Read the book: «Glittering Images»

ONE

‘A bishop, I remind myself, is not quite as other men.’

HERBERT HENSLEY HENSON

Bishop of Durham 1920–1939

The Bishoprick Papers

I

My ordeal began one summer afternoon when I received a telephone call from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a hot day, and beyond the window the quadrangle of Laud’s shimmered in the hazy light. Term had ended; the resulting peace provided an atmosphere conducive to work, and when the telephone rang it was with reluctance that I reached for the receiver.

A voice announced itself as Lambeth Palace and proclaimed that His Grace wished to speak to Dr Ashworth on a matter of extreme urgency. Apparently the Archbishop was still infecting his chaplains with his love of melodrama.

‘My dear Charles!’ Dr Lang’s voice, always sonorous, now achieved a pitch of theatrical splendour. He was a member of that generation which regards the telephone as at worst a demonic intruder and at best a thespian challenge, and when I inquired diplomatically about his health I was treated to a dramatic discourse on the more tedious aspects of senectitude. The Archbishop, on that first day of July in 1937, was in his seventy-third year and as fit as an ecclesiastical grandee has a right to expect, but in common with all men he hated the manifestations of old age.

‘… however enough of my tiresome little ailments,’ he concluded as I added the finishing touches to the mitre I had sketched on my memo-pad. ‘Charles, I’m preaching at Ely next Sunday, and because I’m most anxious that we should meet I’ve arranged to spend the night in Cambridge at the house of my old friend the Master of Laud’s. I shall come to your rooms after Evensong, but let me stress that I wish my visit to be entirely private. I have a commission which I wish to entrust to you, and the commission,’ said the Archbishop, milking the situation of every ounce of drama by allowing his voice to sink to a whisper, ‘is very delicate indeed.’

I wondered if he imagined he could arrive at my rooms without being recognized. Archbishops hardly find it easy to travel incognito, and an archbishop who had recently played a leading part in the abdication of one king and the coronation of another was hardly the most anonymous of clerics.

I said politely, ‘Of course I’d be glad to help you in any way I can, Your Grace.’

‘Then I’ll see you on Sunday evening. Thank you, Charles,’ said Dr Lang, and after giving me a brisk blessing he terminated the call. I was left staring at the mitre I had sketched, but gradually I became aware that my gaze had shifted to the last words I had written before the interruption.

‘Modalism appealed to the Church’s desire for monotheism, but in the second half of the fourth century it was propounded that the modalist God metamorphosed himself to meet –’

The impact of Modalism on the doctrine of the Trinity seemed a long way from the machinations of Dr Lang.

I found I had lost interest in my new book.

My ordeal had begun.

II

‘My commission,’ said the Archbishop with a reverence calculated to underline the importance of the subject, ‘concerns the Bishop of Starbridge. Have you met him?’

‘Only briefly. He preached in Cambridge Cathedral during Advent last year.’

We had achieved the private meeting in my rooms, and I had offered the Archbishop a cup of his favourite tea; one of my London friends, visiting Cambridge the previous day, had brought the tea directly from Fortnum’s. Dr Lang, formally attired in his archiepiscopal clothes, was now sipping from one of my best china cups as he sat in my most comfortable armchair while I, wearing my cassock beneath my doctoral gown, was busy repressing the urge for a whisky. My cigarettes had been hidden. I had even left the windows wide open all day to banish any hint of smoke.

Lang took another sip of tea. He was a man whose features cast themselves without effort into an autocratic expression, and as I glanced at him I was reminded of the story which had circulated the Church of England after he had displayed his portrait by Orpen to a group of bishops. Lang had mused: ‘I feel I must object when the critics say the painting makes me look pompous, proud and prelatical!’ Whereupon Dr Henson, the caustic Bishop of Durham, had inquired: ‘And may I ask to which of these epithets Your Grace takes exception?’ The Archbishop was not without his enemies in the Church, and as I remembered Henson of Durham my thoughts turned to Jardine of Starbridge who, so Lang now informed me, was the subject of the mysterious commission.

