Glamorous Powers
Susan Howatch
The author’s most famous and well-loved work, the Starbridge series, six self-contained yet interconnected novels that explore the history of the Church of England through the 20th century.Jon Darrow, a man with psychic powers, is a man who has played many parts: a shady faith-healer; a naval chaplain, a passionate husband, an awkward father, an Anglo-Catholic monk.In 1940 Darrow returns to the world he once renounced, but faced with many unforeseen temptations he fails to control his psychic, most glamorous powers. Corruption lies in wait for him, and threatens not only his future as a priest but his happiness with Anne, the young woman he has come to love.
Susan Howatch
GLAMOROUS POWERS
COPYRIGHT (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
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First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1988
Copyright © Leaftree Ltd 1988
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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SOURCE ISBN: 9780007396382
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CONTENTS
COVER (#ua5a6fc5d-a8a6-5d68-85ad-a2b96db040e6)
TITLE PAGE (#ub8658c43-de91-5120-b910-811439738910)
COPYRIGHT
PART ONE:
THE VISION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
PART TWO:
THE REALITY BEYOND THE VISION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
PART THREE: THE FALSE LIGHT
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
PART FOUR: THE LIGHT FROM THE NORTH
ONE
TWO
(#litres_trial_promo)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE
BY SUSAN HOWATCH
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
PART ONE THE VISION (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
‘Ecstasy or vision begins when thought ceases, to our consciousness, to proceed from ourselves. It differs from dreaming, because the subject is awake. It differs from hallucinations, because there is no organic disturbance: it is, or claims to be, a temporary enhancement, not a partial disintegration, of the mental faculties. Lastly, it differs from poetical inspiration, because the imagination is passive. That perfectly sane people often experience such visions there is no manner of doubt.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Christian Mysticism
ONE (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
‘The apparent suddenness of the mystical revelation is quite normal; Plato in his undoubtedly genuine Seventh Letter speaks of the “leaping spark” by which divine inspiration flashes on him.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion
I
The vision began at a quarter to six; around me the room was suffused with light, not the pellucid light of a fine midsummer morning but the dim light of a wet dawn in May. I was sitting on the edge of my bed when without warning the gold lettering on the cover of the Bible began to glow.
I stood up as the bedside table deepened in hue, and the next moment the floorboards pulsed with light while in the corner the taps of the basin coruscated like silver in the sun. Backing around the edge of the bed I pressed my back against the wall before any further alteration of consciousness occurred. Firm contact with a solid object lessens the instinctive fear which must always accompany such a radical transcendence of time and space.
However after the initial fear comes the equally instinctive acceptance. I had closed my eyes to lessen the terror of disorientation but now I forced myself to open them. The cell was still glittering, but as I watched the glitter faded to a shimmer until the scene resembled a view seen through the wrong end of a telescope, and I could perceive my body, remote and abandoned, pressed against the wall by the bed as if impaled there by invisible nails. I looked aside – I could see my body turning its head – and immediately the darkness, moving from right to left, began to erase the telescopic view. My eyes closed, again warding off the fear of disorientation, and this time when I reopened them I found I was once more moving in a normal world.
I was myself, inhabiting my body as usual and walking along a path through a wood of beech trees. Insofar as I was conscious of any emotion I was aware of being at ease with my verdant tranquil surroundings, although I felt irritated by the persistent call of a wood-pigeon. However eventually the pigeon fell silent and as the path began to slope downhill I glanced to my left at the chapel in the dell below.
The chapel was small but exquisite in its classical symmetry; I was reminded of the work of Inigo Jones. In the dull green light of the surrounding woods the yellow stone glowed a dark gold, a voluptuous contrast to the grey medieval ruins which lay behind it. The ruins were in part hidden by ivy, but as I moved closer I could see the slits in the wall of the tower.
