deserve credit for restoring the brasses. And they had introduced a barrel organ, which Duval thought was an amusing touch. New bells had been added as well as a robed choir, very High Church and very revolutionary for the late Victorian period.
The church had survived the Second World War untouched although flying bombs fell near Shere. The real enemy had not been the
Duval knew on exactly which day in 1871 the clock had been installed in the steeple, and that it had an eight-day, dead-beat escapement, gun-metal gear wheels and a copper dial measuring four feet six inches. It now read precisely 7:10 p.m. The date, which of course the clock did not display, was 17th August 1967.
The clock was still going well, but Duval knew he could not say the same of his writing. Standing attentively a foot from the north wall of the chancel, he peered into the quatrefoil of Christine Carpenter’s cell. He never prayed formally for inspiration, but every visit to this place renewed his dedication to his study and encouraged him to continue with the revisionist history of his anchoress. The black holes in the wall were a window into the past. Her past. It was almost as if it were not his invention, his imagination, his creativity, but her will and her energy that spurred him on. But now he was suffering from writer’s block: his soul had not sensed Christine’s presence for a long time. Was her purgatory over, he wondered. Had she ascended to blessedness in the heavens? This spiritual block had happened before, Duval reminded himself. His muse had slipped from her prison in the wall. Just for a while.
Duval’s sigh in the hushed church was audible. I would rather not do again what I had to do before, he thought. But this contact with living females was the only way he could reinvigorate his writing and his research. And after every experience the voice of Christine had returned. It was a worthy sacrifice to his anchoress. It had worked before, but, he asked himself, what if Christine’s soul had left the wall for ever?
He touched the cold stone, seeking to sense her presence. He ran his fingers around the mouth of the quatrefoil, sensually, like a man caressing a woman’s body. Duval had tried to understand himself, to probe his true motivation. He knew that he was in the grip of an obsession, almost Dantesque in the absolute purity of its near- impossibility-like the search for the Holy Grail. Dante’s beloved Beatrice had been alive at the same time as Christine, but a modern equivalent of Beatrice, a tangible Christine, would add flesh to his literary chimera. And the quest was noble in itself.
Despite its original apostasy against Rome, this church in Shere was Duval’s conduit to the true spiritual world, a conduit in some mysterious way to both his inner and outer vision. And the stern but persuasive voices inside his head explained that he could serve God directly, just as his anchoress had. It was Christine who held the key, and it did not merely provide access to his muse. No, his writing, he knew, was just a part of his mission. His fundamental calling was to prove that even in the decadent 1960s a woman could be brought to God, just as Christine had been. She could be helped, but in the end she would have to make a free choice.
Duval prayed for the strength of Christine’s presence. He did not need a Church that had blockaded the highways to heaven with obfuscation, dogma and hypocrisy. “I have suffered, I have sinned,” he said to himself, “yet it is I who will bring female sinners to God.” Not just those who display their new hats on Sundays in a Catholic church, but those who will offer everything up to Him-completely.
“I am merely a tool of God. O Lord, your willing manservant,” he said aloud.
Duval walked out of the church, untied his dog’s leash from a tree and marched up the hill at a rapid pace. When he reached Hillside, he did not make his customary cup of herbal tea, nor take his habitual bath. He perched on the seat in front of his great desk, eager to see if it were possible to write without Christine’s presence whispering in his ear.
A curtain had been erected in the bay of the bedroom to afford Christine privacy. She had not spoken for days, but stirred a little when the priest entered with the oils. Christine’s brother peeped briefly around the curtain before the priest shooed him away.
Father Peter raised the cross above Christine’s head. With due solemnity, he said, “My dear daughter in God, it seems that you are fast leaving this life and ascending Godwards. Sister, are you glad that you shall die in the Christian faith? Do you in all good faith repent of your sins? If you cannot speak to confess, nod if you can, and I will grant you absolution. Then I will say the Viaticum.”
Without opening her eyes, Christine managed to move her head slightly. “I have brought to you the likeness of our Maker and Saviour. Look upon it, if you can, and draw comfort from the Holy Cross.”
Christine managed to open her eyes and unclench the jaws that had been clamped shut. Her whole body was coursing with pain, and death beckoned as a magnificent release. She was impatient for her life’s last hours, even these last minutes, to be over.
Yet, as she peered into the gloom, a light-dim at first-seemed to emanate from the cross, which glowed ever more strongly, and the light, so strong now, flowed in waves from its holy form into her body. Warmth engulfed her feet and her lower body, easing and then dissolving her pain. Gradually, the relief spread to her chest, her neck and finally her head. Above all, the rays pierced her heart, purifying it of all her past ways, making her new. She felt light, as though she could float from her bed and dance with angels.
And then she saw a vision.
A small but breathing Christ appeared on the cross, and then it seemed to grow to full size. The wounds were real, and the blood a vivid scarlet. The pain on His face suddenly disappeared and, looking up, He drew her eyes to the ceiling, which had opened up to present the bluest sky on earth. It seemed an opening to eternity, endless years of bliss, of oneness with the Almighty. She was transfixed by the radiance. An intense ball of light swooped down and beckoned her to fly away into a tunnel of the sweetest and most soothing whiteness…but then a figure dressed in purple, a woman with the most peaceful smile she had ever seen, appeared in the tunnel. The figure, floating on a cloud of blue flashing light, summoned her, and yet, at the same time, raised her hand as if to say, “Go back.”
Then, announced by the sound of a trumpet, the holy woman spoke: “Return, and all will be well. Follow me in everything, for all your life.” The words were repeated, slowly and very deliberately.
And in this vision Christine saw herself turning back, eager to obey the woman, who was, she knew, the Mother of Christ, and yet she was reluctant to leave the incandescent presence.
Then she seemed to be flying over the earth, seeing below many prosperous villages and towns, with golden turrets and marble spires, and also a large white castle, which she knew was made of parchment. All creation was like a ball in her hand, for understanding had replaced the pain and she could see with different eyes. All her sins had been turned into blessings by God’s love, a love sanctified by the vision of Mary, the Holy Mother. Love and understanding had been given to her.
All this she saw so clearly, but then darkness fell upon her, and the vision was replaced by the cruel earthliness of her room. Her vision appeared to have lasted but a second of time, long ago. The memory of the light and the peace, she feared, would fade as well.
Christine felt she was strong enough to raise herself a little. The priest quickened his prayers. As he raised the still-glowing crucifix, higher and higher, Christine was drawn up, too, as though sucked by some irresistible force.
The priest knelt and put his hand behind her head to support it and enable her to drink a little ale. She coughed as the pungent liquid stung her throat.
“Gently, my child,” he whispered, cradling her head as her eyes closed and she slept. Father Peter sat by her bed, waiting and praying.
An hour or so later she awoke, and managed to eat a little wheaten bread, her first food for many days. Her eyes were large as she stared at Father Peter and they looked at each other in fear and hope. The priest had shared her pain and her shame, the proof of his weakness. Guilt showed on his face, yet her face was bright for the first time since Sir Richard’s abomination.
Minutes passed before she spoke, although serenity still suffused her face. Then, forcefully, she said, “I have
