The Breath of Peace (20 page)

When he broke the bread, he thought it looked passably like a loaf should look. He had followed instructions faithfully, and felt quite proud of the result. He awarded himself an achievement level halfway between Brother Cormac and Brother Conradus. Thinking of them, he wondered if Madeleine was sharing supper with John this evening. He thought she would be.

He had been glad, on his return from St Alcuin's, to find her eager to make her own visit. Something in him still felt very tender; tearing open the sac of memories and allowing them to spill out raw and bloody in John's sight had been a necessary step in the direction of sanity and peace, but it had come at a cost. John's prayer and ministry to him, receiving the eucharist at John's hands again, had reached down to the deepest place of his soul. One day he would tell Madeleine all that had happened to him, and the healing it had brought; but it felt too private even to mention just now. He wanted to be alone for a while, and reflect on who he was – and why. Her journey up to the moors came gratefully just now. But he missed her badly, even so, in the house all by himself.

When he went to bed, he looked for her shawl, the light summer one she had left behind, and wrapped it round his shoulders, telling himself it was too cold in the bed on his own. He fingered the wool of it, and stroked it against his face. He pulled her pillow nearer, and held it close to his body. He watched the vague shape of the moon climbing the frosty sky and thought they probably ought to clean the windows. A long time went by. He lay awake. Two nights, she had said. Only two. Or it might be three.

Unexpectedly, cold though it was, he suddenly found himself pushing back his blankets and scrambling out of the bed to kneel beside it.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. Used to the rhythm and framework of monastic life, built upon the round of liturgy: Matins… Lauds… Terce… Sext… None… Vespers… Compline… without the pattern of psalmody and responsory, he had no idea how to pray. So he had not prayed, except in the jagged fragments of moments – like the evening kneeling at the hearth trying to make his fire catch, when he reached desperation, or the hungry repetition of the words of the psalm as John led him into laying his desolation at the feet of Christ the friend of man. He had not the first idea how to pray with Madeleine, or even suggest it to her. If he had asked her and she said yes, he would not have been sure what they would do. They attended Mass on Sundays, and sometimes she sat with the beads of her rosary slipping peaceful through her fingers in a winter evening. And that had been where it began and ended. He could not imagine how he would go about telling her of the way John had prayed for and ministered to him – the eucharist, the exorcism and blessing – not because he thought she would not understand, but because the experience had gone so deep into him that he thought uncovering it would be excruciating. It was simply too personal to put into words, to tell anybody, even Madeleine. He half wished John would tell her during her stay at the abbey – but knew he would not; John would never betray his confidence in that way.

‘I'm sorry,' he whispered now. ‘I haven't… I'm sorry… I just need thee to help me. I can't do this by myself. I'm out of my depth. This woman thou hast given me… she doesn't think like me. I love her… I love her so much it hurts… Help me. Please help me. I have no idea what I'm hoping thou'lt do, but I think without thy help I'm sunk. I'm not very good at marriage. Please do something. Please come and do this with us.'

The silence of the night wrapped all around him. He lingered a few minutes more, kneeling in the patch of light the moon flung across their bed; and then he crept back in under the blankets, shivering. He fell asleep; and that night, for once, the dreams that he dodged and dreaded did not come.

* * *

‘I'm not sure if this will work or not.'

The hesitancy in her brother's voice intrigued Madeleine. As a boy and a young man, he had been boldly assertive; not arrogant or dominating, but always decisive and quick to move from thought to action. And easily irritated, she recalled. Through his adult life she had seen little of him, just brief visits with her mother from time to time. Even when she had come to live in the abbey close at St Alcuin's after her mother's death, he had been heavily preoccupied with his new duties as abbot, and her shelter under his protection had involved little personal interaction.

When she had shared supper with him the night before, she had asked if he had the time to offer her his pastoral counsel. ‘I have no one else to ask,' she had said; ‘at least, nobody who would understand.'

