An All-Consuming Fire (24 page)

“But what if I meet someone?”

“One of you gives way.” Antony had a sneaking suspicion that ‘someone’ would not be Cynthia. But as they continued on northward with the bare branches of trees interlocking overhead and heavy clouds looming beyond, Antony did appreciate Cynthia’s steady driving. The last half mile down a country lane which was, indeed, barely more than a footpath, brought them to a carpark below terraced gardens which in the summer would have been dripping with colorful flowers and beyond that a fine golden stone house with a red tile roof.

Antony was barely out of the car when he was given an enthusiastic welcome by a handsome Golden Retriever, her freshly-brushed amber coat glowing as if the sun were shining on it. “Hullo, Zoe.” He hardly needed to stoop to pet her silky head. “Good girl. Everything ready to go today, is it?” Zoe led the way to the front of the house where her mistress had the crew assembled for today’s shooting.

Still filling in for Tara, who had not been replaced, Sylvia saw to Antony’s make-up, then turned him over to Harry. “I’ll catch you later, love,” Sylvia told her husband. “I’m going to take Zoe walkies.” Antony noted Cynthia joined the other woman as they set off toward the woods.

Antony started forward as Fred, with Ginger dancing on her dolly, followed smoothly behind him. Antony walked along the wide graveled path and stopped in front of the seventeenth century manor house. “Today we’re at Mount Grace Priory, a Carthusian monastery on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, the last monastery established in Yorkshire before the Reformation. This is very much like the monastery the author of
The Cloud of Unknowing
would have lived and worked in. Beautiful in its peace and simplicity, it was built at a time when piety and strict living were valued. A perfect setting to give rise to the mysticism of the Cloud author.”

Feeling more like a tour guide than the priestly scholar of his job description, Antony supplied their future viewing audience with historical background. “Like so many similar establishments, this was bought after the Dissolution for farm land and the priory was left to decay. The owner rebuilt the former guesthouse using stones from the abandoned priory. At the end of the nineteenth century a London barrister inherited the property and encouraged excavation on his land.

“Sir William St. John Hope, the leading monastic scholar of the day, was brought in to head the excavation and he uncovered the most complete Carthusian priory in England. This was a find of international importance.” Antony turned from facing the camera and walked to the end of the house where a Gatehouse led through the precinct wall to a vast green sweep of lawn. “Typical of Carthusian monasteries Mount Grace is divided into two large spaces inside the precinct wall. On this side we have the Inner Court where the workday services of the priory—granary, kiln, stables—went on, mostly conducted by lay brothers.” He pointed to the jigsaw puzzle of broken foundations of these buildings as he crossed the grass to the remains of the simple church which stood in the center of the property, dividing the two spaces.

“Like most Carthusian churches, this one, built during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is small and quite plain. This reflects the size of the community and the little time the monks spent here. Of the twelve periods of prayer Carthusians observed each day between eleven o’clock at night and six o’clock the next evening, only three of the offices would occur in church. The others were said privately in their cells, punctuated with periods of study, writing and work in their gardens.” Antony walked on into the Great Cloister, knowing that further shots of the bell tower and interior of the church would be edited in according to Harry’s instruction.

Ginger’s bright eye swept the perfect lawn before them. “This cloister is far larger than you will find in most monasteries because they needed room for each of the monk’s individual cells to be built around it. Carthusians were hermit monks who lived primarily in their cells.”

Antony started to cross the grass when Harry barked, “Cut. We’ll do that later, Father. Need to see to our special guest. Busy man, can’t be left to cool his heels.”

The way Harry spoke Antony was half expecting a member of the royal family. He turned to Sylvia, who had returned from walking Zoe. “Sylvia achieved quite a coup—landed Dr. Samuel Dedinder, our Sylvie did.”

Sylvia gave an appropriately self-deprecating smile. “It happened that he was staying with a friend in Yorkshire, so he agreed. I think he has a new book coming out, so his agent thought it would be good publicity.” She added in something of an aside to Antony, “Harry was so pleased not to have to take a crew to London for the interview. Budgets, you know.”

