The Keys of the Kingdom (12 page)

‘No.’

‘Then what did you do?’

Silence again, then the muttered inarticulate reply. ‘I’ve told you. You wouldn’t understand. I … I went for a walk!’

Father Tarrant smiled thinly. ‘ Do you wish us to believe that you spent these entire four days ceaselessly perambulating the countryside?’

‘Well … practically.’

‘What destination did you reach eventually?’

‘I – I got to Cossa!’

‘Cossa! But that is fifty miles away!’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘You were there for some specific purpose?’

‘No.’

Father Tarrant bit his thin lip. He could not brook obstruction. He had a sudden wild longing for the rack, the boot, the wheel.

Small wonder the mediaevalists had recourse to such instruments! There were circumstances which fully justified them.

‘I believe you are lying, Chisholm.’

‘Why should I lie – to you?’

A muffled exclamation came from Deacon Mealey. His presence was purely formal. As the chief prefect he sat there as a symbol, perhaps a cipher, expressive of the student body. Yet he could not restrain his earnest pleading.

‘Please, Francis! For the sake of all of the students … all of us who love you … I … implore you to own up.’

As Francis remained silent, Father Gomez, the young Spanish novice master, inclined his head and murmured to Tarrant: ‘I’ve had no evidence … none whatever, from the town. But we might write to the priest at Cossa.’

Tarrant shot a swift glance at the Spaniard’s subtle face.

‘Yes. That is decidedly an idea.’

Meanwhile the Rector had taken advantage of the lull. Older, slower than at Holywell, he leaned forward. He spoke slowly and kindly.

‘Of course, you must realize, Francis, that in the circumstances, so general an explanation is barely adequate. After all, it is a serious matter to play truant – not merely the breaking of the Seminary rule – the disobedience – but rather the underlying motive which prompted you. Tell me! Are you not happy here?’

‘Yes, I am happy.’

‘Good! And you’ve no reason to doubt your vocation?’

‘No! I want more than ever to try to do some good in the world.’

‘That pleases me greatly. You don’t wish to be sent away?’

‘No!’

‘Then tell us in your own words how you came to – to take your remarkable adventure.’

At the quiet encouragement, Francis raised his head. He made a great effort, his eyes remote, his face troubled.

‘I … I had just been to the chapel. But I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t seem to settle. I was restless. The
solano
was blowing – the hot wind seemed to make me more restless, the routine of the Seminary suddenly seemed petty and vexatious. Suddenly, I saw the road outside the gates, white and soft with dust. I couldn’t help myself. I was on the road, walking. I walked all night, miles and miles. I walked –’

‘All the next day.’ Father Tarrant bit out the satiric interruption. ‘And the next!’

‘That’s what I did.’

‘I never heard such a pack of rubbish in my life! It is an insult to the intelligence of the Committee.’

The Rector, with frowning resolution, suddenly straightened himself in his chair.

‘I propose that we temporarily adjourn.’ While the two priests stared at him in surprise, he said decisively to Francis: ‘You may go for the present. If we think it necessary we will recall you.’

Francis left the room in a dead silence. Only then did the Rector turn to the others. He declared coldly: ‘I assure you that bullying will do no good. We must go carefully. There is more in this than meets the eye.’

Smarting under the interference, Father Tarrant moved fretfully.

‘It is the culmination of an unruly career.’

‘Not at all.’ The Rector demurred. ‘He’s been eager and persevering ever since he came here. There is nothing damaging in his record, Father Gomez?’

Gomez turned the pages, on the desk, before him.

‘No.’ He spoke slowly, reading from the record. ‘A few practical jokes. Last winter he set fire to the English newspaper when Father Despard was perusing it in the common room. Asked why … he laughed and answered, ‘The Devil finds work for idle hands!’

‘Never mind that.’ The Rector spoke sharply. ‘ We all know Father Despard corners every paper that comes into this Seminary.’

‘Then,’ Gomez resumed, ‘when deputed to read aloud in the refectory he smuggled in and substituted for
The Life of St Peter of Alcantara
a C R S tract entitled
When Eva Stole the Sugar
which – until he was stopped – induced much unseemly hilarity.’

‘Harmless mischief.’

