The Keys of the Kingdom (18 page)

‘You don’t mind if I examine you, Charlotte?’ Tulloch spoke kindly.

At his tone, her smile lingered. She did not move. She had the cushioned repose of one who is watched, who knows that she is watched, yet is undisturbed, rather exalted, by such watching: a consciousness of inner power, a mollification, a dreamy and elevated awareness of the deference and reverence evoked amongst the watchers. Her pale eyelids fluttered. Her voice was untroubled, remote.

‘Why should I mind, doctor? I’m only too glad. I’m not worthy to be chosen as God’s vessel … but since I am chosen I can only joyfully submit.’

She allowed the respectful Tulloch to examine her.

‘You don’t eat anything, Charlotte?’

‘No, doctor.’

‘You’ve no appetite?’

‘I never think of food. I just seem sustained by an inner grace.’

Sister Teresa said quietly: ‘I can assure you she hasn’t put a bite in her mouth since I came into this house.’

A silence fell in the hushed white room. Dr Tulloch straightened himself, pushing back his unruly hair. He said simply:

‘Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, Sister Teresa. I’m much indebted to you for your kindness.’ He went towards the bedroom door.

As Francis made to follow the doctor a shadow fluttered over Charlotte’s face.

‘Don’t you want to see too, Father? Look … my hands! My feet are just the same.’

She extended both her arms, gently, sacrificially. Upon both her pale palms, unmistakably, were the blood-stained marks of nails.

Outside, Dr Tulloch maintained his attitude of reserve. He kept his lips shut until they reached the end of the street. Then at the point where their ways diverged, he spoke rapidly. ‘ You want my opinion I suppose. Here it is. A borderline, case – or just over: manic depressive in the exalted stage. Certainly a hysteric bleeder. If she steers clear of the asylum, she’ll probably be canonized!’ His composure, his perfect manner left him. His red plain face became congested. His words choked him. ‘Damn it to hell! When I think of her trigged up there in her simpering holiness, like an anaemic angel in a flour bag – and little Owney Warren, stuck in a dirty garret, with worse pain than your hellfire in his gangrenous leg, and the threat of malignant sarcoma over him, I could just about explode. Bite on that when you say your prayers. You’re probably going back to say them now. Well, I’m going home to have a drink.’ He walked rapidly away before Francis could reply.

That same evening when Francis returned from tenebrae an urgent summons awaited him, written on the slate which hung in the Presbytery vestibule. With a premonition of misfortune, he went upstairs to the study. The Dean was wearing out his temper and his carpet with short exasperated paces.

‘Father Chisholm! I am both amazed and indignant. Really, I expected better of you than this. To think that you should bring in – from the streets – an atheistic doctor – I resent it violently!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Francis answered heavily. ‘It’s just – oh, well, he happens to be my friend.’

‘That in itself is highly reprehensible. I find it wildly improper that one of my curates should associate with a character like Dr Tulloch.’

‘We … we were boys together.’

‘That is no excuse. I’m hurt and disappointed. I’m thoroughly and justifiably incensed. From the very beginning your attitude towards this great event has been cold and unsympathetic. I daresay you are jealous that the honour of the discovery should have fallen to the senior curate. Or is there some deeper motive behind your manifest antagonism?’

A sense of wretchedness flowed over Francis. He felt that the Dean was right. He mumbled:

‘I’m terribly sorry. I’m not disloyal. That’s the last in the world I’d want to be. But I admit I’ve been lukewarm. It’s because I’ve been troubled. That’s why I took Tulloch in today. I have such doubts –’

‘Doubts! Do you deny the miracles of Lourdes?’

‘No, no. They’re unimpeachable. Authenticated by doctors of all creeds.’

‘Then why deny us the opportunity to create another monument of faith – here – in our very midst?’ The Dean’s brow darkened. ‘If you disregard the spiritual implications, at least respect the physical.’ He sneered. ‘ Do you fondly imagine that a young girl can go nine days without food or drink – and remain well and perfectly nourished – unless she is receiving other sustenance?’

‘What sustenance?’

‘Spiritual sustenance.’ The Dean fumed. ‘Didn’t Saint Catherine of Siena receive a spiritual mystic drink which supplanted all earthly food? Such insufferable doubting! Can you wonder that I lose my temper?’