Reaching the floor of the dell I faced the chapel, now only fifty yards away across the sward, and it was then that I noticed the suitcase. Standing at the edge of the trees it was sprinkled with labels, the largest being a triangle of red, blue and black design; I was too far away to read the lettering. Afterwards I remembered that I had regarded this suitcase without either curiosity or surprise. Certainly I never slackened my pace as I headed for the chapel, and I believe I knew even then that the suitcase was a mere image on the retina of my mind, a symbol which at that point I had no interest in interpreting.
Hurrying up the steps of the porch I lifted the latch, pushed the righthand half of the double-doors wide open and paused to survey the interior beyond.
There was no transept. A central aisle stretched to the altar at the east end. The altar-table was stark in its austerity, the only adornment consisting of a plain wooden cross, but again I felt neither surprise nor curiosity. Evidently I was as accustomed to this sight as I was accustomed to the fact that the nave was only three-quarters full of pews. Walking across the empty space which separated the doors from the back pew I could smell the lilies which were blooming in a vase beneath the brass memorial plaque on my right. I gave them no more than a brief glance but when I looked back at the altar I saw that the light had changed.
The sun was penetrating the window which was set high in the wall to the left of the altar, and as the ray began to slant densely upon the cross I stopped dead. Unless I stood south of the Equator I was witnessing the impossible, for the sun could never shine from the north. I stared at the light until my eyes began to burn. Then sinking to my knees I covered my face with my hands, and as the vision at last dissolved, the knowledge was branded upon my mind that I had to abandon the work which suited me so well and begin my life anew in the world I had no wish to rejoin.
II
Opening my eyes I found myself back in my cell. I was no longer pressing against the wall but kneeling by the bed. Sweat prickled my forehead. My hands were trembling. There were also other physical manifestations which I prefer not to describe. Indeed I felt quite unfit to begin my daily work but so profound was my state of shock that I automatically embarked on my morning routine, and minutes later I was leaving my cell.
Perhaps I have erred in starting this narrative with an account of my vision. Perhaps I should instead have offered some essential biographical details, for the repeated mention of the word ‘cell’ has almost certainly conveyed the impression that I am an inmate of one of His Majesty’s prisons. Let me now correct this mistake. For the past seventeen years I have been a member of the Anglican brotherhood of monks known as the Fordite Order of St Benedict and St Bernard. I may still be judged eccentric, anti-social and possibly (after this account of my vision) deranged. But I am not a criminal.
In order that such an abnormal experience can be put in its proper context and judged fairly, I must attempt a thumbnail sketch of my past so let me state at once that in many ways my life has been exceedingly normal. I was brought up in a quiet respectable home, educated at various appropriate establishments and ordained as a clergyman of the Church of England not long after my twenty-third birthday. I then married a young woman who possessed what in my young day was described as ‘allure’ and which a later generation, debased by the War – the First War, as I suppose we must now call it – described as ‘It’. For some years after my marriage I worked as a chaplain to the Naval base at Starmouth, and later I volunteered for duty at sea with the result that much of my ministry was spent away from home. In fact I was absent when my wife died in 1912. For another seven years I continued my career in the Navy, but I judge it unnecessary to recount my war experiences. Suffice it to say that after the Battle of Jutland I never felt quite the same about the sea again.
Accordingly in 1919 I left the Navy and became the chaplain at Starmouth prison. The advantage of this change was that I was able to see more of my children, now adolescent, but the disadvantage was that I became aligned with an authority empowered to administer capital and corporal punishment, two practices which are entirely contrary to my conception of the Christian way to treat human beings. However I endured this harrowing ministry as best as I could until finally in 1923 the hour of my liberation dawned: with both my children launched on their adult lives I was able to retire to the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, where the Fordites had a house, and embark on my career as a monk. I had known the Abbot, James Reid, since my undergraduate days at the University two miles away, and although I had lost touch with him some years earlier it never occurred to me not to seek his help when I was at last free to join the Order.
I shall gloss over the disastrous beginning of my new life and simply state that after three months at Grantchester I was transferred to the Fordites’ farm at Ruydale, a remote corner of the North Yorkshire moors where the monks lived more in the austere style of Cistercians than Benedictines. Here I embarked on a successful cenobitic career which reached its apex in 1937 when I was transferred back to Grantchester to succeed James Reid as Abbot.
