“It was only the shadow, Padre Bianchi.”
Again the priest laughed shortly; then the smile faded, and he went on.
“I went down early the next morning, before dawn, and I made my
meditation before the Blessed Sacrament; but I could not help looking
across once or twice at the corner by S. Espedito’s altar; it was too
dark to see anything clearly; but I could make out the silver hearts in
the glass case. When I had finished Giovannina came in.
“I could not help stopping by her chair as I went to rest.
“‘Is there anything there?’ I asked.
“She shook her head at me.
“‘He is never there till mass begins,’ she said.
* * * * *
“The sacristy door that opens out of doors was set wide as I came past
it in my vestments; and the dawn was coming up across the hills, all
purple.”
Monsignor murmured something, and the priest stopped.
“I beg your pardon,” said Monsignor; “but that was the time the
sacrifice of Mithras was offered.”
“When I came out into the church,” went on the priest, “it was all gray
in the light of the dawn, but the chapels were still dark. I went up
the steps, not daring to look in the corner, and set the vessels down.
As I was spreading the corporal the server came up and lighted the
candles. And still I dared not look. I turned by the right and came
down, and stood waiting till he knelt beside me.
“Then I found I could not begin. I knew what folly it was, but I was
terribly frightened. I heard the server whisper, _In nomine Patris_....
“Then I shut my eyes tight, and began.
“Well, by the time I had finished the preparation, I felt certain that
something was watching me from the corner. I told myself, as I tell
myself now,” snapped the Italian fiercely--“I told myself it was but
what the woman had told me. And then at last I opened my eyes to go up
the steps, but I kept them down, and only saw the dark corner out of
the side of my eyes.
“Then I kissed the altar and began.
“Well, it was not until the Epistle that I understood that I should
have to face the corner at the reading of the Gospel; but by then I do
not think I could have faced it directly, even if I had wished.
“So when I was saying the _Munda cor_ in the centre, I thought of a
plan, and as I went to read the Gospel I put my left hand over my eyes,
as if I were in pain, and read the Gospel like that. And so all through
the mass I went on; I always dropped my eyes when I had to turn that
way at all, and I finished everything and gave the blessing.
“As I gave it, I looked at the old woman, and she was kneeling there,
staring across at the corner; so I knew that she was still dreaming she
saw something.
“Then I went to read the last Gospel.”
The priest was plainly speaking with great difficulty; he passed his
hands over his lips once or twice. We were all quiet.
“Well, gentlemen, courage came to me then; and as I signed the altar I
looked straight into the corner.”
He stopped again, and began resolutely once more; but his voice rang
with hysteria.
“Well, gentlemen, you understand that my head was full of it now, and
that the corner was dark, and that the shadows were very odd.”
“Yes, yes, Padre Bianchi,” said Monsignor easily, “and what did the
shadows look like?”
The Italian gripped the arms of the chair, and screamed his answer.
“I will not tell you, I will not tell you. It was but the shadow. My
God, why have I told you the tale at all?”
VII
_Father Jenks’ Tale_
I have not yet had occasion to describe Father Jenks, the Ontario
priest; partly, I think, because he had not previously distinguished
himself by anything but silence, and partly because he was so true to
his type that I had scarcely noticed even that.
It was not until the following evening, when he was seated in the
central chair of the group, that I really observed him sufficiently to
take in his characteristics with any definiteness and to see how wholly
he was American. He was clean-shaven, with a heavy mouth, square jaw,
and an air of something that I must call dulness, relieved only by a
spark of alertness in each of his eyes, as he leaned back and began
his story. He spoke deliberately, in an even voice, and as he spoke
looked steadily a little above the fire; his hands lay together on his
right knee, which was crossed over his left, and I noticed a large,
elastic-sided boot cocked toward the warmth. I knew that he had passed
a great part of his early life in England, and I was not surprised
to observe that he spoke with hardly a trace of American accent or
phraseology.
“I, too, am a man of one story,” he said, “and I dare say you may think
it not worth the telling. But it impressed me.”
He looked round with heavy, amused eyes as if to apologize.
“It was when I was in England, in the eighties. I was in the Cotswolds.
You know them, perhaps?”
