Glittering Images

‘Of course he’s a brilliant speaker,’ said Lang, careful to go through the motions of exercising Christian charity by giving credit where credit was due. ‘Technically the speech was a masterpiece.’

‘But a deplorable masterpiece.’

Lang was satisfied. He must have been confident of my support, but it was over ten years since I had been his chaplain and like all prudent statesmen he no doubt felt it unwise to take loyalty too readily for granted. ‘Jardine’s attack was quite inexcusable,’ he said, sufficiently reassured to indulge in the luxury of indignation. ‘After all, I was in the most unenviable position. I couldn’t condone any relaxation of the divorce law; that would have been morally repugnant to me. On the other hand if I had openly opposed all change there would have been much damaging criticism of the Church. Caught between the Scylla of my moral inclinations and the Charybdis of my political duty,’ declared the Archbishop, unable to resist a grandiloquent flourish, ‘I had no choice but to adopt a position of neutrality.’

‘I do see the difficulty, Your Grace.’

‘Of course you do! So do all reasonable churchmen! Yet the Bishop of Starbridge has the insufferable insolence not only to accuse me of “sitting on the fence” – what a vulgar phrase! – but to advocate that multiple grounds for divorce are compatible with Christian teaching! No doubt one shouldn’t expect too much of someone who’s clearly very far from being a gentleman, but Jardine has behaved with gross disloyalty to me personally and with gross indifference to the welfare of the Church.’

The snobbery was unattractive. Lang might long since have acquired the manner of an English aristocrat, but he came from the Scottish middle classes and no doubt he himself had once been regarded as an ‘arriviste’. Perhaps he thought this gave him a license to be virulent on the subject of class but I thought the virulence underlined not Jardine’s social origins but his own.

Meanwhile he had discarded all grandiloquence in order to deliver himself of the bluntest of perorations. ‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘Jardine’s no longer merely an embarrassment. He’s become a dangerous liability, and I’ve decided that the time has come when I must take action to guard against a disaster.’

I wondered if malice had combined with old age to produce irrationality. ‘I agree he’s controversial, Your Grace, but –’

‘Controversial! My dear Charles, what you and the general public have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg – you should hear what goes on at our bishops’ meetings! Jardine’s views on marriage, divorce and – heaven help us – contraception have been notorious for some time in episcopal circles, and my greatest fear now is that if he continues to parade his questionable views on family life, some unscrupulous newshound from Fleet Street will eventually put Jardine’s own domestic situation under the microscope.’

‘You’re surely not implying –’

‘No, no.’ Lang’s voice was suddenly very smooth. ‘No, of course I’m not implying any fatal error, but Jardine’s domestic situation is unusual and could well be exploited by a press-baron with an axe to grind.’ He paused before adding, ‘I have enemies in Fleet Street, Charles. Since the Abdication there are powerful people who would like nothing better than to see me humiliated and the Church put to shame.’

The speech was florid but for the first time I felt he was not motivated solely by malice. His words reflected an undeniable political reality.

I heard myself say, ‘And where do I come in, Your Grace?’

‘I want you to go down to Starbridge,’ said the Archbishop without hesitation, ‘and make sure that Jardine hasn’t committed some potentially disastrous indiscretion – because if he has, I want all evidence of it destroyed.’

III

Lang was talking in calculated euphemisms; he was anxious not to blacken the Bishop’s reputation too deeply in the presence of a junior member of the Church’s hierarchy, but at the same time he wished to signal to me that where Jardine was concerned almost any nightmare was feasible. Jardine was not suspected of a ‘fatal error’; that meant adultery, a moral failure which would render a bishop, or indeed any clergyman, unfit for office. On the other hand Lang was raising the possibility that Jardine had committed a ‘potentially disastrous indiscretion’, a phrase which could mean anything from an unwise comment on the Virgin Birth to holding hands with a twenty-year-old blonde.

‘How much do you know about him?’ Lang added before I could speculate further.

‘Just the outlines of his career. I know nothing about his private life.’

