Embracing Darkness (6 page)

“A small church with an even smaller congregation,” he said to himself, “an enormous rectory for the size of this church, beautiful and apparently expensive pieces of furniture, and still this place appears to be going to the dogs.” He grasped the doorknob and added, “This just doesn’t make any sense.”

Indeed it didn’t. The place was kept very clean and tidy to a fault. The windows were spotless; the wood floor was freshly scrubbed; and the walls, with the exception of peeling paint, had scarcely any markings at all. As for the furniture, it appeared never to have been used.
Cleanliness
is
next
to
Godliness
, the priest thought, and then winced as he remembered why that phrase had stuck in his head.

As Father Poole turned the knob, he studied it. It felt familiar. It was smooth, completely round, small and brass—the exact same doorknob as in the house on 35 Faulkner Street in Portsmouth when he was a boy.

He could remember everything about that house: the doorknobs, the porch, the squeaky stairs, the cellar that reeked of cigarettes because his father smoked down there. In fact, Dr. Poole did so at Mrs. Poole’s request. Cigarette smoke bothered her just as much as loud noises. She always did her best to keep her home clean and odor-free, restricting her husband’s nasty vices to the cellar. Along with his cigarette-, pipe-, and cigar-smoking, Dr. Poole also retreated there for his infrequent drinking.

Mary Margaret Brennan-Poole was a pious woman, a good Catholic who believed drink to be the devil incarnate. Even though she knew she wasn’t strong enough to sway Robert Poole into complete sobriety, she did manage to quarantine his frankly light drinking. She once told him, “If I can’t smell it, hear it, or see it, I can convince myself it’s not around.”

One day after his wife’s ultimatum Robert decided to get some wood from a neighbor down the road and build himself a shed a good distance behind the house. This way he would have a place to do what he needed, things he was unable to do with his wife underfoot. And so it was agreed upon. The virtuous Mrs. Poole kept her house clean, both spiritually and physically, while Dr. Poole retired daily to his shed out back.

Dr. and Mrs. Poole were a mismatched pair. She was a fairly attractive, petite woman with red hair, freckles, and a pleasant smile. Her strict Irish Catholic upbringing, however, gave her a hardness and a mistrust of people who were not like her. And this was how Robert Poole saw her during their first meeting.

Robert, on the other hand, was a New England WASP whose family could well have come over on the
Mayflower
. He was in almost every respect the antithesis of lovely Mary Margaret Brennan. A tall, skinny man, he was already beginning to show signs of balding and still had acne at thirty-two. Initially raised a Congregationalist, Robert Poole had abandoned religion at a young age. By the time he graduated from school at eighteen, he’d forgotten all about God and turned his faith toward medicine.

It wasn’t until Robert’s last year in residency that he met then nineteen-year-old Mary Margaret Brennan. Her father had brought her to the hospital in Exeter to be examined after she’d splashed boiling water on her arm while emptying a pot full of potatoes.

“I’ll be askin’ ye ta be lookin’ after me daughter like you would yer own sister, Mr. Doctor-Whatever-Yer-Name-Be,” Seamus Brennan had said to Robert. “An’
don’t
be givin’ me none o’ yer shenanigans!” he added angrily. “I’m wise ta all yer pokin’ n proddin’, lookin’ fer sometin’ tha’ taint there! Tryin’ te get more money outta poor folks what don’t know the insides o’ the human body any better ‘n they know what the inside o’ Buckingham Palace looks like!”

Amused by the accent of this old fool, Dr. Robert Poole was beguiled by the beauty of Brennan’s daughter and so simply smiled at the wary father. “No need to worry, Mr. Brennan.” Robert stated, winking at Mary Margaret. “I’m sure I haven’t been practicing medicine long enough to cheat you. I’d obviously need twenty years of experience to put anything over on someone as alert as you.”

“You tell me what you gotta do to get me daughter right as rain again,” Seamus Brennan continued, as though Robert had said nothing to him. “She’s got chores ’round the house. Her ma’s been taken from us early with the consumption. Always cold she was. Even in dead o’ summer, an’ always coughin’ up blood! It got so’s I had to sleep in the barn. I couldn’t take the coughin’ no more. The trials and tribulations, I tell ya! After she passed on, we came here to America, me daughter an’ me. But what I be doin’ tellin’ ya me life story for when you got work ahead o’ ye, boy? So do what you need to, sonny, an’ remember. I’m on to you
and
yer shenanigans!”

