The Keys of the Kingdom (25 page)

He flushed. ‘I never dreamed of anything else. Your little house is your convent.’

‘Then you permit me to manage all our convent affairs.’

Her meaning was quite plain to him. It settled like a weight upon his heart. He smiled, unexpectedly, rather sadly.

‘By all means. Only be careful about money. We are very poor.’

‘My order has made itself responsible for our support.’

He could not resist the question. ‘Does not your order enforce holy poverty?’

‘Yes,’ she gave back swiftly, ‘but not meanness.’

There was a pause. They remained standing side by side. She had broken off sharply, with a catch in her breath, her fingers tight upon the pen. His own face was burning; he had a strange reluctance to look at her.

‘I will send Joseph with a note of the dispensary hours … and of church services. Good morning, Sister.’

When he had gone she sat down, slowly, at the desk, her gaze still fixed ahead, her expression proudly unreadable. Then a single tear broke and rolled mysteriously down her cheek. Her worst forebodings were justified. Passionately, almost, she dipped her pen in the inkwell and resumed her letter.

‘… It has happened, already, as I feared, my dear, dear brother, and I have sinned again in my dreadful … my ineradicable Hohenlohe pride. Yet who could blame me? He has just been here, washed free of earth and approximately shaved – I could see the scrubby razor cuts upon his chin – and armed with such a dumb authority. I saw instantly, yesterday, what a little bourgeois it was. This morning he surpassed himself. Were you aware, dear count, that Anheim was historic? I almost laughed as his eyes fumbled at the photograph: you remember the one I took from the boathouse that day we went sailing with Mother on the lake – it’s gone with me everywhere – my sole temporal treasure. He said, in effect, “Which Cook’s tour did you take to view it?” I felt like saying, “ I was born there!” My pride restrained me. Yet had I done so he would probably have kept on gazing at his boots, still creviced with mud, where he had failed to clean them – and muttered: “ Oh, indeed! Our Blessed Lord was born in a stable.”

‘You see, there is something about him which strikes at one. Do you recollect Herr Spinner, our first tutor … we were such brutes to him … and the way he had of looking up suddenly with such hurt, yet humble restraint? His eyes, here, are the same. Probably his father was a woodcutter like Herr Spinner’s, and he too has struggled up, precariously, with dogged humility. But, dear Ernst, it is the future that I dread, shut up in this strange and isolated spot which intensifies every aspect of the situation. The danger is a lowering of one’s inborn standards, yielding to a kind of mental intimacy with a person one instinctively despises. That odious familiar cheerfulness! I must drop a hint to Martha and Clotilde – who has been such a poor sick calf all the way from Liverpool. I am resolved to be pleasant and to work myself to the bones. But only complete detachment, an absolute reserve, will…’

She broke off, gazing again, remote and troubled, through the window.

Father Chisholm soon perceived that the two under Sisters went out of their way to avoid him.

Clotilde was not yet thirty, flat-bosomed and delicate, with bloodless lips and a nervous smile. She was very devout and when she prayed, with her head inclined to one side, tears would gush from her pale green eyes. Martha was a different person: past forty, stocky and strong, a peasant type, dark-complexioned and with a net of wrinkles round her eyes. Bustling and outspoken, a trifle coarse in manner, she looked as though she would be immediately at home in a kitchen or a farmyard.

When by chance he met them in the garden the Belgian sister would drop a quick curtsey while Clotilde’s sallow face flushed nervously as she smiled and fluttered on. He knew himself to be the subject of their whisperings. He had the impulse, often, to stop them violently. ‘Don’t be so scared of me. We’ve made a stupid beginning. But I’m a much better fellow than I look.’

He restrained himself. He had no grounds whatsoever for complaint. Their work was executed scrupulously, with minute perfection of purpose. New altar linen, exquisitely stitched, appeared in the sacristy; and an embroidered stole which must have taken days of patient labour. Bandages and dressings, rolled, cut to all sizes, filled the store-cupboard in the surgery.

