The Two Confessions Read online

  ‘Call me suspicious if you like,’ Trevan told him, in a cool tone out of keeping with his expression, ‘but I reckon you do cowsa some sawsneck. Let's try again. What is the time please?’

  Weight was applied to his claw grip. The prisoner's feet scrabbled desperately for the floor two inches away.

  Trevan's free hand drew the man's fob watch out of its waistcoat pocket home. It was held before the owner's purpling face.

  ‘Ten - past – five.’

  Those retching words were his last gasp. Merciful oblivion was almost knocking at the door when Samuel let him go. He gulped in air like a landed fish, his neck bearing livid purple souvenirs of the incident. They looked fit to live a long life.

  Trevan wrenched the watch from its fastening, bringing half the waistcoat with it. He checked the reported time with exaggerated care.

  ‘Goodness me, so it is. My appointment is late. Morwenstow manners: as piss-poor as its welcome!’

  The timepiece was politely returned. Samuel resumed his seat by the inglenook fireside and sipped, without relish, at the cordial he'd bought three quarters of an hour back. If the atmosphere had been chilly when he first entered the alehouse, it was past glacial now: an ice-age ambience. The conversational buzz of the other middling sort of gentlemen in the saloon-parlour was as angry as the marks left on their countryman. It was all in Cornish of course: every word had been since Samuel crossed the threshold - though he knew full well it was all English up to then. He'd heard the dying away of comprehensible language at first sight of him.

  Ordinarily that wouldn't have worried Samuel: the less contact with humanity the better was his attitude nowadays. The reception here seemed a good metaphor for the whole world's response to his being around. But this ‘meea navidna…’ thing: the 'I can't - or won't - speak English’ business, he'd heard it once too often. There were even villages over the English side of the border that took that attitude and it had started to rankle. He'd mischanced to leave his watch at what passed for 'home' and just wanted to know how long he'd been kept waiting - and so the local got jostled a bit for his ignorance and rudeness. Serve him right.

  Samuel half wanted the Cornish clientele to work themselves up to do something about it - he'd almost welcome some good honest open hostility - but knew they never would. It was only black looks and whispered curses as usual, even from the injured party. So Samuel spat on the fire and made it sizzle - and the landlord tut. He stood on the very verge of having fun – but suspected fate wouldn't permit Samuel Trevan that.

  He was right. The parlour door opened and more bad news strode in.

  ************

  There was a well-worn path for them to confer on, pilgrim defined, along the clifftop pasture. It led eventually to the Blessed Robert Hawker's driftwood hut. A century past, that rustic holy man would sit within to observe the storms and write opium-fuelled sonnets with swan-feather quills. Charles III, 'Cheerful Charlie' himself, had sought Hawker out, seeking theological approval for his 'regal-polygamy' initiative; only to receive a dusty answer for his pains and the long trek west.

  Hawker survived the encounter and successor hermits followed in post to this day, but Samuel had no mind to consult anyone but the old body hobbling beside him. Far below, the tide whispered ebbing adieu, laying bare the black, twisted, rock strata that comprised Morwenstow beach.

  ‘Right then, Father Jago: thanks for coming: better late than never.’

  The elderly priest looked sidelong at his companion, and in so doing almost stumbled.

  ‘Damn! What? Oh, we are tartar-ish, aren't we?’ It was a comment rather than a reproach. ‘I can see you're a Trevan alright.’

  It became Samuel's turn to crack a wry smile.

  ‘Well, that's my first question settled. I hope the others are as easily solved.’

  ‘Probably. It's a short - though none too sweet - tale. Look, do you mind slowing down a portion? I can't walk so fast as when I first met your clan.’

  Samuel actually stopped and let the old man catch his breath. The blustery wind off the sea ordered their hair aloft, though the priest could only contribute remnant white rats-tails to the dance.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Trevan. ‘We both know you set the speed tonight: in walking and everything else.’

  The priest's face hardened.

  ‘Well then, Samuel, I'd better hasten to tell all so you can stop resenting my 'advantage'. Save us, boy, you've got such sharp edges on you you'll end up cutting yourself! Calm down.’