‘Again …’ Gomez turned another page. ‘ In the comical procession the students got up, representing the Sacraments – you may remember, one dressed up as a baby representing Baptism, two others were got up as Matrimony, and so on – it was all done with permission of course. But,’ Gomez shot a dubious glance at Tarrant, ‘on the back of the corpse carried in for Extreme Unction, Chisholm pinned a card:

‘Here lies Father Tarrant
I’ve gladly signed his warrant.
If ever –’

‘That’s enough.’ Tarrant broke in sharply. ‘We’ve more to concern us than those absurd lampoons.’

The Rector nodded. ‘Absurd, yes. But not malicious. I like a young man who can knock some fun out of life. We cannot ignore the fact that Chisholm is an unusual character – most unusual. He has great depth and fire. He’s sensitive, inclined to fits of melancholy. He conceals it behind these high spirits. You see, he’s a fighter, he’ll never give in. He’s a queer mixture of childlike simplicity and logical directness. And, above all, he’s a complete individualist!’

‘Individualism is rather a dangerous quality in a theologian,’ Tarrant interposed acidly. ‘It gave us the Reformation.’

‘And the Reformation gave us a better-behaved Catholic Church.’ The Rector smiled mildly at the ceiling. ‘But we’re getting from the point. I don’t deny there’s been a gross breach of discipline. It must be punished. But the punishment cannot be rushed. I can’t expel a student of Chisholm’s quality without first knowing positively that he deserves expulsion. Therefore, let us wait a few days.’ He rose, innocently. ‘I’m sure you all agree.’

As the three priests left the platform, Gomez and Tarrant went off together.

During the next two days an air of suspended doom overhung the unhappy Francis. He was not restrained. No apparent ban was placed upon his studies. But wherever he went – to the library, refectory or common room – an unnatural silence struck his fellows, followed swiftly by an exaggerated casualness which deceived no one. The knowledge that he was the universal topic gave him a guilty look. His Holywell companion, Hudson, also in the subdiaconate, pursued him with affectionate attentions and a worried frown. Anselm Mealey led another faction which clearly felt itself outraged. At recreation they consulted, approached the solitary figure. Mealey was the spokesman.

‘We don’t want to hit you when you’re down, Francis. But this touches all of us. It’s a slur upon the student body as a whole. We feel that it would be much finer and manlier if you would make a clean breast and own up to it.’

‘Own up to what?’

Mealey shrugged his shoulders. There was a silence. What more could he do? As he turned away with the others he said:

‘We’ve decided to make a novena for you. I feel it worse than the others. I hoped you were my best friend.’

Francis found it harder to maintain his pretence of normality. He would start off to walk in the Seminary grounds, then stop, sharply, recollecting that walking had been his ruin. He drifted about, aware that for Tarrant and the other professors he had ceased to exist. At the lectures he found he was not listening. The summons to the Rector he half hoped for did not come.

His sense of personal stress increased. He failed to understand himself. He was a purposeless enigma. He brooded over the justification of those who had predicted that he had no vocation. He had wild conceptions of setting out as a lay brother to some dangerous and distant mission. He began to haunt the church – but secretly. Above all there existed the necessity of putting on a face to meet his little world.

It was on the morning of the third day, Wednesday, that Father Gomez received the letter. Shocked but deeply gratified, his resourcefulness confirmed, he ran with it to the Administrator’s office. He stood, while Father Tarrant read the note, like the intelligent dog awaiting its reward, a kind word or a bone.

Mi Amigo
,
In reply to your honoured communication of White Sunday,

I deeply regret to inform you that inquiries have elicited the fact that a Seminarian, of such bearing height and colour as you define, was observed in Cossa on April 14th. He was seen to enter the house of one Rosa Oyarzabal late that evening and to leave early the following morning. The woman in question lives alone, is of a known character, and has not frequented the altar rail for seven years. I have the honour to remain, dear Padre, Your devoted brother in Jesus Christus,

S
ALVADOR
B
OLAS
P P Cossa

Gomez murmured: ‘Don’t you agree it was good strategy?’

‘Yes, yes!’ With a brow of thunder Tarrant brushed the Spaniard aside. Bearing the letter like something obscene, he strode into the Rector’s room at the end of the corridor. But the Rector was saying his mass. He would be occupied for half an hour.

Father Tarrant could not wait. He crossed the courtyard like a whirlwind and, without knocking, burst into Francis’ room. It was empty.

