The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (16 page)

“Are you all right?” Elizabeth said, stroking his cheek.

“Yes. I just—feel restless.” He kissed her again. “I'll have a bite of something, perhaps.”

“Try not to wake the children.”

“Is that all you will say to me?”

“Oh,” she said, “and I love you.”

He smiled and dressed himself in a robe and slippers before leaving the chamber, armed with a lit candle. Sometimes he had nights where he could find no sleep or had a disturbing dream; some Austrian ghosts continued to haunt him. But he usually solved that with a cup of a special concoction of Dr. Maddox's. This was different. Finding himself not hungry, he wandered the halls of Pemberley like a ghost. The moon was full and its light shone through the windows of the great hall. In days past, he had often walked outside with his dogs; how he missed them.

Somehow, he found himself in the chapel. He was rarely there when his brother was not in residence. He considered himself a faithful Christian, but he felt he fulfilled his obligations by weekly church attendance and being a charitable man. The candles for the chapel were not lit, and the cold stone made it a soothing room in the late summer warmth. Those castles of the Middles Ages must have been drafty.

He was not alone. Anne Darcy was sitting on one of the hard wooden pews, wrapped in a blanket. “Anne?”

“Papa!” she shouted with delight, and lifted her arms. He sat down beside her and lifted her onto his lap, which she was getting a little big for.

“What are you doing awake? Where is Nurse?”

“She's sleeping.”

“What are you doing here, then? Why are you not in the nursery?”

“I was talking to somebody.”

“You were?” His alarm was rising. “Who?”

“I don't know him. He said he was one of Uncle Grégoire's friends.”

“Anne,” he said much more seriously, “what did he look like?”

“He had a beard and a funny accent.” She whispered, “I think he was a ghost.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He said he was
really
old,” she said. “Older than Grandpapa!”

“Did he say his name?”

“No.”

“Anne, darling, you know you should not speak to strangers, especially in the middle of the night.” He didn't want to frighten his daughter. So he said calmly, “Just promise me that if you see a stranger in Pemberley, you will tell someone immediately. Promise?”

“Promise.” She hugged him. “He was just a ghost.”

“And you're not scared of ghosts?”

“He was a
nice
ghost.”

He sighed. She had imagined the whole thing, or fallen asleep and dreamed it. “Very well. What did you talk about?”

“Uncle Grégoire.”

“Of course. He's Grégoire's friend, is he not? What did he have to say about his good friend?”

“He said he was worried about him.” She looked up at her father. “Is he in trouble?”

“I—don't think so,” he said. “But I suppose if a ghost said so—well, he might know something we don't.”

“Are ghosts smart?”

“I suppose that they're as smart as they were when they weren't ghosts, sweetie.” He rose, picking her up with him. “Why don't we discuss it with your mother in the morning? Someone is up past her bedtime.”

“
Papa!
”

But he would not listen to protest. He carried his daughter, with her head resting on his shoulder. By the time he reached the nursery, she was already asleep, and he laid her down on her bed, not disturbing her sleeping younger sisters.

Back in his warm bed, with his wife by his side, he finally closed his eyes, but sleep was slow in coming.

CHAPTER 11

FOR THE REST OF HIS DAYS, all Abbot Francesco Chiaramonti could truly recall of the exact moment he knew something was wrong, was the color red. It stained the steps that he ascended.

“Father! We must not touch blood!” Because they were monks.

He did not listen to the prior. He knew it was true and he did not care. He did not touch blood—he stepped straight in it, kneeling before Grégoire's collapsed figure.The layman hired for the job (the church did not spill blood) had already stepped back with his flail. The bonds holding down the monk had come loose and he had lost consciousness, his head hitting the stone. The doctor had declared the young and relatively healthy Grégoire good for no less than ten strokes, but he had only made it to three.

“Don't just stand there!” the abbot shouted to the doctor. “Help me! ”With his own withered hands he tore apart Grégoire's bloodied shirt. His intention was to get the wounds in view of the doctor, but that was not what happened.The cloth came apart to reveal the coarse cloth of a hairshirt.

The effect was instantaneous. The monks and even the bishop got on their knees, crossing themselves. “My goodness,” Bishop Valerano said, “we've killed a saint.”

He would not believe it. He could not believe it. He refused. Instead, he felt for a pulse. He did not have adequate words of praise
for God when he found one. “Almost, Your Excellency, but not quite. Now we must save his life, or we are all damned.”

“Father,” said Brother Martin, “please.” He held up a change of robes.

This shook the abbot from his stupor enough to realize that it would be prudent to change out of his blood-soaked robe. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“The brothers—we have circulated a petition that we might fast for Brother Grégoire's recovery until he is out of danger.”

