What Manner of Man: Chapter 3 🦇

What is a priest if not a man who likes to spend a lot of time on his knees?

JOURNAL ENTRY 

Dated February 17, 1950.

Oh St Aloysius, patron saint of purity and chastity — commend me to my Lord, Jesus Christ, and to His most Holy Mother, the Virgin of virgins. The dream that torments me came again tonight. Always it begins the same — it is Sunday Mass and I am the priest celebrant. One among the faithful incessantly draws my eye; he sits alone in an empty part of the nave, his face in shadow — all but his entrancing eyes, bright and red as living flame. 

As I elevate the Host, I feel stripped bare under his intense, piercing gaze. How those eyes burn into me! They seem to penetrate at once to the innermost recesses of my heart. I know with all the certainty of which I am capable that those eyes perceive my every frailty, every moment of weakness — all of my most deeply-buried secrets, uncovered at a glance.

Then, without transition, I find myself standing before the altar in the act of distributing the Host. My body burns as with a fever at his approach and I tremble as he kneels before me, fearing my own knees will give way.

The sensations I experience as I place the Host on his tongue — while, with his eyes, he — are such that I mustn’t — I cannot bear to write them here. God forgive me — I writhe in an agony of shame merely at the memory of it. 

LETTER TO VERA ARDELIAN

Dated February 18, 1950. 

Dearest Sister,

The island of Swallow’s Rest is so little distance across, it is hardly surprising that no one in the village owns a motor-car — what with the considerable difficulty and expense of importing one to such a place. That said, it does pose something of a problem when it comes to the question of how I am to make the journey from here to Whithern Hall. 

The distance is simply too far for me to travel on foot with the added weight of my bags. I have been offered the loan of a bicycle, but the road that connects St Silvan’s Head with the manor is in such a poor state of repair, I’m told, that there’s little hope of my making it without at least one punctured tire. Fine thing that would be — stranded, stumbling over the frozen, stony ground, in exactly the same position as if I’d set off on foot but with the additional burden of a useless bicycle. 

So, for the time being, I have stayed. After all, it cannot but be useful for me to spend some time among these people. For all that I know, a demon may be at work in their midst — though I have so far seen no sign of it. (Except, perhaps, that I have had persistent nightmares since coming here.)

I was prepared to discover great poverty and loneliness here, but, to the contrary, the inhabitants of St Silvan’s Head seem to have found prosperity and peace in their stray fragment of the world. They maintain themselves quite well, it seems, by sea-fishing and, to a lesser extent, by tilling the soil. There are no horses in the village — though I gather there is a stable at Whithern Hall — and the few ploughs are drawn in the old-fashioned way, by pairs of oxen.

I have been keeping myself busy by exploring the area of the village a little and doing what I can to make myself useful around the house. Sylvia’s garden yields a good crop of black oats, turnips, and potatoes, and I have been learning much as I help her prepare for the planting season. 

I had thought it odd, speaking of which, that a cat so un-turnip-like in appearance should be named Turnip; but, as I was peeling and cubing a dish of those vegetables today, I made the mistake of turning my back on my work. Well, I soon found out the reason for it. Luckily Sylvia was on hand to rescue the produce. (Turnip and I are great friends and I shall miss him when I leave this place, whether with Lord Vane or otherwise.)

Of course I’m deeply grateful to both Danny and Sylvia, who have treated me with the utmost hospitality within their modest means. (Isn’t it lucky that I have always been partial to herring?) I have been charmed by them both; Danny is as forthright and honest as Sylvia is mysterious and wise. One might almost imagine them as husband and wife, for each day Sylvia tends to the work of the house and garden while Danny goes out on the trawlers with the fishermen. They even seem to share a bedchamber — probably due to the lack of spare rooms in their small cottage. I believe such things are not uncommon among spinster ladies.

I long to trust them, yet I have my reservations about Sylvia. One cannot escape the sense that she occupies some position of importance in the life of St Silvan’s Head, and yet it is never directly alluded to. Time and again I have come upon people in conversation with her, only for them to stop speaking abruptly at my approach.

St Silvan’s Head — a funny name, since, to my knowledge, St Silvan is a marginal figure at best, and one mainly revered in Eastern Europe. I suspect the name to be a corruption of something far older. 

It’s a queer place in many regards, and the inhabitants are no exception. They truly seem to know next to nothing about what goes on in the outside world. Strangest of all, almost none of the villagers seem to quite register the significance of my cassock or collar. Furthermore they are oddly incurious; I get nothing but polite, disinterested smiles whenever I attempt to talk to them of matters beyond their immediate surroundings.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Several lines of text are missing at this point. The following was recovered from impressions on the page: “They have no church, and yet, in some manner I have not been able to identify, seem to me a deeply religious people. Could it be that these —”

Which isn’t to say they lack all curiosity about me! I have met with a general indifference about where I am from, but all the interest in the world in what I am doing here. When Sylvia explained to one nosy soul that I was a holy man on a spiritual mission — an answer I have since begun to default to — their reception was an immediate and intuitive understanding. I honestly don’t know what to make of it all.

