CHAPTER THREE

Keeping Faith

Therese had finally been enlisted to help with the Sunday School. Mrs Crabtree had been trying for a long time to persuade her, and in the end she had given in.

She sat in our kitchen on Saturday morning with her feet up on a stool, the table strewn with papers, preparing a lesson for the seven- to ten-year-olds on the theme of friendship. When I came in to make myself a cup of coffee she was talking about it to Mother, who was sitting in the easy chair topping and tailing gooseberries for dinner.

‘And what did they say?’ Mother was asking as I came in.

‘Lilian says a friend is someone who is always there when you need them. Daddy says a friend is someone you can trust. Susanne says a friend is someone who likes you. I’ve got down here, “A friend is someone you like being with.” I can’t remember who said that. Jo Couchman says a friend is someone who always understands. Beth says a friend is somebody you know. Mary says a friend is someone you play with.’

‘Did you ask Melissa?’

‘No, not yet. I’m asking everybody for my Sunday School thing, ’Lissa, what they think a friend is. What do you say?’

‘A friend is… crumbs, let me think. Someone who sticks by you, I think. Someone who won’t let you down.’

‘That’s good; thanks. Make me a cup of coffee, too, will you? Oh, Mother, you haven’t said. What do you think a friend is?’

Mother frowned thoughtfully and carried on nipping the little stalks off her gooseberries without replying. She said eventually, ‘Well… I’ve had friends who’ve disappointed me. Sometimes, even the ones who loved me have let me down, and not understood, and betrayed my trust. That’s only human nature, isn’t it? I daresay I’ve done as much to them. No, I would say… I learned it from a story great-grandmother Melissa told me… I would say that because we all have our failings and weaknesses, because each of us is only human, a friend—a good friend—is someone who helps you to persevere.’

‘What?’ said Therese.

‘A friend is someone who helps you to persevere. When the going gets tough and you’re on the point of jacking it all in; by the time you reach my age, Therese, you will be able to look back at lots of times when you nearly gave up and walked away from a difficult situation; and the people you will remember with thanks and love are the ones who helped you, in those moments, to persevere.’

‘Okay, okay, I’ve got it; don’t preach a sermon at me, Mother,’ said Therese. ‘A friend is someone who helps you to persevere. I bet they won’t even know what “persevere” means.’

‘Well if they don’t,’ said Mother drily, ‘it’s time they learned. It’ll come in handy.’ She finished her gooseberries and took them to the sink to wash.

‘What was the story, then, Mother? Here’s your coffee, Therese.’

Mother looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. ‘Come for a walk after dinner, up on to the hill, and I’ll tell you the story. There’s not time now, and anyway I’ve got to make this pudding, which needs thinking about because I’ve never made it before.’

It was a warm, lazy day and Cecily fell asleep after dinner. Somebody needed to stay at home and mind her, and Daddy wanted to read the paper, so he was very glad of the excuse she gave him to stay at home. Mary and Beth went along the road to play in a neighbour’s sandpit, and Therese was still struggling with her Sunday School lesson for the following day.

‘Looks like just you and me then, Melissa,’ Mother said after the dinner things had been washed up. ‘Do you still want to go?’

‘Course I do! I’ve been waiting for this story since before dinner!’

We took the dog and set off up the hill to where our road forked. Leaving the houses behind, we took the left-hand fork and followed the narrow unmade track to the heath at the top. It was a clear, warm day, and the breeze smelled of the sea. After five minutes’ walking the sound of traffic was no more than a hum in the distance.

We were in a place of seagulls and gorse, rabbits and sea-pinks among the rocks and wiry grass.

We walked in silence up the hill; it was steep enough that you needed your breath for climbing and had none to spare for talking. Our dog ran ahead of us, his tail curled over his back, a flag of happiness. He trotted in zig-zags, his nose snuffing the track of rabbits along the ground.

As we breasted the rise of the hill, Mother paused to get her breath back and look out over the sea. The other side of the hill fell away sharply from the plateau of gorse and turf on the top; a cliff face that dropped down to the sea shore. From where we stood, we could see for miles. On the one side the pebbly beach lay below, where the fishing boats were drawn up and their nets spread to dry near the wooden shacks where the fishermen sold their catch. On the other side spread the patchwork of allotments, and the parish church, and the winding terraces of houses that clung to the hillside.

‘Let’s sit down here for a while,’ Mother puffed. ‘I’m still too full of dinner and it’s too hot to walk far.’

We sat down on the grass near the gorse bushes at the cliff edge. Mother reclined on her elbow, shaking back her mane of hair. I noticed for the first time that it had strands of grey in it here and there.

‘The story,’ I prompted.

‘Oh, just a minute, let me get my breath back!’

We sat there for a while, listening to the long pull of the surf, and the cry of the gulls overhead, watching the bees visiting the gorse flowers, industrious and content.

Then she began her story.

Brother Francis finished off the little red dragon he had painted at the foot of the page. He had intended it to glower at the reader with an intimidating scowl from the margin of Psalm 102, ‘For my days are consumed away like smoke and my bones are burnt up as it were with a firebrand….’ Francis looked doubtfully at his dragon, a perky little beast with an endearingly quizzical expression on its face. He didn’t understand why Brother Theodore’s illuminations reflected the passion and loveliness of the sacred text, but his own always managed to introduce a note of unseemly comedy. The problem was not restricted to the art of manuscript illumination either. Since first he had entered the community, Brother Francis’ irrepressible cheerfulness had caused consternation to Father Matthew, the master of novices, who took his responsibility of watching over their souls with a seriousness bordering on obsession.

‘I must answer for them before God,’ he said earnestly to Father Peregrine. ‘I must account for them on the judgement day. And how I shall account for Brother Theodore and Brother Thomas and Brother Francis, I do not know. I have rebuked them, exhorted them—“Brethren be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour!” And Brother Francis says to me, “Yes, Father Matthew,” as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but there is a twinkle in his eye and I can’t get rid of it.’

