Glittering Images

The auguries for my visit could hardly have been more favourable. Descending from the hills I drove across the floor of the valley and finally entered the city.

X

The crooked medieval streets were confusing but the way to the Cathedral was signposted and I soon found myself at the gateway of the Close. Slowing the car to a crawl I asked the constable on duty to direct me to the palace; my memory of the Close was hazy.

I drove on, and the next moment the Cathedral was towering above me in an overpowering display of architectural virtuosity. There had been no later additions, no ill-judged alterations. Built during the short span of forty years the Cathedral was uniform, untouched, unspoilt, a monument to faith, genius and the glory of English Perpendicular.

I drove down the North Walk with the vast sward of the churchyard on my right. On my left the ancient houses, dissimilar in style yet harmonious in their individual beauty, provided the perfect foil to the Cathedral’s splendour, and as I turned south into the East Walk I experienced that sense of time continuing, an awareness which is never more insistent than in a place where a long span of the past is visually present.

At the end of the East Walk the palace gates stood open and within seconds I was confronting the palace itself, a Victorian ‘improvement’ on the original Tudor building which had been destroyed by fire in the last century. Dr Jardine’s home was a mock-Gothic travesty built in the same pale stone as the Cathedral, but it was not unpleasing. Smooth lawns and ancient beech trees framed the house, and above the porch the arms of Starbridge were carved in the stone in a brave attempt to unite medieval custom with a wayward Victorian illusion.

Parking my car in a secluded corner of the forecourt I extracted my bag and paused to listen. The birds were singing; the leaves of the beech trees were a brilliant green against the cloudless sky; the town beyond the walls of the Close might have been a hundred miles away. Again I sensed time continuing. I was standing in twentieth-century England yet at the same time I felt a mere pace away from a past which contained the seeds of an alluring future, and suddenly I forgot the harsh realities of the present, the horror of Hitler, the agony of the Spanish Civil War, the despair of those whose lives had been ruined by the Slump. I was conscious only of my privileged good fortune as I allowed myself to be seduced by the subtle glamour of Starbridge, and running up the steps to the front door I rang the bell with all the eagerness of an actor who could barely wait for his cue to walk onstage.

The door was opened by a butler who looked like a character from a Trollope novel – a worldly version of Mr Harding, perhaps – and I stepped into a vast dark hall. Beyond some mock-Gothic furniture of varying degrees of ugliness a handsome staircase rose to the gallery. The walls were adorned with dim portraits of nineteenth-century gentlemen in clerical dress.

‘If you’d care to come this way, sir …’ The butler had already taken the bag from my hand when a woman emerged from the far end of the hall. As the butler paused at once I paused beside him, and the woman moved swiftly, smoothly, silently towards us through the shadows.

‘Dr Ashworth?’ She held out a slim hand. ‘Welcome to Starbridge. I’m Miss Christie, Mrs Jardine’s companion.’

I took her hand in mine and knew without a second’s hesitation that I wanted her.

TWO

‘I pleasantly assured him that in my belief, based on the experience of a long ministry, it would be roughly true to say of the married clergy of the Church of England that probably fifty per cent were ruined by their wives and fifty per cent were saved.’

Letters of Herbert Hensley Henson Bishop of Durham 1920–1939 ed. E. F. BRALEY.

I

No one had described Miss Christie to me, and Jack’s reference to an ice-maiden had evoked an image of a tall blonde. However Miss Christie was small, no more than five foot two, with slender ankles, a slim waist, reddish hair and black-lashed dark eyes. She also possessed high cheekbones, a delicately moulded but very firm chin and a subtle mouth which somehow reinforced this hint of a determined character while conveying an impression of sensuality. Her make-up was discreet; her grey skirt and white blouse were restrained in taste, as befitted a lady’s companion in a clerical household; I thought her alluring beyond description, and my first coherent thought was: how could he resist her? Yet I knew that this was a wild question which failed to reflect the reality of the situation. Unless he was an apostate Jardine had no choice but to resist, yet such was Miss Christie’s allure that for the first time I seriously considered the possibility of apostasy.

She showed me to my room. I managed to maintain a polite conversation as we ascended the stairs, but all the time I was thinking about Jardine in the light of what I now knew of Miss Christie. As I calmed down I dismissed the melodramatic notion of apostasy but I now began to wonder if Jardine’s inclination to form harmless friendships with good-looking women was his way of deflecting an inclination which was not harmless at all.

