‘Well?’ demanded Jardine. ‘Why the long silence? Let me ask you again: how long have you been a widower?’
I saw the trap he was setting to expose my hypocrisy but I saw too that there was no escaping it. Pride and prudence combined to make an outright lie impossible. In defiance I said finally, ‘Seven years.’
‘Seven years!’ The amber eyes widened as I gave him the answer he wanted. I felt as if my soul had been X-rayed. Nausea churned in the pit of my stomach. ‘You surprise me, Dr Ashworth! You talk so sanctimoniously about the institution of marriage yet apparently you have little desire to marry again! Is this because of a belated call to celibacy? Or are you perhaps not quite such a stranger to marital unhappiness as you would have us all believe?’
He had tied me up in such a knot that I had no choice but to grab the sharpest knife to slash myself free. ‘I’m certainly no stranger to marital tragedy,’ I said. ‘My wife was killed in a car crash when she was expecting our first child, and I often think I’ll never recover from the loss.’
There was a silence. The light went out of Jardine’s lambent eyes, and for a second I saw the grief mark his face as a memory seared his mind. Around the table no one moved. The room seemed suffocating.
At last Jardine said, ‘I’m most extremely sorry, Dr Ashworth. I’ve no personal experience of losing a wife but I do know what it’s like to lose a child. Forgive me for trespassing so intolerably on what must be a very deep and private grief.’
I was so conscious of shame that I was unable to speak. Jardine might not have exposed me as a fraud to his guests but he had exposed me as a fraud to myself, and I knew that to preserve my fraudulent mask I had taken the cheapest way out when I had had my back to the wall.
I was still groping for composure seconds later when the ladies withdrew and Colonel Cobden-Smith immediately announced his intention of retiring to the smoking-room. Lord Starmouth offered to accompany him, and after helping themselves to a glass of port apiece they departed in search of tranquillity after the débâcle at the dinner table.
‘I’ve such a strong aversion to smoking,’ Jardine explained to Jennings as the door closed behind the last servant, ‘that I insist on confining it to one room of the house.’ He turned to me with careful courtesy. ‘But perhaps you’d care to join the Colonel and Lord Starmouth, Canon – are you a smoker?’
‘Yes, but not when I’m wearing my clerical collar.’ My voice sounded astonishingly casual.
‘How admirable. And you, Jennings?’
‘I’m a non-smoker, my Lord.’
‘Even more admirable. Jennings, you may address me as “Bishop” or as “Dr Jardine” but leave “My Lord” to the servants, if you please. I think bishops suffer quite enough from delusions of grandeur without being addressed as if they’d been born to the purple … Well, gentlemen, you’ve just seen me at my worst and now I must make every attempt to display myself at my best. Dr Ashworth –’ he passed me the decanter ‘– I beg you to help yourself to the largest possible glass of port and to tell me about your new book. His Grace muttered something about fourth-century Christology and St Anselm, but as there appears to be no connection between the two subjects I confess I’m mystified – or are you perhaps hoping to prove that the seeds of the ontological argument were sown at the Council of Nicaea?’ And he gave me his most charming smile.
I smiled back to signal that I had every intention of supporting his attempt to restore a convivial atmosphere, and began to explain my plan to revise my lectures, but it was Jennings, not Jardine, who talked to me about St Anselm. The chaplain interposed a remark about the Cathedral library but sank into silence as the discussion of St Anselm’s theology degenerated into the dreariest type of academic debate.
Suddenly I said to Jardine, ‘I’m sorry, we must be boring you.’
‘Not in the least.’ He sipped his port. ‘I was merely wondering why you turn your back on the present to bury yourself in the remote past. But perhaps modern Church history would involve you in modern Church politics which is a subject best avoided if your views are unlikely to please the people in power.’
I recognized that this subtly dangerous statement was not an attack but an inquiry; he was giving me the opportunity to state that my career had not been distorted by the most unwholesome form of ambition, and I said at once, ‘I happen to find Arianism and Modalism more stimulating than the Oxford Movement.’
Jardine picked up the reference to Anglo-Catholicism. ‘Does that indicate a certain ambivalence about the High Church party?’
He was inviting me to disassociate myself from Lang, and suddenly I knew he would once again see straight through any profession of loyalty which was not entirely sincere. ‘I was sympathetic to Anglo-Catholicism when I was ordained,’ I said in a clumsy attempt at evasion.
‘So was I – that’ll surprise you, won’t it! But I can see now that I was merely trying to reject my Nonconformist background.’ He turned suddenly to his chaplain. ‘Gerald, I’ve promised to lend Mr Jennings that book by Brunner, The Mediator. Take him to the library, would you, and look it out for him.’
That disposed of Jennings and Harvey. I was alone with the Bishop at last and almost before the door had closed I found myself saying: ‘I’m beginning to think you see straight through everything.’
‘I have a first-class try. I sometimes think I know what life must be like for a musician who possesses perfect pitch. I have a well-nigh infallible ear for detecting false notes in a conversation.’
‘During our debate –’
‘During our debate you tried to conceal that your private views on divorce are rather different from your public views. Yes. I know. And that’s why I couldn’t resist the temptation to tear you to shreds, but I am indeed most sincerely sorry that the debate went so wrong.’
‘It’s all right. My hypocrisy got what it deserved. Sorry I took such a cheap way out.’ The conversation was now so far removed from any dialogue I could have foreseen that I was unable to sustain it. Moving to the hearth, the glass of port in my hand, I pretended to examine the carvings on the chimneypiece.
‘Now that,’ said Jardine, ‘is a very remarkable apology. You’re beginning to interest me exceedingly, Dr Ashworth.’ Although I had my back to him, I heard the splash as he refilled his glass. ‘First of all I was tempted to write you off as just another of Lang’s bright young men,’ he was saying, ‘but the truth’s more complicated than that, isn’t it? You no longer find the required mask of sycophancy easy to wear.’
I finished my port before saying, ‘I’m very much in Dr Lang’s debt.’
‘Of course you are. Men of power have a knack of building up extensive credit, but if one is in a position of power,’ said Jardine, moving over to me with the decanter in his hand, ‘one must always be scrupulously careful not to bankrupt one’s debtors by demanding inappropriate methods of repayment. More port?’
‘Thank you.’ I held out my glass with a steady hand.
‘May I give you a word of advice? Your first duty, debts or no debts, is not to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Your first duty is to God who created you as a unique individual in his own image, not as a miraculous facsimile of Dr Lang. Be yourself, Dr Ashworth. Be the man God intended you to be, not the sycophant His Grace’s vanity would prefer. And now,’ said Jardine, having refilled my glass, ‘I shall stop preaching and we shall divert ourselves very briefly, before we join the ladies, by ruminating on an issue which to me is of far greater interest than dear old St Anselm’s meditations. I refer to the search for the historical Jesus – do you think we can ever see beyond the shining image of the Gospels to the man he really was?’
‘I think it can be unproductive to probe behind glittering images,’ I said, ‘and with all due respect I believe your generation has been too preoccupied with