This brief autobiographical recital – remarkable more for what I have omitted than for what I have deigned to reveal – is all I intend to disclose at present about my past. No further disclosures are needed, I think, to show that my ministry has always demanded a strong constitution, absolute sanity and considerable reserves of spiritual strength. In short, although I write as a monk who has visions I am neither an hysteric nor a schizophrenic. I am a normal man with abnormal aspects – and having abnormal aspects, as Abbot James had assured me when I was a troubled young ordinand, was what being normal was all about.
‘But beware of those glamorous powers, Jon!’ he had urged after we had discussed my gifts as a psychic. ‘Beware of those powers which come from God but which can so easily be purloined by the Devil!’ This had proved a prophetic warning. For the next twenty years, while I remained in the world, my life was one long struggle to achieve the correct balance between the psychic and the spiritual so that I could develop properly as a priest, but it was a struggle I failed to win. There was little development. I did become a competent priest in the limited sense that the world judged my ministry to be effective, but my spiritual progress suffered from inadequate guidance and an undisciplined psyche. As Father Darcy told me later, I was like a brilliant child who had learnt the alphabet but had never been trained to read and write. However this situation changed when I became a monk, and it changed because for the first time I found the man who had the spiritual range and the sheer brute force of personality required to train me.
I have reached the subject of Father Darcy. Father Darcy is relevant to my vision because he made me the man I am today. I must describe him, but how does one describe a brilliant Christian monster? Father Darcy was unlike any other monk I have ever met. No doubt he was also unlike any monk St Benedict and St Bernard ever envisioned. Both intensely worldly and intensely spiritual (a rare and often bizarre combination) this modern cenobitic dictator was not only devout, gifted and wise but brutal, ruthless and power-mad.
As soon as he became the Abbot-General in 1910 he embarked on the task of waking up each of the four houses which had been slumbering on their comfortable endowments for decades. Having dusted down each monk he reorganized the finances and courted not only both Archbishops but the entire episcopal bench of the House of Lords in an effort to increase the Order’s worldly importance. As a private organization it was not directly connected to the Church of England, even though since its birth in the 1840s it had received the somewhat condescending blessings of successive Archbishops of Canterbury, but Father Darcy’s diplomatic ventures ensured that he and his abbots were treated with a new respect by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Meanwhile the spiritual tone of the Order had been markedly raised, and by the time I became a monk in 1923 the Fordites were well known for the guidance and counselling given to those who sought their help. The restored tradition of Benedictine scholarship was also being noticed with approval.
It will be obvious from this description that Father Darcy had the charism of leadership but in fact he possessed all the major charisms and these gifts from God were buttressed and enhanced by a perfectly trained, immaculately disciplined psychic power which he had dedicated entirely to God’s service. He was a formidable priest, a formidable monk, a formidable man. But he was not likeable. However Father Darcy cared nothing for being liked. He would have considered such a desire petty and self-centred, indicative of a disturbed psyche which required a spiritual spring-cleaning. Father Darcy cared only about being respected by those outside the Order and obeyed by those within; such respect and obedience were necessary in order that he might work more efficiently for God, and Father Darcy, like all successful dictators, put a high value on efficiency.
My habit of calling him Father Darcy is new. Only people outside the Order call us monks by our surnames preceded by the title ‘Father’, if the monk be a priest, or ‘Brother’, if the monk be a layman. For the last thirty years Father Darcy had been addressed by his monks as ‘Father Abbot-General’ but after his death a month ago it had become necessary to adopt another designation in order to distinguish him from his successor, and to me ‘Father Cuthbert’ had merely conjured up a picture of a cosy old confessor unable to say boo to a goose. In accordance with the constitution of the Order which decreed that all monks were equal in death, he had been referred to throughout the burial service as ‘Cuthbert’ but whenever this word had been uttered something akin to a shudder of horror had rippled through the congregation as if Father Darcy were still alive to be enraged by the familiarity.
