Ultimate Prizes

by Susan Howatch

  The truth is that on moral issues I hold views which are currently held to be old-fashioned. I believe fornication is degrading to women, who should be treated with the utmost reverence as befits their unique contribution to humanity as wives and mothers. Adultery I look upon not merely as a moral error but as a crime, breaking sacred promises, destroying trust, poisoning love, wrecking the lives not only of the guilty but of the innocent. Sex is like dynamite. If it is used in the right place and at the right time the results can be beneficial, but unless the proper regulations are observed there can only be a disastrous explosion. Those people who indulge in sexual activity as casually as they would down a couple of cocktails are always the sort of people who would find it amusing to play with matches in a bomb-factory. As a clergyman I would be guilty of a most un-Christian lack of charity if I bounded around yelling “Stupid!” at all these fools, but I do find it an effort sometimes to treat the perpetrators of such mindless incidents—as a Modernist I won’t use that Victorian word “sinners”—with compassion.

  My strict attitude to sexual license extends to the human race’s other pastime which causes so much trouble: drink. The Primitive Methodists of my childhood used to thunder away on that subject with as much verve as they devoted to sexual immorality, so it was hardly surprising that I became a most abstemious young man. In fact my catastrophic initiation into the pleasures of champagne up at Oxford shocked me so much that not another drop of alcohol passed my lips until the day I told Uncle Willoughby that I was going into the Church, but contrary to what the preachers had always proclaimed, this benign brush with whisky failed to consign me to perdition. I was much too poor to afford whisky regularly, and moreover as soon as I became a clergyman I knew I had to be careful in my drinking habits. Successful clergymen never drank spirits. Even as time passed and my tastes became more sophisticated I always made it a rule to drink moderately, and although I concede that on the evening of my meeting with Dido I bent this rule by tossing off an extra glass of port, this was an exceptional, not a commonplace, lapse.

  I never drink twice a day. I do smoke, I admit, but never in public and only in my bedroom, usually after sexual intercourse. I like eating, but only wholesome food such as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I was brought up to believe that frivolous snacks, such as chocolate, stimulated the sin of gluttony and constituted an unforgivable extravagance. It was only when I was a young man courting Grace that I finally dredged up the nerve—and the money—to rebel against this austerity. I took Grace to the cinema and bought a box of chocolates. I can still remember the fearful guilty thrill of watching Clara Bow oozing “It” as I sank my teeth into a sumptuous peppermint cream.

  Now, no doubt, I’ve created the impression that I’m not a rake worthy of defrocking but a prig worthy of a kick on the bottom. How hard it is to get the balance of a self-portrait right! Let me stress that I try very hard not to be priggish. Christ came into this world to be at one with us, not to stand apart and look down his nose at our antics, and as a Liberal Protestant who believes strongly in the centrality of Christ I can hardly ignore the example he set. Certainly, despite my strict views on morality, I never feel morally superior. How can I, when every time I pass a branch of Woolworth’s I remember that I’m as prone to error as anyone else? Moreover, although I have strict moral standards I don’t consider myself strait-laced, and I suggest that anyone who does consider me a trifle on the sober side has no idea what being strait-laced is all about.

  Being strait-laced, as anyone brought up among strict Non-Conformists knows, means not only spurning extra-marital sex, chocolates and the demon drink but avoiding the theatre, the cinema, the wireless, playing-cards and novels. I have insufficient time and money to go often to the cinema or the theatre nowadays, but I enjoy playing cards with the children and I never miss the broadcast of I.T.M.A., that most perfect of comedy programmes. I also read modern novels for relaxation. I may not read about sex in the News of the World; that would be dabbling with prurient trash. But I do read about sex in the work of D. H. Lawrence; that, I submit with all due respect, is keeping abreast of modern literature.

  Grace enjoyed reading in the old days, but by 1942 her life as an archdeacon’s wife and the mother of five children barely allowed her enough time to open a book. At this point I must state unequivocally that Grace was the most wonderful woman in the world and the best possible wife for a clergyman and I adored her. I do want to make that absolutely clear. For sixteen years we had enjoyed the most perfect married life without a single cloud marring the marital sky. At least, if I’m to be entirely accurate, I have to admit little wisps of cloud did occasionally appear but they seldom lasted long. Even the most perfect marriages have to suffer little wisps occasionally. One is, after all, obliged to exist in real life and not between the pages of a romantic novel.

  Garnishing my perfect marriage, like gilt lavishly bestowed upon the gingerbread, were my perfect children. I know that as their parent I may be judged hopelessly prejudiced, but people outside the family did constantly comment on my offspring’s good looks, good manners, high intelligence and remarkable charm, so I venture to suggest I can’t be entirely deluding myself. Needless to say, it was a matter of the very greatest satisfaction to me that I had succeeded in winning two of the ultimate prizes of life: a perfect marriage and a perfect family.

