The Darkness Itself

I have long puzzled over this saying of the Master: Take care that the light in thee be not darkness. For if the light in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness itself.

So. The archbishop of Gayland (where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars) has come out in favor of a secular political Proposition whereby marriage would be declared -marvelous to tell!- a matter between one man and one woman.

The Professional Sodomites are outraged. Speaking from the very vestibule of the proudly Gay coven center that some -including His Grace- would call a Catholic church, one such said that he just couldn't understand this latest development. His Grace had been so good on Gay Issues. Now he is lobbing hardballs "straight out of right field." The pious commentator commented further that it seems strange that with all the problems in the world- war, for example- the leaders of the Church should focus on this issue.

Professional Sodomites and their Liberal backers are all psychotic. All sociopaths.

War? They are warring against the minds and souls of little children in the Godless schools. (If you kick out God in the 60s, your punishment is to start getting Satan in the 70s.) They are warring against justices of the peace and caterers and photographers who have no wish to disgrace themselves by taking on Bob and Dave as clients on their special day. They are pushing to stamp out orthodox Christianity, to snuff out the Light of the world, in favor of their stupid and disgusting bad habits of intellect and act.

But just how dishonest is this pious Catholic Professional Sodomite being when he piously asks why an archbishop of a religious cult that still frowns on Sodomy would frown upon rampant and official and politically protected Sodomy in an appropriate social way? It's a Liberal Christian cliche. The real problems in the world are those which the World allows as problems. Funny that the holy apostles Peter and Paul have much to say about sexual vice as the cause of grief in the lives of men and nothing, not one jot, not one tittle, about the evils of war and starvation and Social Injustice. The Master? Again, not a word favorable to the Social Gospel. He did not speak much of sexual vice. (And the children of the Devil blasphemously make much of that fact.) But He saw fit to tighten the ropes as to what constitutes adultery and to prohibit divorce.

And this as His countrymen groaned under the Social Injustice of the Romans!

Was He guilty of having misplaced priorities?

It's all the fault of the Vatican II cult and those who attempt to reconcile that Kingdom of Hell with the Kingdom of Heaven. There are no Fundamentalist Protestant churches that promote Gay Culture. Many if not most New Pentecostalist churches united to Rome promote Gay Culture in some way. Why not? It's incumbent on any thrall of Rome to do so. Rome has stated solemnly that it has Profound Respect for Homosexual Persons. Meaning, not the confused high school kid with a sibilant S, but the Professional Sodomite, the only one who is demanding respect according to the transgressive Revolutionary spirit which is the true god of the Vatican II church.

The silly leader of that wicked cult babbles every now and then about "the hermeneutics of continuity." Continuity, that is, between Light and Darkness, Christ and Belial. In reality, of course, there is none. Imagine a Gay parish in the days when Sister was making girls kneel and measuring the distance between the floor and their exposed leg flesh. "But Society has changed," the apologists for Catholic corruption protest. Nonsense. It was the church of Rome which changed. In the worst possible way. His Grace out in Frisco gives Holy Communion (he thinks) to men with big bushy black mustaches who are a cross-dress between Carmen Miranda and Saint Bernadette. He smiles his dopey Vatican II smile of Openness Even to Risky Experimention in Pastoral Practice and allows obscene shenanigans (Gay fundraisers and jamborees) in a sacred edifice.

I don't know if this particular PS was putting on when he expressed mystification at the interest of his Local Ordinary in supporting a Sodom-unfriendly political move. I'll be breathtakingly original as a right wing pundit and say that my guess is that his mystification is genuine enough. He was pontificating as a Good Catholic in the name of a Gay Catholic parish. He will not be penalized. The Vatican II cult stopped teaching Christianity to its young in the 1960s. What it taught was Liberal bromides and bugaboos and bywords and tall tales. "Sins having to do with the complex field of sexual ethics are not important. They have nothing to do with the oppression of the Migrant Workers in California." Odds are that this particular PS was raised in the 60s or later. Older ones in that town don't live so long.

To be in darkness is bad. But it isn't so bad. There's always the chance that you'll see the light. The most horrible thing that can befall any human being is to have Christian light turn to darkness within him. And that's what Liberal Christianity is all about. The Poor and the Oppressed and the War-Torn become a handy distraction from your own abominations.

The Vatican II cult is a total fake. Its opposition to Sodomy and abortion and other social evils is a total fake. It is always phrased in lame, lukewarm humanistic terms that have nothing of Moses about them, nothing of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, nothing of the Living God of Israel. And nothing of Christ, either Merciful or Judgmental. Everything about the New Pentecostalist cult is upside down and backwards. It has no God. It is a law unto itself. For now it deems it prudent to keep some of the pre-Revolution strictures on its books. It presents opposing Social Sodomy as something that it feels compelled still to because of certain indications from its peculiar faith-tradition.

That's not how the late Reverend Jerry Falwell spoke of it. And that's because , unlike the so-called Catholic Church, Bible-believing Protestant churches are not total fakes.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (III)

Peter is wearing a long black coat.

"You have no coat, your Ladyship?" he asks as they descend.

"I have a blanket in the car. Well, it's a kind of throw. My stepmother knit it for me."

"Lady Laura. Lady Laura knits, one hears. Where are we going to talk?"

"We're talking now."

"True. But there's only one more flight to go. Shall we talk in the vestibule? Our silhouettes visible to the entire world through the frosted glass?"

"Certainly not. I shall sit in the back of my car and roll down my window. You may speak to me in a very low voice from the sidewalk. I shall tell my driver to have a smoke."

"Of course. I might have guessed. But the costumes and the props are all wrong. You should be wearing a crown and sitting in a golden coach. I should be holding my greasy stocking cap in my hands and nervously wringing it as I try to control my pigs."

"It's easy to mock these conventions, Peter. Not so easy to think things through and see the wisdom of them. Appearances matter. I'm a married lady."

"And a lady. A Lady."

"It can't be helped."

"Fine. As long as you don't start quoting the play. "

*

"Warm enough, your Ladyship?" Peter asks.

"Quite warm, thank you. You must be rather chilled. Let's make this short."

He hesitates. He looks at her coyly.

"I've heard that you've become a saint of sorts. A very Victorian saint who's thoroughly Popish even though she hasn't made it all the way to Rome yet."

"That just goes to show what silly things one may hear if one is not careful."

"Saint. Wrong word. Prophetess. Prophetess of doom. You were in Jerusalem of all places, and-"

"I think you know what we need to talk about, Peter. If we're going to talk at all."

"Is that my cue? Come now, Lady Claudia. That's not being discreet. That's being cagey. You barged in and broke up my conversation with Sir Lewis. You suggested that I leave the premises at once."

"Now that you have done so is there any real need to talk about why we did what we did?"

"I got the part. Claudio."

"I was hoping that I would arrive on the scene before you got to that. That was fast work."

"All is not as it might seem."

"Seem to whom? I didn't just walk into this dark little comedy in the middle of the second act."

"I can see so clearly why you might be seeing everything upside down and inside out."

"You think so. Of course you can't exclude the possibility that I've got a broad overview that allows me to see ten times as much as you do. You think that I think that it was as crude a thing as saying, 'Unless you give me this I shall say that.' You're wrong. Just as he-"

She stops.

"He?" Peter demands. "We can't even say his name when we say these things. It's as if we want to be able to swear in court that we never meant him. Riddles and puzzles and charades."

"Just as he has probably never said, 'If you deny me this, I shall deny you that...' And yet..."

"He gets it."

"And you got it too. No matter what you say about special circumstances, and the complicated feelings and personal histories involved, you got what you wanted here tonight. Are you so foolish that you don't see the problem with that?"

"Well, Lady Claudia, I must say that I'm disappointed. This is not what I expect from a genuine prophetess of doom fresh from Jerusalem. Your point of view seems rather mundane, I'm afraid. Have you nothing to say about my soul's salvation and the Lord of Hosts?"

"You answer my question and then I'll answer yours."

"Am I so foolish et cetera? Well, that does seem rather rhetorical, doesn't it? You could hardly expect me to answer yes."

"There are some things about which we can be frank, old friend. I'll tell you this frankly. I think you should call Sir Lewis tomorrow and say that you'll pass on Claudio. For the time being."

Peter seems taken aback. Annoyed. But he also has the guilty look of someone who has been found out.

"That's what you think, is it?"

"I said so."

"So you did. I should call Sir Lewis and tell him he needs to go looking for a new Claudio."

"That would be the friendly thing to do. Doing what you did tonight was very unfriendly."

He stares at her.

"My God," he murmurs. "My God. You do see it all. You really do. And Val could have told you only so much."

"Val told me nothing. Well, Peter, I've given you my advice. I think that you'd be very foolish not to take it."

"I'm engaged to be married. To a lovely girl whom I truly love."

He seems to be convincing himself of something.

"All the more reason for you to cut out even the appearance of shady shenanigans," Lady Claudia says. "I've heard that you're a good actor. You're just not Sir Lewis's idea of a good actor. You're young and you're from the old school. He's old and he's from the new school. You want to do Shakespeare. He wants to do Freud under a Shakespearean pretext. Don't hold it against him that he wants things his way when he's paying for things. Just be happy with the Missus and the kiddies and keep the hinges on your ladders well oiled."

