should I, but why are you on your own?’
‘Charley’s busy with his father.’
‘Mrs Ashworth was telling me about yours. I hear he’s very old.’
‘Yes, but he’s okay.’
‘How old is “old” exactly?’
‘He’ll be eighty-three in May. But he’s okay.’
‘Compos mentis?’
‘Yep.’
‘Super! I often think my father’s mad as a hatter. Is your father able to do much?’
‘Yep. He prays.’
‘Ah. All the time?’
‘No, he does see people occasionally.’
‘He sounds like a hermit!’
‘He is a hermit. But he doesn’t mind me being with him because we don’t have to talk.’
I suddenly realised I was gazing at him as if he were a creature from another planet. ‘How restful!’ I said, not sure what to say. ‘My father’s the very reverse of a silent hermit!’
‘He might become one later. My father only became a recluse after my mother died.’ He turned abruptly towards the nave. ‘So long.’
‘When are we due to meet again?’
He shrugged and walked away.
I gazed after him in fascination. Then heaving open the massive door in the south transept I passed at last into the cloisters.
VIII
In the centre of the quadrangle lay the lawn beneath which in previous centuries the eminent men of Starbridge had been buried, and overshadowing this ancient graveyard an enormous cedar tree towered above the roof of the colonnade. There was a faint breeze. The cedar’s dark upper branches were stirring against the pale, limpid sky.
I was still gazing at this tranquil scene when the door creaked behind me and Aysgarth slipped out of the transept. Unlike Dr Ashworth he had entirely rejected the archaic uniform of a senior churchman, but perhaps that was less because he wanted to be modern than because his thickset figure was unsuited to fancy dress. On that evening he was wearing a black suit, slightly crumpled, and the black clerical ‘stock’ which was worn over an ordinary shirt and secured by ties at the back beneath the jacket. He had no pectoral cross; he belonged to the generation of Protestant churchmen who thought such papist adornment pardonable only when adopted by bishops. His hair, perhaps disarranged when he had removed his surplice after the service, swooped wildly over his ears in undisciplined wings and bumped against the back of his stiff white clerical collar. He looked like an eccentric scientist who has just made an important discovery.
‘Let’s go and sit on Lady Mary Calthrop-Ponsonby!’ he suggested blithely as I moved to meet him.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Dean?’
With a laugh he led the way to a wooden seat on the northwestern corner of the lawn, and as I drew closer I saw that the back of the seat bore a brass plaque inscribed: ‘In memory of Lady Mary Calthrop-Ponsonby, 12th February 1857–8th November 1941. “FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT WITH ALL THY MIGHT.”’
‘Three cheers for Lady Mary,’ I said as we sat down, and told him how I had decided to abandon London in search of a new life. ‘… and I’ve now reached the point where I’m trying to decide what to do next,’ I concluded. ‘Mrs Ashworth thinks I should go to Oxford, park myself on Christian and Katie and wangle my way into their set, but I’m not sure I have the nerve to exploit them so brazenly.’
‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay with Christian and Katie for a few days while you decide if Oxford has anything to offer you, but I can’t quite see why Lyle is pointing you in that direction.’
‘She thinks I’d enjoy mixing with an intellectual jeunesse dorée.’
‘On the contrary I think you’d soon be bored stiff with all those academics.’
‘Would I? Are you sure? I just feel that if only I could get in with the right set –’
‘In my experience right sets tend to be much too fast.’
‘When one’s been crawling along like a tortoise, Mr Dean, the idea of pace begins to seem attractive.’
He laughed. ‘Was London really that bad?’
‘Yes, it really was. I’ve been a failure there. Don’t just tell me to go back and try again.’
‘Very well, let’s be more imaginative. This could be a great opportunity for you, Venetia! A fresh start is always a great opportunity, but you should remember that happiness isn’t ultimately dependent on getting in with the right set; it’s about serving God by using your God-given gifts in the best possible way.’
‘I only seem to have a God-given gift for drifting in and out of boring jobs.’
‘It’s obvious that you haven’t yet found your métier, and in my opinion pondering on the right métier, not choosing which city to live in, should actually be your number one concern at the moment. You need to escape to somewhere very quiet and very remote for a few days so that you can ponder in peace and see your situation in perspective … Come on holiday with me after Easter!’
I nearly fell off Lady Mary. ‘What a breathtaking suggestion!’
He laughed again before adding: ‘Dido’s not coming but Eddie’s accompanying me and Primrose is joining us twenty-four hours later. Come up on the Wednesday after Easter with Primrose!’
‘Where’s “up”?’
‘The Outer Hebrides.’
‘IS there an Outer Hebrides?’
‘Apparently. The new Earl of Starmouth has very kindly lent me his hunting-lodge on Harris.’
‘Don’t Elizabeth and Pip want to go?’
‘Dido’s taking them to her sister in Leicestershire where they’ll ride horses with her and be blissfully happy.’
‘Chacun à son goût,’ I said. ‘Personally I’d rather live it up in a Caledonian Shangri-La.’
‘My sentiments exactly!’ said Aysgarth, and as he smiled I suddenly wondered if he, like me, was seizing the chance to escape from intractable private problems.
‘What is most real to you? What matters most for you? Is it money and what money can buy? I doubt it, deep down. For you know that you can’t take it with you”. And seldom does it bring real happiness.