All the abbots attended the funeral. Cyril came from Starwater Abbey, where the Fordites ran a public school; Aidan, my former superior, came from Ruydale, and I came from Grantchester. Francis Ingram, Father Darcy’s right-hand man, organized the funeral and offered us all a lavish hospitality at the Order’s London headquarters, but he did not conduct the service. That task fell to Aidan as the senior surviving abbot.
‘It’s hard to believe the old boy’s gone,’ said Francis Ingram afterwards as he helped himself to a very large glass of port from the decanter which was normally reserved for visiting bishops. ‘What a wonderful capacity he had for making us all shit bricks! It’s going to be uncommonly dull without him.’
Monks are, of course, supposed to refrain from using coarse language but sometimes the effort of keeping one’s speech free of casual blasphemy is so intense that a lapse into vulgarity is seen as the only alternative to committing a sin. It is a notorious fact of monastic life that without the softening influence of women men tend to sink into coarse speech and even coarser humour; when I returned to Grantchester in 1937 as Abbot I found a community so lax that their conversation during the weekly recreation hour recalled not the cloister but the barracks of the Naval ratings at Starmouth.
My promotion in 1937 was unorthodox, not only because monks who follow the Benedictine Rule are supposed to remain in the same community for life but because the monks themselves normally elect an abbot from among their own number. However Father Darcy had decided I could be of more use to the Order at Grantchester than at Ruydale, and Father Darcy had no hesitation in riding rough-shod over tradition when the welfare of the Order was at stake.
‘Many congratulations!’ said Francis Ingram when I arrived at the London headquarters to be briefed for my new post. ‘I couldn’t be more pleased!’ Of course we both knew he was furious that I was to be an abbot while he remained a mere prior, but we both knew too that we had no choice but to go through the motions of displaying brotherly love. Monks are indeed supposed to regard all men with brotherly love, but since most monks are sinners not saints such exemplary Christian charity tends to resemble Utopia, a dream much admired but perpetually unattainable.
It was not until the April of 1940 when Father Darcy died that Francis and I saw our meticulously manifested brotherly love exposed as the fraud which it was. I have no intention of describing Father Darcy’s unedifying last hours in detail; such a description would be better confined to the pages – preferably the uncut pages – of a garish Victorian novel. Suffice it to say that for two days he knew he was dying and resolved to enjoy what little life remained to him by keeping us all on tenterhooks about the succession.
It is laid down in the constitution of the Order that although abbots are in normal circumstances to be elected, the Abbot-General must choose his own successor. The reasoning which lies behind this most undemocratic rule is that only the Abbot-General is in a position to judge which man might follow most ably in his footsteps, and the correct procedure is that his written choice should be committed to a sealed envelope which is only to be opened after his death. This move has the advantage of circumventing any last-minute dubious oral declarations and also, supposedly, removing from a dying Abbot-General any obligation to deal with worldly matters when his thoughts ought to be directed elsewhere. However Father Darcy could not bear to think he would be unable to witness our expressions when the appointment was announced, and eventually he succumbed to the temptation to embark on an illicit dénouement.
There were four of us present at his bedside, the three abbots and Francis Ingram.
‘Of course you’re all wondering how I’ve chosen my successor,’ said the old tyrant, revelling in his power, ‘so I’ll tell you: I’ve done it by process of elimination. You’re a good man, Aidan, but after so many years in a Yorkshire backwater you’d never survive in London. And you’re a good man too, Cyril – no one could run that school better than you – but the Order’s not a school and besides, like Aidan, you’re too old, too set in your ways.’
He paused to enjoy the emotions of his audience. Aidan was looking relieved; he would indeed have hated to leave Ruydale. Cyril was inscrutable but I was aware of his aura of desolation and I knew Father Darcy would be aware of it too. Meanwhile Francis was so white with tension that his face had assumed a greenish cast. That pleased Father Darcy. Aidan had been a disappointment, Cyril had been a pleasure and Francis had been a delight. That left me. Father Darcy looked at me and I looked at him and our minds locked. I tried to blot out his psychic invasion by silently reciting the Lord’s Prayer but when I broke down halfway through he smiled. He was a terrible old man but he did so enjoy being alive, and in the knowledge that his enjoyment could only be fleeting I resolved to be charitable; I smiled back.
