Glittering Images

‘Splendid! And are you also going to inform His Grace that in addition to entering my household under false pretences you’ve been further abusing my hospitality by playing fast and loose with my wife’s companion?’

I felt as if I had been felled on the rugger field by an unexpected tackle. It took a considerable effort to look him straight in the eyes and say strongly, ‘I may be playing fast but I’m not playing loose.’

‘No? Miss Christie thinks your behaviour lacked stability, and I must say I agree with her. Don’t you think you were a little rash to subject a respectable woman to passionate advances less than twenty-four hours after your first meeting with her?’

‘No more rash than you were at my age,’ I said, ‘when you proposed to your future wife on the strength of a four-day acquaintance.’

There was a silence. We stared at each other. Jardine’s amber eyes were dangerously bright.

‘That was a major impertinence, Dr Ashworth.’

‘And so, with all due respect, was your last remark, Dr Jardine. No man, not even a bishop, tells me how to run my private life.’

‘What an extraordinarily arrogant statement! Are you saying you’re never in need of spiritual direction?’

‘I –’

‘Who’s your spiritual director? Or are you so adrift as to believe you don’t need one?’

Beneath the table my fists were clenched. Somehow keeping my voice level I said, ‘My spiritual director is Father James Reid of the Fordite monks at Grantchester.’

‘Oh, I know the Grantchester Fordites from my days at Radbury – and of course I remember Father Reid, the best kind of cosy old monk, very gentle and saintly and kind. But don’t you need someone rather tougher than a cosy old monk to advise you on your spiritual life, Dr Ashworth?’

I said nothing, and when Jardine realized I had no intention of replying he said in a voice which was unexpectedly compassionate, ‘Don’t think I can’t remember what it’s like to be thirty-seven and unmarried. But impulsive romantic action isn’t the answer, Dr Ashworth, and you’re quite intelligent enough to know that for those of us not called to celibacy the pressures of a celibate life can lead to emotional instability unless there’s regular and effective counselling by someone who knows exactly what problems are involved.’

Again he paused and again I remained silent. Finally he said, ‘Have a word with your bishop. See if he can recommend someone more suitable than dear old Father Reid who’s been celibate so long that he’s probably forgotten the male organ has a purpose other than urination. Cambridge is a good man, even if he does spend too much time writing theses about whether Ezra came before or after Nehemiah, and I’m sure he’d do his best to help you.’

Once more the silence lengthened but eventually I was able to say, ‘Thank you, Dr Jardine. And now, of course, since I’ve so thoroughly abused your hospitality, you’ll want me to leave your house at the earliest opportunity.’

Jardine leant back in his chair and regarded me as if I presented some difficult but fascinating problem. ‘My dear Dr Ashworth,’ he said as he rose to his feet, ‘if you cut short your visit and leave the palace under a cloud, you’re going to trigger exactly the kind of gossip Dr Lang is so anxious to avoid. Can’t you imagine the report in the gutter-press? “We have it on good authority – ” (that would be the eavesdropping second housemaid) “ – that a storm erupted in the Cathedral Close at Starbridge when Canon Charles Ashworth was expelled from the palace after an assault on the virtue of the Bishop’s attractive young companion, Miss Lyle Christie.” (Naturally they would omit all mention of my wife.) “We are reliably informed that the ravishing Miss Christie returned from a motor drive à deux with the handsome Canon only to rush sobbing to the Bishop, ‘He unleashed his passion at Starbury Ring!’ whereupon the Bishop stormed to the Canon shouting: ‘Never darken my door again!’ …” And so on and so on. Oh no, Dr Ashworth! I’m not falling into the trap of asking you to leave! We do, after all, have a duty to the Archbishop to keep up appearances, even if he does insult us both by treating you as a spy and me as a fool.’

During this speech the Bishop had crossed the room. He now opened the door and looked back. ‘You will complete your visit, you will behave like a gentleman and you will consider my advice on the subject of spiritual direction,’ he said, ‘and meanwhile I look forward to resuming our theological discussions over the port tonight. I should very much like to hear your views on the Virgin Birth.’ And he walked out, banging the door abruptly behind him.

II

I had been warned off.

I began to wonder how far the Bishop had interfered with Lyle’s other romances. Most clerical suitors would have backed away in fright if the Bishop had bared his teeth, but I was far from being a vulnerable young cleric and I was not prepared to be intimidated. Anyone who had Lang’s patronage was not obliged to worry about the approval of the Bishop of Starbridge, and I saw no chance of Jardine ever moving into a position which could affect my career; he had too many enemies among the politicians to receive either of the two most exalted preferments, the archbishoprics of Canterbury and York.