  Now I suppose I sound smug, worthy of another kick on the bottom, so let me add honestly that family life did have its ups and downs. However the problems never seemed insuperable and the children never seemed intolerable. My favourite was Primrose, whom I thought quite beautiful, although I know men always view their daughters through rose-tinted spectacles, particularly when they have only one daughter to view. Grace and I had called her Primrose in memory of the first flower I had given Grace many years before at St. Leonards-on-Sea, the genteel resort on the Sussex coast where my mother had spent her widowhood in the company of my sister, Emily. My brother, Willy, and I had never lived at St. Leonards; we had been boarded out in London in order to receive our education, but three times a year, at Christmas, Easter and in the summer, Uncle Willoughby had given us the money for the train journey to Sussex, and it was on one of these seaside holidays that I had met Grace, who was visiting cousins. I was seventeen; she was two years younger. When I gave her the primrose she kept it, pressed it, framed it and finally gave it to me on our wedding night seven years later. Even now the memento still hung over our bed. In view of this flagrant—but not, I suggest to any revolted cynic, unusual—sentimentality, it was hardly surprising that we should have decided to call our first daughter Primrose, and finally, after the advent of Christian, Norman and James, Primrose made her grand entrance into the world. Our perfect family was now complete. All that remained for me to do was to work out how I was going to pay for the public school education of three sons.

  It was at this point that one of those little wisps of cloud appeared in the sunlit marital sky, and unlike all the other little wisps in the past, this one failed to fade away. Grace and I discovered to our shock that Primrose had not after all completed our perfect family, and in 1941 Alexander (named after my mentor Bishop Jardine) arrived at the vicarage.

  When I had finished accepting the will of God, just as a good clergyman should, I decided I would have to adopt a much more rigorous approach to contraception. This subject, I need hardly add, is one of the most awkward matters with which a clergyman can ever become involved. As far as I can gather, everyone in the Church practises contraception, even bishops, but no one in a clerical collar will ever admit to such behaviour because the Church can never surmount its ancient conviction that interfering with procreation is a bad thing. The last Lambeth Conference had barely softened this negative attitude, and a vast amount of hypocrisy had attended the debates on married life. It was noticeable that those bishops who thundered most eloquently on the evils of contraception were always the celibates. The married bishops with their neat little families of two or thr
ee children tended to sink into a deafening silence.

  Having been brought up to believe God helps those who help themselves, I had never agonised over the lightness of contraception; it had always seemed plain enough to me that it was my responsibility, not God’s, to protect my wife’s health, and so the question which bothered me most about contraception was not whether I should practise it but how it could be achieved. “French letters” may have been widely available since the end of the First War, but a clergyman can hardly be seen to purchase them. Nor can he seek help from his doctor, who might be scandalised by such a questionable resolution of the Church’s murky official attitude.

  I knew from the start of our marriage that the responsibility for regulating the arrival of children must be mine; it was inconceivable that Grace should be soiled by knowledge which should belong only to fallen women, and after Christian’s birth I made the sensible decision to ignore the ancient religious disapproval of coitus interruptus. This form of contraception has a dubious reputation, but if one regards it as a discipline which is capable of developing one’s control and thus enhancing one’s performance, the obvious disadvantages soon cease to be intolerable.

  I confess I didn’t practise this discipline all the time. That would have been too demanding, even for a man who enjoyed a challenge, but Grace’s monthly health was so regular that it was easy to work out when special care was required. After Christian’s birth in 1927, Norman arrived in 1930, James in 1933 and Primrose in 1937. No exercise in family planning could have been more successful, and that was why we were so shocked by Alexander’s conception. None of the other children had begun life as an accident.

  After he was born I pulled myself together, made the necessary unpalatable deductions and began my travels in “mufti” to the port of Starmouth to forage anonymously for French letters. I disliked these sordid expeditions very much. I felt they constituted conduct quite unbecoming to an archdeacon, but I refused to regard my behaviour as morally wrong and I had no doubt that Christ, who had held marriage in such high regard, would forgive these unsalubrious machinations to protect my wife’s health, maintain my emotional equilibrium and preserve my happy family life.

  By this time that happy family life had become more than a little frayed at the edges, and although my new approach to contraception prevented further unravelling, I became conscious, as time passed, that the frayed edges were failing to repair themselves as swiftly as I had hoped. In fact by the May of 1942, when I met Dido, I had begun to be seriously worried about Grace as she struggled to survive the stresses and strains of life at the vicarage.

  It’s not easy being a clergyman’s wife. Parishioners make constant demands. Social obligations multiply. Her husband requires her support in a multitude of ways both obvious and subtle. Even in a peaceful country parish these responsibilities can be oppressive, but we were no longer living in the country. The Archdeaconry of Starbridge was attached to the benefice of St. Martin’s-in-Cripplegate, a famous ancient church in the heart of the city, and I was also an honorary canon—a prebendary, as they were called in Starbridge—of the Cathedral. I knew everyone who was anyone in that city, and as my wife, Grace was obliged to know them too. Grace was a cut above me socially; her father had been a solicitor in Manchester, but people from the north can be intimidated by people from the South, and Starbridge, wealthy, southern Starbridge, was not a city where Grace could easily feel at home.