Francis hung his head. ‘Saint Thomas doubted. In the presence of all the disciples. Even to putting his fingers in our Lord’s side. But no one lost their temper.’

There was a sudden shocked pause. The Dean paled, then recovered himself. He bent over his desk, fumbling at some papers, not looking at Francis. He said in a restrained tone:

‘This is not the first time you have proved obstructive. You are getting yourself into very bad odour in the diocese. You may go.’

Francis left the room with a dreadful sense of his own deficiencies. He had a sudden overwhelming impulse to take his troubles to Bishop MacNabb. But he suppressed it. Rusty Mac seemed no longer approachable. He would be too fully occupied by his new high office to concern himself with the worries of a wretched curate.

Next day, Sunday, at the eleven o’clock high mass, Dean Fitzgerald broke the news in the finest sermon he had ever preached.

The sensation was immediate and tremendous. The entire congregation stood outside the church talking in hushed voices, unwilling to go home. A spontaneous procession formed up and departed, under the leadership of Father Mealey, for Marywell. In the afternoon crowds collected outside the Nelly home. A band of young women of the confraternity, to which Charlotte belonged, knelt in the street reciting the rosary.

In the evening the Dean consented to be interviewed by a highly curious press. He conducted himself with dignity and restraint. Already esteemed in the city, rated as a public-spirited clergyman, he produced a most favourable impression. Next morning the newspapers gave him generously of their space. He was on the front page of the
Tribune
, had a eulogistic double spread inside the
Globe.
‘Another Digby’, proclaimed the
Northumberland Herald.
Said the
Yorkshire Echo
, ‘Miraculous Grotto Brings Hope to Thousands.’ The
Weekly High Anglican
hedged, rather cattily, ‘We await further evidence.’ But the London
Times
was superb with a scholarly article from its theological correspondent tracing the history of the Well back to Aidan and Saint Ethelwulf. The Dean flushed with gratification. Father Mealey could eat no breakfast, and Malcom Glennie was beside himself with joy.

Eight days later Francis paid an evening visit to Polly’s little flat in Clermont, at the north end of the city. He was tired, after a long day’s visiting in the dingy tenements of his district, and most desperately depressed. That afternoon a note had come round from Dr Tulloch which curtly signed young Warren’s death warrant. The condition had been revealed as malignant sarcoma of the leg. There was no hope whatsoever for the boy: he was dying and might not last the month.

At Clermont, Polly was her indomitable self, Ned, perhaps, a trifle more trying than usual. Hunched in his wheeled chair, a blanket wrapped about his knees, he talked much and rather foolishly. Some sort of final settlement had at last been squeezed out of Gilfoyle on account of the remnants of Ned’s interest in the Union Tavern. A pitiful sum. But Ned had boasted as though it were a fortune. As a result of his complaint his tongue seemed too large for his mouth, he was distressingly inarticulate.

Judy was already asleep when Francis arrived, and although Polly said nothing there was a hint in her manner that the child had misbehaved and been sent off early. The thought saddened him further.

Eleven o’clock was striking when he left the flat. The last tram to Tynecastle had gone. Tramping home, his shoulders drooping slightly under this final discomfiture, he entered Glanville Street. As he drew opposite the Neily home he observed that the double window on the ground floor, which marked Charlotte’s room, was still illuminated. He made out the movements of figures, vague shadows on the yellow blind.

A rush of contrition overcame him. Oppressed by the realization of his obduracy, he had a sudden desire to see the Neilys and make amends. The instinct of reparation was strong within him as he cross the street and went up the three front steps. He raised his hand towards the knocker, altered his mind and turned the old-fashioned handle of the door. He had acquired that facility, common to priests and physicians, of making his sick visits unannounced.

The bedroom, opening off the small lobby, projected a wide slant of gaslight. He tapped gently on the lintel and entered the room. Then he stood, suddenly transformed to stone.

Charlotte, propped up in bed, with an oval tray before her laden with breast of chicken and a custard, was stuffing herself with food. Mrs Neily, wrapped in a faded dressing gown, bent with solicitude, was noiselessly decanting stout.

It was the mother who saw Francis first. Arrested, she gave a neighing cry of terror. Her hand flew to her throat, dropping the glass, spilling the stout upon the bed.