Seamus Brennan, not taking his eyes off Robert Poole for a moment, sat in the chair opposite Mary Margaret’s bed. Robert held her burned arm gently. He could feel the old man’s eyes trained on him, so he turned his back fully on Seamus and winked at Mary Margaret.

“Hush now, Da,” she said softly to her father, and then turned her head back to look at Dr. Poole. “Tell me, Doctor. Just how bad is it?” she asked in a warm, congenial voice.

“Oh, it’s serious enough to require lots of bandaging, some high doses of morphine, and a six-month hospital stay,” he said. Seamus Brennan was not at all amused. But Mary Margaret got the joke, and she afforded herself another giggle.

The young and beautiful immigrant girl was completely unaware of how she would soon learn a great deal more about the doctor who had examined her arm. She discovered he was not Irish, and certainly not a Catholic, yet she quickly came to the conclusion that in this life no one is perfect.

Father Poole’s eyes were closed as he reflected back on the old house and his childhood memories. The more tightly he squeezed the doorknob, the more memories flooded his brain. Just then a shiver ran down his spine and his skin erupted in goose bumps as a voice from behind him spoke.

“What’s this? A priest afraid to open a door? Why, what will the Archbishop think of a man who’d be afraid to open the gates of heaven once St. Peter had given him the go-ahead?”

He immediately thought,
Sister
Mary
Ignatius,
I
presume
.

SIX
Father Meets Sister
 

Father Poole turned around slowly and found himself face to face with his “staff.” He was surprised to see how close Sister Ignatius was standing to him. She looked like a young woman who had aged badly. Poole perceived the nun to be about ten years older than he, although twenty was probably more accurate.

She had blond hair and blue eyes, with a small mouth and paper-thin lips. The nun wore a white blouse buttoned to the very top. Below this she had on a dark gray skirt, which hung down to just below her knees, and black stockings. Her shoes were light brown, very long and narrow, with thick heels about one and a half inches high. Father Poole observed that she was about an inch or two taller than he, so it was safe for him to assume that without her shoes the nun and the priest were about the same height.

Father Poole himself stood five feet, ten inches. His hair, not nearly as light as hers, was a darker blond, and his baby-blue eyes paled in comparison to her sapphire ones. Like his father, the priest had begun to bald early, suffering its effects mostly at the crown but also beginning to show signs of hair loss at the front.

Father Poole’s eyes locked almost immediately on her nose, which, being long and narrow like his own, seemed redder than it ought to have been.

“I’ve been anxiously anticipating your arrival, Father,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the priest. “And since you’ve come down from your room, I’ve been watching you.”

“Oh?” Father Poole answered, not knowing how to respond.

“Indeed,” she continued, rather sternly. “I was sitting in the armchair in the parlor.”

Father Poole grimaced, chagrined by his clumsy oversight. Sister Ignatius took note of this and quickly changed her demeanor, widening her eyes and offering a slight grin.

“No harm done,” she said.

The priest quickly realized that she must have seen him on the floor. He rolled his eyes and fluttered his eyelids a bit at the very thought. As his uneasiness grew, she continued gazing at him, her piercing blue eyes again narrowed as if she were suspicious of him.

“Well, you see,” Poole answered nervously, I…”

“You like the rug?” Sister Ignatius inquired, almost as if trying to save Father Poole from further embarrassment. “It
is
impressive, is it not? We’re not sure where it came from. It has been here ever since Father Carroll’s arrival in 1894.” She turned to face it as she folded her arms across her breast. “It was hell to get it in here. That damn table is so heavy. We had to move it to lay the rug properly. And as you can tell by where its enormous legs meet the floor, this table is crushing the crap out of it.”

Father Poole wasn’t paying much attention to the nun’s complaints about the table and its irrevocable damage to the rug. He was too taken aback by her choice of vocabulary. “‘
Hell’
and
‘damn’
are
certainly
not
words
a
sister
of
Christ
should
be
using
,” he thought as the two of them continued staring at the rug.

