An All-Consuming Fire (7 page)

“Right. One hopes.”

“Let’s stop by my room. I’ll get my books on Rolle. And I have a volume on some
Cloud
translations you might not have seen—they talk about Methley’s translation into Latin.”

“Great! It would feel good to make some really solid progress this afternoon,” Felicity agreed.

It sounded like a good plan, but when they entered the bungalow Felicity was met with the astounding sight of her mother in the middle of the sitting room floor surrounded by satin, lace and ribbons. “Mother, what on earth?”

Cynthia triumphantly held up a small basket covered in white satin and dripping with lace, ribbons and rosettes. “For your flower girl, darling. Isn’t it absolutely perfect!”

Felicity couldn’t decide which was more staggering, the concept of the mother whom she had almost never in her growing-up years seen without her nose in a law tome, suddenly turning her hand to frilly crafts, or the image of incorporating such ornamentation into their wedding. “Um, are we having a flower girl?” She said weakly.

Cynthia ignored her daughter’s response. “And I thought we could gather the petals ourselves. I noticed there are spent blooms still on the bushes in the monk’s rose garden. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind and it would be so much more romantic than just having the florist supply them.” She rootled around in her piles of furbelows and produced a satin pillow covered with lace, ribbons streaming from each corner. “For the ring-bearer. What do you call them here? Pageboy, is it? Won’t he be darling?”

“I’ll put the kettle on.” Felicity turned from the room.

T
he afternoon did not turn out to be the cozy twosome Antony and Felicity had envisioned. It took much of the afternoon and far more pastoral skills than Antony knew he possessed to calm Felicity down and to convince Cynthia that since there were no available small children in their near connections it might be a bit impractical to add to the wedding party at this late date, but that her creations could be used as decorations for the reception.

With mother and daughter reconciled—for the moment—Antony turned to his still-rough narration notes. “Um, I wonder, would it be too much of a bore if I went over these with you? I’d really appreciate some feedback before I face the camera.”

“Oh,” Cynthia jumped to her feet and pulled a piece of paper off the notepad by the telephone. “A woman named Sylvia called.” She held the note out for Antony to peruse.

“Oh, good. We’re filming tomorrow. That means I do need to get this script in shape.”

Felicity squirmed beside him. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I forgot—you need to work, too. I’ll be quiet.”

“No, no,” Cynthia insisted. “Felicity can work best at her desk.” She waved her daughter away. “You stay right there and read to me. I’d love to hear it. This is really very exciting. I do hope the series will make it to American television. I get BBC America, you know.”

Antony’s skepticism about Cynthia as a sounding board faded when he reminded himself that she was probably exactly Studio Six’s market target—intelligent, vaguely interested, with no more than a casual church background. “Thank you. I’m afraid you’re rather coming in on the middle of the story, but I thought I’d begin with just a line or two to remind viewers what the first episode had been about.” He picked up his paper. “Having abandoned his university career and ensconced himself in an uncomfortable hermitage under his patron John Dalton, Richard Rolle gave himself with youthful passion to the process of mystical contemplation. After four years and three months Richard reached the pinnacle of the mystical experience which he described as
Canor
or song.

“With a burning soul Richard experienced what he termed ‘songful love’. He heard, he said, ‘spiritual music—the invisible melody of heaven.’ With all-pervading holy joy Richard was caught up into the music of the spheres and joined the choral dance of the soul around God.”

Cynthia blinked. “I’m afraid you lost me there. What does that mean?”

Antony looked back over his notes. He’d been right to accept Cynthia’s offer. Her woman-on-the-street reactions were exactly what he needed. He marked through the last sentence. “How would it be if I just say: Rolle is the most musical of mystics, and where others see or feel reality, he hears it. Melody was his normal form of prayer. His life was set to music—sunny and carefree.”

Cynthia considered, then nodded. “That’s better. He does sound the most complete innocent, though.”

“Yes, I suppose he was. At least at that stage of his life. It was a glorious time for him, though—a shining vision that stayed with him and instructed the rest of his life. One gets the feeling that Richard found a great deal of
fun
in his life with Jesus.”

