The Keys of the Kingdom (44 page)

They departed briskly.

He was due to leave at eleven o’clock. He returned to his room. When he had completed his modest packing he had still an hour in which to wander round. He descended, drawn instinctively towards the church. There, outside his house, he drew up, genuinely touched. His entire congregation, nearly five hundred, stood awaiting him, orderly and silent, in the courtyard. The contingent from the Liu village, under Father Chou, stood on one flank, the older girls and handicraft workers upon the other, with his beloved children, shepherded by Mother Mercy Mary, Martha, and the four Chinese Sisters, in front. There was something in the mass attention of their eyes, all bent affectionately upon his insignificant form, which gripped him with a sudden pang.

A deeper hush. From his nervousness it was clear that Joseph had been entrusted with the honour of the address. Two chairs were produced like a conjuring trick. When the old Father was seated in one, Joseph mounted unsteadily upon the other, almost overbalancing, and unrolled the vermilion scroll.

‘Most Reverent and Worthy Disciple of the Lord of Heaven, it is with the utmost anguish that we, thy children, witness thy departure across the broad oceans …’

The address was no different from a hundred other eulogies suffered in the past except that it was lachrymose. Despite a score of secret rehearsals before his wife, Joseph’s delivery was vanquished by the open courtyard. He began to sweat and his paunch quivered like a jelly. Poor dear Joseph, thought the priest, staring at his boots and thinking of a slim young boy running, unfaltering, at his bridle rein thirty years ago.

When it was over the entire congregation sang the
Gloria laus
quite beautifully. Still looking at his boots, as the clear voices ascended, the priest felt a melting of his old bones. ‘ Dear God,’ he prayed, ‘don’t let me make a fool of myself.’

For the presentation, they had chosen the youngest girl in the basket-weaving centre for the blind. She came forward, in her black skirt and white blouse, uncertain yet sure, guided by her instinct and Mother Mercy Mary’s whispered instructions. As she knelt before him, holding out the ornate gilt chalice of execrable design, bought by mail order from Nankin, his eyes were sightless as her own. ‘Bless you, bless you, my child,’ he muttered. He could say no more.

Mr Chia’s number-one chair swam into the orbit of his hazy vision. Disembodied hands helped him into it. The procession formed and set off amidst the popping of fire-crackers and a sudden burst of Sousa from the new school band.

As he swayed slowly down the hill, borne pontifically on the shoulders of the men, he tried to rivet his consciousness upon the gimcrack comedy of the band: twenty schoolboys in sky-blue uniforms, blowing their cheeks out, preceded by a Chinese majorette aged eight in fleecy shako and high white boots, strutting, twirling a cane, kicking up her knees. But somehow, his sense of the ridiculous had ceased to function. In the town the doorways were crowded with friendly faces. More firecrackers welcomed him at every street crossing. As he neared the landing stage flowers were cast before him.

Mr Chia’s launch lay waiting at the steps, the engines quietly running. The chair was lowered, he stepped out. It had come at last. They were surrounding him bidding him farewell: the two young priests, Father Chou, Reverend Mother, Martha, Mr Chia, Joseph, Joshua … all of them, some of the women of the congregation weeping, kneeling to kiss his hand. He had meant to say something. He could not mumble one incoherent word. His breast was overflowing.

Blindly, he boarded the launch. As he turned again to face them there fell a bar of silence. At a prearranged signal, the children’s choir began his favourite hymn: the
Veni Creator.
They had saved it till the last.

‘Come, Holy Spirit, Creator, come,
From thy bright heav’nly throne.’

He had always loved these noble words, written by the great Charlemagne in the ninth century, the loveliest hymn of the Church. Everyone on the landing was singing now.

‘Take possession of our souls,
And make them all thy own.’

Oh, dear, he thought, yielding at last, that’s kind, that’s sweet of them … but oh, how wickedly unfair! A convulsive movement passed over his face.

As the launch moved away from the stage and he raised his hand to bless them, tears were streaming down his battered face.

His Grace Bishop Mealey was extremely late. Twice a nice young priest of the household had peeped round the parlour door to explain that His Lordship and His Lordship’s secretary were detained, unavoidably, at a Convention. Father Chisholm blinked formidably over his copy of the
Tablet.

‘Punctuality is the politeness of prelates!’

