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‘No, I’ve got a hefty income because I came into money from both my godmothers when I was twenty-one. Maybe that’s part of the problem? If I were penniless –’
‘– you’d hate it. I did. Now let’s consider your situation carefully –’
‘I don’t have a situation, Mrs Ashworth, I just have a non-event.’ The words suddenly began to stream out of my mouth. ‘I want to live – I mean live – I want to swill gin and chat about philosophy with a gang of brilliant people and smooch with handsome men and dance till dawn and burn the candle at both ends, but all I get are boring nine-to-five jobs, social events where I’m an embarrassing failure, no love-life and evenings spent swilling gin on my own while listening to Radio Luxemburg. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I did belong to a gang of clever people but they were all girls. Here I am, bursting to join in the Great Party of Life yet confined to the margins by my utter lack of sex appeal, and it’s awful, Mrs Ashworth, absolutely awful, so utterly vile and unfair –’
‘But anyone,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘can have sex appeal. It’s simply an attitude of mind.’
I stared at her. She gave me a sphinx-like smile. Enrapt I tried to speak but failed.
‘It’s all a question of confidence,’ said my heroine, flicking ash from her cigarette casually into the nearby tray, ‘and in your case it would be confidence in your appearance. You want to be able to walk into a room and think: I’m glamour personified – how lucky all those men are to see me!’
‘But I’m not beautiful!’
‘Neither was Cleopatra.’
‘Yes, but she was Queen of Egypt –’
‘– and she made the most of it. That’s what you have to do too – make the most of your assets. Stand up for a moment.’
I stood up.
‘Revolve.’
I revolved.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Ashworth tranquilly, waving her cigarette to indicate I could sit down again, ‘it’s all very simple. Wear plain, tailored clothes which emphasise your waist and hips. Never wear flat shoes even though you happen to be tallish. Favour V-necks to distract the masculine eye from your shoulders and take care not to stoop – that only makes the shoulders more noticeable. And grow your hair.’
‘Grow it? But Mrs Ashworth, I’ll turn into a sort of yak!’
‘Nonsense, men adore the Pre-Raphaelite look. Oh, and go to a beauty salon and get advice on make-up. You have the most beautiful eyes. Make them a focal point.’
‘But do you really think that if I do all this –’
‘That’s just the beginning. Then you must plot how to get in with a crowd of clever, interesting people by exploiting a clever, interesting person who’s already known to you. How about Christian Aysgarth? You can’t be much younger than his wife.’
‘Well, yes, I do know Christian and Katie, but –’
‘Splendid! They’re your passport to your new life. Don’t linger in dull old Starbridge. Seek that room you want in Oxford and wangle your way into Christian’s set.’
‘But Christian just sees me as one of Primrose’s gang of virgin spinsters!’
‘He won’t when you arrive in Oxford flaunting glamorous eye make-up and Pre-Raphaelite hair. I think that you and Primrose,’ said Mrs Ashworth, careful in her choice of words, ‘may have reached the parting of the ways.’ Before I could comment she was adding with regret: ‘I wish I could invite you to stay tonight, but thanks to Nicholas and our visiting American bishop, we’ve got a full house.’
I said with curiosity: ‘What’s Nick’s connection with your family?’
‘His father and Charles have known each other for many years, and since Jon Darrow’s now very old Charles likes to keep a paternal eye on Nicholas to make sure he’s all right.’
‘Isn’t there a mother?’
‘She died. There’s a half-brother in London –’
‘The actor.’
‘That’s right – and there was a half-sister, but she’s dead now too and Nicholas never had much in common with her children.’
‘He’s very …’ I tried to find the right word but could only produce a banality ‘… unusual.’
‘Yes, isn’t he? Sometimes I think he needs a substitute mother, but I never feel my maternal instinct can stretch far enough to take him on – although I must say, my maternal instinct seems to have stretched out of sight during this conversation! I seem to have forgotten I’m a bishop’s wife. Instead of advising you to vamp the intellectuals of Oxford I should be telling you to get a job at the diocesan office and help me with my charity work in your spare time!’
