Scandalous Risks. Susan Howatch
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it had reverted to the inhabitants of Starbridge, most of whom preferred to admire it loyally from afar. However the congregation did eventually mount to thirty. I sat gazing up at the vaulted ceiling and trying to think noble thoughts, but I was pondering on Mrs Ashworth’s advice about eye make-up when the organ marked the beginning of the service.
I liked the weekday choral evensong. It required no effort apart from kneeling down and standing up at regular intervals, and there was no sermon either to stretch the brain or induce rigor mortis. The choirboys sang in their unearthly voices; the vicars-choral bayed with authority; the vergers marched around providing touches of ceremonial; the clergy lolled meditatively in their stalls. I thought it was all so luxuriously restful, like a hot bath garnished with an expensive perfume, and as I watched the sun slant through the great west window I thought how clever God was to have invented the Church of England, that national monument dedicated to purveying religion in such an exquisitely civilised form.
Aysgarth was looking untidy as usual. His shop-soiled white hair always seemed to need trimming. Wearing a dignified expression he rose to his feet to read the lessons, while in the intervals Eddie, crammed into his canon’s stall at the other end of the choir, intoned the versicles and recited the prayers. I was always surprised by how well Eddie did this, but no doubt Aysgarth had trained him not to sound as if he was fathoms deep in depression. Aysgarth himself read the lessons beautifully in his deep, resonant voice. In fact I was so busy thinking how well he read that I forgot to listen to what he was reading. Appalled by my lack of concentration I was on the point of making a new attempt to focus my mind on the service when I saw Nick Darrow staring at me from the opposite side of the choir. I supposed I had been too busy thinking about eye make-up to notice him earlier.
As soon as our glances met he looked away but I went on watching him and wondering if he was destined to be my lucky mascot. But mascot seemed the wrong word to describe someone like Nick. It was too cosy, too banal. For Nick Darrow I needed a word which implied magic, extraordinary happenings, paranormal phenomena –
‘Ah-ah-ah-men!’ sang the choir, winding up the service.
The organ trilled and fell silent for a moment before embarking on a fugue. Everyone hauled themselves to their feet. The choir tripped out jauntily, mission accomplished, and the clergy followed, looking inscrutable. Aysgarth never once glanced in my direction.
Wandering towards the transept I found Nick had fallen into step beside me.
‘Ah!’ I said, finally grasping the word I wanted. ‘It’s my Talisman! I shouldn’t be surprised to see you again, should I, but why are you on your own?’
‘Charley’s busy with his father.’
‘Mrs Ashworth was telling me about yours. I hear he’s very old.’
‘Yes, but he’s okay.’
‘How old is “old” exactly?’
‘He’ll be eighty-three in May. But he’s okay.’
‘Compos mentis?’
‘Yep.’
‘Super! I often think my father’s mad as a hatter. Is your father able to do much?’
‘Yep. He prays.’
‘Ah. All the time?’
‘No, he does see people occasionally.’
‘He sounds like a hermit!’
‘He is a hermit. But he doesn’t mind me being with him because we don’t have to talk.’
I suddenly realised I was gazing at him as if he were a creature from another planet. ‘How restful!’ I said, not sure what to say. ‘My father’s the very reverse of a silent hermit!’
‘He might become one later. My father only became a recluse after my mother died.’ He turned abruptly towards the nave. ‘So long.’
‘When are we due to meet again?’
He shrugged and walked away.
I gazed after him in fascination. Then heaving open the massive door in the south transept I passed at last into the cloisters.
VIII
In the centre of the quadrangle lay the lawn beneath which in previous centuries the eminent men of Starbridge had been buried, and overshadowing this ancient graveyard an enormous cedar tree towered above the roof of the colonnade. There was a faint breeze. The cedar’s dark upper branches were stirring against the pale, limpid sky.
I was still gazing at this tranquil scene when the door creaked behind me and Aysgarth slipped out of the transept. Unlike Dr Ashworth he had entirely rejected the archaic uniform of a senior churchman, but perhaps that was less because he wanted to be modern than because his thickset figure was unsuited to fancy dress. On that evening he was wearing a black suit, slightly crumpled, and the black clerical ‘stock’ which was worn over an ordinary shirt and secured by ties at the back beneath the jacket. He had no pectoral cross; he belonged to the generation of Protestant churchmen who thought such papist adornment pardonable only when adopted by bishops. His hair, perhaps disarranged when he had removed his surplice after the service, swooped wildly over his ears in undisciplined wings and bumped against the back of his stiff white clerical collar. He looked like an eccentric scientist who has just made an important discovery.
‘Let’s go and sit on Lady Mary Calthrop-Ponsonby!’ he suggested blithely as I moved to meet him.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Dean?’
With a laugh he led the way to a wooden seat on the northwestern corner of the lawn, and as I drew closer I saw that the back of the seat bore a brass plaque inscribed: ‘In memory of Lady Mary Calthrop-Ponsonby, 12th February 1857–8th November 1941. “FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT WITH ALL THY MIGHT.”’
‘Three cheers for Lady Mary,’ I said as we sat down, and told him how I had decided to abandon London in search of a new life. ‘… and I’ve now reached the point where I’m trying to decide what to do next,’ I concluded. ‘Mrs Ashworth thinks I should go to Oxford, park myself on Christian and Katie and wangle my way into their set, but I’m not sure I have the nerve to exploit them so brazenly.’
‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay with Christian and Katie for a few days while you decide if Oxford has anything to offer you, but I can’t quite see why Lyle is pointing you in that direction.’
‘She thinks I’d enjoy mixing with an intellectual jeunesse dorée.’
‘On the contrary I think you’d soon be bored stiff with all those academics.’
‘Would I? Are you sure? I just feel that if only I could get in with the right set –’
‘In my experience right sets tend to be much too fast.’
‘When one’s been crawling along like a tortoise, Mr Dean, the idea of pace begins to seem attractive.’
He laughed. ‘Was London really that bad?’
‘Yes, it really was. I’ve been a failure there. Don’t just tell me to go back and try again.’
‘Very well, let’s be more imaginative. This could be a great opportunity for you, Venetia! A fresh start is always a great opportunity, but you should remember that happiness isn’t ultimately dependent on getting in with the right set; it’s about serving God by using your God-given gifts in the best possible way.’
‘I only seem to have a God-given gift for drifting in and out of boring jobs.’
‘It’s obvious that you haven’t yet found your métier, and in my opinion pondering on the right métier, not choosing which city to live in, should actually be your number one concern at the moment. You need to escape to somewhere very quiet and very remote for a few days so that you can ponder in peace