Ultimate Prizes

by Susan Howatch

  “Well, I don’t know that I do have better things to do,” said the Bishop harassed. “What can be more vital than to solve the problem of how we can temporarily expand the Theological College with the minimum of expense? And I really do feel that we can’t ignore the call of the Holy Spirit in these circumstances—”

  “Darrow’s not the Holy Spirit. He’s Darrow.”

  “Yes, but it’s an inspired idea, isn’t it? It would mean free premises in beautiful and appropriate surroundings for just so long as this huge influx of ordinands lasts—”

  “I agree it’s a bold scheme, but it’ll still cost a lot of money and it might well be more practical to lease premises here in the city. An extension in Starrington would cause administrative problems. Darrow won’t like sharing the power.”

  “But Darrow says—”

  “I know exactly what Darrow says! He thinks he can play the miracle-man and be in two places at once, even though they’re twelve miles apart, but that’s nonsense and you must tell him so.”

  “Dear me,” said the poor Bishop, looking more harassed than ever at the prospect of having to be firm with Darrow, “how worrying it all is!”

  “Not at all—the situation’s really very simple. Leave the necessary inquiries to me. Then when I present the relevant facts together with my recommendations, all you’ll have to do is pray for guidance and make up your mind.”

  The Bishop was just brightening at the thought of prayer when the chaplain looked in. “Excuse me, Bishop, but I’ve got Lord Flaxton on the phone demanding to know what the Archdeacon thought of Mellors.”

  The Bishop groaned.

  “I’m not back yet,” I said to Hampton, “and the Bishop’s attending a meeting.”

  Hampton gave a mock salute and vanished.

  “What with Darrow on the one hand,” said the Bishop, “and Lord Flaxton on the other, I’m beginning to wish I were an obscure country curate. Neville, what on earth happened at Flaxton Pauncefoot?”

  I delivered a succinct account of Mellors’ plight.

  “Poor fellow!” sighed Dr. Ottershaw predictably when I had finished. “Poor, poor fellow! It would seem, wouldn’t it, that he hasn’t recovered properly from his wife’s death two years ago … Can we risk Allington Court or should we play safe and send him to the Fordites?”

  “I think his most urgent need is to have a complete rest in comfortable surroundings—which means Allington Court, with the Warden tipped off about the need for counselling. I agree it’s a risk because of the drink, but I think it’s a risk worth taking. After all, he’s not a genuine heretic—the sermons were just his way of signalling that he was in acute distress.”

  “I’ll ring the Warden tomorrow,” said the Bishop, making a note on his calendar, “and I’ll ring poor Mellors tonight and find out when he can come to see me. But Neville, what do I say to Flaxton when he starts fulminating again that Mellors should be defrocked?”

  “All Flaxton’s concerned about is that his tenants should be protected from heresy. If you transfer Mellors—and I really think that for Mellors’ sake a fresh start is essential—then I’m sure Flaxton will stop bawling about defrocking. The real problem here, as I see it, isn’t Flaxton but Hubert Babbington-French.”

  The Bishop winced. “I’d already thought of that. I’m afraid there’ll be a terrible tantrum.”

  “There’s only one line to take, Bishop, and that’s to put the blame squarely on Flaxton: Tell Babbington-French that Flaxton demanded my presence and that because the situation was potentially scandalous you judged it essential—not merely politic but essential—that Flaxton should be humoured.”

  “But supposing Hubert wants to know why I didn’t at least consult him?”

  “Then you put the blame squarely on me. I advised you that there was no time to waste and I insisted on rushing immediately to Flaxton Pauncefoot.”

  “But surely I have a moral duty to take some of the responsibility for the decision!”

  “No, Bishop. If you fall out with Babbington-French the worry’s bound to affect your work, and that would be bad for the diocese. Your absolute moral duty here is to appear entirely innocent.”

  “And what do I say, in my innocence, when he demands to take over the case?”

