XIV
‘My dear Venetia, I’m sorry to trouble you when you must be so busy with your wedding preparations, but I really felt I couldn’t let that appalling scene at the Deanery pass without comment. Dido seems to have jumped to conclusions on the minimum of evidence. Of course I never told her anything about us. But she did find out I’d circled Castle Brigga on the map, she did find out that I was disappearing with the car on my afternoon off, and when she heard the rumour that I’d been seen in Chasuble Lane (at the end of my ill-fated attempt to play Juan Fangio) with a young woman, she realised it was you and not, as was popularly supposed, Harriet March.
‘Her disclosure that I had promised never to consummate an extra-marital affair is true (and explains why she was confident you were still
vireo intacta)
but her allegation that I have a habit of gossiping garrulously in bed after sexual intercourse is, I assure you, a fable. In such circumstances I prefer to smoke a cigarette and pass out. No doubt there’s more you’d like me tosay on that particular subject, but I believe I’ve now implied all that requires to be said: namely that Dido’s not above mixing truth with lies when she’s ruthlessly pursuing her own ends. Yours sincerely, STEPHEN.’
XV I never replied to that letter because I was too busy in London assembling my trousseau. Later he wrote to my sister Sylvia and asked for news of me. Sylvia was rather touched by this avuncular interest and struck up a correspondence with him; it helped pass the time as she waited for the baby to arrive. She showed me a couple of his letters. They were very amusing and charming, but I doubted that Sylvia could match this sparkling style in her replies.
He did write me one more letter. It read: ‘My dearest Venetia, The time has come when I must wish you well in your new life and assure you that I shall be praying hard for your happiness. I suspect you no longer believe this, but you really were the very greatest prize I ever encountered, the love of my life, and now that I look back from a grey cold present into that brilliant past we shared together, I realise how very privileged I was to experience, no matter how fleetingly, such absolute perfection. I shall always cherish the memory of those walks through the woods and those kisses in the hollow — and even those prosaic journeys in the car when we merely laughed and gossiped together. What glorious times we had! I shall never forget them, never, I swear it — till my dying day I’ll always dream of those shining hours when I loved the best girl in all the world and travelled with her through paradise. May God bless you, my darling, and in sending you all my love as always, I remain, now and forever, your most devoted MR DEAN.’
The letter arrived on my wedding-day.
It wrecked my eye make-up and nearly ruined my white gown.
God knows how I ever made it to the church.
TWO
‘But equally it is the union-in-love with the Ground of our being such as we see in Jesus Christ, that is the meaning of heaven. And it is the offer of that life, in all its divine depth, to overcome the estrangement and alienation of existence as we know it that the New Testament speaks of as the "new creation".’
JOHN A. T. ROBINSON
Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich
1959-1969
Honest to
God
I
Eddie landed a very acceptable job as the rector of a smart Kensington parish, and the rectory was acceptable too, a cream-coloured, early Victorian, double-fronted town-house with plenty of space for entertaining. I bought my heart’s desire in the country later. It was in Norfolk, a little out of the way perhaps, but the fine, austere, classical mansion had a lake at the bottom of the back lawn, and the members of the Coterie adored streaming down there from London at weekends. I never bothered with parish life, but I was always careful to keep up appearances by behaving properly in London — or if I did misbehave I made damned sure I was discreet.
The marriage, of course, was a disaster.
The 1960s were a disaster too, as those who were lucky enough to survive knew all too well. ‘All you need is love!’ sang the Beatles, as the Great Pollutant, seeping into the gap created by the absence of a strong religion, began systematically to poison our lives. Pascal wrote: ‘It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that for want of true objects they must attach themselves to false.’ The true objects all went under in that part of the 1960s where I wasted what remained of my youth, and only the false gods survived to ensure our ruin.
The ranks of the Coterie were decimated. Dinkie overdosed on heroin, Emma-Louise crashed through three marriages, that nice Holly Carr committed suicide, Norman Aysgarth took to drink, man-eating Cynthia had a nervous breakdown, Robert Welbeck was crippled in a motorway smash-up, Simon drowned in a swimming-pool after freaking out on LSD, Don Latham dropped out of the BBC in order to meditate in India, Katie Aysgarth took to spiritualism and went peculiar, Christian — Now, that was a great mystery. They say Nick Darrow unravelled that one in the end, Nick Darrow treading his mystical paths with his crystal ball in one hand and his crucifix in the other. He survived, of course. So, more surprisingly, did Michael Ashworth and Marina who married each other and lived (so far as I could tell) happily ever after. Michael still pounced around occasionally but Marina always became a devoted friend of any mistress who lasted longer than six months. Some people really are extraordinary.
