Ultimate Prizes

by Susan Howatch

  “What do I read?”

  “For the first half hour you can stick to the Bible—reverent biblical study is such a strong feature of the Protestant tradition, isn’t it? Doing familiar work will help by making you feel more secure, more relaxed, less at the mercy of your anxieties. Then for the second half hour you should read something less familiar—and something which takes you right out of the present century. Gaining a perspective on the present by examining the past can be very soothing to someone burdened with troubles. Try reading … No, I won’t suggest the Fathers; they’re too closely associated with the Oxford Movement in many Protestant minds. But what about the Cambridge Platonists? ‘Spiritual is most rational,’ as Whichcote says—very appealing to the Modernist, as Dean Inge would be the first to agree! But be warned: at the end of your hour’s reading, when you should be calm and still, don’t just read the office and switch off. Keep thinking and praying all through the day whenever you can and wherever you are—be on constant alert for that word from God which I’m sure will eventually arrive.”

  “I’m sorry, I know you must think me spiritually stupid, but how do you think God will communicate with me? What must I look out for?”

  “Well, I think we can discount the prospect of a vision complete with heavenly choirs and a message written in fire in the sky,” said Lucas, exercising his dry humour again. “And I think we can probably discount an experience as startling and clear-cut as your call in Christ Church Cathedral. However, there may well be resemblances to that exceptionally dramatic early call of yours. Watch out for the phrase which keeps recurring on the lips of different people; watch for the incident which strikes the chord of memory, just as Raven’s sermon did; examine every event which occurs in your life and ask yourself if there’s something to be learnt even from the most apparently irrelevant occurrence. I’m convinced that even if there’s no one single revelation, there’ll be a succession of signs which will add up to an enlightenment.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, “and I have confidence in what you’re telling me, but how does all this solve my most urgent problem? How am I going to live with my wife?”

  “Ah yes!” said Lucas. “I thought earlier that you might be having difficulty in identifying your most urgent problem. My dear Neville, your most urgent problem is to find out what God now requires of you, and when I say you, I mean your unified personality; I wasn’t exaggerating earlier when I said that you’ll never be master of your future unless you’re master of your past. But once you’ve mastered your past and are set free to respond to the will of God, then I think all your present problems will prove to be surmountable. I’m not saying you’ll fall passionately in love with your wife, but I suspect you’ll be granted the grace to achieve a tolerable partnership. It’s the only rational assumption to make, isn’t it? God would hardly renew your call to serve Him as a churchman and then make no provision to ease your marital dilemma.”

  There was a silence.

  “And now, of course,” said Lucas wryly, “you’re thinking I’m just a tiresome old celibate who knows nothing about the hell of being stuck with an unwanted woman.”

  Much to my surprise I heard myself say: “No, I wasn’t thinking that.” I had to pause to find the right words. “What you say makes sense,” I said at last, “and I was thinking how clever you were to dredge up some hope for me from such a hopeless situation. I can stand almost anything so long as there’s hope. It was the thought of a hopeless marriage, stretching ahead for the next thirty years, that was reducing me to despair.” I thought for a moment longer before adding: “By turning my crisis into a quest capable of resolution, you’ve performed the miracle of making the future attractive—difficult and challenging, of course, but absorbing and exciting as well.”

  “Let me quote Professor Raven to you. I always remember that passage in his autobiography when he wrote: ‘Of all the fascinating pursuits in the world is there any more absorbing than the quest of the knowledge of God?’ ”

  The Anglo-Catholic was quoting the voice of Liberal Protestantism. I stared at him, and for a brief moment the divisions within the Church dissolved so that I could look past the warring dialectic at last to the essential unity beyond. I could only say: “Now for the first time I see what ecumenism could mean.”

  “Ecumenism!” Lucas heaved the sigh of a man who contemplates a future he will never live to see. “One of the founders of the Oxford Movement made several great prophetic speeches about that. He spoke of union not only within the Church of England but between the Anglican, Roman and Orthodox Churches as well.”

