XVI
Confession went by as pointlessly and annoyingly as always. It really was his least favorite part of being a priest. It wasn't even the way people complained about the most pointless worries, but rather the deep and personal fear that these poor people felt from the smallest things. Canon law and priests who were much more devout that Lucien had drummed into them that their sins were all equally terrible so that a man confessing adultery got as upset as a woman confessing envy, and a young boy confessing to stealing a chocolate bar from the store begged for forgiveness as though he'd murdered someone. And Lucien hated to hear the pain and torment they experienced. In his less charitable days, he resented their pettiness, for none of them had ever known true pain. They had nothing to complain about.
But today he was able to get through it without much bother. He prayed with the people who needed him and brought comfort to all who crossed the church's threshold. That was what he was supposed to do. Never mind that a monkey with a phonograph could have probably done just as well.
Lucien was glad to leave as soon as he was able. He had told Mrs. Beazley that they would talk when he returned, and they would. As he walked across the grounds to the rectory, he mulled over what he wanted to tell her. How much he wanted to tell her. Now that he was fully sober and the shock of it all had dissipated, he really did want to be able to tell his story. Not all of it, of course. She had proven that him shouting and firing her would not be enough to make her go, but he felt that his whole story might well be enough for her to see that her assistance and care was in vain. And selfishly, Lucien did not want her to go. She had shown him a possibility of a life where he was not so horribly alone. And who was it that said that a burden shared is a burden halved? Oh probably somewhere in the bible. He really should know that. Ah well.
She was waiting there when he went inside. She opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it, changing her mind.
"What?" he asked, noticing her strange reticence. Perhaps she was uncomfortable, but she had, just that morning, scolded him something terrible. What could the problem be now?
"Oh, I was going to ask you how your day went, but that seemed a bit odd to ask," she replied.
He hummed in agreement. Yes, that might have been odd. For Mrs. Beazley to ask him about his day in the manner a wife might ask her husband when he got home from work. Certainly an odd prospect for a widow and a priest.
"You look significantly more sober than you started out," she ventured.
"Yes, all better on that front."
She nodded in approval. "Tea?" she offered.
"No, I think I need something a bit stronger. I don't imagine we'll be able to talk about much if all I have is tea." He moved past her to the cabinet to get a bottle and a glass.
Mrs. Beazley furrowed her brow at him. "Have you got anything besides scotch?"
He turned back to her quizzically.
"I think I might need something stronger than tea as well," she admitted with a wry smile.
Lucien chuckled lightly and turned back to the cabinet. "I've got some sherry here, how about that?"
She nodded. "Perfect. I like sherry."
He found a glass for her and poured each of them their respective drinks. He handed her the sherry and gestured to the sofa. He took his scotch and sat across from her in the armchair. After a fortifying sip, he began. "I want to start out, Mrs. Beazley, by apologizing and then explaining."
"Alright," she allowed.
"First, I'm sorry I yelled at you as I did. None of it was warranted or really directed at you in the least. Both yesterday and this morning, I overreacted and I am truly sorry."
All she did was nod in acceptance.
"You see, you've told me a bit about the doctor you worked for. That he was a good man, good to you, kind, and so on. And then finding out you were talking about my father was quite a shock."
"But why?" she interrupted.
He gave a rueful sort of smile. "The memories I have of my father do not fall in line with the Doctor Blake you've known. He might have been that way once," Lucien recalled. "Actually, I know he was. When I was very small, when my mother was still alive. He was gentle. I remember him being strict and formal a lot of the time, but he would bend to her always, and even if I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, he would gently guide me to the correct path."
"That sounds like him," she said with an affectionate nod.
"Did he ever tell you much about my mother?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Very little. I know her name was Genevieve and she was an artist."
"Yes," he confirmed. "She was French. He met her when he took a European tour when he had just finished medical school. They fell madly in love, as far as I knew, and she came with him back to Australia. I remember she used to sing to me in French. He would play the piano and she would hold me on her lap and sing. I remember how he used to look at her, like the sun and moon and stars shone inside her."
"How beautiful," Mrs. Beazley commented.
Lucien sighed, "Well, then my mother died and the grief changed him. I know now that's what it was, but at the time I was ten years old and I didn't understand why my father suddenly seemed to hate me. He would slam doors and shout at me to get away from his office, and he sent me away to boarding school two weeks after her funeral. And that was how things stayed between us. He was never gentle with me ever again. I was a constant disappointment, and he told me as often as he could. Didn't do well enough in school, wasn't dedicated to my studies or to my music. I'm actually surprised I didn't rebel even more than I did. But in the end, I did what he wanted me to for two reasons, the first being that I genuinely wanted to do it and the second being that it was the only way at the time to guarantee I'd never have to go back to Ballarat ever again."
She frowned in slight confusion. "What did you do?"
"I was a doctor."
"You were!?"
"I was. I was fascinated by Dad's work when I was a child. That's usually what I would get yelled at for, actually, was going into his study and borrowing his medical books. I wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to heal people and save lives."
"In a way, that's what you ended up doing."
Lucien recalled a conversation they'd had when they'd just met, about a doctor and a priest doing much the same thing when it came right down to it. "Yes," he agreed. "But that came much later. I went to Edinburgh for medical school. Traveled all around Europe as much as I could. And when I finished school and got my degree, I was expected to return to Ballarat, I'm sure. But I couldn't bear it. After all the things I'd seen and everything I'd done, it felt like going backwards to return to Australia at all. I did, in the end. I went back to Melbourne and that's where I joined the army."
"Oh!"
He nearly started to laugh. The surprise in her voice. How many people would that shock, he wondered? How many people in the parish would never guess that Father Blake had been Doctor Blake and Major Blake long before joining the priesthood? Mrs. Beazley certainly seemed one of them.
"Why did you join the army?"
"It was a good excuse to keep away. And it gave me a purpose and a structure to life. I could see the world and do good. That's what I thought, at any rate. After I was made a Major, I was stationed in Singapore, and that's where I lived and worked for six years before it fell to the Japanese."
Mrs. Beazley gasped slightly. Perhaps he should not have spoken of it in such a casual tone. But it was the only way he could say it. He'd not said it aloud in so very long. To give it the weight and gravity it deserved was a means of preservation.
He swallowed down the rest of the whiskey in his glass. "I was captured and held in a prisoner of war camp for three years. And when I was released, I went to the seminary."
"That's quite a change." The question was evident in her tone, though she did not actually ask it.
"Yes, it was," he answered. "But I think it's getting a bit late. You need to be getting home, Mrs. Beazley. I've kept you here long enough already." Lucien stood up and gestured to her.
Mrs. Beazley stood up, being far too polite and courteous to overstay her welcome under the circumstances. She put her empty sherry glass on the table. "Are you sure you don't want me to make you some supper?" she asked.
He smiled. "That's very kind of you, but I'm quite alright. You head home and have some supper of your own."
"Alright," she conceded. "But I'll see you tomorrow?"
"I don't think I've got a choice, do I?" he teased.
"No, you don't," she replied with a teasing smile of her own.
"Catechism tomorrow afternoon, if you're able to stay and assist."
She nodded. "Of course."
"Good. Thank you, Mrs. Beazley."
And just before she walked out the door, she paused to look at him with an expression he could not quite decipher. "Thank you, Father," she said softly. Her hand gently touched his arm, but after a fraction of a second, she removed it. And she was gone into the evening air.
