I wondered if malice had combined with old age to produce irrationality. ‘I agree he’s controversial, Your Grace, but –’
‘Controversial! My dear Charles, what you and the general public have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg – you should hear what goes on at our bishops’ meetings! Jardine’s views on marriage, divorce and – heaven help us – contraception have been notorious for some time in episcopal circles, and my greatest fear now is that if he continues to parade his questionable views on family life, some unscrupulous newshound from Fleet Street will eventually put Jardine’s own domestic situation under the microscope.’
‘You’re surely not implying –’
‘No, no.’ Lang’s voice was suddenly very smooth. ‘No, of course I’m not implying any fatal error, but Jardine’s domestic situation is unusual and could well be exploited by a press-baron with an axe to grind.’ He paused before adding, ‘I have enemies in Fleet Street, Charles. Since the Abdication there are powerful people who would like nothing better than to see me humiliated and the Church put to shame.’
The speech was florid but for the first time I felt he was not motivated solely by malice. His words reflected an undeniable political reality.
I heard myself say, ‘And where do I come in, Your Grace?’
‘I want you to go down to Starbridge,’ said the Archbishop without hesitation, ‘and make sure that Jardine hasn’t committed some potentially disastrous indiscretion – because if he has, I want all evidence of it destroyed.’
III
Lang was talking in calculated euphemisms; he was anxious not to blacken the Bishop’s reputation too deeply in the presence of a junior member of the Church’s hierarchy, but at the same time he wished to signal to me that where Jardine was concerned almost any nightmare was feasible. Jardine was not suspected of a ‘fatal error’; that meant adultery, a moral failure which would render a bishop, or indeed any clergyman, unfit for office. On the other hand Lang was raising the possibility that Jardine had committed a ‘potentially disastrous indiscretion’, a phrase which could mean anything from an unwise comment on the Virgin Birth to holding hands with a twenty-year-old blonde.
‘How much do you know about him?’ Lang added before I could speculate further.
‘Just the outlines of his career. I know nothing about his private life.’
‘He’s married to an exceedingly feather-brained little lady who must now, I suppose, be in her early fifties. Jardine himself is fifty-eight. Both of them look younger than their years.’ Lang made this good fortune sound like a breach of taste, and I sensed that his envy of Jardine’s youthfulness was mingling with his dislike.
‘Any children?’ I said, pouring him some more tea.
‘None living.’ He took a sip from his replenished cup before adding, Ten years ago soon after Jardine became Dean of Radbury, a young woman called Miss Lyle Christie was engaged by him to be Mrs Jardine’s companion. Poor feather-brained little Mrs Jardine couldn’t cope with her new responsibilities as the Dean’s wife, and all was the most inappropriate confusion.’
‘And did Miss Lyle Christie bring order out of chaos?’
‘Miss Christie. We’re not dealing here with a double-barrelled name – the misguided parents gave her the name Lyle instead of a decent Christian name such as Jane or Mary. Yes,’ said Lang, setting aside his teacup, ‘Miss Christie’s been keeping her employers’ household in admirable order ever since her arrival. However although this innocent little ménage à trois would normally be unremarkable, there are three aspects of the situation which – after ten years – can and do cause unfortunate comment. The first is that Miss Christie is a good-looking woman; the second is that she shows no inclination to marry, and the third is that Jardine himself has what might be charitably described as a healthy interest in the opposite sex.’ Lang, whose own good looks had ensured a steady stream of feminine admirers throughout his long bachelor’s life, gazed out of the window at this point in order to appear non-committal. As a Christian he was obliged to approve of a healthy sexual interest which led to marriage, but I knew he found a more pervasive carnal preoccupation with women distasteful.
‘In other words,’ I said, easing him around the awkward subject of Jardine’s attitude to the ladies, ‘you’re afraid that if the press start delving into Jardine’s private life they may make some embarrassing deductions about Miss Christie. But with all due respect, Your Grace, why should this worry you? Even the gutter press aren’t above the laws of libel, and they’d never print salacious allegations without written evidence to back them up.’
‘That’s exactly why I’m so worried.’ Lang shed all affectation at last to reveal the canny Scot who still lurked behind his English façade. ‘Jardine keeps a journal. Supposing some newshound bribes the servants and gets his hands on it?’
‘But surely this is a journal of spiritual progress, not an outpouring of girlish chatter?’
‘Spiritual progress can encompass confession.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Let me make my position quite clear. I doubt that any blatantly indiscreet written evidence exists. What I’m much more concerned about is the possibility of an innocent document being quoted out of context and distorted. You know how unscrupulous the gutter press can be.’
In the pause which followed I found I was again sharing his view of an unpalatable but undeniable reality for I could see that Jardine’s private life, no matter how innocent, might well prove to be the Church’s Achilles heel in its current uneasy relationship with Fleet Street. A new king might have been crowned but the memory of the previous king still aroused much sympathy, and Lang’s speech criticizing Edward VIII for abandoning his duty in order to marry a divorced woman had been widely resented for its priggishness. In these circumstances the last thing Lang needed, as he strove to regain the ground he had lost, was a scandal about a sexually alert bishop who lived in a questionable ménage à trois.
‘Well, Charles? Are you going to help me?’
The ringmaster was cracking his whip, but in fact no whip was needed. I was loyal to my Church and despite a considerable ambivalence I was loyal to my Archbishop. ‘Of course I’ll help you. Your Grace,’ I said without hesitation, and the die was cast.
IV
‘How do I start?’ I said, surveying my new role of archiepiscopal spy and at once confronting the depths of my inexperience.
Lang was immediately soothing. ‘Once you’re safely established at the Bishop’s palace I’m sure it won’t take you long to decide whether I do in fact have cause for anxiety.’
‘But how on earth do I establish myself at the palace?’
‘That’s simple. I’ll telephone Jardine and ask him to put you up for a couple of nights. He’s not going to refuse me, particularly when I tell him you wish to visit the Cathedral library in order to do some research for your new book. Have you ever been to the Cathedral library at Starbridge? The chief glory, as you probably know, is that early manuscript of St Anselm’s Prayers and Meditations.’
‘But my new book’s about the influence of Modalism on fourth-century Christology – it’s got nothing to do with St Anselm at all!’
Lang was unperturbed. ‘Then you’d better be writing an article for a learned journal – a reappraisal of St Anselm’s ontological argument, perhaps –’
‘And I suppose that during a discussion of the ontological argument I casually ask Jardine if I can sift his journal for pearls