Glamorous Powers (34 page)

Meanwhile Miss Barton-Woods had succumbed to an unexpected bout of shyness. Immediately I gave her my warmest smile and held out my hand but when she could do no more than clasp it and mutter: ‘Welcome to the Manor,’ I realized I had quite failed to alleviate her discomfort. I wondered what I was doing wrong. As far as I was aware I was merely standing innocently in the sunshine, six foot three inches of faithless masculine propriety. However before I could inquire what the matter was she managed to reclaim her confident manner and ask in her most businesslike voice: ‘Is the chapel as you saw it?’

‘Apart from the differences you mentioned, yes.’

I could see that she too was moved by the thought of my vision being translated into the world of finite time, and sitting down abruptly on the top step of the porch she stared across the sward to the trees.

I sat down beside her. For a time we were silent but at last she decided that further comment was too difficult, particularly
as I was offering her no encouragement and that a retreat into more mundane matters was required.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,’ she said, ‘but I suddenly decided I should slip down the road and take the cat to the vet. The trouble’s only an ear-infection but it seemed better not to delay treatment when the poor creature was obviously in discomfort.’

A lark began to sing in the woods as I said: ‘You didn’t tell me you had a cat. What’s his name?’

‘William.’

‘After Shakespeare, naturally,’ I said smiling at her again, and to my relief I found she was now sufficiently relaxed to smile readily in return. What kind of a cat is he?’

‘Just a tabby. But he’s very clever.’

The lark was singing and singing. I heard myself say: ‘I knew a tabby-cat once. He was very clever too.’ And suddenly I realized that at long last I was going to talk about Whitby, proud arrogant Whitby, who had belonged to the community at Ruydale but who had obeyed no man’s orders but mine.

‘He was the house-cat up in Yorkshire,’ I said. ‘Soon after I arrived at Ruydale the old cat died and one of the local people gave us Whitby out of an unwanted litter. A new keeper was appointed to look after him, but I soon realized the man had no idea how to bring up a kitten. Whitby quickly became wild and useless, but cats are kept for a utilitarian purpose in a monastery, just as they are on board ship; they’re not kept to chase their tails while the mice eat all the food in the larder.

‘Eventually I decided to report the keeper’s mismanagement to the Abbot – an unorthodox move because a novice is supposed to take all problems to his Master, but I was afraid my Master would simply tell me to mind my own business. Mature well-educated novices are always a cross for a monastic nanny to bear – they’re too ready to think they know everything – and I was well aware that my monastic nanny thought I was “a handful”.

‘So I went to the Abbot and told him the kitten was fast becoming a useless monster. Aidan immediately sent me back to the scriptorium, but because he was a good abbot, interested in even the most minor detail of his community, he investigated my complaint and the first thing he saw as he entered the kitchens was Whitby urinating in the flour-bin. Immediately the keeper was relieved of his responsibilities and I was assigned the task of training the monster.

‘I was tough with him. I wasn’t unkind – but I certainly wasn’t sentimental either. It doesn’t do to be sentimental about cats; the best ones don’t respect you for it, but Whitby respected me and I understood him and before long he was a first-class cat, intelligent, efficient and resourceful. He soon decimated the rodent population. He used to leave the corpses piled up by the back door with the entrails of the ones he’d eaten arranged neatly on the mat. Once before he was fully trained he caught a bird but I rubbed his nose in the feathers and smacked him and he never did it again. Whitby learned fast. Ah, what a cat he was, what a cat!

‘Our partnership lasted nearly six years. Then I was promoted from the carpenter’s work-bench to the Master’s desk in the scriptorium and Aidan said to me: “Since the novices will take all your time I’ll appoint someone else to look after Whitby.” Of course I couldn’t argue. One can never argue when one’s superior is laying down the law but I did say: “I don’t think Whitby will care for the change at all.” Then Aidan gave me a hard look and said: “Whitby’s here to serve the community, Jonathan, not to dictate to it, and Whitby will have to learn to accept the change, just as you will.”

‘So that was that.

