Susan Howatch - Glamorous Powers

It was a plausible theory. The only trouble was I had no doubt it was quite wrong.

Having revealed my most urgent problem in this disgracefully inadequate fashion, I then embarked on the task of confessing my sins. ‘Number one: anger,’ I said briskly. My confessions to Timothy often tended to resemble a list dictated by a businessman to his secretary. ‘I was too severe with Augustine when he fell asleep in choir again, and I was also too severe with Denys for raiding the larder after the night office. I should have been more patient, more forgiving.’

‘It’s very difficult for an abbot when he doesn’t receive the proper support from all members of his community,’ said Timothy. He was such a good, kind old man, not only in sympathizing with me but in refraining to add that our community had more than its fair share of drones like Augustine and Denys. My predecessor Abbot James had suffered from a chronic inability to say no with the result that he had admitted to the Order men who should never have become professed. The majority of these had departed when they discovered that the monastic life was far from being the sinecure of their dreams, but a hard core had lingered on to become increasingly useless, and it was this hard core which was currently, in my disturbed state, driving me to distraction.

Having mentally ticked ‘anger’ off my list I confessed to the sin of sloth. ‘I find my work a great effort at the moment,’ I said, ‘and I’m often tempted to remain in my cell – not to pray but to be idle.’

‘Your life’s very difficult at present,’ said Timothy, gentleness unremitting. ‘You have to deal with the young men who knock on our door in the hope that they can evade military service by becoming monks, and then – worse still – you have to deal with our promising young monks who feel called to return to the world to fight.’

‘I admit I was upset to lose Barnabas, but I must accept the loss, mustn’t I? If a monk wishes to leave the Order,’ I said, ‘and if his superior decides the wish is in response to a genuine call, that superior has no right either to stop him or to feel depressed afterwards.’

‘True, Father, but what a strain the superior has to endure! It’s not surprising that you should be feeling a little dejected and weary at present, particularly in view of Father Cuthbert’s recent death, and in consequence you must now be careful not to drive yourself too hard. You have a religious duty to conserve your energy, Father. Otherwise if you continue to exhaust yourself you may make some unwise decisions.’

I recognized the presence of the Spirit. I was being told my vision needed further meditation and that I was on no account to make a hasty move. Feeling greatly relieved I crossed ‘sloth’ off my list and rattled off a number of minor sins before declaring my confession to be complete, but unfortunately this declaration represented yet another evasion for my two most disturbing errors of the past week had been omitted from my list. The first error consisted of my uncharitable behaviour during a disastrous quarrel with my son Martin, and the second error consisted of my unmentionable response to the unwelcome attentions of a certain Mrs Ashworth.

After making this far from satisfactory confession to Timothy I retired to the chapel to complete my confession before God. Later as I knelt praying I became aware of Martin’s unhappiness, a darkness soaked in pain, and as I realized he was thinking of me I withdrew to my cell to write to him.

‘My dear Martin,’ I began after a prolonged hesitation, ‘I trust that by now you’ve received the letter which I wrote immediately after our quarrel last Thursday. Now that four days have elapsed I can see what a muddled inadequate letter it was, full of what I wanted (your forgiveness for my lack of compassion) and not enough about your own needs which are so much more important than mine. Let me repeat how ashamed I am that I responded so poorly to the compliment you paid me when you took me into your confidence, and let me now beg you to reply to this letter even if this means you must tell me how angry and hurt you were by my lack of understanding. I know you wouldn’t want me to “talk religion” to you, but of course you’re very much in my thoughts at present and I pray daily that we may soon be reconciled. I remain as always your devoted father, J.D.’

Having delivered myself of this attempt to demonstrate my repentance I was for some hours diverted from my private thoughts by community matters, but late that night I again sat down at the table in my cell and embarked on the difficult task of writing to Mrs Ashworth.

‘My dear Lyle,’ I began after three false starts. I had been accustomed to address her by her first name ever since I had once counselled her in an emergency, but now I found the informality grated on me. ‘Thank you so much for bringing the cake last Thursday afternoon. In these days of increasing shortages it was very well received in the refectory.

‘Now a word about your worries. Is it possible, do you think, that your present melancholy is associated in some way with Michael’s birth? I seem to remember that you suffered a similar lowering of the spirits after Charley was born in 1938, and indeed I believe such post-natal difficulties are not uncommon. Do go to your doctor and ask if there’s anything he can do to improve your physical health. The mind and the body are so closely linked that any physical impairment, however small, can have a draining effect on one’s psyche.

‘I’m afraid it’s useless to ask me to heal you, as if I were a magician who could wave a magic wand and achieve a miracle. The charism of healing is one which for various reasons I avoid exercising except occasionally during my work as a spiritual counsellor, and as you know, I never counsel women except in emergencies. This is not because I wish to be uncharitable but because a difference in sex raises certain difficulties, as any modern psychiatrist will tell you, and these difficulties often create more problems than they solve. May I urge you again to consult Dame Veronica at the convent in Dunton? I know your aversion to nuns, but let me repeat that Dame Veronica is the best kind of counsellor, mature, sympathetic, intuitive and wise, and I’m sure she would listen with understanding to your problems.

‘Meanwhile please never doubt that I shall be praying regularly for you, for Charles and for the children in the hope that God will bless you and keep you safe in these difficult times which at present engulf us all.’

Having thus extricated myself (or so I hoped) from Mrs Ashworth’s far from welcome attentions I then wasted several minutes trying to decide how I should sign the letter. The Fordites, though following a Benedictine way of life, are Anglo-Catholics anxious to draw a firm line between themselves and their Roman brethren so the use of the traditional title ‘Dom’ is not encouraged. Usually I avoided any pretentious signature involving the word ‘Abbot’ and a string of initials which represented the name of the Order, but sometimes it was politic to be formal and I had a strong inclination to be formal now. However the danger of a formal signature was that Lyle Ashworth might consider it as evidence that I was rejecting her, and I was most anxious that in her disturbed state I should do nothing which might upset her further. An informal signature, on the other hand, might well be even more dangerous; if I had been writing to her husband I would have signed myself JON DARROW without a second thought, but I could not help feeling that a woman like Lyle might find an abbreviated Christian name delectably intimate.

I continued to hesitate as I reflected on my name. Before entering the Order I had chosen to be Jon but abbreviated names were not permitted to novices so I found I had become Jonathan. Yet so strong was my antipathy to this name that later, as I approached my final vows, I had requested permission to assume the name John – the cenobitic tradition of choosing a new name to mark the beginning of a new life was popular though not compulsory among the Fordites – and I had been greatly disappointed when this request had been refused. I suspected Father Darcy had decided that any pampering, no matter how mild, would have been bad for me. It was not until some years later when I became Ruydale’s Master of Novices that I was able to take advantage of the fact that shortened names were not forbidden in private among the officers, and a select group of my friends was then invited to use the abbreviation.