The children had come and were comfortably housed in the big ground-floor dormitory of the Sisters’ house. And presently the schoolroom hummed with little voices, or with the chanted rhythm of a much-repeated lesson. He would stand outside, open breviary in hand, sheltered by the bushes, listening. It meant so much to him, this tiny school, he had so joyfully anticipated its opening. Now he rarely went in; and never without a sense of intrusion. He withdrew into himself, accepting the situation with a sombre logic. It was very simple. Mother Maria-Veronica was a good woman, fine, fastidious, devoted to her work. Yet from the first she had conceived a natural aversion to him. Such things cannot be overcome. After all, he was not a prepossessing character, he had been right when he judged himself no squire of dames. It had a sad disappointment, nevertheless.

The dispensary brought them together on three afternoons each week when, for four hours at a stretch, Maria-Veronica worked close beside him. He could see that she was interested, often so deeply as to forget her aversion. Though they spoke little he had on such occasions a strange sense of comradeship with her.

One day, a month after her arrival, as he finished dressing a severe whitlow, she exclaimed, involuntarily: ‘You would have made a surgeon.’

He flushed. ‘I’ve always liked working with my hands.’

‘That is because you are clever with them.’

He was ridiculously pleased. Her manner was friendlier than it had ever been. At the end of the clinic, as he put away his simple medicines, she gazed at him questioningly. ‘ I’ve been meaning to ask you … Sister Clotilde has had too much to do lately, preparing the children’s meals with Martha in the kitchen. She isn’t strong and I’m afraid it is too much for her. If you have no objection I would like to get some help.’

‘But of course.’ He agreed at once – even happier that she should have asked permission. ‘ Shall I find you a servant?’

‘No thank you. I already have a good couple in mind!’

Next morning when crossing the compound, he observed on the convent balcony, airing and brushing the matting, the unmistakable figures of Hosannah and Philomena Wang. He stopped short, his face darkening, then he took immediate steps towards the Sisters’ house.

He found Maria-Veronica in the linen room checking over the sheets. He spoke hurriedly: ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. But – these new servants – I’m afraid you won’t find them satisfactory.’

She turned slowly from the cupboard, sudden displeasure in her face. ‘Surely I am the best judge of that?’

‘I don’t want you to think I’m interfering. But I’m bound to warn you that they are far from reliable characters.’

Her lip curled. ‘ Is that your Christian charity?’

He paled. She was placing him in a horrible postion. But he went on determinedly. ‘I am obliged to be practical. I am thinking of the mission. And of you.’

‘Please do not trouble about me.’ Her smile was icy. ‘I am quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘I tell you these Wangs are a really bad lot.’

She answered with peculiar emphasis: ‘I know they’ve had a really bad time. They told me.’

His temper flared. ‘I advise you to get rid of them.’

‘I won’t get rid of them!’ Her voice was cold as steel. She always suspected him, and now she knew. Because she had relaxed her vigilance yesterday, for a moment, in the dispensary, he had rushed to interfere, to show his authority, on this frivolous pretext. Never, never would she be weak with him again. ‘You already agreed that I am not responsible to you for the administration of my house. I must ask you to keep your word.’

He was silent. There was nothing more that he could say. He had meant to help her. But he had made a bad mistake. As he turned away he knew that their relationship, which he had thought to be improving, was now worse than it had been before.

The situation began to affect him seriously. It was hard to keep his expression unruffled when the Wangs passed him, with an air of muted triumph, many times a day. One morning towards the end of July, Joseph brought him his breakfast of fruit and tea with swollen knuckles and a sheepish air – part triumphant, part subdued.

‘Master, I am sorry. I have had to give that rascal Wang a beating.’

Father Chisholm sat up sharply, his eye stern: ‘Why so, Joseph?’

Joseph hung his head. ‘ He says many unkind words about us. That Reverend Mother is a great lady and we are simply dust.’

‘We are all dust, Joseph.’ The priest’s smile was faint.

‘He says harder words than that.’

‘We can put up with hard words.’

‘It is more than words, Master. He has become puffed-up beyond measure. And all the time he is making a bad squeeze on the Sisters’ housekeeping.’

It was quite true. Because of his oppostion, the Reverend Mother was indulgent towards the Wangs. Hosannah was now the majordomo of Sisters’ house while Philomena departed, every day, with a basket on her arm, to do the shopping as if she owned the place. At the end of each month, when Martha paid the bills with the roll of notes which the Reverend Mother gave her, the precious pair would depart for the town, in their best clothes, to collect a staggering commission from the tradesmen. It was barefaced robbery, anathema to Francis’ Scottish thrift.

