then, Stephen, you may
have
your credo, I allow you the
soul.
Have you read your Plato, Ovid, Virgil, even Cicero on the subject?”

“Of
souls
. . .?” asked Stephen, bewildered by the doctor. “We had some classics at Marmoutier, but the abbot naturally did not encourage the study of pagans . . . what do you mean?”

“I mean that the men I mentioned, and countless others beside, believed that our souls return over and over to earth in new bodies, that we have lived before and will again, and that the experience of good or evil, the choices made, the deeds, the
will
—all may determine events of the next embodiment or incarnation.”

“
Incarnation?
” Stephen shook his head gravely. “Master Julian, there is but one incarnation, that of Our Blessed Lord. What you’re saying is blasphemous. You can
not
believe it!”

Julian shrugged. “
I
am sure of nothing. I simply point out that many better minds than yours or mine have so believed. It’s evident that the followers of Jesus thought so too, or why would they have considered that He was once Elias?”

“They were dogs of Jews!” Stephen cried hotly. “Infidels!”

“Origen and St. Augustine were not infidels, they were Church Fathers, or St. Jerome—did he not write in his
Epistla ad Demetriadem,
‘The doctrine of transmigration of souls has been secretly taught to small numbers of people, as a traditional truth which was not to be divulged.’”

Stephen with an effort controlled his annoyance, thinking that the doctor was teasing him but increasingly aware of his own duty. Though he was grateful to Julian and slightly in awe of him, Stephen said, “Do not quibble, sir. You imperil that immortal soul which will go to purgatory to redress its sins; after purgatory, and through Divine Mercy and the Intercession of Our Lord’s Beloved Mother, it may ascend to heavenly bliss. That’s all.”

“And the resurrection of the dead, which you just quoted from the Creed, the wormy corpses in their winding sheets, must the soul descend into
that
again, the putrefaction which it gladly left behind?”

“The bodies will be made new,” said Stephen stiffly. “The
same
bodies.”

“It may be so—” Julian suddenly laughed. “We won’t quarrel about it, Stephen; in fact, I know
nothing
worth quarreling over. I wasn’t born for strife.” He poured a glass of hippocras from a flagon on the table. “Here, drink this! I’ve tired you with philosophical delvings. And you still have sweats, I see.” He wiped Stephen’s moist forehead with the edge of his long sleeve. “Lie down for a bit!”

Stephen reluctantly obeyed, ashamed of the sudden weakness in his body.

“One would never suspect your priesthood to look at you,” Julian observed with dry amusement, inspecting his patient.

Since he had been able to get out of bed, Stephen had worn a maroon velvet dressing gown lent by Sir Anthony. It was an elegant garment, faced with yellow satin and furred with squirrel. His head was again partly shaven as he had demanded when Ursula began to shave his face, but the tonsure as he lay on the pillow was covered. He looked now to be as darkly virile and fashionable a young courtier as Julian had ever seen. Even among the Medicis. Not the
face,
though, that was unmistakably English, and had an air of innocence, or unawareness, no Italian over sixteen ever had.

“They’ve taken my habit,” said Stephen apologetically, “to wash. It’ll be back tonight. I’ve no mind to be decked in this thing.” He plucked disdainfully at the velvet. “It disgusts me.”

“Ah . . .” said Julian softly. “You truly enjoy renouncing the sensual . . .” But, he added to himself, I think you have never had strong temptation. Julian paused to wonder if he himself were carnally tempted by Stephen. And decided not.

His one experience had been enough, and during the last week he had been desiring Alison again. She was plump, sentimental, stupid, but she was eagerly receptive to his occasional ardors. She would be balm for the disappointments he had endured at Cowdray.

Alison would ask nothing. He had told her nothing of his hopes. And how ridiculous had been his unformed dreams of an ambitious marriage! Almost the only woman he had seen at Cowdray was Lady Ursula, who had a tenderness for him. This was apparent. That she was older and skinny would not have mattered much. Men seldom married from inclination. But her total lack of money or influence, and her obvious position as dependent did. She had good blood, so did he, that was an advantage. During the time of striving together for Stephen’s life, he had enjoyed her company, liked her mind. He had even admired her rather feverish devotion to little Celia. These thoughts led him to the Allens.

“By the bye,” he said to Stephen, whose color was returning as he lay gazing up at the embroidered tester, “there’s a pair of your kinfolk below in the courtyard, champing around for a sight of you.”

“Kinfolk . . .?” repeated Stephen, frowning. “I have none except my brother and his wife, they wouldn’t come here, surely . . .”

“No, not them, these are the Allens, from Ightham Mote in Kent. Mistress Allen is sister to your brother’s wife. She’s a forceful woman. I’ve had trouble keeping her at bay during your illness.”

“Never heard of them,” said Stephen, “and what can they want of
me?
”

“They want you to influence Sir Anthony, of whom even Mistress Allen is somewhat in awe. Matter of a lost dowry at Easebourne Priory sixteen years ago.”

