treated Miss Christie as part of the palace furniture.
This conclusion was reassuring enough, but I still had to answer the question of what went on in Miss Christie’s mind while Jardine behaved like the good man he undoubtedly was. I reminded myself that Jardine could still be vulnerable to scandal if Miss Christie decided to play the neurotic spinster by transforming herself into a furnace of frustrated passion, and although she hardly gave the impression of being a neurotic spinster I felt there was something odd about her extreme self-containment.
I decided I had a moral duty to investigate Miss Christie further and an absolute moral duty to discover how likely she was to transform herself into a furnace of passion.
No Jesuit could have achieved a more satisfying casuistry. With a smile I stubbed out my cigarette, retired to bed and began to plot my espionage for the morrow.
THREE
‘I have seen so many clerical careers arrested, and (to all outward seeming) definitely marred, by the clergyman’s marriage, that I never hear of a clergyman’s becoming “engaged” without a shiver of anxiety.’
Letters of Herbert Hensley Henson
Bishop of Durham 1920–1939
ed. E. F. BRALEY .
I
I awoke violently at seven. Naturally I had been dreaming of Miss Christie. I wanted to smoke a cigarette, but I decided that I had no excuse for breaking any of the minor rules by which I achieved self-discipline, and one of those rules was that I never smoked before breakfast. With an effort I read the morning office. Then making another random dip into the Bible I eventually encountered the appropriate words: ‘Seek and ye shall find’.
As I dressed it occurred to me that I still had to seek and find a great many facts about Jardine before I could report convincingly to Lang that the Bishop’s private life was as pure as driven snow; my impression of innocence would carry little weight unless it were supported by a thorough understanding of Jardine’s psychology, and I could hardly establish a psychological portrait without much more information about his past. Apart from gauging Miss Christie’s ability to become a furnace of passion my main task was clearly to talk to as many people as possible about the Bishop without making them suspect they were being interrogated, but I doubted that this would prove difficult. People always enjoy a gossip about a famous man, and when a famous man is personally known to them the temptation to reveal how much they know is all the greater.
Leaving my room, I padded downstairs. I met no one, although I could hear the distant rattling and banging of servants pursuing their early morning rituals. Opening the front door I stepped out into the porch, and the brilliant sunlight flooded into my eyes so that for a second I saw only a shimmering green pattern of beech leaves and grass. Beyond the drive the pale stone of the Cathedral soared into a cloudless sky, and after opening the white gate which was set in the wall of the churchyard I headed along the north side of the building to the porch.
A passing verger directed me to St Anselm’s Chapel where the weekday Communion services were held. There was no time to gape at the glory of the nave; I wanted to clear my mind in preparation for worship, and as soon as I had chosen my seat in the chapel I knelt to sharpen my concentration. However I had instantly noted Miss Christie’s absence.
This failed to surprise me. Weekday Communion is seldom attended by hordes of laymen, and in fact I saw no one I knew from the palace in the small congregation. Then Gerald Harvey hurried into the row behind me, and seconds later at eight o’clock the Dean and the Bishop appeared, preceded by the verger.
As the service progressed I thought how preposterous it was to imagine a bishop administering the sacrament when he was not in a state of grace, and again I remembered the integrity which had emanated from Jardine during our private conversation over the
This conclusion was reassuring enough, but I still had to answer the question of what went on in Miss Christie’s mind while Jardine behaved like the good man he undoubtedly was. I reminded myself that Jardine could still be vulnerable to scandal if Miss Christie decided to play the neurotic spinster by transforming herself into a furnace of frustrated passion, and although she hardly gave the impression of being a neurotic spinster I felt there was something odd about her extreme self-containment.
I decided I had a moral duty to investigate Miss Christie further and an absolute moral duty to discover how likely she was to transform herself into a furnace of passion.
No Jesuit could have achieved a more satisfying casuistry. With a smile I stubbed out my cigarette, retired to bed and began to plot my espionage for the morrow.
THREE
‘I have seen so many clerical careers arrested, and (to all outward seeming) definitely marred, by the clergyman’s marriage, that I never hear of a clergyman’s becoming “engaged” without a shiver of anxiety.’
Letters of Herbert Hensley Henson
Bishop of Durham 1920–1939
ed. E. F. BRALEY .
I
I awoke violently at seven. Naturally I had been dreaming of Miss Christie. I wanted to smoke a cigarette, but I decided that I had no excuse for breaking any of the minor rules by which I achieved self-discipline, and one of those rules was that I never smoked before breakfast. With an effort I read the morning office. Then making another random dip into the Bible I eventually encountered the appropriate words: ‘Seek and ye shall find’.
As I dressed it occurred to me that I still had to seek and find a great many facts about Jardine before I could report convincingly to Lang that the Bishop’s private life was as pure as driven snow; my impression of innocence would carry little weight unless it were supported by a thorough understanding of Jardine’s psychology, and I could hardly establish a psychological portrait without much more information about his past. Apart from gauging Miss Christie’s ability to become a furnace of passion my main task was clearly to talk to as many people as possible about the Bishop without making them suspect they were being interrogated, but I doubted that this would prove difficult. People always enjoy a gossip about a famous man, and when a famous man is personally known to them the temptation to reveal how much they know is all the greater.
Leaving my room, I padded downstairs. I met no one, although I could hear the distant rattling and banging of servants pursuing their early morning rituals. Opening the front door I stepped out into the porch, and the brilliant sunlight flooded into my eyes so that for a second I saw only a shimmering green pattern of beech leaves and grass. Beyond the drive the pale stone of the Cathedral soared into a cloudless sky, and after opening the white gate which was set in the wall of the churchyard I headed along the north side of the building to the porch.
A passing verger directed me to St Anselm’s Chapel where the weekday Communion services were held. There was no time to gape at the glory of the nave; I wanted to clear my mind in preparation for worship, and as soon as I had chosen my seat in the chapel I knelt to sharpen my concentration. However I had instantly noted Miss Christie’s absence.
This failed to surprise me. Weekday Communion is seldom attended by hordes of laymen, and in fact I saw no one I knew from the palace in the small congregation. Then Gerald Harvey hurried into the row behind me, and seconds later at eight o’clock the Dean and the Bishop appeared, preceded by the verger.
As the service progressed I thought how preposterous it was to imagine a bishop administering the sacrament when he was not in a state of grace, and again I remembered the integrity which had emanated from Jardine during our private conversation over the
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