I laughed but before I could reply the front door banged far away in the hall. ‘That’ll be either Charles or our American bishop,’ said Mrs Ashworth, rising to her feet, ‘and let’s hope it’s Charles. I do like Americans, but all that sunny-natured purring’s so exhausting.’
‘Darling!’ shouted the Bishop downstairs.
‘Coo-ee!’ called Mrs Ashworth with relief, and added indulgently to me: ‘Isn’t he funny? He so often arrives home and shouts: “Darling!” like that. It’s as if he has no idea what to do next and is waiting for instructions.’
In walked the Bishop, looking like a film star in a costume melodrama. The old episcopal uniform of apron, gaiters and frock-coat, so suitable for the eighteenth-century bishops who had had to ride around their dioceses on horseback, was finally giving way to more modern attire, but for his official engagement that afternoon Dr Ashworth had decided to be conservative, and he looked well in his swashbuckling uniform. He was two years older than Aysgarth, but like his wife he appeared younger – not much younger, perhaps, but he could still have passed for a man on the right side of sixty.
‘How are your parents?’ he said to me agreeably after the greetings had been exchanged.
‘Seething. I’ve just left home and embarked on a new life.’
He gave me his charming smile but it failed to reach the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he was trying to decide whether I could be classified as ‘wayward’ or ‘lost’ or even ‘fallen’. Smoothly he fell back on his erudition. ‘This sounds like a case of metanoia!’ he remarked. ‘By which I mean –’
‘I know what it means. The Dean told me. It’s a turning away from one’s old life and the beginning of a new one.’
‘In Christ,’ said the Bishop casually, as if correcting an undergraduate who had made an error in a tutorial. ‘I hope the Dean didn’t forget to mention Christ, but these liberal-radicals nowadays seem to be capable of anything.’ He turned to his wife and added: ‘I lost count of the times I was asked about Honest to God this afternoon. People were deeply upset. It’s a pity Robinson wasn’t there to see the results of his ill-informed, half-baked radicalism.’
‘I thought Robinson was supposed to be a conservative,’ I said. ‘After all, he wasn’t invited to contribute to Soundings, was he?’
The Bishop looked startled. ‘Who’s been talking to you of Soundings?’
‘The Dean was very enthusiastic when the book was published.’
‘I’d have more confidence in Stephen’s bold espousal of the views contained in these controversial books if I knew he was a trained theologian,’ said Dr Ashworth. ‘However, as we all know, he read Greats, not Theology, when he was up at Oxford.’
‘But since he’s been a clergyman for almost forty years,’ I said, ‘don’t you think he might have picked up a little theology somewhere along the way?’
The Bishop was clearly not accustomed to being answered back by a young female who had never even been to a university. Possibly he was unaccustomed to being answered back by anyone. He took a moment to recover from the shock but then said suavely enough: ‘Good point! But perhaps I might draw a parallel here with the legal profession. Barristers and solicitors are all qualified lawyers, but when a knotty legal problem arises the solicitors refer the matter to the barristers, the experts, in order to obtain the best advice.’
‘Well, I’m afraid I must now leave you to your expertise,’ I said politely, rising to my feet, ‘and descend from the mountain top of the South Canonry to the valley of the Deanery.’ I turned to my hostess. Thanks so much for the tea and sympathy, Mrs Ashworth.’
‘Drop in again soon,’ said my heroine with a smile, ‘and if there’s anything I can do, just let me know.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said the Bishop, suddenly becoming pastoral. ‘If there’s anything we can do –’
‘I’ll see you out, Venetia,’ said his wife, and led the way downstairs to the hall. As she opened the front door she added: ‘You won’t want to lug your suitcases to the Deanery – I’ll ask Charley to bring them over later in the car.’
