A Shadow on the Wall Page 9

  “I must go back to Thornham St Stephen. I’d like you to accompany me. You know Lethaby, and he has, I trust, some respect for you and your family. We shall need his cooperation if we are to do what has to be done. The prayers that were said after your brother’s death have not been enough to lay this thing to rest. More than prayers are needed now, but we shall need Lethaby’s consent.”

  “You may find him hard to persuade.”

  “He has no choice. Not if he wishes to rid his parish of a very great evil.”

  We set off for Thornham St Stephen the next morning, taking the route we had followed in January. Our journey was without incident, and almost without conversation, for we were both preoccupied. I remember thinking, as we entered the fen country west of March, that the monks had chosen isolated places such as this the better to mortify their carnal selves, and that one of their number had found in solitude a discontent far greater than a city might have bred. The fields were sere and turning barren. Above them, the grey sky was empty of birds. We were like scarecrows, passing through that emptiness alone.

  Lethaby had been alerted to our arrival by a telegram sent ahead early that morning. He was waiting for us at the rectory, and, from the look of him when we were shown into his study, none too pleased to set eyes on us.

  “You’ll forgive me,” he said, “if I don’t stand. I have a touch of gout, extremely painful. My father had it before me, he was most unwell of it.”

  Atherton bent, stretching out his hand.

  “Sorry to hear of your affliction. I would have thought you young for such a complaint.” He straightened. “You remember Professor Asquith, of course.”

  Lethaby shook my hand, then motioned us to sit down. His manner was all politeness, his demeanour betrayed something less than cordiality. I had seen the church from the dogcart as we approached the village, I was feeling ill at ease. To be here again. To be so close. In my imagination, I could feel his breath on me, wet and ill-smelling.

  I explained in as short a fashion as possible why we had come. Lethaby listened, his expression unchanging. I could sense the incredulity, but, more than that, the smooth working of an instinct for self-preservation. When I came to a close, he sat for some time in silence, watching me.

  “Professor,” he said finally, “I cannot say how disappointed I am in you. When we first met, I already knew your reputation as a man of science. I hardly thought you a table-rapper.”

  “Mr Lethaby, this is a serious matter. I would not come to you if it were not.”

  “Serious? It is the most laughable thing I have heard in a long time. Besides, even were I to humour you and Mr Atherton here, I should have to seek the dean’s permission, and he, very likely, the bishop’s. I will tell you now that under no circumstances am I willing to jeopardise my standing in their eyes for the sake of something so trivial.”

  Atherton made to rise, and I thought he would strike Lethaby. I held his arm and whispered to him to be still.

  “I’m sorry you regard this matter in so poor a light,” I said to Lethaby. “I assure you I do not.” I paused. “Tell me, how have things gone in Thornham St Stephen since I was here last? Have there been many deaths? Many sicknesses? Disturbances?”

  For a moment, Lethaby’s face seemed to turn pale. He did not answer right away. When he did, his words were carefully chosen.

  “Some deaths, yes, of course. Winter always takes away a few of our oldest. And some not so old.”

  “Children?”

  He nodded.

  “Yes, that was most unexpected. And others ill. It has been a worrying year.”

  “And you still refuse to listen to what I am telling you?”

  He struggled for some moments, for I fancy the better part of him knew I was telling the truth, then regained control.

  “There can be no connection between our tragedies and what you have told me. This is not the Middle Ages, Professor. Perhaps you have spent too much time studying the period, perhaps you have started to think like a medieval priest. For my part, I consider myself a modern churchman, and I regard it my duty to combat superstition in any form. You will excuse me, but I have a parish to attend to.”

  I did not try to argue. He was beyond my reach. The way back to Cambridge was drab, and we did not speak for most of it.

  On my return, I found a telegram waiting for me at the porters’ lodge. It was from Simone, saying that Bertrand had made an excellent recovery, and that they would all arrive on the Tuesday of the following week, if that was acceptable.