Primrose’s wedding took place a month after mine, and with an ambitious wife egging him on, Maurice Tait wound up running the Choir School. They had four children and Primrose was always reported to be radiant — as was Dido once she had finally got rid of her step-daughter. It was nice to know that the appalling scene at the Deanery eventually made Dido, Primrose and, presumably, Maurice ecstatically happy.
Eddie died young, just as he had so often threatened he would, but before the end came I tried to make amends to him for my shortcomings by having a baby. God knows who the father was but all that mattered was that Eddie thought the child was his. It turned out to be a girl, rather a bright little bit of fluff, but I never had much gift for being a mother.
The Bishop published his book
A Modern Heresy
for
Modern Man
to critical acclaim but minimal sales. However, later his distinguished good-looks were discovered by television and he used to appear, gorgeous in purple, pectoral cross flashing, on various discussion programmes. Unlike other eminent prelates who flirted with the medium he always took a very firm line with hedonistic pop stars.
I found I could never bear to watch him for more than a few seconds, but I was glad that in the Church of England, then enduring one of its most demoralised phases, there was at least someone who had the guts to speak up for the unfashionable views which he believed to be right.
I eventually severed all my Starbridge connections. Once I met Mrs Ashworth for lunch in London but that was a mistake and afterwards she said: ‘I’m sorry, I remind you of it all, don’t I? Don’t worry, I understand.’
I liked that woman. I could never hold it against her that she had given me the wrong advice. How could she have known that what had been right for her and the Bishop would be wrong for Eddie and me? At least she had cared deeply about my welfare and I knew she saw me as the daughter she had never had. At that lunch in London she told me that in 1945 when her husband had returned from the war she had tried to have another baby but without success. That had obviously been a sadness to her, but at least both her sons did well.
Charley, surprisingly, turned out to be almost as sexy as his brother in the end — those golden eyes were really very compelling — and he married one of those ghastly wonderwomen spawned by the Women’s Movement, someone who was capable of tossing off a master’s thesis, bringing up a shoal of successful children and producing a gourmet dinner for eight — all with one hand tied behind her back while she continued to look like a film star. I loathe women like that, but perhaps I’m jealous because they made the most of their opportunities while I threw all mine away. And perhaps I’m jealous too of Charley’s wonderwoman because I sometimes think I might have found Charley an entertaining husband. If only I could have hung on and waited while he completed his transformation from ugly duckling to sexy swan! But I couldn’t have waited, could I? I had to save my Mr Dean.
I never recovered from him, of course. No man I met ever measured up to him. I often wondered if I would have been less enslaved by his memory if our love-affair had been fully consummated; naturally no real-life consummation could ever match the glittering dream which existed for all time in my imagination, but perhaps even if the affair had been completed in a conventional manner I would still have been unable to forget the memory of those ‘shining hours’ which Aysgarth had described in his final letter.
He ruined me, that was the truth of it. He ruined me, he ruined my marriage, he ruined every attempt I made to find happiness elsewhere. Religion? Oh, he ruined that for me too; I turned away from theology and I turned awa
y
from the Church. He and his New Reformation! I wanted no part of it, not after all I’d been through in Starbridge. The last thing I did before I left my home in Lord North Street for my wedding at St Margaret’s was to tear up
Honest to God
and chuck the pieces in the wastepaper basket.
So the ‘sixties came to an end and the ‘seventies began for those who had survived. I certainly thought of myself as surviving; I hadn’t OD’d on heroin or freaked out on LSD or died of cirrhosis of the liver. But as I see so clearly now, my survival was an illusion. The Great Pollutant had claimed another victim, and from my spiritual grave I could only look back in rage at the man whom I held responsible for my death.
Then one day in 1975 when I was in Norfolk, one day when the summer sun was shining on the lake, one day when I was a widow of thirty-eight, a letter arrived out of the blue.
II
‘My dear Venetia, I have now reached the advanced age of seventy-three and look at least a hundred, even though in my head I feel no more than forty-five! What a curious phenomenon growing old is. I’m not able to go out and about much nowadays, but I’ve made a good recover
y
from my stroke — still
compos mentis
(or am I deluding myself?!) — and I can walk with the aid of two sticks. It was wonderful to wave the wheelchair goodbye. I was goaded into staging this spectacular recovery by the formidable alliance of Dido (still going strong, needless to say) and my new lady-friend, Mrs Jenny Hayman, a charming young widow who lives near us in Surrey and who drops in almost every day to chat with me and occasionally (if I’m very good) to hold my hand. Dido is devoted to Jenny, whose visits give her (D) the chance to escape from the useless old hulk (me) and roar round the village infuriating everyone in sight, so I have now followed the example of my mentor Alex Jardine (Bishop of Starbridge 1932-1937) and wound up in an irreproachably seemly
ménage à trois.