Again he looked round. Monsignor Maxwell jerked the ash off his
cigarette impatiently. This American’s air of leisure was a little
tiresome.
“I lived in a cottage,” went on the other, “at the edge of Minchester,
not two hundred yards from the old church. My own schism shop, as the
parson called it once or twice in the local paper, was a tin building
behind my house; it was not beautiful. It was a kind of outlandish
stranger beside the church, and the parson made the most of that. I
never was able to understand.”
He broke off again and pressed his lips in a reminiscent smile.
“Now, all that part of the Cotswolds is like a table; it is flat at the
top, with steep sides sloping down into the valleys. The great houses
stand mostly half way down these slopes. It is too windy on the top for
their trees and gardens. The Dominicans have a house a few miles from
Minchester up one of the opposite hills; and I would go over there to
my confession on Saturdays and stay an hour or two over tea, talking to
one of them. It was there that I heard the tale of the house I am going
to speak about.
“This was a house that stood not two miles from my own village--a great
place, built half way down one of the slopes. It had been a Benedictine
house once, though there was little enough of that part left; most of
it was red brick with twisted chimneys; but on the lawn that sloped
down toward the wood and the stream at the bottom of the valley there
was the west arch of the nave still standing, with the doorway beneath
and a couple of chapels on either side. Mrs.--er--Arbuthnot we will
call her, if you please--had laid it out with a rockery beneath; and
once I saw her from the hill behind drinking tea with her friends in
one of the chapels.
“Then the dining-room, I heard from the Dominicans, had been the
abbot’s chapel. This, too, was what they told me. The house had been
shut up for forty years and had a bad name. It had once been a farm,
but things had happened there--the sons had died, a famous horse bred
there had broken its neck somehow on the lawn. Then another family had
taken it from the owner, and the only son of the lot, too, had died;
and then folks began to talk about a curse; and the oldest inhabitant
was trotted out as usual to make mischief and gossip; and the end was,
the house was shut up.
“Then the owner had built on to it. He pulled down a bit more of the
ruins, meaning to live in it himself, and then his son went up.”
The Canadian smiled with one corner of his mouth.
“This is what I heard from the Dominicans, you know.”
Father Brent looked up swiftly.
“They are right, though,” he said. “I know the house and others like
it.”
“Yes, Father,” said the other priest; “your island has its points.”
He recrossed his legs and drew out his pipe and pouch.
“Well, as this priest says, there are other houses like it. Otherwise I
could scarcely tell this tale. It’s too ancient and feudal to happen in
my country.”
He paused so long to fill his pipe that Father Maxwell sighed aloud.
“Yes, Monsignor,” said the priest without looking up, “I am going on
immediately.”
He put his pipe into the corner of his mouth, took out his matches and
went on.
“Well, Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken the house a year before I came to
Minchester. She was what the Dominicans called a frivolous woman; but
I called her real solid before the end. What they meant was that she
had parties down there, and tea in the chapel, and a dresser with
blue plates where the altar used to stand in the abbot’s place, and a
vestment for her fire-screen, and all that; and a couple of chestnuts
that she used to drive about the country with, and a groom in boots,
and a couple of fellows with powdered hair to help her in and out.
“Well, I saw all that at a garden-party she gave, and I must say we got
on very well. I had seen her before once or twice out of my window on
Sunday morning going along with a morocco prayer-book with a cross on
it, and a bonnet on the back of her head. Then I showed her round the
old church one day with some visitors of hers, and she left a card on
me next day.
“On the day of the garden-party I saw the house, and the blue china
and the rest, and she asked me what I thought of it all, and I said
it was very nice; and she asked me whether I thought it wrong, with a
sort of cackle; and I told her she had better follow her own religious
principles and let me follow mine, and not have any exchanges. She told
me then I was a sensible man, and called up her son to introduce us. He
was a fellow of twenty or so, a bright lad, up at Oxford. He was just
engaged to be married, too--that was why they had the party--and when
I saw his girl, too, I thought things looked pretty unwholesome for
the old curse, and I think I said so to the lady. She thought me more
sensible than ever after that, and I heard her telling another old body
what I had said.”
The Canadian paused again to strike a match, and I saw the corners of
his mouth twitching either with the effort to draw or with amusement; I
scarcely knew which. When the pipe was well alight he went on.