  Alex had appointed me to the archdeaconry in 1937, shortly before Primrose had been born. Christian had been away at prep school, but Norman and James had still been at home. Struggling with two active small boys, a newborn baby, a large old-fashioned vicarage, unfamiliar surroundings, a host of unknown parishioners and an increasingly elaborate social life, Grace had slowly sunk into an exhausted melancholy. Alexander’s arrival had been the last straw.

  In vain I suggested remedies. I proposed extra domestic help, but Grace found it tiring enough to cope with the charwoman who came every morning of the working week. I offered to engage a live-in nursemaid instead of the girl who appeared in the afternoons to take the children for a walk, but Grace, who was the most devoted mother, could not bear to think of another woman usurping her in the nursery. I told her not to get upset if the house became a little dusty or untidy, but Grace, who was a perfectionist, could not endure living in a home which was other than immaculate. Thus the melancholy exhaustion had persisted, aggravated when she was unable to live up to her impossibly high standards, and on the evening of the Bishop’s dinner-party she had been too depressed to attend.

  “I’ve nothing to wear,” she said. “Nothing.” I refrained from pointing out that this was inevitable so long as she persisted in spending all her clothing coupons on the children, but when I assured her that she would always look charming in her well-worn black evening frock, all she said was: “I can’t face Lady Starmouth.” This was an old problem. Lady Starmouth, effortlessly aristocratic, faultlessly dressed and matchlessly sophisticated, had long been a source of terror to Grace. I saw then that any further attempt at argument would be futile; I could only plan a suitable apology to offer the Ottershaws.

  When I arrived home from the palace that night I was alone. Alex was staying with us, but he had lingered at the party, as befitted the guest of honour, and we had agreed earlier that we would return to the vicarage separately. As my wife was supposed to be suffering from a migraine it would have looked odd if I had failed to leave the palace early.

  My key turned in the lock, and as soon as the front door opened I heard the baby howling. Seconds later Grace appeared at the top of the staircase. She was white with weariness and looked as if she had been crying. “I thought you were never coming home! I’m so worried, I can’t think properly—Sandy can’t keep his food down, won’t go to sleep, won’t stop crying, and I can’t bear it, can’t cope, can’t—”

  “My dearest love …” As she staggered down the stairs into my outstretched arms and collapsed sobbing against my chest, I thought of all the letters which I had written to her during our long courtship. After we had become secretly engaged I had always addressed her in my romantic correspondence by those same words. “My dearest love, today I finally put my schooldays behind me …” “My dearest love, today I arrived in Oxford for the start of my great adventure …” “My dearest love, today I finally gave up all thought of a career in the law, so I’m afraid I shall never make my fortune as a barrister …” “My dearest love, I know young men aren’t supposed to marry on a curate’s salary, but if one takes into account the little income you inherited from your grandmother, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be together at last …” How I had chased my prize of the perfect wife and what a delectable chase it had been! In fact the chase had been so delectable that I had even feared marriage might be an anticlimax, but fortunately I had soon realised there would be new prizes to chase on the far side of the altar: the perfect home, the perfect marital happiness, the perfect family life …

  The baby, bawling above us in the nursery, terminated this irrelevant exercise in nostalgia. “My dearest love,” I said firmly, “you really mustn’t let the little monster upset you like this! Go to bed at once and leave him to me.”

  “But he vomited his food—I think he might be ill—”

  I finally succeeded in packing her off to bed. As she stumbled away I noticed that the hem of her nightdress had unravelled and for a second I knew I was on the brink of recalling Dido Tallent, smart as paint in her Naval uniform, but I blocked that memory from my mind by invading the nursery.

  Alexander was standing up in his cot and looking cross that he had been obliged to scream so hard for attention. He fell silent as soon as I entered the room.

  “I’m afraid this behaviour is quite impermissible,” I said. I never talk down to my children. “Night-time is when we sleep. Noise is not allowed.”

  He gazed at me in uncomprehending rapture. Here indeed was entertainment for a fourteen-month-old infant bored w
ith his mother. I patted his springy brown hair, which reminded me of my brother Willy, stared straight into the blue eyes which were so like mine and picked him up in order to put him in a horizontal position on the sheet. He opened his mouth to howl but thought better of it. Instead he said: “Prayers!” and looked so intelligent that I laughed. “That’s it!” I said. “Prayers come before sleep.” I felt his forehead casually but it was obvious he had no fever, and I suspected he had only vomited out of a desire to discover how much fuss he could create. As he watched fascinated I recited the Lord’s Prayer for him, said firmly: “Good night, Sandy,” and retired to examine the picture of Peter Rabbit which hung on the far wall. After a while I glanced back over my shoulder and when I saw he was watching me I exclaimed: “How quiet you are! Well done!” At that point he smiled and allowed his eyes to close. I was still taking another long look at Peter Rabbit when I heard the welcome sound of even breathing and knew I could safely creep away.

  “The Kraken sleeps,” I said to Grace as I joined her in our bedroom. By this time she was dry-eyed but very pale.