‘Before I explain further, Charles, answer me this: what did you Cambridge theologians think of Jardine’s speech in the House of Lords ten days ago?’

That was an easy question to answer. During the debate on Mr A. P. Herbert’s Marriage Bill, which advocated extending the grounds for divorce, Dr Jardine had attacked the Archbishop in a speech which had tossed a fireball into the tinderbox of the Church of England.

‘We were all horrified, Your Grace.’

‘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.’

This statement too was credible. There might have been loose-living bishops in the past but nowadays no bishop was ever accused of anything worse than senility. However Jardine had not always been a bishop. ‘Has there been any scandal in his past, a scandal which was successfully hushed up?’

‘No. He would hardly have received regular preferment if that had been the case, Charles.’

‘Yet you mentioned this “healthy interest” in the opposite sex –’

‘Occasionally at a dinner party he makes it a little too obvious that he finds a woman attractive, but in truth I find that reassuring. If anything were seriously amiss I’m sure he’d be at pains to conceal it.’

This struck me as a shrewd judgement, and in the knowledge that I was once more dealing with the canny Scot who inhabited the bottom layer of his personality I decided to risk prolonging my cross-examination. ‘What about the feather-brained wife?’ I said. ‘Do we know for a fact that he’s discontented with her?’

‘No. There’s a persistent rumour that the marriage has its difficulties but he always speaks of her loyally enough, and the gossip may merely have arisen because they seem an ill-assorted couple. Don’t jump to conclusions about that marriage, Charles. Very clever men often marry very stupid women, and just because the Jardines seem intellectually unsuited you shouldn’t automatically assume they’re unhappy.’

After this wise warning that I should avoid approaching my commission with preconceived ideas I felt there was only one question left to ask. ‘When do I leave for Starbridge?’

‘As soon as Jardine’s prepared to receive you as his guest,’ said Lang, well satisfied with my commitment to his cause, and finally allowed the warmth to permeate his thin dry politician’s smile.

V

I thought he would leave then but he stayed. For a time we talked of College matters; he wanted to know whether the undergraduates were still susceptible to the evangelical Christianity of Frank Buchman’s ‘groupists’ but I said I thought that influence was on the wane.

‘The tragedy of such movements,’ said the Archbishop who had sanctioned the Buchmanites in 1933 and had probably lived to regret it, ‘is that their good intentions are so vulnerable to abuse. Troubled young men should seek to purge their souls in private confession before a priest, not in the so-called “sharing” of painful experiences with a group who may be spiritually no wiser than they are.’ So subtle was his manipulation of the conversation that it was not until he asked his next question that I perceived the drift of his thoughts. ‘Do you hear many confessions, Charles?’

‘I never seek them. I always stress that the Church of England says only that one may make confession, never that one must. But of course if an undergraduate comes to me, I hear him.’

‘And you yourself? I was wondering,’ said Lang, finally revealing the core of his curiosity, ‘if you might wish to take advantage of this rare private meeting by raising any problem which you feel would be eased by a confidential discussion.’

I allowed only the briefest silence to elapse before I replied, but I knew my silence had been not only noted but reserved as a subject for future speculation. ‘How very thoughtful of you, Your Grace,’ I said, ‘but I’m happy to say that the only serious problem I have at present is to decide what to put in my new book.’

‘A problem which I’m sure your intellect will be more than capable of resolving in due course! But may I ask who your spiritual director is nowadays?’

‘I still go to the Abbot of the Fordite monks at Grantchester.’

‘Ah yes, Father Reid. I wish I had the time to call on him while I’m in Cambridge, but alas! One is always so monstrously busy.’ Lang made a theatrical gesture of despair, glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. My audience was drawing to an end.