“Blessed St. Michael—” said Stephen. “What can I do about that? Sir Anthony has the priory, no doubt he has the dowry, these matters are wicked, but ’tis the present law of the land.”

“
Da vera,
a ticklish situation, but I think you should see the Allens, she
is
kin to you. Promise
anything,
” Julian chuckled, “that’ll get the woman out of Midhurst. She’s driving the landlord of Spread Eagle mad, and me, too.”

Stephen sighed. “I’ll see her, but I make no promises I can’t redeem. Is she a Catholic?”

“It would certainly seem so,” said Julian wryly. “Crucifix on her ample breast, crossings and invocation to saints; after all, she
was
a novice, and would rapidly have become prioress—so she says.”

“Indeed.” Stephen felt a stirring of sympathy for anyone who had been forced out of a vocation. He envisioned a pale ascetic—wistful and suffering.

When the doctor ushered the Allens into the sickroom, Stephen was startled. Emma Allen at once forcefully filled the room, she exuded obduracy and will.

“Brother . . .” she cried loudly, “Brother Stephen! At last! By Our Lady, I thought ye’d never mend, poor man!”

She plopped on her knees to receive his blessing, while looking up at him boldly, a speculative, provocative stare which made Stephen redden, suddenly conscious that the furred dressing robe exposed some of his chest. He clasped the gown tighter, while he made the sign of the cross, which he repeated for the meager little man who hovered behind his wife.

“I don’t understand how you think I can help you, Mistress Allen,” said Stephen, “but I pray you deliver my love and salutations to my brother Tom and his Nan, if you return through Medfield.”

“Not us!” Emma jerked her head. “Your brother Tom’s a stiff-necked fellow who’ll not see reason on Nan’s inheritance; maybe ye can help me later there, but ’tis at Cowdray I need ye now.”

“Aye, so indeed,” put in Mr. Allen, nervously smoothing his pointed beard, “Emma’s been diddled out o’ a hundred gold sovereigns at Easebourne Priory, Sir Anthony Browne’ll know what happened to ’em.”

“Why have you waited so long, and why can’t you ask him yourself?” inquired Stephen, sighing again.

Both Allens answered at once; Christopher’s murmurs were an echo of his wife’s vehement replies. From them Stephen gathered that the matter of the inheritance had reawakened resentment over the loss of the novice’s dowry, that the journey had not seemed imperative until this summer, after a series of misfortunes on their manor. A chance fire had burned a number of acres of their woodland, a blight had killed many of their livestock, and an expensive planting of the newly imported hops had been infected with downy mildew which killed all the young shoots. In addition, it developed that Emma had political ambitions for her husband, whose father had once been Lord Mayor of London, though she admitted that any such ambitions were difficult for Catholics to realize.

As to interviewing Sir Anthony direct, Emma had applied to his steward and been curdy refused.

“So, ye see, Brother Stephen, we count on you,” said Emma, showing her crooked teeth in a fleering smile.

Stephen nodded. The woman oppressed him, but he knew it was his duty to help a fellow Catholic who was, it appeared, devout enough—also brave enough in these times—to house a priest at Ightham.

“We don’t call him a priest, to be sure,” said Emma, “he’s an old, near-doddering cousin o’ my husband’s, glad to find bed and board in return for saying Mass, the Mote’s hid in a hollow and we’ve no near neighbors to spy on us.”

“I’ll see that you get audience from Sir Anthony,” said Stephen whose head was beginning to spin, “and send you word to the Spread Eagle.” He signed the cross in the air for dismissal.

“Whew—
Dio
mio,
” said Julian, as the door swung to behind the Allens. “That woman—a basilisque,
une force majeure
as the French say. Thundrous effluvia surround her, and she stinks like sulphur. My nose prickles.”

Stephen sank back in his chair and laughed faintly. “
Voyons, mon cher Docteur,
” he said, savoring the opportunity to use the French which had so long been his language. “
N’Éxagérons pas? Hein? Je n’ai rien eprouvé. C’est une femme dominatrice comme mainte d’autres, c’est tout.
”

“You felt nothing strange or baleful?” Julian raised his eyebrows. “Nor noticed the lewd desirous looks she gave you?”

“Certainly not,” Stephen retorted. “You were once corrupted by the Medici court, Master Julian, and I grieve to see the lasting effect.”

This speech was not made in admonishment, it was tinged by affectionate banter and reflected an area of Stephen which he had long ignored. The lightness surprised and delighted Julian, who stared, then chuckled. “Ah, you’ve had few intimates, I suspect, and I’m pleased to see that you consider me a friend, as I do
you!
”

“Particular friendships are discouraged in a monastery,” agreed Stephen. “They hinder single-hearted devotion, they cause human attachments which Satan uses for his own purposes.”

Julian gave a forceful Italianate shrug, waving his hands. “This would not seem to have been the opinion of your Master,
Jesu Cristo
,” he said. “He showed marked partiality for John the Apostle, and even Mary Magdalene.”