Fludd: A Novel

FOUR

That afternoon, Father Fludd undertook a parish tour. Father Angwin conducted the curate to the front door. “They may ask you into their houses,” he said. “For God’s sake don’t eat anything. Be back before dark.” He hovered, anxious. “Perhaps you shouldn’t go alone?”

“Don’t fuss, man,” Fludd said.

Father Angwin felt the weight of his responsibility. He had taken to the boy; the topic of the bishop lay uneasily between them, but since so far there had been no communication from that quarter, Father Angwin assumed that Fludd was not much in favour. He imagined that the bishop would be disconcerted by Fludd; that he would feel threatened by his scholarship, and affronted by his way of getting to the heart of a matter. No doubt, then, the parish was to become a dumping ground; Fludd was a discard, like himself.

“Here,” he said, “take this umbrella. The glass has been falling. There was a halo around the moon. It will rain before evening.”

Fludd accepted the umbrella; the two priests shook hands formally, and then Fludd strode out downhill.

On the carriage-drive, he met a bunch of little wild-looking children. They had scabs on their knees, and their heads were shaved to deter lice. Each one of them clung on to the neck of his misshapen jersey.

“We saw an ambulance, Father,” they said. “Touch my shoulder, touch my knee, Pray to God it won’t be me. Then we have to hang on to us collars till we see a white dog.”

“But you haven’t got collars,” Fludd said.

“Where they would be, if we had,” the children explained; and one small girl said, “We have to make do.”

“I see,” Fludd said. “Well, I hope you see a white dog soon. Do they do this all over the district?”

“Not in Netherhoughton,” the children said, after some thought; the girl added, “The ambulances don’t go up there.”

Fludd was curious. “Who told you that you must do this?”

The children looked at each other. They could not remember being told. It was a thing that they had always known. A few of them said, “Mother Purpit.” The little girl said, “God.”

Father Fludd passed the school gates, and soon the rough track ceased to be the carriage-drive and became Church Street; there were cobbles underfoot, and high hedges, grey in aspect, leaves drooping. Through their gaps he glimpsed fields, hummocks of coarse grass flattening in the wind. He stopped to examine a leaf; he wetted his finger and passed it over the surface, which felt greasy, with an overlay of fine grit. He licked his finger; it tasted of soil and smoke. Below him he saw the mill chimneys of Fetherhoughton, like pillars for stylites, or the towers on which heathens place their dead.

In Upstreet, matrons with baskets over their arms stood in knots, and interrupted their talk to stare at him as he went by. He raised a hand; half-greeting, half-blessing. He turned off into Chapel Street, the ground climbing steeply again; he pictured himself knocking at each of these doors, making himself known. At number 30, a woman was kneeling in the open doorway, whitening her step with donkey stone. He stood and watched her, uncertain whether to speak; then, thinking himself without manners, strode on. A little way ahead of him other doors opened; housewives appeared and, with a big heave of their elbows, hauled on to the pavement buckets of soapy water. Head first, crouching, they intruded into his view like dogs coming out of their kennels, and set to work with their scrubbing brushes. Their flowered pinnies were secured tightly, taped round their middles and round again. Each placed to hand her donkey stone: some palest cream, some mushroom colour, some a deep butterscotch, others as yellow as best butter. Their elbows jutted as they scrubbed, their jerseys rolled up beyond the joint; he saw their fine, bluish skin, the labouring swell of their slack abdomens, the tops of their heads with the fading hair.

He pitied these women. Several of them, Father Angwin said, had lost their husbands in the Council House Riots of the previous year. The site of the riots—razed now—seemed to smoke still in the afternoon air; and where the men had fallen, each asserting his right to the fat of the land, impromptu crosses were stuck in the rubbly ground. “Either they should have built houses for all of them,” Father Angwin said, “or none at all.” Last night he had spoken of those days as his worst in Fetherhoughton: the gangs of muttering, mutinous women, handbags filled with kitchen knives and bottles of paraffin; the misspelt placards on the church door; and finally, one summer afternoon, the call to say that the constabulary had moved in, that there were casualties, that the fire brigade was on its way.

