Susan Howatch - Scandalous Risks

‘How on earth did you end up there?’

‘I got mixed up with Charley on the train. Mr Dean, what do you think of Honest to God ?’

‘Superb! Quite splendid! A breath of fresh air sweeping through the Church of England!’

‘Yes, I thought it probably was. The Bishop’s decided it’s absolutely the bottom.’

‘The trouble with Charles,’ said Aysgarth as we left the garden, crossed Canonry Drive and entered the churchyard of the Cathedral, ‘is that he was trained as a theologian. Such a pity! A theologian’s approach to religion is nearly always much too cerebral and he inevitably becomes cut off from ordinary believers.’

‘But isn’t this book supposed to be bad for ordinary believers?’

‘Rubbish! It’s the best thing that’s happened to them for years. Robinson’s realised that the ordinary believers are waiting for a new comprehensible interpretation of Christianity which will relate to the lives they’re living right now in the 1960s – they’re not waiting for cerebral restatements by theologians in their dead, dry, alienating academic language!’

‘But if the book’s too radical –’

‘Nothing could be too radical! Let’s have this New Reformation Robinson talks about! Let’s have this New Morality! Now that we’re finally emerging from the long shadow of the war and shedding the millstone of the Empire, we need to celebrate our psychological liberation by making everything new – so why not start by flinging religion into the melting-pot, as Robinson suggests, and recasting our beliefs in a bold, creative dynamic style that’s thoroughly attuned to our day and age?’

I began to feel excited – insofar as one can ever feel excited about a subject such as theology. I was, in fact, very much in the mood for revolution and I deeply fancied the thought of an iconoclastic assault on any part of the established order. ‘Long live Bishop John Robinson!’ I declared, making Aysgarth laugh, and we quickened our pace across the sward to the Cathedral.

At the north porch we parted, Aysgarth walking on to the Dean’s door, the special entrance for the clergy, and I wandering through the porch into the nave. A sidesman showed me to a seat in the choir. This was not an unusual favour to bestow prior to a weekday service when few laymen would be present, but nevertheless it made me feel privileged.

The Cathedral was quiet. By that time the tourists had left and it had reverted to the inhabitants of Starbridge, most of whom preferred to admire it loyally from afar. However the congregation did eventually mount to thirty. I sat gazing up at the vaulted ceiling and trying to think noble thoughts, but I was pondering on Mrs Ashworth’s advice about eye make-up when the organ marked the beginning of the service.

I liked the weekday choral evensong. It required no effort apart from kneeling down and standing up at regular intervals, and there was no sermon either to stretch the brain or induce rigor mortis. The choirboys sang in their unearthly voices; the vicars-choral bayed with authority; the vergers marched around providing touches of ceremonial; the clergy lolled meditatively in their stalls. I thought it was all so luxuriously restful, like a hot bath garnished with an expensive perfume, and as I watched the sun slant through the great west window I thought how clever God was to have invented the Church of England, that national monument dedicated to purveying religion in such an exquisitely civilised form.

Aysgarth was looking untidy as usual. His shop-soiled white hair always seemed to need trimming. Wearing a dignified expression he rose to his feet to read the lessons, while in the intervals Eddie, crammed into his canon’s stall at the other end of the choir, intoned the versicles and recited the prayers. I was always surprised by how well Eddie did this, but no doubt Aysgarth had trained him not to sound as if he was fathoms deep in depression. Aysgarth himself read the lessons beautifully in his deep, resonant voice. In fact I was so busy thinking how well he read that I forgot to listen to what he was reading. Appalled by my lack of concentration I was on the point of making a new attempt to focus my mind on the service when I saw Nick Darrow staring at me from the opposite side of the choir. I supposed I had been too busy thinking about eye make-up to notice him earlier.

As soon as our glances met he looked away but I went on watching him and wondering if he was destined to be my lucky mascot. But mascot seemed the wrong word to describe someone like Nick. It was too cosy, too banal. For Nick Darrow I needed a word which implied magic, extraordinary happenings, paranormal phenomena –

‘Ah-ah-ah-men!’ sang the choir, winding up the service.

The organ trilled and fell silent for a moment before embarking on a fugue. Everyone hauled themselves to their feet. The choir tripped out jauntily, mission accomplished, and the clergy followed, looking inscrutable. Aysgarth never once glanced in my direction.

Wandering towards the transept I found Nick had fallen into step beside me.

‘Ah!’ I said, finally grasping the word I wanted. ‘It’s my Talisman! I shouldn’t be surprised to see you again, should I, but why are you on your own?’

‘Charley’s busy with his father.’

‘Mrs Ashworth was telling me about yours. I hear he’s very old.’

‘Yes, but he’s okay.’

‘How old is “old” exactly?’

‘He’ll be eighty-three in May. But he’s okay.’

‘Compos mentis?’

‘Yep.’

‘Super! I often think my father’s mad as a hatter. Is your father able to do much?’

‘Yep. He prays.’

‘Ah. All the time?’

‘No, he does see people occasionally.’

‘He sounds like a hermit!’

‘He is a hermit. But he doesn’t mind me being with him because we don’t have to talk.’

I suddenly realised I was gazing at him as if he were a creature from another planet. ‘How restful!’ I said, not sure what to say. ‘My father’s the very reverse of a silent hermit!’

‘He might become one later. My father only became a recluse after my mother died.’ He turned abruptly towards the nave. ‘So long.’

‘When are we due to meet again?’

He shrugged and walked away.

I gazed after him in fascination. Then heaving open the massive door in the south transept I passed at last into the cloisters.

In the centre of the quadrangle lay the lawn beneath which in previous centuries the eminent men of Starbridge had been buried, and overshadowing this ancient graveyard an enormous cedar tree towered above the roof of the colonnade. There was a faint breeze. The cedar’s dark upper branches were stirring against the pale, limpid sky.

I was still gazing at this tranquil scene when the door creaked behind me and Aysgarth slipped out of the transept. Unlike Dr Ashworth he had entirely rejected the archaic uniform of a senior churchman, but perhaps that was less because he wanted to be modern than because his thickset figure was unsuited to fancy dress. On that evening he was wearing a black suit, slightly crumpled, and the black clerical ‘stock’ which was worn over an ordinary shirt and secured by ties at the back beneath the jacket. He had no pectoral cross; he belonged to the generation of Protestant churchmen who thought such papist adornment pardonable only when adopted by bishops. His hair, perhaps disarranged when he had removed his surplice after the service, swooped wildly over his ears in undisciplined wings and bumped against the back of his stiff white clerical collar. He looked like an eccentric scientist who has just made an important discovery.

‘Let’s go and sit on Lady Mary Calthrop-Ponsonby!’ he suggested blithely as I moved to meet him.