‘He’s married to an exceedingly feather-brained little lady who must now, I suppose, be in her early fifties. Jardine himself is fifty-eight. Both of them look younger than their years.’ Lang made this good fortune sound like a breach of taste, and I sensed that his envy of Jardine’s youthfulness was mingling with his dislike.

‘Any children?’ I said, pouring him some more tea.

‘None living.’ He took a sip from his replenished cup before adding, Ten years ago soon after Jardine became Dean of Radbury, a young woman called Miss Lyle Christie was engaged by him to be Mrs Jardine’s companion. Poor feather-brained little Mrs Jardine couldn’t cope with her new responsibilities as the Dean’s wife, and all was the most inappropriate confusion.’

‘And did Miss Lyle Christie bring order out of chaos?’

‘Miss Christie. We’re not dealing here with a double-barrelled name – the misguided parents gave her the name Lyle instead of a decent Christian name such as Jane or Mary. Yes,’ said Lang, setting aside his teacup, ‘Miss Christie’s been keeping her employers’ household in admirable order ever since her arrival. However although this innocent little ménage à trois would normally be unremarkable, there are three aspects of the situation which – after ten years – can and do cause unfortunate comment. The first is that Miss Christie is a good-looking woman; the second is that she shows no inclination to marry, and the third is that Jardine himself has what might be charitably described as a healthy interest in the opposite sex.’ Lang, whose own good looks had ensured a steady stream of feminine admirers throughout his long bachelor’s life, gazed out of the window at this point in order to appear non-committal. As a Christian he was obliged to approve of a healthy sexual interest which led to marriage, but I knew he found a more pervasive carnal preoccupation with women distasteful.

‘In other words,’ I said, easing him around the awkward subject of Jardine’s attitude to the ladies, ‘you’re afraid that if the press start delving into Jardine’s private life they may make some embarrassing deductions about Miss Christie. But with all due respect, Your Grace, why should this worry you? Even the gutter press aren’t above the laws of libel, and they’d never print salacious allegations without written evidence to back them up.’

‘That’s exactly why I’m so worried.’ Lang shed all affectation at last to reveal the canny Scot who still lurked behind his English façade. ‘Jardine keeps a journal. Supposing some newshound bribes the servants and gets his hands on it?’

‘But surely this is a journal of spiritual progress, not an outpouring of girlish chatter?’

‘Spiritual progress can encompass confession.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Let me make my position quite clear. I doubt that any blatantly indiscreet written evidence exists. What I’m much more concerned about is the possibility of an innocent document being quoted out of context and distorted. You know how unscrupulous the gutter press can be.’

In the pause which followed I found I was again sharing his view of an unpalatable but undeniable reality for I could see that Jardine’s private life, no matter how innocent, might well prove to be the Church’s Achilles heel in its current uneasy relationship with Fleet Street. A new king might have been crowned but the memory of the previous king still aroused much sympathy, and Lang’s speech criticizing Edward VIII for abandoning his duty in order to marry a divorced woman had been widely resented for its priggishness. In these circumstances the last thing Lang needed, as he strove to regain the ground he had lost, was a scandal about a sexually alert bishop who lived in a questionable ménage à trois.

‘Well, Charles? Are you going to help me?’

The ringmaster was cracking his whip, but in fact no whip was needed. I was loyal to my Church and despite a considerable ambivalence I was loyal to my Archbishop. ‘Of course I’ll help you. Your Grace,’ I said without hesitation, and the die was cast.

IV

‘How do I start?’ I said, surveying my new role of archiepiscopal spy and at once confronting the depths of my inexperience.

Lang was immediately soothing. ‘Once you’re safely established at the Bishop’s palace I’m sure it won’t take you long to decide whether I do in fact have cause for anxiety.’

‘But how on earth do I establish myself at the palace?’

‘That’s simple. I’ll telephone Jardine and ask him to put you up for a couple of nights. He’s not going to refuse me, particularly when I tell him you wish to visit the Cathedral library in order to do some research for your new book. Have you ever been to the Cathedral library at Starbridge? The chief glory, as you probably know, is that early manuscript of St Anselm’s Prayers and Meditations.’

