Absolute Truths. Susan Howatch
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was a move which contrived to be both thoroughly Christian and immensely cunning. As Miss Peabody quivered vanquished before me and I found myself registering a reluctant admiration for the man who had outwitted her, the stranger saw the chance to build on his success by cornering me for conversation.
I clearly remember thinking to myself: this man shall not pass the threshold of my study.
Meanwhile the man was saying soberly: ‘I do hope Father Wilton’s progress is satisfactory. I was very struck by the way you spoke of him at matins.’
I could not recall saying anything in particular about Desmond himself; I had merely announced that he had been the victim of an attack. Confused by the discrepancy I became fatally hesitant. ‘Well,’ I began, but that was all I was allowed to say.
‘Since you referred to him as Father Wilton, I assume he’s an Anglo-Catholic,’ said my visitor, ‘and if you’re now looking for a locum, may I volunteer for the job? I’m an Anglo-Catholic myself, and Miss Peabody confirms that you have my reference from the Abbot-General of the Fordite monks.’ He gave Miss Peabody a radiant smile.
Miss Peabody turned pink, in the manner of a wallflower suddenly asked to dance by the beau of the ball, and babbled: ‘I did mention the reference to you, Bishop, and if you want me to fetch it –’
I held up my hand. She stopped. I opened my mouth to take control of the conversation. ‘I thank you for your kind offer, Mr Hall,’ I said. ‘I shall forward it to the Archdeacon. And now I have a train to catch shortly. If you’ll excuse me –’
‘Yes, of course, Bishop. I’ll be only too happy to come back at a more convenient time.’
This assurance was not what I wished to hear at all. In a moment of fury I repeated to myself: this man will never cross the threshold of my study.
‘Mr Hall,’ I said, ‘I’m aware that you feel called to establish a healing centre and certainly I wish you every success. However, I feel bound to say that in this diocese I have a policy of never licensing –’
‘I want to specialise in priests who have suffered a spiritual breakdown.’
Silence fell upon us all, but now I no longer saw the stranger, still as a statue, or Miss Peabody, fluttering in the background. As the memories of 1937 cascaded through my mind I saw only Loretta on that Surrey hillside and Alex Jardine removing the decanter from me when I had been so very drunk at his episcopal palace – although I never thought of those incidents nowadays, never, they were all buried so deep in my mind that I never had to think about them – indeed I never had to think about any incident from that spiritual breakdown, my first catastrophe, but now I was thinking, now I was remembering, and I could hear my younger self reciting the words of the General Confession to Jon, who had helped me survive.
‘… spare thou them that confess their faults … restore thou them that are penitent …’ I remembered how I had been spared and restored. I remembered how conscious I had been of the healing power of the Holy Spirit as it moved ceaselessly through the world to raise up and renew all that was broken and cast down. I remembered that I had not always been a strong, successful bishop, battling contra mundum to preach the absolute truths.
My worldliness and my sophistication, those two hallmarks of a civilised man at the top of his profession, abruptly dissolved; it was as if a curtain had been rent from top to bottom by an unseen hand so that light could pour into the darkened room beyond. Acting instinctively – because for one mysterious moment my entire intellect had been bypassed – I turned, gestured to the door of my study and said to the stranger: ‘Come in.’
Then I myself led the way over the threshold which seconds ago I had sworn he would never cross.
II
I should make it clear that I did not immediately think: ah, this is the Holy Spirit in action and I must give this man everything he asks for. I merely wish to explain why I let Hall cross the threshold of my study when I had resolved to refuse him admittance. In fact one has to be most cautious about detecting the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is all too easy to be driven, by mental stress or psychological peculiarities or faulty reasoning, to make a mistaken identification, and I knew as soon as I had recovered from my moment of impulsiveness that I would have to be very careful what I said next. It was more than possible that Hall’s invasion of the South Canonry had nothing to do with the will of God at all. Indeed one could just as easily argue that the Devil was pushing this man into my diocese to cause disruption, and that the memories of my spiritual breakdown had reduced me to a state of addleheaded incompetence.
Having thus flogged myself back within the boundaries of common sense, I said abruptly to Hall: ‘What’s so special about the Starbridge diocese that you should feel called to work here?’
‘You.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, my friends among the Fordite monks said you took a special interest in priests who had suffered breakdowns. They mentioned no names, but they told me about one priest who’d been kicked out of the London diocese after an incident in a public lavatory. No one else would touch him but you gave him a second chance.’
I found I was too overwhelmed by the irony of this latest twist of the conversation to reply. My decision to give Desmond a job – a decision which had just been proved disastrously unsound – was now being presented to me as a powerful Christian action which was still having important consequences. So confused did I feel at this point that I had to make a considerable effort to concentrate on what Hall said next.
‘I was intrigued by this story,’ he was adding, ‘because it was so contrary to your popular image as a bishop tough on sexual sin. That was when I realised you had to be a far more subtle and complex character than your enemies were willing to believe. I decided to find out more about you, and soon I realised how much I respected your attempt to uphold traditional moral standards, your advocacy of spiritual direction, your friendly attitude to both wings of the Church and your unusual ability to be both a highly-qualified theologian and a gifted spiritual leader. I felt then that you were exactly the bishop I was looking for – and after the recent change of bishops at Radbury I assure you I was looking hard. I got on well with Derek Preston, but Sunbeam leaves me cold.’
I emerged from my stupefied silence. ‘Sunbeam?’
‘Leslie Sunderland, the new bishop of Radbury. Surely you know that his clergy call him Sunbeam! It’s a tribute to his radiant liberal optimism.’
Recognising my obligation to be loyal to a brother-bishop, even a radically liberal brother-bishop, I suppressed my amusement and said austerely: ‘I did notice that you enclosed no reference from Bishop Sunderland with your letter.’
‘I confess I never wasted time asking for one, but the Fordites will speak up for me. You know the Abbot-General, don’t you?’
‘Well enough to be surprised that he hasn’t told you my policy on the licensing of divorced priests.’
‘He did tell me, but of course I knew that an exceptional bishop like you would always know when to be flexible about applying those sort of rules. After all, why should you wish to penalise me for the fact that my wife ran off with another man? With your happy marriage you’d be much more likely to offer me sympathy.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to be sympathetic, but –’
‘And of course you’ll have grasped that as an extremely conventional Anglo-Catholic I don’t believe remarriage is an option for a divorced priest. In fact I shall never embarrass you either by remarriage while my wife’s still alive or by any other unsuitable behaviour,’ said Hall firmly, and added, looking me straight in the eyes: ‘I consider myself called to celibacy.’
After a pause I said in my most neutral voice: ‘Really.’ But before I could say more we were interrupted – to my relief – by the buzzer of the intercom.