  The following day, I had a letter from her, in which she explained that her father had received several new pupils to board with him, and that her mother could not be spared after all to remain in Cambridge until it was time for the wedding. My heart sank as I read these words, only to soar again as I came to what followed. Rather than endure too long an interval before we could be married, she had persuaded her father to agree to hire a deputy for a few weeks, so the family could travel to Cambridge. We could be married as soon as the wedding could be arranged, for we had never meant it to be anything more than a small affair.

  My happiness at this news can scarcely be imagined. I at once set about making arrangements: accommodation had to be found for the Seillières, I had to apply for a marriage licence and fix a date for us to be married by a Catholic priest, and, above all, I had to find a house for us to rent, into which we could move after the wedding. The wedding was to be a quiet affair, with the Seillières and some of my family and friends. Of a reception and honeymoon I had not thought: all that mattered to me then was to be with Simone again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Thornham St Stephen was not forgotten. I had made my promise to Mrs Atherton, and I considered myself held by it. Before Simone’s arrival, I did two things. I wrote again to my friend the churchman, and I spent several days in the cathedral library at Ely, reading the records that had been stored there since the dissolution of Thornham Abbey.

  William de Lindesey became abbot there in the year 1345, at the age of fifty, having been at various times precentor, claustral prior, and sub-prior in the main monastery, and abbot’s provost at the daughter establishment at Thornham St Stephen, from which he was recalled to take up his abbacy. [Revocatus et pro summe religionis industria Tornhame abbas effectus est.]

  According to the fifteenth-century Latin chronicle from which this information is taken, the Historia de rebus gestis Tomhamiensibus, William was a tall man, forbidding of appearance, and reputed for his sternness, [Inobedientibus et indisciplinatis rigidum se et severum exhiberet.] yet zealous in his devotions and renowned for his intelligence and learning. He came of a noble family long resident near Cambridge, and it seems that he spent some years at the not long-established university there, from which, it is rumoured, he was expelled in some disgrace. The details are not known.

  After Cambridge, he spent some time in France, where he entered a convent of black monks at Fleury in the Loire valley. It was there that he completed his noviciate, and from there that he was sent back to England, first to Abingdon in Berkshire, and finally to Thornham.

  A cellarer’s roll from the abbey itself and a record of an episcopal visitation in 1352 told me that William’s abbacy coincided with the virtual elimination of his monastic community by disease.

  The Black Death reached East Anglia in March 1349, and continued there until the autumn. In those few months, it wrought extensive havoc throughout the region, with greater numbers succumbing there than in most other parts of the kingdom. No town, village, bailiwick, or abbey was spared. Thornham Abbey was almost wiped out. Of the fifty-four monks living there before the plague, a mere dozen or so remained when it had passed. Its sixty-two lay brethren were reduced in a matter of months to fewer than twenty.

  The Bishop of Ely had been at Avignon in France when the plague struck at home. He did not return until the scourge had passed. In his absence, the affairs of the diocese were managed by first five, then eight Vicars-Genera
l, but they could barely hold together a system everywhere shaken by sudden death and an all-pervading loss of faith.

  At Thornham, Abbot William struggled to do all in his power to hold out against the forces of disintegration. Eight times a day, at the appointed hours, he summoned his dwindling community to the divine office. Each day another one or two or three well-loved faces would be missing from the choir. Nonetheless, William refused to let his monks give in to despair. The offering up of prayers continued, in spite of every indication that God had abandoned His children, or, worse still, that it was His hand that laid waste the countryside.

  So long as prayer continued, so did the provision of hospitality to any who sought shelter within the monastery walls. William issued firm instructions that none were to be turned away, though it was thought by some that travellers brought the pestilence with them. He ordered an inscription erected above the abbey gate: Porta patens esto, nulli claudaris honesto—“Gate be open, shut to no honest person.” And, indeed, there was no shortage of honest men, women, and children who, abandoning their homes and their allegiances, sought safety from God’s vengeance behind the abbey walls.

