Susan Howatch - Mystical Paths

I could never make up my mind whether little Gerald would have been a bigger bore alive than he was dead, but I had no doubt that I resented the effect his memory had on my parents. They were shockingly sentimental about him. There was a grave in the churchyard which had to be visited. His birthday was never forgotten. As a child I thought this behaviour was all quite idiotic and I was very rude about it to Nanny. I liked being an only child. It was bad enough having to share my father with the two children of his first marriage, both of whom were well over thirty years my senior and lived many miles away. To share him with a sibling close to me in age and on the spot would have been intolerable.

Fortunately my parents had no more children after I was born, and by 1945 my father was running the Starbridge Theological College. To cope with the huge influx of ex-servicemen who felt called to train for the priesthood once the war was over, he opened an extension of the College at our manor house in Starrington Magna. I can clearly remember the students – the ordinands, as I soon learnt to call them – pounding across the lawn on the way to our private chapel in the woods. I became their mascot. Some of them even gave me their sweet ration. No wonder I wound up spoilt rotten by the time I was five.

However, all good things come to an end, even life as a pampered mascot. In 1950 when I was seven – eight at Christmas – the last of the exceptionally large intakes of theological students achieved ordination, the College extension at our home was closed and my father, now seventy, retired from his position as Principal. My mother had looked forward to this day because she had cherished the belief that he would then sink into a quiet life and she would see more of him, but she soon discovered that he was becoming busier than ever. As a monk he had won a reputation as a spiritual director, and now that he had fulfilled his call from God to steer the College through the difficult post-war years, spiritual direction reclaimed him full-time. Hordes of people turned up for consultations. He led retreats, wrote copious letters, made himself constantly available to those seeking counsel. My mother and I became somewhat overlooked but we never doubted that he loved us. The problem was that there were only twenty-four hours in a day.

Then in 1957 when I was fourteen, my mother suddenly died. My father was almost killed by guilt. For a long time he could barely speak. His longest silence was: ‘I didn’t make enough time for her,’ and I knew, reading his mind, that in his grief and remorse he wanted to die too.

He promised me that he would never commit the sin of taking his own life but I remained terrified that his health had been fatally undermined. He became a recluse. He did eventually resume his spiritual counselling on a modest scale but he conducted the work almost entirely by letter. Meanwhile I had become what Matron at school called ‘strange’ and my father had to drag himself out of seclusion to make special arrangements for my care. That was when Aelred Peters had been recruited to sort me out. Eventually plates stopped smashing themselves in the Abbey kitchens and inkpots stopped overturning themselves in unlikely places. Staggering home for the school holidays I hoped for further help from my father but instead found myself obliged to grapple with his continuing bereavement.

I would sit with him for short periods of complete silence. Sometimes we stroked the cat together. My father always had a cat and the cat was always a tabby. After the death of my mother’s cat William (annexed by my father after his marriage), he acquired Whitby the Second (died young of a kidney complaint), Whitby the Third (run over aged ten) and Whitby the Fourth. Whitby the First, a companion of my father’s monastic years, had left a potent memory behind him and had been the hero of countless bedtime stories narrated to me by my father in the nursery.

When my father began to talk again it was the cat he spoke about. ‘Whitby’s very fond of you,’ he said suddenly in the midst of one of our long silences. ‘That’s because you’re like me, good with cats.’ Then he paused before adding: ‘You’re really very like me, Nicholas. Very like me indeed.’

Unsure what to say I at first remained silent, but gradually it dawned on me that he was wrestling with some profound temptation. In an effort to be sympathetic and encouraging I then said: ‘Great. So what are you worried about?’

The invisible wrestling-match continued. My father pursed his lips and rubbed his nose and fondled the scruff of Whitby’s neck before he at last managed to say: ‘There’s something I’d like to tell you but Francis always said it would be better for you not to know.’ Francis Ingram, a Fordite monk, had been his confessor.

I never hesitated. ‘But Francis is dead,’ I said, ‘and everything’s changed. You do exactly what you want, Father. You do whatever makes you happy.’

And then he told me the most extraordinary story.

He had seen me in a vision well over a year before I was born. He had seen me, aged three or four, in the garden of the Manor and had realised at once that I looked exactly as he had looked at the same age. Afterwards, during his struggle to interpret the vision, he had been tempted to believe God had given him the promise of a replica-son in order to cheer him up for the difficult times he had endured since leaving the Order, but Francis Ingram had later disputed this self-indulgent interpretation, and in fact my father had firmly believed that no parent should expect or desire his child to be a replica.

‘But nevertheless …’

Nevertheless my father, longing for a son who shared his interests, had been unable to stop himself finding the vision irresistibly attractive.

‘And then, Nicholas …’

Then, when I was three and a half the vision had been enacted in reality and my father had fallen in love with it all over again.

‘It was in 1946,’ he said. ‘Neville Aysgarth was visiting the Manor – Archdeacon Aysgarth, as he was in those days. As he crossed the lawn to join us, Nanny called your name from the terrace and you ran away to meet her – and I realised my vision had been replayed. I was so stunned that at first I could hardly hear a word Aysgarth said. I could only think: it’s all come true. I have this son who’s exactly like me and it’s all according to God’s plan. Although of course,’ said my father quickly, ‘I did realise you weren’t a replica. Not exactly. Not quite. But nevertheless … It’s extraordinary how like me you are! I’ve been telling myself I’ve nothing to look forward to now Anne’s dead, but that’s not true, is it? I’ve got you to look forward to, Nicholas. I shall so enjoy watching you live my life for me all over again – that’s to say, I shall so enjoy watching you develop into the man that God obviously wants you to be. You won’t be a replica, of course – never think that I want a replica, but –’

But he did want a replica. I could see he longed for a replica. And what was more I could see the thought revived him, entranced him, gave him not only a new interest but the will to live which would ensure his survival.

‘– but one can’t deny the very exceptional likeness between us,’ he was saying, ‘and why shouldn’t that be a comfort to me in my old age? Francis said I should never tell you about the vision because you might start believing you had to be a replica, but you wouldn’t think that, would you, Nicholas? Francis was wrong. On this point I know best – I know you’ll reverence my cherished vision as a gift from God, just as I do, and so therefore it can’t possibly have a malign effect. I’m right, aren’t I? I know I’m right. I know it.’