Opposite the site of the riots stood the Methodist chapel, a lowbrowed, red-brick building; it was from within its door that the first wave of rioters had burst, with their anti-Papist battle-cries. Father Fludd accorded it a searching glance, then set out across the Methodist graveyard, where some of the Protestant fatalities had been laid to rest. He vaulted the low wall and found himself on Back Lane; he turned right, up the hill towards Netherhoughton.

Back Lane was hardly alive to his presence; a couple of women came out and leant in their doorways, watching him with impassive faces, and one of them called out that he might come in and she would brew tea. Remembering Father Angwin’s warning, he raised his hat to her, courteously, and showed by a gesture that he must hurry on. “Turn back,” the woman said and laughed scornfully; then went in, slamming her door.

Soon the houses ran out; the street narrowed, became a lane. There was a good three-mile tramp, Father Angwin had told him, around the loop of unfrequented road that would take him towards the hamlet and the moors. And no shelter, not a house or a tree, simply the moors on the traveller’s right hand, and on the left unfenced fields that had once been allotments. It was the railway workers who had rented them, for here you were not far, as the crow flies, from Fetherhoughton’s small branch-line station. Besides growing vegetables, some of them had kept hens, even an occasional pig. But the coops and sties were empty now and damply rotting. The raiding parties had come down from Netherhoughton and carried off the spring greens, and at last the men had grown weary of patching and mending their fences, and replanting what was torn out. They had abandoned the site, and told their wives to frequent the Co-op greengrocers; the fields were reverting rapidly to their waste-ground character, and the only sign that the railway men had once been there was a red spotted kerchief, tied to a crumbling fence pole, and whipping defiantly in the breeze.

Father Fludd halted and looked at the empty road before him; he felt chilled and tired. He fished in his pocket for the sketch map that Father Angwin had drawn for him, and saw that if he were to retrace his steps, down Back Lane to Upstreet, a short climb would bring him to the station yard, and from there a footpath cut straight across the fields to Netherhoughton’s main street. He squashed the map back into his pocket, and turned on his heel; as he passed the house where the woman had offered him tea, he thought he saw a curtain shift at an upper window.

Upstreet was largely deserted now. Once you had done your shopping, he supposed, there was nothing to detain you. He looked at his watch; it was almost five o’clock, and the inhospitable chill of an autumn evening was already in the air, a compound miasma of leaf-mould, coal fires, wet wool, cough syrup.

As he neared the station, Fludd saw advancing upon him another gang of juveniles, older this time, more orderly, a dozen or so adolescents in tight formation. These young Fetherhoughtonians were the pupils of the grammar school in the nearest town. They were few but conspicuous; their maroon school uniforms, bought large so that they could grow into them, stood out from their bodies like the dark capes of Crusaders. There was a wary, darting-eyed expression on the faces of the gawky lads of eighteen, their little caps on their heads, satchels like postage stamps slung over their great bony shoulders. Some of the girls carried cake tins, held against their bodies like shields, and others had bags of knitting, from which metal needles poked; the boys carried wood-working tools which they did not trouble to hide. The outriders of the group, grim-faced girls of twelve and thirteen, bore their hockey sticks at a vigilant, offensive angle.

“Good evening,” the priest said. “I am the new curate, Fludd’s my name. How are you enjoying the new term?”

Startled, offended eyes passed over him. As he stood in their path they could not proceed, and, unwilling to break ranks, they came to a halt.

“May we pass?” said one of the stick-wielding girls.

“I was only wondering,” Fludd said, “what the young such as yourselves find to do in this place.”

“Our homework,” said a voice from the centre of the group.

“Do you not find yourselves with a bit of free time at the weekend?”

“We don’t go out,” the girl said firmly. “We don’t want fights with teddy boys.”

“We stay in,” another voice said; adding, in explanation, “It is called bettering ourselves. We have to get into Manchester University.”