  Reading thus far, I could not but be impressed by William and the fortitude with which he led his people through their darkest hour. As far as I could see, the Abbot of Thornham had been near enough a saint, maintaining faith in his God in the midst of universal despair, and extending charity to others regardless of the cost. I almost admired him. But I knew that something had come between the good abbot and his soul, that some darkness greater even than the plague had descended on him. So I read further, and at last I came across a hint of what that darkness might have been.

  At the height of the pestilence, when it seemed the dying and burying would have no end, there arrived at Thornham Abbey a knight from Norfolk, Sir Hugh de Warenne, accompanied by his wife Margaret and some others of his household, ten in all. Sir Hugh and his wife, who appears to have been related to William, sought and were granted lodging in the abbot’s house.

  The Latin chronicler records this event in a mere three lines, ending with the melancholy notice that all save one of Sir Hugh’s party perished within a month and were buried together in the plague pit dug outside the abbey walls. Sir Hugh and his wife, however, survived the plague and left Thornham late that autumn, but it is not clear where they went from there, for other records show that they did not return to Norfolk.

  There is, however, an earlier document, an anonymous daily record of the plague kept by a monk who lived through those dreadful times. This narrative has no title, for it lacks several folios from both front and rear. A note attached to it says it was discovered by a party of suppression commissioners searching for treasure at the time of the abbey’s dissolution, having been hidden behind a loose brick in the monks’ dorter. I came across it only by accident, in the last hours I spent at Ely.

  The chronicle seems to be part of a longer record, for it begins with events in the year before the plague, 1348, while a few pages at the end are taken up with the first months of 1350.

  In thys yeare, begins the account for 1349, cam ther to Thomam pestilence, also al maner of folk for to scapen therfro.

  For the most part, it is a bald enough chronicle, but the section dealing with the plague makes harrowing reading, for tiny details serve to make individual and poignant what might otherwise have been merely routine. “There died today Brother John, the cellarer, he that was so witty and told such tales at Christmastide,” “there followed him Brother Thomas, whose complexion was like a girl’s, and whose manner was as soft,” “Brother Edmund, who ate three men’s fill when he was able,” “a girl-child of five who had that very morning been playing with her doll.”

  When he comes to the arrival of Sir Hugh de Warenne, he breaks from his narrative to enter into greater detail. It is perfectly obvious that our author must have occupied a position which gave him access to the abbot’s lodging throughout the month or so that Hugh and his wife were resident there, for he writes as one who has seen much with his own eyes. He was very likely William’s chaplain or seneschal, and, as such, a reliable source.

  This Hugh of Warenne possesses lands in fief from the Duke of Norfolk, chiefly a great estate by Wymondham. He is a proud man, exceeding haughty of demeanour, and much given to comment on his station and his name, which he holds in the highest esteem. His wife, Dame Margaret, that keeps close to him at all times, and will not be parted from him, is in no way inferior to her husband in disdaining all that are not high born. The lord abbot alone will she speak with, for he is a kinsman of hers, and of noble birth.

  They arrived yesterday between Sext and None, it being the sixteenth day of July. I saw them as they entered the abbot’s lodging. Both Sir Hugh and his wife showed signs of great fear and perturbation. The plague rages at Norwich and in the countryside all about, and they have left their estate in order to find a refuge here among men of God. Safety they are not likely to find, but, God willing, they will die with the rest of us absolved of their sins.

  They spent above an hour cloistered with my lord abbot, and I observed on their leaving that all traces of fear had left their faces. Others who saw them at this time deemed it the work of divine grace through the person of Abbot William. I pray that it is so, but fear some other explanation. The abbot was preoccupied all that night and would not speak to me more than six words. He does not seem at peace.

  Three men of Sir Hugh’s entourage arrived with the first signs of the illness already on them. They spent the first night in the lay brothers’ dorter, but yesterday were transferred to the lay infirmary. One has large buboes in his groin, and is in much discomfort, groaning constantly. Neither lord nor lady has visited any of them.

