The Keys of the Kingdom Read Online Free Page A

a week’s holiday from the parental cake counter, fallen wildly in love with the young Tweedside fisher, Alexander Chisholm, and promptly married him.
    In theory, the utter incompatibility of such a union fore-doomed it. Reality had proved it a rare success. Chisholm was no fanatic: a quiet, easy-going type, he had no desire to influence his wife’s belief. And she, on her side, sated with early piety, grounded by her peculiar father in a strange doctrine of universal tolerance, was not contentious.
    Even when the first transports had subsided she knew a glowing happiness. He was, in her phrase, such a comfort about the place; neat, willing, never at a loss when it came to mending her wringer, drawing a fowl, clearing the beeskeps of their honey. His asters were the best in Tweedside, his bantams never failed to take prizes at the show, the dovecot he had finished recently for Francis was a wonder of patient craftsmanship. There were moments, in the winter evenings when she sat knitting by the hearth, with Francis snug in bed, the wind whistling cosily around the little house, the kettle hissing on the hob, while her long raw-boned Alex padded the kitchen in his stockinged feet, silently intent upon some handiwork, when she would turn to him with an odd, tender smile: ‘Man, I’m fond of you.’
    Nervously she glanced at the clock: yes, it was late, well-past his usual time of homecoming. Outside a gathering of clouds was precipitating the darkness and again heavy raindrops splashed against the windowpanes. Almost immediately Nora and Francis came in. She found herself avoiding her son’s troubled eye.
    ‘Well, children!’ Aunt Polly summoned them to her chair and wisely apostrophized the air above their heads. ‘Did you have a good play? That’s right. Have you washed your hands, Nora? You’ll be looking forward to the concert tonight, Francis. I love a tune myself. God save us, girl, stand still. And don’t forget your company manners, either, my lady – we’re going to get our tea.’
    There was no disregarding this suggestion. With a hollow sensation of distress, intensified because she concealed it, Elizabeth rose.
    ‘We won’t wait on Alex any longer. We’ll just begin.’ She forced a justifying smile. ‘He’ll be in any moment now.’
    The tea was delicious, the scones and bannocks homemade, the preserves jelled by Elizabeth’s own hands. But an air of strain lay heavily about the table. Aunt Polly made none of those dry remarks which usually gave Francis such secret joy, but sat erect, elbows drawn in, one finger crooked for her cup. A spinster, under forty, with a long, worn, agreeable face, somewhat odd in her attire, stately, composed, abstracted in her manner, she looked a model of conscious gentility, her lace handkerchief upon her lap, her nose humanly red from the hot tea; the bird in her hat brooding warmly over all.
    ‘Come to think, Elizabeth –’ she tactfully filled a pause. ‘ They might have brought in the Mealey boy – Ned knows his father. A wonderful vocation, Anselm has.’ Without moving her head she touched Francis with her kindly omniscient eye. ‘We’ll need to send you to Holywell too, young man. Elizabeth, you’d like to see your boy wag his head in a pulpit?’
    ‘Not my only one.’
    ‘The Almighty liked the only ones.’ Aunt Polly spoke profoundly.
    Elizabeth did not smile. Her son would be a great man, she was resolved, a famous lawyer, perhaps a surgeon; she could not bear to think of him as suffering the obscurity, the sorry hardships of the clerical life. Torn by her growing agitation she exclaimed: ‘I do wish Alex would come. It’s … it’s most inconsiderate. He’ll keep us all late if he doesn’t look sharp.’
    ‘Maybe he’s not through with the tallies,’ Aunt Polly reflected considerately.
    Elizabeth flushed painfully, out of all control. ‘He must be back at the bothy by now … he always goes there after Ettal.’ Desperately she tried to