“My wife, Clarice, is taken ill,” said Adam. “Her fever will not abate and she grows weaker by the hour. She is with child and I fear by the time I return home this evening I shall have lost two whom I love.”
“Have you prayed at the shrine of Ewolda?” asked the dean. One reason for the reconstruction of the quire was to provide a grander entrance to the shrine of the cathedral’s founder. Many miracles of healing had been attributed to Ewolda’s shrine, and she seemed to smile especially on women.
“Every day for three days,” said Adam. “But blessed Ewolda hears me not. The fever only worsens.”
“It grieves me to see you in such distress,” said the dean. “There is perhaps something I can do to help. I shall return anon.”
A few minutes later, the dean returned, carrying what looked like an ancient cup of wood. The cup was brimming with fresh, clear water. “Show me to your wife,” he said.
Adam laid aside his tools, removed his apron, and led the way through the muddy streets of Barchester to a small cottage on the edge of town. He did not remove his boots or think to apologize to the dean for the meagerness of his hospitality, so great was his urgency to avail himself of whatever help his friend might provide. In an instant, the dean was kneeling at Clarice’s bedside. Her face seemed almost translucent and her shallow breaths came at irregular intervals. She raised her eyes to Adam in question but did not speak.
“Drink of this,” said the dean, holding the cup to her lips. Adam watched as Clarice sipped from the cup. She swallowed and drank more. Soon the cup was empty and directly Clarice fell into a slumber. “Stay with her,” said the dean. “Your work will wait a day.”
The following day Adam found the dean in the Lady Chapel. “I owe you all that I have, sir,” he said. “For my precious Clarice has been brought back from the very brink of death. Her fever has broken and color returns to her cheeks.”
“I am pleased,” said the dean.
Adam desired more than anything to ask the dean about the miraculous cup of healing. Whence had it come? Was it some relic of Ewolda known only to the dean? He dared not ask, but the dean must have seen the curiosity in Adam’s eyes.
“There are secrets at Barchester,” said the dean, “that must remain secret.”
“I understand, Father,” said Adam, though he did not.
Two months later, Adam’s first son was born, joining two healthy daughters. He had brought the good news to the dean and had, on that day, asked permission to carve two misericords—one a portrait of his wife, and the other a simple cup. “I shall not carve it as it truly appears,” said Adam. “No one will know it is aught other than a Communion chalice.”
The dean had given his consent, and Adam had already completed the carving of the cup. He wanted to give thanks for the miracle of his wife’s salvation—a thanks that someone might one day understand. So he did not place a cross on the cup, as would have been usual for a Communion chalice. That small omission, he thought, might at least hint to some future monk that a woodcarver was grateful for the miracle of the cup of Barchester.
Now he turned his attention to his wife’s portrait and began to search within the wood for her beautiful eyes.
—
Dean Henry de Beaumont stood in the cloister waiting for the head stonemason to climb down from his scaffolding. He had been happy to grant Adam Lyngwode permission to carve an image of his wife on a misericord—after all, no one ever saw a misericord. The roof bosses in the cloister were another matter, however. Since the roof here was only twice the height of a man, the bosses would be among the most visible carved images in the monastic complex, seen by the brothers every day. The dean had an idea about what the four most prominent bosses should depict.
Over the past two years, Henry had become close friends with Peter of Amesbury, prior of the nearby Priory of St. Ewolda. Henry and Peter understood the close links between Barchester Cathedral and St. Ewolda’s, and each year, on the feast day of that saint, they held a joint service at the cathedral, during which Peter recounted the story of Ewolda’s life. Henry’s idea about the cloister bosses had been inspired by a monk’s reaction to hearing the Ewolda story. Without permission, this monk had drawn a picture of Ewolda in the priory’s service book, next to the service used on her feast day. Peter had been displeased at the defacement, but it made Henry wonder if Ewolda’s story might be recorded in some way in the cathedral. He had gone to Peter with his idea, and the prior had approved.
So Henry de Beaumont instructed his stonemason to create four roof bosses in the four corners of the cloister depicting the life of St. Ewolda. Henry did not live to see the bosses completed, but almost eight hundred years later, they would still be there, silently paying tribute to the life of the founder.
May 4, 2016
FEAST OF THE ENGLISH SAINTS AND MARTYRS OF THE REFORMATION ERA
“Is it true,” said Miss Stanhope as they were settling down for Wednesday afternoon’s tutorial, “that one of Jesse Johnson’s minions is working at the cathedral?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Stanhope,” said Arthur, “but as usual I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Jesse Johnson? The American industrialist? He’s been doing all the chat shows. How have you not seen him?”
“Reading your papers, Miss Stanhope, takes up the time I have normally reserved for chat shows.”
“I hear he has, like, a billion dollars from some sort of computer chip,” said Mr. Crawley.
“And how exactly does this relate to today’s discussion of religion in early-nineteenth-century fiction?” asked Arthur.
“The guy is a religious fanatic,” chimed in Miss Robarts. “I mean real crackpot stuff. He believes everything in the Bible and I mean everything—two aardvarks on Noah’s ark, plagues of locusts in Egypt, the snake feeding Eve an apple.”
“It’s called fundamentalism, and that concept is actually not a bad place to begin our discussion. Now if—”
“Yeah, but this guy doesn’t just believe it,” said Mr. Crawley. “He wants to take his billion dollars and prove it.”
“He’s building this huge museum in America,” said Miss Stanhope. “And he has people all over the world looking for biblical artifacts he can put into it. Like if people don’t believe the Bible they’re going to be convinced by an old rock.”
“He’s after more than rocks,” said Mr. Crawley. “He has oceanographers doing sonar mapping of the Red Sea looking for Pharaoh’s chariots that got washed away by Moses. He’s got archaeologists looking for pieces of Noah’s ark. The whole thing is very Indiana Jones.”