The Lord is always near thee

[Christine Daye]

Evensong.

Christine slid into the back pew just as the service was about to start, raising her half veil as she did so and smiling a rueful apology to those already seated. Dressed in her usual fashion, a sober green walking dress, and her ever-present gloves, she was the picture of a modest lady, attending service. And if she appeared to be unaccompanied, well, it was the Abbey. And perhaps the onlooker had simply failed to notice her companions. Like she too seemed to slide from the attention, and the memory.

She listened to the service, lips moving in prayer, hands meekly and properly folded. She raised her voice in the hymns, but gently, seeking only to add to the glorious whole, rather than to overpower it, as she could so easily have done.

And then, when the service ended, she slipped from her seat. But rather than joining the flock of the faithful leaving the Abbey, she smoothly walked up the side aisle, pausing at one of the banks of candles, each lit in the memory of someone, sending a prayer along with the light.

Pulling a coin from the purse in the red music case that she carried in place of a lady's reticule, she put it in the box made for such donations. Carefully, she selected a candle from the box below, placing it into an empty holder, not too close to any of the others. Moving even more carefully, she took the taper provided, and lit her candle from one of the others, blowing the taper out quickly, and putting it back down.

She stepped back, away from the candles, just a pace, and knelt on the bare stone floor, her hands folded in prayer. She watched the flames for a long moment, then whispered.

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem."

[Revd Tweedy]

Tweedy stood by the doors, nodding and bidding farewells to the thinning crowd. There were several new faces. Many older ones, that had dropped out of sight over the last few years,

Attendance had been up since the atrocities had come to light. This gave the curate no joy; there was an air of ugly fervour. Despite the protestations of some well-meaning articles, since the latest rumours of a Fenian hand behind that act of wanton murder, people were looking suspiciously at their Irish neighbours.

Looking, aye, and more beside.

The atmosphere reeked: he could feel it; a nasty welling of fear, anger, hatred. An unholy trinity.

The Reverend Brooke's sermon had touched upon the theme of tolerance. Tweedy's impassive face turned back to look for the man, his one good eye searching for the Canon. But to no avail: he had already retreated from the public. That he'd been persuaded to give any such lesson, even one as heavily veiled and cloaked in near-impenetrable metaphor as it had been, was some small mercy. In private, his words had been more harsh, condemning the bloody Micks.

And what lesson is there in that, Lord?

Mr. Stanage offered his hand to shake as he left. The man's fingers trembled, the veins of his cheeks shot in a blood-red maze. Tweedy nodded in return, rumbling good wishes to the man's family.

[Christine Daye]

Christine prayed quietly, whispering, eyes closed, hands tightly folded, the stone floor of the Abbey hard and cold on her knees.

"Sé do bheatha, a Mhuire,
atá lán de ghrásta,
Tá an Tiarna leat.
Is beannaithe thú idir mná,
Agus is beannaithe toradh do bhroinne; Íosa.
A Naomh-Mhuire,
a Mháthair Dé,
guigh orainn na peacaigh,
anois, agus ar uair ár mbáis.
Amen."

She sighed, an expression of worry on her face, her body weighed down with some melancholy.

"Lord, please... grant me guidance..."

She opened her eyes, made the sign of the cross, and rose, retreating quietly once more down the aisle, towards to door. She paused, searching through her music case for the envelope she had put there earlier, finding it.

It is such a pathetic little thing, against the troubles they all faced.

The crowd had thinned, and she saw Reverend Tweedy, bidding farewell to his flock. For a moment she paused, chewing her lip in indecision, then, decision made, she waited until the last of the parishoners had gone before approaching him.

"Reverend," she greets him quietly. "Are... are you well? Might... might I beg from you a... a moment... just a moment... of your time?"

[Revd Tweedy]

The gnarled face regarded her for a moment.

"Miss... Daye," he responded, as her name came back to him. "A' course. Follar me."

He didn't seem to need prompting that she might want some privacy, leading her to the far end of the rear pews. There he stood, his maimed hand resting upon its dark wood.

"Is this a standin' up moment, or would you ruther have a seat?" he asked, voice a gentle low rumble in his chest.

[Christine Daye]

Christine nodded, and sat, sliding into the pew to give the Reverend space to sit if he chose to do so.

She turned to face him, still holding the envelope tightly.

"I... I should give you this... firstly..." she said, handing over the envelope. "I... I had thought to put it in the poor box... but when I saw you... I thought... well..."

She takes a deep breath.

"It is... a donation... for poor Mrs Smith... to help with her upkeep... I hope it can maybe buy a few needful things... for it is so cold out there... and I have heard she will not leave her shrine... Forgive me for not signing it... I thought... well... I... I... do not do it for any... acclaimation... I would rather keep it secret... it is in the memory of Mama, you see? ...and all my little brothers and sisters... who were taken to the Lord so soon.... too, too young..."

Her voice faded away, and she hummed a phrase - "Be still my soul, the Lord is always near thee".

"Will you see that it is used to help her? Please? I feel for her sorrow, truly I do! And I do not know what else I can do to help her..."

[Revd Tweedy]

Tweedy took the envelope, holding it in his folded hands as he sat by her.

"I'll do what I can t'keep her body 'n soul together," he nodded. She'd ended up sitting on his blind side, but as he half-turned his head to speak quietly, it still seemed like the scarred eye was staring at her.

