Glittering Images (60 page)

‘I’d emigrate to Australia before I let all this happen!’

‘I sympathize entirely – if this unhealthy
ménage
is allowed to survive, even in a reconstructed form, it could be emotionally disastrous for Lyle and spiritually very dangerous for you both, but you do see, don’t you, Charles, that from the Jardines’ point of view a
ménage à quatre
could be an attractive possibility?’

‘Well, obviously there’s got to be a clean break with them –’

‘Yes, but how easy is that going to be to achieve if Jardine is bent on creating a
ménage à quatre
and Lyle is anxious to retain both Jardines in her life? The fact is this situation could quickly jeopardize your marriage, and if you do decide to go ahead it’s vital that you and Lyle agree long before you reach the altar exactly what your relationship with the Jardines is going to be.’

After a long pause I heard myself say: ‘Well, I’ve got the whip-hand, haven’t I? I could ruin him in one sentence to the Archbishop.’

‘I was wondering when you were going to think of that.’ Darrow leant forward. ‘It wouldn’t work, Charles – for two reasons. One is that Lyle would never forgive you and never forgive herself for Jardine’s downfall. And the second reason is that if Jardine adopted a tough stance and denied everything Lang couldn’t force him to resign without a huge scandal – which is the one thing Lang wants to avoid.’

‘So Jardine gets away with adultery – again!’

‘Not necessarily. Leave Jardine to God, Charles. God will deal with him far more efficiently than either you or the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

‘Well, God certainly seems to have turned a blind eye so far!’ I said, but as soon as the words had left my mouth I was horrified. ‘I’m sorry, forgive me, but I was just so angry at the thought of Jardine getting away with all this and enjoying a supremely successful career –’

‘Yes, the anger’s clouding your mind; if you calm down I think you’ll see that you’re jumping to conclusions that are very much open to debate. After all, what do we really know about Jardine’s past? We do know there was a gross error with Loretta, but are you so sure he got away with it? What does “getting away with it” actually mean here? Jardine certainly met with worldly success after he parted from Loretta, but how far did that contribute to either his happiness or his spiritual welfare? The effect was to drive his marriage still deeper into trouble because his wife couldn’t cope with her new responsibilities, and Jardine’s misery must inevitably have increased. Indeed if you equate worldly success with “getting away with it”, Charles, I think you’re on shaky ground.’

I gestured to indicate I had no argument to offer.

‘It’s dangerous to make a judgement when one can’t know all the facts,’ pursued Darrow, ‘and since only God can know all the facts one can only conclude that it’s best to leave the judgements to God. For instance, who knows but God when Jardine’s present troubles really began? One might speculate that they began with his marriage, but why did he rush into that fatal marriage in the first place? Surely no mature man in his right mind proposes to a woman only four days after their first meeting! Such behaviour hints at instability, at some form of mental distress. Was there indeed an unhealthy situation with the stepmother? If one were speculating about a judgement one might advance the theory that the marriage itself was a retribution stemming from some previous error, but we don’t know, do we? And we’ll never know. It’s impossible to know the whole truth about anyone, Charles, and all we can do is pray for as much enlightenment as God sees fit to grant us. So be cautious with Jardine. Beat back the demon anger. Even if he’s entrapped in the grossest of errors you should still approach him with charity and refrain from judgement.’

After a prolonged silence I said with reluctance, ‘I suppose I should also still guard against the temptation to assume that adultery’s taking place.’

‘Yes, because it remains non-proven – and the last possibility here, of course, is that there’s no adultery but Lyle’s nevertheless locked up in an unhealthy psychological relationship with both Jardines which is preventing her from having a normal life of her own.’

‘But even if that were true the situation would still be fraught with difficulty, wouldn’t it? I’d still have to deal with the Jardines, still have to deal with Lyle’s guilt – the guilt that she was leaving them –’

‘– and you’d still have to deal with the dread that you never got to the bottom of the mystery and that maybe she did sleep with him after all. No, I agree this is hardly an improvement on the other possibilities – in fact one could even argue that it would be easier to deal with Lyle’s unwitting adultery than with some bizarre neurosis which keeps her in the Jardines’ thrall.’

‘If the adultery exists it must be bizarre enough in itself. Think of the complications!’ I shuddered before adding abruptly, ‘Have we now exhausted the possibilities or are there any futures still to be considered?’

‘There’s always the future we can’t predict. For example, Jardine might drop dead. But I think we’ve covered the futures which are forseeable on the present evidence.’

‘It’s certainly a daunting prospect.’ I looked up into his eyes. ‘But if I make the wrong decision after this conversation it certainly won’t be your fault.’

‘I’ll pray there’ll be no wrong decisions. And talking of prayer we must discuss your spiritual life before you go. I want you in prime spiritual condition for this finale of your great ordeal, Charles, because I’m quite sure you’re going to need all the spiritual strength you can get.’

I remember very well when the end began. It was September the fourteenth, the day before I was due to telephone Lyle to arrange a meeting at the end of the month. I had spent the morning attending a conference of the University’s theological faculty to discuss a new policy on tutorials; two of the professors had had a row about the Pelagian heresy, and that afternoon as I attended to some correspondence in my rooms I was just wondering idly if I could bring Pelagius into my next sermon when the telephone rang beside me on the desk.

I picked up the receiver. ‘Ashworth.’

‘Charles –’

It was Lyle. I rose to my feet as if I had been jerked by a rope. She said, ‘I need you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘London. I want to come to Cambridge.’

I glanced at the clock on the chimneypiece. ‘There’s a train from Liverpool Street at three-twenty. I’ll meet you at Cambridge station.’

‘Thank you,’ she said crying, and hung up.

