‘Can I help you?’ It was a different priest to the young Irishman that Fenn had spoken to in the church house more than a week before.
‘Ah, yeah. My name’s Fenn. I’m looking for Monsignor Delgard.’
‘Oh yes, Mr Fenn, I’ve heard all about you. I’ve just left the Monsignor up at the presbytery.’
‘Thanks.’ The reporter turned in that direction.
‘He’s rather busy now, preparing for Mass.’
‘I won’t take up much of his time,’ Fenn replied over his shoulder.
The priest went into the church.
As he walked, Fenn could see the gathering in the field just beyond the graveyard. He paused and squinted his eyes, looking towards the distant oak tree, noticing with interest the platform built before it, the raised altar. ‘Showtime,’ he muttered and went on.
He knocked on the door of the presbytery, then rang the doorbell too, his usual method of announcing his arrival when given two options, and raised his eyebrows in surprise when Sue answered.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hello, Gerry.’
‘You on the team now?’
‘Just helping. So much is going on.’ She stood aside so that he could enter. ‘Did you want to see Monsignor Delgard?’ Sue asked, then added pointlessly, ‘Of course you did.’
‘It’s good to see you.’ And it was, even though she looked tired, dark shadows under her eyes, hair not as springy and vibrant as usual. ‘You been losing sleep, Sue?’
‘What?’ She brushed a wisp of hair away from her face and looked away as though embarrassed. ‘Oh, no, no, I’m fine,’ she said with false lightness. ‘Working too hard, I suppose.’
He moved closer. ‘Doing two jobs: the radio station and the church.’
‘St Joseph’s doesn’t take up too much time, not really.’
‘What do you do here?’
‘It’s not just me, there’s a few women from the village who come in to help. We clean the church, the house. Buy food in for the Monsignor – he’s terribly busy, you know. This morning I’ve been answering the phone for him – it seems to have been ringing non-stop.’
‘And answering the door?’
‘Yes, that too.’
‘Is Ben with you?’
‘He’s around somewhere, in the field, I think. I tried to call you lots of times this – last – week.’ She looked at him with concern.
He smiled, pleased that she had. ‘I got snowed under. Thought I needed to keep away from people for a while.’
‘You weren’t at the Courier.’
‘No, I was doing some digging for Monsignor Delgard. Sorry you couldn’t reach me, but then I didn’t think you wanted to.’
‘After the accident last week, the fire? You didn’t think I’d care? I heard you were involved, heard it from others.’ Her eyes glistened softly.
‘Oh, Chri . . .! I really am sorry, Sue, but you know you’ve been kinda funny towards me. I didn’t even know if you wanted to see me again.’ He reached out and put a hand on her arm.
She looked down and was about to say something when the phone, nearby in the hallway, rang. ‘I’ll have to get that.’ She turned away from him and picked up the receiver. ‘Oh, Bishop. Yes, did you want the monsignor? No, I haven’t been out there myself for a while, but one of the priests told me it’s getting very crowded . . .’
Delgard emerged from a door just off the hallway. He smiled and gave a small wave when he saw Fenn. Sue handed him the receiver and whispered, ‘It’s Bishop Caines, wants to know how everything’s going.’
Delgard nodded and took the phone. Sue came back to Fenn. ‘It’s pretty hectic just now,’ she said, speaking quietly so that the priest would not be interrupted.
‘Can I see you later?’ Fenn asked, feeling slightly ridiculous having to ask.
‘Do you really want to?’
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘Where were you last week? I mean, where did you stay?’
The lie came easily. Only he decided not to tell it. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’ He was surprised himself that he had not immediately told her he had stayed in a Chichester hotel, near to John Dene House where the historical records of Sussex were kept.
‘You’re not keeping something from me?’
He decided honesty couldn’t run too deep. ‘Nothing,’ he replied.
Delgard had replaced the receiver and was coming towards them. ‘Gerry, I’m certainly glad to see you again. I thought perhaps I’d frightened you away.’
Sue looked at the priest sharply, but said nothing.
‘You don’t know how much you got me to chew off,’ Fenn said. ‘I haven’t crammed so much since I left school.’ He added as an afterthought, ‘Although I didn’t cram too much then.’
‘You can tell me on the way over to the church. I have to get into my vestments for the Mass.’
‘You’re taking it?’
‘I seem to have inherited a parish, at least temporarily. Susan, will you look after Alice and her mother while we go to the vestry?’
‘Alice is here? In the house?’ Fenn’s voice rose in surprise.
‘I thought it best we install her in here early. That way she won’t have to fight her way through all the people who have come to see her. We’ll just go through the churchyard into the field.’
‘Seems like a good idea. Could I see her?’
‘I really must make ready for the service now and I’m anxious to hear what you’ve uncovered. I’d rather you came over to the church with me.’
‘Sure. Maybe later?’
The priest did not answer, but glanced at his watch and said to Sue, ‘Bishop Caines is on his way from Worthing, he should be here in twenty minutes or so, unless the traffic holds him up. Will you wait here with Alice and the Reverend Mother until he arrives, then take them to their places five minutes before Mass begins?’
She nodded.
