Fludd by Hilary Mantel

Author:Hilary Mantel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

She hoped the warmth would follow them, out into the evening; but Fludd had become cold and silent, and the hand he offered to steady her over the rough ground hardly seemed to be the hand of a human being, so spare and chilly was the flesh. The wind rushed the clouds across the chimneys of Fetherhoughton, down below them; she looked up at the black wild jut of moorland, and felt suddenly sobered and afraid.

She let the priest—the man—tow her along; he seemed to know the way, although he was a stranger to the district, and if he had walked the allotments in the daylight it could not have been more than a half a dozen times. He turned without faltering on to the convent path. He must eat a lot of carrots, she thought; can see in the dark.

“The stile,” Fludd said. “Just ahead of us now. Can you manage?”

They reached it; he mounted first. Philomena was half over, putting out her long leg in its thick fuzzy stocking. A shape materialized from, it seemed, the ditch.

“Good evening,” Fludd said. “Mr. McEvoy, isn’t it?”

She imagined, though she could not see, that the parishioner gave him a look: as if to say, yes, young fellow, you will learn who I am. But when McEvoy approached, and took out a pocket torch, and shone it, his face wore its normal expression, amiable but knowing.

“Taking my constitutional,” he explained.

“In the dark?”

“It is my habit,” said McEvoy. “I seem, Father, better equipped than you and Sister Philomena, although by venturing the observation I mean no breath of criticism. Would you care to borrow my pocket torch?”

“Father Fludd can see in the dark,” she said.

“Handy,” said McEvoy. His tone was sardonic. His torch beam travelled downwards; it came to rest on her leg, and slithered over it, as if her stocking had fallen down.

“Come, Sister,” Fludd said. “Don’t stick there. Hop over.” He held out his hand; but the tobacconist was there before him, courtly but insistent. “I should never like to see a Sister struggle,” McEvoy said. “You will find me always at your service, a strong arm and a willing heart.”

He seemed to know it was effusive, uncalled-for; backed away under Fludd’s sharp look, and then touched his cap. His exit was as sudden as his entrance: sucked away into the murk.

She shuddered. “Father Angwin says he is the devil.”

Fludd was surprised. “McEvoy? Why, but he’s a harmless man.”

She felt the distance between them increase; a shaft of cold, as he moved from her side.

“Has Father Angwin never spoken to you of it? Of meeting him one afternoon?”

“Yes. He has spoken of something of that kind. But he did not say the man’s name.”

“I don’t know why he thinks it. I saw the devil myself when I was seven. He was nothing like McEvoy.”

“Seven,” Fludd said. “The age of reason. What was he like?”

“A beast. A great rough thing. Breathing outside my bedroom door.”

“You were a brave girl to open it.”

“Oh, I knew I must.

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