Ultimate Prizes

She skimmed away. After a while I became aware that Shipton was offering me a glass of sherry and I had to make an effort not to down the drink in a single gulp. Images of gleaming thighs and croquet balls chased each other chaotically across my mind until the Dean, buttonholing me purposefully, began to hold forth on his current nightmare: Starbridge Cathedral’s possible destruction. The Germans had recently announced plans to bomb every illustrious British city which had been awarded three stars in the Baedeker guide, and although Baedeker in fact never awarded more than two stars no one believed that this little inaccuracy meant the Nazis were joking. Three heavy raids on Exeter had damaged though not destroyed the Cathedral; Starbridge, not so many miles east of Exeter, was now in the front line.

‘Read any good books lately?’ I said when he paused for breath. The prospect of a blitzed Cathedral was so appalling that I preferred not to talk about it. The Dean might choose to relieve his anxiety by speaking the unspeakable, but I preferred to tell myself that once all precautions had been taken to minimize the damage there was no sense in agonizing over something which might never happen.

‘Books? Ah, it’s interesting you should ask me that …’ Diverted at last from his Cathedral the Dean began to talk about the fashionable Crisis Theology which was now sweeping through the English ecclesiastical ranks in a tidal wave of gloom and doom, but I soon ceased to listen. I was aware that Miss Tallent was trying to vamp my mentor while Alex appeared to be greatly enjoying the experience. His wife Carrie had not accompanied him to Starbridge, and Alex, a youthful sixty-three, was a past master at cultivating the amitié amoureuse, that peculiar pre-1914 relationship between the sexes in which close friendship was celebrated while sex remained taboo. I found this concept delectably erotic and only regretted that the changed moral climate currently made any attempt to achieve such a liaison far too liable to misinterpretation. Nowadays the only men who could safely take such a risk were men like Alex – a retired bishop well over sixty who could not conceivably be suspected of wrong-doing. On that evening in 1942 I had only just turned forty and any flirtation, even of the most innocent kind, was out of the question.

‘Neville dear,’ said my hostess Mrs Ottershaw, massive in moss-coloured velvet, ‘will you take Miss Tallent in to dinner before Dr Jardine bears her off and upsets Lady Starmouth?’

This was a shrewd request. Lady Starmouth, who looked about forty-five but was probably pushing sixty, was Alex’s closest platonic friend. She was watching Miss Tallent’s antics with an indulgent smile which was rapidly becoming glazed, but possibly she was merely trying to keep awake as General Calthrop-Ponsonby expounded on the siege of Mafeking.

‘Why did Bishop Jardine retire so early?’ Miss Tallent asked me as we advanced together to the dining-room, and after I had explained that a mild heart complaint obliged Alex to lead a quiet life she commented: ‘How boring for him! I suppose his wife has to toil ceaselessly to keep him entertained – or is she too antiquated to be amusing?’

‘Mrs Jardine’s not as young as she used to be, certainly, but –’

‘Poor thing! It must be awful to be old!’ said Miss Tallent with feeling, and as she spoke I perceived the source of her charm. She was curiously artless. She said exactly what she thought. Her sincerity, as she spoke compassionately about Carrie Jardine, was genuine. In the artificial world of high society this honesty, coupled with her vitality, would make her so striking that few people would notice how far she was from being pretty. In addition to her irregular features she had a white scar on the side of her forehead and a nose which looked as if it had been broken more than once in the past; by the end of the first course I was telling myself firmly that I had never seen such a plain girl before in all my life.

‘I expect you’re wondering how I got my broken nose and my fascinating scar,’ she said, tearing herself away from her other neighbour, the Earl of Starmouth, in a burst of boredom half-way through the stew. ‘I fell off a horse. I’ve fallen off lots of horses. I like to live dangerously.’

‘So do I,’ said the prim Archdeacon, chastely encased in his archidiaconal uniform. ‘That’s why I went into the Church. Charles Raven once wrote: “Religion involves adventure and discovery and a joy in living dangerously.”’

She was captivated. ‘Who’s Charles Raven?’

‘One of the greatest men in the Church of England.’

‘Singing my praises again, Neville?’ called Alex, teasing me from his position on the far side of the table.

‘Don’t be so naughty!’ said Lady Starmouth. ‘You heard the name Raven just as clearly as I did!’

‘The greatest man in the Church today must surely be William Temple,’ said Dr Ottershaw, naming the new Archbishop of Canterbury who had indeed dominated the life of the Church for decades.

‘Temple’s a very remarkable man,’ said Alex, ‘but I distrust his politics, I distrust his philosophy and I distrust his judgement.’

‘So much for the Archbishop!’ said Lady Starmouth as Dr Ottershaw looked appalled. ‘Now let’s hear you demolish Professor Raven!’

Alex instantly rose to the challenge. ‘How can one take seriously a churchman who favours the ordination of women?’

‘My dear Alex!’ I protested. ‘You can’t write off Raven on the strength of one minor eccentricity!’

‘Very well, I’ll write him off on the strength of his major eccentricity! How can one take seriously a churchman who in this year of grace 1942 is still a pacifist?’