"You're wise, Claudia. You're also damned cheeky. And you make my prospects in life sound like a horror show. Maybe you are content living the quiet life on the farm..."

"Watch your language, dear."

"You called me old friend."

"I was fond of you. Well, I suppose I still am."

"We would both be embarrassed if I said what that means to me."

"Let's skip it, then. Now, surely you aren't going to forget to hold me to my promise."

"Promise... Promise..."

He smiles sheepishly.

"See here now, Lady Claudia. Have you nothing to say to me about my soul's salvation and the Lord of Hosts?"

"Since you ask, I do have something to say. The term religious experience gives me a pain, and yet for lack of a better term I'll say that I did have one four years ago in Jerusalem. I know that it's talked about. I know that it's known that it was not a happy experience."

"That priest... That French priest who was this big Bible scholar..."

"He died. Yes. Please let's not go into all that. It must be close to freezing out there. We have to open our hearts to God, my young friend. We have to have a merciful and kindly attitude towards our neighbor. We must always try to walk uprightly before the Lord of Hosts. Do the right thing, Peter. Do right by your friend tomorrow."

"Funny that it doesn't sound funny when you say all that about God. The greatest actor on earth couldn't make those words sound convincing... And yet when it comes to our neighbor. Well, everyone talks a good game there. 'I don't need to go to a building called a church on Sunday morning and sing hymns. I can walk in the woods and o'er hill and dale and be grateful to the Spirit of Life. I can simply love my neighbor...' But hardly anyone ever really does. Least of all those who talk about neighbor at God's expense."

"I'm afraid that's the way of it, dear. Call Sir Lewis tomorrow. Tell him. Do what's right."

He smiles mischeivously.

"And the Roman Church?"

"The True One, no doubt. But I'm having my little troubles getting in. I regret very much that this is well known. I pray that you will have a journey to Heaven which is a little less confusing."

"I should just be so lucky that I avoid the lower circles of the other place. I didn't mean to joke about you Catholic troubles. Well, I did mean to. I'm just sorry now that I did."

"That's all right, dear. Now you go on home. Get a good night's sleep. You'll want to have all your wits about you in the morning."

"I think that I will. But I think I'll sit somewhere and have a smoke first. I feel kind of..."

"Only one, dear. It's quite cold. Good night, now. And it is quite proper for you to call me just plain Claudia. That's what you called me when we first knew each other."

"Good night, Claudia."

She smiles at him. Then she rolls up the window. He walks away.

*

"Stop, Corboy!" Lady Claudia exclaims.

She had been rolling up her window.

The driver slams on the brake.

"What's wrong, Ma'am?"

"I don't know. I heard something outside. Would you mind backing up a little?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Corboy backs up. Lady Claudia looks out the window. She throws off her dark blue and red blanket.

"I'm getting out, Corboy."

"Yes, Ma'am. Is there anything else I can do?"

"I'm not sure. There may be."

She gets out of the car. She is standing before a courtyard to the side of Sir Lewis's apartment house. Valerie and a couple in their forties are walking towards her on the sidewalk.

"What's wrong, Claudia?" Valerie asks.

"I'm not sure. I thought that I heard someone cry out. It sounded as though it was coming from in there."

She gazes into the dark area. She starts to walk in. Valerie grabs her arm.

"Well, don't you go in there," Valerie says.

She turns to the man.

"Robert, would you mind?"

"Of course not," the man says.

But he looks dubious.

He walks into the courtyard. Valerie grabs Lady Claudia's arm. They stand still for a few moments. Robert comes out of the shadows and walks towards them.

"Good God," he mutters. "We've got to call a doctor. And the police."

He runs off towards the apartment house. Valerie looks at Lady Claudia. She runs into the courtyard. Lady Claudia follows.

The silence of the night is broken by a woman's screams.

Lights go on in the windows that overlook the courtyard.

Towards the front of the courtyard there is a large rectangular stone planter. It contains a few shrubs.

Peter Dawson is on the ground, lying against it on his side.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (II)

"He's bitter," Valerie says.

"Has he something about which to be bitter?" Lady Claudia asks. "But we can't get into that. We can't ask such questions. I lead a very peaceful life up there in the Catskills with our cows and our chickens."

"You mean a very clean life," Valerie says with a tinge of bitterness. "One does start wondering why a youthful passion for things that are true and beauteous and sublime has to lead one into a lifelong dalliance with the lowest pits of vice. It's as though there is an unwritten rule. Those who exist to pass on the moral and mental glories of Euripides and Shakespeare must be depraved. Garbage collectors may be as virtuous as elderly nuns."

Clive walks into the hallway.

"But things happened only behind the scenes with Sir Lewis's company."

"Yes. He runs a clean house, oddly enough. Except that-"

Valerie frowns.

"But I know that you wouldn't like me to go on. Even the old Lady Claudia was reticent about these things."

Clive walks out into the living room from the hallway.

"I wish that you would visit us in Camel Creek, dear," Lady Claudia says with sudden feeling. "You wouldn't want to live there. But for a visit... Oh, the mountains are so lovely. The mountain air is so pure. And even our life in our funny old farmhouse is rather sweet. In Saturday evenings we have our tea in the parlor. We chat and Floyd plays the piano and sings and we play little parlor games with neighbors who are friends..."

"I might surprise you someday," Valerie says. "I might show up on your doorstep with my pathetically tattered actor's suitcase. Sometimes I feel that I've had it with all this."

She holds a hand out towards the opening to the hallway.

"Poor Clive. This party was all his idea. He just adores the old man. But I wonder how much he gets back. Daddy has other fish to fry in other kinds of pans..."

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Oh, dear," she says...

*

She enters a bedroom. It is furnished and decorated elegantly but manfully. A group of four are chatting in one corner of the room. Two people are sitting on chairs. One is sitting on the floor. One is stretched out on the floor. The distinguished-looking man and Peter Dawson are sitting on the edge of the bed beyond a mountain of coats, their backs to the others. They are talking. They do not look particularly tense or upset.

"Sir Lewis," Lady Claudia says as she approaches the distinguished-looking man.

Both men look up. Sir Lewis smiles. Peter looks annoyed.

She bends down and kisses Sir Lewis on the cheek.

"Happy Birthday, dear," she says. "And thank you for the little remembrance earlier in the month."

"Thank you," Sir Lewis says. "And you're very welcome. How are your people doing? His Lordship and Lady?"

"Fine. It's hard. But they're fine."

"Good. When are you going back to the States?"

"My ship leaves on Tuesday morning."

"I wish that I could have seen more of you."

"Well, we'll be back in the summer. As usual."

"I heard that you left your husband seriously ill. How is he?"

"It was pneumonia. He's all better."

"And eager to have you back home, no doubt. Well, we'll have to make a date in the summer."

"Right you are. I see that you've done some renovating."

"Oh, yes. A little. Just Venetian blinds. Here and in the bathroom. I went out and bought the cord and strung them all together myself."

There is a loud noise of people crying out in jocular dismay.

"What now?" Sir Lewis asks in annoyance. "Excuse me."

He stands up and walks to the door. Lady Claudia looks after him. Then she looks down at Peter Dawson. He is looking up at her.

"All right, Peter," Lady Claudia says softly. "Up. We're leaving."

He looks stunned only for a second or two. After that he looks scornful.

"We are? I don't think so. I haven't had any caviar yet. Did you notice that there was caviar out there on the table? Of course you didn't. People like you can afford to take things like that for granted."

"I'll buy you fifty jars of caviar. Now come along, dear."

"Dear? It won't work, your Ladyship. You're beautiful. Even more so now than eight years ago. But I prefer blondes. Sorry. Or maybe you're just being maternal. Well, I have my own gray-haired mother up in Manchester, thanks very much. Now on the other hand, I find you fascinating and eminently likeable. Try saying something fascinating or likeable. Or both. You might get somewhere."

"Good night, Peter," Lady Claudia says.

She turns and walks towards the door.

"Mrs. John Floyd Brightwell!" one of the four cries out.

"I've got to run, darlings!" she replies. "Maybe this summer!"

"You'd better!" someone else cries out.

She smiles and leaves the room. She enters the hallway.

She pauses. Ahead of her is the open door of the bathroom. Sir Lewis and a young man are holding either end of the shower curtain rod. They are attempting to put it back into the fixture on either side of the tiled stall. They fail. The shower curtain is crumpled up inside the tub.

"Damn!" Sir Lewis exclaims as he sets the naked pole upright in the tub. "All right, kiddies. Out! The bathroom is for washing our hands and powdering our noses. Not for drunken rough-housing!"

"That's right," someone who cannot be seen says. "Especially when one's shower curtain rod is a lethal weapon!"

"Keep applying pressure to that!" Sir Lewis says. "You'll live. Which is more than you deserve."

There is laughter. Lady Claudia passes on.

She enters the living room.

"Claudia!" someone says as she walks through the crowd.

"I have to go, dear" she says. "So nice seeing you."