I roused myself from these speculations as Miss Christie led the way into a large bright room sombrely adorned with more massive Victorian furniture. Beyond the window the garden stretched downhill to the river, and on the far side of the sparkling water cows were grazing among the buttercups in the meadows. Starbridge lay east of this outmost curve of the river, and to the west the farmlands stretched across the valley to the hills.

‘What a beautiful view!’ I said as the butler deposited my bag and departed. Miss Christie had moved to the vase on top of the chest of drawers and was restoring the symmetry of the flower arrangement by adjusting an errant rose.

‘The bathroom is at the end of the corridor,’ she said, evidently finding my comment on the view too mundane to merit even a murmur of agreement. ‘Dinner is at eight but we assemble for cocktails in the drawing-room at any time after quarter-past seven. The water’s hot every evening from six o’clock onwards. I trust you have everything you require, Dr Ashworth, but if by any chance something’s been forgotten do please ring the bell by your bedside.’

I thanked her. She gave a brief formal smile and the next moment I was alone.

There was a bible placed on the bedside table to remind visitors that despite the grandeur of their surroundings they were in a clerical household, and in an effort to distract my mind from the temptation to meander down carnal byways I opened the pages in search of an edifying quotation. However this random dip produced only Ezekiel’s diatribe against the harlot. Still thinking of Miss Christie I ploughed forward into the New Testament and eventually found myself lingering on the text: ‘For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.’

That seemed like a good omen for an espionage agent. I closed the bible. Then after visiting the regal lavatory, which remained as a sumptuous memorial to Victorian plumbing, I unpacked my bag and sat down with my prayer book to read the evening office.

II

When I closed my prayer book the time was half-past six. I stripped, washed at the basin to erase all trace of my journey, and decided to shave. I did not usually shave twice a day but I wanted to appear thoroughly well groomed, not only to impress Miss Christie but to impress the Bishop. I sensed Jardine might have strong views on the obligation of a clergyman to present a neat appearance to the world; he himself had been very smart, very dapper, when I had encountered him in Cambridge eight months ago.

The evening was warm and the prospect of encasing myself in my formal clerical clothes was not appealing but naturally I had no choice other than to martyr myself in the name of convention. I spent some time in front of the glass as I coaxed my hair to lie flat. I have curly hair which I keep short, but it has wayward tendencies which water can rarely subdue for long. However I never use hair oil. It makes me look like a bounder, and I was always unaccountably nervous in case my appearance reflected the wrong image in the mirror.

Yet that evening I found my reflection reassuring. Here was no bounder, no shady character from a modern ‘shocker’, but a clergyman who was thirty-seven and looked younger. Playing squash and tennis had curbed an inclination to put on weight as I left my twenties behind, and although I was a little too fond of good food and more than a little too fond of good wine, my appearance proved I had these weaknesses well in control. I saw no heaviness around the jaw, no pouches beneath the eyes, no giveaway lines around the mouth. I looked like the man I wanted to be and the image in the long glass seemed impregnable as I surveyed it in the golden evening light.

Glancing at my watch I saw the time had come for me to make my appearance downstairs. The curtain was about to rise on the stage at Starbridge, and leaving my room I headed for the wings to await my cue.

III

I had no trouble finding the drawing-room. As I descended the stairs I could hear the murmur of voices drifting towards me through the open door on the far side of the hall. A woman gave an attractive laugh, a man protested: ‘No, I’m serious! I’ve always thought Peter Pan was a most sinister story!’ and I deduced that the conversation had arisen in connection with the recent death of Sir James Barrie.

‘But Henry, you can’t possibly describe an innocent fantasy as sinister!’

‘Why not? Captain Hook reminds me of Mussolini.’

‘Everyone reminds you of Mussolini. Oh darling, I do wish you’d forget Abyssinia and look on the bright side for a change – after all, think how well we’re doing! We’ve survived the War, the Slump and the Abdication – and now that dear Mr Chamberlain’s poised to turn the country into a vast version of Birmingham with that divinely businesslike efficiency of his, I’m sure we’re all set for a rosy future!’

‘This sounds like another of Barrie’s fantasies. No wonder you enjoy Peter Pan, my dear.’

