Philomena glanced up. She imagined a sceptical glittering expression in his eyes, although really it was too dark to see any expression at all. Agnes Dempsey said, “As for worms, we all know where they are coming from and going to.”
There was a silence. They looked down at the graves. Candle flames flickered in the air, doubling and bowing like genii let out of bottles; their eyes grew accustomed to such light as there was, and they wished that they had not, for the priest, the nun, and the housekeeper were able to see in each other’s faces a reflection of their own unease.
When Philly explored again, she found something solid, thin, hard, and sharp. “It’s OK, you’ve done it, Father Fludd,” she said. “We’re down to them. They weren’t too deep at all.”
Without speaking, Father Angwin dropped to his knees beside her. She saw his breath, a smoky plume in the air. The snow above was too hard and cold to fall; if you could shake Heaven tonight, it would rattle like a cradle toy. The priest leant forward, one hand steadying himself, the other groping in the shallow pit. “I feel it,” he said. “Father Fludd, I feel it. Agnes, I feel it. I think it is the edge of St. Cecilia’s portable organ.”
“Let me scrape with my spade,” said Fludd.
“No, no. You might damage it.” Father Angwin crouched, both hands dabbling and patting at what lay beneath the soil.
“If we are not to use the spade,” Agnes said, “the excavations will not be done by dawn.”
“Miss Dempsey, you are ill-protected against the elements,” Fludd said, “I did not notice, when you so suddenly arrived. Should you not go back indoors and dress more sensibly?”
“Thank you, Father,” Agnes said. She blushed red under cover of the night. “I have this warmish flannelette nightgown on underneath.” She shivered, but she could not tear herself away.
Philomena at least was properly dressed. When she had turned from the window of her room, excitement and fear had guttered inside her, a blaze about to start; but she must roll on those thick woollen stockings, pull on her drawers. Her heart pounding, she must shake out the three petticoats the Order prescribed, and lash them about her waist, knotting their sashes and strings. She must punch her arms through her stout scratchy bodice, her cheeks growing hot, and fumble with her shaking fingers at the buttons at its neck. What a time it took, what an agonizing time, what an eternity to climb into her habit, the black folds stifling and gagging her. Then her undercap with its drawstrings, and the tiny safety-pins to secure it, and all the time the knowledge of the necessary encounter, waiting out there in the frozen night. Fludd is adjacent, he is proximate, he is nigh; and here she juggles with her starched white outer cap, ramming it on to her skull, pressing it over the brows, feeling it bite into its accustomed sore groove on her forehead; and now she scrabbles for the long straight pins to secure her veil, and now she drops one, and hears them—yes, in the midnight silence of the convent, hears a pin drop, and roll. So now she must throw herself to her knees and pad with her hands and dab the floor under the bed, and then, rising successful, pin pinched between her fingers, catch the back of her head a glancing blow on the under-edge of the bedstead; iron on bone. Sick, half-stunned, emerging from under the bedstead on hands and knees, she must lever herself up and put on her veil, skewering it with the pins, and then seize up her crucifix and drop it over her head, then lay hold of the long swinging string of her rosary beads and whip it out into the room and secure it around her waist. Then—the breath of the future misting the panes, the future grinning at the window eager to have her in its jaws—she must bend again, dizzily, pick up her shoes, pluck at the knots in the laces which, contrary to holy obedience and all the dictates of the Order, she has left fastened the night before. Then, gasping with irritation, she must fling the shoes to the floor, work her feet into them still fastened, stamp and then jump them into place; thrust her handkerchief into her pocket, and then, only then, cross herself, murmur a short prayer for guidance, open the door of her cell, make her way along the passage, down the stairs and swerve sharp right, ignoring the big front door, and through the passage to the empty, echoing kitchen. She had not dared to put on a light, but the moon from a clear sky shone through the kitchen window, a small, mean, wintry moon, palely gilding the ladle and the tureen, the up-ended pans on their rack, the jugs standing ready for morning tea. She had tugged at the bolts of the back door and held her breath as she drew them back; then she had pulled the door shut behind her, and run out into the night.
Now Miss Dempsey leant forward, and put a hand on Philomena’s shoulder to steady herself. Grunting with effort, the housekeeper got to her knees; sucking her underlip, she put out her hands to feel the ground. “I beg to differ, Father Angwin. I don’t think it is the portable organ. I think it is the edge of St. Gregory’s Papal tiara.”
“Let me at it,” said Fludd. “I won’t smash a thing.”
“You are both wrong,” Philomena said. “What you can feel there has no thickness at all. It is the arrow that pierces the heart of St. Augustine.”
“We had better yield to Father Fludd,” the priest said. “Two women and an ageing fellow like me, what can we do against superior strength? Go at it, my dear.”
“Move aside, Sister,” Fludd said. Unwilling to stand up and retreat, she remained on her knees and shuffled two feet to the left. His braced knee brushed her upper arm. He aligned the tip of his spade, and then she heard the sickening squelch and clatter: steel on plaster. He had driven it in, right by (she believed) St. Agatha’s head; as if the virgin were to be martyred again.
“Careful, careful,” said Agnes, clasping her hands; Father Angwin breathed, “Steady on.” But Philly moved forward on to hands and knees, her eyes on the edge of the spade; she wanted to be the first to see, the first to catch a glimpse of the face emerging from its grave.
Father Fludd planted his foot in the trench he had made; it was an inch, perhaps, to the left of Agatha’s shoulder. He seemed not to feel her own urgency to uncover one particular set of features; his efforts were general, unspecific. But then, she thought, he did not know the statues, not as individuals. His curiosity did not focus on one or the other. Long before he came to the parish, they had been buried.
“St. Jerome,” she whispered up at him. She pointed. “Over there. Uncover the lion.”
“You should get up,” he said, pausing for a moment, but not looking directly at her. “You’ll take a chill.”
“Agnes,” Father Angwin said, “would it not be the best service you could render if you brought us cocoa?”
Fludd’s spade scraped away; the tip of a nose appeared, startlingly white.
“Oh, I could not,” Miss Dempsey said. “Forgive me, Father. I could not leave now.”
Philomena launched herself forward once again. With her fingers she scooped the earth away. It was Agatha, indeed. Philly pinched out the plaster cheekbones. She passed a finger over the sealed lips. Then, flinching, over the