“It was on the last Sunday of September that year that I heard the
young man was ill, and that the marriage was put off. I remember it
well, partly because they were having a high time at the church,
decorating it all for Michaelmas, which was next day, with the parson
pretending it was for Harvest Festival, as they always do. I had seen
the pumpkins go in the day before, and wondered where they put them
all. I went up to the churchyard after mass to have a look, and was
nearly knocked down by the parson. I began to say something or other,
but he ran past me, through from the vicarage, with his coat-tails
flying and his man after him. But I stopped the man, and got out of him
that Archie was ill, and that the parson was sent for.
“Well, then I went back home and sat down.”
The priest drew upon his pipe in silence a moment or two.
I felt rather impressed. His airy manner of talking was shot now with a
kind of seriousness, and I wondered what was coming next.
He went on almost immediately.
“I heard a bit more as the day wore on. One of my people stayed after
Catechism to tell me that the young man was worse, that a doctor had
come from Stroud, and another wired for from London.
“Well, I waited. I thought I knew what would happen. I thought I had
seen a bit more in the old lady than the Dominicans had seen, but what
I was going to say to her I knew no more than the dead.
“Then that night as I was going to bed--I had just said Matins and
Lauds for Michaelmas day--the message came.
“I was half way upstairs when I heard a knocking at the door, and I
went down again and opened it. There stood one of the fellows I had
seen on the box of the carriage, and he was out of breath with running.
He had a lantern in his hand, because there was a thick mist that night
up from the valley.
“He gave me the lady’s compliments, and would I step down? Master
Archie was ill. That was all.”
“Well, in a minute we were off into the thick of the mist. I took
nothing with me but my stole, for it was not a proper sick call. We
said little or nothing to each other. He just told me that Master
Archie had been taken ill about ten o’clock, quite suddenly. He didn’t
know what it was.”
The priest paused again for a moment.
Then he went on almost apologetically.
“You know how it is, gentlemen, when something runs in your head. It
may be a tune or a sentence. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed how
strong it is sometimes when you have something on your mind.
“Well, what ran in my head was a bit of the office I had just said. It
was this. I have never forgotten it since:
“_Stetit Angelus juxta oram templi habens thuribulum aureum in manu
sua._”
He said it again, and then added:
“It comes frequently in the office, you remember. It was very natural
to remember it.
* * * * *
“Well, in half an hour we were at the top of the hill above the house.
I think there must have been a moon, because we could see the mist
round us like smoke, but nothing of the house, not even the lights in
the top floors below us. It was all white and misty.
“Then we started down through the iron gate and the plantation. I could
have lost my way again and again but for the fellow with me, and still
we saw nothing of the house till we were close to it on one side; and
then I looked up and saw a window like a great yellow door overhead.
“We came round to the front of the house, and there was a carriage
there drawn up, with the lamps smoking in the mist, and as we came up
I saw that the horses were steaming and blowing. The driver had just
brought the London doctor from Stroud and was waiting for orders, I
suppose.”
The Canadian paused again.
I was more interested than ever. His descriptions had become queerly
particular, and I wondered why. I did not understand yet. The rest,
too, were very quiet.
“We went in through the hall past the stuffed bear that held the
calling cards and all that, you know, and then turned in to the left
to the big dining-room that had been the Abbot’s chapel. Some fool had
left the window open. I suppose they were too flurried to think of it.
At any rate, the mist had got in, and made the gas-jets overhead look
high up like great stars.
“There was a door open upstairs somewhere, and I could hear whispering.
“Well, we went up the staircase that opened on one side below the
gallery, that they had put up above the eastern end. The footpace was
still there, you know, below the gallery, and the sideboard stood there.
“We came out on to the gallery presently, and my man stopped.
“Then some one came out with Mrs. Arbuthnot and the door closed. She
saw me standing there, and I thought she was going to scream; but the
fellow with her in the fur coat--he was the London doctor I heard
afterward--took her by the arm.
“Well, she was quiet enough then, but as white as death. She had her
bonnet on still, just as she must have put it on to go to church with
in the morning, when the young man was taken ill. She beckoned me
along, and I went.