The last ripples from my big stone had finally reached the edge of the pool and now apparently it was Lyle herself who was about to be washed up at my feet. At once I wondered if Darrow had foreseen this indefinably sinister end to my weeks of waiting, and the next moment I was telephoning the Fordites’ mansion at Grantchester.

‘A perverted, confused or defective moral sense is yet reverently to be handled, after the manner of the Redeemer, Who would not quench the smoking flax or break the bruised reed.’

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

Darrow was not available. ‘Father Abbot’s gone visiting,’ said the monk who answered the telephone. He made visiting sound as if it were an act of great daring fraught with dangerous possibilities. His voice sank to a whisper. ‘He’s calling on the Abbess at Dunton.’

I saw us all moving into position like figures on a chessboard, I seeking Darrow, Darrow seeking a counsellor for Lyle, Lyle on her way to Cambridge to seek help. ‘When is he expected back?’

‘Six o’clock, Doctor.’

‘Please tell him I rang.’ I replaced the receiver, thought for a moment, then telephoned the Blue Boar to reserve Lyle a room for the night. My next task was to cancel my social engagements, and once that had been accomplished I asked one of my fellow canons to substitute for me at the Cathedral for a couple of days on condition that I returned the favour when he himself was in residence.

Having concluded these essential telephone calls I glanced at my watch. Then clasping my cross for comfort I calmed myself by reading the evening office. I still had over two hours to wait.

The train drew into the station shortly before five o’clock and I was on the platform to meet Lyle as she left the last carriage and stumbled awkwardly into my arms. She was carrying only a shoulder-bag.

‘Your luggage –’ I was afraid she had left it on the train.

‘I don’t have any. I came up to London only for the day.’ She was very pale but appeared calmer than I had expected. There was no sign of tears. ‘Before I caught the train here I sent the Jardines a wire to say I was staying overnight. I didn’t say where or why.’

I kissed her briefly, led her outside and told her about the room waiting at the Blue Boar. ‘But we’ll go to Laud’s first,’ I said, ‘and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘I’d rather have a whisky,’ came the flat reply, and as I swung to face her she said: ‘Yes, ladies’ companions don’t drink whisky, do they? But I want to put aside my mask now, Charles – the glittering image, as you called it – and then when you see me as I am –’ Suddenly she was fighting her tears ‘– perhaps you won’t want me any more but at least I’ll have set you free to find someone else.’

I said as I started the car, ‘Whatever happens in the future I promise I’ll help you through the present crisis.’

But she was apparently too overwhelmed to reply; she could only avert her face from mine as she struggled for composure, and in silence we drove to Laud’s.

‘Maybe brandy would revive you more effectively than whisky,’ I said when we reached my rooms.

‘I think it would, yes. Thanks. With soda.’ She began to search her bag for a cigarette. After I had given her a light she added, ‘I haven’t even said thank you for responding like this. I must be wrecking your social calendar and Cathedral duties.’

‘You’re more important than calendars and cathedrals.’ I handed her the glass of brandy, and after siphoning some sodawater into a glass for myself I sat down not on the sofa beside her but in the nearest armchair. I was wearing my collar so I was unable to smoke. Instead I sat well foward in the chair and gripped the glass with both hands. Outside in the quad the sun was shining. My rooms were very quiet, very peaceful.

‘Sorry,’ said Lyle, ‘I seem to be in a sort of coma. I want to talk but I can’t quite see where to begin.’

‘“Begin at the beginning”, as the King said in
Alice in Wonderland
, “and go on till you come to the end”. Have another swig of brandy.’

‘The trouble is I’m not sure where the beginning begins … Charles, could you sit beside me? Or have you planted yourself in that chair not just to reassure me you won’t pounce but to help you to behave like a – whoops! I nearly said “eunuch”. The glittering image is slipping. Ladies’ companions in clerical households aren’t supposed to know what such words mean.’

‘Surely if they read the Bible and have access to a dictionary they’d find their innocence rather hard to preserve?’ I said mildly, and when she laughed I sat down beside her and gripped her trembling hand in mine.

‘All that biblical sex!’ she exclaimed, and suddenly I sensed she had seen the way forward into her narrative. ‘That awful use of the verb “to know”! I remember saying to my great-uncle in Norfolk: “Everyone in the Old Testament seems so well acquainted!” I didn’t know anything about sex till fairly late – well, I didn’t want to know. My mother said to one of her friends once when I was listening at the door, “Of course no girl would ever face marriage if she
knew all
,” and my God, the way she said it! I crept away and vowed I’d never marry, never, never, never. I didn’t want children anyway so marriage seemed not only repellent but pointless. I told you my mother was an invalid, didn’t I? “I was all right before I was married,” she used to say, “but after the child was born I was never the same again.” What a nightmare! Marriage, motherhood and
knowing all
– ugh! I grew up wishing I’d been born a man.

‘However when I was twenty-four and still living at that ghastly rectory in Norfolk I thought: there’s got to be more to life than this, I’ll go mad soon, I’ll die of boredom unless I can make something happen. And I started thinking rationally about marriage. I was spurred on by the fact that my great-uncle was clearly on his last legs, and once he died I knew I’d be turned out into the street with no money. So I thought: maybe I should give marriage a try. Well, it just so happened that one of my admirers at that time was the son of one of the well-to-do farmers in the neighbourhood, not some blockheaded yokel but a well-spoken boy, reasonably educated, and I thought he could be a solution to my problem. I liked the idea of helping him run the farm one day, and there was a nice house attached to the farm too, Georgian, not some two-up, two-down hovel it had
possibilities
, and I did so long for a real home of my own at last. I calculated that his parents wouldn’t last more than ten years, his sisters would soon be married off and then I’d be free to rule the roost. So the only hurdle was: could I cope with
knowing all
?