‘Yes, but –’
‘What are you going to do when you’ve exhausted the possibilities of your scrubbing-brush?’
‘I thought I might build an altar-table.’
‘And how long do you intend to go on inventing amusing little tasks for yourself at the Manor?’
‘My dear Francis, please don’t think I haven’t been considering how I could occupy my time in a more appropriate manner for a priest! I was thinking that I might offer to help at the local church. The vicar’s gone into the army, there’s no curate and the services are at present being conducted by a decrepit, semi-blind retired canon who’s anxious to be relieved of his responsibilities.’
‘In that case I see no reason why you shouldn’t help out on a voluntary basis for a couple of months while you wait for your call to unfold.’
‘But what on earth am I going to do about Miss Barton-Woods?’
‘I don’t really have to spell out the most obvious advice, do I?’
I said reluctantly: ‘You want me to leave the Manor.’
‘Yes. Take a room in the village. I think it’s important – even vital – that you should continue to see Miss Barton-Woods, but your bedrooms must be at least half a mile apart.’
‘You think it’s
vital
that I continue to see her?’ I was astonished.
‘Of course. In my opinion the key to your future lies not in the chapel but with Miss Barton-Woods, and the only reason why you’ve been unable to see that is because you’ve jumped to the guilty conclusion that your attraction to the lady is just a piece of elderly self-indulgence which can have nothing to do with God’s purpose for you. But now think again. What’s actually happened here? Almost as soon as you leave the Order this woman is thrust across your path with the result that you eventually reach the chapel. You then pray for a revelation – at which point Miss Barton-Woods reappears and some impulse drives you to break a ten-year silence on the subject of that murdered cat. And then you do have your revelation: you realize that you love this woman and want to marry her. Of course a cynic would explain all this by saying you’re in an unstable state after years of celibacy, but in fact this explanation won’t do because Miss Barton-Woods’ remarkable arrival in your life and her connection with your vision are both facts which exist independently of your emotional state, stable or otherwise.’
‘So what you’re saying is –’
‘I’m saying it’s possible that this is a genuine call to matrimony. Of course I’m not suggesting God’s called you back into the world solely in order that you should marry, but it does begin to look as if matrimony could well be an important element in a much larger call which at present we still can’t perceive. However,’ said Francis, smiling at me as he approached the most difficult part of his advice, ‘the fact that you may be called to marry doesn’t mean that you can sit back and leave it to God to preserve you miraculously from temptation while you await your journey to the altar. How far have you actually
travelled with the lady? Have you allowed yourself, for example, a modest squeeze of the hand?’
I was so overwhelmed that he should be advancing the theory I had not dared believe that I could not immediately frame a coherent reply. However at last I was able to say: ‘I’ve concealed my feelings. I was afraid that once I’d started to display them I wouldn’t be able to stop.’
‘Quite. How wise. Is she a virgin, do you think? I’m trying to gauge how likely she’d be to say no if your wisdom suddenly decided to expire.’
‘I suspect there was a disastrous attempt at intimacy with the fiancé. If I’m right then the odds against her allowing herself to be seduced again would be high.’
‘Good, but remove yourself from her house as soon as possible, I beg of you, Jon, and don’t, whatever you do, propose to her in a rush of romantic enthusiasm before you know a great deal more about your future as a priest than you do at the moment. In fact I feel bound to say,’ said Francis, looking me straight in the eyes, ‘that in my opinion it’s out of the question that you should marry either Miss Barton-Woods or indeed anyone else until you’ve been in the world for at least six months.’
It was the soundest possible advice. At once I answered: ‘I wouldn’t dream of marrying in haste!’ but as Francis relaxed in relief I thought of Father Darcy turning my mind inside out, washing it, scrubbing it and hanging it up to dry. Father Darcy would have said: ‘You’re saying what you want me to hear but I hear the words you can’t bring yourself to say.’ And he would have talked of lust and pride and wilfulness, of the Devil striking at me through the Achilles’ heel of my sexuality, until at last I would have confessed to him that I wanted to go to bed with Miss Barton-Woods that very night and that the possibility of a further five months of chastity was the beautiful dream of a monastic mind, a dream which had no hope of coming true.
