style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I’m hardly delirious with amusement myself.’
‘Obviously you see me as a rival, but I assure you –’
‘Don’t bother. I’m not in the mood for hypocrisy.’
‘What’s this – a nursery tantrum? I’ve never seen such an unedifying exhibition of jealousy in all my life!’
‘And I’ve never seen such a plausible performance of a holy man devoid of ambition, but my dear Jonathan, just answer me this: has it never occurred to you that for a holy man devoid of ambition you seem to be carving out a quite remarkably successful career?’
I turned my back on him and walked away.
X
It is a relief to record that this disgraceful scene was not repeated; no doubt Francis was afterwards as ashamed of our hostile exchange as I was, and when we met again he even took the initiative in apologizing for the incident.
I paid six more visits to London before I was transferred to Grantchester, and each time Father Darcy pitted us against each other in debate, dragged our antipathy into the open and, in a metaphorical sense, rubbed our noses in the mess to discourage us from further antagonism. I was reminded of how one house-trains a cat. In the end Francis and I were so chastened by this remorseless spiritual purging that we almost became friends, but I never felt I knew him well. My psychic faculty, blunted by the antipathy which we both learnt to master but not erase, was dead in his presence. I received no insights which would have offered me the key to his character, nor could I perceive the texture of his spiritual life. Our debates had revealed his powerful intellect, but I came to the conclusion that although he was intellectually able he was spiritually limited and that this fact lay at the root of his jealousy. He was quite intelligent enough to know his limitations, more than intelligent enough to conceal them whenever possible and certainly human enough to resent a man who displayed the gifts he secretly coveted but knew he would never attain. He was also, I soon realized, deeply envious of the effortless psychic understanding which existed between Father Darcy and myself, and when I realized how much he depended on our mentor’s approbation I found myself driven to question the propriety of their relationship.
Father-son relationships are as forbidden in the cloister as the notorious ‘particular friendships’ which prurient laymen find so titillating, but I thought that Father Darcy, in characteristic fashion, might be riding roughshod over the rules in order to give Francis some form of psychological security which could prove beneficial to his character. I was not jealous. I had no desire whatsoever that Father Darcy should treat me as a son; I had a tough enough time surviving his attentions as a spiritual director. But I did wonder if Father Darcy were taking an unwise risk, and I wondered too, as time passed, if he were using Francis to gratify some immaculately concealed emotional need.
I knew I was of intense interest to Father Darcy but the interest was essentially detached; I was just the parlourmaid’s son who had presented him with the challenge of a monastic lifetime but who could nonetheless be kept at arm’s length in Yorkshire. But Francis was the man from his own class with whom he could feel at ease, the man who had to be transferred to London not merely to supervise the Order’s financial affairs but to keep the Abbot-General company in his old age. Such a situation was all very comfortable for Father Darcy, but was it good for Francis? I often considered this question but could never answer it with any degree of confidence. Perhaps Francis needed this special attention in order to make the most of those limited spiritual gifts. It was possible. With Father Darcy any bizarre monastic situation was possible – as I realized all too clearly when he lay on his deathbed and declared that his successor must be a man who could tell vintage claret from Vin ordinaire’.
Francis took care to say to me afterwards: ‘I’d like to think that despite the old man’s appalling final antics we can somehow contrive to be friends.’
‘Of course. Why not?’ I said equably before retreating to my cell to seethe with rage.
‘I fear I shall still worry in the future about you and Francis,’ confessed Aidan to me after the funeral, but I only answered with all my most fatal arrogance: ‘I can’t imagine any difficulty arising which can’t be easily resolved.’
Less than two months later I received my summons to London and I travelled there in the knowledge that I was deep in difficulties which were incapable of an easy resolution. Moreover after years of rivalry Francis now had me where he wanted me: in a position which was utterly subject to his will.
It was a bitter pill to swallow.
XI
Journeying beyond the walls of one’s cloister was always a disturbing experience – I shall never forget my first journey from Ruydale to London when I encountered the amazingly exposed legs of two flappers on the train – and now I found myself more disturbed than ever. But this time I barely noticed the female passengers. I was too busy reading The Times. It seemed the French had collapsed; Pétain had ordered a cessation of the fighting and was in touch with the Nazi command. For weeks the countries of Europe had been falling to the Nazis and now after the collapse of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium it appeared that France too had been conquered. Without the French we would be quite alone. More than fifteen hundred years of Christian culture hung by a thread and the Devil’s breath was hot upon our necks.
I found myself thinking that the chaos in the world mirrored the chaos in my psyche. I saw my career as a monk hanging by a thread, and as I forced myself to acknowledge that my vision could have been a delusion I was aware of the demonic menace which always had the power to annihilate me. A second later I was trying to recover my equilibrium by telling myself I should put my trust in God, but the trouble was, as I well knew, I was quite unable to put my trust in Francis Ingram.
Unless I wanted to be judged an apostate I could not leave the Order without his permission, and that meant my entire future rested on his ability to exercise the charism of the discernment of spirits, the gift from God which enabled a man to perceive whether a situation was divinely or diabolically inspired. Francis, as I had long since decided, was spiritually limited. This did not mean he was incapable of exercising the charism of discernment, for with God’s grace even the most unlikely people can display charismatic powers, but it did mean that I had ample opportunity to worry about how far he was capable of placing himself in God’s hands so that he might act as a channel for the Holy Spirit. Francis was a clever, cunning, efficient, ambitious, jealous, charming and outwardly devout monk. But was he a good one? I found I could derive no reassurance from reflecting that Father Darcy would hardly have willed the Order to a monk who was merely a first-class administrator. Sickness had undermined Father Darcy’s powers at the end of his life, and it was more than possible that in a moment of weakness he had given way to the temptation to leave the Order not to the best monk he ever trained but to the best son he never had.
These lowering thoughts occupied me throughout my journey on the underground railway from Liverpool Street Station to Marble Arch. Then I pulled myself together as best I could, gathered up a few scattered shreds of faith and trudged north through the brilliant June sunshine to the townhouse which had once belonged to the Order’s founder, Mr Horatio Ford.
XII
‘My dear Jonathan, how wan you look!’ said Francis in his most theatrical voice as I entered the room where he conducted his daily business. ‘But then the news in this morning’s Times is enough to make anyone blanche. I confess I’m seriously tempted to buy a wireless in order to hear Mr Churchill’s broadcast