  “Was that Newman?”

  “No, Pusey. When I was a young man I thought the prophecy absurd, but now I firmly believe that beyond the divisions there’s unity—as I’m certain you’ll discover in your own life in time.” Abruptly he leant forward again on the table and I sensed he was preparing to conclude our interview.

  “I can’t end this discussion of your quest for unity without saying a word to you on the subject of guilt,” he said. “I believe you feel guilty about many things, so guilty that you couldn’t at present put your guilt into words even if you were a Catholic trying desperately to make an adequate confession. You’ll have to confront this guilt in future; it’ll be part of facing the pain, but let me at least try to ease the burden for you even though I’m still ignorant of those hidden sores which you feel forced to keep to yourself. I believe that during our conversations you’ve turned around and embarked on your road to repentance. You’ve got a long way to go because your repentance can only be achieved when you’ve faced your guilt squarely, but I do believe you earnestly wish to re-examine your past and begin a new life in God’s service. That’s a very big step forward, and whenever your guilt seems unbearable in future, I suggest you remember Luther crying: ‘Justification by Faith!’ Strictly speaking, as you know, it’s God’s grace that ‘justifies,’ but in my opinion your desire to repent entitles you to have faith that you now stand right with God—and I think you’ll continue to stand right with Him so long as you work hard to achieve your new life.”

  Machiavellian old masterpiece, handling me with kid gloves and quoting one of the Roman Church’s severest critics! “What you’re really trying to do,” I said amused, “is to increase my chance of recovery by setting the right psychological mechanisms in motion. You want to lessen the guilt because you see it as a crippling handicap to my mental health, demolishing whatever spiritual perception I still possess and driving me remorselessly to drink.”

  “Oh, I know nothing about ‘psychological mechanisms’!” said the old boy, greatly entertained. “What a quaint little scientific phrase! Is that part of the Modernist way of expressing ancient religious truths?”

  As we laughed the bell in the chapel began to toll and I knew the meeting had to end. With difficulty I said: “How can I ever thank you?” but he waved the question aside. “It’s all in a day’s work,” he said, “and you’ve done me a service by alleviating the boredom of convalescence. Now, let me give you my blessing before we part. I’ll keep it simple, I promise. No Popery.”

  “I’m quite sure I need all the blessings I can get, Popish or otherwise.”

  As I knelt before him he laid his hands on my head and said his few words in a brisk sensible voice. I noticed that his Yorkshire accent was now fading away again into the inflections of the BBC.

  “Will you come to Mass?” he said afterwards. “Or would you find the Catholic touches too distracting?”

  He was signalling that as I had repented sufficiently to consider myself “justified,” I could now regard myself as fit to receive the sacrament. This touched me. I felt the invitation was an act of trust as I embarked on my very uncertain future, and I found I had no choice but to say: “Thank you, Aidan. I’d like to attend.”

  “Good. But you needn’t come down to the chapel just yet. That bell’s ringing for Prime. They’ll ring the bell again when it’s time for Mass.”

  I though
t of him quoting Raven. “I’ve never been to a service called Prime before,” I said. “I’d like to go. It would be interesting.”

  That pleased him even more than my belated success in calling him by his Christian name. We left the room, he walking ahead to lead the way, and descended the stairs to the corridor which led out of the guest-wing. It was as we entered the hall that I stopped dead. Two men were standing by the main staircase. One of them was Ingram, the Abbot-General, but it was not he who had brought me to a halt. I had been transfixed by the sight of his companion, a tall gaunt man with haunted dark eyes and black hair streaked with grey.

  I recognised Charles Ashworth, the husband of the woman with whom I had so disgracefully misbehaved myself twelve months before.