Father Peregrine hoped desperately that there was no such damning twinkle in his own eye, and did his best to adopt a suitably grave expression, but he couldn’t be sure. The thing that was worrying Father Matthew above all else about Brother Francis was the way he walked.

‘Have you seen him, Father?’ he demanded of Peregrine, shaking his head in bewildered sorrow. ‘He walks along the cloister with a step that is as merry and light as a Franciscan friar! It’s not dignified, it’s not edifying, it’s not right.’

‘He has a naturally sunny temperament, that’s all,’ Father Peregrine consoled his novice master, ‘and I’m glad he’s happy here.’

‘But he shouldn’t be so happy, that’s just it. He should be reflecting on his sins and the awesome judgement of God. He came here to live a life of penance and prayer, not to enjoy himself.’

‘And does he not pray?’

‘Yes indeed, I have no complaints of his diligence in prayer or in work. On the contrary; but the more he prays, the worse he gets.’

Peregrine bent his head in an attempt to disguise the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

‘I think, Father Matthew, you worry yourself unnecessarily,’ he said finally. ‘Your conscientious vigilance will save him from much levity, and much mirth, I am sure.’

Father Matthew looked at his abbot with a glimmer of hope in his troubled eyes, ‘Do you really think it might?’

‘I am sure of it,’ Peregrine replied solemnly, but there was something in his manner that caused a faintly suspicious look to cross the novice master’s face. ‘You don’t think I am too hard on the novices, Father?’

‘Well—now and again, maybe,’ said Peregrine gently.

‘But their souls, their young souls that are constantly tempted to sin!’ Father Matthew leaned forward in his chair, his eyes glowing like coals.

‘Yes… yes, I know. It’s not easy.’ Peregrine nodded sympathetically. ‘They—we all—respect your devotion to God and to your duty, Father. But don’t lose too much sleep over Brother Francis. I think his vocation is secure enough.’

Francis, who had no wish to cause offence to anyone, did his best to comply with Father Matthew’s attempts to mould and discipline his character, and struggled to adopt an air of appropriately sober monastic recollection. The effect was more that of adding an easy urbanity to the original impish good humour; a sort of charming serenity which Father Matthew could never be sure was an improvement or the reverse.

Brother Clement, an artist and a scholar, in whose charge were the library and the scriptorium, had no fears for Francis’ soul, but was frustrated by his manuscript illumination. He looked in vexation at Francis’ alert and interested little dragon.

‘Brother, the text you have copied well enough—your hand is not excellent, but it will do, it is passable. But this! Have you read the thing you are illuminating? Your purpose is to illuminate, not to obscure, the text. Here, where the psalmist says, “Percussus sum ut foenum, et arnuit cor melim; quia oblitus sum comedere panum meum.” Do you not know what that means? “My heart is smitten down and withered like grass so that I forget to eat.” He goes on, “I lie awake and moan.” The man is in pain, Brother Francis, not in fairyland.’

Francis looked chastened. ‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t mean it to look like that. It was supposed to look threatening. I could do its eyebrows a bit blacker after the midday meal, perhaps.’

But the dragon was spared his cosmetic surgery, because after the midday meal Brother Dominic, the guestmaster, waylaid Brother Clement. ‘Brother, I wonder if you could spare me a pair of hands from the scriptorium for the guest house? We’re almost rushed off our feet there, what with Father Gerard laid up sick and a great party of folk that’s just arrived today.’

Brother Clement’s eyes brightened. ‘I’ll send you Brother Francis directly,’ he replied.

That evening, the visitors from the guest house dined with Father Peregrine, as was customary. There were one or two travelling south to Canterbury on pilgrimage, and a family passing through who had asked for hospitality and help because one of their horses had gone badly lame. There were two little children in the family, who had been left tucked up asleep in the guest house, but the mother and father and their two older children supped with the abbot. Their eldest was a girl of sixteen, Linnet, a vivacious, pretty girl with dark brown eyes and rosy cheeks. She had glossy black hair coiled demurely in a net, wisps of it escaping to curl on her neck and brow. Her brother, four years her junior, excited and proud to be included in adult company, sat beside her, and they chatted happily to Brother Edward sitting opposite them.

‘You’re all settled in, then, and comfortable, over the way?’ he asked them kindly. ‘The brothers are looking after you, I hope?’

‘Oh yes!’ Linnet smiled at Brother Edward, causing two delightful dimples to appear in her rosy cheeks. ‘Oh yes. Brother Francis has been looking after us. He’s made us very welcome. I like him, he makes me laugh; he’s got a lovely smile—like sunlight dancing on the water.’

Turning her head to speak to her brother, she did not see the look Brother Edward exchanged with Father Peregrine.

As Compline ended that evening, and the brothers in silence filed out of the chapel, the abbot stretched out a hand to detain his novice master.

‘A word with you, Father Matthew. Have you sent Brother Francis to work in the guest house?’

Father Matthew looked surprised. ‘No, Father, but Brother Clement may have done so. They are very short there just now with Father Gerard sick. No, I never send any novices to work among the guests, as you know. Such worldly contacts do them no good.’

‘Is there anyone else who could go in his stead? One of the older brothers?’

‘Well…’ Father Matthew looked thoughtful. ‘There’s Brother Giles. He’s usually helping Brother Mark with the bees just now, but maybe…’

‘The bees?’ the abbot interrupted him. ‘That would do admirably. Brother Giles can go and help out in the guest house, and Brother Francis can help Brother Mark with his bees.’

Father Matthew looked doubtful. ‘Brother Mark is very particular about his bees, Father. He won’t let any of the novices but Brother Cormac near them normally. He says the others don’t know how to talk to them. Brother Cormac can handle them bare-handed and without veiling his face. They like him, but the others get stung.’

‘Send Brother Francis to help with the bees,’ said the abbot firmly. ‘It would be no bad thing to have his glory veiled for a few days. If Brother Mark has any objections he can bring them to me.’

So after their studies in the novitiate the next morning, Brother Francis walked along as far as the vegetable garden with Brother Tom. Tom worked in the vegetable patch, which lay between the abbey buildings and the orchard. The orchard was the bees’ kingdom.