“Do you come to Mass?” Fludd said. “We could have a meeting after. We could have games. Table—tennis.”

The children looked at each other. Their expressions softened; one of the small boys said, with a lingering regret, “We are atheists.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea at all,” the girl said. “You see, Father, our parents won’t let us outside without we put our uniforms on, and it attracts trouble.”

The little boy said, “Them from Thomas Aquinas bash us up.”

“They’ll be upon us now,” the girl said, “if you don’t excuse us.”

Behind her, in unison, three girls held out their cake tins, and rattled them in unison: odi, odas, odat.

“I hate,” the girl explained balefully. “You hate. He she or it hates.”

“You need not go on,” Fludd murmured. “I know the rest.”

“Nothing personal,” a large boy said; and the rattlers, holding their cake tins aloft, explained, “We pelt’em with our domestic science.”

Fludd stood aside and watched them go, their heads swivelling to check the doorways of the shops. In the station yard he climbed over the stile that let him on to the footpath and struck out across country, swiping at the tussocks of grass with Father Angwin’s umbrella. The incline, slight at first, became steeper, and he stopped to catch his breath before mounting the next stile; he handed himself over it, and found himself in Netherhoughton’s main street.

It proved to be a straggling settlement, with two dilapidated inns, the Old Oak and the Ram; a tobacconist’s shop, shuttered, which must surely be the one Father Angwin had mentioned; a general grocer, with a pyramid of tea packets in the window; and a baker, whose shelves were quite empty except for the sleeping form of a large black cat. The cottages here were of a different design, some of them only one room deep; low, sway-backed roofs showed their age, and he noted at once the Netherhoughtonian habit of bricking up any window deemed superfluous. All about him he saw the lively signs of alchemy: the black hens scratching in the small back-plots, and the nine-runged ladder, the scala philosophorum, leaning casually against a wall. He walked on until the houses petered out, and he reached the rusting iron gate that gave on to the moorland paths. He stood for a moment, looking up into the wild landscape and the rushing sky, and as he turned away he felt the first drops of rain on his face.

He put up the providential umbrella and retraced his steps down the lane. Before he had time to turn up the collar of his cape, a thick and viscid-seeming mist had crept up around him. In the failing light the dirty windowpanes seemed opaque, as if thinly curtained with lead. Shivering, he huddled against a wall and studied his map again; another footpath, branching off the one that had brought him there, would take him across the former allotments and bring him out within ten minutes, he calculated, at the back of the convent.

He must pay his courtesy call on the nuns soon, in fact today; otherwise they might be offended. No doubt, out of Christian charity, they would offer him some hot chocolate; buttered biscuits perhaps; even teacakes and jam. They would be glad of a visitor. Climbing once more over the stile, he smiled to himself, and with fresh heart picked up his feet out of the thickening mud.

The parlour in the convent was both stuffy and cold, and smelled mysteriously of congealed gravy. It was little used; Fludd sat by the empty fireplace, on a hard chair, waiting for Mother Purpit. Under his feet was dark, shiny linoleum in a pattern of parquet squares, relieved by a red fireside rug. Over the mantelpiece, Christ hung in a heavy gilt frame, thin yellow tongues of light streaming from his head. His ribcage was open, neatly split by the Roman spear, and with a pallid, pointed finger he indicated his exposed and perfectly heart-shaped heart.

Against the far wall was a big, heavy chest with a stout-looking iron lock; oak, it might be, but varnished with a heavy hand over the years, so that its surface seemed sticky and repelled the light. I wonder what is in that chest, thought Fludd. Nuns’ requisites; now what would they be?

Tired of waiting, he shifted on his chair. The chest tempted him; his eyes were drawn to it, back and back again. He got up, froze in mid-movement as the chair creaked; then took courage, and crept across the room. He tested the lid of the chest, gingerly; it didn’t give. He shifted it an inch, to see how heavy it was: very.