  13

  “There is little prospect of getting rid of error except by the discovery of new truth …”

  CHARLES E. RAVEN

  A WANDERER’S WAY

  1

  I WAS SO SHOCKED BY THE CHANGE IN ASHWORTH, WHOM I remembered as a smooth sleek customer, well marinated in the juices of ecclesiastical privilege, that I was not at first aware that he had failed to recognise me. Meanwhile Ingram, mindful of my anonymity, ignored me altogether and said to Aidan: “Here’s someone who’s dropped in specially to meet you—Jon Darrow’s friend Canon Ashworth from Cambridge.”

  “I hear you’re about to return home, Father,” said Ashworth, “but if you have a moment to spare after Mass—”

  “Yes, we must talk.” The old boy was pleased. “Jon’s often mentioned you.”

  In the chapel the bell ceased tolling. Ingram murmured abruptly: “Shall we …” and we all moved forward, but on the far side of the hall we were obliged to separate, the two monks passing into the enclosed section of the house while Ashworth and I embarked on a signposted route to the visitors’ section of the chapel. I was just daring to hope that my anonymity had been preserved, when Ashworth stopped, snapped his fingers and exclaimed: “I’ve got it now—you’re Neville Aysgarth, the Archdeacon of Starbridge. Don’t you remember me? I was the clergyman who officiated at the Darrows’ wedding.”

  Ten feet away stood the door which led into the chapel. I had to fight the impulse to mutter some banality and dive into the protective silence beyond.

  “I remember you very well,” I said, trying hard to sound untroubled. “Forgive me for keeping quiet but to be honest I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought you might be fed up with people asking how you are and exclaiming ‘Welcome home!’ with wide smiles.”

  This was evidently the right approach. Ashworth looked both amused and grateful. “I’m in London for one of my medical check-ups,” he said, “but in fact I’m much better now and by coincidence I’m heading for your diocese. Lyle’s joining me today at the Darrows’ house for a couple of nights and then we’re off to Devon for a holiday.”

  “Please give her my best wishes,” I said, acutely conscious that he would think it odd if I didn’t. I made another huge effort to be casual and in my guilt I overreached myself. “I was so glad for her sake when I heard you were safe,” I added. “When I met her a year ago at Stoneyford she was convinced you weren’t coming home.”

  “Met her where?”

  “At Stoneyford. In Oxfordshire. At Bishop Jardine’s funeral.”

  The silence which followed was broken with unexpected force by the monks as they began to sing the office. We both jumped. Then Ashworth said smoothly: “Ah yes, of course! I remember her telling me about the funeral,” and that was the moment when I realised Lyle had told him nothing.

  I was much alarmed. I had hardly imagined that Lyle would feel so guilty about her behaviour with me that she would decide to keep quiet about her entire visit to Stoneyford, but then I remembered that at the time of Ashworth’s departure overseas they had both been estranged from the Jardines. Possibly she had remained silent not merely because she felt guilty about me but because she felt it was more convenient to gloss over the subject of that awkward and complex relationship.

  Overpowered by the desire to terminate the conversation I said rapidly: “We’re missing the service—shall we go in?” And I thrust open the door into the visitors’ transept.

  Ashworth made no attempt to detain me.

  I was so disturbed, as I imagined the various marital dialogues which could flow from my disclosure, that I was unable to concentrate on the service. It was only in the brief interval between Prime and the celebration of Holy Communion that I managed to reflect calmly that even if Ashworth did cross-examine his wife about the funeral she would hardly reveal details of our idiotic behaviour.

  Making a new effort to focus my thoughts I struggled to attend to the Communion service. It seemed intolerably alien but I beat down my raised Protestant hackles and tried to approach the sacrament in a humble, reverent frame of mind—no easy task when the stench of incense was assaulting my nostrils and an unfamiliar caterwauling was pounding on my ears. Nevertheless, remembering Aidan, I somehow managed to stifle the urge to bawl: “No Popery!” and walk out.