I walked into the room. The first person I saw was Miss Christie. She was standing by the French windows and looking formidably aloof. In contrast the other three occupants of the room were exuding that easy camaraderie which arises when people have enjoyed an unaffected friendship for a long time. By the fireplace stood an elderly man with a frank mild face and that air of self-confidence which can only be acquired from a lifetime spent in privileged surroundings. He was drinking a cocktail which appeared to be a dry martini. Perched on the arm of a sofa a handsome woman was also toying with a martini glass, and beyond her a plump, pretty, grey-haired little woman in a lavish lavender evening gown was selecting a water biscuit from a silver dish nearby.

Everyone turned to look at me. Miss Christie at once moved forward to make the introductions, but she was a long way away and the plump, pretty little woman forestalled her.

‘Dr Ashworth!’ she exclaimed, beaming at me. ‘How nice to see you! I hope your motor journey wasn’t too difficult but it must have helped that the weather was fine. Isn’t the weather beautiful? All the sunshine’s so good for the garden.’

I did not need to be told that I was being addressed by my hostess. ‘How do you do, Mrs Jardine,’ I said, smiling as I took her hand in mine. ‘It’s very kind of you to have me to stay.’

‘Not at all, it’s spendid for Alex to have someone clever to talk to! Now let me introduce you to everyone. Miss Christie you’ve met, of course, and here –’ she turned to the couple who had been debating Peter Pan ‘– are Lord and Lady Starmouth who have always been so kind to us ever since Alex was Vicar of St Mary’s, Mayfair. They have such a delightful house in Curzon Street and Alex stays there when he has to be up in town for the debates in the House of Lords – oh, heavens, perhaps I shouldn’t mention the Lords’ debates, especially as you’re a friend of the Archbishop’s – Lyle, am I dropping some frightful brick?’

‘Dr Ashworth,’ said Miss Christie, ‘is probably only thinking how pleasant it must be for the Bishop to stay with friends whenever he’s up in town.’

But in fact I was thinking that the good-looking Countess of Starmouth might well be one of Jardine’s ‘lovely ladies’, faithfully chaperoned by one of the gentlemen whom Jack had described as ‘boring old husbands’. However this unflattering description hardly did justice to the Earl of Starmouth who looked alert enough to be entertaining even though he might have been on the wrong side of seventy. Perhaps Lady Starmouth kept him young; I estimated that she was at least twenty years his junior.

‘My wife collects clerics,’ said Lord Starmouth to me as we shook hands. ‘She’ll collect you too if you’re not careful.’

‘I adore clergymen,’ agreed his wife with that aristocratic frankness which never fails to make the more reticent members of the middle classes cringe with embarrassment. ‘It’s the collar, of course. It makes a man seem so deliciously forbidden.’

‘What can I offer you to drink, Dr Ashworth?’ said Miss Christie, middle-class propriety well to the fore.

‘A dry sherry, please.’ No ambitious clergyman drank cocktails at episcopal dinner parties.

A young man in clerical garb bustled into the room, muttered, ‘Bother! No Bishop,’ and bustled out again.

‘Poor Gerald!’ said Mrs Jardine. ‘I really wonder sometimes whether we made the right decision when we installed a telephone. It’s so terribly hard for the chaplain when people ring up at awkward moments … Oh, here’s Willy! Come and meet my brother, Dr Ashworth.’

I was introduced to a Colonel Cobden-Smith, a hale gentleman in his sixties with a pink face, white hair and a cherubic expression. He was accompanied by his wife, a thin energetic woman who reminded me of a greyhound, and by a very large St Bernard dog who padded majestically through the room to the terrace on his way to water the flowerbeds.

‘I know nothing about theology,’ said Mrs Cobden-Smith to me as soon as we had been introduced. ‘I always say to Alex that I know nothing about theology and I don’t want to know anything either. As far as I’m concerned God’s God, the Church is the Church, the Bible’s the Bible and I can’t understand what all the arguments are about.’

‘Funny business, religion,’ mused her husband, uttering this dubious remark with such an ingenuous admiration that no clergyman could have found him offensive, and began to talk about a Buddhist monk he had met in India.

The young chaplain bustled back into the room. ‘So sorry, Mrs Jardine, but you know what the Archdeacon’s like when he rings up in a panic …’

I was introduced to Gerald Harvey. He was a short bespectacled man in his early twenties who seemed to be perpetually out of breath, and I wondered whether the Bishop of Starbridge regularly reduced his chaplain to this state of wild-eyed anxiety.