  “There’ll be no case to take over. As soon as the arrangement’s been made with Allington Court you can present the rescue operation as a fait accompli, announce that Mellors is being transferred to my archdeaconry and declare that all Babbington-French has to do is make arrangements for the essential services in Flaxton Pauncefoot until you can appoint a new man. Game, set and match to the Bishop.”

  Dr. Ottershaw’s sense of humour finally came to his rescue. “One of the reasons I was so delighted to receive my call to enter the Church,” he said, “was because I thought I’d escape the cut-and-thrust battles—not to mention the sheer Machiavellian skulduggery—of the more worldly professions. Those were the days, of course, when I was truly innocent.” And when I smiled at him he said impulsively: “Whatever would I do without you, Neville? I have a feeling I may not be allowed to keep you much longer—and as I said this morning I’d never stand in your way—but I can’t help wishing selfishly that you’ll stay until my retirement next year.”

  The chaplain peeped in again before I could attempt a reply. “The Rector of Upper Starwood’s just phoned to ask what the official policy is on curates who join the Communist Party. What shall I say?”

  Dr. Ottershaw groaned again.

  “Cheer up, Bishop,” I said. “It’s not so difficult. If Canterbury can have a red dean, why shouldn’t Upper Starwood have a red curate?”

  Hampton laughed, and I was relieved to see that Dr. Ottershaw stopped looking so harassed. Taking my leave of them both I abandoned the palace and drove away once more into the Close. It was time to seek help from Darrow.

  9

  I stopped at the Theological College, but when I discovered the lateness of the hour I was hardly surprised to be told that Darrow had gone home. Nevertheless I was sufficiently disturbed by his absence to wish I had never left the message telling him not to wait for me. This craving to see Darrow was so unprecedented that I found myself pausing to marvel at it, and the moment I paused I found myself engulfed in a terrifying silence. For forty-eight hours, ever since I had left Starrington Manor on my journey to Aidan, I had been running around southern England in a whirlwind of activity. But now I was becalmed. Even my work for the day, that splendid diversion from my troubles, had ceased. I was face to face once more with my appalling problems, and I knew very well I was too debilitated to face them alone.

  Arriving home I reluctantly opened the front door and was at once waylaid by Merry in the hall. “Stephen, you’ve got to go back to that hospital tonight, you’ve simply got to! Dido’s in the most awful state—she’s saying you don’t love her any more, and to be quite frank I’m not surprised! How you can be so insensitive absolutely beats me—haven’t you any idea of the extent of her suffering?”

  My endurance finally snapped. My iron self-control exploded into fragments. My clerical mask was blasted apart by the force of my rage. “Her suffering?” I shouted. “Yes, all she can think about is herself, but what about me? What about my suffering? And what about that poor dead baby which she rejected as brutally as if it was mere rubbish fit for an incinerator? I buried that child this morning. I buried her son. Yet did she so much as ask about the funeral when I visited her today? No, she did not! It was all ‘I —I—I—’ as usual, but you can tell her from me that I think it’s time she grew up and started thinking of other people instead of whining on and on and on about herself like some revolting spoilt child!”

  I blazed into my study, slammed the door, wrenched the key around in the lock, shoved aside the Oxford Dictionary and reached for the whisky bottle—which was empty. I had forgotten I had finished the dregs to do myself a favour. Muttering an expletive which was an obscenity but not a blasphemy, I cuffed the dictiona
ry back into place and headed for the sherry decanter in the dining-room, but the moment I left my study Merry waylaid me again in the hall.

  “Honestly, I do think men are absolutely the frozen limit, I really do! Just because you have ten minutes’ pleasure thirty-nine weeks ago, Dido has to go through months of hell and nearly dies giving birth to your child—and what do you do to make amends? Damn all! You pop in and see her for a couple of minutes when you’ve nothing better to do, and then you have the infernal nerve to complain about the funeral! I’d have thought that in the circumstances the least you could do was organise the funeral without bothering her with all the gruesome details, and in my opinion it’s absolutely disgraceful that a clergyman of the Church of England should treat his poor sick wife with such an utterly brutal lack of feeling! In fact if you ask me—”

  I drew back my arm to hit her. I actually swung back my arm and raised my hand. Her eyes widened. I heard her gasp of fear, and as the adrenaline blazed through me with a ferocious force I was overwhelmed by the vile black ecstasy of violence. But a second later from the top of the stairs Primrose called: “Daddy!” and the force died. Turning my back on Merry I wordlessly held out my arms to my daughter as she scampered down the stairs.