Having removed my collar I lit a cigarette to steady my nerves. I was wondering if I could place a sinister interpretation on the fact that Lyle had run straight to the Bishop, but I could only conclude that I should have predicted such a response. Obviously a close partnership between Lyle and the Bishop had developed over the years, and once I had accused her of providing the glue which prevented the Bishop’s marriage disintegrating, her natural reaction would have been to warn him that I was bent on rattling the skeleton in his cupboard. In these circumstances it was small wonder that Jardine had decided to rattle his sabre in return, particularly if Lyle had also considered it her duty as a loyal employee to warn the Bishop that I showed signs of wanting to demolish his ménage à trois. If the welfare of his marriage and career depended on Lyle he not only had to rattle his sabre; he had to lunge straight for my jugular vein.

However although I was willing to concede that the Bishop’s belligerence was understandable I thought his attitude from a spiritual point of view was unhealthy. I had a very Christian desire to remarry. He seemed bent on foiling my current attempt to attain that goal. Moreover both Lyle’s welfare and mine could be adversely affected, and after prolonged reflection I found myself unable to resist the conclusion that he was in the wrong.

I suddenly realized I had missed Choral Evensong again, and with an exclamation of annoyance I stubbed out my cigarette, replaced my collar and sat down to read the evening office.

Halfway through the Nunc Dimittis it occurred to me that Jardine must often have faced the possibility that Lyle would leave one day; he had not employed a woman who was so unattractive that her future was entirely predictable. I decided that if I were Jardine I would long since have formed a contingency plan which I could put into operation if Lyle handed in her notice, and the contingency plan would revolve around the fact that I would always have a suitable replacement in mind. Large numbers of companions were drawn from clerical homes where there was little money to support girls trained only to be ladies, and as a bishop I would be in a good position to survey the available candidates. Of course it would be difficult to find someone who equalled Lyle’s ability to be a godsend, but since an acceptably pleasant, competent woman could probably be tracked down without too much trouble, it could be argued that Jardine was now only fighting to save himself some inconvenience. Lyle’s departure would certainly represent an earthquake in the episcopal household, but people do recover from earthquakes; life does eventually return to normal.

Yet anyone would imagine, from Jardine’s pugilistic behaviour towards me, that if the earthquake happened at Starbridge all life at the palace would cease.

I told myself I was still smarting from the assault on my jugular vein, and returning to my prayer-book I made a new effort to concentrate on the office, but long before I reached the end the inevitable possibility was seeping into my mind. I told myself to suppose, for the sake of argument, that my plausible explanation of the ménage à trots was in fact entirely wrong; I told myself to suppose, again for the sake of argument, that I suspended belief and started to think the unthinkable. If Lyle were Jardine’s mistress it would explain both her reluctance to marry and Jardine’s pugilism towards a dangerous suitor.

The only trouble with this theory, which seemed at first glance preposterous and at second glance so unpleasantly plausible, was that it fell apart as soon as it was submitted to a close examination. For a start I could not imagine that Mrs Jardine would continue to treat as a daughter the woman who was sleeping with her adored husband. Mrs Jardine was not the cleverest of women, but I thought she would be sufficiently intuitive to know if the two most important people in her life were having an affair. However the real difficulty with the theory remained that I could not see a man of Jardine’s integrity leading a spiritual double-life. I was still willing to bet heavily that he was not an apostate, and unless he were an apostate adultery was inconceivable.

Somehow I reached the end of the office and began to prepare myself for dinner. All things were possible, even the unlikeliest of apostasies, but it was a waste of time for me to think the unthinkable unless I found some indication, however small, that Jardine was capable of unthinkable behaviour.

I stopped flattening my hair and stared into the glass.

Other clergymen fell into error. Why not Jardine? Suddenly, for clouded reasons beyond my comprehension, I felt an urge to prove that Jardine had at least once since his ordination been guilty of a serious moral failure – and that was the moment when I first started speculating seriously on the subject of Loretta Staviski.

III

Jardine’s threat to discuss the Virgin Birth with me over the port was never realized. One of the lay dinner-guests, Starbridge’s most distinguished architect, proved to be a non-smoker who could not be dispatched to the smoking-room, and out of courtesy Jardine at first avoided splitting theological hairs. However after a discussion of the arrests which had recently taken place in the German Evangelical Church the architect said deferentially, ‘Talking of clerical matters, Bishop, I hope you won’t mind me mentioning the A. P. Herbert Bill. I’m interested in your opinion of it, particularly as I too think that the grounds for divorce should be extended, but I’m still not sure how you justify your views theologically. What makes you so sure that Christ wasn’t laying down the law on this particular subject but only stating an ethical guideline?’

This was clearly an intelligent sympathetic layman who deserved to be encouraged. Jardine said kindly, ‘Well, the first thing you must remember is that Our Lord wasn’t a twentieth-century Englishman brought up in a culture which glorifies the modest understatement. He came from the Middle East and in the culture of his day people communicated important truths by the use of striking word-pictures, statements which we would call exaggerations. A well-known example of this is when Christ says: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”. A modern Englishman would merely say: “He can’t do it”.’