Antony returned to his script. “But Richard couldn’t stay in his hermitage by the manor house and enjoy visions of Divine love for the rest of his life. Now the challenge was to put this great gift to work: apply the love to the world around him, share the vision with others.”

“Oh, good. Getting practical, is he?”

Antony cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. Of this part of Rolle’s life we have only scanty information. We know that he traveled from manor house to manor house for his living, conversing with people in a desire to help them, but this mission effort does not seem to have met with much success, or to have lasted long.”

Antony looked down at his notes. When he had these smoothed out he would have to make some attempt to memorize the main points. He hadn’t really realized this undertaking was going to be so different from university lecturing. “As often happens after one experiences the heights, Richard now experienced the depths. He lost patrons and friends, his writing was rejected, living was difficult, and he was restless.

“And he apparently struggled with his chastity. He records having temptations and the nuns of Hampole who wrote his biography record that a young woman loved him ‘in good love not a little’.”

Antony looked up. “Should I take that bit out?”

“Goodness no! It makes him sound almost normal. Pity we don’t know more. What did he say?”

“Nothing more on the chastity issue. He records that he felt that his plans had failed, his labor was lost, and he was of no use to anybody. The very noises of the world gave him a headache.”

“So what did he do?”

“He refused to give into his funk.” Antony glanced at his notes. “Richard returned to the joys of contemplation. When his enemies tormented and defamed him he said he fled to God and sheltered under the shadow of His wing. The fire of love banished the power of the adversary.”

“Nope, too lala. Cut that.”

Antony grinned and pulled out his pen again. “Sylvia should put you on the payroll.” He considered for a moment. “How about: Now, freed from doubt and renewed with spiritual energy, Richard was free to get on about his ministry and be of comfort to those in spiritual or physical need, especially to the weak, the neglected and the poor. Having come through his own dark night of the soul he was undoubtedly better equipped to serve others.”

“Sentences too long. You need to give yourself a chance to breathe and your listeners to follow your drift.”

Antony tried again.

Cynthia gave a satisfied nod.

The next morning Antony chose to drive the A road eastward rather than take the more efficient, but far less scenic, motorway. Past Dewsbury and Wakefield the winding road led through a patchwork of farmland. He had allowed himself plenty of time to take a small detour through Kirkby since he would be telling the story of Margaret of Kirkby before the camera later in the morning. Even though the industrial revolution had changed the peaceful farming community of Margaret’s day beyond all recognition he hoped seeing its location would be instructive. Outside the village the road became narrower, more curving and the hedgerows lining the way higher. Antony encountered little traffic other than a few farm vehicles entering from the occasional driveway or field.

Less than an hour’s drive brought him to the tiny village of Hampole which was really little more than a cluster of houses. Father Peter, priest from a nearby parish, his cassock blowing in the breeze, was waiting for Antony at the end of a narrow, wooded, lane. Antony leaned across the seat to open the door for him to get in the car, but the priest waved him onward. “Two more vehicles to arrive, I’m told. Don’t want them to miss the turning, it’s easily done.” So Antony continued on to the village green where Mike, Lenny and the other technicians were setting things up for the days’ shoot.

Antony found Fred sitting in a canvas chair under a winter-bare tree, his wrapped ankle elevated. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll do. Got Ginger repaired, that’s the main thing.” Antony quizzed him in more detail about the accident, but couldn’t learn anything of seeming importance.

A short time later the last vehicles rolled up and parked at the top of the lane. Tara approached, make-up kit at the ready. Harry began barking directions and everyone jumped to attention. Except Fred who more hobbled. Father Peter was first to come under the camera’s gaze. As the local expert he directed attention to a broken, stone gatepost in an overgrown field and a few scattered stones. “I’m afraid that’s all that remains of the medieval priory where the prioress invited Richard Rolle to come be their spiritual director in 1340.”