‘I think the bishop may arrive with an entourage.’
‘I’ll take care of them, Monsignor.’
He smiled his thanks and led Fenn outside. As they walked back towards the church, he said, ‘You look tired, Gerry.’
‘You know, I was just about to say the same thing to you. And so does Sue. I think she’s taken on too much.’
‘Perhaps we all have.’ He turned his head to study the reporter’s face. ‘She’s a good woman, very able, very sincere. She told me her faith had wandered for a while, but now it seems to have returned with a renewed vigour.’
‘Because of Alice?’
‘They say the true miracle of Lourdes is not the sick that are cured, but the replenishing, the strengthening, and even the beginning, of faith for the pilgrims.’
‘Sue appears to have caught the bug.’
The priest laughed. ‘I think that’s an appropriate description. It is rather like catching a bug, although there are no ill-effects, just good ones.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘Ah yes, I understand your relationship is under some stress. But do you really blame Susan for that, Gerry?’
‘Not entirely.’
Delgard thought it best to leave the subject alone; there were far more important issues to concern himself with at that time. Fenn was an impulsive, and certainly selfish, young man. Some aspects of his scepticism were healthy and clearly intrinsic in the profession he’d chosen, while others were somewhat destructive. He had an air of ruthlessness about him, although it was often disguised beneath an apparent nonchalant attitude; yet Delgard suspected the reporter was a compassionate man, again that sensitivity concealed beneath an indifferent exterior. It was the priest’s understanding of the human character through years of listening, delving, consoling, that allowed his harsh assessment – not judgement – of Fenn to be tempered by more kindly impressions. The man was complex but ultimately likeable, someone whose faults could irritate but could be soon forgotten.
‘Have you discovered anything of interes
t, Gerry?’ Delgard asked.
Fenn took a deep breath. ‘Nothing that relates to our – your – particular problem. I’ll type out my notes for you in some kind of order giving correct dates and names, but I can give you a brief rundown now.’
They had reached the church door and Fenn shivered when they entered the gloomy interior. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Yes,’ was all the priest said.
The church was empty, the priest that Fenn had passed earlier either in the vestry or having left to join the congregation in the field.
‘Let’s sit here.’ Delgard pointed to a bench.
‘I thought you were in a hurry.’
‘There’s time to talk. Please proceed.’
They sat, Fenn on one bench, Delgard in front, his body twisted to face the reporter, his back to the altar.
‘Okay, here goes,’ Fenn said, taking out a notebook from his pocket. ‘I’m afraid this place isn’t famous for much. I’ll amend that: it isn’t famous for anything. It gets its first official mention as far back as 770 AD when the Saxons had a castle nearby at Stretham. The Lord of the Manor was granted a charter by Osmund, the King of the West Saxons, to assign fifteen hides of land to endow the church in Banefelde. Presumably it was this one, St Joseph’s, since there’s no record of any other churches existing at that time. The village seems to have had a variation in spelling over the years, by the way. Banefelde, Banedryll, Banefeld without the “e” on the end; Banfield got to be the final handle.
‘Before the coming of the Saxons, prehistoric men had a track right across the county, east to west, and it went right through the settlement which eventually became this village. You’ve got to remember this part of the country was nearly all forest-land; the settlement was probably just a clearing in the forest.
‘Its second earliest official mention was in the Domesday Survey in 1085 when William wanted to know just how much the kingdoms were worth and who exactly was in them. Not much seems to have happened since. A little excitement around Reformation time and the Civil War in the following century. Sixty-two villagers died of the plague in the seventeenth century. Not much of any importance until it became a staging post on the London to Brighton turnpike in the eighteenth. Oh yeah, that’s when it got its own workhouse, too, for the parish destitutes. The villagers also got their own railway line around 1880 and kept it until the cuts a hundred years later. It could be the line will be re-established with all the attention Banfield’s getting now.
‘A few familiar names keep cropping up over the years, some going right back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Southworth’s one of them. Two others, Backshield and Oswold, are with him on the parish council today. There’s a Smythe who gets several mentions, Breedehame, Woolgar, Adams and a Charles Dunning who seems to have been of some note. He was knighted in the time of Henry VIII. Most were independent landowners or farmers. There was conflict between some of the families during the Civil War – some supported Charles I, others hung in with Cromwell. Knowing village feuds, they probably resent each other to this day. A few of the villagers have been involved in smuggling. I suppose it was an open road from the coast with plenty of places to hide along the way. That was about all the skulduggery that went on, or at least was recorded.’ He smiled at the priest.
Delgard waited for him to continue and frowned when he didn’t. ‘That’s it?’ he asked in surprise.
‘That’s the bones of it. You’ll get the details in my typed notes. Sorry I couldn’t provide you with murders, pagan sacrifices or witch-burning, but they’re just not there.’
‘It’s something of an anticlimax.’
‘Especially when you’ve been through just about everything written on the place since Saxon times. Dead-ends are never fun.’
‘The church itself. There must be more on the church.’
