heaviness around the jaw, no pouches beneath the eyes, no giveaway lines around the mouth. I looked like the man I wanted to be and the image in the long glass seemed impregnable as I surveyed it in the golden evening light.
Glancing at my watch I saw the time had come for me to make my appearance downstairs. The curtain was about to rise on the stage at Starbridge, and leaving my room I headed for the wings to await my cue.
III
I had no trouble finding the drawing-room. As I descended the stairs I could hear the murmur of voices drifting towards me through the open door on the far side of the hall. A woman gave an attractive laugh, a man protested: ‘No, I’m serious! I’ve always thought Peter Pan was a most sinister story!’ and I deduced that the conversation had arisen in connection with the recent death of Sir James Barrie.
‘But Henry, you can’t possibly describe an innocent fantasy as sinister!’
‘Why not? Captain Hook reminds me of Mussolini.’
‘Everyone reminds you of Mussolini. Oh darling, I do wish you’d forget Abyssinia and look on the bright side for a change – after all, think how well we’re doing! We’ve survived the War, the Slump and the Abdication – and now that dear Mr Chamberlain’s poised to turn the country into a vast version of Birmingham with that divinely businesslike efficiency of his, I’m sure we’re all set for a rosy future!’
‘This sounds like another of Barrie’s fantasies. No wonder you enjoy Peter Pan, my dear.’
I walked into the room. The first person I saw was Miss Christie. She was standing by the French windows and looking formidably aloof. In contrast the other three occupants of the room were exuding that easy camaraderie which arises when people have enjoyed an unaffected friendship for a long time. By the fireplace stood an elderly man with a frank mild face and that air of self-confidence which can only be acquired from a lifetime spent in privileged surroundings. He was drinking a cocktail which appeared to be a dry martini. Perched on the arm of a sofa a handsome woman was also toying with a martini glass, and beyond her a plump, pretty, grey-haired little woman in a lavish lavender evening gown was selecting a water biscuit from a silver dish nearby.
Everyone turned to look at me. Miss Christie at once moved forward to make the introductions, but she was a long way away and the plump, pretty little woman forestalled her.
‘Dr Ashworth!’ she exclaimed, beaming at me. ‘How nice to see you! I hope your motor journey wasn’t too difficult but it must have helped that the weather was fine. Isn’t the weather beautiful? All the sunshine’s so good for the garden.’
I did not need to be told that I was being addressed by my hostess. ‘How do you do, Mrs Jardine,’ I said, smiling as I took her hand in mine. ‘It’s very kind of you to have me to stay.’
‘Not at all, it’s spendid for Alex to have someone clever to talk to! Now let me introduce you to everyone. Miss Christie you’ve met, of course, and here –’ she turned to the couple who had been debating Peter Pan ‘– are Lord and Lady Starmouth who have always been so kind to us ever since Alex was Vicar of St Mary’s, Mayfair. They have such a delightful house in Curzon Street and Alex stays there when he has to be up in town for the debates in the House of Lords – oh, heavens, perhaps I shouldn’t mention the Lords’ debates, especially as you’re a friend of the Archbishop’s – Lyle, am I dropping some frightful brick?’
‘Dr Ashworth,’ said Miss Christie, ‘is probably only thinking how pleasant it must be for the Bishop to stay with friends whenever he’s up in town.’
But in fact I was thinking that the good-looking Countess of Starmouth might well be one of Jardine’s ‘lovely ladies’, faithfully chaperoned by one of the gentlemen whom Jack had described as ‘boring old husbands’. However this unflattering description hardly did justice to the Earl of Starmouth who looked alert enough to be entertaining even though he might have been on the wrong side of seventy. Perhaps Lady Starmouth kept him young; I estimated that she was at least twenty years his junior.
‘My wife collects clerics,’ said Lord Starmouth to me as we shook hands. ‘She’ll collect you too if you’re not careful.’
‘I adore clergymen,’ agreed his wife with that aristocratic frankness which never fails to make the more reticent members of the middle classes cringe with embarrassment. ‘It’s the collar, of course. It makes a man seem so deliciously forbidden.’
‘What can I offer you to drink, Dr Ashworth?’ said Miss Christie, middle-class propriety well to the fore.
‘A dry sherry, please.’ No ambitious clergyman drank cocktails at episcopal dinner parties.
A young man in clerical garb bustled into the room, muttered, ‘Bother! No Bishop,’ and bustled out again.
‘Poor Gerald!’ said Mrs Jardine. ‘I really wonder sometimes whether we made the right decision when we installed a telephone. It’s so terribly hard for the chaplain when people ring up at awkward moments … Oh, here’s Willy! Come and meet my brother, Dr Ashworth.’
I was introduced to a Colonel Cobden-Smith, a hale gentleman in his sixties with a pink face, white hair and a cherubic expression. He was accompanied by his wife, a thin energetic woman who reminded me of a greyhound, and by a very large St Bernard dog who padded majestically through the room to the terrace on his way to water the flowerbeds.
‘I know nothing about theology,’ said Mrs Cobden-Smith to me as soon as we had been introduced. ‘I always say to Alex that I know nothing about theology and I don’t want to know anything either. As far as I’m concerned God’s God, the Church is the Church, the Bible’s the Bible and I can’t understand what all the arguments are about.’
‘Funny business, religion,’ mused her husband, uttering this dubious remark with such an ingenuous admiration that no clergyman could have found him offensive, and began to talk about a Buddhist monk he had met in India.
The young chaplain bustled back into the room. ‘So sorry, Mrs Jardine, but you know what the Archdeacon’s like when he rings up in a panic …’
I was introduced to Gerald Harvey. He was a short bespectacled man in his early twenties who seemed to be perpetually out of breath, and I wondered whether the Bishop of Starbridge regularly reduced his chaplain to this state of wild-eyed anxiety.
‘… and I’ve heard about your book, of course,’ he was saying, ‘but I confess I haven’t read it because all those ancient arguments about the Trinity simply make me want to tear off my dog-collar and enlist in the Foreign Legion – oh my goodness, there’s the doorbell and the Bishop’s still not down! I’d better go and see if anything’s wrong.’
He dashed away again. I was surprised that Jardine had selected such a plain, unsophisticated and clearly unintellectual chaplain, but before I could speculate on the existence of sterling virtues which would have qualified Harvey for his post, the butler announced the arrival of Mr and Mrs Frank Jennings. Jennings, I soon discovered, had just been appointed to teach dogmatics at the Theological College in the Close. He himself was unremarkable in his appearance but his wife was a pretty young blonde, and remembering Jack’s gossip I wondered how far her looks had qualified the couple for an invitation to the episcopal dinner table.
‘I found your book most stimulating,’ Jennings said to me agreeably, but before he could continue his wife exclaimed: ‘Good