“Yes, it
is
remarkable,” he added, “as is the table. I say, is it solid oak?”

“That table is a piece of shit!” Sister Ignatius interjected, seemingly angrier at Father Poole’s comment than at the table itself.

Stunned, the young priest tried to change the subject: “I-I… th-the, uhm… Y-you know this… .”

She leaned forward slightly and showed him her ear. “Either you are a carbon copy of our former head priest, seeing as how you seem to vocalize your views, or… .” Father Poole shrank at the thought of what opinionated remark would follow that “or.”

She continued, “You are so famished after your arrival that you haven’t the energy to organize your thoughts clearly. Come! I will take you to the other side of this door. It’s the kitchen. I’ll introduce you to the cook. She’s a fragile creature with a heart of gold. She likes the doors closed when she cooks. It keeps the smoke out of the rest of the house. And as long as we’re doing introductions… .” She paused.

Father Poole assumed she had done so that he might introduce himself. “Yes, of course, Sister. I am Father Phineas Poo… .”

Sister Ignatius interrupted again. “You are Father Phineas Poole. You have been a priest for five years. You come to us from St. Luke’s over in Exeter, where you were the youngest of twelve priests. With no room for vertical mobility, you were offered the job by Manchester, and you grabbed it. I believe that is all I need to know for now. The rest can wait. I am Sister Mary Ignatius of the Sisters of the Humble Shepherd. No doubt you’ve heard all about me from Father Carroll.”

Father Poole joked that he had heard more about her, which wasn’t very much, than of the Sisters of the Humble Shepherd. He was going to ask where her order originated, but she continued before he could get out the question.

“I am the head and only sister at St. Andrew’s and your subordinate. You may dictate to me anything you wish, and I will do my level best to fulfill any and all obligations you expect me to carry out. I am not blind to the fact that most, if not all, priests run things differently. Naturally, with the exception of holding church services, feel free to charge me with duties you yourself would be unable to perform. I am confident that groundskeeper Hobbs, Mrs. Keats, and I will see to your needs as well as to the needs of St. Andrew’s.”

Father Poole was surprised to hear the word “groundskeeper.” No longer would he have to worry about how he was going to find the time to trim the lawn, paint the church, and prune the bushes and shrubs. At the same time it worried him that no one had prepared him to take over St. Andrew’s, as neither Manchester nor Father Carroll had provided much orientation.

Aside from this concern, Father Poole recognized that at least now he had a name to go with the cook. A revelation occurred to him that this situation might not be as awful as at first it had appeared. He reflected on this first encounter with Sister Ignatius and assumed that Father Carroll’s secrecy about what she would be like probably had to do with her unorthodox tongue.

“Uh,” Father Poole began. “Don’t you think that perhaps you should first show me the sanctuary and altar?”

Still with her back to him, Sister Ignatius muttered, “Do you think it’s necessary right this minute?”

Not expecting this sort of answer from someone who should have been as pious as he, Father Poole continued, “I… Don’t you think I
should
take a
quick
tour of the sanctuary? After all, isn’t that why I’m here?”

The Sister’s manner seemed to turn somewhat hostile after so trivial a question. “Well, Father. Today
is
Wednesday. Besides, once you’ve been in one church… .” She paused, assuming that Father Poole knew how she was going to finish the sentence. “You can visit it tomorrow on your own. You then won’t have me hanging around and harassing you.” Without more ado she walked past the priest and yanked open the door. “Now,” she said flatly, “you’ll meet Mrs. Keats.”

As she led the priest into the kitchen, a sudden smell of boiling meat hit him. In front of them stood a short, middle-aged woman of about 300 pounds with black hair tied up tightly in a large bun. Her pudgy fingers were kneading dough on the center table, with her head down, as she gave all her concentration to the task at hand.

“Father Poole,” Sister Ignatius began in a low monotone. “This is Mrs. Keats. She is the full-time cook at St. Andrew’s. You can say anything you want to her so long as you speak loudly. She’ll make all her answers known to you in her own way, but never expect a single word to leave her lips. She’s a mute, but please don’t treat her as an invalid.”