‘
Anyway, when I was in the wheelchair and feeling a trifle glum, Dido and Jenny hatched a scheme to lure me off my bottom: Jenny offered to take me on an excursion to Norwich to see the Cotman exhibition. As you know, I’ve always been interested in art (I’m sure you’ve never forgotten that fatally ambivalent box of cigars!) and I particularly liked the thought of a little holiday in Norwich, such a beautiful city with such a magnificent cathedral. So to cut a long story short I shall merely add that the carrot dangled before the donkey proved too luscious to resist, and the donkey will soon be doddering through Norfolk.
‘My darling, if you can’t face me I shall understand, but I have only one desire at the moment and that’s to see you again – just once more – before I die. Of course I may live for years (poor old Dido!) but if I’m called to meet my Maker before I’ve had the chance to fulfil this last alluring whim, I shall without doubt stage a tantrum in heaven. (Hell is out of the question, of course, since no good Liberal Protestant Modernist believes in it – although on reflection I recall there
are
no good Liberal Protestant Modernists nowadays, only a bunch of boring radical theologians who don’t believe in anything – and I’m certainly not one of those!)
‘Let me know what you think. Whatever your decision nothing can change the fact that I shall love you till the day I die. I remain – still – after all these many years – your most loyal and devoted MR DEAN.’
III
He was very stout and very old. His face had a high colour, possibly as the result of heart disease, and his white hair was thinner and wispier. He moved very slowly with his two sticks. His eyes were now only a faded blue, but his mouth still turned downwards in a sultry curve when his face was in repose.
As soon as I saw how impaired he was I knew beyond doubt that this visit was no mere exercise in nostalgia, no bizarre extension of the fantasy and illusion of 1963. He had struggled to see me at the very end of his life because his love was genuine, and once this truth had dawned all my anger vanished as if it had never existed. I ran out to meet him, and although he merely held out his hand I flung wide my arms and we hugged each other.
‘Well!’ he said afterwards. For a moment no other words were possible. ‘Well!’ He beamed at me.
I said only: ‘My darling Mr Dean.’
The new lady-friend was a pleasant woman, very middle class, but then not everyone can be born with silver spoons in their mouths, and anyway every time I looked in the glass I despised the aristocracy. I think she was nervous of me. God knows what he had told her. I had invited another old friend to stay (homosexual, so restful) in case the going proved sticky, but there were no problems and we all chattered away happily throughout dinner. We had arranged that they should stay the night before travelling on to Norwich.
The only difficult moment came when Nanny brought in Vanessa, then aged four. Aysgarth said: ‘So this is the child,’ and when his faded eyes filled with tears I knew he was looking at the world of might-have-been, the world we would have inhabited if Dido had conveniently died and left him a widower. I had often thought of this world and had concluded in my anger that he would have made me very miserable once victory had finally dulled his appetite for his great prize, but now I knew I was looking, just as he was, at the lasting happiness we had been denied.
The next morning after breakfast he said to me: ‘I’d so much like to walk to that seat overlooking the lake,’ so we set off at a snail’s pace across the lawn. Little Mrs Hayman stayed tactfully in the house, but no doubt he had given her orders beforehand about making herself scarce at the right moment.
When we were finally settled on the seat by the lake we held hands and waited in silence until he had recovered his breath. It was a clear, warm morning. The water was as still as glass. Birds skimmed over the surface and vanished in the reeds. Everywhere was very quiet.
At last he said with a smile: ‘You’ve been very kind to me, haven’t you?’
‘For heaven’s sake! What else did you expect?’
‘Perhaps formal politeness masking a bitter resentment.’
I said at once with an incredulous laugh: ‘You silly man, what on earth are you talking about?’
‘My darling Venetia,’ he said, ‘do you think I never realised, as I listened to the gossip on the grapevine, that I ruined you? And do you really think that I – with my deep horror of destroying women – could ever die in peace unless I had made some attempt, no matter how feeble, to put right the great wrong that I’ve done?’
Tears sprang to my eyes. Then pressing his gnarled old hand against my cheek I passionately denied my own destruction.