Ultimate Prizes

by Susan Howatch

  “How disgusting! Women should be put on pedestals and reverenced. How on earth did you deal with such perverts?”

  “As with all distressed people,” said Darrow, “one has to locate the source of the distress in order to heal the wound in the psyche.” He glanced at his watch. “I must go back indoors to await my architect. I probably shan’t have time for tea, Aysgarth, but I’ll arrange for it to be served to you in the library at four.”

  “Thanks.” I watched him walk across the lawn and disappear into the house. Then still savouring my relief that the nightmare had a plausible explanation which I found neither sinister nor upsetting, I embarked on a stroll through the woods.

  6

  At four o’clock I returned to the library and drank two cups of tea but found I could eat nothing. Anxiety was gaining the upper hand again. I was aware of a strong desire to sink myself in my work so that I would have no time to dwell upon my crisis. Meanwhile the thought that I would soon be on my way to London for soul-surgery (I hadn’t forgotten Darrow’s metaphor of the operating table) had become so chilling that I now wondered if I might find myself unable to step on the train. Abandoning my tea-cup, I headed outside again in a fever of agitation and prowled around the side of the house to the back lawn.

  To my relief I saw that Darrow was sitting on the garden seat; I felt I needed another dose of first aid. The child was standing nearby, but at that moment his nurse called his name from the house and he ran off across the lawn. Darrow half-rose to his feet, then sank back on the bench and rubbed his eyes as if they had been dazzled.

  “Has the architect left?” I said seconds later as I too sat down on the garden seat.

  “What? Oh, the architect. No, I showed him around and then left him alone to make his calculations.” Plainly his thoughts were elsewhere.

  It was so unlike Darrow to be distrait in his manner that I said sharply: “Are you all right?” but at once he pulled himself together.

  “Yes, fine—I was merely experiencing one of those curious moments when one feels a scene has all been played before.”

  “What a coincidence! I’ve been dogged by that phenomenon for some months now. I believe the scientific explanation is that one half of the brain is functioning slightly ahead of the other.”

  “It really is amazing,” said Darrow mildly, “what you Modernists can bring yourself to believe. Even the most incredible scientific theory is dutifully swallowed whole! Has this phenomenon been attached to any particular set of circumstances in your case, or has it occurred at random?”

  I hesitated. “At random, I think.” But I was uncertain. “To be honest I’ve never paused to reflect on the experiences or try to classify them.”

  “That’s interesting. I’d have thought a man like you would have been studying the phenomenon with care and ruthlessly analysing it for the rational explanation. Is this perhaps a somewhat unpleasant experience—sinister, even—which you try to blot out as quickly as possible?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I really hadn’t thought about it.” I glanced at my watch. “What happens next?”

  “In five minutes’ time Jarvis will drive you to Starbridge station to catch the London train. Are you ever able to identify the missing half of this déjà vu experience, or is the whole phenomenon consistently shrouded in mystery?”

  “I identified a missing half this morning.” I thought of how I had unconsciously borrowed a thought-form from Alex. “But in my opinion, if such an identification is possible it’s not a genuine case of déjà vu. It’s merely a straightforward coincidence which doesn’t defy the laws of probability. By my definition the déjà vu sensation occurs when you feel certain that the exact scene has been played before—and yet at the same time you know that this can’t possibly have happened.”

  “In my opinion,” said Darrow, rising to his feet, “the most likely explanation is that the scene really has been played before, but not exactly. It’s the exactness which is the illusion, not the scene itself. The scene itself is genuinely familiar.” And without giving me the chance to reply he added: “You must be off, Aysgarth—and by the way, I forgot to tell you earlier that there’s an overnight bag for you in the boot of the Rolls. Jarvis collected it from your sister-in-law before he met us at the College this afternoon.”

  So my personal tank had even mown down Merry. Unable to imagine such an achievement I demanded: “What on earth did my sister-in-law say when she heard you were purloining me for twenty-four hours?”

  “She offered to be purloined in your stead. We got on rather well.”

