Glittering Images. Susan Howatch

back at Miss Christie but she had already reached the practical decision that it was now less awkward to accept the invitation than to refuse it. She said politely: ‘Thank you. A drive would be very pleasant,’ and then she escaped past the Bishop into the drawing-room where the butler had just deposited a large jug of lemonade.

      ‘It’s abominably hot, isn’t it?’ said Jardine as I watched both the butler and Miss Christie disappear into the hall. ‘Carrie, you look on the verge of sunstroke. Come in at once.’

      ‘I feel so odd, Alex –’

      ‘I propose we launch an immediate assault on the iced lemonade.’

      The shade of the drawing-room came as an exquisite relief, but as Mrs Jardine sat down on the edge of the sofa I noticed the nervous movements of her hands and sensed her tension more strongly than ever.

      ‘Well, Dr Ashworth!’ said Jardine, passing a glass of lemonade to his wife and holding out a second glass to me. ‘Do I assume that the glories of the Cathedral library left you cold? As far as I can gather you’ve spent the morning talking to one attractive woman and you now propose to spend the afternoon talking to another.’

      I said with a smile, ‘Having spent well over an hour admiring the glories of the Cathedral library, I felt entitled to spend far less than an hour –’

      ‘– admiring the glories of Lady Starmouth. Quite.’ The Bishop was taking care to sound amused but I sensed his amusement was wafer-thin and I began to feel uneasy.

      ‘But I thought you were talking to Amy, not Lady Starmouth!’ said Mrs Jardine to me. She sounded abnormally confused.

      ‘Oh, Dr Ashworth’s been talking to just about everyone!’ said the Bishop, and I could now clearly hear the acid note in his voice. ‘He seems to be suffering from an ungovernable urge to display the gregarious side of his nature!’

      ‘He hasn’t been talking to me,’ said Colonel Cobden-Smith entering the room as I began to wonder if Lady Starmouth had lodged a complaint about my interrogation.

      ‘That’s because you’ve been exercising that unfortunate hound in this appalling heat and offering yourself as a candidate for a heart attack – and now I suppose you’ll say you want a pink gin!’

      ‘The heat’s so bad for everyone,’ said Mrs Jardine in an agony of anxiety before the Colonel could reply. ‘I’m sure there’s going to be a storm, but according to the weather forecast –’

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carrie!’ exclaimed the Bishop in a paroxysm of irritability. ‘Stop talking about the weather!’

      Mrs Jardine began to cry.

      ‘Ye gods and little fishes,’ muttered Jardine as the Colonel and I stood transfixed, and yelled at the top of his voice: ‘Lyle!’

      In walked Miss Christie. It was almost as if she had been waiting in the wings for her cue.

      ‘Lyle, Carrie can’t take this heat. Do something, would you?’ said the Bishop, and stooping awkwardly over his wife he kissed her before murmuring, ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Darling,’ said Miss Christie to Mrs Jardine, ‘you must drink all your lemonade at once and then you’ll feel better. It’s very important to take lots of liquid in hot weather.’

      Jardine remarked: ‘Maybe I should take lemonade regularly to prevent irascibility after an arid morning in my study. I’ve just been reading the latest crop of letters on the Marriage Bill from people who think I was the clergyman in charge of Edward VIII’s wedding, and I’m now wishing more fervently than ever that my deplorable namesake had been called by any name other than Jardine.’

      This was a skilful attempt to manipulate the conversation back within the bounds of normality, but before a more relaxed atmosphere could be established Mrs Cobden-Smith swept in. ‘Willy, George won’t eat that horsemeat. Do you suppose – oh my goodness, what’s going on? Carrie dear, you simply must make more effort! I know the heat’s trying, but –’

      ‘Amy,’ said the Bishop, ‘would you kindly stop addressing my wife as if she were an Indian peasant ripe for civilization by the British Raj?’

      ‘Well, really, Alex!’

      ‘Mrs Cobden-Smith,’ said Miss Christie with unprecedented charm, ‘I wonder if you’d be terribly kind and help me take Carrie upstairs to lie down? You must have had such a broad experience of heatstroke in India and I’d so value your advice – should we call the doctor?’

      ‘Quite unnecessary,’ said Mrs Cobden-Smith, greatly mollified, ‘but perhaps she does need to lie down. Come along, Carrie.’

      The chaplain then chose an unfortunate moment to rush into the room with bad news. ‘Bishop, the Archdeacon’s on the phone again and he’s in a frightful panic!’

      ‘Oh, hang the Archdeacon!’ exploded the Bishop. ‘And hang that abominable instrument the telephone!’ But he seized the chance to make a swift exit from the chaos caused by his irritability.

      VI

      I was surprised how quickly order was restored. Coaxed by Miss Christie, Mrs Jardine drank all her lemonade and said she felt better. The Starmouths arrived, and while they debated what to drink I could hear the Cobden-Smiths discussing George who presently made a lacklustre entrance. Miss Christie summoned the butler to replenish the lemonade jug, but before I had the chance to speak to her about our outing four guests appeared from various corners of the diocese and all opportunity for private conversation was curtailed.

      Lunch passed smoothly if tediously. I busied myself by being sociable with a large matron whose favourite topic of conversation was the Mothers’ Union, and although Miss Christie never looked in my direction I occasionally caught Lady Starmouth’s sympathetic glance across the table.

      However, by half-past two the party had dispersed and I was preparing in my bedroom for a country excursion far removed from a clerical duty. Off came my clergyman’s uniform. Having pulled on my coolest informal clothes I unbuttoned my shirt at the neck, adjusted the angle of my hat and once more turned to survey my image in the long glass. Immediately I wondered if I had gone too far with the informality; I fancied I looked like a commercial traveller taking a rest from hawking some dubious product, but when I decided to wear a tie I felt much too hot. Shoving the tie back in the drawer I undid the top button of my shirt again and made up my mind that I looked exactly what I was: an off-duty clergyman about to take a pretty woman for a drive in the country.

      But then I looked in the glass and saw the spy beyond the clergyman, the image beyond the image, and beyond the spy was yet another man, the image beyond the image beyond the image. Reality blurred; fantasy and truth became inextricably intertwined. I told myself I had imagined the distant stranger but as I felt my personality begin to divide I covered my face with my hands.

      Sinking to my knees by the bed I whispered: ‘Lord, forgive me my sins. Deliver me from evil. Help me to serve you as well as I can.’ After that I felt calmer, and when I glanced again in the glass I found that the off-duty clergyman was now the only visible image. He was wearing a severe expression as if to stress that I had no business to let the heat addle my brain, and immediately erasing all morbid thoughts from my mind, I set off to meet Miss Christie.

       FIVE

      ‘Experience has made it certain that the clergyman’s wife must either throw in her lot unreservedly with her husband’s difficult and distinctive career, and reap her reward with a range and depth of personal influence which are unequalled in the case of any other married woman, or she must separate herself from his work and life with consequences ruinous both to his success and to her own credit, and, we must add, to the happiness of both.’

      HERBERT