There was a footstep behind him. He straightened up, smiling easily. Mother Perpetua cleared her throat—too late to give a friendly warning, but just in time to make a point—then crossed to the tall, narrow windows and drew the curtains. “Night’s drawing in,” she observed.

“Mm,” Fludd said.

“Our clothes,” Purpit said. She indicated the chest. “It is our clothes that we brought with us when we left the world. I keep the key.”

“About your person?”

Purpit declined to answer. “It is a responsibility,” she said, “overseeing the welfare of so many souls.”

“So you are both headmistress and superior of the convent, are you?”

Purpit tossed her veil, as if to say, who else could do it? Father Fludd studied the chest. “Could I look into it, do you think?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Is there some rule to forbid it?”

“I should think there is.”

“Is it your nature to assume so?”

“I must. Suppose the bishop were to find out?” Mother Perpetua came up behind him and stooped over the chest, proprietorially. Then she cast an eye up at him, sideways, from behind the jutting edge of her headdress. It was as if a blinkered horse had winked. “Still, Father, I suppose I might make an exception. I suppose I might be prevailed upon.”

“After all,” Fludd said, “there cannot be any harm in looking at empty clothes. And there must be some curious modes in that box.”

Perpetua patted the lid of the chest; she had a large hand, with prominent knuckles. “I could gratify you,” she said. “Your curiosity. After all …” She eased herself to the vertical, and let her eyes wander over him. “I suppose the bishop’s not likely to hear of it. If you don’t tell him, and I don’t.” She slid a hand into the folds of her robes, below the waist, and fumbled there, and presently drew out a large, old-fashioned iron key.

“It must be a weight for you to carry about,” Fludd observed.

“I can assure you, Father, it is the least of my burdens.” Mother Perpetua fitted the key into the lock. “Allow me,” Fludd said.

He wrestled with the lock. At first, no success. “It is not often opened,” Perpetua said. “Once a decade is as much. There are not many vocations these days.” Fludd knelt, and applied force; there was a grind, scrape, click, and it gave at last. He raised the lid of the chest with a slow reverence, as if he might find human remains within; which indeed, he thought, you might say that I do, for in this chest are the remains of all worldly vanities. Did not Ignatius himself compare those in religion to the dead, when he enjoined on them obedience, each to their very own Mother Perpetua? “Each one,” said the saint, “should give himself up into the hands of his superiors, just as a dead body allows itself to be treated in any way whatever.”

At once a powerful smell of mothballs rose up. “I’m not sure why we bother to preserve them whole,” Perpetua said. “It’s not as if anyone is going anywhere in them.”

Fludd reached into the chest and lifted up the topmost garment, letting it fall out of its folds. It was a little white muslin frock with a sailor collar, its wide skirt meant, he thought, just to clear the ankle. “Whose would this be?”

“I dare say Sister Polycarp’s. She always claimed a fondness for the Senior Service.”

The nun plunged her hand into the chest and brought out a pair of navy-blue shoes, with two-bar straps and waisted heels. Next came a navy-blue serge suit, of similar vintage, with a fitted waist and a bell-shaped skirt. “Who’s to know which is whose? Three came in together, more or less. They’re of an age. Now then—what about this hat?”

Father Fludd took it from her and stroked the felt, and pricked his fingers on the bunch of stubby, fierce-looking grey feathers.

“I can picture Sister Cyril in that. Or Sister Ignatius Loyola, either one. Oh, dear God.” Purpit gave a whoop of laughter. “Here’s their underthings all wrapped up. Here’s their corsets.”

There were three pairs of corsets rolled together: one Twilfit, two Excelsior. Fludd held them up, like a map of the world, and let them unroll with a clatter. Purpit giggled. “Oh, Father,” she said. “This is not for your eyes, I’m sure.”

She plunged her arm into the chest, ferreting around at the bottom. “Dear God,” she said, “a hobble skirt. Well, that takes care of the three of them.”

Father Fludd picked out a straw boater and turned it in his hands. It had a dark-blue ribbon.