  Mute with admiration I allowed myself to be led around the side of the house to the drive, and it was only when I saw the waiting motor that I recovered my wits sufficiently to say: “I’ve been a fool and asked you nothing about Lucas.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He’ll tell you all you need to know.”

  “But there are numerous questions I’d like to ask—”

  “Why? Aysgarth, when a drowning man sees a life-belt floating past him does he waste time musing: ‘Where did this come from? Why is it coloured red and white? By what scientific principle will it contrive to keep me afloat?’ ”

  “I’m not drowning at the moment. I’m treading water and I want to know why you’re so certain Lucas can help me. Is it merely because he’s a Yorkshireman?”

  “No.” Darrow paused to trace a small circle on the gravel with his foot as if he were engaged in some complex calculation, but eventually he made the decision to enlighten me. “I’m not sure how much you know about my career as a monk,” he said, “but after three months as a postulant at the Grantchester house I was judged impossible to train and removed. The late Abbot-General then decided on a kill-or-cure policy of kicking me up to Yorkshire for a fresh start, and when I arrived at Ruydale I was in a state similar to the state you’re in now: angry, frightened, rebellious and above all deeply unhappy. Yet within five minutes of my arrival I’d been soothed, tamed and given hope for the future. ‘How courageous of you to want to stay in the Order despite your recent adversity!’ said Aidan, installing me in a comfortable chair by the fire and ordering hot soup. ‘What dedication! I’m sure I shall find it a privilege to be your Abbot!’ ” Unexpectedly Darrow laughed at the memory before exclaiming with affection: “Wily old fox! His words may sound phoney now as I repeat them, but I assure you that at the time I could only think: Here’s someone who really cares.”

  “I thought abbots were supposed to be simple holy men, not diplomats oozing a serpentine cunning.”

  “Aidan has his simplicity—and his holiness; but he’s a clever man at managing people and he knows exactly how to use that special skill.” Darrow moved forward again across the gravel sweep of the drive. “By the way, I assume you do know where the Fordite headquarters is?”

  “It’s that miniature version of the Carlton Club just north of Marble Arch. How on earth can the monks still afford to live there?”

  “Tax-free status and adroit financial management. Personally I’ve always thought that house represented a luxury which was quite inexcusable, but the Abbot-General, like his predecessor, can’t resist the temptation to vie with the Archbishop at Lambeth.”

  I said uneasily: “I met the Abbot-General briefly when he visited you here in ’41. I suppose I’m unlikely to see him now and even if I did he probably wouldn’t remember me, but if he were to hear my name—”

  “I never gave it. I did speak to him when I arranged your meeting with Aidan, but I stressed your need for anonymity.”

  “So when I arrive—”

  “Just tell the doorkeeper that you’ve been sent by Father Darrow to see Father Lucas.”

  “And when I come back—”

  “Get in touch with me straight away and I’ll try to provide the necessary post-operative care.”

  I was unable to stop myself saying in despair: “Supposing the operation’s a failure?”

  “There’s no question of failure, Aysg
arth. Don’t you remember? Survival’s your new prize. How could you bear to lose it by feebly giving up the ghost on the operating table?”

  No further argument was possible. Achieving a stiff smile, I mumbled: “Thanks for the first aid,” and clambered clumsily into the Rolls to begin my journey.

  7

  To my surprise my spirits rose as soon as the train swung out of Starbridge at the start of the ninety-minute journey to London; escaping from home enabled me to forget for a brief interval the horrors of the present and the prospect of worse horrors to come. I had a deep affection for London, scene of my adolescence and of my first successful attempt to Get On by working hard at school. I liked not only the mindless bustle of metropolitan life, as the city flexed its muscles day and night, but the intellectual excitement emanating from the bookshops, the museums, the art galleries, the theatres and the concert halls. The dirt, the noise and the smell might be detestable, particularly the smell of unwashed bodies, but I had long since accepted the fact that my early poverty had given me an unquenchable thirst for luxury, and I refused to feel guilty just because I had received no call to serve God in the slums.