He had looked surprised, and his voice when he agreed held a note of caution. They sat now, just the two of them, beside a fire Brother Thomas had lit for them, in the small parlour built adjacent to the abbot's lodging with one door into the cloister and one into the abbey court.

Father Theodore had been Madeleine's confessor when she lived at the abbey, and she felt unsure whether that pastoral relationship continued or needed to be re-established; it had been more than a year since she moved away, and she had not been back again since. She suspected John might prefer that she restrict any personal confidences to his hearing alone. The situation remained delicate. William had found a friendly welcome, it appeared, but nonetheless it seemed unlikely that his status as a married man should be discussed too openly or freely here. So she had asked John, not Theodore, for his time and his counsel.

‘It might not work? How so? What do you mean?' she demanded now. He smiled. His sister's blunt and forthright manner had been nothing softened, he saw.

‘You said you wanted to talk about your marriage to William. As far as it goes, I am willing to listen, and to offer what I can. But what do I know of marriage? And there is a familiarity between us because you are my sister that may prove to override respect. To you I am only Adam, your brother, and if my insights do not find favour I think you may scorn and dismiss them. You are not under obedience to me, nor do I suppose you look up to me. So any counsel of mine may be substantially diminished in usefulness. That's all. But we can try.'

Madeleine regarded him with curiosity. He spoke gently, and she heard humility in his voice, but he sounded sure of what he said. She thought he was looking for neither reassurance nor approval; just explaining his misgivings, with no attachment to any possible outcome. ‘Thank you,' she answered him. ‘I would like to try. I think William and I are at something of an impasse, and I cannot see how to go forward.'

She noted the relief in his face as she hastened to add: ‘We do love each other. And you need not fear I am about to regale you with stories of what passes in our bedchamber. We have no difficulty there.'

John smiled. ‘It has surprised me that some folk do indeed come to discuss such things with the abbot of a monastery – how on earth they think I know what they should be doing escapes me. I don't mind, and it's been a curious thing how the ordinary business of living together in community has application to just about any human relationship. Even so, I think being privy to the intimacy you share with William would feel a little closer to home than I'd have been comfortable with. What's been the trouble, then, if it's not that?'

‘Has he never spoken to you at all about our life together?'

John's eyebrows rose. ‘Do you think I would share his confidences with you if he had? Yes, he has told me a little. I think I can say as much as this: he feels he makes a rotten husband. Is that right? Do you think so too?'

‘Me?' Taken aback, Madeleine blinked and considered this. John noticed she had no immediate instinct to leap to her man's defence. He waited while she gathered her thoughts into a response.

‘He's… well, it's an odd thing living with someone who was thirty years in the cloister.'

John nodded. ‘I can imagine there would be big adjustments to make. What kind of thing do you mean?'

Madeleine turned this question over in her mind. ‘He's very quiet,' she volunteered.

‘He doesn't say much, you mean?'

‘Oh no, he has an opinion on everything, usually decided and stubbornly held – I didn't mean that. It's that he goes about things with barely any sound at all. When he eats his pottage, he doesn't suck it in with a great slurp and let his breath out after in a satisfied “aahhh!” like most men. When he blows his nose, he doesn't make me jump out of my skin with a wild trumpeting like a beast of the forest caught in a trap. When he hefts a bale of hay, he doesn't grunt and gasp and groan even if it's heavy – he just picks it up. When he's splitting logs the axe makes a noise, but William doesn't. I hear the crack of the wood divide and the thud of wood falling, but no loud grunting signalling to the neighbourhood that a man's making a serious effort here. He doesn't draw attention to himself at all. In the outhouse, in – maybe I shouldn't say this – in our bed; everywhere you'd expect a continuous stream of human sounds to let you know what's going on with him, there is quietness. In that respect, if no other, it's much like living with another woman – and candidly I have found that to be a relief.'

She glanced at her brother and saw the interest and amusement in his face at her description. He could imagine this very easily.

‘I should think Father Theodore would rejoice if he could produce the same result in his novices! So – the quietness is not the problem, I presume?'

