Today it was the Reverend Patterson, who had lost his daughter in childbirth. He sat in the Bishop’s study, an elderly man with gaunt body, his head bent, his face half covered by his hands.
Isadora brought in the tray of tea and set it on the small table. She did not speak to either of them, but silently filled both cups. She knew Patterson well enough not to need to ask him if he wished for milk or sugar.
“I thought I would understand,” Patterson said desperately. “I’ve been a minister in the church for almost forty years! God knows how many people I’ve comforted in their loss, and now all those words I’ve said so carefully mean nothing to me.” He peered up at the Bishop. “Why? Why don’t I believe them when I say them to myself?”
Isadora waited for the Bishop to reply that it was shock, anger at pain, and he must give himself time to heal. Even expected death is a huge and strange thing and takes courage to face, no less by a man dedicated to God’s service than by any other. Faith is not certainty, and belief does not take away the hurt.
The Bishop seemed to be floundering for words. He drew in his breath, and then let it out again in a sigh. “My dear man, we will all experience great trials of faith during our lives. I am sure you will rise to this with all your usual fortitude. You are a good man, rest in the knowledge of that.”
Patterson stared up at him, the agony in his face as naked as if he were oblivious of Isadora’s presence. “If I am a good man, why has this happened to me?” he begged. “And why do I feel nothing but confusion and pain? Why can I see no hand of God in it, no whisper of the divine anywhere?”
“The divine is an infinite mystery,” the Bishop answered, staring across Patterson’s head at the far wall, his face intensely troubled, his eyes fixed. He looked as if he saw no more comfort than Patterson did himself. “It is beyond us to comprehend. Perhaps we are not meant to.”
Anguish contorted Patterson’s features, and it seemed to Isadora, afraid to move in case she drew attention to herself, that he was on the edge of screaming with the sheer frustration that boiled up inside him, unanswered by anything he could ever reach towards.
“There’s no sense in it all!” he cried out, his voice strangled in his throat. “One day she was alive, so alive, her child within her. She glowed with the joy of her time coming . . . and then nothing but suffering and death. How could it be? How? It’s senseless! It’s cruel and wasteful, and stupid, as if there is no meaning in the universe.” He drew in a great sob. “Why have I spent my life telling people there is a just and loving God, that it all makes a perfect pattern that we will see one day, and then when I need to know that myself . . . there’s nothing but darkness . . . and silence? Why?” His voice grew more demanding, angrier. “Why? Was my whole life a farce? Tell me!”
The Bishop hesitated, shifting his weight to the other foot, his body awkward.
“Tell me!” Patterson shouted.
“My dear man . . .” the Bishop sputtered. “My dear . . . man, these are dark times . . . we all have them, times when it seems the world is monstrous. Fear covers everything like a descending night and no dawn is . . . is imaginable . . .”
Isadora could not bear it. “Mr. Patterson, of course your sense of loss is terrible,” she said urgently. “If you truly love anyone then their death has to hurt, but most especially if they are young.” She moved forward a step, ignoring the Bishop’s startled expression. “But to lose is part of our human experience, as God intended it to be. The fact that it hurts to the very limit of our ability to bear is the whole point. In the end it comes down to one question, do you trust God, or not? If you do, then you endure the pain until you can come through to the other side of it. If you don’t, then you had better begin to think exactly what you do believe, and exercise yourself to your very soul.” She lowered her voice very gently. “I think you will find that your life experience tells you that your faith is there . . . not all the time, but most of it. And most of it is enough.”
Patterson looked up at her in amazement. The anguish eased out of him as he began to consider what she had said.
The Bishop turned towards her, incredulity slackening his face until it held exactly the same expression he had when he was asleep, an uncanny vacancy waiting to be filled by thought.
“Really, Isadora . . .” he started, then stopped again. It was desperately apparent that he was at a loss to know how to deal with her or with Patterson, but above either was some emotion deep within himself which overpowered even his anger or his embarrassment. His usual complacency had vanished, the polished certainty in his own power to answer everything which she was so accustomed to, and its absence was like a raw wound.
She turned to Patterson. “People do not die because they are good or bad,” she said firmly. “And it is certainly not to punish anyone else. That thought is monstrous and would destroy all reality of good or evil. There are scores of reasons, but many of them are simply mischance. The only thing we know to cling to, all the time, is that God is in control of the greater destiny, and we do not need to know what that is. Indeed, we could not understand it if we were told. What we need to do is trust Him.”
Patterson blinked. “You make it sound as if it were simple, Mrs. Underhill.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled with a sudden bleakness at the force of the knowledge inside her of her own prayers unanswered, the loneliness which at times was almost unbearable. “But that is not the same thing as saying it is easy. That is what should be done; I do not say that I can do it, any more than you or anyone else.”
“You are very wise, Mrs. Underhill.” He looked up at her gravely, trying to read in her face what experience it was that had taught her such things.
She turned away. It was too vulnerable to share, and if he understood anything at all, it would betray Reginald completely. No woman who was happy in her marriage had such a desolation inside her. “Do drink your tea while it is still hot,” she advised. “It doesn’t solve problems, but it makes us better able to attempt them.” And without waiting for any response she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Out in the hall, she was overcome with a profound sense of having intruded. Never in all her married life had she usurped her husband’s role in such a way. Hers was to support, sustain, to be loyal and discreet. She had just violated almost every rule there was. She had made him look hopelessly inadequate in front of one of his own juniors.
No! That was unfair. He had been inadequate. She had not caused that. He had dithered when he should have been decisive, full of quiet confidence, an anchor when Patterson was tossed by storms, at least temporarily, beyond his control.
Why? What on earth was wrong with Reginald? Why could he not have stated with passion and certainty that God loved every man, woman and child, and when understanding failed then trust must take over? That is what faith means. Most of us can cling to our faith, or at least seem to cling to it, when we have all we want. Nothing is measured until faith is tested.
She walked back to the kitchen to speak to the cook about dinner the following day. Tonight she and the Bishop were going to another one of the interminable political receptions. Still, it was only days till the election now, and then at least this part of it would be over.
What lay ahead? Only variations of the same, stretching on into loneliness infinite.
She was in the sitting room again when she heard Patterson leave and knew that within minutes the Bishop would be through to face her for her intrusion, and she waited, wondering what she would say. Would it be simplest in the long run merely to apologize? Nothing would justify what she had done. She had undermined him by offering the comfort that he should have given.