  I also remembered Aidan’s advice that I should be on the watch for any veiled communication from God, and as Ashworth knelt beside me to receive the sacrament I wondered if our meeting had some hidden significance. As far as I could see I had only been unpleasantly reminded of my disgusting lapse of twelve months before. Automatically I tried to blot out the memory by sinking myself in the act of worship, but to my distress the wine and wafer evoked no comforting response. I could only remember Aidan saying in his sternest mood that we were all sinners, all under judgement, and then I knew that although I had been led to the signpost marked SALVATION, my journey had barely begun out of that wasteland where once more I stood alone.

  After the service Ashworth said to me: “Are you by any chance returning to Starbridge on the ten-fifteen?”

  This was indeed the train I had intended to catch but by this time I wanted only to escape from his company. “No, I’m calling on my sister in South London,” I said, seizing the first excuse to enter my head, and it was not until the words had been spoken that I remembered Aidan urging me to talk to my siblings.

  “Never mind, I daresay we’ll meet again before long. Certain people tend to recur in one’s life, don’t they?” remarked Ashworth pleasantly. “It’s as if we were all dancing some vast metaphysical version of the eightsome reel.”

  “In that case I wish you well in the next phase of the dance!” I said with as much charm as I could muster, and finally succeeded in escaping from him.

  Having packed my bag I left my room, handed the doorkeeper a donation to cover the cost of my visit and plunged headlong from the peace of the cloister into the roaring chaos around Marble Arch.

  2

  At the tube station I incarcerated myself in a telephone kiosk and rang Starbridge Hospital to say I would be unable to visit Dido until the evening. Then I rang Emily to make sure she was at home. A moment later I was on my way.

  I was able to travel entirely on the underground to the southern suburb of Balham, where Emily lived no more than five minutes’ walk from the station. Her oppressively prim Victorian street was lined with close-cropped plane trees; lace curtains festooned the windows of the terraced houses, and even the flowers in the minute front gardens appeared to be stiff with respectability. My mother had once said the neighbourhood possessed “a very seemly air of refinement,” but I had travelled far enough to know that this remark classified my mother even more damningly than the neighbourhood. Having absorbed southern social values I had no trouble in judging the street a monument to genteel bad taste.

  My sister opened the door as I unlatched the front gate. It was always a great source of annoyance to Willy and me that Emily, taking after our father, was taller than either of us. She was five feet ten. I call myself five feet ten, but I’m closer to five feet eight. Willy had the misfortune to be only five feet two, but we always suspected that the long debilitating illness he had suffered in adolescence had somehow
interfered with his growth.

  Emily’s best feature was her dark eyes, also inherited from our father, but unfortunately they were set in a plump nondescript face which Willy, in one of his misogynist’s moods, had likened to a currant bun. She had heavy breasts, which gave her a prematurely elderly appearance, large hips and excellent legs. Her clothes were appalling. She was wearing a faded floral apron over a beige blouse and a sludge-brown skirt. The amazing legs were desecrated by thick stockings.

  “Hullo, Nev,” she said. “You look awful, about ninety. Come and have a cup of tea.”

  I derived a surprising degree of comfort from this laconic but not unaffectionate greeting. Feeling grateful, I followed her down the long narrow hall, past the pristine front parlour, which was reserved for formal occasions, and into the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  “How’s Reg?” I said, dutifully observing the convention of inquiring after my brother-in-law.

  “Could be worse. How’s that smart wife of yours?”

  “In hospital. The baby was born dead.”

  “Nev!” I had jolted her. “Why didn’t you ring me earlier?”

  “Couldn’t. Too difficult. Didn’t want to talk about it.” I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table before adding: “I called him Arthur.”

  “That’s nice,” said Emily politely, embarking on the ritual of tea-making. The gas was lit. The kettle was put on the ring. Out came the china teapot, the tea-caddy, the tea-cosy, the cups, the saucers, the milk-jug, the sugar-bowl, the spoons and the strainer.

  “Dido had decided that a boy should be called Philip,” I said, “but I felt she wouldn’t want to waste that favourite name of hers on a baby that was born dead. Then I saw him and knew he had to be Arthur.”