‘But I hated to think of Whitby pining for my company and being fobbed off on a stupid new keeper who didn’t understand him. I couldn’t disobey orders, of course. That was out of the question, but as the days passed I thought I saw how I could demonstrate conclusively that Whitby was resisting Aidan’s decision.

‘When I’d entered the Order I’d been forbidden to make any
conscious use of my psychic powers, not just because such powers can fuel one’s pride to the point of spiritual unhealthiness but because any psychic manifestation can have a disastrous effect on an enclosed community by triggering an hysterical reaction. But now I thought: no one will ever know. And I began to manipulate Whitdy with my mind.

‘Animals are more open to unseen forces than humans, and often they seem far less deaf than humans to psychic communication. Certainly Whitby was far from being deaf; he was perfectly in tune with me, and when I projected orders with my mind he picked them up with an amazing consistency. Well, you can guess what happened. Gradually everyone began to notice that wherever I was Whitby would seek me out and leap purring into my lap. “Whitby’s pining for Jonathan,” people were soon saying, exactly as I’d planned, but the new keeper was so jealous that in his rage he accused me of sorcery.

‘That made Aidan sit up. Sorcery’s not a word which an abbot wants to hear in his monastery, and finally Aidan said to me: “I’m not sure what’s going on. I’m not even sure I want to know what’s going on. But whatever’s going on must stop – and that’s an order, Jonathan.” He knew he couldn’t prove I’d been using the powers, but he knew too that I wouldn’t disobey a direct order. So I found I had to face the fact that I’d failed in my efforts to be re-appointed Whitby’s keeper.

‘But then it seemed Whitby genuinely began to pine.

‘He became ill. I heard he was lacklustre, not eating, lying all day in his basket, and eventually a delegation arrived from the kitchens to beg me to intervene to save his life.

‘Aidan was much exasperated but he told me to attempt a diagnosis, and as soon as I saw Whitby’s bedraggled fur I knew what was wrong: he had a stoppage caused by a fur-ball. Whitby had unusually long hair for a tabby and he needed to be combed once a week to prevent him licking too many hairs into his stomach when he cleaned himself. The stupid new keeper hadn’t combed him – probably out of a jealous spite towards me just because I’d stressed how important the combing was.

‘I picked Whitby up and took him outside. The delegation tried to troop after me but I didn’t want an audience so I told them to stay in the scullery. Carrying Whitby to the nearest patch of earth I dug a hole and sat him on it. Poor Whitby! He was too weak to dig a hole for himself. In fact he was barely conscious but I knew he recognized me because when I’d picked him up he’d started to purr.

‘I stroked him for a while. It’s important, before any attempt to heal, that the patient should be calm and relaxed. Then I prayed hard and pressed down my hands on him. I can’t explain how the power is channelled, but when I laid my hands on Whitby he yelped and his fur stood on end and the next moment he was getting rid of everything, fur-ball and all, and we both knew he was cured.

‘When he stopped mewing I picked him up, but Whitby didn’t want to be carried now that he was well. Whitby had great pride. When he struggled I set him down again and seconds later we were entering the kitchens in triumph, I swaggering along like a master-magician who’s just pulled off a magnificent trick and Whitby staggering along beside me with his eyes shining and his tail held high. The monks were absolutely agog. No magician could have wished for a better audience, and suddenly in my pride I was unable to resist “playing to the gallery”, as they say in the theatre. I ordered: “Give him something to eat and drink!” – and from that moment we were all doomed. Do you recognize the order? After Our Lord had raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead he advised that she be given food and drink, and of course every monk in the kitchens at Ruydale that night was instantly reminded of that miracle. A second later some fool was shouting: ‘Whitby’s been raised from the dead!” and I was being treated as a wonder-worker. But I knew I’d gone beyond the pale and would have to try to redeem my mistake.