Gazing at Joseph he said grimly: ‘I hope you did not hurt Wang much.’

‘Alas! I fear I hurt him greatly, Master.’

‘I am cross with you, Joseph. As a punishment you shall have a holiday tomorrow. And that new suit you have long been asking of me.’

That afternoon, in the dispensary, Maria-Veronica broke her rule of silence. Before the patients were admitted she said to Francis:

‘So you have chosen to victimize poor Wang again?’

He answered bluntly: ‘ On the contrary. It is he who is victimizing you.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘He is robbing you. The man is a born thief and you are encouraging him.’

She bit her lip fiercely. ‘ I do not believe you. I am accustomed to trust my servants.’

‘Very well then, we shall see.’ He dismissed the matter quietly.

In the next few weeks his silent face showed deeper lines of strain. It was dreadful to live in close community with a person who detested, despised, him – and to be responsible for that person’s spiritual welfare. Maria-Veronica’s confessions, which contained nothing, were torture to him. And he judged they were equal torture for her. When he placed the sacred wafer between her lips while her long delicate fingers upheld the altar cloth in the still and pallid dawn of each new day, her upturned pale face, with eyelids veined and tremulous, seemed still to scorn him. He began to rest badly and to walk in the garden at night. So far, their disagreement had been limited to the sphere of her authority. Constrained, more silent than ever, he waited for the moment when he must enforce his will.

It was autumn when that necessity arose, quite simply, out of her inexperience. Yet he could not pass it by. He sighed as he walked over to the Sisters’ house.

‘Reverend Mother …’ To his annoyance he found himself trembling. He stood before her, his eyes upon those memorable boots. ‘ You have been going into the city these last few afternoons with Sister Clotilde?’

She looked surprised. ‘Yes, that is true.’

There was a pause.

On guard, she inquired with irony: ‘Are you curious to know what we are doing?’

‘I already know.’ He spoke as mildly as he could. ‘You go to visit the sick poor of the city. As far away as the Manchu Bridge. It is commendable. But I’m afraid it must cease.’

‘May I ask why?’ She tried to match his quietness but did not quite succeed.

‘Really, I’d rather not tell you.’

Her fine nostrils were tense. ‘ If you are prohibiting my acts of charity … I have a right … I insist on knowing.’

‘Joseph tells me there are bandits in the city. Wai-Chu has begun fighting again. His soldiers are dangerous.’

She laughed outright proudly, contemptuously.

‘I am not afraid. The men in my family have always been soldiers.’

‘That is most interesting.’ He gazed at her steadily. ‘But you are not a man, nor is Sister Clotilde. And Wai-Chu’s soldiers are not exactly the kid-gloved cavalry officers infallibly found in the best Bavarian families.’

He had never used that tone with her before. She reddened, then paled. Her features, her whole figure seemed to contract. ‘ Your outlook is common and cowardly. You forget that I have given myself to God. I came here prepared for anything – sickness, accident, disaster, if necessary death – but not to listen to a lot of cheap sensational rubbish.’

His eyes remained fixed on her, so that they burned her, like points of light. He said unconditionally: ‘ Then we will cease to be sensational. It would, as you infer, be a small matter if you were captured and carried off. But there is a stronger reason why you should restrain your charitable promenades. The position of women in China is very different from that to which you are accustomed. In China women have been rigidly excluded from society for centuries. You give grave offence by walking openly in the streets. From a religious standpoint it is highly damaging to the work of the mission. For that reason I forbid you, absolutely, to enter Pai-tan unescorted, without my permission.’

She flushed, as though he had struck her in the face. There was a mortal stillness. She had nothing whatever to say.

He was about to leave her when there came a sudden scud of footsteps in the passage and Sister Martha bundled into the room. Her agitation was so great she did not observe Francis half-hidden by the shadow of the door. Nor did she guess the tension of the moment. Her gaze, distraught beneath her rumpled wimple, was bent on Maria-Veronica. Wringing her hands, she lamented wildly:

‘They’ve run away … taken everything … the ninety dollars you gave me yesterday to pay the bills … the silver … even Sister Clotilde’s ivory crucifix … they’ve gone, gone …’