I asked for his blessing, and when he gave it to me I was aware of his gifts as a churchman; I remembered how his care and concern had sustained me during the difficult years both before and after my ordination; I recalled how his generosity of spirit, glamorously displayed, had sparked my understanding that Christianity could be not a pallid priggish way of life but a glittering realization of one’s finest possibilities. People can be led to Christianity by infinitely diverse routes, and there was no denying that I had been led by Lang’s worldly success to the creed which rated worldly success unimportant. Beyond the glittering image lay the stark absolute truth. It was a juxtaposition which had fascinated me ever since I had decided to be a clergyman, but as I now looked without effort past Lang’s worldly glamour to all the flaws of his powerful personality, I was conscious of amazement that he should have had such an influence on my life. How had this vain, pompous, arid old bachelor ever inspired me to a discipleship which emphasized the humility and simplicity of Christ? The inspiration struck me as little short of miraculous, but then guilt assailed me because although I owed Lang so much I could no longer view him through those rose-tinted spectacles which I had worn with such unquestioning ease in the past.

He departed. The ensuing solitude came as a relief, and retiring at once to my bedroom I stripped off both gown and cassock before pausing to light a cigarette. At once I felt more relaxed, and as soon as I was dressed with the minimum of formality, I returned to my sitting-room, mixed myself a substantial whisky and soda and began to contemplate my mission to Starbridge.

VI

The more I considered the situation the less enamoured of it I became. It would involve me in deception; although it could be argued by any student of moral philosophy that the welfare of the Church justified a little espionage by the Archbishop’s henchman, I was averse to involving myself in one of those situations where the end was held to justify the means. When I had cited Jesuitical casuistry earlier, Lang had all but quoted Shakespeare’s line: ‘This is the English, not the Turkish court,’ but nevertheless I did wonder, as I recalled our conversation, what game Lang was really playing.

Jardine had humiliated him during that debate in the House of Lords ten days ago. ‘What are the ordinary people of England to think,’ the Bishop had demanded in fury, ‘when on one of the great moral issues of the day the Archbishop of Canterbury says with a conspicuous lack of courage that he can vote neither for this bill nor against it? Is this leadership? Is this the great ecclesiastical pearl of wisdom which so many people have been eagerly awaiting? Is this the ultimate fate of the Church of England – to be led into the wilderness of moral confusion by a septuagenarian Scot who has apparently lost touch with those whom he purports to serve?’

I thought Lang would want to get rid of Jardine after that performance, and the only way Lang could rid himself of a turbulent bishop without a scandal was to find evidence of a disabling impropriety so that a resignation could be extorted in private. In other words, I suspected that I was being used not merely to safeguard the Church but to promote a secret war between two of the country’s leading churchmen.

This was a most unedifying thought. As I followed my Sunday evening custom of making myself a cheese sandwich in the little pantry attached to my rooms, I wondered if I could extricate myself from Lang’s scheme but I could see no way out. I had committed myself. I could hardly admit now that I was suffering debilitating doubts. Lang would be most displeased, and incurring my Archbishop’s displeasure was a prospect on which I had no wish to dwell. I decided my best hope of resolving the dilemma lay in proving Jardine’s private life was as pure as driven snow with the result that the Archbishop’s Machiavellian plans would collapse in an unconsummated heap, but the next moment I was asking myself how likely it was that Jardine was an episcopal saint. Even if one ruled out the possibility of a fatal error there was still room for a variety of smuts on the driven snow; the thought of flirtatious behaviour at dinner parties was not encouraging.

I finished my second whisky, ate my sandwich and brewed myself some coffee. Then I decided to embark on some preliminary research by talking to two people who almost certainly knew more about Jardine than I did.

My first telephone call was to a London friend who worked for The Church Gazette. We had been up at Cambridge together as undergraduates, and later when I had been Lang’s chaplain and Jack had begun his career as an ecclesiastical journalist it had suited us both to maintain our friendship.

‘I confess I’m ringing you out of sheer vulgar curiosity,’ I said after the conventional enquiries had been exchanged. ‘I’m about to stay at the episcopal palace at Starbridge – what can you tell me about its current tenant?’

‘Ah, the vampire who feeds on the blood of pompous archbishops! Brush up your theories on the Virgin Birth, Charles, take a gun and shoot straight from the hip – after dinner at Starbridge when the lovely ladies have withdrawn the conversation will be guaranteed to put you through your theological paces.’

‘Are you deliberately trying to frighten me?’