"An you want to help her," he said, slowly, "then p'raps you can speak to her as you pass by. Treat her with the dignity afforded to one of God's creatures." He glanced back toward the main doors, at the few stragglers still making their way out. "Not a sideshow."

He'd seen what the woman who sat each day outside the Abbey was becoming: her grief turning to madness. Her speech veered ever more frequently toward wild histrionics. Two hundred years ago, she'd have been sainted for it, perhaps. Or hanged, he thought.

Tweedy knew grief; understood it. Many times his quiet presence had leant succour to a bereft parishioner. In those moments he felt the Lord's presence; saw it in the eyes of the other: that spark of human contact, a bulwark against the outrages of the mortal world. They grieved, but there was still life. Still comfort.

Mrs. Smith was slipping away from that, her grief chasing reason away. When he pressed a bowl of hot broth into her hands, the questing look she gave him was all too obvious: she sought her lost loved ones in his eye. He found it frustrating at times, but still he endeavoured. That was the priest's task: to have faith.

Tweedy didn't ask what troubled Miss Daye. He simply left a silence between them, waiting for her to fill it.

[Christine Daye]

"I...I will do that..." Christine promised, her fingers twisting around each other. "If you think... it will help..."

She took a deep breath, sighed it out, unclasping her hands.

"I do not pretend to know the grief a mother feels at the loss of her child.... but I have known grief too... Reverend... grief at a loss of something so precious... grief so raw and painful... that... that the thought of a... a mortal sin... and eternity of damnation... those thoughts become... a comfort..."

Unconsciously, her right hand crept to touch the inside of her left forearm, her gloved fingers curling as if to claw at her arm.

She looked at him, held the gaze of his blind eye.

"Do I shock you, Reverend, by such a confession?"

Her voice was mild, calm, but the look in her eyes, the way her gloved right hand clawed at the sleeve of her left... that spoke of madness.

Her grip tightened on her sleeve, and she looked down, as if caught by surprise. Carefully she folded her hands together, closed her eyes, and sang, so, so quietly:

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
"Bye bye, lully, lullay"?

She opened her eyes, clearer now, an expression of dismay on her face.

"Oh... oh... forgive me Reverend... I am sorry... I should not be burdening you in this way... Maestra says.... Maestra says..."

Her voice trailed away as she bit her lip, close to tears.

[Revd Tweedy]

His brow creased slightly.

"E'en damnation would be better'n this?" The words were half-asked, sounded almost as if they were spoken in agreement. But then: "An it were so, it would not be damnation, I reckon."

His tone was neither chiding nor patronising; just speaking a simple truth.

"Miss Daye, if not me, then who? An the burden gets too great, there's Another who helps us take the load." The fingers of his good hand twitched slightly, a gesture toward the altar. "P'raps you just let the words out. They do more harm an you let 'em sit in your heart."

[Christine Daye]

Christine gave a little half-laugh, caught between amusement and dismay.

"Reason is often the first thing to fall in the face of despair, of grief... but you speak the truth... but when one feels one has earned damnation... well..."

She searched through her music bag for a moment, pulled out a fine handkerchief trimmed with lace, and carefully dabbed at her eyes with it, folding the fabric after each dab to keep any tears caught hidden from view.

"You are kind, Reverend... very kind... I shall try to be brief... succinct..."

She sighed, tucked her folded handkerchief into one hand, both hands now resting demurely on her lap. Looking away, it seems like she looked into the past as she spoke:

"You must understand, that when I say I would have died had it not been for Maestra, that I speak the absolute truth. She has been more than my manager - she has been my parent, my mentor, my friend. And for so many years it was just she, and I...

"Oh, I do not claim it was idyllic! I am... a difficult person to deal with... Maestra has suffered much, endured much, because of me. But we got along well enough. And we travelled! Oh, the wonderful sights we saw!"

Her face lit up at the memories, then fell.

"And then we came to Bath, and Maestra decreed that we would stay for a while. And I was glad... for sometimes it is good for the soul to have a place to rest, to make a home. And Maestra decreed that we must join society, and that scared me... I did not want to go... but she insisted... we had quite a row...

"Since then... she has withdrawn from me... slowly to start... but now with greater rapidity... Where once we were never apart... now she has left me alone, again and again, despite all her promises that she would not!"

Christine's hands twisted the handkerchief, a sign of her growing agitation.

"And now... now I have had no word from her in months... save a single note... delivered to me in a way that tells me she was where I was, but chose to write rather than to take a moment to speak to me... despite me going out of my mind with worry!"

She took a breath, hummed for a moment, calming herself.

"I am worried for her.... she has made new friends... even, I think, a new beau who is courting her... and I do not begrudge her that at all! How could I? She deserves every happiness.... But I am worried that they... he... they... are trying to drive a wedge between us..."

She hummed again, longer this time. The handkerchief twisted in her hands.

"I... I miss her... but she has left me alone... and I do not know why... it cannot be because... she agreed... she agreed..."

Her words failed her, and she closed her eyes tightly, singing softly:

"Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay."

[Revd Tweedy]

"The lady's been gone for months? And have you been alone since? Hn."

"Cannot be because..?" His head was turned to her now, no longer half-looking at the altar. "What did this letter of hers say? And who's 'they'?"