I spent the night in one of the guest-rooms of the Fordite headquarters but the sober masculine atmosphere, which I had looked forward to sampling for a few hours, seemed so bleak in contrast to the glowing aura surrounding Starrington Magna that on the following morning I was relieved to depart. Francis, who perfectly understood that I could hardly wait to return to Miss Barton-Woods, remarked that at least he was spared the worry that I might be pining for the cloister.
‘And how was London?’ enquired Miss Barton-Woods when we met that evening; as usual she had been out all day at the estate-office. ‘Did you see much evidence of the bombing?’
I described my fleeting visit to Westminster Abbey, where the great west window had been destroyed, and told her how the nocturnal air-raids murdered sleep. ‘It’s not just the bombs,’ I said. ‘It’s the guns. My friend Father Ingram – who incidentally was looking just like one of Shakespeare’s wicked cardinals – said that one got used to the noise after a while, but I suspect he was merely putting a brave face on what must be a tedious as well as a nerve-racking ordeal.’ Exasperated by the tenacity of the RAF, Hitler had recently turned aside from his efforts to destroy the fighter bases in Kent and had unleashed his fury on the capital. But although hundreds of barges had been accumulated along the coasts across the Channel, although the tide had favoured the enemy, although the Home Guard had even been called to stand to arms, the long-awaited invasion had never come.
‘Thank goodness you’re safely back in Starrington!’ Miss Barton-Woods was saying. ‘But what happens next? Did Father Ingram approve of your plan to help out at the village church?’
‘Yes, he did – and that means, I’m afraid –’ I allowed myself the luxury of a deep sigh’ – that I must leave the Manor. If I’m to work in Starrington in a pastoral capacity I must live in the village among my flock.’
‘Ah yes, of course,’ said Miss Barton-Woods without hesitation, but just as I was wondering in alarm if her alacrity indicated relief she stooped to pick up her tabby-cat and said: ‘But what a pity you have to leave! William will miss you so much when you’re gone.’
At once I said: ‘I hope I’ll still have the opportunity to see him regularly,’ and I reached out to stroke William behind the ears.
As our chaperon purred loudly between us Miss Barton-Woods murmured: ‘Call whenever you like.’ But then she added, steering the conversation back on course as if she feared the atmosphere were becoming too impregnated with confusing possibilities: ‘Are you sure you’ll be allowed to work here? Supposing the Bishop thinks you could be more useful somewhere else in the diocese?’
I realized startled that this was a valid point. In my arrogance I had been so confident of getting my own way when I sought the episcopal permission to work in the village that it had never occurred to me that I should approach not only the Bishop but the Archdeacon with care. The Archdeacon in particular might be offended if an itinerant ex-monk invaded his territory and ignored him by dealing directly with his superior.
‘I’m sure Dr Ottershaw will understand that as I’m still adjusting to the world I can at present only manage part-time work in a rural parish,’ I said cautiously, ‘but the Archdeacon, who would inevitably know this part of the diocese better than the Bishop, might well feel I could be of more use elsewhere.’
‘Would it help if you met him?’ said Miss Barton-Woods unexpectedly. ‘I can easily arrange it. His name’s Neville Aysgarth and his wife happens to be a friend of mine – I’m godmother to her latest baby.’
I said surprised: ‘Aysgarth married late to a young wife?’ My fascination must have been very obvious but Miss Barton-Woods answered tranquilly: ‘No, he married in his twenties and he’s still under forty.’
I was even more surprised. ‘That’s young to be an archdeacon! Is he a protégé of Dr Ottershaw?’
‘Not Dr Ottershaw,’ said Miss Barton-Woods. ‘Dr Jardine – our famous fire-breathing bishop who had to retire in 1937 because of ill-health.’
‘Ah.’ At once I adjusted my mental image of Aysgarth. Since I had heard that Jardine and Ottershaw could hardly have been more dissimilar I deduced that their taste in protégés was unlikely to coincide.
‘I met the Aysgarths through my aunt,’ Miss Barton-Woods was saying. The Archdeaconry’s attached to the benefice of St Martin’s-in-Cripplegate so she’s one of Aysgarth’s flock.’
