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clerical background had enabled her to obtain the post of companion to Bishop Jardine’s wife when Jardine himself, rocketing racily up the Church’s ladder of preferment, had been appointed Dean of Radbury in the ‘twenties. Five years later in 1932 he had become the Bishop of Starbridge. In 1937, the young Charles Ashworth, already a doctor of divinity, had decided to visit Starbridge to do some research in the Cathedral Library, and since he was the protégé of Archbishop Lang he had been invited to stay at the episcopal palace. Crossing the threshold he had fallen instantly and violently in love with Mrs Jardine’s companion.
    Since Mrs Jardine had been an ineffectual woman who had relied on her companion to run the palace for her, this coup de foudre had caused chaos, but Ashworth, much to the Bishop’s fury, had refused to be deflected from his romantic charge to the altar.
    ‘The whole trouble was,’ said Aysgarth, ‘that Lyle’s departure was a bereavement for the Jardines as well as a crippling inconvenience. They were a childless couple who’d come to regard her as a daughter, and they’d reached the stage where they couldn’t imagine life without her.’
    ‘Presumably they were all reconciled later?’
    ‘Oh yes, but back in 1 937 –’
    ‘– the Jardine dragon had to be vanquished before St George could carry away the maiden on his shining white horse!’
    ‘As a matter of fact whether he was a saint and she was a maiden was hotly debated later when the two of them produced a baby only seven months after the wedding, but since the infant was very small and delicate, just as a premature baby should be, everyone eventually agreed that the maiden’s purity had been unsullied prior to her marriage.’
    ‘Rather tricky to be a clergyman,’ I said, ‘and produce a baby a shade too fast.’
    ‘Most embarrassing for poor Charles! However I never had any serious doubt that he’d behaved himself – he was always too ambitious to do anything else.’ As an afterthought he added: ‘He was married before – his first wife was killed in a car crash– but although he was a widower for some time before he met Lyle you can be sure he kept himself in order. The first thing a successful young clergyman learns to acquire, if he wants to continue as a success, is an immaculate self-control in dealing with women.’
    ‘At least nowadays clergymen can get married, which is more than poor St Augustine could – although actually I don’t understand why St Augustine couldn’t marry. Why did he have to be celibate?’
    ‘Well, in the days of the Early Church ...’
    We embarked on a fascinating conversation about the origins of clerical celibacy, and Aysgarth promised to lend me his copy of St Augustine’s Confessions.
    ‘ My dear Venetia,’ he sighed at last as he finished his whisky and rose reluctantly to his feet, ‘how very much I enjoy talking to you!’
    I smiled radiantly at him and felt like a sizzler.
    VII
    I should perhaps make it clear that contrary to the impression I may have created while describing the turning point of his career, I did not see Aysgarth often. He led a busy life at Westminster, and I was often away. After leaving boarding school I had been obliged to endure periods of exile in Switzerland and Italy, and even when I returned to England I often sneaked down to Flaxton Pauncefoot in order to escape from the ghastly London social events where I was either ignored or treated as a freak. Life drifted on. I had no idea what I wanted to do. My métier seemed to consist of sipping drinks, smoking cigarettes and reading books. There was no calling, no summons from God written in the sky in letters of fire, and increasingly often it seemed to me that my career as an adult was incapable of beginning so long as I remained condemned to the sidelines of life by my unfortunate looks and my embarrassing intellectual inclinations.
    Sometimes I gave way to despair. Supposing I had to suffer