The bees?’ said Tom in surprise. ‘Brother Mark won’t want you near his bees.’

‘No, I know,’ Francis replied. ‘I don’t understand it either. It was only yesterday they sent me down to the guest house, and I was enjoying that. There’s a beautiful girl staying there. She took quite a shine to me, too.’

There was a silence. ‘What’s her name?’ asked Brother Tom casually.

‘Linnet. She—oh, no, Tom. No! Put it out of your mind. There now, go and recite the psalms at the cabbages and forget I said it.’

Tom grinned at him. ‘Try your charms on the bees, then. Brother Cormac said to tell you they like the 23rd Psalm and Gaelic love-songs.’ He went in to the great sun-trap where the vegetables grew, protected from the wind on three sides by stone walls, and on the fourth by the lavender hedge which grew alongside the path to the infirmary. ‘Linnet,’ he murmured to himself, ‘that’s a pretty name. Heigh-ho. Those were the days.’

‘Ah Brother, there you are.’ Brother Paulinus came hobbling up the path, elderly and arthritic, a small, tough, sinewy man, whose brown eyes were bright in his weathered face. A gnome. No, a robin, thought Tom.

‘Brother, we’ve a party of guests in the guest house, and that means horses! Would you take the handcart down to the stables and see what they’ve got for us, please? I want some muck for my vegetables before Brother Fidelis has it all for his roses. Bring it down this way when you return and I’ll show you where to make the new heap. There’s a good lad.’

Five minutes later, Brother Tom stood in the stable doorway entranced by the sight of the loveliest girl he’d ever seen crooning a song to her lame horse, stroking its ears, playing with its mane.

‘By all that’s holy,’ he breathed, ‘I never thought I’d wish I was a horse’

‘Oh! Brother, you made me jump!’ Linnet looked at him. ‘What did you say?’

Tom shook his head and smiled at her. ‘Saying my prayers,’ he said. There was a pause and Linnet shyly dropped her gaze.

‘My horse is lame,’ she said. ‘She caught her foot in a rabbit hole on the moor. It hurts her, I think.’

‘Let me have a look,’ said Tom. ‘I used to care for the horses on the farm where I was brought up. Oh, yes, they’ve poulticed it and bound it right. Not too bad a sprain, I should think, but it’s swollen and I expect it…’ he looked up at her, ‘… aches.’

He released the horse’s leg. ‘Have you come from far?’

‘We were returning to Chester. We’ve been visiting with my auntie. It’s a shame Blanchefleur went lame, but I’m glad we came here. Everyone’s been so kind and friendly. Mother says I’ll have to ride pillion with Father and leave Blanchefleur here if she’s not fit to ride in a day or two. Uncle would come for her, and keep her till he comes down our way. What do you think?’

‘Two days?’ said Tom. ‘Two days? I should ask your mother to make it three. We might well have got somewhere by then. Two days seems a very short time.’

He looked at her over the mare’s back, his fingers absently fondling the coarse hair of her mane, when Linnet’s hand caressing the beast’s neck touched his hand. The contact went through Tom’s whole body like an electric shock. They both withdrew their hands. Linnet blushed, and Tom stepped backwards.

‘I should go,’ he said. ‘I should go. I ought to be doing my work.’

‘Where do you work?’ Linnet enquired with a smile, dimpling her cheeks enchantingly, looking up at him through the sweep of black lashes that fringed her dewy-bright eyes.

Tom stared at her. ‘I work…’ he said slowly, ‘in the vege table garden.’ Inside his heart was saying, Yes, oh yes, come and find me. I cannot come to you, come and find me. Forgive me, God, I haven’t promised for life. Not yet. No, but I’ve taken my first vows. I shouldn’t be doing this. Forgive me, my God. Oh, but you’re beautiful.

‘Brother Thomas!’ Brother Paulinus’ voice was calling from the stable-yard. ‘Brother Thomas! Have you not got that muck loaded yet?’

‘Coming!’ Tom called over his shoulder. He looked back at Linnet. He tried to smile, but couldn’t. ‘Goodbye,’ he whispered. ‘Three days. If you can. For the mare.’

‘Goodbye, Brother Thomas,’ she smiled.

And he was gone.

Two weeks later, Father Matthew came in great agitation to the abbot’s house.

‘Father, Brother Thomas has gone.’

‘Gone? Where?’

‘Left us. He was not at Matins, nor Lauds, nor first Mass. His bed was not slept in. He has gone. Nobody knows where he is.’

‘Where is Brother Francis?’

‘Brother Francis? In the scriptorium, I think. Brother Mark wouldn’t keep him with the bees once he could have Brother Denis back.’

‘Send him to me.’

‘Father, I’ve asked all the novices; none of them have any idea—’

‘Send him to me.’

When Francis stood before him, Father Peregrine asked him bluntly. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Father, I can’t be sure,’ said Francis cautiously, but the fierce hawk’s gaze gripped him.

‘Don’t give me that. You know him like your own self, Brother,’ said Peregrine. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Well, he said nothing to me, but… the guests who were here last week, with the lame horse… the young lady. I think he… well, he fell in love with her.’

In the silence that followed, Francis shifted uneasily.

‘And how did he come to meet the young lady?’ Peregrine asked him quietly.

‘He met her in the stable, with the horse. Brother Paulinus sent him to the stable.’ There was another moment’s silence.

‘So why is that troubling you?’ asked Peregrine.

Francis flushed. ‘I… I also told him about her. I told him her name. It was indiscreet of me, and foolish. I may already have sowed the seed in his mind. I never thought—I’m sorry.’

The abbot nodded. ‘There are reasons for silence. Hardly ever has a man regretted his silence, but there are thousands who have regretted their words. Still, it can’t be helped. He said nothing to you, then, about going?’

‘Nothing, Father. I don’t think he meant to go. I think he just couldn’t bear it.’

Peregrine sighed. ‘So be it. Thank you.’