‘… and I’ve heard about your book, of course,’ he was saying, ‘but I confess I haven’t read it because all those ancient arguments about the Trinity simply make me want to tear off my dog-collar and enlist in the Foreign Legion – oh my goodness, there’s the doorbell and the Bishop’s still not down! I’d better go and see if anything’s wrong.’

He dashed away again. I was surprised that Jardine had selected such a plain, unsophisticated and clearly unintellectual chaplain, but before I could speculate on the existence of sterling virtues which would have qualified Harvey for his post, the butler announced the arrival of Mr and Mrs Frank Jennings. Jennings, I soon discovered, had just been appointed to teach dogmatics at the Theological College in the Close. He himself was unremarkable in his appearance but his wife was a pretty young blonde, and remembering Jack’s gossip I wondered how far her looks had qualified the couple for an invitation to the episcopal dinner table.

‘I found your book most stimulating,’ Jennings said to me agreeably, but before he could continue his wife exclaimed: ‘Good gracious, Frank, look at that gigantic dog!’

‘Alex had a dog once,’ said little Mrs Jardine as the St Bernard made a stately return to the room. ‘He called it Rhetoric. But we were living in London at the time and poor little Rhet was run over by such a vulgar Rolls-Royce – really, I’ve never felt the same about motor cars since … Do you have a dog, Dr Ashworth?’

‘No, Mrs Jardine.’

‘Do you have a wife, Dr Ashworth?’ called Lady Starmouth, giving me a friendly look with her fine dark eyes.

I was acutely aware of Miss Christie’s hand pausing in the act of pouring out glasses of sherry for the newcomers.

‘I’m a widower, Lady Starmouth,’ I said.

‘All clergymen ought to be married,’ said the authoritative Mrs Cobden-Smith, offering a handful of water biscuits to the St Bernard. ‘They say the Roman Catholics have frightful trouble with their celibate priests.’

‘They say the Church of England has frightful trouble with its married clergy,’ said a strong harsh well-remembered voice from the doorway, and as we all turned to face him the Bishop of Starbridge made a grand entrance into his drawing-room.

IV

Dr Jardine was a man of medium height, slim and well proportioned, with dark greying hair and brown eyes so light that they were almost amber. The eyes were set deep and wide apart; by far his most arresting feature, they were capable of assuming a hypnotic lambent glaze in the pulpit, a physiological trick which Jardine used sparingly but effectively to underline his considerable gifts as a preacher. His quick abrupt walk revealed his energy and hinted at his powerful restless intellect. Unlike most bishops he wore his gaiters with élan, as if conscious that he had the figure to triumph over the absurdity of the archaic episcopal costume, and when he entered the room he was radiating the electric self-confidence which his enemies decried as bumptious and his admirers defended as debonair.

‘Don’t be alarmed, everyone!’ he said, smiling after the opening remark which had won our attention. ‘I’m not about to secede to Rome, but I can never resist the urge to counter my sister-in-law’s scandalously dogmatic assertions … Good evening, Dr Ashworth, I’m delighted to see you. Good evening, Jennings – Mrs Jennings – now, Mrs Jennings, there’s no need to be shy. I may be a fire-breathing bishop but I’m extremely tame in the company of pretty ladies – isn’t that so, Lady Starmouth?’

‘Tame as a tiger!’ said the Countess amused.

‘We used to have some good tiger-shoots in India,’ reflected Colonel Cobden-Smith. ‘I remember –’

‘I saw such an adorable tiger at the zoo once,’ said Mrs Jardine, ‘but I’m sure it would have been so much happier back in the wild.’

‘Nonsense!’ said the Bishop robustly, accepting a glass of sherry from Miss Christie. ‘If the unfortunate animal had been in its natural habitat your brother would have come along and murdered it. Did you arrive in time for Evensong, Dr Ashworth?’

‘I’m afraid I was late getting here. The traffic around London –’

‘Don’t worry, I don’t award black marks for missing services. Now, Mrs Jennings, sit down and tell me all about yourself – have you managed to find a house yet?’

