was uniform, untouched, unspoilt, a monument to faith, genius and the glory of English Perpendicular.
I drove down the North Walk with the vast sward of the churchyard on my right. On my left the ancient houses, dissimilar in style yet harmonious in their individual beauty, provided the perfect foil to the Cathedral’s splendour, and as I turned south into the East Walk I experienced that sense of time continuing, an awareness which is never more insistent than in a place where a long span of the past is visually present.
At the end of the East Walk the palace gates stood open and within seconds I was confronting the palace itself, a Victorian ‘improvement’ on the original Tudor building which had been destroyed by fire in the last century. Dr Jardine’s home was a mock-Gothic travesty built in the same pale stone as the Cathedral, but it was not unpleasing. Smooth lawns and ancient beech trees framed the house, and above the porch the arms of Starbridge were carved in the stone in a brave attempt to unite medieval custom with a wayward Victorian illusion.
Parking my car in a secluded corner of the forecourt I extracted my bag and paused to listen. The birds were singing; the leaves of the beech trees were a brilliant green against the cloudless sky; the town beyond the walls of the Close might have been a hundred miles away. Again I sensed time continuing. I was standing in twentieth-century England yet at the same time I felt a mere pace away from a past which contained the seeds of an alluring future, and suddenly I forgot the harsh realities of the present, the horror of Hitler, the agony of the Spanish Civil War, the despair of those whose lives had been ruined by the Slump. I was conscious only of my privileged good fortune as I allowed myself to be seduced by the subtle glamour of Starbridge, and running up the steps to the front door I rang the bell with all the eagerness of an actor who could barely wait for his cue to walk onstage.
The door was opened by a butler who looked like a character from a Trollope novel – a worldly version of Mr Harding, perhaps – and I stepped into a vast dark hall. Beyond some mock-Gothic furniture of varying degrees of ugliness a handsome staircase rose to the gallery. The walls were adorned with dim portraits of nineteenth-century gentlemen in clerical dress.
‘If you’d care to come this way, sir …’ The butler had already taken the bag from my hand when a woman emerged from the far end of the hall. As the butler paused at once I paused beside him, and the woman moved swiftly, smoothly, silently towards us through the shadows.
‘Dr Ashworth?’ She held out a slim hand. ‘Welcome to Starbridge. I’m Miss Christie, Mrs Jardine’s companion.’
I took her hand in mine and knew without a second’s hesitation that I wanted her.
‘I pleasantly assured him that in my belief, based on the experience of a long ministry, it would be roughly true to say of the married clergy of the Church of England that probably fifty per cent were ruined by their wives and fifty per cent were saved.’
Letters of Herbert Hensley Henson Bishop of Durham 1920–1939 ed. E. F. BRALEY.
I
No one had described Miss Christie to me, and Jack’s reference to an ice-maiden had evoked an image of a tall blonde. However Miss Christie was small, no more than five foot two, with slender ankles, a slim waist, reddish hair and black-lashed dark eyes. She also possessed high cheekbones, a delicately moulded but very firm chin and a subtle mouth which somehow reinforced this hint of a determined character while conveying an impression of sensuality. Her make-up was discreet; her grey skirt and white blouse were restrained in taste, as befitted a lady’s companion in a clerical household; I thought her alluring beyond description, and my first coherent thought was: how could he resist her? Yet I knew that this was a wild question which failed to reflect the reality of the situation. Unless he was an apostate Jardine had no choice but to resist, yet such was Miss Christie’s allure that for the first time I seriously considered the possibility of apostasy.
She showed me to my room. I managed to maintain a polite conversation as we ascended the stairs, but all the time I was thinking about Jardine in the light of what I now knew of Miss Christie. As I calmed down I dismissed the melodramatic notion of apostasy but I now began to wonder if Jardine’s inclination to form harmless friendships with good-looking women was his way of deflecting an inclination which was not harmless at all.
I roused myself from these speculations as Miss Christie led the way into a large bright room sombrely adorned with more massive Victorian furniture. Beyond the window the garden stretched downhill to the river, and on the far side of the sparkling water cows were grazing among the buttercups in the meadows. Starbridge lay east of this outmost curve of the river, and to the west the farmlands stretched across the valley to the hills.
‘What a beautiful view!’ I said as the butler deposited my bag and departed. Miss Christie had moved to the vase on top of the chest of drawers and was restoring the symmetry of the flower arrangement by adjusting an errant rose.
‘The bathroom is at the end of the corridor,’ she said, evidently finding my comment on the view too mundane to merit even a murmur of agreement. ‘Dinner is at eight but we assemble for cocktails in the drawing-room at any time after quarter-past seven. The water’s hot every evening from six o’clock onwards. I trust you have everything you require, Dr Ashworth, but if by any chance something’s been forgotten do please ring the bell by your bedside.’
I thanked her. She gave a brief formal smile and the next moment I was alone.
There was a bible placed on the bedside table to remind visitors that despite the grandeur of their surroundings they were in a clerical household, and in an effort to distract my mind from the temptation to meander down carnal byways I opened the pages in search of an edifying quotation. However this random dip produced only Ezekiel’s diatribe against the harlot. Still thinking of Miss Christie I ploughed forward into the New Testament and eventually found myself lingering on the text: ‘For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.’
That seemed like a good omen for an espionage agent. I closed the bible. Then after visiting the regal lavatory, which remained as a sumptuous memorial to Victorian plumbing, I unpacked my bag and sat down with my prayer book to read the evening office.
II
When I closed my prayer book the time was half-past six. I stripped, washed at the basin to erase all trace of my journey, and decided to shave. I did not usually shave twice a day but I wanted to appear thoroughly well groomed, not only to impress Miss Christie but to impress the Bishop. I sensed Jardine might have strong views on the obligation of a clergyman to present a neat appearance to the world; he himself had been very smart, very dapper, when I had encountered him in Cambridge eight months ago.
The evening was warm and the prospect of encasing myself in my formal clerical clothes was not appealing but naturally I had no choice other than to martyr myself in the name of convention. I spent some time in front of the glass as I coaxed my hair to lie flat. I have curly hair which I keep short, but it has wayward tendencies which water can rarely subdue for long. However I never use hair oil. It makes me look like a bounder, and I was always unaccountably nervous in case my appearance reflected the wrong image in the mirror.
Yet that evening I found my reflection reassuring. Here was no bounder, no shady character from a modern ‘shocker’, but a clergyman who was thirty-seven and looked younger. Playing squash and tennis had curbed