Father Peter walked across the rough ground, followed by Lenny, who had temporarily abandoned his lighting panel to Simon. With a camera balanced on his shoulder, a mic on a boom and a heavy power pack slung over his shoulder, Lenny stooped to get close-up shots of the stones as the narrator continued.

“St. Mary’s was a Cistercian nunnery, very small and probably very poor. And life would have been uncertain. Here in the border country it would have been exposed to the back and forth forays of the Scots and English armies. At any moment the nuns might have to flee before a raid, and their lands were constantly ravaged. Although Hampole was not on a direct battle line of the Scots wars, it would have received fugitive nuns from other sacked nunneries.

“Richard came to live in a cell on the grounds of the nunnery. Here he could maintain his solitary life of meditating and writing and also serve as spiritual adviser to the nuns. It was here that he wrote his masterpiece
The Fire of Love.”

Now it was Antony’s turn. At Harry’s direction he took his stance under the bare branches of the tree in the centre of the tiny green. “And so we come to the story of Margaret Kirkby who was a young nun when Richard came to Hampole. Perhaps through the influence of Richard, who served as her spiritual director, Margaret left the community and became an anchoress. She lived in a sealed cell attached to the side of a church where she spent her days in prayer, meditation, writing and reading, and counseling those who came to her window for guidance. This was a fairly common practice in those days and some scholars think Margaret’s actions might have influenced Julian of Norwich to take up a similar life a generation later.

“We are told that Richard was wont to instruct Margaret in the art of loving God. Richard has been called ‘the English St. Francis’ and some suggest that Margaret was a friend and inspiration to Richard such as Clare was to Francis.”

Having set the stage, Antony could now abandon his memorized text and take up the narrative style he so preferred for his lectures. He knew the producers would use most of this narration as voice-over with robed actors pantomiming the action as he described it.

His head filled with heavenly music, Richard was going about his joyful task of preparing for the Maundy Thursday service the parish priest would be celebrating for the sisters when the messenger arrived. Mud-spattered and drenched with the early April rains, the man squelched his way into the tiny church.

Antony followed his own words with pictures in his mind, the dripping rough cloak, the mud-caked boots leaving prints on the stone floor of the church.
“Ye the priest friend o’ our holy woman?”

“And what holy woman would that be, my good man?” Richard was shocked by the man’s rough appearance and abrupt approach, but all were welcome in the house of God.

“Our Margaret o’ Kirkby. Ye are. I’ve seen ye at ’er window.” It was more an accusation than an identification.

“Yes, I am.” Richard had no thought of denying it in spite of the man’s tone. After all, if he had ridden twelve miles from Margaret’s cell in this weather it was little wonder he looked like a drowned rat.

“Ye need t’ come.”

“Come? Now?” Richard held his hand out to indicate the prepared altar. He had only to fill the basin for the foot washing. “Father Ailred will be here soon. We are about to celebrate our Lord’s institution of Holy Communion.”

“Sick unto death, she is. Thirteen days now, not able t’ utter a word. Ye’d be best to make ’aste if ye care t’ see ’er in this world.”

Richard turned instantly to fill his scrip.

Again, Antony saw it all: the tall, thin figure in hermit’s garb, carefully placing the needed objects in a small leather pouch: a crucifix, his beads, prayer book and most important of all—a reserved host from the tabernacle.

His inward songs of burning love seemed but a distant echo as Richard rode through the grey drizzle. Lord grant that he be not too late. No man could enter the cell of an anchoress, not even her spiritual director, so Richard took up his familiar position outside her window. The window was small, but low enough for the anchoress to be able to converse with her visitors sitting down. The heavy woven drapery kept the chill winter winds out as well as providing for her privacy. “Margaret? It is I. I’ve come to bring you the comfort of our Lord.”

Her low moan told him that she was still alive. “Pains and prickings” his summoner had described Margaret’s sufferings and, indeed, he could hear the rustle of her tunic as she thrashed about on her straw-filled mattress.

Even as Richard prayed for Margaret’s healing he was aware of the rich interplay of love and death, sickness and healing. He lifted his soul and was caught up into the music of heaven.