‘I assured Aidan there had been no resurrection from the dead but I kept quiet about the charismatic healing. I said only that Whitby had cured himself while I’d been holding him, and Aidan, who’s a wily old fox, decided to leave the necessary
cross-examination to my confessor and thus seal up all the sordid details in the confessional. However his plan misfired. I was so gripped by the guilty urge to cover up what had happened that I remained silent on the subject when the time came for me to make my confession, and my confessor, although an excellent monk in many ways, was unfortunately no match for me once I felt compelled to manipulate him away from the subject of Whitby’s miraculous cure.

‘After I’d survived the confessional I thought I was safe. But in fact the real scandal of the Whitby affair was just about to begin.

‘The word “miracle” was still reverberating around the house, and soon the community was divided into my allies, who called me a blessed healer, and my enemies, who called me a wicked sorcerer. Fanatical feelings were aroused on both sides, and soon the community was fully poised to go sliding down the slippery slope into hysteria.

‘The more ignorant laymen often think that hysteria is endemic in a religious community – they even think hysteria’s welcomed as a necessary adjunct to the mystical experience, but in fact the best mystics are all characterized by their rationality and their down-to-earth common sense. The sensational manifestations of an over-stimulated psyche are shunned or at best treated as a tiresome inconvenience by those who are experienced travellers along the spiritual way.

‘The hysteria at Ruydale following the healing of Whitby began when a group of monks fell to their knees in the chapel and tried to kiss the hem of my habit as I passed by. At first I was so startled that I could only let them slobber over me, but just as I was making the effort to detach myself there was an outburst of speaking in tongues – a well-known charism but one which is peculiarly subject to demonic infiltration. At once I knew this was no gift from God. This was hysteria triggered by the Devil, and that was when I realized the situation was quite beyond my control. I turned to Aidan, but before he could act the unlatched door of the chapel creaked open and in walked Whitby. In my disturbed state I must have unwittingly sent out
a distress-signal which he’d picked up, clever cat, and now there he was, prancing down the aisle to meet me.

‘One of my enemies screamed: “It’s his familiar!” and pandemonium broke loose, but at once Aidan acted. He snapped at me: “Remove the novices!” and as I left I heard him shouting orders to the other senior officers. In the end the hysterics were all either locked up or confined to the infirmary, but the whole place remained in chaos – and all because I’d disobeyed orders, used my powers and healed that innocent cat.

‘The Abbot-General arrived three days later to mop up the mess.

‘We needed him by that time. Aidan’s a strong abbot but even Aidan felt he had to have help. A modern psycho-analyst would say we needed an exceptionally forceful personality to impose control upon all those dissociated minds, but Father Darcy didn’t talk like a psycho-analyst. He talked about the Devil’s presence, and he talked as one who
knew
the Devil existed, just as you and I can talk of Hitler and know we’re discussing someone who’s real. Father Darcy said: “We must trace the source of the demonic influence in order to exorcize it,” and the spiritual purging of Ruydale began.

‘He interviewed all the monks, beginning at the bottom and working his way to the top. Eventually I received my summons, and as soon as I walked into the room I knew that he knew. He’d ordered Aidan to be there as an observer, and I realized he wanted to teach him exactly how to deal with a high-ranking officer who had caused an entire community to go off the rails.

‘For a while I tried to fob Father Darcy off with partial truths but I was wasting my time. He simply took my mind, psychic powers and all, washed it, scrubbed it and hung it up to dry. At the end of the interrogation I was in such a state that I could barely think straight but I remember being certain that he’d strip me of my office and possibly even transfer me to London so that he could keep an eye on me. I was in despair.

‘However the situation was far more complex than I in my panic supposed. The truth was that Father Darcy didn’t want my career to be ruined. He was convinced I could be a great
asset to the Order and he remained determined that nothing, least of all a lot of nonsense over a cat, was going to demolish his plans for me. Yet obviously I deserved a severe punishment; it wouldn’t be enough merely to dole out the mandatory punishment for disobedience and then send me back into action. What was needed at that point, as Father Darcy came to realize, was a master-stroke, an action which would teach me a lesson I’d never forget, complete the mass-exorcism of the community and ensure that the incident never happened again.