Valerie is suddenly before her. Her face has a worried, plaintive look. Lady Claudia grabs her elbows.

"I'll call tomorrow, dear," she says.

She kisses her.

She makes her way through one last stretch of mob. She opens the door. She enters a hallway. She closes the door behind her. She walks down the hallway. It is paneled in the Jacobean style with oak. She starts to go down a staircase.

"That was hardly fascinating," a voice from behind her says. "And it was eminently unlikeable."

She glances back and up at Peter Dawson.

"But it worked," she says dryly. "Good for you, dear."

Newman: The Divine Low Comedy

I was posting something about the infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium on a Traditionalist website.

I was saying that the public statement of Pope Pius XII to some visiting special interest group in which he claimed that all agree that Modern Psychology generally has been a boon to mankind is more problematic than the private letter to some bishop in which Pope Pius X (yes, that Pope Pius X) defended Cardinal Newman as a Model of Faith who taught only the purest Catholic doctrine.

I first dropped Newman's name on October 3rd. I continued with a debate on both Newman's heresies on Biblical Inerrancy and the problematic quality of Pope Pius's wrongheaded defense of Newman until the 7th. Just today I found out that when they dug up Newman's grave on the 2nd they found only fragments of metal and cloth. No bones. No Newman.

Why were they trying to dig him up? The top dog in the New Pentecostalist cult might beatify him soon. They wanted to move the most illustrious English Catholic since Sir Thomas More from a country boneyard to a big fancy Oratory in the city. A Professional Sodomite had squawked. His presupposition was that Newman was gay. And Newman had asked to be buried alongside a beloved chum of his. The Professional Sodomite declared that the oppressive Church of Rome was trying to stand in the way of Eternal Gay Luv.

The accusation is not as silly as it sounds if one allows for the sake of argument something so silly as the idea that the present day church of Rome is the Church of Christ. The top dogs of the Vatican II cult have declared with all solemnity before its god of Worldly Openness that it is committed to showing Profound Respect for Sodomitical Experience and Culture. Rome speaks this same language, though with more reservations than one might find in, say, Catholic San Francisco.

Eternal Gay Luv is something for which Ratzinger-friendly Catholics are solemnly bound to have Profound Respect.

Newman was what I call a Professional Catholic. A Celebrity Catholic. A Catholic Big Shot. He converted from Anglicanism. He simply was won over to Rome by what he had deduced from his own ecclesiological research. Ever after he acted as though Rome owed him something for the inconveniences his notorious crossover had cost him. He had been an Anglican Big Shot too.

Newman was always a troublemaker. He was disliked by the eminent Cardinal Manning. Disliked not just personally. Disliked theologically. Newman was a Liberal through and through. He was a spiritual auteur. He believed things only when they seemed reasonable and fitting to John Henry Newman. His theological training was sketchy. His thinking was never truly Catholic. He agitated against the definition of papal infallibility. He denounced St Alphonsus' Mariology. He seemed to pit individual conscience against obedience to the Church. Finally, he claimed that there were "unimportant" parts of the Bible -he called them obiter dicta, or, "things said by the way"- which were not Inspired and therefore could be erroneous.

The High and Puissant Lord Pope of Eternal Rome Leo XIII declared him a cardinal when all he had done was agitate against the papal infallibility definition.

Some critics of Newman make the mistake of faulting Leo for bestowing the red hat on such a theological Yahoo. But since when have cardinals been chosen for their theological expertise? Cardinals have very often been chosen for purely political and pecuniary reasons. Make Junior His Eminence and Pop will pay Pope through the nose. All you need to be named a cardinal are things Pope Joan would not have had had she existed.

Even so, the elevation to the scarlet was especially irresponsible in the case of John Henry Newman. His agitation against the Papacy was well-known and scandalous among those in the theological know. What happened was that Rome decided to canonize, so to speak, the official cover story on Newman whereby this Loyal Son of the Church, having exercised his holy freedom to oppose for political reasons the definition of a truth in which he believed, was the first to kiss the red slippers of the officially infallible Pontiff once the dogma of papal infallibility had been promulgated. But this Roman cover story was as phony as the Acts of the Roman martyrs. Newman, the half-converted Liberal, continued to connive against the dogma and the "fanatics" who had pushed for it. It is just that this conniving was done in a small circle of like-minded bad Catholics. Leo XIII had no reason to imagine that Newman's heretical treachery would ever become common knowledge. So he went ahead and gave one of the Church's highest honors to a man over whom the anathema of a General Council was hanging.

There was an unholy phenomenon at work in all ages of the Roman Church. There was always a "borderline case" for whom even those who, you would think, would know better had a soft spot. Theodoret of Cyr. Erasmus. Baron Von Hugel. John Henry Newman. I believe that this perverse favoritism on the part of Romanist clerics was something that the God of Moses and of a certain unfortunate Galilean Subversive forced on them as a judgment against Wicked Rome in all Rome's phases, both BC and AD. Both the God and the King of the Jews always knew that the Roman Church would end in Satanistic disgrace.

They knew that the entire Romish hierarchical system would break down before God and then be built back up by Lucifer generations before the end of Time. They knew that it would one day become par for the Popish course that a cardinal archbishop proudly display an obscene image of Jesus of Nazareth, at best, being the victim of Sodomitical interest on the part of a Roman soldier. They knew that it would be only with petulant bad grace that this cardinal archbishop, worried lest the Dogma of Openness to the Modern World be in the least violated, admit that his displaying obscene images of the Apostles having a Sodomitical orgy had been a mistake. So they permitted these signs of the Satanic end of the Church as united by a Roman Pontiff to put retroactive egg on the faces of all Doctors and Approved Authors who falsely promised indefectibility for the Papacy until the end of the world.

The papacy did fail in the end. But not at the end of Time. Only the end of the age of the hula-hoop and the TV dinner in an aluminum tray.

But back to Newman, made cardinal by one pope, vindicated by another pope, about to be beatified, perhaps, by the latest sorry excuse for a pope.

I suppose that some would-be Catholic members of the New Pentecostalist cult will be tempted to think that Newman, who after all did write on occasion with perfect Catholic piety, was assumed bodily into heaven. They idolize the top dogs in the unholy cult that holds them in zombie-like thrall. They foam at the mouth in rage against Catholics who reject Modernist Rome. They will hear about this curious lack of tibia and tooth in Newman's plot and think, "God took him. Just to ratify the decision of the Holy Father to proceed with his beatification and to stick it to the Traditionalist schismatics..."

Some Catholics who hold Herr Ratzinger and Modernist Rome as anathema will see Newman's apparent reduction to dust only, skeleton and all, just a hundred and twenty years after his death as a judgment against him. They will think in terms of certain Bible verses about the dusty end of the wicked and their relegation to oblivion.

May they dissolve like the waters which run down...

Psalm 57: 8

I'm always like Frank Sinatra when it comes to these matters. Like Frank Sinatra in a movie called The Miracle of the Bells in which he played a pious but hard-headed priest, that is. There was this pretty girl in that movie. She had gone Hollywood despite being a devout Catholic and played Saint Joan of Arc in a movie that was yet to be released. She had grown up in a poor Pennsylvania mining town. She had contracted black lung. She had died out in Hollywood. The Arc picture was scrapped. The studio head did not want to release a film with a new star who couldn't rise because she was already burnt out. Fred MacMurray, a Hollywood publicist friend of the starlet, took her body back to her home town. Her coffin was placed in the church. Suddenly the earth shook and statues of angels pivoted so that they were looking at the coffin! Miracle! Fred played the story up in the papers. Now the studio would release the picture and give hope to millions of poor, obscure people.

Only one thing. After the alleged miracle Father Sinatra had gone down to the basement of the church with a flashlight. He had seen that the supporting beams of church had shifted in the soft soil because of a slight tremor of the earth. No miracle. But Fred said that there was a kind of miracle for all that. It was all in the timing.

I read some of the news stories about the abortive Newman exhumation. The one I found most enlightening had to do with news reports from the day of the burial. It was reported that Newman had requested that a layer of soft mould be placed on top of the ordinary soil in which he would be buried. Why this unusual request? Someone said that Newman had such a reverence for the letter of the Divine Word that he wanted to facilitate, not discourage, the dust-to-dust process. Apparently he believed that this soft mould would encourage decomposition. He might have had himself smeared with sugar water right before burial and had thousands of flies lay eggs on him. But, hey. The soft mould approach seems to have worked.

The whole business is silly, embarrassing, unseemly, ironic, sad, and hilarious. Which is the least that can be said about the Vatican II church itself. Good Lord. The need to associate the exhumation the holy relics of a supposed Saint with the Modernized Church's committment to Sensitivity to Sodomite Experience and Culture. The exhumation of an obscure 1890 statement about the reverence that Mr. Obiter Dicta himself supposedly had for the letter of the Divine Word.

I think that Newman rotted through and through because he had himself put himself in peat or some such corrosive thing. I need no special signs from Heaven to prove to me that his theology rotted through and through. He wrote some good stuff on the Catholic Faith and popes rewarded him. He wrote some lousy stuff on the Inspiration of Scripture among other things and popes not only failed to censure him properly but went out of their way to laud him to the skies.