“That must belong to Sister Anthony. She’s the oldest of all. This will be her tweed suit. Her summer tweed.” Purpit held it up against herself. “Well now, will you look at the size she was? Almost what she is now.”

He imagined Sister Anthony, a healthy creature with flushed cheeks, jumping down from a pony and trap, on the carriage-drive; the year, 1900. Mother Perpetua shook out a pair of silk combinations, with lace-trimmed legs and buttons down the front. “She must have fancied herself in these.”

“What happens,” Fludd asked, “if you are sent to another convent of the Order? Do your effects follow you about? Do you pack a case?”

“Oh, we wouldn’t carry them ourselves. Suppose we were run over and taken to hospital? And they opened up the case? They wouldn’t believe we were nuns at all. They would think we belonged to a concert-party”

“They are sent after you, then.”

“They come by the carrier. Though I see,” she said, sifting through what remained in the chest, “that we don’t have anything here for Philomena. Not that it’s a loss, the kind of jumble-sale tat that I imagine a girl like her would have been wearing when she turned up as a postulant. But now isn’t that typical Ireland for you? Send the nun, and no clothes, just forget about it—” Mother Purpit let her jaw hang vacantly, and assumed a glassy-eyed expression—“just let the world go by. You should have seen the state of her when she presented herself here. An old Gladstone bag in her hand, tied up with string, and that nearly empty. I’ve heard of holy poverty, but in my opinion you can go too far. One pair of stockings, and those in holes, her clodhopper’s toe poking through. When her handkerchiefs last saw starch, I wouldn’t care to speculate.”

“She sounds more than anything like a displaced person,” Fludd said.

“I’d displace her back again, if I had my way, Father. But I don’t, more’s the pity. It’s Mother Provincial who gives the marching orders.” Indignation had taken over Mother Perpetua; she forgot that he did not know what she was talking about. “But I told her, Mother Provincial, I told her straight. I said if the girl wants to go in for that sort of thing, she should have taken herself off to some contemplatives; we Sisters of the Holy Innocents have to keep our heads screwed on, we have good solid practical work to do. I said to Mother Provincial, don’t think I’m going to allow my convent to become some repository for the Order’s embarrassments, because I won’t have it. I’ll speak to the bishop.”

“Heavens,” Fludd said. “What had Sister Philomena done?”

“She’d made claims for herself.”

“What variety of claims?”

“She said she had the stigmata. She said her palms bled every Friday.”

“And did other people see this?”

Perpetua sniffed. “Irish people saw it,” she said. “Some senile old donkey of a parish priest—forgive me, Father, but I always speak my mind—who was foolish enough to fall for her nonsense. It caused a stir, you see, had a whole parish in a state of excitement. I’m pleased to say that when he took it further the pair of them were pretty soon stamped on. At diocesan level, you know. In my experience you can count on a bishop.”

“So they sent her to England?”

“Yes, to get her out of that over-excited, unhealthy atmosphere. Well, I put it to you, Father, have you ever heard anything like it? Stigmata, indeed, in this day and age? Did you ever hear of anything in such poor taste?”

“Was she seen by a doctor?”

“Oh yes, but an Irish doctor could make nothing of it. I tell you, her feet had scarcely touched the ground before I arranged a good sensible man to take a proper look at her.” She sniffed again. “Do you know what he said it was? He said it was dermatitis.”

“And how is she now?”

“Oh, she’s over it now. I’ve seen to that.” She broke off. “But why are we wasting time over this fool of a girl? You’ll want your tea.”

Perpetua rustled out. What a noise her habit seemed to make, crackling and rasping; how her heels thumped on the linoleum. The air around her was loud with contention; he could think of nothing less conducive to a life of prayer.

Fludd resumed his seat by the fire. Presently, he heard the nun returning—he could hear her right along the corridor, now that he was alert for her. Behind her toddled an elderly sister, rotund and beaming, bearing a tea-tray. “Sister Anthony,” Purpit said.