  “Daddy, where have you been all afternoon?”

  I had to hug her for ten silent seconds before I was capable of saying: “I went to a village called Flaxton Pauncefoot and met a little girl called Vanilla.”

  “Like the ice-cream?”

  “Yes, but in fact her name turned out to be Venetia …” While I talked I was moving into the dining-room, escaping from Merry, extracting a glass from the sideboard, reaching blindly for the decanter.

  “Daddy, your hand’s shaking.”

  “So it is.” I filled the tumbler to the brim. “Now I shan’t be able to drink the sherry without spilling it.”

  “You could pretend you were a cat and try lapping.”

  “True.” I stood looking at the sherry. I was trying to beat back my horror as I remembered that sinister surge of adrenaline. Of course I had to pretend it had never happened, I could see that clearly. Good clergymen never suffered from sinister surges of adrenaline, just as good Modernists never spoke of the Devil.

  Aidan said in my memory: “It’s a question of facing the pain.”

  I thought of my idealised world where sinners were just victims of circumstances who made little slips and guilt was a mere unprofitable reflex of the psyche. No need, of course, for a Liberal Protestant Modernist to soil his hands with the blood, sweat and tears which lay in wait for him on the neo-orthodox road to redemption. In his dream world everyone had a painless access to the forgiveness and compassion of Christ; everyone travelled a moonlit, rose-scented road which, as Mellors had put it with such crushing contempt, was perpetually flanked by a bunch of angels twanging harps.

  I thought of Merry again, and as I thought of her I knew that I could not, either now or in the future, pretend the incident had never happened. That type of self-deception had been shattered for all time by the events of the past twenty-four hours. I had to use my Liberal Protestant idealism as a sword to slice away the lies, not as a shield to protect myself from the truths I was too terrified to face. There could be no more hiding among the red roses and the twanging harps as I distorted my faith to escape into a dream world. That road to repentance, that facile travesty of a highway, was no road to repentance at all.

  “It’s a question of facing the pain,” said Aidan again. His voice rang out so clearly in my memory that for a second I thought he was standing beside me in the room. I even looked around, for fear I might be hallucinating, and as I did so I saw the window. It was open. Picking up the glass I carried it to the sill and flung the sherry into the garden.

  “Gosh!” said Primrose. “Why did you do that?”

  “Fancied it. Give the roses a boost.” I tried to collect my fragmented thoughts. I knew I was on the brink again. Facing Merry for dinner was obviously impossible. Somehow I had to get myself to Starrington Magna and grab Darrow, the lifeline, before my triple personality finally disintegrated.

  “Darling,” I said to Primrose, “I’ve got to go and see Mr. Darrow, but I don’t remember eating since breakfast, so I think it might be a good idea to have a snack before I leave. Can you please raid the larder for me?” I felt I dared not leave the dining-room in case Merry waylaid me a third time in the hall.

  Primrose made a successful foraging expedition and returned with two slabs of bread liberally endowed with Marmite, an apple, four water-biscuits and a glass of orange squash. “But don’t give the orangeade to the roses,” she said, “because if you don’t want it I’ll have it.”

  We shared the squash. We also shared the picnic; although I wanted to eat in order to ward off the risk of suffering a dizzy spell at the wheel, I could manage no more than a few mouthfuls of bread. Finally after kissing Primrose, I scuttled through the empty hall, plunged outside into the cool still air of early evening and began, like a shipwrecked mariner, to swim for my life towards the shore.

