The Keys of the Kingdom (16 page)

On the Thursday evening, freshly shaved, in clean linen and his best black, his face a dreadful compromise of gaiety and gloom, Father Kezer stalked over to the ceremony. Francis followed behind him.

The new hall was warm with lights and excitement, filled to capacity with the working people of the community. On the raised platform a number of the local notables were seated, Donald Kyle and his wife, the colliery doctor, the council schoolmaster, and two other ministers of religion. As Francis and Father Kezer took their seats there was prolonged cheering, then a few catcalls and loud laughter. Father Kezer’s jaws snapped sourly together.

The sound of a car arriving outside heightened the expectation and a minute later, amidst a great ovation, Sir George appeared on the platform. He was a medium-sized man of about sixty with a shining bald head fringed with white hair. His moustache was silvery also, and his cheeks were brightly coloured. He had that remarkably fresh pink-and-whiteness achieved by some fair-haired persons in their declining years. It seemed preposterous that one so quiet in his dress and manner should command such enormous power.

He listened agreeably while the ceremony proceeded, sustained the address of welcome from Mr Kyle, then delivered a few remarks himself. He concluded amiably:

‘I should like in fairness to state that the first suggestion of this very worthy project came directly from the vision and broadmindedness of Father Francis Chisholm.’

The applause was deafening and Francis flushed, his eyes, pleading and remorseful, bent on his superior.

Father Kezer raised his hands automatically, brought them soundlessly together twice, with a grin of sickly martyrdom. Later, when the impromptu dance started, he stood watching Sir George swing round the hall with young Nancy Kyle. Then he faded into the night. The music of the fiddlers followed him.

When Francis returned late, he found the parish priest sitting up in the parlour, with no fire, his hands on his knees.

Father Kezer seemed oddly inert. All the fight had gone out of him. In the last ten years he had knocked out more curates than Henry VIII had wives. And now a curate had knocked him out. He said tonelessly:

‘I’ll have to report you to the Bishop!’

Francis felt his heart turn over in his breast. But he did not flinch. No matter what happened to him, Father Kezer’s authority was shaken. The older priest continued glumly: ‘Perhaps you’d be the better of a change. The Bishop can decide. Dean Fitzgerald needs another curate in Tynecastle … your friend Mealey’s there, isn’t he?’

Francis was silent. He did not wish to leave this now faintly stirring parish. Yet even if he were forced to do so things would be easier for his successor. The club would continue. It was a beginning. Other changes would come. He had no personal exultation, but a quiet, almost visionary, hope. He said in a low voice; ‘I’m sorry if I have upset you, Father. Believe me, I was only trying to help … our good-for-nothing lot.’

The eyes of the two priests met. Father Kezer’s fell first.

One Friday towards the end of Lent, in the dining room of St Dominic’s Presbytery, Francis and Father Slukas were already seated at the meagre midday repast of boiled stockfish and butterless brown toast served on Victorian silver and fine blue Worcester china, when Father Mealey returned from an early sick call. From the suppression of his manner, his indifferent mode of helping himself, Francis was immediately aware that Anselm had something on his mind. Dean Fitzgerald dined upstairs at this season of the Church and the three junior priests were alone. But Father Mealey, munching without taste, a faint colour beneath his skin, kept silence till the end of the meal. Only when the Lithuanian had brushed the crumbs from his beard, risen, bowed, and departed, did his tension relax. He drew a long pressing breath.

‘Francis! I want you to come with me this afternoon. You’ve no engagements?’

‘No … I’m free till four o’clock.’

‘Then you must come. I’d like you as my friend, as my fellow priest, to be the first …’ He broke off, would say no more to lift the heavy mystery of his words.

For two years Francis had been the second curate at St Dominic’s, where Gerald Fitzgerald, now Dean Fitzgerald, still remained, with Anselm his senior assistant and Slukas, the Lithuanian Father, a necessary encumbrance on account of the many Polish immigrants who kept crowding into Tynecastle.

The change from the backwoods of Shalesley to this familiar city parish where the services went like clockwork and the church was elegantly perfect had left a curious mark on Francis. He was happy to be near Aunt Polly, to maintain an eye on Ned and Judy, to see the Tullochs, Willie and his sister, once or twice a week. He had a queer consolation, a sense of indefinable support, in the recent elevation of Monsignor MacNabb from San Morales to be Bishop of the diocese. Yet his new air of maturity, the lines about his steady eyes, the spareness of his frame, gave silent indications that the transition had not been easy.

