A Demon Summer (16 page)

He looked around at the surrounding walls of books. “I'd like to look through the archives, with your permission.”

She had a habit of peering over the tops of her glasses in classic librarian style, as if to read the fine print, or to assess the character of the person before her. She was probably just trying to compensate for the near-sightedness that was surely an occupational hazard.

“How long do you have?” Her small hands fluttered from the desk to adjust her glasses. “Really, Father, you've no idea how much accumulates in a nunnery over time. But of course you may browse to your heart's content. I just hope you're not allergic to dust.
I'm
not allergic, but I do have a well-developed sense of smell and being in the stacks can be a torment.”

“I may just need an hour or two,” said Max, with no real idea how long he needed, since he had no clue what he was looking for. It was too much to hope he'd stumble across a treasure map hidden within the endpapers of an old volume.

In line with his thoughts, she said, “Research expands beyond the time allotted. Always. When I update our Web site I lose hours if I get distracted by researching other sites. And the use of bandwidth is prohibitive for us.”

He'd seen the Monkbury Abbey Web site. It was impressive. It not only provided information about the abbey, it had a shopping cart where people could buy the goods the nuns produced. They also took prayer requests online.

“Where did you learn Web design?” he asked.

“I taught myself through trial and error.” As with the cook, Dame Ingrid, there was an unmistakable note of pride in her voice. “The site was the cellaress's idea—she is a great champion of progress. If a nun from the eleventh century were to see the shopping cart, I wonder what she'd make of it.”

“I had forgotten the abbey went back that far.”

“Oh, yes. The original abbey was founded by Princess Aethmurtha of sacred memory. We're lucky to have retained much of the original fabric of the place. When the nunnery was abandoned following the dissolution, villagers in Temple Monkslip came to pilfer the stone and lead. But whatever was built with the stolen material collapsed or burned to the ground. In the end the villagers decided it was better to leave it alone, and the monastery was left to tumble down of its own accord. Thank God, because that is what saved it.”

“Superstition,” said Max.

“Would you call it superstition, Father? I would call it justice.”

She took off the heavy glasses and polished the frames against the fabric of her gown. Her face without the glasses looked strangely blank, the eyes hollow and unfocused. “We survived so much. Even before King Henry, we had the Black Death. And for a while in the fourteen hundreds the nunnery was in the care of an Oxford College. Those were dark days, indeed.” She said this without a shred of humor. “But then … the centuries passed. It's always been one thing after another. We will survive.”

Yes, there was some comfort if one took the centuries-long view. Max looked around him. “It's a sizable library,” he said, trying to read the faded bindings on some of the books in the row above her. “I suppose many of the nuns were high born and thus able to read.”

She nodded. “Many also could write beautifully. Our scriptorium was a going concern for many years—it's the room on top of this one, above the library. We now use it as a reading room.” She replaced the glasses. “Alas, the fire destroyed so much.”

“The fire?”

“Yes. Fifteen hundred, or thereabouts. We lost many things of value.” She shook her head, a mournful expression on her pretty face. “There are gaps in the archives to this day. We lost nearly everything—the parchments and scrolls, the records. You'll see.”

Max, as his eyes skimmed over the shelves filled with beautifully preserved texts, recalled that in
The Name of the Rose
the abbey library had caught fire, destroying everything—the books and then the abbey itself. The killer in that book had wanted to prevent the spread of “dangerous” knowledge. The killer alone, of course, got to decide what was dangerous.

He noticed the “we.” “We lost many things of value.” It was as if it were yesterday, part of their recent history, and as if the loss still rankled. What had happened to the convent's nuns long dead was the same as what happened to nuns present.

“How free,” Max asked, “was the abbey of the charges of corruption made by Henry and his men?”

“Not very,” she replied smoothly. She adjusted the frames to peer at him. “Some of the abbesses in the past went in for spending in a big way and found ingenious ways to pay for what they wanted. The cellarist and the sacrist in particular had many opportunities for cooking the books. There are veiled references to these things in the archives—if you will excuse the pun.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Nuns? Veils?”

“Ah,” he said. “Of course.”

“The nunneries were no different from any other place where human beings gathered. The women often wanted autonomy from their bishop, you see—to avoid visitation and inspection and oversight.”

“It may have been a matter of wanting to be let alone,” said Max. “Some bishops are more interfering than others.”

“Of course. Luckily, our bishop is quite a reasonable man, as you know. And the … well,
other
sort of corruption is well in the past.”

“Other?”

“We were a double monastery once, you know. That leads to its own particular temptations.”

“Ah.”

“Of course, we being British, things never got as bad here as at the motherhouse in France. Heloise and Abelard—that was not a unique situation in the history of monasticism.”

“Ah,” he said again. The doomed lovers. Although in their case the relationship ended rather than began in the monastic life. “It's a wonder the system worked as well as it did, for as long as it did.”

“There was often disagreement. The abbess is supposed to ask everyone for counsel in making important decisions, although the final decision as to whom she chooses as cellaress—just using one example—is up to her. But if it is felt her request for ‘input,' as the younger nuns would have it, was somewhat lacking in … how shall I say it…”

“In sincerity?” prompted Max.

“Sincerity, yes. It can lead to difficulties.”

“Are you speaking of the present situation?” Max asked. For it seemed to him she had a particular event in mind.

“I'm sure I couldn't say,” demurred Dame Olive. But it was clear to him she was longing to do just that. Max waited as she waged this mental struggle, but in the end she returned to an earlier theme. “Yes, if it's scandal you're after, there was no shortage of that.”

Max wasn't at all sure scandal was what he was after, but he let her have free rein.