Immediately he was furious. I was supposed to be writhing on the rack with Francis, not radiating charity, and as I sensed his anger I realized that in his extreme physical sickness his psychic control was slipping and his spiritual strength was severely impaired.
He said to me: ‘And now, I suppose, you’ve no doubt whatsoever that you’ll step into my shoes! Proud arrogant Jonathan – too proud to admit his burning curiosity about the succession and too arrogant to believe I could ever seriously consider another candidate for the post! But I did consider it. I considered Francis very seriously indeed.’ He sighed, his rheumy old eyes glittering with ecstasy as he recalled the next step in his process of elimination. ‘How hard it was to choose between the two of you!’ he whispered. ‘Francis has the first-class brain and the skill of the born administrator, but Jonathan has … well, we all know what Jonathan has, don’t we? Jonathan has the Powers – those Glamorous Powers, as poor old James used to call them – and they made Jonathan the most exciting novice I’ever encountered, so gifted yet so undisciplined, yes, you have all those gifts which Francis lacks, Jonathan, but it’s those gifts which make you vulnerable as you continue to wage your lifelong battle against your pride and your arrogance. Francis may be less gifted but that makes him less vulnerable, and besides,’ he added to Cyril and Aidan, ‘Francis has the breeding. Jonathan’s just the product of a schoolmaster’s mésalliance with a parlourmaid. He’d serve cheap port and young claret to all the important visitors, and that wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all – we must maintain the right style here, we’re a great Order, the greatest Order in the Church of England, and the Abbot-General must live in the manner of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. So all things considered,’ said the old despot, battling on towards the climax of his dénouement, ‘and following the process of elimination to its inevitable conclusion, I really think that the next Abbot-General should be a man who can distinguish vintage claret from a French peasant’s “vin ordinaire”.’
He had lived long enough to see the expressions on our faces. Sinking blissfully into a coma he drifted on towards death until an hour later, to my rage and horror, the Abbot-General of the Fordite monks became none other than my enemy Francis Ingram.
It would have been hard to imagine a superior less capable of dealing with my vision.
III
My antipathy to Francis was undoubtedly the main reason why I did not confide in him as soon as I had received my vision, but possibly I would have been almost as hesitant to confide in Cyril or Aidan. For twenty-four hours after the vision I was in shock. I believed I had received a call from God to leave the Order, and this belief at first triggered a purely emotional response: I felt an elated gratitude that God should have revealed His will to me in such a miraculous manner, and as I offered up my thanks with as much humility as I could muster I could only pray that I would be granted the grace to respond wholeheartedly to my new call.
However eventually this earthquake of emotion subsided and my intellect awoke. Reason tried to walk hand in hand with revelation and the result was disturbing. My first cold clear thought was that the vision was connected with my failure to become Abbot-General; it could be argued that since the Order, personified by Father Darcy, had rejected me I was now rejecting the Order, a rejection which, because it had been suppressed by my conscious mind, had manifested itself in a psychic disturbance.
This most unsavoury possibility suggested that I might have fallen into a state of spiritual debility, and as soon as I started to worry about my spiritual health I remembered that I was due to make my weekly confession on the morrow.
My confessor was Timothy, the oldest monk in the house, a devout man of eighty-two who possessed an innocent happiness which made him much loved in the community. After my installation as Abbot I had picked him to be my confessor not merely because he was the senior monk but because I knew he would never demand to know more than I was prepared to reveal. This statement may sound distressingly cynical, but I had been brought to Grantchester to bring a lax community to order and since in the circumstances it would have been inadvisable for me to display weakness to anyone, even the holiest of confessors, I had decided that the temptation to set down in the confessional the burden of my isolation should be resisted.
As I now contemplated my duty to set down the burden represented by my vision I knew that the most sensible solution was to circumvent Timothy by journeying to London to lay the problem before my superior. But still I balked at facing Francis. Could I make confession without mentioning the vision? Possibly. It was the easiest solution. But easy solutions so often came from the Devil. I decided to pray for guidance but as soon as I sank to my knees I remembered my mentor and knew what I should do. Father Darcy would have warned me against spiritual arrogance, and with profound reluctance I resigned myself to being at least partially frank with my confessor.
IV
‘… and this powerful light shone through the north window. As the light increased in brilliance I knelt down, covering my face with my hands, and at that moment I knew –’ I broke off.
Timothy waited, creased old face enrapt, faded eyes moist with excitement.
‘– I knew the vision was ending,’ I said abruptly. ‘Opening my eyes I found myself back in my cell.’
Timothy looked disappointed but he said in a hushed voice, much as a layman might have murmured after some peculiarly rewarding visit to the cinema: ‘That was beautiful, Father. Beautiful.’
Mastering my guilt that I had failed to be honest with him I forced myself to say: ‘It’s hard to venture an opinion, I know, but I was wondering if there could be some connection between the vision and the death of Father Abbot-General last month.’
Since he knew nothing of Father Darcy’s deathbed drama I fully expected a nonplussed reaction, but to my surprise Timothy behaved as if I had shown a brilliant intuitive insight. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me, Father,’ he confessed, ‘but yes, that makes perfect sense. Father Abbot-General – Father Cuthbert, as I suppose we must now call him – was so good to you always, taking such a special interest in your spiritual welfare, and therefore it’s only natural that you should have been severely affected by his death. But now God’s sent you this vision to help you overcome your bereavement and continue with renewed faith along your spiritual way.’
‘Ah.’ I was still wondering how I could best extricate myself from this morass of deception when Timothy again surprised me, this time by embarking on an interpretation which was both intriguing and complex.
‘The chapel was a symbol, Father,’ he said. ‘It represents your life in the Order, while the mysterious bag beneath the trees represents your past life in the world, packed up and left behind. And your journey through the chapel was an allegory. You opened the door; that represents your admittance to the Order as a postulant. You crossed the bleak empty space where there were no pews; that signifies those difficult early months when you began your monastic life here in Grantchester.’ Timothy, of course, could remember me clearly as a troubled postulant; one of the most difficult aspects of my return to Grantchester had been that there were other monks less charitable than Timothy who took a dim view of being ruled by a man whom they could remember only as a cenobitic disaster. ‘But you crossed the empty space,’ Timothy was saying tranquilly, ‘and you reached the pews; they represent our house in Yorkshire where you found contentment at last, and the lilies placed beneath the memorial tablet symbolize the flowering of your vocation. Your walk down the central aisle must represent your progress as you rose to become Master of Novices, and the bright light at the end must symbolize the bolt from the blue – your call to be the Abbot here at Grantchester. But of course the light was also the light of God, sanctifying your vision, blessing your present work and reassuring you that even without Father Cuthbert’s guidance you’ll be granted the grace to serve God devoutly in the future.’ And Timothy crossed himself with reverence.
It was a plausible theory. The only trouble was I had no doubt it was quite wrong.
V
Having revealed my most urgent problem in this disgracefully inadequate fashion, I then embarked on the task of confessing my sins. ‘Number one: anger,’ I said briskly. My confessions to Timothy often tended to resemble a list dictated by a businessman to his secretary. ‘I was too severe with Augustine when he fell asleep in choir again, and I was also too severe with Denys for raiding the larder after the night office. I should have been more patient, more forgiving.’
‘It’s very difficult for an abbot when he doesn’t receive the proper support from all members of his community,’ said Timothy. He was such a good, kind old man, not only in sympathizing with me but in refraining to add that our community had more than its fair share of drones like Augustine and Denys. My predecessor Abbot James had suffered from a chronic inability to say no with the result that he had admitted to the Order men who should never have become professed. The majority of these had departed when they discovered that the monastic life was far from being the sinecure of their dreams, but a hard core had lingered on to become increasingly useless, and it was this hard core which was currently, in my disturbed state, driving me to distraction.
Having mentally ticked ‘anger’ off my list I confessed to the sin of sloth. ‘I find my work a great effort at the moment,’ I said, ‘and I’m often tempted to remain in my cell – not to pray but to be idle.’
‘Your life’s very difficult at present,’ said Timothy, gentleness unremitting. ‘You have to deal with the young men who knock on our door in the hope that they can evade military service by becoming monks, and then – worse still – you have to deal with our promising young monks who feel called to return to the world to fight.’
‘I admit I was upset to lose Barnabas, but I must accept the loss, mustn’t I? If a monk wishes to leave the Order,’ I said, ‘and if his superior decides the wish is in response to a genuine call, that superior has no right either to stop him or to feel depressed afterwards.’
‘True, Father, but what a strain the superior has to endure! It’s not surprising that you should be feeling a little dejected and weary at present, particularly in view of Father Cuthbert’s recent death, and in consequence you must now be careful not to drive yourself too hard. You have a religious duty to conserve your energy, Father. Otherwise if you continue to exhaust yourself you may make some unwise decisions.’
I recognized the presence of the Spirit. I was being told my vision needed further meditation and that I was on no account to make a hasty move. Feeling greatly relieved I crossed ‘sloth’ off my list and rattled off a number of minor sins before declaring my confession to be complete, but unfortunately this declaration represented yet another evasion for my two most disturbing errors of the past week had been omitted from my list. The first error consisted of my uncharitable behaviour during a disastrous quarrel with my son Martin, and the second error consisted of my unmentionable response to the unwelcome attentions of a certain Mrs Ashworth.
VI
After making this far from satisfactory confession to Timothy I retired to the chapel to complete my confession before God. Later as I knelt praying I became aware of Martin’s unhappiness, a darkness soaked in pain, and as I realized he was thinking of me I withdrew to my cell to write to him.
‘My dear Martin,’ I began after a prolonged hesitation, ‘I trust that by now you’ve received the letter which I wrote immediately after our quarrel last Thursday. Now that four days have elapsed I can see what a muddled inadequate letter it was, full of what I wanted (your forgiveness for my lack of compassion) and not enough about your own needs which are so much more important than mine. Let me repeat how ashamed I am that I responded so poorly to the compliment you paid me when you took me into your confidence, and let me now beg you to reply to this letter even if this means you must tell me how angry and hurt you were by my lack of understanding. I know you wouldn’t want me to “talk religion” to you, but of course you’re very much in my thoughts at present and I pray daily that we may soon be reconciled. I remain as always your devoted father, J.D.’
Having delivered myself of this attempt to demonstrate my repentance I was for some hours diverted from my private thoughts by community matters, but late that night I again sat down at the table in my cell and embarked on the difficult task of writing to Mrs Ashworth.
‘My dear Lyle,’ I began after three false starts. I had been accustomed to address her by her first name ever since I had once counselled her in an emergency, but now I found the informality grated on me. ‘Thank you so much for bringing the cake last Thursday afternoon. In these days of increasing shortages it was very well received in the refectory.
‘Now a word about your worries. Is it possible, do you think, that your present melancholy is associated in some way with Michael’s birth? I seem to remember that you suffered a similar lowering of the spirits after Charley was born in 1938, and indeed I believe such post-natal difficulties are not uncommon. Do go to your doctor and ask if there’s anything he can do to improve your physical health. The mind and the body are so closely linked that any physical impairment, however small, can have a draining effect on one’s psyche.
‘I’m afraid it’s useless to ask me to heal you, as if I were a magician who could wave a magic wand and achieve a miracle. The charism of healing is one which for various reasons I avoid exercising except occasionally during my work as a spiritual counsellor, and as you know, I never counsel women except in emergencies. This is not because I wish to be uncharitable but because a difference in sex raises certain difficulties, as any modern psychiatrist will tell you, and these difficulties often create more problems than they solve. May I urge you again to consult Dame Veronica at the convent in Dunton? I know your aversion to nuns, but let me repeat that Dame Veronica is the best kind of counsellor, mature, sympathetic, intuitive and wise, and I’m sure she would listen with understanding to your problems.