‘No… it's… we… Well, what usually sets things off is when I run out of patience with him when he does – or says – something stupid, and then I get a bit sharp with him and he either bites my head off in his turn or else he looks completely bewildered and simply can't see my point of view. Either that or he won't talk about it at all and tells me to shut up because he says he hates arguments and just wants a peaceful life.'

John took this in, his face thoughtful.

‘I've never heard William say anything stupid,' he commented eventually. ‘He always seemed to be a remarkably intelligent man to me.'

A short laugh of derision escaped his sister. ‘What passes for intelligence in a monastery where other men do all the gardening and thatching, the cooking and the repairs, tend the animals, sweep and scrub, make the soap and the ink, may look a lot like stupidity in a homestead.'

John nodded. ‘Yes,' he said softly, ‘he took a lot on. It was a courageous decision.'

In the silence that followed this observation, both of them looked into the flames of the fire, thinking.

‘Does –'

‘We –'

They both spoke at once, and both stopped. John gestured to his sister to continue.

‘We argue all the time,' she said. ‘Every day. All the time. We argue. And I'm sick of it, and so is he. I just wondered if you could help us. Mother and I didn't argue. I get the impression from what he says that William isn't used to constant wrangling either. I thought you might be able… I don't know…'

‘Yes, I can help with that,' her brother answered. Madeleine thought he sounded quite certain, more confident than she had feared might be the case. She glanced at him, hopeful and expectant.

‘Can you sit through a bit of an abbot's chapter, d'you think? Are you prepared for a homily of sorts?'

As he grinned at her ruefully, she could still see the boy he had been. It occurred to her for the first time that this opportunity was a privilege. To be the sister of someone wise enough and mature enough to be elected abbot of his community was a precious thing. ‘I'm listening,' she said, entirely seriously. He took a deep breath.

‘I've never been a married man. That's the first thing. So I might have got this completely wrong and, if I have, I can only ask you to forgive me. With that in mind, here goes.

‘Please – tell me if I am meddling too far – you speak of constant wrangling; William… you said you have no difficulty, but… he is… he is not… rough with you? Not demanding? He is considerate?'

Madeleine looked at her brother, intrigued. He was blushing.

‘Oh!' She understood what he meant. ‘In our knowledge of each other as husband and wife? Rough? Oh – no, no! William is surpassing gentle and most tender. In fact he says, as a kind of watchword, “Patient and tender, light and slow.” And he tells me – I know not what to make of this – that old Mother Cottingham told him that, and a great many other things of the courtesies between women and men too. I hardly know whether to believe him! Can you imagine such conversation between them? And he then a brother of this house! Anyway, that's what he says; and for sure he knows how to woo and win and… er… bless a woman, and goodness knows how he learned the arts of love if she did not tell him.'

‘By this time, my sister, I cannot think you could tell me anything about William that would seem beyond believing. He was her confessor. Goodness only knows what they talked about! I'm glad he has found some way to put it to good use! And relieved to hear that some of the cruelties that have been visited relentlessly upon him have not bent his temperament to any kind of insensibility. Thank you. That's a burden off my mind. Let's put that to one side, then.

‘So, if it's in your conversation and sharing of household tasks that contention arises, it will help if you keep in mind what he has been and where he has come from. Before he came here he was superior of an Augustinian priory of real substance. That is… I hardly like to say this, lest I myself seem to be full of self-importance, but it's a status of high degree and considerable consequence, as you must surely know. He was a man of significance and immense authority. He was not loved, it is true, but he wielded great power. In seeking sanctuary with us he had to humble himself more than I would have believed possible – and he did it magnificently. And now to leave the whole network of structures by which his life has operated and take his chances on his own with you, at his time of life – well that's magnificent too, in a crazy way. The monastic Rule has been his protective shell all his life, and he has laid it aside for you. I tell you straight, I had my misgivings about the decision, but by nothing would he be dissuaded. To be with you meant everything to him.