‘His Lordship is a very busy man.’ With an uncertain smile, the young priest withdrew, not quite sure of this old boy from China, half-wondering if he could be trusted with the silver. The appointment had been for eleven. Now the clock showed half-past twelve.

It was the same room in which he awaited his interview with Rusty Mac. How long ago? Good heavens … thirty-six years! He shook his head dolefully. It had amused him to intimidate the pretty stripling, but his mood was far from combative. He felt rather shaky this morning, and desperately nervous. He wanted something from the Bishop. He hated asking favours, yet he must ask this one, and his heart had jumped when the summons to the interview arrived at the modest hotel where he had been staying since the ship unloaded him at Liverpool.

Valiantly, he straightened his wrinkled vest, spruced up his tired collar. He was not really old. There was plenty of go in him yet. Now that it was well past noon, Anselm would undoubtedly ask him to remain to luncheon. He would be spry, curb his outrageous tongue, listen to Anselm’s stories, laugh at his jokes, not be above a little, or perhaps a lot of, flattery. He hoped to God the nerve wouldn’t start twitching in his damaged cheek. That made him look a perfect lunatic!

It was ten minutes to one. At last there came a commotion of importance in the corridor outside and, decisively, Bishop Mealey entered the room. Perhaps he had been hurrying; his manner was brisk, his eye beaming towards Francis, not conscious of the clock.

‘My dear Francis. It’s splendid to see you again. You must pardon this little delay. No, don’t get up, I beg of you. We’ll talk here. It’s… it’s more intimate than in my room.’

Briskly, he pulled out a chair and seated himself with an easy grace beside Father Chisholm at the table. As he rested his fleshy, well-tended hand affectionately upon the other’s sleeve, he thought: Good heavens, how old and feeble he has become!

‘And how is dear Pai-tan? Not unflourishing, Monsignor Sleeth tells me. I vividly remember when I stood in that stricken city, amidst deadly plague and desolation. Truly the hand of God lay upon it. Ah, those were my pioneering days, Francis. I pine for them sometimes. Now,’ he smiled, ‘I’m only a Bishop. Do you see much change in me since we parted on that Orient strand?’

Francis studied his old friend with an odd admiration. There was no doubt of it – the years had improved Anselm Mealey. Maturity had come late to him. His office had given him dignity, toned his early effusiveness to suavity. He had a fine presence and held his head high. The soft full ecclesiastic face was lit by the same velvety eye. He was preserved, still had his own teeth, and a supple vigorous skin.

Francis said simply, ‘I’ve never seen you look better.’

The Bishop inclined his head, pleased. ‘
O temporal O mores!
We’re neither of us so young as we were. But I don’t wear too badly. Frankly, I find perfect health essential to efficiency. If you knew what I have to cope with! They’ve put me on a balanced diet. And I have a masseur, a husky Swede, who literally pummels the fear of God into me … I’m afraid,’ with a sudden genuine solicitude, ‘you’ve been very careless of yourself.’

‘I feel like an old ragman beside you, Anselm, and that is God’s truth … But I keep young in heart … or try to. And there’s still some service left in me. I … I hope you’re not altogether dissatisfied with my work in Pai-tan.’

‘My dear Father, your efforts were heroic. Naturally we’re a little disappointed in the figures. Monsignor Sleeth was showing me only yesterday …’ The voice was quite benevolent. ‘… In all your thirty-six years you made less conversions than Father Lawler made in five. Please don’t think I’m reproaching you – that would be too unkind. Someday when you have leisure we’ll discuss it thoroughly. Meanwhile –’ His eye was hovering round the clock. ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’

There was a pause; then, in a low tone, Francis answered: ‘ Yes … There is, your Grace … I want a parish.’

The Bishop almost started out of his benign, affectionate composure. He slowly raised his brows as Father Chisholm continued, with that quiet intensity: ‘Give me Tweedside, Anselm. There’s a vacancy at Renton … a bigger, better parish. Promote the Tweedside priest to Renton. And let me … Let me go home.’

The Bishop’s smile had become fixed, rather less easy, upon his handsome face. ‘My dear Francis, you seem to wish to administer my diocese.’

