The Keys of the Kingdom

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• A. J. Cronin
  
• 1. Beginning of the End
  
• 2. Strange Vocation
  
• 3. An Unsuccessful Curate
  
• 4. The China Incident
  
• 5. The Return
  
• 6. End of the Beginning
  

Born in Cardross, Scotland, A. J. Cronin studied at the University of Glasgow. In 1916 he served as a surgeon sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteers Reserve, and at the war’s end he completed his medical studies and practiced in South Wales. He was later appointed to the Ministry of Mines, studying the medical problems of the mining industry. He moved to London and built up a successful practice in the West End. In 1931 he published his first book,
Hatter’s Castle
, which was compared with the work of Dickens, Hardy and Balzac, winning him critical acclaim. Other books by A. J. Cronin include:
The Stars Look Down
,
The Citadel
,
Three Loves
,
The Green Years
,
Beyond This Place
, and
The Keys of the Kingdom
.

Late one afternoon in September 1938 old Father Francis Chisholm limped up the steep path from the church of St Columba to his house upon the hill. He preferred this way despite his infirmities to the less arduous ascent of Mercat Wynd; and having reached the narrow door of his walled-in garden he paused with a kind of naïve triumph – recovering his breath, contemplating the view he had always loved.

Beneath him was the River Tweed, a great wide sweep of placid silver tinted by the low saffron smudge of autumn sunset. Down the slope of the northern Scottish bank tumbled the town of Tweedside, its tiled roofs a crazy quilt of pink and yellow, masking the maze of cobbled streets. High stone ramparts still ringed this Border burgh, with captured Crimean cannon making perches for the gulls as they pecked at partan crabs. At the river’s mouth a wraith lay upon the sand bar misting the lines of drying nets, the masts of smacks inside the harbour pointing upwards, brittle and motionless. Inland dusk was already creeping upon the still bronze woods of Derham, towards which, as he gazed, a lonely heron made laboured flight. The air was thin and clear, stringent with wood smoke and the tang of fallen apples, sharp with the hint of early frost.

With a contented sigh Father Chisholm turned into his garden: a patch beside his pleasance upon the Hill of Brilliant Green Jade, but a pretty one, and, like all Scots gardens, productive, with a few fine fruit trees splayed on the mellow wall. The jargonelle espalier in the south corner was at its best. Since there was no sign of the tyrant Dougal, with a cautious glance towards the kitchen window he stole the finest pear from his own tree, slid it under his soutane. His yellow wrinkled cheek was ripe with triumph as he hobbled – dot and carry – down the gravelled drive, leaning on his one indulgence, the new umbrella of Chisholm tartan which replaced his battered favourite of Paitan. And there, standing at the front porch, was the car.

His face puckered slowly. Though his memory was bad and his fits of absent-mindedness a perpetual embarrassment, he now recollected the vexation of the Bishop’s letter proposing, or rather announcing, this visit of his secretary Monsignor Sleeth. He hastened forward to welcome his guest.

Monsignor Sleeth was in the parlour, standing, dark, thin, distinguished, and not quite at ease, with his back to the empty fireplace – his youthful impatience heightened, his clerical dignity repelled, by the mean surroundings in which he found himself. He had looked for a note of individuality: some piece of porcelain perhaps, or lacquer, a souvenir from the East. But the apartment was bare and nondescript, with poor linoleum, horsehair chairs and a chipped mantelpiece on which, out of the corner of a disapproving eye, he had already noted a spinning top beside an uncounted litter of collection pennies. Yet he was resolved to be pleasant. Smoothing his frown, he stifled Father Chisholm’s apology with a gracious gesture.

‘Your housekeeper has already shown me my room. I trust it will not disturb you to have me here for a few days. What a superb afternoon it has been. The colourings! – as I drove up from Tynecastle I almost fancied myself in dear San Morales.’ He gazed away, through the darkening window, with a studied air.

The old man nearly smiled at the imprint of Father Tarrant and the Seminary – Sleeth’s elegance, that blade-like look, even the hint of hardness in the nostril, made him a perfect replica.

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll have our bite presently. I’m sorry I can’t offer you dinner. Somehow we’ve just fallen to the habit of a Scots high tea!’

Sleeth, head half-averted, nodded noncommittally. Indeed, at that moment, Miss Moffat entered and, having drawn the drab chenille curtains, stealithy began to set the table. He could not but reflect, ironically, how the neutral creature, darting him one frightened glance, matched the room. Though it caused him a passing asperity to observe her lay places for three, her presence enabled him to lead the conversation safety into generalities.

As the two priests sat down at table he was eulogizing the special marble which the Bishop had brought from Carrara for the transept of the new Tynecastle pro-Cathedral. Helping himself with good appetite from the ashet of ham, eggs and kidneys before him, he accepted a cup of tea poured from the Britannia metal teapot. Then, busy buttering brown toast, he heard his host remark mildly:

‘You won’t mind if Andrew sups his porridge with us. Andrew – this is Monsignor Sleeth!’