Later in the week. Brother Tom’s mother came up to the abbey from the nearby farm where his family lived, to return his black tunic, the habit of the order. He had called in to his family to beg some clothes and food, and to borrow some money and a horse. He would tell them nothing, but asked them to return his tunic to the abbey. She was sorry.

The summer slipped away, and Tom did not return. Autumn came and went, its fogs and chills deepening into the harder cold of winter. November… December… and Tom had been gone four months. The brethren for the most part had ceased to wonder about him.

December 10th, and a bitter cold night; the ringing of the night bell to wake the brothers for the midnight Office shattered the frozen, starry skies like splinters of ice.

Abbot Peregrine’s eyes opened, and he lay for a moment in the warmth of his bed, gathering the courage to brave the frosty night. He lay there a moment too long, and his eyes began to drowse shut, his body longing with a deep, sensual craving to slide blissfully back into the depths of sleep. Sleep….

He was pulled back to wakefulness by his personal attendant, bending over him, shaking his shoulder. Peregrine levered himself up on his elbow, and swung his legs out of bed. He fumbled to put his habit on, and after a moment said in exasperation, ‘I’m sorry, Brother, I need your help. My hands are as much use to me as lumps of wood in this cold.’

The young brother helped him to put on his tunic and cowl over his under-shirt, buckled his belt for him, then knelt to fasten on his feet the night-boots of soft leather.

Stiffly, Peregrine smiled his thanks, and he reached down for the wooden crutch which lay at the side of the bed. Together they went out into the cloister and along to the huge abbey church, floodlit by the silent white moon in the frozen sky.

Father Chad joined Father Peregrine at the door of the choir, and they waited there in silence while the brothers shuffled past in file, led by Brother Stephen carrying the lantern. The last brother passed in before them and Brother Basil ceased tolling the bell. Then Father Chad and Father Peregrine followed into the choir and took their places. Abbot Peregrine gave the knock with his ring on the wood of his stall, and the community rose and began the triple-prayer and the psalms. The day had begun.

The brothers appointed to read stumbled over the words, their lips stiff with cold as well as sleepiness. Brother Theodore, giving the candle into Brother Cormac’s hand as he came up to the lectern to read the fourth lesson, dripped hot tallow onto his thumb, and Brother Cormac swore, softly but audibly, causing Father Matthew to glance at him furiously. Brother Cormac was too sleepy to see or care. Father Peregrine watched his face as he returned to his stall from the lectern. It was wooden with weariness and cold, the piercing blue eyes dull with sleep. Brother Stephen, walking the rounds of the brothers with the lantern, stopped by Brother Thaddeus, who had dozed off to sleep, held the lantern in front of his eyes and shook him awake. Thaddeus took the lantern from him, as the custom was, and took his turn to carry it, treading slowly round the choir, watching that the brothers kept awake.

It was not easy, Peregrine reflected, that first year of monastic life. The young men came to the point of despair and defeat, not once, but many times, as they learned the endurance and humility that was required of them even when every nerve was at screaming pitch, suffering from cold and hunger and tiredness, from strict discipline and the rigours of penance and prayer. Not easy to turn their backs on despair and renew determination again and again, learning to continue in patience and peace, to offer all the trials up as a prayer. It never surprised him when a young man gave up on the life, came to the end of his stamina. But Brother Thomas… Brother Thomas had had a vocation, the abbot was sure of that. He wondered what had become of him.

Matins ended, and the brothers had ten minutes to stretch their legs in the cloister if they wished, while the bell tolled for Lauds. The abbot crossed the choir to where Brother Andrew remained in his stall, telling his beads as he waited for the Office to begin.

Peregrine bent down to speak quietly in his ear. ‘Brother, will you serve the brethren a bowl of hot gruel each with their bread, when they break their fast? It is so bitter cold. Some of these men look in need of a little comfort. You may be excused from Prime to prepare it.’

‘Aye, Father, it’ll be no trouble,’ the old Scotsman replied, and the abbot returned to his stall as the brothers came back in silence to their places, the cowled figures slipping like shadows among shadows in the dim and uncertain light of the candles and the lantern.

When Lauds was over, the community went back to bed for the few hours left until daybreak and the Office of Prime.

‘It’s insane,’ grumbled Brother Cormac to Brother Francis, breaking the rule of silence as they crossed the cloister to wash themselves and comb their hair after Prime. ‘It’s barbaric. Is heaven offended if a man has a good night’s sleep before he prays? There’s not an inch of my flesh that doesn’t groan in protest when that infernal bell breaks in on my sleep. It’s no help to go creeping back after Lauds and shiver till morning either. It…’

‘Brother Cormac,’ Father Matthew’s whisper reproved him, ‘you have no leave for conversation.’

Cormac knelt before his novice master, saying more irritably than penitently, ‘I humbly confess my fault of talking when I should be in silence, and I ask forgiveness, Father, of God and of you.’

He rose to his feet as Father Matthew blessed him. The novice master continued on his way across the cloister.

‘The whole place should be towed out to sea and sunk,’ muttered Brother Cormac in Brother Francis’ ear. ‘The only one of us who had any wits was Brother Thomas.’

Francis smiled at him and nodded; there was nothing to do with Cormac but humour him first thing on a winter’s morning. Francis wondered about Tom. He missed him. He was never mentioned. They never mentioned anyone who left; but Francis had never ceased to pray for him.

Father Peregrine also had continued to pray for Brother Tom. His thoughts were on him that evening as he sat in his house after Vespers, peering over his work in the candlelight, huddled in his cloak. The room was barely warmed by the meagre fire that glowed in the hearth.

He looked up and called out ‘Benedicite!’ in response to the hesitant knock at his door; and Tom came in, and stood before him. His body was tense and his face grey with cold and weariness. There was a shadow in his eyes that was new.

The abbot looked at him, and observed the pinched look that came from cold and tiredness. He also read and understood the shadow in Tom’s eyes. Disillusionment. Heartache. Sorrow. He’d seen it often enough in this room.

He met Tom’s gaze steadily, and in the quietness between them a little of the tension eased out of the young man.