I thanked her before saying anxiously: ‘I do hope I didn’t upset the Bishop when I answered back.’
‘My dear, he was enthralled! Such a delightful change for him to meet someone who doesn’t treat him as a sacred object on a pedestal.’ She looked at me thoughtfully with her cool dark eyes before musing: ‘Maybe you’ve been concentrating on the wrong age-group; very few young men have the self-assurance or the savoir-faire to cope with clever women. Try looking for something intelligent, well-educated and pushing forty.’
‘It’ll be either married or peculiar.’
‘Not necessarily … Didn’t I hear a rumour once that Eddie Hoffenberg was rather smitten with you?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mrs Ashworth – I’d rather die a virgin spinster!’
Mrs Ashworth merely smiled her enigmatic smile and said: ‘Do keep in touch.’
I drifted away down the drive towards the Deanery.
V
Eddie Hoffenberg emerged from the Deanery just as I approached the front door, so there was no possibility of avoiding him. My father had once referred to him as ‘Aysgarth’s poodle – that bloody Hun,’ but my father, who had lost his best friends in the First War, was notorious for his anti-German sentiment. Other people, less outspoken than my father, were content to regard Eddie with a polite antipathy. ‘It’s my cross,’ Eddie would say with gloomy relish, and sometimes he would even add: ‘Suffering is good for the soul.’
‘It’s clergymen like Eddie Hoffenberg,’ I had said once to Primrose, ‘who make Christianity look like an exercise in masochism.’
‘It’s Germans like Eddie Hoffenberg,’ said Primrose, ‘who encourage the belief that we were doing them a favour by trying to kill them in the war.’
However although there was no denying that Eddie was a German, he was hardly typical of Hitler’s so-called master race, and the fact that he had eventually acquired British citizenship marked him out as a very unusual German indeed. He was tall, bald and bespectacled; his faintly Semitic cast of features had caused him to be bullied by Aryan monsters in the Nazi army, but since he had no Jewish blood in him, this experience had provided him with additional evidence that he was doomed to special suffering. Fortunately his army career had been brief. In 1944 at the age of twenty he had been captured by the British in Normandy, imported to England and dumped in a prison camp on Starbury Plain. Two weeks later Aysgarth, then Archdeacon of Starbridge, had paid a pastoral visit to the camp and naturally Eddie had been quite unable to resist the opportunity to moan to him about how awful life was.
It was not difficult to understand why Eddie had chosen to adopt Aysgarth as a hero, but it was far harder to understand why Aysgarth had chosen to return Eddie’s devotion. ‘Aysgarth has five sons,’ my father remarked once to my mother. Why should he want to play the father to a Teutonic disaster who’s perpetually encased in gloom?’ My mother had no answer, but Primrose eventually produced an explanation. ‘Eddie changed Father’s life,’ she told me. ‘It was Eddie who wrote to Bishop Bell and said how wonderful Father was with the POWs, and since that letter led to Father’s vital friendship with Bell, Father can’t help being sentimental about Eddie and regarding him as a mascot.’
Eddie came from Dresden, which had been devastated by fire-bombing in 1945– None of his family had survived. After the war he had quickly reached the decision that he had to begin a new life elsewhere, and when he thought of the one friend he still possessed he sought Aysgarth’s help. Aysgarth encouraged him to be a clergyman. Eddie had been a Lutheran once, but that was in the old, vanished life. Once Aysgarth had extracted the necessary money from the new Anglo-German Churchmen’s Fellowship, Eddie began his studies at the Starbridge Theological College and spent his holidays with the Aysgarths in London.