  ‘I am calm.’

  ‘No, you're not. You don't fool me. A happy man doesn't antagonise an alehouse of strangers. Nor refuse to meet a priest in Church....’

  ‘It stems from courtesy. I've outgrown your certainties; I didn't want to enter what you call a house of God when I know it’s all a load-....’

  Trevan faltered, even his courage failing him and realising he’d gone too far.

  Father Jago kindly let it go and continued.

  ‘... and thus insult his calling; and impose a journey on him, and then chide him for being late. No: even if I'd not yet seen the fire in your eyes I'd still have known you for what you are.’

  The trap was thus set for Trevan to ask 'which is what...?’ It was easily stepped round. He'd had a gut-full of people anxious after his spiritual welfare.

  ‘Sorcerers detect what mere mortals can't.’ Samuel nodded towards the band of silver stars stitched round one arm of the priest's cassock. ‘Though I don't recognise the school....’

  ‘Liverpool.’

  ‘I didn't know there was a-....’

  Father Jago jumped in, self-deprecating, to save time.

  ‘It's not renowned. My talent is marginal and periodic. The demi-academy there specialised in my type.’

  Samuel gave him a sideways ‘oh-I-see’ look.

  ‘Which explains how a wizard-priest comes to be buried alive in this hole. I'll admit I did puzzle about that.’

  Deserved or not, Morwenstow had an evil reputation. Samuel recalled old Walter the London Watchman had spoken of it: had suffered through it.

  From time out of mind ships had come to grief on this hazardous coast, and a peculiarity of the tides usually deposited the victims on Morwenstow beach, where sharp rocks and birds finished what sea and fish had started. Although everyone, even anonymous body parts, was supposed to get a decent Christian burial, sometimes the numbers or trouble or expense were too much, and then they were just put under the sand. Therefore, people shunned the beach even on the sunniest of days. Not only that, but the inhabitants were accused of assisting Neptune's grosser moods, luring ships in with lights and then murdering those who made it ashore. It was always said suspiciously few mariners survived a shipwreck off Morwenstow.

  Father Jago overlooked the gibe and implications. Magicians were used to unsolicited hostility from normal humanity.

  ‘I'd no need of sorcery to read you straight off, young man. All priests acquire the skill, talent or no.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Father.’

  ‘Oh, is that so?’ They set off again, at a more stately pace. ‘Right then, master Trevan, what I say is go back home and leave the past in peace. It would be better, trust me.’

  Samuel shook his head, a sharp, jerky action, killing off further argument.

  ‘Whatever you say: except 'leave well alone' or 'trust me'. And another thing: I have no home.’

  ‘No welcome in Welcombe, eh?’

  ‘The place is misnamed. A rabid dog would have got a warmer greeting. My so-called family are fearful of me.’

  The priest compressed his lips, an expression of some or other disapproval.

  ‘That is a... shame, Mr Trevan.’

  Real sympathy or not, Samuel didn't need it.

  ‘Don't waste your concern. It's nothing personal. They're two generations out of churl class and worried I might be after my property rights. Land's everything to them; even cack land like here. My Church problems are just something they'v
e seized on. Believe me, I don't covet their little fields, but you try telling them that.’

  ‘So, what precisely do you want?’

  ‘I want what they won't tell me, even after I kicked a door down. Not even after I put them out of pocket. 'Cost half a guinea to fix 'er it will’, boo hoo. What is it that's worth money for them to keep dark? Trouble is, you see, Father, I find myself at a bit of a loose end in life at the moment. Which makes me minded to trace my story back to its beginning even as I ponder its end. Good enough?’

  ‘Did the family put you on to me?’

  ‘Nope. I never beg for favours twice. One refusal serves for all time. Henceforth I wouldn't ask them to piss on me if I was afire - please excuse the peasant-speak. No, it was my own discovery, and simply made. You were the incumbent at Welcombe round about when I appeared. Mother Church never loses track of its shepherds. I enquired and there you were, just up the coast, albeit in another country. What a happy chance!’

  ‘Another country no longer, Trevan: Kernow is Cornwall now.’