Tom bit his lip. He stepped forward, and his hands gripped the edge of the great oak table. ‘Can I come home?’ he asked huskily, into the silence.

‘Sit down,’ said Peregrine, ‘and tell me about it. I’ve waited for you long enough.’

Outside, the first drifting feathers of snow began to fall. Tom sat down wearily on the stool by the abbot’s table. He had a long ride behind him, and a fair walk up from his parents’ farm, whence he had come on foot after he had returned their horse.

‘I’ve broken my vows,’ he said sadly.

‘Did you find your Linnet?’

Tom nodded. ‘Linnet, little bird; yes I found her. It was a long ride and then a long search, but I found her.’ He sat with his head bowed, utterly dejected, until the room seemed to fill with his hopelessness.

‘Would she not have you?’ Peregrine asked him gently, at last.

‘Oh, yes. Yes. She… I think she loved me. Her family made me welcome. I was with them for two months. Yes, she would have had me.’ His words came slowly, and so quietly, Peregrine had to strain to hear him.

‘It was like a dream. It was a dream. Linnet, little bird. Such brightness… such sweetness. And she would have had me.’

‘Then…?’ Father Peregrine was puzzled. Tom raised his head and looked at him out of his despair.

‘I promised,’ he said. ‘The brethren and the Lord Jesus, and you. I had made my first vows. Father, I am a monk. How could I stand before God and vow myself Linnet’s man, when I am already vowed to holy poverty, holy obedience… holy chastity? I mustn’t… mustn’t break my promise.’

‘Did you tell Linnet this?’

Tom nodded miserably.

‘And you really want to come back to us? Is it that you feel constrained by your vows or is it a thing of your heart?’

‘Father, this is my home. This is my life. There is nowhere else for me. This is where my peace is. Will you have me back?’

Peregrine considered the young man before him. ‘It is a grave thing you have done,’ he said at length. ‘The brethren will need some convincing. For myself….’ His grey eyes searched Tom’s. ‘God knows, we all stumble, we all fall. One thing I must ask, take it not amiss. Linnet: you are sure you have not left her with child?’

Tom shook his head. ‘No. I did not—we did not—no. She could not be with child.’

Father Peregrine weighed it in his mind one more moment, then stooped down and gathered up his wooden crutch. ‘Come to the kitchen, then,’ he said as he pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You look hungry and bone-weary. Eat well, and sleep here in my house tonight. Tomorrow you must begin again, asking to be admitted here. I cannot promise the brothers will have you back, but I will do what I can. If they will receive you, it hardly needs me to tell you there would be room for no more such mistakes. Come now, eat heartily and sleep well. We will see what tomorrow brings.’

The ritual of begging admittance to the abbey was almost, but not quite, a formality. The aspirant had to stand outside the great gates of the abbey and beat on them with his fist. The man in question would, of course, have been to see the abbot long before, and be expected in the community. The form was that the abbot and his prior would open the gate to him, with the question, ‘What do you ask of us?’ The man at the gate would then ask, according to the custom of the abbey, ‘I beg you for the love of God to admit me to this house, that I may do penance, amend my life and serve God faithfully until death,’ and the abbot would welcome him in. There were occasions though—and this was one of them—when the community had reason to be unsure of the man begging admittance at the gate. They then tested the sincerity of his intentions by the simple but surprisingly effective method of keeping him waiting.

The morning after his arrival back at the abbey, Tom was still sleeping off the exhaustion that followed weeks of troubled nights and conflicting emotions, while Father Peregrine was addressing the community Chapter meeting.

‘Brother Thomas has returned to us,’ he said, and took note of the guarded expressions, the slightly pursed lips of some men, the surprise and interest of others.

‘I cannot, under the circumstances, take it upon myself to admit him here again without the goodwill of the community. I have talked with him, and I will vouch for him that he comes with a pure intention, burdened with no mortal sin. He is wiser by his experience, and truly sorry for his conduct. In my judgement, his return to us is the action of a man submitting to a true call of God. Brothers, I beseech you; be merciful. Think on your own weakness, and be not over-hasty to condemn. You have today and tomorrow and the next day to pray and consider. The day after that I will take counsel of you and we will come to a decision. I ask only this: that you seek God’s wisdom and you search your own heart; but let no man presume to discuss the matter with his brother except at the Chapter meeting today or tomorrow morning. Has any of you a question to ask?’

‘I have.’ Old Brother Prudentius rose to his feet. ‘It is true, is it not, that Brother Thomas left because of a woman?’ A slight murmur rippled through the community. Peregrine, sitting imperturbably in the great abbatial chair, listened to it. Embarrassment, he detected, and disapproval. He inclined his head slightly in assent, but said nothing.

‘Four months is a long time,’ continued Brother Prudentius. ‘Why has he come back? Has she jilted him? Is he weary of her? Why the change of heart after so long?’

‘It is a long time, Brother, I agree. No, she did not abandon him, nor did he weary of her. He came back because of his promises to Almighty God. He would not make a marriage vow, having once vowed himself to serve God as a monk, in his first vows here.’

‘But Father, surely he has broken his vows?’

Father Peregrine took a deep breath and let it go in a sigh. He looked down for a moment, then lifted his gaze to meet Brother Prudentius’ eyes.

‘And which of us has never done so? Is there a man here among us who can boast perfect poverty, perfect chastity, perfect obedience? God have mercy on me, I make no such claim. But I have promised and therefore persevere. His was the weakness of youth and vitality. Our weakness as his pastors was that of negligence. We failed him no less than he failed us. He offers us the grace of trying again. Most good shepherds seek their lost sheep. We are lucky. Ours has returned of its own accord.’

And I couldn’t really push them harder than that, Peregrine reflected as he returned to his house after Chapter, to find Brother Tom, having woken, washed, dressed and found himself some breakfast, awaiting further instruction.

‘Have you eaten well?’ asked Peregrine. ‘Are you sure now? Then borrow my cloak, for you’ll need it. You must go out of the gates and seek admittance again. Be of good courage.’

