He looked round to see whether the figure that had either buried or sought this object—he was not sure which it had done—was returning; but he could see nothing but the bushes of gorse and heath black and stunted against the grey sky. There was no sound but the sigh of the night wind and the gentle lap of the incoming tide. His curiosity proved too strong for him, and he slipped the case into his pocket as he turned homewards.
Supper—a simple meal of soup and cheese and cider—was awaiting him when he got in, and he had not time to do more than change his shoes and wash his hands; but after supper, sitting on one side of the wide hearth while the curé smoked placidly on the other, Maddox felt the little box in his pocket, and began to tell his host of his queer adventure.
The curé’s lack of enthusiasm rather damped him. No, he knew of no woman in the whole of his wide parish who would behave as Maddox described. There was no monastery in the neighbourhood, and if there were it would not be permitted to the brethren to act like that. He seemed mildly incredulous, in fact, until Maddox, quite nettled, took out the little case and slapped it down on the table.
It was a more uncommon object than he had at first supposed. It was, to begin with, extremely heavy and hard—as heavy as lead, but of a far harder metal. The chasing was queer; the figures reminded Maddox of runes; and remembering the prehistoric remains in Brittany, a thrill ran through him. He was no antiquarian, but it occurred to him that this find of his might be an extremely interesting one.
He opened the case. As he had thought, there was a scrap of some leathery substance within, carefully rolled round a piece of parchment. That couldn’t be prehistoric, of course; but Maddox was still interested. He smoothed it out and began stumblingly to read out the crabbed words. The language was Latin of a sort, and he was so occupied in endeavouring to make out the individual words that he made no attempt to construe their meaning until Father Vétier stopped him with a horrified cry and tried to snatch the document out of his hand.
Drawing by Alan Hunter
Maddox looked up, exceedingly startled. The little priest was quite pale, and looked as horrified as if he had been asked to listen to the most shocking blasphemy.
‘Why, mon père, what’s wrong?’ asked Maddox, astonished.
‘You should not read things like that,’ panted the little curé. ‘It is wrong to have that paper. It is a great sin.’
‘Why? What does it mean? I wasn’t translating.’
A little colour crept back to the priest’s cheeks, but he still looked greatly disturbed.
‘It was an invocation,’ he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. ‘It is a terrible paper, that. It calls up—that one.’
Maddox’s eyes grew bright and eager.
‘Not really? Is it, honestly?’ He opened out the sheet again.
The priest sprang to his feet.
‘No, Monsieur, I must beg you! No! You have not understood—’
He looked so agitated that Maddox felt compunction. After all, the little chap had been very decent to him, and if he took it like that—! But he couldn’t help thinking that it was a pity to let these ignorant peasants have jobs as parish priests. Really, there was enough superstition in their church as it was without drafting old forgotten country charms and incantations into it. A little annoyed, he put the paper back into its case and dropped the whole thing into his pocket. He knew quite well that if the curé got his hands on it he would have no scruples whatever about destroying the whole thing.
That evening did not pass as pleasantly as usual. Maddox felt irritated by the crass ignorance of his companion, and Father Vétier was quite unlike his customary placid self. He seemed nervous, timid even; and Maddox noticed that when the presbytery cat sprang on to the back of her master’s chair and rubbed her head silently against his ear the curé almost sprang out of his seat as he hurriedly crossed himself. The time dragged until Maddox could propose retiring to bed; and long after he had been in his room he could hear Father Vétier (for the inner walls of the presbytery were mere lath and plaster) whispering prayers and clicking the beads of his rosary.
When morning came Maddox felt rather ashamed of himself for having alarmed the little priest, as he undoubtedly had done. His compunction increased when he saw Father Vétier as he came in from his early Mass, for the little man looked quite pale and downcast. Maddox mentally cursed himself. He felt like a man who has distressed a child, and he cast about for some small way of making amends. Halfway through déjeuner he had an idea.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘you are making alterations in your church here, are you not?’
The little man brightened visibly. This, Maddox knew, was his pet hobby.
‘But yes, Monsieur,’ he replied quite eagerly. ‘For some time now I have been at work, now that at last I have enough. Monseigneur has given me his blessing. It is, you see, that there is beside our church here the fragment of an old building—oh, but old! One says that perhaps it was also a church or a shrine once, but what do I know?—but it is very well built, very strong, and I conceived the idea that one might join it to the church. Figure to yourself, Monsieur, I should then have a double aisle! It will be magnificent. I shall paint it, naturally, to make all look as it should. The church is already painted of a blue of the most heavenly, for the Holy Virgin, with lilies in white—I had hoped for lilies of gold, but gold paint, it is incredible, the cost!—and the new chapel I will have in crimson for the Sacred Heart, with hearts of yellow as a border. It will be gay, won’t it?’
Maddox shuddered inwardly.
‘Very gay,’ he agreed gloomily. There was something that appealed to him very much in the shabby whitewashed little church. He felt pained at the very thought of Father Vétier’s blue and crimson and yellow. But the little curé noticed nothing.
‘Already I have begun the present church,’ he babbled, ‘and, monsieur, you should see it! It is truly celestial, that colour. Now I shall begin to prepare the old building, so that, as soon as the walls are built to join it to the present church, I can decorate. They will not take long, those little walls, not long at all, and then I shall paint . . .’
He seemed lost in a vision of rapture. Maddox was both amused and touched. Good little chap, it had been a shame to annoy him over that silly incantation business. He felt a renewed impulse to please the friendly little man.
‘Can I help you at all, Father?’ he asked. ‘Could I scrape the walls for you or anything like that? I won’t offer to paint; I’m not expert enough.’
The priest positively beamed. He was a genial soul who loved company, even at his work; but even more he loved putting on thick layers of bright colours according to his long-planned design. To have a companion who did not wish to paint was more than he had ever hoped for. He accepted with delight.
After breakfast, Maddox was taken to see the proposed addition to the church. It stood on the north side of the little church (which, of course, ran east and west), and, as far as Maddox could see, consisted mainly of a piece of masonry running parallel with the wall of the church. Fragments of walls, now crumbled, almost joined it to the east and west ends of the north wall of the church; it might almost have been, at one time, a part of the little church. It certainly, as Father Vétier had said, would not take much alteration to connect it to the church as a north aisle. Maddox set to work to chip the plaster facing from the old wall with a good will.
In the afternoon the curé announced that he had to pay a visit to a sick man some miles away. He accepted with great gratitude his visitor’s proposal that he should continue the preparations for the painting of the new aisle. With such efficient help, he said, he would have the addition to the church ready for the great feast of St Michael, patron saint both of the village and the church. Maddox was delighted to see how completely his plan had worked in restoring the little man’s placid good-humour.