  But as I glanced down from the train that evening upon the mean streets which flanked the approach to Waterloo Station, I did feel a twinge of discomfort that throughout my career I had unobtrusively managed to avoid the urban poor. I knew now, after my months of working among the German prisoners, that it was not so much the deprivation which repelled me but the fear that my limited pastoral skills would be exposed. This was a bleak piece of self-knowledge, and certainly in my present state I was hardly strong enough to dwell on my inadequacies as a clergyman, so to cheer myself up I thought of Geoffrey Fisher, now Archbishop of Canterbury, a man who was neither a spiritual leader cast in a heroic mould like George Bell, nor a brilliant philosopher-politician like the late William Temple, but a capable administrator, just like me. The post-war era was the grey, unglamorous age of the administrators as they toiled over reconstruction; it would be my age if only I could survive to enjoy it, but thoughts of survival only drew me back into the heart of my present ordeal and reminded me that even the faint outline of the signpost marked SALVATION was liable to fade whenever my despair became overwhelming.

  London looked more crucified by war than ever, blackened, battered, blitzed, a war-horse ripe for the knacker’s yard. In an attempt to beat back my increasing depression by making a reckless gesture of extravagance I ignored the signs to the underground and took a taxi over the new Waterloo Bridge. Beyond the river Somerset House slumbered in the hazy sunshine, and glancing east I could see the dome of St. Paul’s, miraculously preserved from destruction and silhouetted against the smoky May sky.

  “What number, guv?” shouted the taxi-driver when we eventually hurtled up the Fordites’ street north of Marble Arch.

  “It’s the big house down there past the bomb-site.”

  “The place where they wear black-and-white fancy dress? What’s a respectable C. of E. clergyman like you doing at a nasty R.C. place like that?”

  I had insufficient energy to explain that the Fordites formed part of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England and owed no allegiance to Rome. “I’m paying a social call,” I said, “on an old man who’s recovering from an operation.”

  “Very good-natured, I’m sure,” said the taxi-driver as the car screeched to a halt in front of the brick wall which separated the house from the street. “But then you can always rely on the C. of E. padres to behave like gentlemen.”

  I tipped him lavishly to reinforce his benign attitude to the Church, and as he drove away with his traditional English bigotry intact, I turned to face my destination. The wooden double-gates, set snugly within the high wall, were wide enough to have admitted a Victorian carriage and appeared to be firmly closed. However when I tried the handle the right-hand gate swung open. I stepped into a cobbled forecourt, and immediately I saw the doorkeeper’s head framed in the hall window as he inspected the intruder. Shutting the gate behind me I took a closer look at the house, which I had never before seen at close quarters, and noticed that although the stucco facade had been chipped by the force of the bomb which had exploded nearby, the walls had recently been repainted. This spruce appearance set the house apart from the shabby city in which it stood and created the bizarre illusion that I had entered a world in which the war had yet to take place.

  “Good evening, Father,” said the doorkeeper, revealing the hall beyond the threshold as I reached the steps of the porch. “Can I help you?”

  I loathe being addressed as a Catholic priest. My Protestant hackles immediately rose and it took me a great effort to say in a civil voice: “Mr. Jonathan Darrow’s sent me to see Mr. Aidan Lucas.” No one was going to catch me using the title “Father”—or indeed the pre-Reformation title of “Abbot.” In my opinion Henry VIII had been entirely right to abolish the monasteries.

  “Ah yes, you’re expected,” said the doorkeeper unctuously. “Please come in.”

  Angry, irritated, rebellious, sulky, guilt-ridden and shamefully nervous, I summoned all my will-power and crossed the threshold into the other wing of the Church of England.