Tom walked out of the abbey, through the little postern door set in the great gate and heard it click shut behind him. He stood on the road, looking up at the turbulent sky, banked with cloud of deepening tones of grey. The wind was sharp as a knife and he wrapped Peregrine’s cloak around him, glad of its protection. The snow that had fallen in the night was mostly melting, but the puddles lying in the wheel-ruts and pot-holes of the road were frozen over.

Tom thought of Linnet, the last sight he had of her, standing very still, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes drinking in everything about him and storing it away in her heart. The dreariness and hostility of the weather suited his mood as he turned again to face the great door, asking himself, ‘Am I really going to do this?’ Then he raised his hand, clenched hard into a fist, and beat on the abbey gate. There was no response. He raised his fist again, and thundered on the massive door. There was still no response. Tom stood, nonplussed, for a moment, then remembered Father Peregrine’s words, ‘Have you eaten well? Are you sure now? Then borrow my cloak, for you’ll need it,’ and he understood. They meant to make him wait.

He wandered about a bit, leaned on the wall and gazed out across the valley, looked down the road towards the village, watched the rooks squabbling in the trees at the roadside. He bent down and picked up a little stick that lay on the road, peeled the bark off it, broke it into bits and threw the pieces away, one by one. The wind was stinging his ears, and he covered them with his hands, but that left his cloak flapping free, so he wrapped it about him again. How long does this go on for? he wondered.

He went again and beat on the door, but no one came. Feeling slightly foolish, he turned away and sauntered about. He tried to whistle a tune, but the wind snatched the breath from his lips. ‘Mother of God, it’s cold,’ he muttered, and moved close to the shelter of the abbey wall.

After a while a cart came up the road on business at the abbey. The carter stopped at the gate, glanced at Tom in curiosity, then went through the postern to seek admittance from Brother Cyprian, the porter. The great gate swung open, and the man came out and led his horse through. The cartwheels rumbled across the flags of the yard and the horse’s hooves clattered loud on the stone. Brother Cyprian, closing the gate, nodded to Tom standing there, but had neither word nor smile for him. The noise of the gate as it clanged shut leaving Tom outside echoed through his head, his heart, his soul. He thought of his mother and father. They would be at home now, eating a hearty meal before a roaring fire. And Linnet? Baking maybe, or sitting with her mother and little sister at the hearthside, spinning or sewing. He wondered if she thought of him too. In the abbey now, the midday Office and meal would be over, the brethren going quietly about their work. Francis would be blowing a little warmth back into his numb fingers in the scriptorium. He would be through with that Book of Psalms now. Tom wondered how much of the illumination of it Brother Francis had accomplished himself, and how much Brother Clement had rejected in favour of Brother Theodore’s superior artistry. He could imagine Brother Clement’s face, frowning in irritation as he perused the book, the mediocre lettering, the uneven quality of the illumination divided between Brother Theodore’s and Brother Francis’ efforts, the parchment grubby with sweat and worn with too much erasing. The months of work would likely be dismissed with dry disfavour—‘I doubt if this is one for posterity, Brother.’ Fortunately Francis was used to it, and his good humour was equal to it. It would be good to see Francis again. Tom was not a solitary man. He liked company and conversation; he liked to work alongside other men. The loneliness outside the abbey seemed as final and chilling as hell. The leaden despair of it took hold of him and filled him. ‘Sing something,’ he said to himself. ‘What shall I sing? A psalm, anything.’

He began to sing, and the words that came to his lips were the words of the Misere: ‘Misere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam. Have mercy on me, O God, after thy great goodness: according to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offences.’

As he sang the mournful chant, sorrow welled up in him, and though the words came of their own accord to his tongue, his mind was not on them. I’ve broken my vows, disgraced myself, and they may never have me back, he thought. Oh, if they won’t have me, what then?

‘Cor mundum crea in me Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis. Ne projicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me. Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me.’

His throat ached with forlorn misery, and he abandoned the chant.

The heavy catch of the gate was lifted from within with a clang, and Tom turned towards it, hopeful. But it was only the farmer, bringing his horse and cart home. Tom turned his face away, sick at heart. He would not look at the farmer, though he felt the man’s eyes on him. They were not well acquainted, but they knew each other, and Tom had no wish to submit to his questions, or his banter. The abbey gate swung shut and the cart was on its way. The gloomy day began to darken with the shadows of evening, and Tom wondered what time it was. Three o’clock maybe. Half past. The woollen cloak was no longer much protection against the cold. Desperately he beat again on the door, then stood humiliated in the indifferent silence.

It was getting really dark now. Brother Stephen would be bringing the cows in for milking, and soon it would be time for Vespers.

‘Faith, I’m hungry,’ Tom muttered to himself. ‘I could even face Cormac’s bread and count it a blessing.’

The bell rang for Vespers. Faintly, intermittently, he heard snatches of the brothers singing the Office in the abbey church in the moments when the wind dropped. It was completely dark now, but there were no stars visible. They were all hidden behind the mass of clouds.

Tom looked up at the great looming bulk of the abbey that towered beside him. I’ve been here hours, he thought. He hesitated a moment, then stepped swiftly to the door and raised his fist, hammering and hammering on the rough, wet wood. The thunder of his knocking echoed in the black silence. There was no response.

The postern door set in the gate opened presently, and one or two of the villagers who worked in the abbey came out, returning home to their families. Tom drew back into the shadow of the wall, unwilling to be discovered by the light of their lantern. He heard Brother Cyprian’s cheery ‘God give you goodnight!’ and was seized by the most abject, engulfing self-pity that he had ever known. He sank down onto his haunches, squatting on his heels, huddled into his cloak in the scant protection from the wind that the abbey wall offered. ‘Oh, come on,’ he groaned aloud. He had never been so cold and hungry and tired in his life. He seemed to have fallen into a pit of icy black timelessness.

The bell rang for Compline, and again he heard distant drifts of chanting. After that, the utter profound stillness of the Great Silence descended on the abbey, and a new thought spread like a dark stain of incredulous horror through Tom’s soul. Oh God, they’re not going to leave me here all night?