‘I have a special reason for asking you. I would be so very grateful …’ To his horror Father Chisholm found his voice out of control. He broke off, then added huskily: ‘Bishop MacNabb promised I should have a parish if ever I came home.’ He began to fumble in his inside pocket. ‘I have his letter …’

Anselm raised his hand. ‘I can’t be expected to honour the posthumous letters of my predecessor.’ A silence; then, with kind urbanity, His Lordship continued: ‘ Naturally, I will bear your request in mind. But I cannot promise. Tweedside has always been very dear to me. When the weight of the pro-cathedral is off my shoulders I had thought of building myself a retreat there – a little Castle Gondolfo.’ He paused – his ear, still keen, picking up the sound of an arriving car, followed by voices in the hall outside. Diplomatically his eye sought the clock. His pleasant manner quickened. ‘Well … It is all in God’s hands. We shall see, we shall see.’

‘If you would let me explain –’ Francis protested humbly. ‘ I’m… rather anxious to make a home … for someone.’

‘You must tell me some other time.’ Another car outside and more voices. The Bishop gathered up his violet cassock, his tone honeyed with regret. ‘It is quite a calamity, Francis, that I must slip away, just as I was looking forward to our long and interesting talk. I have an official luncheon at one. The Lord Mayor and City Council are my guests. More politics, alas … school board, water board, finance … a
quid pro quo
… I have to be a stockbroker these days … But I like it Francis, I like it!’

‘I wouldn’t take more than a minute …’ Francis stopped short, dropped his gaze to the floor.

The Bishop had risen blandly. With his arm lightly on Father Chisholm’s shoulder he aided him affectionately to the door. ‘ I can’t express what a great joy it has been for me to welcome you home. We will keep in touch with you, never fear. And now, I must leave you. Good-bye, Francis … and bless you.’

Outside, a stream of large dark limousines flowed up the drive towards the high portico of the palace. The old priest had a vision of a purple face beneath a beaver hat, of more faces, hard and bloated, of miniver, gold chains of office. A wet wind was blowing and it cut his old bones, used to sunshine and covered only by his thin tropic suit. As he moved away a car-wheel churned near the kerb and a spurt of mud flew up and hit him in the eye. He wiped it off with his hand, gazing down the arches of the years, reflecting, with a faint grim smile: Anselm’s mud bath is avenged.

His breast was cold, yet through his disappointment, his sinking weakness, a white flame burned, unquenchably. He must find a church at once. Across the street the great domed bulk of the new cathedral loomed, a million pounds in sterling, transmuted to massive stone and marble. He limped urgently towards it.

He reached the broad entrance steps, mounted them, then suddenly drew up. Before him, on the wet stone of the topmost step, a ragged cripple crouched in the wind, with a card pinned upon his chest:
Old Soldier, Please Help.

Francis contemplated the broken figure. He pulled out the solitary shilling from his pocket, placed it in the tin cup. The two unwanted soldiers gazed at each other in silence, then each gazed away.

He entered the pro-cathedral, an echoing vastness of beauty and silence, pillared in marble, rich in oak and bronze, a temple of towering and intricate design, in which his mission chapel would have stood unnoticed, forgotten, in a corner of the transept. Undaunted, he marched towards the high altar. There he knelt and fiercely, with unshaken valour, prayed.

‘Oh Lord, for once – not Thy will, but mine, be done.’

Five weeks later Father Chisholm made his expedition, long deferred, to Kirkbridge. As he left the railway station the cotton-thread mills of that large industrial centre were disgorging their workers for the dinner hour. Hundreds of women with shawls wrapped about their heads went scurrying through the drenching rain, yielding only to an occasional tram clanging over the greasy cobbles.

At the end of the main street he inquired his way, then took to the right, past an enormous statue erected to a local thread magnate, and entered a poorer locality: a squalid square imprisoned by high tenements. He crossed the square and plunged into a narrow alley, fetid with smells, so dark that, on the brightest day, no gleam of sun could penetrate. Despite his joy, his high excitement, the priest’s heart sank. He had expected poverty but not this … He thought: What have I done in my stupidity and neglect! Here, it was like being at the bottom of a well.

He inspected the numbers on the tenement entrances, singled out the right one, and began to climb the stairs, which were without light or air, the windows foul, the gas brackets plugged. A cracked soil pipe had drenched one landing.

Three flights up he stumbled and almost fell. A child was seated upon the stairs, a boy. The priest stared through the foggy gloom at the small rachitic figure, supporting his heavy head with one hand, bracing his sharp elbow against his bony knee. His skin was the colour of candle tallow. He was almost transparent. He looked like a tired old man. He might have been seven years of age.