“As I was going past the doctor he first shook his head at me, and then
whispered as I went on to keep her quiet. I knew there was no hope then
for Archie, and I was sorry, very sorry, gentlemen.”
The priest shook his own head meditatively once or twice, leaned
forward and spat accurately into the heart of the fire.
“Well, it was a big room that I went into, and to tell the truth, I
left the door open this time, because I was startled by the screen at
the bed and all that.
“The screen stood in the corner by the window to keep off the draught;
and the bed to one side of it. I could just catch a glimpse of the
lad’s face on the pillow and the local doctor close by him. There was a
woman or two there as well.
“But the worst was that the lad was talking and moaning out loud, but I
didn’t attend to him then, and besides, Mrs. Arbuthnot had gone through
by another door, and I went after her.
“It was a kind of dressing-room--Archie’s perhaps. There was a tall
glass and silver things on the table by the window, and a candle or two
burning. She turned round there and faced me, and she looked so deadly
that I forgot all about the lad for the present. I just looked out to
catch her when she fell. I had seen a woman like that once or twice
before.
“Well, she said all that I expected--all about the curse and that,
and the sins of the fathers; and it was all her fault for taking the
beastly place, and how she would swear to clear out--I couldn’t get a
word in--and at last she said she’d become a Catholic if the boy lived.
“I did get a word in then, and told her not to talk nonsense. The
Church didn’t want people like that. They must believe first and so
on, and all the while I was looking out to catch her.
“Well, she didn’t hear a word I said, but she sat down all on a sudden,
and I sat down, too, opposite her, and all the while the boy’s voice
grew louder and louder from the next room.
“Then she started again, but she hadn’t been under way a minute before
I had given over attending to her. I was listening to the lad.”
The priest stopped again abruptly. His pipe had gone out, but he sucked
at it hard and seemed not to notice it. His eyes were oddly alert.
“As I listened I looked toward the door into the next room. Both that
and the one with the gallery over the hall were open, and I saw the
mist coming in like smoke.
“I couldn’t catch every word the lad said. He was talking in a high,
droning voice, but I caught enough. It was about a face looking at him
through smoke.
“‘His eyes are like flames,’ he said, ‘smoky flames--yellow hair--are
you a priest?... What is that red dress?’... Things like that. Well, it
seemed pretty tolerable nonsense, and then I----”
Monsignor Maxwell sat up suddenly.
“Good Lord!” he said.
“Yes,” drawled the Canadian, “_Stetit Angelus habens thuribulum
aureum_.”
He spoke so placidly that I was almost shocked. It seemed astonishing
that a man--Then he went on again.
“Well, I stood up when I heard that, and I faced the old lady.
“‘What’s the dedication of the chapel?’ I said; ‘what’s the saint? Tell
me, woman, tell me!’ There! I said it like that.
“Well, she didn’t know what I meant, of course, but I got it out of her
at last. Of course, it was St. Michael’s.
“I sat down then and let her chatter on. I suppose I must have looked a
fool, because she took me by the shoulder directly.
“‘You aren’t listening, Father Jenks,’ she said.
“I attended to her then. It seemed as if she wanted me to do something
to save him, but I don’t think she knew what it was herself, and I’m
sure I didn’t, not at first, at least.
“Then she began again, and all the while the boy was crying out. She
wanted to know if her becoming a Catholic would do any good, and to
tell the truth I wasn’t so sure then myself as I had been before. Then
she said she’d give up the house to Catholics, and then at last she
said this:
“‘Will you take it off, Father? I know you can. Priests can do
anything.’
“Well, I stiffened myself up at that. I was sensible enough not to make
a fool of myself, and I said something like this.”
He stopped again; sucked vigorously at his cold pipe.
“I said something like this: ‘Mind you keep your promise,’ I said, ‘but
as far as I am concerned, I’d let him off.’”
A curious rustle passed round the room, and the priest caught the sound.
“Yes, gentlemen, I said that. I did, indeed, and I guess most of you
gentlemen would have done the same in my circumstances.
“And this is what happened.
“First the lad’s voice stopped, then there was a whispering, then a
footstep in the other room, and the next moment Mrs. Arbuthnot was on
her feet, with her mouth opened to scream. I had her down again though
in time, and when I turned a woman was at the door, and I could see she
had closed the outer door through which the mist came.