Let us simply decline to be deceived by the shocking but non-binding goof-up of Pope Pius X and be on our guard against Newman's blasphemous errors and leave the dead to dig up their dead or die trying to do so.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (I)

Dark Comedy

London. England
January 1933

Cast of Characters

Lady Claudia
Sir Lewis
Peter Dawson
Corboy
Valerie Hammer
Clive

*

"Surprise!"

Twenty-five people cry out this word as the overhead lights in the foyer and living room of a big, elegantly furnished apartment go on and they pop up from behind sofas and chairs. As they emerge from closets. From under tables.

The man in the front doorway who has switched on the lights is about fifty. He is handsome. Distinguished. He seems to freeze. He looks appalled.

A few of the people who had been smiling as they advanced towards him stop smiling. They look confused.

Standing next to the distinguished looking gentleman is a boy in his late teens. He has longish streaked blonde hair artistically combed back in waves. He is wearing a heavy black turtleneck sweater.

The older man turns to him quickly and says something. Then he grins and slaps him on the back. He opens the door. The boy leaves. The man closes the door. He turns around.

"You devils!" he exclaims. "I knew something was up from the way that kid acted! He came to my club and said that he was the landlord's son and that there was a nasty leak up here. Okay, whose son is he? Whose brother?"

Some of the people who have advanced momentarily look confused.

"I don't know," a woman in her thirties with a Cleopatra hair-do and a long string of pearls says. "Never saw him before."

"Well, it was a cute idea," the man says. stepping into the living room. "Not totally effective, though. I wouldn't give him a part in one of my plays. You people! Whose brilliant idea was this party? My first surprise party ever. I thought that I'd die one of those lucky people who never had one..."

The people around him protest laughingly.

Lady Claudia is standing behind a sofa. She is watching a young man in his middle twenties who is watching the distinguished-looking man. He is smiling. He shakes his head as though in some sort of triumph. The young man suddenly turns. He sees instantly that she had been staring at him.

He narrows his eyes.

She lowers her eyes.

*

"But really, Claudia dear," the woman with the Cleopatra hair-do pleads. "You can't stay down on the farm forever. For now it may be your funny little lark. But you were born to be an actress. You know that."

"Do I, Valerie? Well, if you know it, you should try to convince the critics."

They are sitting on the sofa behind which Lady Claudia had been standing. Valerie is holding a cocktail glass. There is a wine glass on the coffee table in front of Lady Claudia.

"Now, now. You got only one bad review. The rest were kind."

"It would be doing her Ladyship an unkindness to include anything in these lines which implies that she can act."

"Oh, him. He's a pedantic thug. But you forgot the rest. That being said, the Duke's daughter shines as Silvia. Outshines the rest of the cast, who can act, and quite well too, whenever she is on the stage. Lady Claudia should be advised. This is one of those things that can happen only once in a lifetime when one is young and the Fates are on one's side and there is magic to life. But for now, between her ravishing dark beauty and her natural sweetness and grace, she is dazzling. She is the stuff of theatrical legend."

"I believe that that is what's known as damning with fulsome praise."

"That's not the point. You were green then. The important thing is that you had that certain spectacular something we all wish we had. You don't lose that. No matter how many cows you've milked."

"My, how cheeky you've gotten. And your facts are off."

"Oh, that's right. Farmer Floyd brings in the milk. You just do the churning. After you've put by the stewed apricots in Mason jars."

"Funny you should say that. I have done some churning in my day. I enjoy it very much. You seem to forget that I have not forsaken my old life totally."

"Oh. You mean you still have the Villa Juliana?"

"We spend the winter and part of the summer there."

"Well, that's a relief anyway. Though I'd be even more upset to see you wasted as some stuffy society dame. If you're down on the farm at least I can hope that you'll play Temperance at the local church's production of The Godly Virtues Presented In Tableaux , and the bug will bite you again..."

"Valerie," Lady Claudia chuckles. "The things you say..."

"Well, I think that it's just jolly that she lives on the farm!" a young man exclaims. "With a moo-moo here and an oink-oink there!"

Lady Claudia looks up to her right. The young man who had been looking at the man who was being surprised is looking down at her. He seems to have been part of a group of talkers in which he has lost interest.

"Do you mind?" he asks Lady Claudia.

Without waiting for reply he sits on the armrest of the sofa next to Lady Claudia.

He has average good looks. He is of average height. He has dark blonde hair. He has on a gray pin-striped suit.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he asks.

"I'm afraid I don't, sir."

He starts to sing.

"Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.

And so on."

Some bystanders turned around and watched looking embarrassed. Now there is some light applause.

"You were a lot younger then, Peter," Lady Claudia says with a smile. "Your voice is even better now. It's deeper, I think. Peter Dawson. How are you?"

"Peter? Peter Dawson? I'm flattered. Fine. I'm fine. And you, your Ladyship?"

"I'm well, thank you."

His face becomes serious.

"I understand that you had a death in the family. My condolences."

"Yes. My little sister Ellen. A dear, dear little girl."

"Ah..." Peter says in commiseration. "That's rough. God rest her."

"Thank you, Peter."

"I know that you've gotten pretty straight-laced about things since you married the Yankee farmer. So this is an honor for Sir Lewis. Coming to his birthday party so soon after in your simple gray suit. If it were black we'd think, 'She really should have stayed at home if that's the way she feels about it.' But gray is just a gentle reminder to yourself and others. That's class. Eh, Val?"

"Yes, Pete," Valerie says coldly. "That's class."

"Are you still in the theater, Peter?" Lady Claudia asks.

"I'm a stage manager," Peter says. "When by all rights I ought to be Hamlet."

Lady Claudia seems taken aback. The young man is acting as though he is in earnest.

"Do you want to be Hamlet?" she asks.

"He's not that deluded," Valerie says dryly. "He wants to be Claudio in Measure For Measure."

"Oh, yes,' Lady Claudia says. "I heard that Sir Lewis is doing that one in the spring. One of the dark comedies."

"When's the last time you acted?" Lady Claudia asks. "Shakespeare, I mean."

"Three years ago," Peter replies. "Griffith in Henry VIII."

"So what's the problem?"

"Search me," Peter sniffs.

He looks around.

"Nice place," he says. "This was the only way Sir Lewis was ever going to host a party for people like us. Or have any of us as guests. So I guess it would be awkward if any of us said we had been up here before. Oh, except for you, Lady Claudia. You could have been up here with dukes and earls and contessas. I certainly have never been up here before. I've never played Hamlet, either. I've never even played Philarlio in Cymbeline."

Lady Claudia looks vaguely perplexed. But before that she looked as though she had realized something. She takes a sip of wine.

"Is that still a treat for you?" Valerie asks her.

"Our Township is still dry," Lady Claudia replies. "So yes. This is a treat."

"A sparrow couldn't get tipsy on what you drink," Peter says. "But you were always that way. You know something, Claud? Nine out of ten times people just don't believe me when I say that I knew you and worked with you way back when. Even when they have some vague memory of your having gone into show business."

"That's because you're still very young, Peter. Eight years have passed. When one is your age even people who are not all that much older than you are imagine that eight years ago you were in knickers and rolling hoops. Twenty-six. You're at the very end of being young at all. There's something bittersweet about that that gets people confused at times..."

"Yes! That's it exactly!"

There are two areas in the living room with sofas and chairs set around coffee tables. Between the two areas there is an opening that gives into a hallway. The distinguished-looking man is now talking to a few people in front of this opening.

"You look younger than twenty-six," Lady Claudia observes.

"And you look older than twenty-eight," he replies. "Oh, I don't mean that in the way you might take as an insult. You just look too wise and too tragic to be as young as you are."

"How absolutely precious, dear," Valerie says with a disdainfully mincing inflection and expression. "But a wee bit presumptuous, surely?"

The distinguished-looking man turns and walks into the hallway.

"In any case," Peter says, staring at the distinguished man, "there are some for whom I may as well be walking about with an ear trumpet and a cane."

He smiles the same gloating smile that Lady Claudia noticed earlier.

"That was rather mean of him to send poor Al away before," Peter says.

"Poor Al?" Valerie asks.

"Of course. Cousin Al. Though some of us call him Wishy."

"Wishy," Valerie repeats.

"Yes, Wishy. His real name is Aloysius, of course. He hates to be called Wishy. We got him to play the part of the landlord's son. What a shame that Sir Lewis gave him such short shrift. If you think my voice is good you should hear Wishy's. He's an accomplished counter-tenor. His specialty is Baroque Oratorio. Handel in particular."

"Really?" Valerie asks. "What was the last Handel Oratorio that Cousin Wishy performed?"

"Jemima."

"Jemima."

"You really must broaden your horizons, dear. Jemima was the daughter of the oh-so-patient Job. I grant that this was a very early and somewhat obscure work. It is a little-known fact that the music of Handel's famous Hallelujah Chorus was originally part of the score of Jemima."

"What were the lyrics?"