‘Oh, don’t despair of survival! He likes theologians – they give him a good run for his money. But why are you offering yourself to Jardine for shooting practice?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder. Tell me more about these lovely ladies I shall meet at the dinner table.’

‘The gossips say no man receives an invitation to dine unless he has an attractive wife, but I dare say that’s an exaggeration.’

‘What’s Jardine’s own wife like?’

‘She’s a wonderful, fluffy little thing with a heart of gold and a stunning selection of tea gowns. Everyone adores her. Her favourite topic of conversation’s the weather.’

‘That must make a welcome change from the Virgin Birth. And isn’t there a good-looking companion in the household? What do I talk about with her?’

‘Don’t get excited, Charles – curb your natural inclination to indulge in impure thoughts! Miss Christie’s the original ice-maiden. Starbridge is littered with the bones of those who have died of unrequited love for that particular lady.’

‘Well, I wasn’t seriously expecting to find a nymphomaniac lodged at the episcopal palace –’

‘No, Jardine knows when to play safe. Lovely ladies, preferably titled and always chaperoned by their boring old husbands, are more in his line than nymphomaniacs and ice-maidens. No scandal, of course. He just likes to look and chat.’

‘No doubt he enjoys the chance to talk of subjects other than the weather.’

‘Ah, so you’ve heard the rumour that the Jardines’ marriage has died of boredom, but don’t you believe it, old chap! Mrs Jardine’s still pretty as a picture and I shouldn’t think Jardine gives a damn about her intellect once the lights are out in the episcopal bedchamber.’

‘Jack, are you still working for The Church Gazette? You’re sounding exactly like a hack from The News of the World!’

‘Nonsense! There’s nothing scandalous about a bishop who sleeps with his wife. The News of the World would only bat an eyelid if he started sleeping with someone else, but as far as I know –’

‘Yes, how much of this prurient rigmarole of yours is hearsay and how much is first-hand information?’

‘Well, naturally I’m in league with the chaplain but since he always presents his hero as a cross between St Paul and Sir Galahad he’s hardly a source of spicy gossip. However I do have first-hand experience of the Jardines. Last March I was invited down to Starbridge to report on a Church committee meeting which was discussing special Coronation services in the southern province – Jardine, as chairman, was playing host. Of course he’s rumoured to eat journalists on toast for breakfast but in fact he was very civil to me, and Mrs Jardine was a poppet. She gave me some ginger biscuits and said I reminded her of her nephew.’

‘And the luscious Miss Christie?’

‘She gave me a cool look and told me where to find the lavatory. But I think you’ll like both the Jardines, Charles, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t survive your visit with ease. Just gird your loins when the sinful vintage port starts circulating, and take a deep breath if the Bishop begins to hold forth on the Virgin Birth …’

VII

I next telephoned a man whom I had met at theological college and who was now the incumbent of a rural parish in the Starbridge diocese. Although our paths had diverged since our ordination we had maintained our friendship by letter and I felt I could express without insincerity the hope that we might meet during my visit. However a meeting was to be impossible; he and his family were about to take their first holiday in five years. Keeping quiet about my spring visit to France I said I was sure Bournemouth would be delightful, but I was still repressing a shudder at the thought of the cheap boarding house which awaited him when he asked why I was visiting Starbridge.

To reveal that the Bishop had invited me to stay at the instigation of Dr Lang would have seemed, in the circumstances, an unforgivable piece of bragging so I merely mentioned my desire to visit the Cathedral library and said I would be calling at the palace as a courtesy. What’s your opinion of Jardine, Philip?’ I added. ‘Do you find him a good bishop?’

‘I find him an embarrassment, quite frankly. That speech in the Lords! I felt sorry for Lang. A bishop’s got no business to attack his archbishop in public.’

‘But what’s he like when he’s doing his job instead of chasing every headline in Fleet Street?’

‘Why ask me? I usually only see him once a year for confirmations.’

‘But don’t confirmations give a good indication of a bishop’s conscientiousness? There’s a world of difference between a bishop who can barely disguise the fact that he’s treading a very well-worn path and a bishop who makes the candidates feel the occasion’s as special for him as it is for them.’