‘There is. Not much though. In England, Sussex was one of the last pagan strongholds. It was cut off from the north by forests, on the east and west by marshes, and the south by sea. Augustine and his Christian followers from Rome got short shrift from the natives at that time. It took a bishop called Wilfred, who was driven onto the Sussex coast by rough seas, to make the breakthrough. He was appalled by the barbarism and resolved to come back and convert the savages. He did, twenty years later, and got his way. The story goes that Banfield, or Banefelde as it was known, was one of the last settlements to hold out. The interesting thing is that the first Christian church – and we can only assume it was St Joseph’s – was built over the pagans’ place of worship. And their burial grounds.’
There was an iciness in Delgard’s stare that was a reflection of inner thoughts and not directed at Fenn. He said, ‘That’s probably not significant; many churches have been built over pagan altars as a firm and symbolic rebuttal of what previously took place. And burial grounds have always been sacred in the minds of men, Christian or pagan.’
‘Sure. It’s just a statement of fact from me, not an insinuation.’
The priest nodded. ‘Please go on.’
‘The first curate to get a mention here was . . .’ he consulted his notebook ‘. . . a John Fletcher. That was in 1205. The church records, by the way, only go back as far as 1565, and they deal solely with marriages and deaths. I got the information on Fletcher from a book on the village.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. But I discovered something else that I’ll get to in a minute. As I said before, Banfield was particularly resistant to Bishop Wilfred and his followers when they began converting the Sussex people. A lot of blood was spilt. Once the church was established, though, there were no more problems – at least, none that have been recorded. Some trouble with Charles II – the minister here was a Royalist and was involved in sneaking the king across the Downs to the coast where he took a boat to France. Cromwell had the priest executed. Apart from that, the clergy have kept a low profile in Banfield; no scandals, no misuse of church funds, and no anarchy.
‘But the records only date to the late sixteenth century. We don’t know how this church was affected with the spreading of Lutheranism in England. Those were troubled times for Catholics.
‘The Reformation brought change and problems to all the churches in this country, but I couldn’t find anything specific to St Joseph’s. One or two dignitaries in the area got into heavy trouble when they wouldn’t swear allegiance to Henry VIII as head of the English Church, but most decided to go along with the idea for the sake of peace. Besides, many were benefiting from the transformation; Henry was selling off the lands available with the dissolution of the monasteries, and the gentry were the recipients.’
Something was nagging at the back of Delgard’s mind, a teasing, darting thought that dissolved like a disturbed dream each time he tried to focus on it.
‘There were opposing factions in Banfield,’ Fenn continued, ‘and the controversy was probably used to continue feuds that had been going on for some time. Anyhow, there are no church records touching that period in the archives. And that leads to the matter I mentioned earlier.’
Delgard leaned towards the reporter, as though hearing his confession.
‘Is there an old chest somewhere in the church?’ Fenn asked.
The priest looked at him in surprise.
‘An old chest made of thick elm or oak?’ Fenn went on. ‘It’s held together by bands of Sussex iron. And, oh yeah, it has three locks.’
The priest shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know of any such chest. I haven’t seen it.’
‘Could it be stored away somewhere?’
‘There’s only the vestry and the crypt. I’m sure it isn’t in either.’
‘In the house? The attic?’
‘What size is it?’
‘I’m not sure. Something like five feet by two. It’s ancient, dates back to the fourteenth century.’
‘No, it’s not in the presbytery. Why is it important?’
‘Because that’s where old documents, church valuables, bo
oks and records were kept. I found mention of it in the archives. Henry VIII ordered that every church had a strong coffer, paid for by the parish, in which records were to be kept. That was in fifteen-something-or-other but, according to the archives, Banfield already had its own chest dating back two centuries before. We may be able to find more about St Joseph’s from it.’
It was important. Somehow Delgard knew the chest was important. It tied up with the elusive thought he had had moments before. ‘I can check the crypt later, after Mass.’
‘I can do it now.’
Delgard hesitated, looked at his watch, and said, ‘Very well. Come with me into the vestry and I’ll give you the key; the entrance to the crypt is outside.’
He rose, a tall, dark-clothed man, his eyes in shadows. Fenn, still sitting, looked up at him and remembered how indomitable the priest had appeared when he had first laid eyes on him; now some of that strength seemed to have waned as though Delgard were drawing into himself, his vibrancy not gone but diminished. Although the change was barely discernible, Fenn was sure it wasn’t just in his own imagination.
‘Is something wrong?’ the priest asked.
Fenn pulled himself together. ‘Uh, no, just thinking. Let’s get the key.’
As they walked towards the vestry, footsteps unnaturally loud in the empty church, Fenn glanced over at the statue of the Madonna. There was no whiteness left to it.
28
Then a child’s puzzled voice was clearly heard. ‘He’s got nothing on!’
Hans Christian Andersen,
‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’
Ben jiggled his buttocks on the hard wooden bench, one cheek to the other, hands jammed beneath his legs. His mother sat beside him, eyes closed, oblivious to the noise around her.
Ben was over his earlier fright, having seen a lot more worse sights than the man with the funny face: men with no legs, children with heads too big and silly wobbly eyes, women with lumps and bumps and jelly limbs; and nervous eyes peering out of rag bundles in wheelchairs.