I begin to see what Silas meant when he said that the people who live here tend to give one the feeling that they all share in some great secret. Certainly they all have peculiarly knowing, mysterious smiles.

Hoping this finds you well, my dear Vera.

Yours in Christ,
Fr Victor Ardelian

JOURNAL ENTRY 

Dated February 20, 1950.

This place would have been a dream come true in my younger days, back when I used to playact at being an archaeologist. Men have evidently lived on Swallow’s Rest since at least the 4th century BC and the hills and fields that surround the village are virtually dotted with standing stones. One need only bend and scoop a handful of the sandy soil to unearth ancient coins. 

From a nearby hilltop, hardly a stone’s throw from where I’m now standing, one can clearly see a crop of stones that, even at a glance, surely mark the remains of some open-air shrine. There is even an altar stone, in exactly the correct place. Could one but spend a year, a month, studying this place — but, no. I mustn’t allow myself to dwell on it. For years, now, my delvings into the past have been strictly limited to the confines of books — and there they must remain.

I know that it is, so to speak, a fascination with teeth — my interest in these dark and cryptic things that lurk on the borderlands of the allowable. There are consequences to staring too hard into the shadowed places. Often I have found myself reaching instinctively for, not my crucifix, but my ring, in hopes that memories of my past can be like a cleansing fire, driving the darkness out. I am not the man that I was — I am a servant of God. Never again can I allow myself to stray so far from His light, for I know to what end that path inevitably leads.

JOURNAL ENTRY 

Dated February 21, 1950.

God help me, how I wish there was another priest here to whom I could make confession.

A day of unseasonably mild weather tempted me to the gentle exercise of a walk along a winding hillside path that overlooks the eastern shoreline. At first it was peaceful — all alone with the pale sky and the glittering sea, the sun warm on my skin. Before long, however, I began to feel the chill of the wind blowing in off the water. Up ahead, a shelf of white stone jutted out from a part of the hillside that was relatively free of gorse and broom. I thought it looked a likely place to take shelter for a moment from the wind.

Unfortunately, as I discovered to my cost, I wasn’t alone in having this idea. Rounding the side of the stone, I was confronted with that which I seem to see before me still — every time I close my eyes.

There, on a woolen picnic-blanket, with a bottle and the remains of a meal set to one side of them, were two of the muscular young fishermen. The wind and the sea must have drowned out the sounds which would otherwise have warned me of their presence.

How am I to describe —? They were in sin together, one knelt before the other. 

Danny caught me off-guard in a moment when I was still visibly shaken by this experience. I told her what I’d seen almost without thinking — but she only laughed!

“Sounds like you caught Roderick and Duncan taking afternoon tea together.” She seemed to find it no more interesting than if I had told her that I had seen them playing checkers. 

In such a remote place as this, can criminal practices of this kind have been allowed to flourish unchecked? I feel myself in great spiritual danger here. I wish I could stop thinking of it. It is crucial that I keep my heart and mind pure in order to be able to perform the exorcism ritual, should a demon actually be present.

With the absolution of confession unavailable to me, I have prayed with all the passion of one whose soul is at stake. I have in my possession an ornately-carved antique crucifix and this I have place above the head of my sleeping-place. I kneel, gazing upon Him; Christ our Lord, beautiful and resplendent in His suffering. Looking at His lean form — free, in his perfection, from earthly hungers and impure desires — I find strength and comfort. 

In imagination I see Him embracing me, protecting me from the lusts that assail my all-too-human body. My heart yearns to be holy and pure; to be blissfully one with Him in angelic grace. While I know that I am unworthy, I still torture myself with wishing for that heavenly consummation; to kneel before Him, His hands touching my face, bringing me ecstatic absolution. 

Oh Lord, I open my mouth and pant, longing for thy commandments. Look upon me, be merciful to me, preserve me from every grievous sin. Deliver me from this so that I may keep thy precepts. Oh, my Lord, I beg — make thy face to shine upon thy servant. Inflame me with divine love and fill me with the holy fear of God —

— But, no, I am nothing. These thoughts tend towards the sin of pride, and I must humble myself in the sight of the Lord in order that He may lift me up. I am alone in the wilderness; I cannot fail now.

I begin to fear that there is a demon in this place after all, one whose sinister influence over me is growing nightly in strength. I am troubled by my dreams, and still more by their effect upon me. I cannot see his face, but I see his mouth; his teeth glinting in the dark. Now, more than ever, it is vital that I preserve my faith and honour my vows. He has not yet won my soul, no matter how he makes my earthly body burn with need for him.

I only hope that Lord Vane’s arrival will deliver me from all this.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The schedule of What Manner of Man will be changing slightly beginning next week! We will transition from updating on Tuesdays to updating on Fridays. We can’t bear to keep you waiting, though, so there will be a small update — one containing a much-anticipated event — on Tuesday, February 28th, and then the next full chapter will be sent out Friday, February 3. Thank you for reading!

Impatient for more? Make me and my editor manic with delight by checking out my other novel.

- St John

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