Ultimate Prizes. Susan Howatch
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phenomenon, the middle-aged man’s vulnerability to the charms of youth. However although I was keen to reduce my feelings to a trivial inconvenience I suspected I was still too young to be in the grip of a middle-aged malaise. Or was I? If my diagnosis was correct I could only shudder. If I was like this at forty, what would I be like at fifty? I had a fleeting picture of myself at sixty, an elderly lecher surrounded by young girls, and it was not at all a cheering vision for a churchman who had always been anxious to Get On and Travel Far.
The weekend gathering at Starmouth Court was hardly ‘smart’ in society’s sense of the word, although Lady Starmouth ensured that the atmosphere was friendly and cultivated. In addition to my disciple, who was on a seventy-two-hour leave, the guests consisted of a residentiary canon of Radbury Cathedral and his wife, a contemporary of the Earl’s from the House of Lords, a bossy lady of uncertain age who worked in London for Jewish refugees and who talked of Bishop Bell with the enthusiasm women usually reserve for film stars, an etiolated civil servant from the Ministry of Information, and the Starmouths’ youngest daughter Rosalind, who had been a debutante with Dido in 1933; her husband was now serving with the Army in India. I soon felt confident that I could hold my own in this company, even with the Canon who was at least twenty years my senior, but nonetheless I was careful to temper my growing self-confidence with a quiet unassuming manner. Alex had warned me more than once that the upper-classes disliked a newcomer who was too strident.
‘Whatever you do,’ I said to Grace as we changed for dinner on the night of our arrival, ‘don’t mention to that bossy Miss Wilkins who’s obviously in love with Bishop Bell that I may be having contact with German prisoners in the future at the new camp on Starbury Plain. Once one starts discussing the Church’s attitude towards Germans Bell’s name’s bound to come up and I don’t want to get involved in any conversation which is politically controversial.’
‘But I thought you admired Bishop Bell!’
‘Yes. Privately. But I don’t want anyone thinking I’m “soft on Germans”.’
‘I’m sure no one would think –’
‘Oh yes, they would! The trouble is that politically speaking Bell’s dynamite. Why has he been passed over for senior bishoprics? Because over and over again he’s stood up in the House of Lords to hammer away at the government and in consequence even though he’s no pacifist people are convinced he’s soft on Germans!’
‘But he’s not soft on Nazis, is he? The people who accuse him of being soft on Germans aren’t really being fair –’
‘No, but I just don’t want to get into one of those arguments about whether it’s possible in wartime conditions such as these to make a distinction between the Nazis and the non-Nazis in Germany – I don’t want to get into any argument about the morality of saturation bombing. Of course Bell’s right to champion the cause of the suffering Germans – all the Christian and Jewish refugees before the war, all the Christians and Jews now in the concentration camps, even all the Germans who are loathing every moment of Hitler’s rule but have somehow managed to stay free – and of course it’s absolutely wrong to say, as that ass Babbington-French says, that the only good German’s a dead German, but Bell shouldn’t try to tell Churchill how to run the war. It’s madness, absolute madness – as well as professional suicide – and I can’t support it. We’ve got to stay solidly behind Churchill, got to – how else are we going to survive this appalling ordeal?’
‘Oh darling, I do understand and I do agree with you – please don’t think I’m criticizing! Where would we all be now if it wasn’t for Mr Churchill? Not at Starmouth Court, that’s certain! It’s just that I can’t help admiring Bishop Bell for standing up for Christian values in such very adverse circumstances and at such personal cost to himself –’
‘Yes, he’s a hero.’ I moved to the window to stare out at the terraced lawns. ‘Charles Raven stays in his academic ivory tower and preaches pacifism,’ I said, ‘but George Bell’s out there in the chaos, battling away doggedly for God in a world gone mad. I used to admire no churchman more than Raven, but now I think … well, never mind what I think. As I said earlier, it’s best to keep quiet on the subject of the Bishop of Chichester.’
Much to my surprise Grace suddenly kissed me and said: ‘I’m glad you admire him so much. That’s the real you, isn’t it?’
‘Real me?’ I was much pleased by this unexpected gesture of affection.
‘The man behind the successful archdeacon.’
‘The successful archdeacon’s the real me too.’
‘Yes, but –’
I suddenly caught a glimpse of the time. ‘We ought to be going downstairs,’ I said, trying not to sound nervous at the thought of the grand meal ahead. ‘Are you ready?’
We hurried down to dinner.
VI
After the ladies had retired from the table, Lord Starmouth abandoned his other guests to a discussion of the Desert War – now grimmer than ever after the shattering fall of Tobruk less than three weeks before – and motioned me into a quiet corner by the sideboard.
‘Alex Jardine’s always spoken highly of you,’ he said, ‘but perhaps now is the moment when I should confess it wasn’t Jardine who prompted my wife’s invitation to you this weekend.’
‘Then I must assume it was Dr Ottershaw.’
‘As a matter of fact it wasn’t him either. Ottershaw’s been singing your praises for years, I admit, but I’m ashamed to say my wife and I ignored him. No, your cause has been promoted by Miss Tallent, Archdeacon.’
I stifled a gasp, prayed not to blush and belatedly realized that my mouth was open. I managed to close it.
‘Dear little Dido!’ said the Earl, taking advantage of the fact that his advanced years gave him a licence to be openly sentimental about young girls. ‘She showed me the letters.’
This time I was unable to stifle a gasp. My mouth had sagged open again.
‘Your letters!’ said the Earl, smiling at me benignly. ‘I really must congratulate you, Archdeacon – what an epistolary tour de force! I particularly liked your essay on the Incarnation, complete with Professor Sanday’s Modernist development of the kenotic aspect. Lucky little Dido, I thought, stumbling across a clergyman who could so ably guide her along her spiritual way.’
By a mighty effort I recovered myself sufficiently to say: ‘I’m glad my efforts met with your approval, my Lord.’
‘Well, as soon as I’d read the letters I said to my wife: “I must hear this man preach!” I look forward immensely to your sermon tomorrow – and little Dido, I might add, is in a veritable fever of anticipation.’ The Earl sighed with pleasure, though whether at the thought of my sermon or of ‘little Dido’ it was impossible to discern. ‘There’s a heart of gold underneath all that flashy behaviour,’ he confided, ‘and I’m delighted she’s become more serious lately. I suspect she’s been very unhappy. London society’s an awful business. I’m glad my daughters married quickly and didn’t have to rattle about for too long … Now tell me this, Archdeacon: do you think little Dido should marry into the Church? You may not have realized this, but she’s set her heart on it –’ That was when I finally dared to believe that Dido had been highly selective in her choice of letters ‘– and to be honest I can’t quite see her in a vicarage. I don’t think she realizes how old-fashioned the Church is in so many ways and how conventional her behaviour would have to become. She’d be better off with a land-owning politician, I think – someone who has a house in London and a few hundred acres somewhere in hunting country.’
‘Possibly so.’ A still small voice was now busy whispering in my mind that with Dido at my side no ecclesiastical prize would be unobtainable, but I knew very well that this voice came not from God but from the force which old-fashioned