‘But my new book’s about the influence of Modalism on fourth-century Christology – it’s got nothing to do with St Anselm at all!’

Lang was unperturbed. ‘Then you’d better be writing an article for a learned journal – a reappraisal of St Anselm’s ontological argument, perhaps –’

‘And I suppose that during a discussion of the ontological argument I casually ask Jardine if I can sift his journal for pearls of wisdom, heavily disguised as impure thoughts on the subject of his wife’s companion!’

Lang gave me one of his thinnest smiles. Knowing that my levity had encountered disapproval I said at once, ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I honestly don’t see how I’m to proceed. If you could issue me with some elementary marching orders –’

This appeal to his authority smoothed the ruffled feathers. ‘Ask Jardine about his journal. It’s no secret that he keeps one, and as it’s unusual to find a clergyman continuing that sort of spiritual exercise into middle age I think you’d be justified in exhibiting curiosity on the subject. I want to know if he uses it as a confessional. Then I also suggest you talk to Miss Christie in an attempt to find out if Jardine writes to her when he’s away from home. To be frank, Charles, I’m even more worried about the possibility of indiscreet letters than I am about a journal which is probably kept under lock and key. Men of Jardine’s age are capable of almost limitless folly where young women are concerned, and even though I do doubt the existence of any blatant indiscretion there’s always the chance that I could be wrong.’

‘Surely Miss Christie would burn an indiscreet letter?’

‘Not necessarily. Not if she were in love with him – and that’s why I want you to take a hard look at this ménage to gauge its potential inflammability.’ Lang, who had written romantic novels in his youth, began to exercise a baroque imagination. ‘For example,’ he said, ‘it’s not impossible that Jardine’s wholly innocent but the woman’s in the grip of a grand passion. Jardine may long to dismiss her yet be terrified of doing so in case she causes trouble.’

The plot was dramatic but not, unfortunately, implausible. The attentions of passionate spinsters were an occupational hazard for all members of the clergy, and after allowing a pause to signify that I was giving his theory serious consideration I said abruptly, ‘Supposing I succeed in finding something compromising. What do I do?’

‘Report to me. Then I’ll see Jardine and order him to take action himself. He’d make a much more thorough job of censoring his papers than you ever could.’

I was relieved to hear that my activities were not to include sabotage, but nevertheless I still felt a certain amount of shady behaviour was being sanctioned and I decided that the shadiness should be more precisely defined. I said lightly, ‘If the journal’s under lock and key, Your Grace, I trust you don’t require me to pick the lock? Or am I expected to behave like a Jesuit: all things to be permitted for the good of the Church!’

‘This is the Church of England, Charles, not the Church of Rome. Good heavens, of course I’m not suggesting you behave in any manner unbecoming to a gentleman!’ exclaimed Lang with an indignation which only narrowly failed to ring true, and I knew then he had been hoping I would not press him to define the boundaries of the commission too closely. Naturally he was obliged to repudiate any suggestion that he might be sanctioning shady behaviour. ‘All I’m suggesting,’ he said with a very passable attempt at innocence, ‘is that you “test the water”, as it were, before I dive in. My problem at the moment is that my suspicions are so entirely unsubstantiated that I’m quite unable to confront Jardine with them, but if you too find yourself suspicious after sampling the atmosphere at the palace, I shall feel I can approach Jardine without the fear that I’m making some colossal mistake.’

This statement was credible enough, but I decided the time had come to probe how far he was confiding in me. The more he insisted that he believed Jardine to be innocent of any blatant indiscretion the more tempted I was to suspect the Bishop was giving him the worst kind of clerical nightmares. ‘Your Grace, is there any possibility at all that Jardine could be in very deep water?’

Lang achieved a patient expression as if I were a wayward child who had asked a foolish question. ‘My dear Charles, we’re all sinners and the possibility of error must always exist, even for a bishop, but in this case the likelihood of deep water’s exceedingly remote. Despite all our differences I’m convinced Jardine’s devout; if he’d committed a fundamental error he’d resign.’