As his wife was purloined by the Bishop, Jennings began to tell me about his arduous quest for a property in the suburbs. Occasionally I offered a word of sympathy but for the most part I sipped my sherry in silence, eavesdropped on the other conversations and kept a surreptitious watch on Miss Christie.

Lady Starmouth suddenly glided into my field of vision. ‘I think you must be the youngest canon I’ve ever met, Dr Ashworth! Does this mean the Church is at last beginning to believe it’s not a crime to be under forty?’

‘The canonry came with the job, Lady Starmouth. When Archbishop Laud founded Laud’s College and Cambridge Cathedral in the seventeenth century he stipulated that the College should appoint a doctor of divinity to teach theology and act as one of the Cathedral’s residentiary canons.’ I suddenly realized that Miss Christie was looking straight at me, but when our glances met she turned away. I continued to watch as she picked up the sherry decanter again but Colonel Cobden-Smith cornered her before she could embark on the task of refilling glasses.

‘… and I hear you were Dr Lang’s chaplain once,’ Lady Starmouth was saying. ‘How did you meet him?’

Reluctantly I averted my gaze from Miss Christie. ‘He gave away the prizes during my last year at school.’

‘You were head boy of your school, of course,’ said Jardine from the depths of the sofa nearby.

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ I said surprised, ‘yes, I was.’

‘How clever of you, Alex!’ exclaimed Mrs Jardine. ‘How did you guess Dr Ashworth had been head boy?’

‘No boy attracts His Grace’s attention unless he shows signs of becoming a walking advertisement for Muscular Christianity.’

‘I adore Muscular Christianity,’ said Lady Starmouth.

‘If Christianity were a little more muscular the world wouldn’t be in such a mess,’ said the forthright Mrs Cobden-Smith.

‘If Christianity were a little more muscular it wouldn’t be Christianity,’ said the Bishop, again displaying his compulsion to argue with his sister-in-law. ‘The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t a lecture on weight-lifting.’

‘What exactly is Muscular Christianity?’ inquired Mrs Jardine. ‘I’ve never been quite sure. Is it just groups of nice-looking young clergymen like Dr Ashworth?’

‘“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”’ said the Bishop, raising his eyes to heaven as he quoted Hamlet.

‘More sherry, anyone?’ said Miss Christie, finally escaping from Colonel Cobden-Smith.

‘Dinner is served, my Lord,’ said the butler in a sepulchral voice from the doorway.

V

The dining-room was as vast as the drawing-room and it too faced down the garden to the river. I had wondered if the gentlemen were required to ‘take a lady in’ to dinner, but Mrs Jardine gave no instructions and as we all wandered informally into the dining-room I was hoping I might claim the chair next to Miss Christie. However there were place-cards, and a quick glance told me I was to be disappointed. Although I shared with the Bishop the pleasure of being seated next to Lady Starmouth my other neighbour proved to be the formidable Mrs Cobden-Smith and meanwhile, far away on the opposite side of the table, Miss Christie was once more finding herself trapped with the Colonel; to my irritation I saw he was clearly delighted by his undeserved good fortune.

After the Bishop had said grace we all embarked on a watery celery soup, a disaster which was subsequently redeemed first by poached trout and then by roast lamb. The main course was accompanied by a superb claret. I almost asked the Bishop to identify it, but decided he might subscribe to the view that in Church circles a keen interest in wine was permissible only for bishops or for archdeacons and canons over sixty. With a superhuman exercise of will-power I restricted myself to two glasses and was aware of Jardine noticing as I declined a third.

‘Leaving room for the post-prandial port, Canon?’

‘Oh, is there port, Bishop? What a treat!’ I assumed an expression of innocent surprise.

The dinner surged on, everyone talking with increasing animation as the claret exerted its influence. Mrs Cobden-Smith asked me about my background, and having established the exact shade of my class she was sufficiently reassured to give me the benefit of her opinions which ranged from the futility of giving the working classes houses with bathrooms to the folly of listening to the Indian natives who wanted independence. When I could escape from Mrs Cobden-Smith’s attentions Lady Starmouth pounced and I found myself being subjected to a far more subtle inquisition. Lady Starmouth wanted to know about my wife, but when I volunteered little information in response to her oblique enquiries she decided to probe my views on a topical subject affecting matrimony; I was asked what I thought of A. P. Herbert’s celebrated Marriage Bill which had triggered Jardine’s attack on Lang in the Lords.