"Sores from Satan! Sores from Satan! Sores from Satan, Sores from Satan, Sores from Sa-aa-aa-TAN!"

A boy of twenty enters the living room from the hallway. He is tall. He has wavy dark blonde hair. His eyes are close together and squinty. He is dressed casually. He stops. He looks at Lady Claudia. He smiles. He stretches out his arm and holds up his hand in greeting. He walks off.

"Junior," Peter says.

"Not quite," Valerie says.

"Clive, I believe," Lady Claudia says. "I wouldn't have recognized him. He's a nice-looking young man."

"You think so?" Peter asks. "I've always thought that he looks like a rat. A blonde rat."

"He reminds me of my dear husband," Lady Claudia says.

"Oh," Peter says. "Yes. Now that I think of it I see the resemblance to Clark Gable. How lucky for you. But never mind the physical looks. There's a look about that kid. I've always thought that he has the glint of madness in his eyes."

"He's studying at Cambridge," Valerie says with dry dismissiveness. "Not a star pupil, but a phenomenal athlete. The best they have. Swimming, track, javelin throwing, pole-vaulting. The rumor is that he's shooting for the next Olympics."

"How nice," Lady Claudia says. "Sir Lewis must be very proud."

Valerie lowers her eyes.

"Humph!" Peter grunts with smirk.

"You started out tiresome and now you're getting perilously close to irritating!" Valerie snaps. "I see Lady Claudia only once every other year or so. I have no intention of letting you spoil this visit! And for your information her husband is an absolute dreamboat!"

Lady Claudia smiles placidly, as though she is not involved.

Peter stands up. He bows.

"Sorry if I gave offense, your Ladyship. I tend to show off around the rich and famous. Speaking of whom, I think that I need to have a chat with the birthday boy."

"It was so nice to see you again, Peter," Lady Claudia says. "And thank you for the song. The first one, I mean..."

Boomapox Diary: October 5, 2008

Little did I dream when I woke up this morning that I would be having a day found worthy of describing for posterity...

First time in a year and a half, too.

It is no great mystery. Reflection on the recent death of someone I once knew after coincidence placed me in front of the house he lived in when I knew him was behind my having these Immortal Thoughts and Feelings. And it was a sunny Sunday afternoon... That always helps when it comes to getting into Immortal mode.

I was out buying a Sunday newspaper for someone. I was in a big parking lot between the backs of the stores on Main Street and the Roman Catholic church on Conklin Street which was mine before the Romish Antichrist of the New Pentecost struck me personally. I was just sitting in my car looking around. The store had sold its last newspaper. It was now past four.

I thought of the dead guy. He had not been young. But he had not been quite old enough to be my father. He was not a Boomer. But he seemed to belong to my generation. He was in my crowd and he had not stood out as seeming much older. He had had a certain chronic ailment going back to the cradle. But it wasn't one that you think of anyone's dying from in this day and age.

Just a bit to the south of this vast parking lot dotted with sycamores was the house he had lived in when I used to hang out with him. He was not a friend of mine. He was the friend of a friend. He was the salt of the earth. But he was surly. He was almost always more surly than salt of the earthy with me. He disapproved of the way in which I was constantly moving around the Island and the State and switching jobs. He thought that people had an obligation to stay near their family and friends unless something really great opened up somewhere far away. He didn't think that my prospects away from our own village were ever that great. He razzed me about it. Some of his witticisms about my tumbleweed MO were pretty funny.

This crowd I was in. Our main things were bowling, diners, and cook-outs. Just once I seemed to impress the dead guy favorably. I was never a great bowler. Usually I knocked down four or five pins and then two or three. Once I was getting strike after strike after strike. He sat there with his mouth open. "This man..." he kept intoning. "Where has this man been hiding?"

I passed the Methodist church at the end of Rose Street, the street on which the dead guy had lived. He had been a devout Methodist. It's a distinctive building. So many of the outstanding edifices in my little suburban village five miles east of Levittown are. It's made of granite blocks and has a green copper steeple.

But I abominate Vatican II and Catholic Liberalism. Don't you go to Hell if you go to the church at the wrong end of Rose Street? (The schoolyard of the Catholic parish school is diagonally across the parking lot from the other end of Rose Street.)

I went to the big suburban supermarket on Main Street. They sell newspapers. But probably not the one I wanted. They had a lot left of the others. I went back to my car. I thought of the dead guy again. I thought of something he had done which really touched me. I have to be vague in relating what it was. He had insisted that someone who wasn't doing right by me at an extremely difficult time start doing so. He had insisted in a colorfully dire tough guy way. Only someone who knew the dead guy could understand how and why the party who had not been doing right by me told me all about how the dead guy had harangued and threatened him into doing better and why that made for peace instead of further hard feelings. This guy was a force to be reckoned when it came to seeing that you took proper care of family and friends the way he did. He had little patience with social deadbeats.

I went to a third place. A convenience store. One of a chain. (Not everything in my village is quaint.) The dead guy was a school security guard who rode around town from school to school in a Jeep. He spent a lot of time in that convenience store over the decades. All that coffee... All those chili dogs... All those Fritos... They had the paper I wanted.

I decided to take a spin over to the State Park. The one I went to on that Sunday afternoon last February when I last made an entry into my Boomapox Diary and wrote some of the most horrible and shocking things (about sexual blasphemy as regards Jesus) ever written by someone who was trying to serve the turn of the King of the Kingdom of Light. I had a stray thought about the dead guy. We had been in a diner with the friend we had in common. A French fry had fallen into a fold in the front of the dead guy's security jacket. The friend starting having a fit of laughter. The fry was wedged in there in such a way that it bobbed around like a little tongue or finger when the guy moved or spoke. The guy looked at the fry and then at the friend with his usual dry surliness. But I'm sure that he figured out a way to make the fry bob about even more comically...

The State Park. A few red leaves but still no autumn. I was in much, much better health on that last Boomapox Sunday... The dead guy... had not been dead.

Back at home. I opened the car door in the driveway. But I just sat there. One has these moments in Life - I won't say that one enjoys these moments in Life, even though they impart a certain light and peace- when one feels that one could account for years, for decades, for generations of one's life in this world to any captious or dubious angel of judgment...

The old nuns who taught me at that school on the right end of Rose Street would not have had damned to Hell the Methodist heretics at the wrong end of Rose Street. Invincible Ignorance and all. Better than Precious Blood to guarantee salvation. Pope Pius IX was shocked, shocked that some laxist Catholics, overeager to placate modern sentimentalism, were saying that the salvation of those outside the Roman Church was likely, when some rigorist Catholics were saying that he was being lax when he suggested that it was even possible!

But then we got the new nuns. They said that you didn't have to go to Mass if you didn't dig going to Mass. They said that the things you are liable to read in the Bible ain't necessarily so. The catechisms that they forced on us over the fulminations of our orthodox hold-out pastor had a huge blow-up of a picture of the demented Antichristian apostate Teilhard de Chardin.

So if it was not on either end of Rose Street where was salvation then?

I was also raised on the Little Flower of the Baby Jesus. She taught us to trust God as our Papa in Heaven. She taught us to be as little children. She said that Hell and damnation are not for little children.

The Sovereign Pontiffs were at pains to vet her.

But right now I am engaged in a cyberspace religious controversy in which I am denouncing Pope Saint Pius X - Pope Saint Pius X! - for having vetted in a fallible private letter the execrable Liberal troublemaker Cardinal Newman.

I was born and baptized in the year of Grace 1957. I was born during the last twelve months of the reign of the last True Pope of Rome. I may have said one Our Father in the Kingdom of Light. Then the Popes of Rome unleashed on the world the Kingdom of Hell.

One is not left without God in this world because the Christ is dissolved into Tartarus. One lives. One breathes. One walks in the sunshine. One can be a fairly good person. One has family. One has friends.

One bowls.

But advancing age and finally the spectre of Death bring us face to face with that Christ, Who no matter what happened to His Church in this world is our only Hope for happiness in the world to come and is set up to cause us unhappiness if we are not on His right side. (It is a Certain Theological Conclusion that a Good Jew living in, say, Trachonitis who never heard of Jesus of Galilee would have been saved if he had died in March of AD 30? and damned, even though he was still good, if he died in April of AD 30?.) And whether we like it or not the Prophet of the Kingdom of Heaven preached Hell and damnation for those outside His Kingdom. Which, we must now understand as His Church. His kind of Roman Church.

I know that a large part of the Catholicism that I learned as a kid growing up in the early and middle 1960s, before the Kingdom of Hell took hold of the Roman church in my suburban village, was an abomination of accomodating Americanist Liberalism. Traditionalism taught me that. But a large part of that Catholicism was also a holy and a vast improvement on what had come before in the Church. Traditionalism shrivels the soul by dragging it willy-nilly back into the 1780s. Or the 1560s. Drag the Jews back to the Ghetto! The Jesus and Mary I knew as a Catholic child were friends. I could count on them to help me out and pull me through in the end. They were very nice people. The rules were the rules. But there was a way in which they might work with them in Mercy... One could lay oneself down to sleep in the hope that all would be well.