  Jago had turned abruptly vehement on this point, and Samuel had to signal his lack of objection. Presumably, the priest endured daily trials as a foreigner in a restive land. To Trevan's eyes 'Kernow', as was, seemed to have blithely ignored its absorption into United England in the 20's. The gory ‘Sack of Truro’, the marriage of the last of the Ducal line to an English King, were inconvenient facts that had trickled away into the sands of passing time. When Samuel walked the half mile from Welcombe, Devon, England, into Cornwall, Cornish militiamen in the Ducal livery had demanded what his business might be.

  Trevan's patriotic feelings were just part of the avalanche of previous opinions now slipping away from him. His present indifference to the Kernow question knew no bounds.

  ‘Whatever, Father. Now, as to the favour I was asking...?’

  The priest turned to face him. He looked tired and disinclined to much raise his voice over the noise of the waves.

  ‘The truth will do you no favours, boy - but I see you are implacable and won't settle otherwise. I'd long put this story to rest. I don't thank you for digging it up.’

  ‘Better a bad memory than no memory.’

  Father Jago laughed out loud.

  ‘You'll learn different if you're spared. A priest gets to hear all manner of things and gets no choice in selecting. The sheep come all mixed up with goats: horribly deformed goats sometimes. I tell you truthfully, my mind's well furnished with grotesque items I'd cheerfully swap for blanks.’

  ‘Snap. So what?’

  ‘Well, if you won't be told, you must learn. It's God's will. Yes, I knew your mother. I baptised her and I buried her.’

  ‘You missed out her first communion.’

  ‘No I didn't. She had no call for it. She was an innocent.’

  Samuel flinched; for a second his face broke free of control. This was a blow he hadn't prepared for.

  ‘Don't be ashamed for her, Trevan: for that is an evil way of thought. She understood all that the Almighty fitted her for, and went through this world unstained by it.’

  Samuel had to turn aside. He didn't want his distress to be seen.

  ‘Her kind have a virtue all their own, Trevan. They are like little children and Satan is powerless against them. Their years on earth are never long and they're here for us to lavish love upon.’

  Samuel regained composure, but still declined to turn round.

  ‘Was... was she the full type, or just partial?’

  ‘She had all the marks, if that is your meaning.’

  ‘Slant eyes? Slack face? Everything?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jago's reply was blunt. ‘And she was beautiful according to her type and in God's eyes. Now guard your words, for she looks down upon you from heaven.’

  Samuel snorted dissent.

  ‘Best place for her: that's what the family would have said, isn't it?’

  Again, the priest could not compromise with the truth.

  ‘Probably. They have their fair share of narrow-souled members. One or two I recall had it in mind to expose her at birth, but word got to me and I spoke to them. The Church crusades against that old practice, but in these wild areas....’

  ‘I suppose I should thank you, else I'd not be here.’

  ‘Yes, you should, but I'll overlook it if you don't.’

  A thought then landed on Samuel, which grew and grew in both size and malignity - like a hideous black spider swarming over him. He swung round.

  ‘But if she was an innocent, then who... how...?’

  Father Jago looked up at Trevan with such compassion as he could muster.

  ‘It was never discovered. She liked to wander the woods, to gather ferns and flowers. She used to make posies of them and hand them out as presents. I usually got one when I visited to check the family weren't working her. It must have happened one day in the woods.’

  ‘... Never... discovered....’

  ‘Some vile and wicked person, probably long since gone to their reward. Don't rend your heart, Trevan. Your 'father', such as he was, has not escaped giving full account of himself. To the one and only honest judge. Who delivers faultless justice. And due sentence. And as to your mother, she didn't understand. When you arrived you were taken straight from her. The family had arranged everything well before. I found the refuge in Sussex for you.’

  ‘‘Melchizedek’: the man with no father or mother.’

  ‘You did have a mother, Samuel.’

  ‘Whose idea was the name? It's a clever little joke, but do you know, strangely enough, I'm not all that amused. Fancy sending me on my way - far away - with a jest…. How droll. The culprit, please.’

  ‘One of the family. I don't know who. I wouldn't tell you if I did, not in your present mind.’