“There is even a prison in the cellar of the abbess's lodge, did you know? Sometimes people just lost it, I suppose. They'd try to run away but were brought back. The space is used now for storage.”

“I suppose they had to make and keep their own laws, as isolated as they were out here,” said Max. “A bit like the Wild West, with the abbess acting as sheriff.”

She nodded. “At times they overcorrected, with an emphasis on strict enclosure—no men allowed except to administer the final sacraments to a dying sister. The priest offering the mass was hidden by a screen, and a turntable was used so the nuns could receive communion.”

“Rather sad, that.”

“In a way, but it all meant their autonomy increased. They controlled their own money, you see. Always the first step. No one had ever told them what to do before, these aristocrats, and they weren't going to start letting men, in particular, take their freedom now. Better to operate in secret.”

“They played the system to their advantage.”

“Played it brilliantly,” she agreed.

And were they still playing, wondered Max?

“St. Lucy's, at least for a while, was extremely wealthy, and that, as you know, Father, brings its own problems. The place was better off once it fell back into its forgotten and somewhat neglected state.”

“It doesn't look neglected now.”

“No. People have been most kind.”

“The Goreys?”

“Yes.”

“Lord Lislelivet?”

“Not so much.”

And as much as Max may have wished it, it was clear she was not going to elaborate. He tried a change of topic.

“You have always been assigned to work in the library?” he asked.

“In recent years,” she said. “But I have helpers, and they alternate. That way, no one person thinks she knows it all. And in case of illness, someone else can take over. Poor Dame Meredith, when she fell ill … that was terrible on many levels. She was the cellaress, you know. A key position.”

“Perhaps I could visit her while I'm here,” said Max.

“Oh, I am sure she would like that. It is good of you to suggest it. She doesn't get many visitors and it would cheer her. I'll mention it to Dame Infirmaress.”

“No need. I plan to talk with her later today. Dame Olive, how long have you been at Monkbury?”

“Since I was eighteen,” she said.

So young.
“Did your parents approve of your decision?”

She laughed. “My parents were appalled by my decision. They just didn't get it. They still don't. They show up quarterly for visitation days. My mother, you can tell, wants to drag me out by the scruff like a wayward cat.” She paused, her expression a strange mixture of longing and confusion. “I don't know why I'm telling you this. You have a kind face.” She paused, visibly pulling herself together. She stood to let him know the interview was over. “Now, I will leave you to what research you will. Was there a particular time in our history that interests you, Father?” she asked.

“All of it, I suppose. Perhaps I'll start with the Reformation.”

“Over there,” she pointed. “All that section. It starts with Luther and continues on.

“I'll be here for the next hour if you should have any questions, Father.”

 

Chapter 14

THE INFIRMARESS

A separate building shall be maintained for the ill, and an infirmaress known for patience, piety, and competence shall be appointed to oversee their care.

—The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

Max spent over an hour in the archives. It was all fascinating in its way, and a test for his limited Latin, but nothing suggested to him a reason for poisoning Lord Lislelivet. Fantastical tales of treasures and miracles abounded, but if Max or anyone had been hoping for a treasure map, they were out of luck.

Returning a volume to its shelf, he wondered if he might be wandering too far from his mandate. Since it was poison that brought him here, his time might be better spent talking to someone with medical knowledge.

He asked Dame Olive for directions to the infirmary. “If it is Dame Petronilla you're wanting, she'll likely be in the garden with her herbs and plants on such a warm day. Try the grounds past the cemetery.”

She gave him detailed instructions on how to get there.

“She'll have left the novice in charge of patients while she tends her plants. Well, the one patient of the moment: Dame Meredith. You will remember to go and talk with her, Father? It's the cancer, you know. Right now she'll be recovering from her latest hospital visit, so perhaps tomorrow afternoon would be a better time. It is in the afternoons that time hangs heavy for her, and she becomes prey to worry. Nighttime is even worse.”

Max assured her he would visit the next afternoon, and thanked her again for allowing him the run of the place. He put from his mind for the moment the idea that she had opened up the archives to him as a way to keep him off the subject of recent abbey history.

The library opened onto a wooded area, and a gravel path took him past the abbess's lodge, which he could glimpse through the trees, and on past the infirmary, which at the moment housed only Dame Meredith and the novice keeping watch over her. As he breached a small hill beyond the cemetery, the gardens came into view, a splendid green Technicolor against which a nun in white wielded a hoe. The narrow woven circlet sitting atop her veil made her look from a distance like an Arab sheik. The white was probably in homage to her nursing duties, but he thought it probably was welcome under the hot sun.

*   *   *

She looked up to welcome him, her face with its wide jaw and narrow forehead emerging from the enveloping fabric. The coif was slightly askew and he could see the tan line where sun never reached the sides of her face.

“You may call me Dame Pet, Father, if you like. Everyone does.”

But the informality didn't suit her, somehow. Behind the friendly smile, he sensed a well of reserve. Of course, his mission was to spy, which, if she knew it, hardly made him a welcome addition to her daily routine.

He said, indicating the rows of healthy plants and blooming flowers: “This is amazing, the variety you have here.”

She looked with pleasure over her work. “I like to grow not just ‘useful' things like herbs but things of beauty. St. Francis said there should always be space set aside for flowers, particularly sweet-smelling ones, to remind people of the sweetness of the Lord. Have you seen the cloister garden yet?” Max nodded. “It is my pride.”

She removed her gardening gloves, and dabbed at her face with a clean white handkerchief. “St. Francis used to preach to the flowers, too.”

Max smiled at this. Some of his parishioners in their pews were like potted plants during his sermons, now he came to think of it. “G. K. Chesterton thought St. Francis did not
want
to see the wood for the trees,” he told her. “I have always thought that was rather a perfect line.”