‘True,’ said Philip reluctantly. ‘Well, I have to admit Jardine can’t be faulted there – although when he first became bishop five years ago he did seem distrait. However, I put that down to lack of experience. The next year he was quite different, very much in command before the candidates, very relaxed behind the scenes, but all the same … I’ve heard he can be an absolute terror.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, he’s supposed to be at his worst when a clergyman wants to get married. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about clergymen being ruined by unsuitable wives, and if he doesn’t think a clerical fiancée’s going to make the grade as a vicar’s wife he has no hesitation in saying so. It makes one wonder about his own marriage – rumour has it that Mrs Jardine’s delightful but incompetent and that the real power at the palace is her companion.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard about Miss Christie. Jack Ryder paints her as a femme fatale.’

‘What rubbish! She wouldn’t have lasted ten years in a bishop’s household unless she was propriety personified!’

‘But she’s attractive, isn’t she? Wouldn’t it have been safer to engage a companion who looked like the back end of a tram?’

‘Jardine’s the kind of man who would baulk at confronting the back end of a tram every morning at the breakfast table.’

‘Philip,’ I said amused, ‘I’m receiving the clear impression that you don’t like him, but is this solely because he attacks his archbishop in public and demolishes clerical fiancées? Neither of these unfortunate habits can have affected you personally.’

‘No, thank God Mary and I tied the knot while Jardine was still Dean of Radbury! I don’t dislike him, Charles – he’s always been charming both to Mary and to me – but I do disapprove of him. I think he’s far too worldly, and he’s got a very flashy nouveau riche streak which should have been ironed out before he was let loose on an income of several thousand a year. I’ll never forget the garden party he gave for the diocesan clergy two years ago – talk about extravagance! I was shocked. I kept thinking what all the catering must have cost and calculating how many poor people in my parish could have benefited from the money.’

‘My dear Philip! Aren’t you being a little churlish about your generous bishop?’

‘Perhaps. And perhaps you live in an ivory tower, Charles, and don’t know what’s really going on in the world. How long has it been since you visited a house where the husband’s been unemployed since the Slump, the wife’s half-dead with TB and the children have rickets as well as lice?’

There was a silence.

At last Philip said rapidly: ‘I’m sorry –’

I interrupted him. ‘I’m very conscious, believe me,’ I said, ‘that I lack experience at the parish level.’

‘Nevertheless I shouldn’t have implied –’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ There was another pause before I added: ‘Well, I’m sorry I shan’t be seeing you, Philip. Perhaps next time –’

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Next time.’

But we both knew ‘next time’ was a long way away.

VIII

On the following morning the Archbishop telephoned to inform me that I should present myself at the palace early on Wednesday evening; Jardine had professed delight at the prospect of offering me hospitality, a profession which Lang cynically suspected derived from a guilty wish to make amends for the bellicose speech in the House of Lords. ‘… and I’m sure he’ll give you a warm welcome, Charles,’ was the Archbishop’s dry conclusion.

‘Did he remember meeting me last year?’

‘Of course! When I mentioned your name he said: “Ah yes, the young canon from Cambridge who thinks the world began not with Adam and Eve but with the Council of Nicaea!”’

So Jardine had at least glanced at the book which had made my name in theological circles. He himself had published no work of historical scholarship, but that never deterred him from writing trenchant reviews of other people’s efforts and I had been surprised as well as relieved when my own book had escaped his characteristic literary butchery. How the escape had been achieved I was uncertain, but possibly he found any discussion of Arianism boring and had decided to rest his pen.

These thoughts about scholarship reminded me that I had not yet decided why I should need to consult the library of Starbridge Cathedral, and aware how important it was that my need should be convincing I spent some time pondering on the problem before I devised a stratagem which would enable me to tell the truth. I had long been contemplating the revision of my lecture notes on medieval thought. I now decided that my undergraduates were going to learn more about St Anselm, and as a conscientious lecturer I naturally felt obliged to cast a glance over Starbridge’s early manuscript of The Prayers and Meditations.