It was then that it started to snow.

Tom looked up at the sky, and the snowflakes settled on his eyelashes, melted in his eyebrows, settled softly onto his face, little dreary kisses of cold wetness. He hunched his shoulders, wrapped his arms about himself, shivering, and bent his face down into his body warmth. Crouched thus in the corner of the gateway to glean what pitiful shelter he could, Tom passed the night dozing fitfully. The cold seemed to have seeped through to his bones and hunger gnawed at him mercilessly. He clung to the hope of the morning when the gate would open, ‘What do you ask of us?’ and the nightmare would be over. He fell asleep towards dawn, but was woken by the sound of voices. Two of the villagers who worked in the kitchens were coming along the road. Tom shrank back against the wall, drawing into the blackness of his cloak, and was thankful to escape the men’s notice as they passed through the inset door.

The Office bell began to ring. The snow had ceased for the time being, but the air was still and the sky hung heavy with cloud. The occasional snowflake drifted down. Tom rose stiffly to his feet and stamped about a bit, clapping his arms against his sides. The pain of the cold in his feet, especially his toes, was acute, and his ears ached in the wind.

After a time he heard the door of the porter’s lodge as Brother Cyprian came back from first Mass. The sun rose, its first faint flush of pink swelling to a crescendo of crimson glory in the east. The blush of beauty faded as the day wore on, hour after hour, until the sun was suspended, a white remote ball of light in a leaden sky.

Straggles of the faithful trudged up from the village to the abbey church for ten o’clock Mass after Chapter, and Tom kept out of sight as best he could. He watched them return again down the hill, bundled in shawls, wearing stockings over their clogs so as not to slip on the icy roads. His eyes followed them until they turned the bend in the road and were lost to view, and then he watched the rooks squabbling in their high, precarious nests, listened to their disconsolate cawing. He looked down at the puddles in the pot-holes, white where air was trapped under the ice, and grey where water touched the frozen surface. One or two blades of grass poked through the flatness of the ice. Far away a dog yelped, its cry carrying in the cold, and a blackbird cackled in alarm in the hedgerow at the top of the road. Into the hopeless eternity of the day, the abbey bell tolled for the midday Office. The sun hung overhead, its glory contracted to a wintry sphere of severity.

Through the afternoon, Tom either squatted in the corner of the gateway, leaning against the wall, or else he walked to and fro, beating his arms about his ribs to try and keep warm. Sometimes he whispered the words of the prayers the brothers would be saying in the chapel. He thought back over all that had happened in the last few months, remembered that first casual conversation with Francis, standing in the summer garden—What’s her name? Linnet—oh no, Tom, put it out of your mind… It seemed a lifetime ago. Even his thoughts ran sluggishly, frozen. He felt as though he’d been there forever. Once or twice he beat with his fist on the door, but less often, and with less conviction.

A few callers came and went. Tom bent his head and would not meet their inquisitive gaze. Then the sun was sinking again in a wide glow of ochre light. Darkness, and the Vespers bell, and he sank down hopelessly and sat with his arms tightly round his knees, his head resting on the top of his knees, trying to conserve what vestige of warmth he had. His head ached with hunger and he was thirsty too. After a while he stretched out his hand and scooped up some of the snow that had drifted against the wall, and ate it. He satisfied his thirst with snow, and felt the coldness penetrate inside him.

The Compline bell rang, and then came the deep silence of the night. ‘No…’ Tom whispered to himself. ‘No, not another night. Oh, please, no.’

By the middle of that night, Tom could no longer distinguish between the ache of the cold, the ache of hunger and the aching of his cramped body. It snowed again in the night, a light, persistent snowfall, and he felt the dampness oozing through the thick woollen cloak.

In the early hours of the morning, he stood up clumsily to stretch his cramped and aching limbs.

I’ve had enough, he thought dully. I’m going home. He trudged fifty yards down the road, then stopped. What if they opened the gate now, after all this waiting, and found him gone? He turned back, running and stumbling up the road to the silent black mountain of the abbey. ‘This is my home,’ he said aloud.

But what if they never open the door to me? he thought. He searched his memory, trying to think if he had ever heard of anyone who had not even been rejected, but simply ignored, left outside, forgotten. In the lightening grey of the dawn, he sat down again on the abbey threshold and resumed his weary, aching vigil. Just before sunrise, he heard the click of the postern door, and scrambled to his feet, wild with hope. It was old Brother Andrew from the kitchen. ‘I’ve permission to bring you this,’ he said. He held in his hands a steaming bowl of soup. Torn between bitter disappointment and abject gratitude, Tom reached out his hands without a word. He drank the soup greedily, spilling some, his hands and mouth clumsy with cold.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as he held the empty bowl out to Brother Andrew, ‘that was grand. I thought maybe you’d all forgotten me,’ he added with an attempt at a smile.

Brother Andrew shook his head. ‘No, lad,’ he said, ‘we’ve not forgotten you.’ Then he took the bowl and went back inside. Tom resisted the temptation to beg him to wait, to come back. Oh God, would it never end? It was like a bad dream.

That day he sat, most of the day, motionless against the wall, no longer bothering to hide from those who came and went, colder than he had ever thought it was possible to be. The wind cut through to his marrow. He felt bone-cold, as cold as stone. He couldn’t imagine ever being warm again and he tortured himself, conjuring up memories of the blaze of logs in the warming room fireplace. His head ached in a constant dull throb, and he shivered in his damp clothes.

Evening came, and nightfall and again the snow, and still they left him there. By morning he lay on his side in the snow on the threshold against the abbey gate, shuddering with cold and fever, numb and half-delirious, simply enduring.

Inside the abbey, as the community was gathering for Chapter, the abbot with his prior, Father Chad, and his infirmarian, Brother Edward, went and opened the great gate. Tom looked up at them, and raised himself on his hands, awkwardly, until he knelt, after a fashion, at the abbot’s feet. Through the dizzy waves of fever that clouded his head he heard Father Peregrine saying to him, ‘What do you ask of us, my son?’ and that firm warm voice spoke hearth and home to him, journey’s end.