The fallacy of Liberal Catholicism is to choose to think that all will be saved, that a Merciful God could not have created Hell, and so forth. Our choosing to think things doesn't change the way things are. And the teaching of God Incarnate is a good clue as to the way things really are in the unseen realms. There is a Hell. And despite what the phony pope Wojtyla said, it is more than a "tragic possibility" when the God of Truth preaches on it.

But I want to believe that everyone for whom I have known and for whom I have prayed, will come to a place of light, happiness and peace. And that one day, though not too soon, I will be there with them.

The way to both presumption and despair as one contemplates Sin and Death and Judgment -one's own and those of one's loved ones, or even those of those with whom one walked under the sun that shines upon the just and the unjust- is to keep on contemplating Sin and Death and Judgment. It is the Face of Jesus of Nazareth which we should be contemplating. It is His sacred heart. It is His beautiful, beautiful Mind. We must not reason away or sentimentalize away His hard sayings. We should accept them like little children in our hearts. We should insist on them in the theological forum as though to out-Augustine Augustine. And then, like little children we should run into His arms and ask Him to do the opposite of what He said in those hard sayings just because we asked Him to...

It's funny. A lot of what I have of Jesus of Nazareth I got all on my own once I had all on my own lived down my unspeakably horrific dealings with the church of the New Pentecost. I worked out my own way of being devoted to Jesus' mother Mary. (Hard to be saved with no special devotion to her, they say.) But Saint Therese has been with me all my life as she is in herself without my having to think my own brilliant and novel thoughts about her. And there is no fear, no darkness in her. She is all Love. But she is also all Truth. Which gives you confidence that she is being Truthful, and not reductionist, when she makes the Christian thing all about Love...

What a Long and Winding Road.

But...

He who perseveres to the end will be saved...

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (VI)

ANNE is rapping on the narrow northeastern window of the parlor of the Bisbee House.

Behind her the sun is rising and the bottom of the sky is pale pink and yellow. The top of the sky is deep blue.

Lady Claudia is sleeping all curled up on one of the sofas. They have been pushed next to each other on the north side of the room.

She sits up. She looks at Anne. She gets up. She has on a dark red bathrobe. She walks around the sofa towards the kitchen door. She opens it and enters the kitchen. She turns to her right. She draws back the white muslin curtain of the side door. Anne is standing there. She unbolts the door and opens it.

"Anne," she says, groggy and surprised.

Anne is wearing a gray skirt and a black sweater.

She advances. Lady Claudia stands aside and closes the door.

"Oh, goody. Coffee," Anne says. "I'll get me some. You too?"

"Yes, please." Lady Claudia says. "But allow me."

"Out of the question. Sit down."

Lady Claudia sits down at the kitchen table on the chair whose back is to the door. She watches as Anne gathers cups and saucers and pours the coffee from the pot on the stove.

"Huldah left for the morning?" Anne asks.

"I think so. Unless she's upstairs."

"Sorry if I alarmed you. I saw the light on in the barn but I didn't want to bother Floyd. Then I peeked in here and could just make you out on the sofa. You slept there all night?"

"Yes."

"Floyd too?"

"Yes. He insisted. He put the cot mattress on the floor and slept on that."

"Well, a promise is a promise."

Anne hands Lady Claudia a cup of coffee on a saucer.

"Thank you," Lady Claudia says.

"May I take a look inside?" Anne asks. "May I pay my respects?"

Lady Claudia looks at her.

"I could just make it out too," Anne explains.

"Of course, dear," Lady Claudia says.

Anne steps over to the door. She opens it. She flicks on the parlor's overhead light. She looks in. She closes the door.

"I'm not a big one for gawking at dead bodies," she says. "But I know that it will be a great comfort to Patricia that you did this. That you kept vigil. For as long as you could. As her cousin, thank you."

She brings her coffee over the table and sits on the chair facing Lady Claudia.

"Paradise, eh?" Anne asks. "Don't think that I didn't pick up on that. I studied loads of theology at Vassar in various roundabout ways. Reading Augustine and Dante and some of those even more dreadful Puritans. Jonathan... Jonathan Whatshisname. You didn't say Heaven."

"No. I did not."

"But you baptized her. Very discreetly. But I saw you. I heard you, though just barely."

"I'd rather not discuss that now, Anne."

"The poor little thing was born dead. Dr. Sutch said-"

"We can't be sure when she died. Let's drop it, dear."

"You're the doctor. I'm glad that I found this old thing at the back of a closet. I'd forgotten about it. It may be ratty. But it's black."

"You look fine, Anne."

"I suppose that the Floyd and the gravediggers won't mind. No clergyman?"

"No. But Herman's father is going to come. He should be here in about an hour. He wanted to represent his son and his family."

"Mother didn't mention that."

Lady Claudia's brow furrows slightly.

"I had to drive into Brightwell Spa to make the call. From the hotel. When will Floyd have the entire Township hooked up to Mr. Graham Bell's nifty invention?"

"Someday soon it will be. And it won't take Floyd to do it."

"No clergyman. But Patty Cake was always fairly religious. In a mainline Episcopalian sort of way."

"This is rather confusing for everyone. No one is quite sure of how a miscarriage at, say, three months, differs from a still birth at almost eight months, or of how a still birth differs from the death of an infant right after birth. Not everyone knows exactly what happened over there in Sprayberry's Inn. I'm sure that Mother and Aunt Lillian did not go into details. So the funereal etiquette in this case is quite a conundrum."

"Well, she looks darned good in there. Much better than yesterday. Who'd you get, Trudley or Grey?"

"Mr. Trudley handled everything. It was a little more involved than we had anticipated. Sheriff MacEveny had to be called in to ask Dr. Sutch and me certain questions. But in the end all went well. And we had candles burning in the parlor. Huldah even brought in some dried flowers."

"I saw that. I also saw that you took down the curtains. Candles, eh? Floyd probably remembers when this place almost burned down when they had old Uncle Bill Bisbee laid out in there. Back when we were kids. Aunt Parmelia's and Old Charlie's brother. Grandpappy Joe's half-brother. A curtain caught fire..."

"Floyd mentioned that."

"You really fixed it for yourself yesterday, Claw. The Aunt Lillian situation is beyond hope now. But then, that was hopeless from the day Floyd brought you home. I was thinking more of Lois... She seemed a trifle standoffish with you by the end of the day."

"She was upset."

"She was spooked."

"Have it your way, Anne."

Anne looks at Lady Claudia with narrowed eyes.

"That perfect poise. That seamless transition from joking about name etymologies to ushering this one over to a truly Jacobean dining room table and that one into Eternity... Of course, some of it comes from being brought up to take your rightful place as Queen of the World one day. But some of it comes from something deep and dark inside of you and only you..."

"I think that this analysis of my little quirks would be much more fair if Aunt Lillian were present and scheduled to be put through the wringer too."

"Oh, Aunt Lillian. One doesn't waste one's breath. Well, that's enough. You look good, Claw. All things considered. Red really is your color, isn't it? Not bright, happy, fire engine reds or Santa Claus reds. No, deep, rich, somber reds... Cherry red. Ruby red. Speaking of which, I worry about you alone in this house. That fabled ruby necklace you own. The one that King Philip IV of Spain supposedly gave his consort, Elisabeth of Bourbon..."

"Is there something else on your mind, Anne dear?"

"Ooh, you little devil. Always seeing through me. Well, since you ask, you know very well what's on both our minds. Is this the right time?"

"It's not the best time. But it's certainly the right place."

Lady Claudia glances at the telephone.

"I called because I was really annoyed," Anne said. "And the boys were really scared."

"Do you really think so, Anne?"

Anne stares at Lady Claudia. Then she looks away.

"Boy, Claw. You're really something. It's when you ask vague little questions like that that you make your boldest statements. All right. We can do this your way. No, I don't really think the boys were really scared. I think that they were desperate to prolong contact with Uncle Floyd and bask in his fatherly interest in them. And that's because their own father doesn't have much of an interest in them. And maybe that's why I was so annoyed."

"I'm sorry, Anne. I don't want to hurt or embarrass you. But surely you must understand that I don't want my husband to be hurt or embarrassed either. It was one thing for you to give him what for in your big sisterly way. It's the job of any red-blooded young uncle to relax the rules a bit with his nephews and on occasion take his lumps when Mama thinks that things have gone too far. What rankled was to have the father get into the act as though there were some serious problem and play the part of the schoolmaster who was letting the wayward uncle off with a stern warning this time. Floyd said, 'That could well be, Harry.' I think that he said that because Harry said something like, 'If you had children of your own, you'd tell different kinds of bedtime stories.' I think that because of the expression I saw on Floyd's face. I want never to see that expression on his face again, Anne. That's all I'm saying."

Anne looks at her.

"For once we're in perfect agreement," she says softly.

"Oh, Anne, Anne..."

Anne scowls and shrugs.

"Stand back. I'm going to blow a chill wind on this sudden flow of sap. I don't agree that it was Mother's party. It was held in her home. She should have stood up to Aunt Lillian. But it wasn't her party. She didn't send out the invitations and plan the food or the decorations."