Checked, realizing that Francis must also be at mass, he struggled with his fury as an ungovernable horse might fight its bit. He sat down, abruptly, forcing himself to wait, his dark thin figure charged with lightning.

The cell was barer even than the others of its kind, its inventory a bed, a chest, a table, the chair he occupied. Upon the chest stood one faded photograph, an angular woman in a frightful hat holding the hand of a white-clad little girl:
Love from Aunt Polly and Nora.

Tarrant repressed his sneer. But his lip curled at the single picture on the whitewashed walls, a tiny replica of the Sistine Madonna, Our Lady of Chastity.

Suddenly, upon the table, he saw an open notebook: a diary. Again he started, like a nervous horse, his nostrils dilated, a dark red fire in his eye. For a moment he sat, battling his scruples, then rose and went slowly towards the book. He was a gentleman. It was repugnant to pry like a vulgar chambermaid, into another’s privacy. But it was his duty. Who could guess what further iniquities this scroll contained? With relentless austerity upon his face, he picked up the written page.

‘… was it Saint Anthony who spoke of his “ill-judged, obstinate and perverse behaviour”? I must console myself in the greatest despondency I have ever known, with that single thought! If they send me away from here my life will be broken. I’m a miserable crooked character, I don’t think straight like the others, I cannot train myself to run with the pack. But with my whole soul I desire passionately to work for God. In our Father’s house there are many mansions! There was room for such diversities as Joan of Arc and … well, Blessed Benedict Labre who let even the lice run over him. Surely there is room for me!

‘They ask me to explain to them. How can one explain nothing – or what is so obvious as to be shameful? Francis de Sales said: “I will be ground to powder rather than break a rule.” But when I walked out of the Seminary I did not think of rules, or of breaking them. Certain impulses are unconscious.

‘It helps me to write this down: it gives my transgression the semblance of reason.

‘For weeks I had been sleeping badly, tossing through these hot nights in a fever of unrest. Perhaps it is harder for me here than for the others – judged at least by the voluminous literature on the subject, wherein the steps to the priesthood are represented as sweet untroubled joys, piled one upon another. If our beloved laity knew how one has to fight!

‘Here my greatest difficulty has been the sense of confinement, of physical inaction – what a bad mystic I should make! – always aggravated by echoes, stray sounds, penetrating inwards from the outer world. Then I realize that I am twenty-three, that I have done nothing yet to help a single living soul, and I am fevered with unrest.

‘Willie Tulloch’s letters provide – in Father Gomez’ phrase – the most pernicious stimuli. Now that Willie is a qualified doctor and his sister Jean a certified nurse, both working for the Tynecastle Poor Law Board and enjoying many thrilling, if verminous adventures, in the slums, I feel that I should be out and fighting too.

‘Of course I shall, one day … I must be patient. But my present ferment seems heightened by the news of Ned and Polly. I was happy when they decided to remove from above the tavern and have Judy, the child, to live with them in the little flat which Polly had taken at Clermont, on the outskirts of the city. But Ned has been ill, Judy troublesome, and Gilfoyle – left to manage Union Tavern – a most unsatisfactory business partner. Ned, in fact, has gone to pieces, refuses to go out, sees no one. That one impulse of blind unthinkable stupidity has finished him. A baser man would have survived it.

‘The pattern of life sometimes demands great faith. Dear Nora! That tender platitude conceals a thousand avenues of thought and feeling. When Father Tarrant gave us that practical talk –
agenda contra
– he said most truly: ‘Some temptations cannot be fought – one must close one’s mind and fly from them!’ My excursion to Cossa must have been that kind of flight.

‘At first, though walking fast, I did not mean to go far when I passed through the Seminary gates. But the relief, the sense of escape from myself which the violent exercise afforded, drove me on. I sweated gloriously, like a peasant in the fields – that salty running sweat which seems to purge one of human dross. My mind lifted, my heart began to sing. I wanted to go on and on until I dropped!

‘I walked all day without food or drink. I covered a great distance, for, when evening drew near, I could smell the sea. And as the stars broke out in the pale sky, I came over the hill and found Cossa at my feet. The village, harboured on a sheltered creek where the sea barely lapped, with blossoming acacia trees lining its single street, had an almost heavenly beauty. I was dead with tiredness. There was an enormous blister on my heel. But as I came down the bill the place welcomed me with its quiet pulse of life.