Normally, he would not want an entire abbey of lethargic, hungry monks, but he said, “Yes, of course.”

He stood up from the bench outside Grégoire's cell for the first time since the door had been closed and the doctor had set to work. He returned to his own cell, where he changed his robe.The old one would probably have to be discarded. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” he said in the darkness before returning to his vigil. The bishop had said nothing, but removed his cap and was pacing nervously.

Finally the door was opened, and the abbot let himself in, closing the door behind him. Grégoire was on his mattress, asleep or unconscious, and on his side. He was wearing nothing above his waist and his back was covered in bandages.

The doctor was still cleaning his hands of blood. “Father.”

“Doctor.Will he live?”

“I've done all I can, Father. I've sewn him, but his flesh was weak—from the um, shirt, I presume.” He was clearly out of his element with this, even though he had treated many punished monks. “He has lost a great deal of blood; probably too much. As soon as he wakes, he should drink something.”

The abbot nodded numbly. “How long do you suspect he was wearing the cilicium—the hairshirt?”

“I-I do not know, Father. There is no way to tell.”

“But—it was not new.”

“No. He has scars from it on his chest. He must have been wearing it for—a year, at least.” He whispered, “Father, if you had known—”

“We would have suspended the sentence, of course. But we did not know.
I
did not know. Brother Grégoire, why did you prescribe your own penance? Why did you not tell me?” He looked at the still monk, and then up at the doctor. “You have my blessing for all of your work, Doctor. We will call you again for the stitches to come out, yes?”

“Yes. In two weeks. There were—many of them.” He bowed, and excused himself as quickly as possible.

Not ready to face the bishop, his flock, or anyone else, Abbot Francesco knelt beside Grégoire. He knew of the boy's flagellant history, but Grégoire had said he stopped that when he became a Benedictine. Apparently, he had found a new way to torture his flesh. The abbot, watching him breathe, took the young hand in his old, withered one. “What great sin do you think have you done? What are you fortifying yourself against? You are no service to the Holy Spirit as a dead man, my son.” He smoothed over the tangles in Grégoire's curly brown hair. “I swear, if you are good enough to us to survive, I will do everything in my power to protect you—from the bishop and from the church.” He bowed his head. “And from yourself.”

When they rose the next morning for Vigils, Prior Pullo, who had the last watch, reported that Grégoire had briefly woken to take water and some soup, but had said nothing. Nonetheless there was much rejoicing, and they all broke their fast together, though they ate in silence.

The abbot was on his way to visit Grégoire's cell after Sext when he was called to inspect gifts for the abbey. He went to the
door to find baskets of goods—cheeses, milk, fresh fruit, and vegetables. “From the villagers,” said the doorkeeper. “They've been leaving them all day, for Brother Grégoire.”

“Who told them?” he said.

“I don't know, Father. No one's been in or out today.” He shrugged. “Perhaps they suspect something because he's not been visiting the people for the past few days. They might assume that he is ill.”

He nodded. “Bring the baskets inside. And if anyone comes to ask, tell them nothing. We do not want gossip.”

“Of course, Father.”

In the evening, Grégoire woke again. The abbot was watching this time. It was clear that the monk was in too much pain to speak, but again they forced him to drink broth, and a bit of the milk from the villagers. They called the doctor again, and he prescribed a mix of items mashed in water for him to drink.

The abbot spent much of his time in the chapel. A spiritual weight pressed down on his chest, making it almost hard to breathe.

“Father.” It was Brother Marcus. “I was changing his sheets because they were soaked and—”

“And what?”

The monk held up the white sheet. The blood stains formed a broken cross, but a cross nonetheless. The abbot rose quickly and took the sheet from the monk. “Say nothing of this.”

“But Father—”

“Nothing. No talk of miracles.”

“There is
already
talk of miracles.”

“No more talk then. I forbid it.” He put his hand on the shoulder of the confused monk. “Trust me. It is better for Brother Grégoire if he is not spoken of in this manner. No good will come of it.”

The monk nodded and left. The abbot went to the cellars, and burned the sheet. “Don't do this to yourself,” he said to Grégoire afterward. “You will bring a whirlwind down on your head.” Grégoire
had no response; his eyes weren't open. “When you wake, I will tell you everything terrible of this world. You must protect your own soul from it, and not in this manner.”

There were abbey matters that could not be put off any longer, and so on the third day, he returned to the paperwork and the mundane parts of being the abbot of a large monastery. It was then that the bishop, who had, no doubt, been plagued by thoughts of his own, intruded.