"I've been thinking about what I said. About its being Mother's party. Maybe I was wrong on that point."

"Aunt Lillian is just afraid of you because people tend to die when you're around. Just as Lois is afraid of you now. Mother's attitude is a mystery to me. But there was something you said yesterday... It was the oddest thing I've ever heard anyone say. And I grew up in the Brightwell Mansion, mind you. It really gave me the creeps yesterday. I was appalled. And yet... Having thought about it all night, I woke up realizing that it was the perfectly right thing to say to that mother who had just lost her child in those circumstances... You two went through a lot together in the past months. She was like your little war buddy..."

Lady Claudia stiffens and looks at the parlor door.

"The Franklins have a big plot up in the Franklinville cemetery. That's where Herman and Patricia will go, please God no time soon. But that's not where this little one will go an hour from now. She didn't even want to see her. She didn't even try to name her. No more talk of Cecilia. When she said goodbye, she meant goodbye. But she really did want the best for the little lost angel whom no one knows how to mourn. Whom no one knows how to love. Whose generation no one on earth knows how to declare. Except for one person on earth. So she put her poor little grey ghost under the perpetual care of that one person. And there's a certain little glade under beech trees with heartbreakingly tiny headstones in the cemetery that this one person's husband happens to own. Next to which she happens to live. Will Patricia see to the little stone for her little ghost? Herman will pay for it in the end. But Lady Claudia will see to it. And Lady Claudia is the only one who will never, ever forget that poor little ghost. Gate of Heaven. One hopes. But perhaps the gate is closed. Only Lady Claudia would refuse to lie about that. On the other hand, only she would know how to make the best of it. Lady Claudia. A little less than kin, but more than kind. I guess Mother doesn't even try to figure you out. Sometimes I can't bring myself to blame her. I just know that I'll never stop. Trying, that is..."

"How nice, dear. Well. I have to wash and get dressed. Please finish your coffee. I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Sure."

Lady Claudia gets up. She walks towards the dining room door.

"Claw?"

Lady Claudia turns around.

"Yes?"

"It was a great party up until. And you were the life of it. You know something? You're funny. You're a riot."

*

Anne rolls open the door that leads from the milk room to the barn proper.

Floyd is milking Greta. He turns and looks at her. She walks over to him.

"Sis," he says. "Nice of you to drop by."

"Coming out here was nice. Coming this morning in my ratty black sweater was a sacred duty."

"Well, if that ain't you all over. People don't know how pious and how sensitive you really are. In your way."

"So you think you'd look nice with a bucket over your head? I came out here to say two things. First, sorry about that stupid phone call."

"Okay, Annie."

"Second, I think that you should go in and visit with your wife. I'll take over here."

"Oh you will, will you?"

Floyd stands up.

"Why visit? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. For the first time since Saturday night things are just fine. I said something nice to her and then Castle's girls knocked on the door and ran off. They left little bouquets of paper flowers. She's crying. Crying her dear little heart out..."

THE END

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (V)

EVERYONE at the table looks at Lady Claudia.

Then, one by one, they look at Patricia.

"Are you all right, dear?" Aunt Lillian asks.

"I don't know, Mother. I don't think so..."

"Do you need to go to the ladies' room?"

"No... It's not... I'm not sure."

Lady Claudia pauses. Then she walks over to Patricia. Aunt Lillian looks taken aback and annoyed. Lady Claudia leans over Patricia.

"Tell me what's happening, dear," she says. "Tell me what you're feeling."

Patricia hesitates. She looks at her mother. Lady Claudia looks at Anne.

"Claudia studied nursing in her younger days," Anne says. "She practiced it for a while."

"Yes," Aunt Lillian says dryly. "In a veterans'' hospital."

Lois stands up.

"She looks so pale," she says, a whimper creeping into her voice. "She's sweating."

"Please go outside and have Freida call Dr. Sutch," Lady Claudia says to Lois.

Lois hesitates. She looks at her mother.

"I'll go," Anne mutters, standing up.

"No," Lois says. "I'll do it."

She turns and steps over to the double doors. She opens it and goes into the entry hall.

Martha stands up. Aunt Ramona starts to cry. Aunt Lillian puts her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand and stares at the miniature pink roses arrangement in the center of the table.

Patricia jolts and lets out a groan.

"Oh, Claudia," she says, beginning to cry, "This can't be happening. It can't be! Maybe it's just..."

She tries to stand up. She gasps violently and then draws in breath through clenched teeth, making a hissing sound.

"Don't try to move," Lady Claudia says. "Stay still, and take long deep breaths."

"I think that it's time," Patricia says. "That's what I'm feeling. From what women have told me... Oh, my God. Dear God in heaven. It's too soon. It's too soon."

Lois and Freida hasten in.

"His wife said he's on his way back from Wolf Hospital," Freida says. "He called fifteen minutes ago saying he was leaving."

"That means he should be here in about fifteen minutes," Lady Claudia muses. "Freida, go next door and tell Mr. Singenstraw to send Bart Kenyon out to the Turnpike where the Camel Creek road comes in. He is to flag down Dr. Sutch and tell him to come here directly. Get going, dear."

Freida hastens away. Another young woman enters the dining room. She is dressed in a waitress's uniform.

"Ida," Lady Claudia says. "Bring me the following things. Hot water immediately, boiling water as soon as possible, a sharp knife, kitchen scissors, and clean facecloths, towels and tablecloths. Do you have a first aid kit?"

Ida stares.

"Dear, do you have a first aid kit?"

"In the kitchen."

"Bring it to me. I hope it has alcohol."

She hastens away.

One of the men from the Pfaff party steps up.

"Is there anything that we can do, Claudia?" he asks.

Lady Claudia looks down at Patricia.

"Yes, Freddy," she says. "Have everyone at your table leave the room immediately."

"Claudia..." Aunt Lillian says uncertainly.

Lady Claudia ignores her.

"Go over to our house," she says. "Huldah is there. She can set up the dining room in two minutes. We'll have your dinners sent on over there. They should be ready soon, I take it."

Freddy seems dubious and embarrassed.

"We'll leave, of course" he says. "But I don't know about-"

"Nonsense. Just go over there and go on with your party seated at a Jacobean dining table at which a King of England named James actually dined. And you can remember us here when you say grace. Your doing both will make us all feel better about this. Get over there, Freddy. Please."

He wheels about.

Lois walks over. She stands behind Patricia and puts her hand on her shoulder. They are both sobbing. Then Patricia screams.

Lady Claudia looks at the floor. Her eyes widen.

"Now I'm going to have to do something, dear," she says to Patricia. "Try to stay calm. Let me know if you feel any pain."

She crouches next to Patricia. She looks up at her. She seems to be doing something with her left hand.

She stands up.

"Anne? Martha? We're going to lay her down on the carpet. Then we're going to remove her skirt and her undergarment."

Patricia's groans and sobs seem to be a despairing protest.

"What is this, Claudia?" Aunt Lillian demands.

"The baby is coming. Soon."

Aunt Lillian looks horrified.

"Impossible!" she whispers.

"Lois, please take Aunt Ramona outside," Lady Claudia says. "Maybe you should stay out there with her, dear. Mrs. Pfaff!"

Olive May has walked over to her. Lady Claudia looks about and now sees that the rest of her party has left.

"This is something I know a bit about too," she says. "Fifty-five years of helping birth babies around this countryside. Don't argue with me. I'm here. But I'm only the nurse. You're the doctor."

"Oh, I wish. Oh, how I wish..."

*

Dr. Sutch comes out of the dining room. He closes the door behind him.

He glances at the lounge area.

Aunt Ramona is seated in the center of the couch. Uncle Cal is holding her right hand. Martha is holding her left hand. She looks just stunned now.

Uncle Mitch is sitting in one of the wing-backed chairs. He is leaning forward. His head is in his hands.

Anne is sitting in the other wing-backed chair.

Floyd is standing next to the fireplace with his arms folded on his chest and his head bowed. He exchanges a glance with Dr. Sutch.

Dr. Sutch walks over to the front desk. Freida is still at her post. The waitress Ida is sitting next to her. Dr. Sutch gestures at the telephone, indicating that he would like to use it. Freida raises her hand and drops it. He picks up the receiver.

"Hello, Gladys? Dr. Sutch again. Can you get me Homer Dibble again? Thanks... Hello, Homer? Dr. Sutch again. How are we doing?... That's fine. Send her right over. It's an emergency. All right, then."

He hangs up.

He walks over to the family members and the friend.

"Your daughter is stabilized, Mr. Hathaway," he says.

Uncle Mitch looks up.

"And that means?"

"It means that the bleeding has stopped and she's no longer in shock. She's resting. Maybe not comfortably. But she's resting."

Uncle Mitch nods and flashes the ghost of a smile.

"Thank you, Dr. Sutch," he says.

"Don't thank me," he says.

He glances at Floyd.

"She knew how to stop the hemorrhaging," Dr. Sutch says. "She knew where to apply pressure and she kept it applied. She knew that above all Mrs. Franklin should not walk or sit in a car or be carted about before she was stabilized. I couldn't have done anything more for Mrs. Franklin than Mrs. Brightwell did. If your daughter had been alone, Mr. Hathaway, or if she had been with people who just panicked..."