‘But his pacifism proves he has great moral courage,’ said the Dean, unable to resist gliding into the debate, ‘and great moral courage should always be taken seriously. For example, none of us here may agree with Bishop Bell’s criticism of the government, but his moral courage is surely –’

‘Oh, we all know George Bell’s been soft on Germans for years,’ said Alex, ‘but I’d call that pig-headed foolishness, not moral courage.’

‘I must say, I rather agree,’ said Lord Starmouth, ‘although nevertheless one can’t doubt Bell’s sincerity. What do you think, Archdeacon?’

I said in my most neutral voice, the voice of an ecclesiastical diplomatist who was determined never to put a foot wrong in influential company: ‘Dr Bell’s a controversial figure and it’s hardly surprising that his views are hotly debated.’

‘Speaking for myself, I adore the Bishop of Chichester!’ said Dido, as if anxious to inform everyone that despite her ignorance of Professor Raven she knew exactly who Bell was. ‘He’s got such beautiful blue eyes!’

‘You’ve heard him preach?’ I said at once, hoping to discover an interest in church-going.

‘No, I heard him speak in the House of Lords ages ago about the internment camp on the Isle of Man – no wonder they say Bishop Bell makes Mr Churchill foam at the mouth! It’s all terribly Henry-II-and-Becket, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s hope Dr Bell doesn’t wind up a corpse on the floor of his Cathedral.’

The mention of the internment camp stimulated a discussion of the proposed camp for prisoners of war on Starbury Plain, and it was not until some minutes later that I had the chance to resume my private conversation with Miss Tallent.

‘Are you a member of the Church of England?’ I said, mindful that the Scottish father might have been a Presbyterian.

‘But of course! My father – being a self-made man – was most anxious that his children should have all the social advantages he never had!’

‘How amusing for you – and does the Church rank above or below Henley, Ascot and Wimbledon as a place where a successful society girl should take care to be seen?’

She laughed. ‘I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?’

‘No, fortunately for you I have a sense of humour. Do you ever actually go to church at all?’

‘How dare you imply I’m a heathen! Of course I go to church – I’m devoted to the Church – why, I go every Christmas, and I never miss any of the vital weddings and christenings in between!’

I at once spotted the omission. ‘What about the funerals?’

The vivacity was extinguished. Her plain, impertinent little face was shadowed and still. After a pause she said flatly: ‘The last funeral I attended was the funeral of my favourite sister. She died in 1939. After that I vowed I’d never go to another funeral again.’

I saw her wait for me to make some banal religious response, but when I remained silent she added unevenly, ‘She died after childbirth. The baby died too. Afterwards I felt as if someone had chopped me to pieces. I’m still trying to stitch myself together again.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘Yes, sometimes I think I’ll never get over it. At first I thought that the war would be a ghastly sort of blessing as it would give my life a purpose – I saw myself as a noble heroine, sacrificing my comfortable life in order to join the navy and fight Hitler – but of course I was just being stupid. I’m not required to be noble. I’m just a chauffeuse at the naval base. I have a wonderful social life, heaps of friends – and every day I despair because life seems so pointless and unheroic.’

‘Heroism comes in many shapes and forms. Your heroism may lie in the fact that you’re struggling on, day after day, even though you’re bored and miserable. I think you’re being very brave – and I also think that if you keep struggling you’ll eventually break through into a more rewarding life.’

She stared at me. Her bright eyes were now opaque, suggesting endless layers of mystery beneath the artless candour of her conversation. All she said in the end was: ‘I wish I’d met you after Laura died.’

Recognizing the oblique appeal I said at once: ‘You must tell me about Laura,’ but at that moment we were interrupted by Alex, who was keen to lure Miss Tallent back into the general conversation, and her opportunity to confide in me was lost.

At last the stewed plums and the extraordinary custard were either consumed or abandoned, the ladies withdrew and the gentlemen, with the exception of General Calthrop-Ponsonby who had been mercifully reduced to silence by the legendary St Estèphe, began to talk in a desultory manner about current affairs. I was afraid the Dean would start talking about the Baedeker raids again, but instead he showed signs of wanting to resume our earlier theological discussion. I wondered if I ought to warn the Bishop that the Dean was drifting dangerously towards neo-orthodoxy. In my experience conversions to Crisis Theology – or indeed even to the more moderate forms of neo-orthodox thought – inevitably meant fire-and-brimstone threats from the pulpit and much embarrassing talk about sin, not at all the sort of clerical behaviour which would be welcomed by the visitors who attended services in the Cathedral.

‘… of course Niebuhr’s modifying Barth’s theology in important ways … If Hoskyns were alive today …’

I broke my rule about allowing myself only one glass of port, and reached for the decanter to drown my irritation.

By the time the Bishop led his flock to the drawing-room I was sagging beneath the impact of the Dean’s enthusiasm, but as I crossed the threshold my spirits revived. Miss Tallent pounced on me. My pulse-rate rocketed. I was aware of a reckless urge to take risks.

‘Will you think me terribly fast,’ said this dangerous creature whom I knew very well I had a duty to avoid, ‘if I invite you to walk with me to the bottom of the garden and gaze at the river? I feel I need a calm beautiful memory to soothe me during the next air-raid on Starmouth.’

‘What a splendid idea!’ I said. ‘Take me away at once before the Dean begins a new attempt to convert me to Crisis Theology!’

Could any response have been more inappropriate for a dedicated archdeacon?