  This evening when we dined, I overheard Sir Hugh ask my lord abbot if “that which he had brought” was safe. Abbot William coloured and nodded quickly, like one who will not speak of a matter openly. I was reminded of occasions in the past when he had shown himself likewise secretive. There are, I have long suspected, matters in his life that he would not wish to have disclosed. Of his time in France particularly, he has never spoken to me, and my questions regarding the abbey there have gone unanswered . . .

  The sickest of the three men died this morning after Prime. His name was Wilfrid, and he had been Sir Hugh’s reeve at Wymondham. We prayed for his soul during the sung mass at Terce, and those of his companions who were still in health attended in the nave, but neither his liege lord nor his lady was to be seen . . .

  Two more of Sir Hugh’s men have fallen ill, and another died today. I discovered that one of the sick men, Thomas of Worstead, had served as his master’s secretary, and I therefore paid him a visit in the infirmary, with the consent of the lay infirmarer. We had long converse, and Thomas held nothing back, for he knows he is to die. Nothing befits the dying more than honesty, and what was said to me was in part a confession, for which I gave him absolution.

  Sir Hugh has a bad reputation in his own region, and his lady as bad or worse. There are those who say he has had converse with the devil, and entertained sorcerers and Mahometans in his house.

  His grandfather, Sir Godfrey de Warenne, accompanied Prince Edward on his crusade against the Saracen, and it is said he remained in the land of Outremer long after Edward’s return, until the fall of Acre.

  This Sir Godfrey travelled back to England by way of Italy and France, and brought with him books and treasure that he had taken from the infidel, and a Saracen servant, whose name men say was Mahound, like the false prophet. All this passed in time to Sir Godfrey’s son, Edmund, and from him to Hugh, the same that is even now with us.

  Now, when the pestilence came to Norwich, some said the Jews had brought it, and some the lepers. But others, among them canons of the cathedral, were of the opinion that the cause of this disease was none but Sir Hugh de Warenne and his ungodliness. As the dead grew daily in number and the sick multiplied, so the voices calling for Sir Hugh’s arrest waxed e
ver louder, until they would not be stifled.

  But word of this had by then reached to Wymondham, and Sir Hugh decided to flee the mob’s fury and seek refuge here at Thornham. He brought with him his wife and his closest retainers, also a chest containing, Thomas believed, a relic from Jerusalem—though whether it is a saint’s bones or the head of a martyr or a virgin’s shift, he knows not . . .

  Thomas of Worstead died today in great pain, and in terror that he be judged for having served so evil a master. I was with him when he died, but all he said was raving, save one thing: that he had seen a shadow on the wall where no shadow should have been, and that he was afraid. I signed him with the cross then, and myself likewise. But he did not die at peace.

  I spoke afterwards with Abbot William, telling him of Thomas’s death, and what he had said to me concerning Sir Hugh de Warenne. He dismissed it all as idle gossip, and forbade me to mention any of it before my brothers. In these past days he has altered much, indeed I think him grown almost a stranger.

  Most days now, Abbot William is with Sir Hugh. They talk in secret, and when they come forth, I see my lord abbot troubled, as though he struggles inwardly with something.

  A dreadful thing took place in church today at Nocturns. Brother Precentor had assembled us in the choir for the singing of psalms for the Royal House and the Nocturns of All Saints, when the lord abbot joined us, and with him Sir Hugh de Warenne and Dame Margaret, these last two remaining in the nave.

  Abbot William came before us, bidding us remain where we were, and proceeded to speak of the great dying that has crossed all lands and come here within these walls. He said that, unless God could be prevailed upon to act, there was none alive that would escape, neither man nor woman, elder nor child. And it would be as in the days of Noah, except this, that there should be no Ark and no salvation, but that God’s punishment should encompass all living. At this, a voice came from the darkness of the choir, asking how God might be prevailed upon that had answered none of our prayers before this.