Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [20]
“I have given you all the information that it’s in my power to give you,” Monsignor Holston replied, his austere face clouded with doubt. “I can’t tell you more than that—I wish I knew more! And I won’t lie to you, either. I will say this: Father James was a very good man. Sober and hardworking. A man of faith and deep convictions. I have a duty to him. If his murderer can be found, I want him found.”
Hamish said, “A priest could be killed for what he knows.”
It was true. . . .
Rutledge, finishing his tea, shook his head as he was offered more and set his empty cup on the tray. “There’s another avenue we haven’t really explored. A clergyman learns to cope with a variety of responsibilities, some of them rather onerous. There’s always the chance that what happened to Father James is in some way related to his duties. And in taking them over, you may put yourself at risk as well. Someone may believe you will come to know more than you safely should.”
“It’s always possible, of course. The truth is, a clergyman can often make quite good guesses about what’s going on in his parish. And he’s often privy to confidences—never mind what he’s told in the confessional. But in that confessional, he may learn the whole story. A husband is unfaithful to his wife, a clerk has cheated his employer, someone has spread a lie that hurt others, a child was not fathered by the man who believes it’s his. That’s the reason the words uttered in the confessional are a sacred trust. It must be a place where a person tells the truth and unburdens his soul before God. We believe in this sacrament, and we protect it with our silence. Father James wouldn’t have broken that vow.”
“And if a man or a woman tells the priest something, and later regrets that confidence?”
“He or she may regret having spoken. But God knew long before he or she stepped into the confessional. And the priest is sworn to silence.”
“That’s not always the practical answer,” Rutledge told him.
Monsignor Holston removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “No, it isn’t. The practical answer is, that man or that woman may simply move to another parish, leaving behind the priest who knows the truth and finding another one who will accept this newest member of his flock at face value. One doesn’t murder the priest for the secrets of the confessional. It would have changed the face of the Church hundreds of years ago if that had become the common practice.” He restored his glasses to their proper place, settling them into the deep indentations on either side of his nose, then tried to smile. And failed. “Were you told that Father James was a chaplain in the first two years of the War, until he was sent home with severe dysentery in 1917? Who can be sure that the truth doesn’t lie there? In the War?” Monsignor Holston turned his head again to look out at the garden, as if he half expected to find the answer he wanted in the grassy paths and the shrubbery. Or half expected to find someone standing there.
Hamish said, “He fidgets like a man with an uneasy conscience!”
Rutledge answered silently, “Uneasy? Or uncertain?” Aloud he said, “In that event, I see no reason why you should feel that you’re in any particular danger.”
Monsignor Holston turned from the window to Rutledge. “I have told you. It’s primitive—the hair rising on the back of my neck in a dark corner of my church, or coming down the passage here in the house when it’s late and I’m alone. Sitting in a lighted room when the windows are dark and the drapes haven’t been drawn, and looking up suddenly to see if someone is out there, staring in at me. It isn’t real, it’s all imagination. And I’m not by nature easily frightened. Now I am.”
“Did you serve with the same units that Father James did?”
“I never went to France. I worked among the wounded here in England as they were being sorted out when the ships came in. Most of them were in too much pain to do more than accept a cigarette and a little compassion, some reassurance that God was still watching over them.” Monsignor Holston