Sleeth raised his head abruptly. A boy about nine years of age had come silently into the room and now, after an instant’s indecision, when he stood tugging at his blue jersey, his long pale face intense with nervousness, slipped into his place, reaching mechanically for the milk jug. As he bent over his plate a lock of dank brown hair – tribute to Miss Moffat’s sponge – fell over his ugly bony forehead. His eyes, of a remarkable blue, held a childish prescience of crisis – they were so uneasy he dared not lift them up.

The Bishop’s secretary relaxed his attitude, slowly resumed his meal. After all, the moment was not opportune. Yet from time to time his stare travelled covertly towards the boy.

‘So you are Andrew!’ Decency demanded speech, even a hint of benignness. ‘And you go to school here?’

‘Yes …’

‘Come then! Let us see how much you know.’ Amiably enough, he propounded a few simple questions. The boy, flushed and inarticulate, too confused to think, betrayed humiliating ignorance.

Monsignor Sleeth’s eyebrows lifted. ‘ Dreadful,’ he thought. ‘Quite a gutter brat!’

He helped himself to another kidney – then suddenly became aware that while he trifled with the rich meats of the table the other two kept soberly to porridge. He flushed: this show of asceticism on the old man’s part was insufferable affectation.

Perhaps Father Chisholm had a wry perception of that thought. He shook his head: ‘I went without good Scots oatmeal so many years I never miss it now I have the chance.’

Sleeth received the remark in silence. Presently with a hurried glance, out of his downcast muteness, Andrew begged permission to depart. Rising to say his grace, he knocked a spoon spinning with his elbow. His stiff boots made an uncouth scuffling towards the door.

Another pause. Then, having concluded his meal, Monsignor Sleeth rose easily and repossessed, without apparent purpose, the fleshless hearth-rug. With feet apart and hands clasped behind his back he considered, without seeming to do so, his aged colleague, who, still seated, had the curious air of waiting. Dear God, thought Sleeth, what a pitiable presentation of the priesthood – this shabby old man, with the stained soutane, soiled collar and sallow, desiccated skin! On one cheek was an ugly weal, a kind of cicatrix, which everted the lower eyelid, seemed to tug the head down and sideways. The impression was that of a permanent wry neck, counterpoising the lame and shortened leg. His eyes, usually lowered, took thus – on the rare occasions that he raised them – a penetrating obliqueness which was strangely disconcerting.

Sleeth cleared his throat. He judged it time for him to speak and, forcing a note of cordiality, he inquired: ‘ How long have you been here, Father Chisholm?’

‘Twelve months.’

‘Ah, yes. It was a kindly gesture of His Grace to send you – on your return – to your native parish.’

‘And his!’

Sleeth inclined his head suavely. ‘I was aware that His Grace shared with you the distinction of having been born here. Let me see … what age are you, Father? Nearly seventy is it not?’

Father Chisholm nodded, adding with gentle senile pride: ‘I am no older than Anselm Mealey.’

Sleeth’s frown at the familiarity melted into a half-pitying smile. ‘No doubt – but life has treated you rather differently. To be brief,’ – he gathered himself up, firm, but not unkind, – ‘the Bishop and I both have the feeling that your long and faithful years should now be recompensed; that you should, in short, retire!’

There was a moment of strange quiet.

‘But I have no wish to retire.’

‘It is a painful duty for me to come here’ – Sleeth kept his gaze discreetly on the ceiling – ‘to investigate … and report to His Grace. But there are certain things which cannot be overlooked.’

‘What things?’

Sleeth moved irritably. ‘Six – ten – a dozen things! It isn’t my place to enumerate your – your Oriental eccentricities!’

‘I’m sorry.’ A slow spark kindled in the old man’s eyes. ‘You must remember that I spent thirty-five years in China.’

‘Your parish affairs are in a hopeless muddle.’

‘Am I in debt?’

‘How are we to know? No returns on your quarterly collections for six months.’ Sleeth’s voice rose, he spoke a little faster. ‘Everything so … so unbusinesslike … For instance when Bland’s traveller presented his bill last month – three pounds for candles, and so forth – you paid him entirely in coppers!’

‘That’s how it comes to me.’ Father Chisholm viewed his visitor thoughtfully, as though he looked straight through him. ‘I’ve always been stupid about money. I’ve never had any, you see … But after all … Do you think money so dreadfully important?’

To his annoyance Monsignor Sleeth found himself reddening. ‘It makes talk Father.’ He rushed on. ‘And there is other talk. Some of your sermons … the advice you give … certain points of doctrine.’ He consulted a Morocco-covered noteboook already in his palm. ‘ They seem dangerously peculiar.’