  8

  The house had once been the principal residence of the Order’s founder, a certain Mr. Horatio Ford, who had acquired immense wealth in various shady ways before embracing Anglo-Catholicism (then being launched by the Oxford Movement) and donating his ill-gotten gains to the Church of England in order to make an edifying end. Enrapt not only by the High Church spirituality but also by the nineteenth-century aesthetic mania for idealising medieval life, he had stipulated that the Church should use his fortune to found a monastic community called the Fordite Order of St. Benedict and St. Bernard. This shameless piece of self-advertising had probably prompted the remark, long enshrined in Church folklore, that Ford had included St. Bernard in his title not because he had wished to honour the founder of the Cistercians but because he had wanted to immortalise his favourite dog.

  From this ignorant and vulgar seed a learned and ultimately distinguished organisation had grown. It was very English, in that peculiar style so beloved by foreigners in search of our eccentricities, but despite its idiosyncratic ways it was neither ineffectual nor ludicrous. I personally think it’s quite wrong for a bunch of devout men to waste their time reviving a medieval way of life when they could be out in the modern world working for Christ in the same manner as any other Christian, but even I, the staunch defender of Henry VIII’s monastic policy, had to admire the Fordites’ dedication to scholarship, a dedication which placed them firmly in the Benedictine tradition.

  There were four houses in the Order. At Starwater Abbey in my archdeaconry the monks ran a famous public school, while at the Grantchester house near Cambridge the monks had cultivated a connection with the University by specialising in retreats for undergraduates. The London headquarters also offered retreats and was rumoured to be a haven for the leading men of the Church who wished to recharge their spiritual batteries in comfort. Only Ruydale, isolated on the North Yorkshire moors, followed a Cistercian rather than a Benedictine tradition by fostering a formidably ascetic way of life, and Darrow always claimed that this was the most spiritual house in the Order. But then Darrow would. It was at Ruydale that he had acquired his reputation as a spiritual director. He had been Master of Novices there for six years before becoming the Abbot of the Grantchester house in 1937.

  Since Darrow, famous for his austere tastes, had expressed disapproval of the London house, I was confident that I would find much to admire and I soon discovered that my confidence had been justified. The house was an exquisite architectural treasure, lovingly maintained and imbued with an air of subdued luxury which I found most seductive. The visitors’ parlour, into which I was shown, contained a Persian carpet, antique furniture and even a discreet chandelier. The pictures, all of religious subjects, glowed subtly in the dim light and reminded me of the remoter rooms of the National Galle
ry, one of my favourite haunts on wet winter Saturday afternoons during my adolescence. To my relief I noted that unlike the visitors’ parlour at Starwater, the room flaunted no tasteless statuette of the Virgin Mary.

  “I won’t keep you a moment, Father,” said the doorkeeper, abandoning me in this soothing oasis, and I sat down on the edge of a chair, but within seconds I was pacing around the room. What was I going to say? What in fact could possibly be said? How could Lucas unlock the mystery of my dilemma and tell me why my life had gone so wrong? And most vital of all, how, short of waving a magic wand, could he make it possible for me to live with Dido for the next thirty years? I suddenly realised that the whole pilgrimage was a waste of time, just another of Darrow’s hare-brained inspirations. There would be no more than a cosy chat waiting for me, a dash of professional sympathy, a few clever remarks and finally, no doubt, some florid form of Anglo-Catholic benediction which would set my teeth on edge.

  “Would you come this way, please, Father?” The soapy-voiced doorkeeper had returned to fray my nerves again. Following him reluctantly down a corridor, I was ushered into a room furnished only with a table, two chairs and in one corner a nasty-looking Catholic concoction which I supposed, since it reminded me of a shrine, I could dignify by the name of “oratory”; a priedieu had been placed in front of a miniature altar which coruscated with a crucifix, candlesticks and cloth-of-gold brocade. My Protestant soul shuddered, but before I could lose my nerve altogether I heard the doorkeeper say to someone in the passage: “Your visitor’s waiting, Father Abbot,” and the next moment I was face to face at last with Aidan Lucas.

  11

  “Examination of acts of sin, however classified, is valuable as leading on first to the discovery of sinful motive and then to the recognition of a sinful state.”