Dean Fitzgerald, refined and fastidious, priding himself on being a gentleman, stood at the opposite pole from Father Kezer. Yet, though he strove to be impartial, the Dean was not without a certain lofty prejudice. While he warmly approved Anselm – now his prime favourite – and blankly ignored Father Slukas, – whose broken English and table habits, a napkin tucked beneath the beard at every meal, coupled with a strange predilection for wearing a derby hat with his soutane placed him far beyond the pale, – towards his other curate he had a strange wariness. Francis soon realized that his humble birth, his association with the Union Tavern, with, indeed, the whole stark Bannon tragedy, must prove a handicap he could not lightly overcome.

And he had made such a bad beginning! Tired of the shop-worn platitudes, the same old parrot sermons that came, almost by rote, on the appointed Sundays of the year, Francis had ventured, soon after his arrival, to preach a simple homily, fresh and original, his own thoughts, on the subject of personal integrity. Alas, Dean Fitzgerald had cuttingly condemned the dangerous innovation. Next Sunday, at his behest, Anselm had mounted the pulpit and given forth the antidote: a magnificent peroration on The Star of the Sea, in which harts panted for the water and barques came safe across the bar; ending dramatically with arms outstretched, a handsome suppliant for Love, on the admonition ‘ Come!’ All the women of the congregation were in tears, and afterwards, as Anselm ate a hearty breakfast of mutton chops, the Dean pointedly congratulated him. ‘That! – Father Mealey – was eloquent. I heard our late Bishop deliver practically the same sermon twenty years ago.’

Perhaps these opposite orations set their courses: as the months passed Francis could not but dejectedly compare his own indifferent showing with Anslem’s remarkable success. Father Mealey was a figure in the parish, always cheerful, even gay, with a ready laugh and a comforting pat on the back for anyone in trouble. He worked hard and with great earnestness, carrying a little book full of his engagements in his waistcoat pocket, never refusing an invitation to address a meeting or make an after-dinner speech. He edited the
St Dominic’s Gazette:
a newsy and often humorous little sheet. He went out a good deal and, though no one could call him a snob, took tea at all the best houses. Whenever an eminent cleric came to preach in the city, Anselm was sure to meet him and to sit admiringly at his feet. Later he would send a letter, beautifully composed, expressing ardently the spiritual benefit he had derived from the encounter. He had made many influential friends through this sincerity.

Naturally there were limits to his capacity for work. While he vigorously assumed the post of secretary to the new Diocesan Foreign Missionary Centre in Tynecastle – a cherished project of the Bishop – and worked unremittingly to please His Grace he had been obliged reluctantly to decline, and depute to Francis, the management of the Working Boy’s Club in Shand Street.

The property round Shand Street was the worst in the city, tall tenements and lodging houses, a network of slums, and this, properly enough, had come to be regarded as Francis’ district. Here, though his results seemed trivial and meaningless, he found plenty to do. He had to train himself to look destitution in the eye, to view without shrinking the sorrow and the shame of life, the eternal irony of poverty. It was not a communion of saints that grew about him but a communion of sinners, rousing such pity in him it brought him sometimes to the brink of tears.

‘Don’t say you’re taking forty winks,’ said Anselm reproachfully.

Almost with a start Francis came out of his reverie to find Father Mealey, waiting on him, hat and stick in hand, beside the lunch table. He smiled and rose in acquiescence.

Outside, the afternoon was fresh and fine, with a rousing, bustling breeze, and Anselm strode along with a brisk swing, clean, honest and healthy, greeting his parishioners bluffly. His popularity at St Dominic’s had not spoiled him. To his many admirers his most engaging characteristic was the way in which he deprecated his achievements.

Soon Francis saw that they were making for the new suburb recently added to the parish. Beyond the city boundary, a housing development was in progress, on the parklands of an old country property. Workmen were moving with hods and barrows. Francis subconsciously noted a big white board:
Hollis Estate, Apply Malcom Glennie, Solicitor.
But Anselm was pushing on, over the hill, past some green fields, then down a wooded pathway to the left. It was a pleasant rural stretch to be so near the chimney-pots.