‘For… the… love… of… God…’ Tom’s lips felt like slabs of clay, robbed of all feeling. ‘For… the… love of God… Father… I can’t say… it. No… admit… me….’ He looked up at Father Peregrine and was overwhelmed by the blaze of love and compassion that met him there.

‘Help him,’ said Peregrine abruptly. ‘Father Chad, Brother Edward, help him to his feet.’

‘Father, he’s in a bad way. He’s burning up with fever and his clothes are sodden. Should we not take him straight to the infirmary?’

‘No,’ said the abbot. ‘Bring him to Chapter.’

Father Chad and Brother Edward half-supported, half-carried Tom to the Chapter House, where the community was gathered.

The abbot took his seat in the great carved chair and looked at Tom as he stood, held up by the infirmarian and the prior.

‘Thank you, brothers. Let him stand alone,’ he said.

‘But, Father…’ protested Father Chad.

‘Let him stand alone,’ repeated the abbot. Father Chad, Brother Edward, go to your places.’

As they left him, Tom swayed on his feet for a moment, his teeth chattering and his body shivering uncontrollably, the room swimming before his eyes. Then his legs gave way under him and he fell on his hands and knees to the floor.

‘What do you ask of this community, my son?’ the abbot asked him calmly.

‘I beg of you… for the love of God…’ the words came slow and slurred, ‘to forgive me… and admit me again… to this house… here to do penance… amend my… life… and serve God… faithfully… until death…’

Tom tried to raise his head, but it felt like a lead weight. He knelt on the floor, his arms, which were shaking with fever and fatigue, braced to prevent him from collapsing altogether.

‘I think under the circumstances, brothers, it would be unreasonable to ask this man to go and wait outside while the community votes.’ The abbot’s voice was aloof and dispassionate. He paused, allowing them to listen for a moment to the shuddering, almost sobbing, labour of Tom’s breathing.

‘I ask of you, brothers, will you have him back? Those in favour, please raise your hands… and those against… thank you. My son, we welcome you into this house. May God grant you grace so to amend your life, to do penance and serve him faithfully until death, as you have requested. Deo gratias. Brother Edward, Brother John, get him to bed.’

Floating in a light-headed haze of fever, Tom submitted gratefully to the care of Brother Edward and Brother John in the infirmary. They stripped him of his wet clothes and rubbed him dry. They gently chafed the feeling back into his hands and feet as he sat wrapped in a blanket before a glowing fire of sweet-smelling apple logs. They dosed him with infusions of elderflower and peppermint, and gave him warm milk and honey to drink.

‘I know you’re hungry, lad, but it’s no good you trying to eat in this state. Just take this for now, then a good sleep and we’ll see.’

They warmed a shirt for him by the fire and dressed him in it, and tucked him into bed like a child, having washed his hands and face and combed his hair. There was a hot brick wrapped in cloths at his feet, and one at his back, and Tom lay in a peaceful daze, contentedly smelling the lavender of the infirmary sheets as he sank into the blissful relief of sleep.

‘I think he’ll be all right in a day or two,’ said Brother Edward quietly to Brother John. ‘His chest is clear at the moment. Keep him warm and watch him, and don’t let him eat too much too soon. God bless him, he’s a brave lad. We’ll let him sleep now. That’s the best thing for him.’

They went softly from the room and closed the door. Brother John stood with his arms full of Tom’s wet clothes, his face troubled.

‘That was a heartless way to treat him, Brother. I don’t understand it. To have him kneel before us all—poor soul, it was cruel.’

Brother Edward chuckled. ‘Come and dump his wet things in a pail before you’re soaked yourself—and treat them with respect. That’s Father Abbot’s good winter cloak you have there, if I’m not mistaken. Heartless, you think? Don’t you believe it, Brother. Father Abbot would give his life for that lad. You just wait and see who comes and sits at his bedside as he sweats out his fever through the night. How were you intending to vote when you came to Chapter?’

‘I wasn’t sure. It was a serious thing he’d done. I don’t know even now—but seeing him kneeling there—poor soul, what he’d been through! I’d not the heart to vote against him. It could have killed him, three nights in that bitter weather.’

‘Not him, Brother John, he’s as strong as an ox. It would take more than an east wind and a fall of snow to snuff that lad out.’

‘Aye, maybe, but it was hard-hearted. Father showed him no pity at all.’

Edward shook his head, smiling. ‘No, no, that’s not the way it is. Brother Thomas has a welcome in this house again and it would have taken nothing less to win it for him. He’s a man in a thousand is our abbot, Brother John. He knows what he’s about. And he holds this community in the palm of his hand.’

I lay on my front in the grass, absentmindedly pulling apart a daisy, watching the seagulls wheeling over the harbour. There was a fishing boat out at sea on its own. All the others were drawn up on the shingle at this time of day.

‘I like Brother Tom,’ I said. ‘That was a good story.’

‘Yes, it was one of my favourites when I was your age. But I liked Father Peregrine best. It’s a skilled job, that,’ Mother said thoughtfully, looking out at the solitary fishing boat coming in towards the beach, ‘bringing a boat safely into harbour. Especially on stormy nights when the sea is rough.’

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

‘It’s a good story, but a long one. I could sit here all day, but I expect they’ll be wondering at home where we are, and wanting their tea. Let’s go back.’

‘When you began,’ I said, linking my arm in Mother’s as we started down the lane home, ‘I thought it was going to be a story about Brother Francis. It started off about him.’

‘Francis? Yes. He and Brother Tom tend to turn up in the same places. Although actually Brother Francis’ story is quite different from that, at least, in some ways. He had his struggles too, but they were different from Tom’s.’

‘Will you tell me Brother Francis’ story? Will you tell me it tonight?’

Mother laughed. ‘Not tonight, no. I’ve had enough storytelling for one day, and I’ve promised Mary I’ll read a whole chapter of The Wind in the Willows before bed. Tomorrow, maybe.’

‘Tomorrow,’ I said firmly, ‘for sure.’