The Wild Rose

From the Journal of Father Benedict Wright:

I have grown an old man in the service of God, but in the days of my youth, when I had just joined the order, I was sent to hear the confession of one James Reed, who had murdered the daughter of a local man of the parish, a poor farmer named John Day. Her name was Elisa Day, and she was, according to local reports, as pretty as she was innocent, with wide, gentle green eyes, and beautiful red hair. She could not have been more than eighteen when her life was taken from her. And I was more than reluctant to meet the man who had done the deed.

Still, when I entered the jail cell, I had to admit that he did not look like a murderer. He was middle-aged, but well-built and handsome, and clearly a gentleman of some education. His appearance was tidy and neat, or at least as tidy and neat as a man can be in jail. He sat on the wooden bench, and did not look up as I entered, but had his intense eyes fixed on a rose which he twirled slowly between his fingers.

I drew up a stool next to him, and only then did he look up and meet my eyes with his strange, bright ones. He smiled. “So you have come, Father. I am glad. I requested that you come. They didn’t want you to, but I wanted someone to understand. I knew you would. You and I, Father, are servants of God. We know He works in mysterious ways which may not always seem right to us, but nevertheless are right. You know that, don’t you, Father?”

“I do know that, my son,” I replied. “But you must know that God does not wish us to kill. He has expressly forbade it in His commandments. So I cannot understand how you believe yourself to have served God by taking the life of that poor young girl.”
 

He sighed deeply, and rose from the bench, going over to a small wooden table which supported a vase full of roses. He returned the one he had been holding to this, and then picked up the tin cup which contained his water rations, and poured it carefully into the vase. 

“Do you like flowers, Father?” he asked, when he had finished this task. He did not wait for me to respond before he continued. “I do. I love them. I have loved them since I was a boy, and I must always pick them whenever I see them. They are so beautiful, and yet so fragile. So easily destroyed and corrupted, just by a touch…” He delicately reached out a finger and stroked one of the rose buds. “You have to love them while they live, you see. For they will not live long, and they must be happy while they do. As happy as they can be in this world. They will be eternally happy in heaven.” He turned to look at me, with his strange eyes. “Do flowers not go to heaven, Father? That would be a pity. I thought only the most beautiful and pure could enter therein. Surely they must be admitted.”

I had no response to that. The man was clearly mad, and babbling, and so I decided that the best way to prevent him raving further was to be direct. “You do wish to confess your killing of the Day girl, do you not?” I asked, gently. “You wish to purify your own soul from her murder?”

“My soul will never be pure,” he replied, sitting back down. “It is too late for me, Father. I am damned, and I know this. I knew this the moment I was old enough to understand the world and its workings. There is no hope for me. It is for the sake of others that I did what I did, to save their souls, not my own. Elisa Day was not the first one, you see. There were many more women I destroyed, many more beautiful, pure women. I had to. Beauty must die, before it can be corrupted. Just like those flowers.” He nodded to the vase. “I picked them to save them. I am devoting all my attention and love to them while they, and I, live, for we must both die very shortly.”

“You and I both know that this is a naughty world, Father. A sick, diseased, and cursed world, full of sin and corruption. Beauty and innocence cannot survive untarnished in this world – if it lives, it must lose its beauty and innocence. And then it will never enter heaven, you see. We are all flawed and horrible creatures, not fit for heaven. Only the pure and beautiful are fit. And so you see why they have to die now, before they are allowed to be destroyed by the world. Shakespeare said it best, as he usually does: ‘Beauty too rich for use; for earth too dear.’” He understood, you see. He understood me.”

“My son, are you saying you slaughtered Elisa Day, and these other women of whom you speak, to save them?” I murmured.

“Naturally,” he replied. “You do not think I could murder without reason? I do not believe any man can. But I do not see it as murder, even though it is for that that I must die. I am prepared. I have saved so many souls, I do not think I could bear any more. They grow so heavy after a while. Such a burden.”

He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. Opening his eyes again, he fixed them at the wall behind me, and smiled. “You see, there she is, Father. Elisa Day. She haunts me still. Beautiful Elisa Day, with her lips and hair as red as a rose. She was my Wild Rose, that’s what I called her. I loved her.”

“Then why did you murder her?” I asked.

“I murdered her because I loved her,” he replied. “I couldn’t bear to see her corrupted and destroyed by life. I loved her so much, I wanted her to be happy for always. And so I took her life on earth and sped her on her way to eternal bliss. You cannot think I did wrong.”

“You cannot think you did right,” I retorted. “Only God may take life. You know that.”

"I have been told that,” he agreed. “But consider how loosely we obey that particular commandment, Father. Have you ever killed a fly? Have you ever picked a flower? Then you have killed, and done what God has commanded you not to do. I prefer to read the commandment as ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ And I do not consider what I did to be murder. She herself trusted me enough to follow me to the secluded bank of the river where I did the deed. She herself lay down on the bank, ready to give herself, body and soul, to me. I took the latter, to save it. I kissed her gently, purely, the kiss of one child to another, and then killed her. And I planted a rose between her lips, and lay her in the water to help it grow. Many roses grow from those lips now. Her beautiful body is safe in the ground, and her soul is safe in heaven. I have no regrets.”

“Then why did you wish for a confessor?” I asked. 

“Only so you might know,” he replied. “And understand. Although I do not think you do. That is a pity.” He looked carefully at me. “You are young still, Father. Perhaps when you have spent more years in this wicked world you will begin to understand. You will remember me when you are old and gray and will bless me, I promise you.”

“I bless you now, my child,” I replied. “And I will pray for your soul’s salvation at dawn tomorrow.”

“It is useless,” he replied. “But you may, if you wish. I sometimes believe my good deeds may yet save me. Elisa does, or she would not be here, waiting for me.” His eyes had strayed to the far wall again. “Not long now, my Wild Rose,” he whispered, smiling. “You have nothing to fear. I will never let harm come to you. Those were the last words I ever spoke to her, Father. But she knows I speak the truth.”

There was nothing I could do for him. He was clearly insane, and I pitied him greatly, but he did not need a confessor. I would pray for him, as I promised, but I could not help a man who did not believe he needed my help. I rose to leave.

He stood up too, and pressed the rose he had been holding into my hand. “Keep this as a reminder, Father,” he whispered. “It is the soul I have saved. Press it and preserve its beauty forever. Keep it for my Wild Rose and me.”

I found the pressed flower today, still red and beautiful despite the years that have passed. It prompted me to recall and inscribe this memory. I do not bless him, as he predicted, and I still believe him to be mad. But his story was so unusual that I believe it deserves to be shared.

James Reed was hanged on the 8^th of October, 1886. No flowers adorn his grave.