“How do you do, Sister Anthony?”

“Well, in Jesus Christ, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Father; won’t you with your youth and all be a great help to poor auld Angwin?”

“Sister, don’t be quaint,” Purpit said. “Not in my hearing.”

Anthony sighed, and put down the tea-tray on the gate-legged table. “You could have had a sandwich,” she said. “You could have had fish-paste. But they said it was bad. Said it was off. Polycarp said it might have been in the desert for forty days and forty nights. I don’t know. I couldn’t taste anything off with it. I ate mine.”

“Sister has an excellent digestion,” said Mother Perpetua.

“Young things,” Sister Anthony said. “Nuns today. Want coddling. Finicky.”

“Do you want coddling, Father Fludd?” Purpit asked: gaily, without malice.

He glanced at her. Her gaiety was a terrible thing to see. “Not to worry, Sister Anthony,” he said. “Miss Dempsey will have something for me when I get in. The tea alone will be most welcome.”

“And try one of the biscuits. I baked them myself just this last fortnight.”

Sister Anthony went out, moving airily despite her bulk. As Mother Perpetua busied herself with the teapot, Fludd became conscious of a noise outside the door, a low rustle, a type of dull snuffling.

“Who is there?” he inquired.

“Oh, it is Sister Polycarp, Sister Cyril, and Sister Ignatius Loyola. They want to be introduced to you.”

Fludd half-rose. “Should we not let them in?”

Perpetua smiled, and poured the milk in a thin high stream. “In good time,” she said. She handed him his cup, with what was almost a simper: “Is that how you like it, Father?”

Father Fludd looked down. “I hardly know. I just drink it as it comes.”

“Ah, I might have known. You young priests. So ascetic. So unworldly.” Perpetua sighed, and supplied herself generously with sugar. “I suppose the bishop is very proud of you.”

Fludd tested his tea, hedgingly. “Do you think so?”

“Else why would he send you here to sort out this mess, if he didn’t put his absolute faith in you? Oh, you’re young, of course, to take on a wily old fox like Father Angwin—and by the way, he drinks, you know, and he has been seen in Netherhoughton, hanging about the tobacconist’s—but no one who took a look at you could doubt your capabilities.”

Go on then, Fludd silently challenged: look at me. He let his own eyes dwell on the coarse skin of the nun’s cheeks, her fleshy nose; she raised her head briefly, but then dropped it again, as if its black wrappings had suddenly become too heavy. She reached out for the teapot and topped up her cup.

“What mess?” Fludd said. “What are you talking about?”

Perpetua was startled. She put down the pot. “Well, don’t tell me His Grace hasn’t put you in the picture? Angwin’s to be modernized, he’s to be made to change his ways, I thought you knew all that. Perhaps—I don’t know—perhaps the bishop thought it would be better if you formed your own opinions. A very fair man, His Grace, a very just man, I always have said that about him. Though in my opinion the benefit of the doubt can be extended once too often.” She thought for a moment, and suddenly sat up straighter, preening herself. “Of course, he knew that you had a reliable source here. He knew that he could rely on me to set you straight.”

Father Fludd picked up one of Sister Anthony’s biscuits. He bit into it, gave a cry of pain, and dropped it to his knee, whence it bounced to the floor and skittered under the table. “Holy Virgin,” he said. “I have nearly broke my teeth.”

“Lord, I should have warned you, Father. We are all used to them. We have a little toffee hammer that we pass about to deal with them.”

Fludd held his hand across his mouth.

“Would you like me to look in your mouth?” Perpetua said tenderly. “I could see if there was any damage.”

“No thank you, Mother Perpetua. Do go on with what you were saying.”

“The man’s in a world of his own,” the nun continued. “More tea? Oh, he’s sound enough on doctrine, we all know that, too sound, the bishop says, an obstinate sort of man always on about the Church Fathers and talking over people’s heads. But his sermons can be mere gibberish. In the pulpit the other week he said the Pope was a Nazi. He said he was the head of the Mafia.”

