Susan Howatch - Scandalous Risks

Eventually Primrose was unable to resist abandoning me to move to her father’s side, jolly James decided to take a hand in passing around the canapés (our butler Pond was most put out) and I was just pretending to inspect my mother’s somewhat constipated flower arrangement when the future Bishop of Starbridge materialised at my elbow and said with such a polished charm that I even thought for a moment that he was genuinely interested in me: ‘I hear you’ve been visiting Florence. It’s a beautiful city, isn’t it?’

‘Possibly,’ I said, determined not to simper at him merely because he was one of the most distinguished churchmen in England, ‘but I don’t like Abroad.’

‘In that case I assume you’re glad to be home!’

‘Not specially, but don’t let’s waste time talking about me, Professor. I’m not a bit interesting, although it’s very kind of you to pretend that I am. Why don’t you tell me all about you?’

I had pierced the cast-iron professional charm. ‘Ah, so you’re a listener!’ he exclaimed with a seemingly genuine amusement. ‘How delightful!’

Mrs Ashworth, slender and sleek in a black dress, chose that moment to interrupt us. My first impression had been that she was much younger than her husband, but now I saw that she was probably his contemporary; her neck had that crêpe-like look which afflicts women past the menopause, but she was so immaculately made up that one barely noticed the tell-tale signs of age. Her dark hair was swept back from her forehead and drawn into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her rimless spectacles gave her a chaste, schoolmistressy look which was curiously at odds with the wicked little dress which clung to her svelte figure, and at once I decided she was far more interesting than her husband. The Professor seemed a very typical product of the best public schools and universities, but Mrs Ashworth, whom I found impossible to place against any definitive background, didn’t seem typical of anything.

She was saying lightly to her husband: ‘Vamping young girls again, darling?’

‘Indeed I am – I’ve just discovered Miss Flaxton’s a listener.’

‘Ah, a femme fatale !’ said Mrs Ashworth, regarding me with a friendly interest as I mentally reeled at her choice of phrase. ‘How clever of you, Miss Flaxton! Men adore good listeners – they have a great need to pour out their hearts regularly to sympathetic women.’

‘I do it all the time myself,’ said the Professor, effortlessly debonair. ‘Apart from golf it’s my favourite hobby.’

‘How very intriguing that sounds!’ said Aysgarth, sailing into our midst with his champagne glass clasped tightly in his hand. ‘Am I allowed to ask what this hobby is or should I preserve a discreet silence?’

There was a small but awkward pause during which I was the only one who laughed – a fact which startled me because although the remark could have been classed as risqué it could hardly have been described as offensive. Yet both Ashworths were as motionless as if Aysgarth had made some error of taste, and Aysgarth himself immediately began to behave as if he had committed a faux pas. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Bad joke. Silly of me.’

The Professor made a lightning recovery. ‘No, no!’ he said, smooth as glass. ‘I was merely startled because you seemed to materialise out of nowhere!’

‘Just thought I’d seize the chance for a quick word before we all go in to dinner –’

‘Of course – I was thinking only a moment ago that I’d talked to everyone in the room except you –’

‘Seems ages since we last met –’

‘Yes, it’s certainly a long time –’

‘Oxford ‘fifty-two, wasn’t it?’ said Aysgarth, having regained his equilibrium with the aid of a large swig of champagne. ‘That weekend when we were both guests of the Master of Balliol.’

‘No, you’ve seen Charles since then,’ said Mrs Ashworth. ‘We met in London when we all helped the Dean of Westminster recover from the Coronation.’

‘So we did! I’d quite forgotten … I’m sorry, I can’t quite remember – dear me, I’m beginning to sound like an amnesiac – but did I ever call you Lyle?’

‘I really have no idea,’ said Mrs Ashworth, as if such a feat of memory was well beyond her capabilities, ‘but please do in future. Did I ever call you Neville?’

‘Neville!’ I exclaimed. ‘But no one calls him Neville nowadays – he’s always Stephen!’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘but you see, I met him before the war when Bishop Jardine appointed him Archdeacon of Starbridge. I was Mrs Jardine’s companion at the time.’

Much intrigued I said: ‘But how romantic that you should now be returning in such style to the house where you were once a mere companion!’

‘It would indeed be romantic if it were true, but the Jardines lived in the old episcopal palace which is now the Choir School, whereas Charles and I will be living – thank goodness! – in the South Canonry. I wouldn’t have wanted to return to the palace,’ said Mrs Ashworth serenely. Too many –’ She hesitated but for no more than a second ‘– poignant memories.’

Aysgarth said: ‘Do you regret the loss of the palace, Ashworth?’ but the Professor replied promptly: ‘Not in the least – and my dear fellow, if you’re going to call my wife Lyle, I really don’t see why you should now fight shy of calling me Charles! I only hope I have your permission to call you Stephen in the interesting times which I’m sure lie ahead for us all.’

Aysgarth at once became almost inarticulate with a shyness which I suspected was triggered not only by his social inferiority complex, but by his gratitude that Ashworth should be making such a marked effort to be friendly. He could only manage to say: ‘Yes. Stephen. Fine. Please do,’ and toss off the remains of his champagne.

Appearing in contrast wholly relaxed Ashworth observed: ‘It really is most remarkable that our careers should have coincided like this – in fact, if you knew how often Lyle and I have been telling ourselves recently that God moves in mysterious ways –’

‘Darling,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘if you quote that ghastly cliché once more I shall be tempted to strangle you with your brand-new pectoral cross.’

‘More champagne anyone?’ enquired jolly James, still playing the butler.

His father at once held out his glass. ‘“Well, I don’t mind if I do, sir!” as Colonel Chinstrap used to say on ITMA –’

‘Oh, how I adored ITMA !’ said my mother, drifting over to us and eyeing her constipated flower arrangement as if she had suddenly realised it needed a laxative. ‘Venetia, can you pass around the cigarettes? Pond seems to have disappeared in a huff for some reason …’

‘That bishop-to-be is going to look simply too heavenly in gaiters,’ Harold’s clothes-horse was drawling as she demolished her third dry martini.

‘Can someone stop young James playing the butler?’ muttered my father. ‘Pond’s taken violent umbrage.’

‘… and what I absolutely can’t understand,’ idiotic Harold was burbling in a corner, ‘is how Pater, who can’t bear going to church and has always said “Boo!” to God, has got himself mixed up with these high-powered clerical wallahs.’

‘He’ll probably wind up taking the sacrament on his deathbed,’ said Primrose, ‘like Lord Marchmain in Brideshead .’

‘Brideshead?’ said Harold. ‘Where’s that?’

‘I’m damned hungry,’ said my father to my mother. ‘Are they all dead drunk in the kitchen?’

‘Dinner is served, my Lord!’ thundered Pond reproachfully from the doorway, and with relief we all descended to the dining-room.