  ‘But tell me, did dear 'Father' come back for more? Have I got any brother or sister Melchizedeks?’

  Father Jago was glad to be able to close off that route.

  ‘No. A magician-priest came from Exeter and gave her the 'mercy' spell. I couldn't do it; my gift's too weak. Sterilisation requires a bishop's dispensation, but in view of her… condition afterwards: I mean, knowing what she now did but not understanding, it was felt....’

  ‘It was felt right.’

  ‘And your family were threatening to keep her prisoner indoors otherwise.’

  ‘And they were right as well.’

  ‘She never mentioned it, Samuel. I honestly believe she didn't even realise. Your mother had some more years of happiness.’

  ‘I envy her. One other thing before you go: do you recall where you buried her?’

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  cHAPTER 15

  'A Brief guide to St NECTAN's Church, WELCOMBE, DEVON, for the edification of visiting worshippers, enquirers after wisdom and salvation, and trippers.'

  'Welcombe Church started its long life as one of the chapels attached to Hartland Abbey - founded in the 11th century - and was confirmed by name in a Royal Charter of 1189. The font dates from those early days. St Nectan, patron of the parish, was a Cymric hermit who came to Hartland in the 6th century. He was attacked by robbers who cut off his head, but, unperturbed, picked it up and walked to the well at Hartland Point which now bears his name. Wherever his blood dropped on the way foxgloves sprang from the ground. The well has never since failed and all Nectan's twenty-three brothers and sisters were inspired to become holy hermits by the miracle.

  ... the rood screen comes from the 14th century, a prime example of a great Devonian art whose sublimest creation famously adorns the Chapel of St George in Constantinople. Over it is a beautiful early 16th century cornice, perhaps by the same craftsman as the screen at Stoke. There are traces of gilding on the vine trail, and of brilliant red, blue and gold on the main beam, sad remnants of the glory eradicated by the Commissioners of Henry VIII-and-last or his bastard son.

  We know that the screen originally stood nearer the centre of the church because of the fine carved roof bosses, and
the wall-plates representing the fruitful vine and the barren fig tree. These - alone in Devon, apart from Exeter Cathedral - retain their original colouring. This work was intended as a canopy of honour over the Crucifix which stood on the screen. It too was desecrated to ruin during the despoilings of the 16th and 17th centuries.

  The other roof bosses include emblems of the Five Wounds of Christ, roughly carved in hard wood.

  During the 'Reformation' some of the 15th century pew ends were stuck to the screen. The old pews had unusual 'poppy-head' tops but they have disappeared, presumably also at that time. The reading desk survives on a Jacobean-style base.

  The window-sill in the south transept is the original altar-stone; one of the consecration-crosses can still be seen. Below is a memorial brass (the name alas erased by subsequent 'Protestant' vandals) of a Spanish gentleman-volunteer martyred in battle during the reign of Mary the Great.

  In 1508 Welcombe was made an independent parish, and the church was 'fittingly rebuilt' - transepts were added and possibly a new chancel - and consecrated along with its graveyard. On the wall may be seen a copy of the Deed of 1532 (the very eve of tragedy!) whereby the parishioners agreed to provide a priest, and the Abbey to pay £5 a year towards his wages. The dedication was kept on the Sunday after Michaelmas, but it is now on the Sunday nearest St Nectan's Day - the 17th of June, when children and maidens in procession bear foxgloves to the church.

  The 16th century pulpit originally had a sounding board.

  The tower contains 6 bells. An inscription on the tenor reads: 'A Gooding cast us all fower for this new builded tower 1731'.

  In the 17th century there was a gallery across the back of the church, and on the porch was a sundial dated 1735 and inscribed Fugit Irreparabile Tempus.

  The naive but charming reredos paintings of the Good Shepherd and St Mary Magdalene are the work of the Blessed Bridget Butt, a hermitress (and skilled water-colourist) briefly attached to St Nectan's in the 20th century. Her powers of prophecy and ecstatic visions led to her ‘invitation’ to Rome and eventual beatification, as well as artistic immortality via Bacon’s controversial ‘Screaming Saint’ (sic) triptych.