“And the congregation?” Fludd took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his lip. “How did they take it?”

“Quietly,” said the nun, with a careless air. “They always do. They’ve a great want of education.”

And whose fault is that? Fludd muttered, behind the muffling folds of linen.

“And if his wild sermons were not offence enough, he sets his judgement up against His Grace’s! Of course, you’ve heard of this ridiculous business about the statues.”

“Oh, of course,” said Fludd. He was beginning to sense which way the wind was blowing. “I think I will have that other cup of tea.”

By now the scuffling outside the door had much increased, and a sort of impatient rhythmic breathing was evident, the concerted effort of six lungs.

“Oh, come in,” Purpit cried, her patience snapping. “Don’t hang about out there snuffling like a tribe of old dogs, come in and meet Father Fludd, the great hope of our parish.”

The three nuns who entered the room in single file were of an age, as Purpit had told him, and of a height, which was little more than five foot; looking from one lined, dim, paper-white face to the other, Fludd knew that he would never be able to tell them apart. They kept their eyes cast down, behind their wire-framed spectacles, and shuffled their feet. Their habits smelt musty, as if they never went out of doors. Of course, they did go out of doors, walking up and down the carriage-drive; but what they experienced, between the black banks and the dripping trees, did not count as fresh air. They took no exercise, apart from beating small children with canes—which they did fiercely, in a spirit of rivalry. Malice marked their countenances, and a kind of greed.

“Are we not going to have tea?” one of them said. “The pot is big enough.”

“We could fetch cups,” said another.

“You have had your tea,” said Purpit, crushingly.

The three nuns peered at Fludd, from beneath the starched parapets of their headdresses. “They are working on a tapestry,” Mother Perpetua said. “Aren’t you, Sister Polycarp?”

“It is a big one,” said Polycarp.

“We do it ad majorem Dei gloriam,” said Cyril.

“It is like the Bayeux Tapestry.”

“But on a religious theme.”

Fludd set down his teacup. He felt uneasy; one of the Sisters wheezed a little, and he felt that his own breathing had become difficult, a pain across his breastbone.

“You don’t sound well, Sister,” he said; and he saw the lips of the other two nuns tighten with wrath.

“She is very well,” one said.

The other said, “She gets linctus.”

The first added, “She has no cause for complaint.”

“Your tapestry … ,” Fludd said, “what is the theme?”

“The plagues of Egypt,” said Sister Cyril. “It is novel.”

“But edifying,” said Polycarp.

“It is an undertaking,” said Fludd, respectfully.

“We have done the plague of frogs,” Polycarp said. “And the murrain, and the grievous swarm of flies.”

Sister Ignatius Loyola coughed a long hacking cough, then spoke for the first time: “Now we are up to boils.”

Perpetua took him to the convent door. It was quite dark now, and he knew that Father Angwin would be anxious. Perpetua touched his sleeve. “Remember, Father,” she said, in a hoarse whisper, “any help I can give you, you’ve only to ask. Any information … you understand? I want His Grace to know I’m loyal.”

“I understand,” Fludd said. He wondered what exactly was the origin of the bad blood between the nun and Father Angwin; but he had already realized, from what he had seen earlier that day, that the quarrels of this community were ancient and impenetrable. He wanted to get away, out of her presence; a powerful aversion welled up in him, and he pulled his sleeve away. Purpit did not notice. She stood framed in the lighted doorway as he trudged up the hill towards the church.

The bishop’s a fair man, he thought; as he put one muddy foot in front of the other. The bishop’s a just man, is he? Well, perhaps so. Perhaps he may be. Perhaps fairness abounds. When people complain of their lot, their sneering enemies gloat and tell them, to make them afraid, “Life’s not fair.” But then again, taking the long view, and barring flood, fire, brain damage, the usual run of bad luck, people do get what they want in life. There is a hidden principle of equity in operation. The frightening thing is that life is fair; but what we need, as someone has already observed, is not justice but mercy.