  16

  “The issue presents itself as a choice between alternate lines of conduct. It is our business to wrestle with it, giving full weight, if we can, to the emotional, intellectual and moral arguments for and against each possible course, and striving to see the whole dispassionately.”

  CHARLES E. RAVEN

  THE CREATOR SPIRIT

  1

  HALFWAY TO STARRINGTON I HAD TO STOP THE CAR. I FELT dizzy, just as I had anticipated, although whether this condition was caused by lack of food or by exhaustion I could not decide; having bounded around so busily for so long, perhaps it was inevitable that I should have run out of energy. I sat shivering behind the steering wheel and occasionally wiping the sweat from my forehead. By that time I would have given my eye-teeth for a triple whisky—or even better, a triple brandy. Could I stop at a pub? No, I was still wearing my archidiaconal uniform. I could only struggle on to Starrington—where Darrow would have measured the levels in the decanters. But at least there would be decanters. I pictured them longingly but still I remained shivering behind the wheel.

  After a while I began to wonder if I had reached the moment of complete breakdown. My emotions seemed to be paralysed. I thought I must inevitably be terrified but I felt only a numbed tranquillity and I was reminded of Arctic explorers who died of hypothermia; there came a point, near death, when they no longer noticed the cold.

  I tried to pull myself together. Was I or was I not a clergyman? This was surely the moment to attempt a quick prayer, but the only word that entered my consciousness was: HELP. How feeble! But even one word was better than nothing. Squeezing my eyes shut, I yelled HELP! at the top of my mental voice, but of course nothing changed. Opening my eyes I found that the cow in the nearby field was still chewing placidly on its cud. But on the other hand, what else had I expected? Surely not a phalanx of angels descending from the sky with a stretcher! Wiping the sweat from my forehead again I gazed at the cow and wondered what to do next.

  After a while it occurred to me that my prayer had hardly been very reverent and that it had been the height of impudence to assume God would pay it any attention. I had to phrase a humble request for aid, but suddenly all I could think of was Aidan talking about prayer, Aidan telling me to remember Luther, Aidan easing the burden of my guilt and giving me the courage to fight on, and when, automatically reliving the memory of the most crucial point of our meeting, I stretched out my hand, I seemed to feel again the clasp of his fingers as he stepped into the wasteland beside me. The memory lit up my consciousness. Once more I sensed Christ moving through the closed door of the room to be at one with his disciples, and as Aidan’s fingers closed on mine I was finally able to summon the strength to drive on down the lonely road to Starrington.

  2

  Before I had even halted the car in the drive Darrow was opening the front door of the Manor and hurrying down the steps to meet me.

  �
��Hullo,” I said, hauling myself nonchalantly out of the driving-seat. “Sorry to drop in on you without warning like this. Should have phoned but I left home in rather a hurry.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Absolutely fine. A little tired, but … absolutely fine. Not drunk. Gave the sherry to the rose-bush. Probably grow into a tree. Sorry, not making much sense, feel a trifle disconnected …” I had to lean for support against the car.

  “I was afraid you’d had an accident,” said Darrow. “I phoned your house just after you’d left so I knew you were on your way, and when you didn’t turn up—”

  “Ran out of steam.” I managed to abandon the car and take a few unsteady steps across the gravel. “But it didn’t matter, not in the end, because I created some more steam ex nihilo, as Lord Flaxton would say. I did ask God for some extra steam, just a little puff or two, but I didn’t ask properly and He didn’t hear so I had to do it myself. But that’s all right, doesn’t matter, God helps those who help themselves—”

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” said Darrow, paying scant attention to my idiotic drivel in the vastness of his relief. “I was seriously worried. I kept praying you’d remember Aidan.”

  I slumped instantly against the first object I could find. It was the frame of the front door. When I could speak I said: “Could you repeat that last sentence, please?”

  He repeated it and added: “Whenever I was exhausted at Ruydale, the memory of Aidan’s kindness would always give me the strength to go on.”

  “Well, I’ll be … Sorry. Extraordinary coincidence. Temporarily dumbfounded.” I sagged a little harder against the doorframe.