“Well, her face told us. The lad had taken the right turn. It was
something on the brain, I think, that had dispersed or broken or
something--I forget now--but it seemed to come in pat enough, didn’t
it, gentlemen?”
The Canadian stopped and leaned back. Was that the end then?
Father Brent put my question into words:
“And what happened?”
“Well,” added the other, drawling more than ever, “Mrs. Arbuthnot did
not keep her promise. She’s there still, for all I know, and attends
the Harvest Festivals as regularly as ever. That spoils the story,
doesn’t it?”
“And the son?” put in the English priest swiftly.
“Well, the son was a bit better. That marriage did not take place. The
girl broke it off.”
“Well?”
“And Archie’s at the English College at this moment studying for the
priesthood. I had tea with him at Aragno’s yesterday.”
VIII
_Father Martin’s Tale_
The Father Rector announced to us one day at dinner that a friend of
his from England had called upon him a day or two before, and that he
had asked him to supper that evening.
“There is a story I heard him tell,” he said, “some years ago that I
think he would contribute if you cared to ask him, Monsignor. It is
remarkable; I remember thinking so.”
“To-night?” said Monsignor.
“Yes; he is coming to-night.”
“That will do very well,” said the other; “we have no story for
to-night.”
* * * * *
Father Martin appeared at supper, a gray-haired old man with a face
like a mouse and large brown eyes that were generally cast down. He had
a way at table of holding his hands together with his elbows at his
side, that bore out the impression of his face.
He looked up deprecatingly and gave a little nervous laugh as Monsignor
put his request.
“It is a long time since I have told it, Monsignor,” he said.
“That is the more reason for telling it again,” said the other priest
with his sharp geniality, “or it may be lost to humanity.”
“It has met with incredulity,” said the old man.
“It will not meet with it here, then,” remarked Monsignor. “We have
been practising ourselves in the art of believing. Another act of faith
will do us no harm.”
He explained the circumstances.
Father Martin looked round, and I could see that he was pleased.
“Very well, Monsignor,” he said; “I will do my best to make it easy.”
* * * * *
When we had reached the room upstairs the old priest was put into the
arm-chair in the centre, drawn back a little so that all might see him;
he refused tobacco, propped his chin on his two hands, looking more
than ever like a venerable mouse, and began his story. I sat at the end
of the semicircle, near the fire, and watched him as he talked.
“I regret I have not heard the other tales,” he said; “it would
encourage me in my own. But perhaps it is better so. I have told this
so often that I can only tell it in one way, and you must forgive me,
gentlemen, if my way is not yours.
* * * * *
“About twenty years ago I had charge of a mission in Lancashire, some
fourteen miles from Blackburn, among the hills. The name of the place
is Monkswell; it was a little village then, but I think it is a town
now. In those days there was only one street, of perhaps a dozen houses
on each side. My little church stood at the head of the street, with
the presbytery beside it. The house had a garden at the back, with a
path running through it to the gate; and beyond the gate was a path
leading on to the moor.
“Nearly all the village was Catholic, and had always been so, and
I had perhaps a hundred more of my folk scattered about the moor.
Their occupation was weaving; that was before the coal was found at
Monkswell. Now they have a great church there, with a parish of over a
thousand.
“Of course I knew all my people well enough; they are wonderful folk,
those Lancashire folk! I could tell you a score of tales of their
devotion and faith. There was one woman that I could make nothing of.
She lived with her two brothers in a little cottage a couple of miles
away from Monkswell; and the three kept themselves by weaving. The two
men were fine lads, regular at their religious duties, and at mass
every Sunday. But the woman would not come near the church. I went to
her again and again, and before every Easter, but it was of no use. She
would not even tell me why she would not come; but I knew the reason.
The poor creature had been ruined in Blackburn, and could not hold up
her head again. Her brothers took her back, and she had lived with
them for ten years, and never once during that time, so far as I knew,
had set foot outside her little place. She could not bear to be seen,
you see.”
* * * * *
The little pointed face looked very tender and compassionate now, and
the brown, beady eyes ran round the circle deprecatingly.
* * * * *