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Authors: Susan Howatch
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feeling that the Bishop in his despair was planning to steer me towards them. I was willing to do my duty and attempt to behave in a Christian manner towards even the most repulsive Nazi, but the prospect was far from enthralling, particularly when we were all waiting to see if Hitler opened his Baedeker guide at the wrong page. I was now privately very worried indeed about the prospect of an attack on Starbridge, for my vicarage was in the centre of the city, but Grace, following the example of the Queen, had said that the children stayed with her and that she intended to stay with me—and I, of course, had to stay at St. Martin’s. I could only thank God we had a good air-raid shelter and pray that Hitler, diverted by the fighting on the Eastern Front, would lose interest in reading travel guides.
I was just wondering if I should hold daily services at lunch-time for all the city workers who would be experiencing a strong compulsion to pray for deliverance, when the door of my study opened and Alex strode in. There was a spring in his walk, a smile on his face and a carnation in the buttonhole of his smart lounge suit.
“Do I deduce that the hatchet was safely buried?” I said amused after we had exchanged greetings.
“I think it would be more accurate to say that we managed to ease the hatchet into a coffin to await a full burial later—but at least that’s a step in the right direction! We sat in the garden and drank tea for twenty minutes.”
“Only twenty minutes?”
“She had to attend a committee meeting of the Women’s Institute. But she sent her love to Carrie, so it would seem the ice is definitely broken.”
“Splendid! And what did you think of her boys? That little Charley says he wants to be a clergyman.”
“So he told me.” Alex, who had been pacing around the room in his usual restless fashion, now stopped jingling the coins in his pockets and started eyeing the telephone. “I’d so much like to tell Carrie about the meeting,” he said. “Would you mind if I put through a call on your extension upstairs?”
“Not at all—go ahead,” I said, and embarked on a letter to the Red Cross about the parish food parcel for British prisoners of war.
I was halfway through this task when I was interrupted by the arrival of my diocesan bête noire , a clergyman named Darrow about whom I shall say more later. I mention him now only because it was at this time that he began his career at the Theological College in the Cathedral Close, a fact which became of considerable importance to me in 1945 after I had almost committed adultery.
On that morning in 1942 when Darrow arrived without warning on my doorstep and breezed arrogantly into my study, the Theological College was in the midst of a crisis because of the war-time shortage of staff, and on the previous evening at the palace Alex had been able to provide Dr. Ottershaw with the vital information that Darrow had had experience in the training of clergymen. Darrow had had experience in many other clerical fields too—driving archdeacons well-nigh round the bend was only one of his more esoteric activities—but now is not the moment to expand on his buccaneering career in the Church. His purpose in calling at the vicarage that morning was to thank Alex for recommending him to the Bishop, but he wound up by delivering an insufferably priggish lecture on the theme that the ultimate prize for any priest—as a bigoted Anglo-Catholic he always called clergymen “priests”—could only be union with God.
“How did I manage to keep a civil tongue in my head?” demanded Alex as soon as Darrow had stalked out. “I must be getting saintly in my old age! And to think that according to Lyle her husband remains one of Darrow’s most devoted admirers!”
“Ashworth’s busy being an Army chaplain in North Africa. If he was trying to run an archdeaconry where Darrow was on the rampage, he’d soon modify his admiration, I promise you! What on
I was just wondering if I should hold daily services at lunch-time for all the city workers who would be experiencing a strong compulsion to pray for deliverance, when the door of my study opened and Alex strode in. There was a spring in his walk, a smile on his face and a carnation in the buttonhole of his smart lounge suit.
“Do I deduce that the hatchet was safely buried?” I said amused after we had exchanged greetings.
“I think it would be more accurate to say that we managed to ease the hatchet into a coffin to await a full burial later—but at least that’s a step in the right direction! We sat in the garden and drank tea for twenty minutes.”
“Only twenty minutes?”
“She had to attend a committee meeting of the Women’s Institute. But she sent her love to Carrie, so it would seem the ice is definitely broken.”
“Splendid! And what did you think of her boys? That little Charley says he wants to be a clergyman.”
“So he told me.” Alex, who had been pacing around the room in his usual restless fashion, now stopped jingling the coins in his pockets and started eyeing the telephone. “I’d so much like to tell Carrie about the meeting,” he said. “Would you mind if I put through a call on your extension upstairs?”
“Not at all—go ahead,” I said, and embarked on a letter to the Red Cross about the parish food parcel for British prisoners of war.
I was halfway through this task when I was interrupted by the arrival of my diocesan bête noire , a clergyman named Darrow about whom I shall say more later. I mention him now only because it was at this time that he began his career at the Theological College in the Cathedral Close, a fact which became of considerable importance to me in 1945 after I had almost committed adultery.
On that morning in 1942 when Darrow arrived without warning on my doorstep and breezed arrogantly into my study, the Theological College was in the midst of a crisis because of the war-time shortage of staff, and on the previous evening at the palace Alex had been able to provide Dr. Ottershaw with the vital information that Darrow had had experience in the training of clergymen. Darrow had had experience in many other clerical fields too—driving archdeacons well-nigh round the bend was only one of his more esoteric activities—but now is not the moment to expand on his buccaneering career in the Church. His purpose in calling at the vicarage that morning was to thank Alex for recommending him to the Bishop, but he wound up by delivering an insufferably priggish lecture on the theme that the ultimate prize for any priest—as a bigoted Anglo-Catholic he always called clergymen “priests”—could only be union with God.
“How did I manage to keep a civil tongue in my head?” demanded Alex as soon as Darrow had stalked out. “I must be getting saintly in my old age! And to think that according to Lyle her husband remains one of Darrow’s most devoted admirers!”
“Ashworth’s busy being an Army chaplain in North Africa. If he was trying to run an archdeaconry where Darrow was on the rampage, he’d soon modify his admiration, I promise you! What on
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