Suddenly Father Mealey halted, with the still excitement of a pointing hound.

‘You know where we are, Francis? You’ve heard of this place?’

‘Of course.’

Francis had often passed it: a little hollow of lichened rocks, screened with yellow broom and enclosed by an oval copse of copper beeches. It was the prettiest spot for miles around. He had often wondered why it was known as ‘The Well’ and sometimes, indeed, as ‘Marywell’. The basin had been dry for fifty years.

‘Look!’ Clutching his arm, Father Mealey led him forward. From the dry rocks gushed a crystal spring. There was an odd silence, then, stooping with cupped hands, Mealey took an almost sacramental drink.

‘Taste it, Francis. We ought to be grateful for the privilege of being among the first.’

Francis bent and drank. The water was sweet and cold. He smiled. ‘It tastes good.’

Mealey regarded him with wise indulgence, not without its tinge of patronage. ‘ My dear fellow, I could call it a heavenly taste.’

‘Has it been flowing long?’

‘It began yesterday afternoon at sundown.’

Francis laughed. ‘Really, Anselm, you’re a Delphic oracle today – full of signs and portents. Come on, give me the whole story. Who told you about this?’

Father Mealey shook his head. ‘ I can’t … yet.’

‘But you’ve made me so confoundedly curious.’

Pleased, Anselm smiled. Then his expression regained its solemnity. ‘I can’t break the seal yet, Francis. I must go to Dean Fitzgerald. He’s the one who must deal with this. Meantime, of course, I trust you … I know you will respect my confidence.’

Francis knew his companion too well to press him further.

On their return to Tynecastle, Francis parted from his fellow curate and went on to Glanville Street to make a sick call. One of his club members, a boy named Owen Warren, had been kicked on the leg in a football game some weeks before. The youngster was poor and under-nourished and heedless of the injury. When the Poor Law doctor was eventually called in, the condition had developed into an ugly ulcer of the shin.

The affair had upset Francis – the more so since Dr Tulloch seemed dubious of the prognosis. And this evening, in his endeavour to bring some comfort to Owen and his worried mother, the peculiar and inconclusive excursion of the afternoon was driven completely from his mind.

Next morning, however, loud and minatory sounds emerging from Dean Gerald Fitzgerald’s room brought it back before him.

Lent was a deadly penance for the Dean. He was a just man, and he fasted. But fasting did not suit his full elegant body, well habituated to the stimuli of rich and nourishing juices. Sorely tried in health and temper, he kept to himself, walked the Presbytery with no recognition in his hooded eye, and each night marked another cross upon the calendar.

Although Father Mealey stood so high in Fitzgerald’s favour it demanded considerable resourcefulness to approach him at such a time, and Francis heard Anselm’s voice full, persuasive and pleading, across the Dean’s irascible abruptness. In the end the softer voice triumphed – like drops of water, Francis reflected, wearing out granite through sheer persistence.

An hour later, with a very bad grace, the Dean came out of his room. Father Mealey was waiting on him in the vestibule. They departed together in a cab in the direction of the centre of the town. They were absent three hours. It was lunchtime when they returned and for once the Dean broke his rule. He sat down at the curates’ table. Though he would eat nothing he ordered a large pot of French coffee, his one luxury in a desert of self-denial. Sitting sideways, his legs crossed, a handsome elegant figure, sipping the black and aromatic brew, he diffused an air of warmth, almost of comradeship, as though a little taken out of himself by an inner, thrilling exaltation. He said, meditatively, to Francis and the Polish priest – it was notable that he included Slukas in his friendly glance:

‘Well, we may thank Father Mealey for his persistence … in the face of my somewhat violent disbelief. Naturally it is my duty to maintain the utmost scepticism towards certain … phenomena. But I have never seen, I had never hoped to see, such a manifestation, in my own parish –’ He broke off and, taking up his coffee cup, made a generous gesture of renunciation towards the senior curate. ‘Let it be your privilege to tell them, Father.’

That faint excited colour persisted in Father Mealey’s cheek. He cleared his throat and began, readily and earnestly, as though the incident he related demanded his most formal eloquence: