Glittering Images, page 13
‘So in other words what you’re saying is –’ But the architect could not quite relate this warning about the un-Englishness of Christ to the teaching on divorce.
‘The next thing you should remember,’ said Jardine, paying no attention to the interruption as he busily laid the foundations of his argument, ‘is that one should always try to see Christ against the background in which he lived. At the time of his ministry there were in fact two opposing attitudes to divorce within Judaism. One group, the Hillel Jews, thought that divorce could be granted even for the most trivial reasons – if the wife burnt the dinner, for instance. The other group held that divorce should be granted only for adultery and only to men – in fact divorce was actually required when a man had an adulterous wife; he had no choice.’
‘Good heavens!’ said the layman, fascinated by the thought of compulsory divorce. I sensed he had almost said ‘Good God!’ but had remembered just in time that he was at the Bishop’s table.
‘Now,’ said Jardine, reassured that the layman was still conscious, ‘we come to Our Lord. What he was really doing was criticizing the lax attitude of the Hillel Jews by a heavy underlining of the teaching of the stricter school of thought. And the way he phrased this criticism was in the Middle-Eastern way: “fortissimo” by Semitic overstatement, not “pianissimo” by British understatement. He said: “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder”. Of course he was aware that both schools of thought permitted divorce, but he wasn’t talking as a lawyer and he wasn’t talking about the law. He was attacking the morality of divorce sought for trivial reasons, and he did this by emphasizing the sanctity of marriage.’
‘Ah!’ said the architect, recognizing a familiar phrase. ‘Sanctity of marriage – yes –’
‘Let me give you a twentieth-century parallel,’ said Jardine, helping him along. ‘If I were to tell you that recently in Reno, Nevada, a woman divorced her husband because he squeezed the marital toothpaste tube from the top instead of the bottom, you might well react by saying: “Disgraceful! Marriage should be for life! Shocking debasement of the institution!” But you don’t really think that marriage should always be for life; if it breaks down in such a way that its spiritual core is destroyed – if the marriage ceases to be a marriage in any meaningful sense of the word – then you and I and many thousands of others believe that the marriage is spiritually null and should be legally terminated. And that in my opinion is the compassionate teaching which must inevitably lie beyond Our Lord’s statements stressing the sanctity of marriage.’
‘So what you’re saying is,’ said the layman, who was now, like a promising infant, ‘coming along nicely’, ‘Christ would have disapproved of the divorce law of Nevada but approved of the new divorce law proposed by Mr A. P. Herbert.’
‘Precisely!’ said Jardine. ‘Herbert’s Bill has two main purposes: one is to relieve suffering – and do you suppose that Christ, with all his compassion, would have objected to that? – and the second is to reinforce the sanctity of marriage by permitting the dissolution of the marital travesties, the cases where the spiritual core of the marriage has been destroyed not just by adultery but by cruelty, desertion or insanity as well – and do you suppose that Our Lord, who recoiled from the debasement of marriage, would have objected to the elimination of the marriages which had become a mockery? I think not.’
‘How clear it all seems!’ said the architect, delighted that his personal views, reached by moral inclination, could be justified theologically. ‘And how jolly to think of Christ approving of the A. P. Herbert Bill – although I suppose one might deduce that from the fact that the Bill’s now certain to become law. Bishop, do we dare say that the success of the Bill’s second reading in the House of Lords last month was God’s will?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury’s will,’ said Jardine, ‘but then as far as I know His Grace hasn’t yet claimed to be God. Dr Ashworth, I’m beginning to think your prolonged silence has a sinister quality. I hope you’re not thinking I should be burnt at the stake.’
‘No, we’ll acquit you of heresy today, Bishop!’ I said smiling at him, and at once saw the amusement flare in his eyes.
When one considered all the adverse circumstances, it was most bizarre how much we both liked each other.
IV
Was he an apostate? I still could not believe it, and although his views might be startling to a layman I knew he was only treading a well-worn theological path; an examination of Christ’s words in the light of conditions prevailing in firstcentury Palestine was nowadays considered a thoroughly respectable endeavour in the attempt to look beyond the glittering image of Christ in the Gospels to the historical figure about whom so little was known. Jardine’s views on divorce were certainly open to criticism, particularly by the conservative wing of the Church, but he was a long way from a suspect Christianity, and the ardour of his conviction that compassion should be shown to the victims of hopeless marriages indicated a man who believed whole-heartedly in the reality of Christ, not an apostate who was covering up his lost belief with a few clever phrases.
Moreover on this issue Jardine was in distinguished company. Martin Luther had gone even further than A. P. Herbert in urging new grounds for divorce where the spiritual core of the marriage had been destroyed, but the trouble with such liberal views, I always thought, was that once one had embraced them it was hard to know where to stop. Unless one was careful one could so easily reason oneself into claiming that the compassion of Christ justified even divorce on the grounds of a careless squeeze of a toothpaste tube.
‘You’re looking very pensive, Dr Ashworth!’ called Lady Starmouth after my return to the drawing-room.
‘I’m still recovering from Dr Jardine’s post-prandial wisdom …’
My own views on divorce were complex. Despite my public support of Lang, who regarded Herbert’s Bill with antipathy, I privately approved the Bill on humanitarian grounds – which meant, in other words, that I was citing the compassion of Christ in order to approve extending the grounds for dissolving shattered marriages. However I did think that theologically it was difficult to argue that Christ would ever have approved of extending the grounds for divorce beyond adultery. Jardine had had a good shot at the argument, but the architect’s enthusiastic acceptance of it indicated not the strength of the thesis but the strength of Jardine’s gift for manipulating a receptive audience. In my opinion Christ had been a good Jew, not ‘liberal’ in the modern sense of extending a credo to its outer limits in the name of freedom, but ‘radical’ in the original sense of cutting back the credo to its roots to rediscover its true spirit. This radicalism was illustrated by his opposition to the Pharisees and his determination to respond not merely to the letter but to the spirit of Judaism, a spirit which encompassed a far stricter view of divorce than that envisaged by Mr A. P. Herbert.
I suddenly realized that Lady Starmouth was saying to me, ‘… and I do hope you’ll call on us when you’re next up in town!’
‘How kind of you, Lady Starmouth! Thank you,’ I said, and at once remembered the Earl’s information that Loretta was due to arrive in London that weekend.
Across the room Lyle was watching us. She had been avoiding me all evening but now she stepped forward impulsively, and as Lady Starmouth turned away from me to respond to a question from the architect, I eased myself around the back of the sofa to a spot out of sight of the terrace where the Bishop was enjoying a stroll with the architect’s good-looking wife.
Lyle reached me a second later. ‘I’m sorry this afternoon ended in a mess,’ she said rapidly. ‘I enjoyed myself up at the Ring. Thanks for the outing.’
So she had decided she was ready for another pounce.
‘Have lunch with me tomorrow.’
‘Oh, that’s quite impossible – the Starmouths are leaving, more guests are arriving and Mrs Jardine will need me all day,’ she said without hesitation, but as she nerved herself to look at me directly I thought her eyes were communicating a very different message. At last she added in a low voice: ‘I’m sorry. It would have been nice. But I can’t.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll ask you again,’ I said. ‘Bishop or no Bishop.’
For a moment she was motionless. Then she said in her politest voice, ‘Will you please excuse me?’ and slipped away before the Bishop could return to the room to make sure nothing subversive was occurring in his absence.
V
I was quite unable to sleep that night. I tossed and turned, I read the most boring genealogies of the Old Testament, I dowsed myself with cold water, I prayed, counted sheep and went to the lavatory. Finally at two o’clock I padded downstairs to the Bishop’s library in pursuit of some light reading. Jardine’s taste in literature was a varied one and we had already discovered a shared weakness for detective stories.
Reaching the library I switched on the light and began to prowl around the shelves. I was just thinking that the Bishop’s book collection was less eclectic than I had anticipated when I discovered a shelf devoted to nineteenth-century novels, including a battered group by Sir Walter Scott. I was delighted. The novels of Scott never failed to lull me into a state of somnolence, and pulling out Ivanhoe I idly opened the cover.
To my surprise I found myself confronting a much-inscribed fly-leaf. At the top of the page someone had written INGRID ASHLEY, 1885, and below this signature another hand, bold and upright, had added: ‘My stepmother gave me this book to keep me quiet, but I solemnly swear I shall never read it because I know that novels are the invention of the Devil, ADAM ALEXANDER JARDINE, 1888 (aged 9).’ But this was not the last entry on the fly-leaf. Further down the page the bold upright hand, now imbued with an elegant maturity had written: ‘My dearest, just look at this inscription which I wrote to protect myself in case Father found a novel in my room! What a pathetic little horror I was and what a wonderful thing you did, introducing me to Ivanhoe, to English literature and to civilization. Let me now return this book to its original owner and say: Welcome to Starbridge! All my love always, ADAM (ADAM ALEXANDER STARO, 1932 – aged 53!)’
A footfall sounded behind me, and as I spun round Ivanhoe slipped through my hands to thud upon the floor.
‘Can I help you, Dr Ashworth?’ inquired Jardine in his most sardonic voice. ‘Is there perhaps some information you still require?’
VI
I somehow managed to say, ‘I assure you my espionage has its limits, Bishop. I wasn’t making a secret assault on your journal.’ To hide my confusion I stooped to pick up Ivanhoe as I added, ‘I was looking for some light reading to ease the boredom of insomnia.’
‘In that case we’re driven here by a common goal but personally I’m about to fight my own insomnia with a detective story.’ He bent to extract a volume from the bottom shelf. ‘Have you read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by the other, more famous Miss Christie?’
‘Yes. That’s the one where one has to watch the narrator.’
‘Precisely. I always find the more I read that story the more intrigued I become by the narrator’s omissions and evasions.’ He glanced at the book in my hands as he added, ‘However perhaps you’re better off with Sir Walter Scott. That volume in particular has sentimental memories for me.’
‘I was just reading the inscription. Your stepmother must have been a remarkable woman, Dr Jardine.’
‘She needed to be remarkable. It’s a catastrophe for any family when the mother dies young, and by the time Ingrid entered our lives we were all deeply disordered … I suppose your own mother didn’t die young, by any chance?’
I was surprised by the question but I answered easily, ‘No, she and my father are both still flourishing in Surrey.’ Setting aside the copy of Ivanhoe I selected Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors from the bottom shelf.
‘What sort of man is your father?’
This time I was no longer merely surprised but astonished. I said abruptly, ‘Why do you ask?’ but Jardine only laughed.
‘Since you’ve been making various deductions about me,’ he said, ‘I’ve decided to make a deduction or two about you. Lady Starmouth remarked on your evasiveness about your family. Miss Christie commented how profoundly you seemed to sympathize with me when she touched on my difficulties with my father. Naturally I’ve been wondering if you too have a parent who’s a heavy cross to bear.’
‘My father did disapprove of my ordination,’ I said, ‘but we get on very well now.’
‘I used to say that when people asked me about my father,’ said Jardine. ‘It was less painful. However perhaps your father’s a great deal less incomprehensible than mine was.’
‘Incomprehensible?’
‘Isn’t lack of understanding responsible for much of the misery in family relationships? I spent years trying to understand my father, but it was only at the end of his life that I finally realized what had been going on.’
I said before I could stop myself, ‘Did that make a difference?’
‘Of course. With understanding, forgiveness becomes possible … You do have trouble with your father, don’t you?’ said Jardine, but I only answered, ‘No, we got over all the trouble a long time ago.’
We were silent, locked in an enigmatic curiosity which lay beyond my powers of analysis, but at last Jardine said unexpectedly, ‘Sit down for a moment, Dr Ashworth. I’m going to do something I never normally do. I’m going to talk about my father, because despite all you’ve said I think you may find my story relevant to that private life which you seem so determined to conceal.’
VII
‘My father was the son of an impecunious Cheshire farmer,’ said Jardine. ‘He ran away to London when he was sixteen with the idea of training to become a clergyman, but he soon discovered that neither the Church of England nor the respectable Nonconformist churches wanted to know a penniless working-class boy with ideas above his station. Finally my father said to himself in a disillusioned rage: to hell with all ecclesiastical organizations and to hell with the priesthood.
‘To assuage his sense of rejection he joined an obscure sect where there was no formal priesthood and everyone took it in turns to preach hellfire and damnation. That was when he discovered he had a God-given talent for preaching. Before long he was preaching in the open air on summer evenings, and eventually a rich widow offered to build him a chapel. Later he managed to marry her for her money. My poor father! Since his arrival in London he had been earning his living as a porter in a Putney warehouse but he knew he had no prospect of promotion; in those circumstances was it any wonder that he came to see his gift for preaching as the passport to the gentleman’s life which he felt so strongly that a man of his intelligence deserved?
‘I wonder if you’ve ever read Elmer Gantry. It’s a novel about an American itinerant preacher who … well, it’s a study of the seamy side of evangelism, the side we orthodox churchmen are ashamed of. It’s the story of a preacher who uses his power over women to raise money not for God but for himself …
‘No doubt you can imagine what happened. My father was without spiritual counselling and of course he fell into the grossest errors. He had this gift from God, the ability to preach, but you know as well as I do, Dr Ashworth, what a dangerous charism that can be. That’s why I myself never, never preach extempore. The moment one departs from the written word one’s tempted to sway one’s audience by playing on the most dubious emotions.
‘My father never wrote down a word and he knew just how to keep the richest women fainting with excitement in their pews – and he also, I regret to say, knew exactly how to revive them afterwards in the vestry. Sir Thomas More has a word for it in Utopia: waywardness. My father was intolerably wayward with women. His first wife was an infirm old woman who could satisfy only his financial needs, and I’m afraid he convinced himself that all things would be forgiven him so long as he preached the word of God as fervently as possible.
‘However when his wife died he did turn away in shame from his old life; he felt he could well afford to retire on the money she’d left, and he decided to devote himself to the study of theology. By that time too he had an additional motive for turning over a new leaf because he’d just met my mother, who was a young girl from a very respectable family, and he knew he’d never be allowed to marry her unless he could offer her a life of absolute propriety.
‘I’m sure the marriage was a success, not only because I can remember the happy home my mother created but because I can so clearly remember how he went straight to pieces after she died. He’d seen my mother as a reward from God for good behaviour, poor man, and that was why he felt her death was a judgement; he was at once convinced that he hadn’t been forgiven for his past sins after all.
‘His guilt now began to crucify him. Is there any guilt worse than that of a man who has used a gift from God in the Devil’s service? For a long while he shut himself up in his house and wouldn’t go out. He wouldn’t speak. He spent the whole time praying. He became wholly obsessed with his past sins, and from there it was but a short step to becoming obsessed with the sins of the world – the world which by rejecting him had set him on the road to corruption.
‘You can imagine the effect on eight children of such behaviour. Eventually things came to such a pass that even my father, mentally ill as he undoubtedly was, realized that something would have to be done. By that time he had begun to preach again – though not for money; he thought the least he could do to appease God was to serve him as honestly as he could in the pulpit, so he returned to the chapel of the obscure sect where he had first made his name, and one Sunday he noticed a newcomer, someone who had attended the service out of curiosity, someone who was apparently quite unmoved by his sermon, someone utterly different from all the women who fawned on him afterwards in admiration.