Samuel Dedinder, Antony was impressed. Sylvia had snagged a coup indeed. Yet Antony was puzzled. Dedinder was a well-known psychiatrist who had built much of his notoriety on writing about emotion and religious experience of all stripes. And deriding it. What would he make of the mystics? Why would Harry want a naysayer for his series?

Antony followed along to the back of the church through the Gothic arch under the bell tower. Here the lawn ran up to the broken wall beneath the green wooded hillside which sheltered the priory and provided much of the sense of serenity. And standing in the center was one of the most remarkable pieces of sculpture Antony had ever seen. He wished Felicity were here now to enjoy it with him. He would definitely bring her another time. Maybe in March when the hillside would be covered with delicate white snowdrops.

He turned now to the Madonna of the Cross. In the act of dedicating her child to the purpose of the Creator, a tall, slim Mary, her head thrown back, held her swaddled infant at chest level, arms raised, elbows bent, forming a perfect cross. Harry placed his star interviewee in front of the statue and Joy Wilkins, swathed in a Marian blue scarf, asked their celebrity to define mysticism.

Looking dapper in his tweed overcoat with a leather collar, his blond hair waving across his forehead, the psychiatrist wrinkled his long, aristocratic nose. “I can do no better than William James says in his classic work
The Varieties of Religious Experience
. First, a mystical experience is ineffable—it defies expression in words. It must be directly experienced. James says one must have musical ears to know the value of a symphony; one must have been in love one’s self to understand a lover’s state of mind. Lacking the heart or ear, we cannot interpret the musician or the lover justly, and are even likely to consider him weak-minded or absurd.” Here he gave a smile that conveyed sympathy to his viewers who might share that opinion.

“Secondly, James points to the nonetic aspect of a mystical experience. The mystic sees his or her experience as revealing states of knowledge—insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain.”

“So, Doctor Dedinder,” Joy turned to her subject, “if mystical experiences are inexpressible, what is their value?”

“James, as have I, studied mysticism in many religions: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, as well as Christianity. He also looked at experiences beyond those of the writers we normally label mystics, such as Luther, Newman and Tennyson.” Dedinder turned to his interviewer. “I am certain you will be struck, as I was, by his conclusion that, and I quote, ‘The Anaesthetic Revelation is the Initiation of Man into the Immemorial Mystery of the Open Secret of Being, revealed as the Inevitable Vortex of Continuity. End, beginning, or purpose, it knows not of’.”

Joy looked as stunned as Antony felt. He had the impression it was all she could do to keep from shaking her head. “Um, yes. I wonder, would you care to put that into simpler words?”

“Yes, indeed, Joy. I believe that what James is saying is that the mystical experience is its own event. It affords no particular of the multiplicity and variety of things; but it fills appreciation of the historical and the sacred with a secular and intimately personal illumination of the nature and motive of existence, which then seems reminiscent as if it should have appeared, or shall yet appear, to every participant thereof.”

Antony despaired. After all his effort to make mysticism accessible and understandable to the casual viewer. People didn’t need complicated theology. They needed a simple invitation to peace, to quiet, to God. Come and see. That was enough.

Antony turned to look at Harry. His ashen face made his black beard stand out sharply and Antony sensed he would like to be pulling his hair. Surely, Sylvia couldn’t have known what she was doing when she lined Dedinder up to interview. Harry made a frantic circling motion at Joy which meant wind it up.

“And what conclusions have you reached after your study of mysticism, Doctor?”

Dedinder smoothed the lapels of his coat. “Again, I must agree with James. To the medical mind these ecstasies signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states, on an intellectual basis of superstition, and a corporeal one of degeneration and hysteria.” Perhaps Dedinder read in Joy’s appalled look the fact that he had gone too far, so he continued quickly. “The great thing mysticism has to offer is optimism.

“And I would hasten to add, an approach to the Divine. This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition.”

