in that empty landscape, and seemed to bring the remote past deep into the present. I felt as if the Druids were brushing shoulders with Karl Barth as one bloodstained century merged into another in defiance of any conventional conception of time.
‘This seems an appropriate place to discuss mysteries,’ I said, ‘and particularly the mystery of personality. Let’s sit down for a moment.’
When we were chastely settled two feet apart in the shadow of one of the stones I offered her a cigarette. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘Only in my bedroom. But if you’re going to have a treat I don’t see why I shouldn’t have one too.’
‘You look like the kind of woman who smokes “Craven A”.’
‘Oh, so you see me as an adventuress!’
‘Let’s just say I have trouble seeing you as a companion in a clerical household.’ As I lit our cigarettes I noticed that her hands were small and that the large signet-ring emphasized the delicate curve of her finger. The skin on the inside of her wrist was very white.
‘Are you sure you’re not going to pounce on me again?’ she said after her first puff. ‘You’ve got a pounce-ish look.’
‘That’s because you’re so pounce-worthy. Now stop egging me on by putting impure thoughts in my head and tell me more about this Swedish stepmother. I’m interested in the influence she must have had on Dr Jardine.’
III
‘I first met her at Radbury,’ said Lyle. ‘She visited the Jardines there a couple of times, but then travel became too difficult because of her arthritis. The Bishop used to visit her in Putney whenever he could but I myself never saw her again until she came to live with us in Starbridge at the end of her life.’
‘It’s nice to think she ended her days with her Adam in his palace.’
‘Another edifying tale? Yes, I suppose it was, although the situation wasn’t entirely a bed of roses because poor Carrie was terrified of her stepmother-in-law. However,’ said Lyle, effortlessly glossing over the crisis which had shaken the palace to its foundations, ‘we all got on very well in the end. Old Mrs J. had decided that God was giving her a chance to redeem her previous coldness towards Carrie.’
‘She was religious?’
‘Yes, she’d been a Lutheran originally, like so many Swedes, but she’d been married to a man who thought institutional religion was rubbish, so she hadn’t been a regular churchgoer.’
‘But I thought Dr Jardine’s father was a religious fanatic!’
‘The fanaticism took an anti-clerical form. He thought all clergymen were instruments of the Devil.’
‘How extraordinarily difficult for Dr Jardine!’
‘Being married to a religious crank was hardly easy for old Mrs J.!’
‘Did she confide in you? It sounds as if she did.’
‘Yes, she enjoyed telling a sympathetic stranger about all the ghastliness she’d endured in the old days so that “her Adam”, as you called him, should survive his appalling home. Her first big battle was to get him to school. Old Mr J. thought schools were sinks of iniquity.’
‘He certainly sounds the most tiresome husband. Did she never consider abandoning Putney and bolting for Sweden? Or did her religious beliefs, such as they were, make an escape out of the question?’
‘There’s no doubt religious belief played a large part in her decision to stay – she became convinced she’d been sent into the family in order to save that child. “I felt it was a call from God,” she said. “I felt no other action was possible.”’
‘But surely once Dr Jardine was grown up – once he’d got to Oxford –’
‘Then the really ghastly problems began. The scholarship only covered his fees, and the beastly old father wouldn’t give him any money for his keep. Old Mrs J. used to starve herself so that she could send money from her housekeeping allowance – the old man only climbed down when she was half-dead with hunger.’
I said amazed, ‘But wasn’t the old man pleased that his son was up at Oxford?’
‘He thought all universities were dens of vice. However the Bishop survived and was awarded not only a first but a fellowship of All Soul’s –’
‘Happy ending!’
‘Good heavens, no – quite the reverse! Old Mr J. then said, “I’ve kept you all these years – now it’s time for you to keep me!” and it turned out that as he’d been living beyond his means for years while he pursued a life of gentlemanly idleness, his capital was now exhausted.’
‘What an old scoundrel! So Dr Jardine had to keep the family on the income from his fellowship?’
‘Yes, for a time he didn’t think he could afford to go into the Church but eventually he made the decision to be ordained –’
‘– and of course the old man disapproved.’
‘I gather the two of them nearly killed each other.’
I said appalled, ‘But couldn’t the old man see his son was opting for a good straight decent life?’
‘Oh, he never thought his son would succeed in living decently, no matter what profession he chose. The old man saw him sinking inevitably into corruption.’
‘But this must have been terrible for Dr Jardine!’ I was now having trouble finding the words to express my horror, and Lyle was looking at me in surprise. ‘Terrible – monstrous – intolerable –’
‘It got worse. The Bishop became vicar of the slum parish in Starmouth, and as he was unable to afford to marry and as he desperately needed a housekeeper he turned for help to his father, who was sitting in Putney being waited on hand and foot by a wife and two unmarried daughters. However old Mr J. refused to let either of the girls go to look after their brother. He had an obsession with female purity and thought they’d be ravished the moment they left his household.’
‘But surely if the Bishop was supporting them all he had the whip-hand?’
‘The old man still wouldn’t budge. Said he’d rather starve than risk his daughters becoming fallen women.’
‘Didn’t the girls have any say in the matter?’
‘Don’t be silly, this was well before the War and he’d ruled them with a rod of iron for years!’
‘No wonder one sister went mad!’
‘Mrs J. thought she’d go mad herself, but of course she came to the rescue. She said to the old villain, “If you won’t let either of those girls go, I’ll go”, and when he still clung to the girls she went.’
I dropped my cigarette and scuffled to retrieve it before it could burn a hole in my trousers. ‘But how