I suffered a further moment of uneasiness as I contemplated the duplicity inherent in this decision, but then I pulled myself together with the thought that no harm could come to me even if Jardine were steeped in apostasy. On the contrary, Lang was bound to be grateful for my help with the result that I would inevitably emerge from the affair with my future prospects in the Church enhanced.

Casting my last doubt aside I began to prepare for my journey.

IX

So I came at last to Starbridge, radiant ravishing Starbridge, immortalized by famous artists, photographed by innumerable visitors and lauded by guidebooks as the most beautiful city west of the Avon. I could remember clearly from my previous visit as an undergraduate the medieval streets, the flower-filled parks and the languid river which curved in an are around the mound on which the Cathedral stood. The Cathedral itself dominated not only the city but the valley. Wider than Winchester, longer than Canterbury, set in a walled precinct which was even larger than the close at Salisbury, Starbridge Cathedral was renowned for embodying in pale stone and vivid glass the most glittering of medieval visions.

The city itself was small, and being encircled on three sides by the river it still gave an impression of compactness despite the recent housing development to the cast. It lay snugly in the middle of its green valley like a jewel displayed on velvet, and the smooth slopes of the surrounding hills added to the impression that the landscape had been designed in order to show the city to its best advantage.

The diocese was primarily rural but it included the port of Starmouth with its sprawling slums so there was a dark underside to the tranquillity which formed the stranger’s immediate impression of the area. Nonetheless I thought Jardine was probably well pleased with his latest preferment. The diocese was rich; his income was well to the fore among episcopal salaries. London was easily accessible by train, a fact which meant he could keep in close touch with the centres of power, both secular and ecclesiastical, and the bishopric conferred an immediate right to a seat in the House of Lords, a privilege not accompanying the majority of bishoprics where the incumbents had to wait their turn for an ecclesiastical seat to fall vacant. Starbridge was not Canterbury and it was not York but it was plush, privileged and pleasing to the eye, and no doubt there were many among Jardine’s episcopal brethren who envied him.

I had decided to travel to Starbridge in my car, not the sports car which I inevitably found myself driving whenever I dreamt of motors, but the respectable little Baby Austin which was cheap to run and easy to manipulate out of tight corners in the busy streets of Cambridge. Whenever I hankered for an MG I reminded myself how fortunate I was to have even an Austin. Most clergymen could not afford a car, and in fact motors were still regarded by the older bishops as an evil which lured parsons on jaunts away from their parishes.

The road began to curve among hills as I approached Starbridge, and soon I glimpsed the Cathedral in the distance. The road curved again, the spire vanished, but at the next twist it was once more visible, slim and ethereal, a symbol of man’s inchoate yearning to reach upwards to the infinite. As the road continued to wind I felt as if it were mirroring life itself, granting glimpses of transcendence only to rush on before the transcendence could be fully experienced, but finally the last fold in the road lay behind me and I could see the entire city shimmering in the valley below.

This view over a settlement was very old. The Romans had built their city Starovinium on the ruined encampment of the British tribe the Starobrigantes, and the ancient name still survived in city landmarks and on official documents. The Bishop, who was theoretically married to his diocese, was entitled to use the surname Staro in his correspondence, and I had proof of this tradition in my pocket. Jardine himself had sent a letter to welcome me to Starbridge.

‘My dear Dr Ashworth,’ he had written in a bold striking hand, ‘the Archbishop of Canterbury has informed me that you wish to pursue your studies in the Cathedral library, and may I now confirm that you would be most welcome to stay at the palace from the evening of July the seventh until the morning of the tenth. His Grace thought you would probably arrive by motor, but should you prefer to travel by train, please send a wire to my chaplain, Gerald Harvey, who will arrange for my chauffeur to meet you at the station. His Grace also thought that you would not wish to stay more than three nights, but if you should decide to prolong your visit I hope you will assist me at the early service of Holy Communion in the Cathedral on Sunday. In looking forward to the renewal of our acquaintance, Dr Ashworth, I send my best wishes for a safe journey, and assure you that I remain yours very sincerely, ADAM ALEXANDER STARO.’

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.