He shakes his head. He leaves the dread possibilities hanging in the air.

"All right," he says briskly. "That was Mr. Dibble. The ambulance should be here in five, ten minutes. What a day for it to be in the shop."

"What a day," Uncle Mitch repeats. "Thank you, Doctor."

Dr. Sutch stands there.

"Is there something else, Doctor?"

"There is, Mr. Hathaway. Mrs. Franklin has made a rather unusual request. Unusual in these cases. I don't know how I feel about it as her attending physician. I don't know how you'll feel about it as her father. I think that Mrs. Hathaway was aghast at the very notion. I would recommend getting Mrs. Brightwell's opinion before we decide..."

*

Anne enters a small room that looks like an office. There is a desk and a few chairs. These are Early American antiques. Contrasting jarringly with these is an olive green filing cabinet.

Lady Claudia is sitting at the chair behind the desk. She has turned it around so that she can look out the window. It is a blur of green and gray that she contemplates.

She is holding something in her arms. Something wrapped in a white towel.

She turns around and sees Anne. She smiles.

"Anne, dear."

"Claw, dear. Floyd was going to come in. I somehow thought..."

"Of course. This really is one of those rare times when women have to take over and men have to wait on the sidelines, somber and eager to help. Deferential. And silent."

"That about describes the three out there. The ambulance should be here soon."

"Oh, good. How dreadful for Patricia to have to stay lying on that floor."

"So nice of Heck Sutch to provide an ambulance to his patients. Who would expect such a thing in a place like Camel Creek?"

"Dr. Sutch is a very progressive young doctor."

"But there's something else."

Anne seems unable to go on.

"What is it, dear?"

"Ach! I'm never as strong as I think I am when push comes to shove. I'm almost as bad as Susan."

"You were a great help before, dear."

"No. Olive May Pfaff was a great help. I just did what I could. Which wasn't much. And I don't think that I could do what you're doing now. Claudia, she wants to see her. Patricia wants to see her baby."

*

Lady Claudia walks into the waiting area holding the bundle.

Anne is standing by the fireplace talking to Floyd.

Uncle Mitch stands up.

Aunt Ramona starts to turn around. Uncle Cal prevents her doing so with his arms and hands.

Lady Claudia glances at them. She hesitates. Then she walks over to Dr. Sutch. He is now sitting at Freida's desk.

"I don't think that there would be any problem," Lady Claudia says.

"Then go on in."

She looks at the door. She looks at him. He stands up and steps forward. At that moment one of the double doors swings open. Aunt Lillian sweeps into the entrance area, closing the door behind her.

"What's going on here?" she demands. "What do you think you're doing, Claudia?"

Lady Claudia just looks at her. The she looks at Dr. Sutch.

"You know what's going on, Mrs. Hathaway," Dr Sutch says. "You know what Mrs. Brightwell is doing. You know that Mrs. Franklin asked to see her baby."

"No," Aunt Lillian says.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Hathaway?" Dr. Sutch replies.

First Floyd, and then Anne, and then Uncle Mitch start walking over.

"I doubt that I could make it any plainer, Dr. Sutch," Aunt Lillian says. "No. My daughter is not going to see the baby she just lost."

Dr. Sutch looks at her. Disgust and exasperation show on his face.

"Excuse me," he murmurs.

He turns and walks over to the fireplace. He picks up a wooden chair with one finger and plunks it down against the far wall. He sits down and crosses his arms on his chest.

"Lillian..." Uncle Mitch says.

"No," Aunt Lillian says. "I'm surprised at you, Claudia. No matter what else I've heard about you, I've also heard that you had some sense."

"Excuse me, Aunt Lillian," Floyd says, "but I hardly think that this is the time-"

"Hardly," Aunt Lillian says. "Just go back where you were, Claudia, and all will be well."

Lady Claudia looks at her.

"I intend to go in there, Aunt Lillian," she says quietly.

"Oh?" Aunt Lillian says bitterly.

"Patricia is not a child. She is a rational adult who in this present crisis has maintained remarkable self-control. She has made a perfectly understandable request. I intend to do as she asked. Patricia has the right to see her child. No one has the right to stand in the way of her doing so. Maybe one person would have had the right. But he's not here."

No one moves. For a few moments it seems as though no one breathes.

Aunt Lillian had come out into the entrance area a ways. The doors are not blocked. Lady Claudia looks at the knob on one of the doors.

"But I'm not going to make a mockery of this little girl's death by having any more of a scene out here," she says. "Either someone is going to open that door for me or someone isn't. Either you, Aunt Lillian, are going to stand in my way or you're not."

Again, there is paralysis on all sides. Then Anne springs forward and opens one of the doors. Lady Claudia and Aunt Lillian look at one another for a moment. Then Aunt Lillian closes her eyes, shakes her head, and vigorously waves Lady Claudia away.

"Come in with me, dear," Lady Claudia says to Anne as she steps forward.

*

Patricia is lying on the carpet, propped up by pillows. She is covered with an ivory-colored woolen blanket.

Lois is kneeling next to her, holding her hand. She looks up at Lady Claudia and Anne. She smiles. But she looks stricken. Patricia smiles wanly. But she seems to be at peace.

The table and chairs have been shifted away somewhat. There is one chair to Patricia's left side. Lady Claudia sits in it. Anne stands next to it.

"Thank you, Claudia," Patricia says in a far-off kind of voice. "Thanks for before. But thanks most of all for this. I know that you had some trouble out there just now."

"Well, everyone is just so upset right now, dear. Everyone is just trying to do the best thing for you according to his lights."

"That's a very nice way of putting it. Very generous."

She smiles slyly.

"According to his lights?"

Patricia looks up at Anne.

"Thanks to you too, Annie."

"Happy I could help, Patty Cake."

Patricia smiles.

"Patty Cake. You remember Patty Cake..."

"It won't be too much longer on the floor," Anne says. "Just a few minutes."

"I'm comfortable now," Patricia says. "The pain is gone. The worry is gone. Maybe I should be worrying. But I feel fine."

"That's just the shot Dr. Sutch gave you," Anne says. "Don't go by that. Go by this. He told us that you're stabilized. You'll be okay."

Patricia looks at the bundle in Lady Claudia's arms.

"I'll be okay. That's nice. But not my little girl..."

"Oh, Patricia," Lady Claudia says. "Would you like to see her, dear?"

Patricia looks sharply at her.

"Is that what they told you? No. I never said that. I said, 'Would you please bring me my baby? I want to have my baby here.' I don't want to see her, Claudia. That would be too... No. That's not what I want. What I want is just for one time... Well, I think you understand."

"I understand perfectly, dear," Lady Claudia says.

Patricia raises her arms. Lady Claudia gently leans towards her. She hands her the bundle. Patricia makes a noise as she first touches it. It is midway between a gasp and a sob. Lois bolts up. She takes a few steps backwards. Patricia is hugging the bundle tightly with her eyes closed.

"Oh, my poor little girl..." she croons. "My poor little baby..."

She lets out a sound that is midway between a sob and a sneeze.

"I couldn't even give birth to her," she says. "I couldn't bring her into the world."

"Oh, dear," Lady Claudia says in a gently stern tone. "You must never think that. God gave her to you. And now He has taken her from you and given her a life of everlasting happiness. We cannot even imagine the happiness that she now has. In a word, it's Paradise. She never knew a moment's sorrow in this world that is full of sorrows and sometimes offers little but sorrows. And in the world she knows now... Just light and rest and peace and happiness forever."

Patricia puts her cheek against the top of the bundle.

"Yes," she sighs. "My three little angels. Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate that word to the wise."

She kisses the top of the bundle.

"Goodbye, little one," she says. "Goodbye, my little angel."

She hands the bundle back to Lady Claudia. Lois turns and runs to the door with her hand over her mouth. She opens the door and runs out.

"I'm thinking, dear," Lady Claudia says, "that now may be the time for you to be alone with your father and mother. What do you think?"

Patricia sighs.

"I think that that's very considerate of you. Yes. That's the thing to do now. Mother in particular will appreciate that. But I have one more favor to ask of you."

"Tell me, dear."

Patricia smiles shyly. She seems embarrassed.

"It may seem silly..."

"I'm sure it won't."

"It may be something you won't want to do..."

"Let's see about that. Tell me."

"I'd like for you to take my baby to the hospital in Onatonga or to a certain place here in Camel Creek. Wherever it is that she must go now. I want her to remain in your arms for as long as possible. And I'd like for you to watch over her until it's time... If they let you."

"Of course, dear."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you."

Only now does Patricia start to weep normally and openly.

"I don't want her placed in some box or strapped on to some hook or whatever... I know it may seem silly. But this little one and I... I can't explain it."

"I think I understand. You two went through a lot together over the months... She's like your little war buddy."

Patricia looks up at her.

"Oh, Claudia. You really understand a mother's heart..."

Then she lowers her eyes.

"You rest now, dear," Lady Claudia says as she stands up. "Your mother and father will be in directly..."