Now Joy showed she had done her homework. “And didn’t James say of the mystics that, ‘Perpetually telling of the unity of man with God, their speech antedates languages, and they do not grow old.’” Antony felt like he could have hugged her.

Dedinder drew himself to full height. “James, rather grudgingly, one feels, concludes that ‘The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left, whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed.’ He then emphasizes that ‘mystics have no right to claim that we ought to accept the deliverance of their peculiar experiences.’”

“So the value of mysticism, you would say, lies in its optimism and in bringing the individual closer to God.” Joy, who was obviously struggling to rescue the interview, did not wait for an answer. “Worthy goals, one might say, which could serve as beacons for other seekers to follow. Thank you, Dr. Dedinder.”

He gave a gleaming smile for the camera and graciously accepted her thanks.

Harry rushed up to shake his guest’s hand. “Fine. Fine job. Thank you so much. Will add some real gravitas to our little project. So appreciate your taking time to come by.”

Antony was puzzled. Did Harry Forslund really think those indecipherable speeches would help him sell the series to a major distributor? He must be banking heavily on the celebrity value of the Dedinder name.

“Ah, I see your host has returned for you. Good timing, that.” Harry waved with vigor to a Barbour-clad figure striding across the courtyard.

Antony started to turn away, then blinked. He recognized that man. Stanton Alnderby was Samuel Dedinder’s host? An old friend, Harry had said. That could explain much. If Corin’s father was perhaps overawed by the supercilious esteemed psychiatrist it was little wonder he had withdrawn his support of his son’s work in a monastery. Perhaps Corin himself had told his father’s guest of his studies. It was likely the ordinand’s enthusiasm for the pageant bubbled over. Undoubtedly Dedinder would have belittled the calling of which Corin’s father already disapproved.

As Alnderby and Dedinder strode toward the gatehouse Joy turned to the director. “Harry, I’m sorry. What a fiasco. I did try.”

Far from being upset, Harry threw back his head and gave a shout of his bracing laughter. “It was fine. Absolutely fine. No worries. Sylvia is a genius in the editing room. His own mother won’t recognize that interview when Sylvie’s through with it. Name and face recognition. That’s the celebrity game. No one expects toffs to make sense.”

He turned to his crew. “Right, boys and girls. Break. You’ve earned it. Our lovely Gill,” he waved vaguely in the direction of the Outer Court where the catering van was parked, “is sure to have a tasty treat ready for you all.”

Antony could only admire Harry’s buoyancy. To Antony’s mind the morning had been a disaster and the director’s earlier expression had indicated he felt the same. But it seemed that nothing got Harry down. Antony thought again of Felicity’s questioning whether the Studio Six company might be in financial difficulties—so deep in trouble that Harry could be tempted to an insurance scam of some sort to rescue the company? Seeing Harry’s dauntless optimism just now made it seem more impossible than ever to imagine.

Or was Harry as good an actor as some of the thespians he directed?

Antony joined Cynthia, who was already enjoying her lamb curry, at the catering van. “Nice walk this morning?” He asked, letting the steam rise from his beef and mushroom risotto.

“Mmm,” she nodded, then swallowed. “Lovely overview of the monastery grounds from the hillside above the wall. Sylvia had to get back for the filming, but Zoe and I wandered all around. I think I quite wore the poor creature out.”

Antony barely had time to finish the crusty bread that accompanied his risotto when he was called to a conference with Harry and Fred to discuss camera angles for the interior of the reconstructed cell they would be filming next.

A short time later Antony, at Harry’s direction, paused halfway across the Great Cloister to point out what would have been the site of the water tower. “One of the most outstanding aspects of a Carthusian monastery, universal to all Charterhouses, was the provision of good drains and clean drinking water. Mount Grace had a very advanced plumbing system. Three spring houses on the hillside above the priory kept the water tower filled. From here drinking water was piped to each cell by lead pipes. Each cell also had a latrine set over a channel flushed by running water.” Antony pointed out the remains of the elaborate plumbing system for the benefit of the camera then moved on across the green.