Ordination as a clergyman of the Church of England followed and a curacy was squeezed out of a Westminster parish. (A German was lucky to get any job in Westminster, but the Bishop of London caved in after Aysgarth and Bell staged a joint assault.) When Aysgarth became Dean of Starbridge he at once approached the new bishop on Eddie’s behalf, and Dr Ashworth, striving to exercise a Christian spirit after his own years as a POW, proved unwilling to make any move which could be construed as anti-German. Possibly he also saw the chance of unloading his current diocesan problem, a seedy Starbridge parish in the area of the city known as Langley Bottom where there was a run-down Victorian monster of a church, an equally run-down Victorian monster of a vicarage and a working-class congregation of twenty.
Eddie the masochist embraced this challenge with zest. Having been trained at the Starbridge Theological College in its Ango-Catholic heyday under Nick’s father Jonathan Darrow, he had no hesitation in resorting to the most florid ritualism (traditionally popular among the religious members of the working classes), and before long the parish was rising from the dead. Consolidating his success Eddie slaved on, organising clubs, running Bible classes, raising money. The parishioners, who had at first regarded him with suspicion, came to the conclusion they preferred the attentions of a foreigner, even a German foreigner, to the ministrations of some toffee-nosed English gentleman who had been educated at a public school. (The plebs are such dreadful snobs.) Eddie flourished. The parish boomed. The Bishop was both amazed and admiring. When a residentiary canonry at last fell vacant at the Cathedral, he had no objection to Aysgarth’s suggestion that Eddie’s talents should now be employed in a more elevated sphere, and so Eddie became a canon, working hard at his Chapter duties and beavering away on various diocesan committees. He had arrived. Franz Eduard Hoffenberg, that pathetic young German prisoner of war, had been transformed into a pillar of the English ecclesiastical establishment. All he now had to do was live happily ever after.
Of course being Eddie he remained gloomy but it was impossible for him to dispute that his life was now very comfortable. He had a snug little house in the Close, a surrogate family, the Aysgarths, a reasonable income and a pleasant amount of prestige. No one was surprised when he made a success of the canonry. Discarding without difficulty the Anglo-Catholic trappings which he had used to conquer Langley Bottom, he fitted easily into the Cathedral’s middle-of-the-road pattern of worship. In theological matters he was more conservative than his hero, but like Aysgarth he was an idealist prone to talk soppily about the brotherhood of man when he had downed a couple of drinks. His odd, ungainly, pear-shaped figure was always carefully dressed. He observed English customs rigorously, even declaring how devoted he was to Walls’ pork sausages and Dickens when we all knew he must be hankering for bratwürst and Goethe. Priding himself on his mastery of slang he spoke English almost flawlessly except when he began to ponder on the mystery of suffering. Those were the occasions when I thought he was a joke. Otherwise I just thought he was a thundering bore.
As we encountered each other outside the Deanery that afternoon I inwardly recoiled but nevertheless achieved a passable smile.
‘Hi Eddie,’ I said and automatically added: ‘How are you?’ but that was a mistake. One never asked Eddie how he was. He was all too likely to reply in excruciating detail.
‘Well, as a matter of fact my back’s playing me up again,’ he began, ‘but I’ve found this wonderful osteopath who –’
‘Super! Is the Dean in?’
‘Yes, but we’re just off to evensong. I say, Venetia, I had no idea you were about to visit the Aysgarths!’
‘Ah well, ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes …’ I was trying to edge past him but his bulk was blocking the way. The Deanery, a rambling medieval concoction enhanced by Georgian meddling, had no formal drive up to the front door; instead a pebbled lane at the side of the house led to the old stables, while a flagstone path flanked with lavender bushes led through the front garden. Eddie was planted on the flagstones and I was trying to slink past the lavender.
‘Are you here for long?’ Eddie was enquiring, apparently unaware of my attempts at circumnavigation.
‘No, I’m heading for Oxford.’
The front door swung wide. ‘Venetia!’ cried Aysgarth in delight. ‘What a marvellous surprise!’
‘Mr Dean!’ I said as my spirits soared, and firmly pushing my way past Eddie I clasped Aysgarth’s outstretched hand.