‘Is he a local man? It’s a Yorkshire name.’
‘I think he was born in some town near Huddersfield, but he keeps very quiet about it. He’s a self-made man – which may have been one of the reasons why Dr Jardine favoured him. Dr Jardine’s a self-made man too, as you probably know.’
I did in fact know all about Dr Jardine, but it is not a priest’s business to gossip about churchmen who are either famous or – as in Jardine’s case – notorious, so although it would have been delightful to remain cosily ‘a deux’ with Miss Barton-Woods I terminated the conversation by standing up. At once Miss Barton-Woods exclaimed in alarm: ‘Have I been repulsively snobbish again?’ but I said firmly: ‘It would be quite impossible for you to be repulsively anything,’ and excused myself from her presence for five minutes.
Retreating to my room I retrieved the box in which the monks of the London workshop had packed my cross, and swiftly rejoined her downstairs. This is something I made before I left the Order,’ I said, ‘so it belonged to the monks, but Father Ingram today insisted that I should offer it to you as a gift for the chapel.’ And setting down the box I removed the lid to reveal the glowing oak within.
Miss Barton-Woods was overwhelmed. ‘Is it the same as –’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ She lifted the cross and was surprised by its weight. ‘How very satisfying it must be to have the skill to make something so beautiful,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Mr Darrow.
Thank you very much.’ And still clasping the cross she smiled radiantly at me.
The desire was almost annihilating. How I succeeded in excusing myself from her presence in order to change for dinner I shall never know.
I shall refrain from describing my mental and physical reactions as my carnal urges, exacerbated by years of celibacy, ploughed remorselessly through every particle of my being. As Francis had pointed out, never do moral convictions seem so insubstantial as when a man is invaded by a powerful sexual desire. Suffice it to say that after a sleepless night I took a cold bath, rejected the possibility of eating breakfast and walked to the post-office to inquire about accommodation in the village. By this time I suspected that Miss Barton-Woods’ visitor who talked like a gentleman and scrubbed floors like a skivvy was the talk of the parish, and my suspicions were confirmed when the postmistress, a stout plain eminently respectable married woman, did not refer me to the nearest guest-house but offered me her own spare room with all the satisfaction of someone bringing off a ‘coup’ guaranteed to stun the neighbours.
The room was not large but it was clean, and as it faced the garden at the rear instead of the high street at the front I judged it would be tolerably quiet. I made arrangements which encompassed the provision of breakfast and an evening meal. Then I retired to the chapel to pray.
As soon as I moved to my new lodgings that evening I missed my large light airy room at the Manor. I also missed not only the house itself but the grounds – the flowers, the lawns, the woods, the dell, the chapel, the chantry – and above all I missed
Miss Barton-Woods. This moping was quite uncalled for since I had an open invitation to visit the Manor whenever I pleased, but nonetheless I regret to record that I gave way to the urge to behave like a lovesick swain and I moped. Trailing around the village after dinner I wound up loafing morbidly in the churchyard among the tombstones. A priest has no business speculating on how much longer he has to live; his duty is to get on with the task of serving God, not to sink himself in self-centred introspection. But that evening I contemplated the tombstones and reflected that as I was no longer a young man I might well drop dead before I had been to bed with Miss Barton-Woods. The thought was intolerable. A feverish urgency engulfed me. I did not like to enter the church when I was in the grip of thoughts so unbecoming to a priest, but I sat down on the stone bench in the porch and for the first time began to grapple ruthlessly with the future.
It did not take me long to confront the fact that I had to marry Miss Barton-Woods immediately and that ‘immediately’ could by no remote stretch of the imagination be construed to mean ‘after six months in the world’. That decision promptly brought me face to face with a most unpalatable fact: a man who is both unemployed and living on borrowed money is not in a position to marry. No consolation lay in the knowledge that Miss Barton-Woods had enough money for both of us. Even the idea that I might be ‘kept’ by a rich woman made me shudder in horror, and besides, I was already haunted by the recurring fear that Miss Barton-Woods might decide I was a sponger and refuse to marry me.