Charlotte raised her gaze from the tray. Her pale eyes dilated. She gazed at her mother, her mouth opened, she began to whimper. She slid down on the bed, shielding her face. The tray crashed on to the floor. No one had spoken. Mrs Neily’s throat worked convulsively. She made a stupid, feeble effort to secrete the bottle in her dressing gown. At last she gasped: ‘I’ve got to keep her strength up some-how … all she’s been through … it’s invalid’s stout!’

Her look of frightened guilt revealed everything. It sickened him. He felt debased and humiliated. He had difficulty in finding words.

‘I suppose you’ve given her food every night … when Sister left her, thinking she was asleep?’

‘No, Father! As God is my witness!’ She made a last desperate attempt at denial, then broke down, lost her head completely. ‘What if I did? I couldn’t see my poor child starve, not for nobody. But dear Saint Joseph … I’d never have let her do it if I’d known it would mean so much … with the crowds … and the papers … I’m glad to be through with it.… Don’t … don’t be hard on us, Father.’

He said in a low voice: ‘I’m not going to judge you, Mrs Neily.’

She wept.

He waited patiently until her sobs subsided, seated on a chair at the door, gazing at his hat, between his hands. The folly of what she had done, the folly, at that moment, of all human life, appalled him. When the two were quieter he said: ‘Tell me about it.’

The story came, gulped out, mostly by Charlotte.

She had read such a nice book, from the church library, about Blessed Bernadette. One day when she was passing Marywell, it was her favourite walk, she noticed the water running. That’s funny, she thought. Then the coincidence struck her, between the water, Bernadette and herself. It was a shock. She had almost, in a sort of way, fancied she saw the Blessed Virgin. When she got home, the more she thought of it the surer she became. It gave her quite a turn. She was all white and trembling, she had to take to her bed and send for Father Mealey. And before she knew where she was, she was telling him the whole story.

All that night she’d lain in a kind of ecstasy, her body seemed to go rigid, stiff as a board. Next morning, when she woke up, the marks were there. She’d always bruised terrible but these were different.

Well, that convinced her. All that day, when food came, she refused it, just waved it away. She was too happy, too excited to eat. Besides, lots of Saints had lived without food. That idea fixed itself on her, too. When Father Mealey and the Dean heard she was living on Grace – and perhaps she was too – it was a glorious feeling. The attention she had, it was like she was a bride. But of course, after a bit, she got dreadfully hungry. She couldn’t disappoint Father Mealey and the Dean: the way she was looked up to by Father Mealey especially. She just told her mother. And things had gone so far her mother had to help her. She had a big meal, sometimes two, every night.

But then, oh, dear, things had gone even further. ‘At first, as I told you, Father, it was wonderful. The best of all was the confraternity girls praying to me outside the window!’ But when the newspapers started and all that, she got really frightened. She wished to God she had never done it. Sister Teresa was harder to pull the wool over. The marks on her hands were getting faint, instead of being all lifted up and excited she was turning low, depressed …

A fresh burst of sobbing terminated the pitiful revelation – tawdry as an illiterate scrawl upon a wall. Yet tragic, somehow, with the idiocy of all humanity.

The mother interposed.

‘You won’t tell Dean Fitzgerald on us, will you, Father?’

Francis was no longer angry, only sad and strangely merciful. If only the wretched business had not gone so far. He sighed.

‘I won’t tell him, Mrs Neily, I won’t say a word. But –’ He paused. ‘I’m afaid you must.’

Terror leaped again in her eyes. ‘No, no … for pity’s sake no, Father.’

He began, quietly, to explain why they must confess, how the scheme which the Dean contemplated could not be built upon a lie, especially one which must soon be palpable. He comforted them with the thought that the nine days’ wonder would soon subside and be forgotten.

He left them an hour later, somewhat appeased, and with their faithful promise that they would follow out his advice. But as he directed his echoing footsteps homeward through the empty streets his heart ached for Dean Gerald Fitzgerald.

The next day passed. He was out visiting most of the time, and did not see the Dean. But a curious hollowness, a kind of suspended animation, seemed to float within the Presbytery. He was sensitive to atmosphere. He felt this strongly.

At eleven o’clock on the following forenoon, Malcom Glennie broke into his room.

‘Francis! You’ve got to help me. He’s not going on with it. For God’s sake, come in and talk to him.’