VI
‘Must see you!’ I hissed. ‘Top secret!’
His bright blue eyes at once became brighter and bluer. He loved being conspiratorial with young women. ‘You go on ahead,’ he called to Eddie. ‘I’ll catch you up.’
‘We’re late already, Stephen –’
‘I’ll run all the way to the vestry!’ said Aysgarth lightly, and with reluctance Eddie sloped off through the front gate.
Wasting no time I said: ‘I’ve left home and I need advice. Any chance of a quick word without half the Close breathing down our necks?’
‘Meet me in the cloisters after evensong.’
‘Wonderful! Thanks so much … In that case I might as well go to evensong, mightn’t I?’
‘Why not?’ said the Dean amused. ‘It would help to pass the time!’
As it occurred to me that Dr Ashworth would have responded far more coolly to my lukewarm attitude to worship I exclaimed: ‘How glad I am you’re not the Bishop! I’ve just been hobnobbing with him at the South Canonry.’
‘How on earth did you end up there?’
‘I got mixed up with Charley on the train. Mr Dean, what do you think of Honest to God?’
‘Superb! Quite splendid! A breath of fresh air sweeping through the Church of England!’
‘Yes, I thought it probably was. The Bishop’s decided it’s absolutely the bottom.’
‘The trouble with Charles,’ said Aysgarth as we left the garden, crossed Canonry Drive and entered the churchyard of the Cathedral, ‘is that he was trained as a theologian. Such a pity! A theologian’s approach to religion is nearly always much too cerebral and he inevitably becomes cut off from ordinary believers.’
‘But isn’t this book supposed to be bad for ordinary believers?’
‘Rubbish! It’s the best thing that’s happened to them for years. Robinson’s realised that the ordinary believers are waiting for a new comprehensible interpretation of Christianity which will relate to the lives they’re living right now in the 1960s – they’re not waiting for cerebral restatements by theologians in their dead, dry, alienating academic language!’
‘But if the book’s too radical –’
‘Nothing could be too radical! Let’s have this New Reformation Robinson talks about! Let’s have this New Morality! Now that we’re finally emerging from the long shadow of the war and shedding the millstone of the Empire, we need to celebrate our psychological liberation by making everything new – so why not start by flinging religion into the melting-pot, as Robinson suggests, and recasting our beliefs in a bold, creative dynamic style that’s thoroughly attuned to our day and age?’
I began to feel excited – insofar as one can ever feel excited about a subject such as theology. I was, in fact, very much in the mood for revolution and I deeply fancied the thought of an iconoclastic assault on any part of the established order. ‘Long live Bishop John Robinson!’ I declared, making Aysgarth laugh, and we quickened our pace across the sward to the Cathedral.
VII
At the north porch we parted, Aysgarth walking on to the Dean’s door, the special entrance for the clergy, and I wandering through the porch into the nave. A sidesman showed me to a seat in the choir. This was not an unusual favour to bestow prior to a weekday service when few laymen would be present, but nevertheless it made me feel privileged.
The Cathedral was quiet. By that time the tourists had left and it had reverted to the inhabitants of Starbridge, most of whom preferred to admire it loyally from afar. However the congregation did eventually mount to thirty. I sat gazing up at the vaulted ceiling and trying to think noble thoughts, but I was pondering on Mrs Ashworth’s advice about eye make-up when the organ marked the beginning of the service.
I liked the weekday choral evensong. It required no effort apart from kneeling down and standing up at regular intervals, and there was no sermon either to stretch the brain or induce rigor mortis. The choirboys sang in their unearthly voices; the vicars-choral bayed with authority; the vergers marched around providing touches of ceremonial; the clergy lolled meditatively in their stalls. I thought it was all so luxuriously restful, like a hot bath garnished with an expensive perfume, and as I watched the sun slant through the great west window I thought how clever God was to have invented the Church of England, that national monument dedicated to purveying religion in such an exquisitely civilised form.