‘Meanwhile please never doubt that I shall be praying regularly for you, for Charles and for the children in the hope that God will bless you and keep you safe in these difficult times which at present engulf us all.’
Having thus extricated myself (or so I hoped) from Mrs Ashworth’s far from welcome attentions I then wasted several minutes trying to decide how I should sign the letter. The Fordites, though following a Benedictine way of life, are Anglo-Catholics anxious to draw a firm line between themselves and their Roman brethren so the use of the traditional title ‘Dom’ is not encouraged. Usually I avoided any pretentious signature involving the word ‘Abbot’ and a string of initials which represented the name of the Order, but sometimes it was politic to be formal and I had a strong inclination to be formal now. However the danger of a formal signature was that Lyle Ashworth might consider it as evidence that I was rejecting her, and I was most anxious that in her disturbed state I should do nothing which might upset her further. An informal signature, on the other hand, might well be even more dangerous; if I had been writing to her husband I would have signed myself JON DARROW without a second thought, but I could not help feeling that a woman like Lyle might find an abbreviated Christian name delectably intimate.
I continued to hesitate as I reflected on my name. Before entering the Order I had chosen to be Jon but abbreviated names were not permitted to novices so I found I had become Jonathan. Yet so strong was my antipathy to this name that later, as I approached my final vows, I had requested permission to assume the name John – the cenobitic tradition of choosing a new name to mark the beginning of a new life was popular though not compulsory among the Fordites – and I had been greatly disappointed when this request had been refused. I suspected Father Darcy had decided that any pampering, no matter how mild, would have been bad for me. It was not until some years later when I became Ruydale’s Master of Novices that I was able to take advantage of the fact that shortened names were not forbidden in private among the officers, and a select group of my friends was then invited to use the abbreviation.
As time went on I also dropped the name Jonathan when introducing myself to those outside the Order who sought my spiritual direction, and now I had reached the point where I considered the name part of a formal ‘persona’, like the title Abbot, which had been grafted on to my true identity as a priest. I thought of Lyle Ashworth again, and the more I thought of her the more convinced I became that this was a case where Jon the priest should disappear behind Jonathan the Abbot, even though I had no wish to upset her by appearing too formal. I sighed. Then shifting uneasily in my chair I at last terminated this most troublesome epistolary exercise by omitting the trappings of my title but nevertheless signing myself austerely JONATHAN DARROW.
VII
Neither Lyle nor Martin replied to my letters but when Dame Veronica wrote to say that Lyle had visited her I realized with relief that my counsel had not been ineffective. However I continued to hear nothing from Martin and soon my anguish, blunting my psyche, was casting a stifling hand over my life of prayer.
By this time I had exhaustively analysed my vision and reached an impasse. I still believed I had received a communication from God but I knew that any superior would have been justifiably sceptical while Francis Ingram would have been downright contemptuous. It is the policy of the religious orders of both the Roman and the Anglican Churches to treat any so-called vision from God as a delusion until proved otherwise, and although I was a genuine psychic this fact was now a disadvantage. A ‘normal’ man who had a vision out of the blue would have been more convincing to the authorities than a psychic who might be subconsciously manipulating his gift to reflect the hidden desires of his own ego.
I wrote yet again to Martin and this time, when he failed to reply, I felt so bitter that I knew I had to have help. I could no longer disguise from myself the fact that I was in an emotional and spiritual muddle and suddenly I longed for Aidan, the Abbot of Ruydale, who had looked after me with such wily spiritual dexterity in the past. As soon as I recognized this longing I knew I had to see him face to face; I was beyond mere epistolary counselling, but no Fordite monk, not even an abbot, can leave his cloister without the permission of his superior, and that brought me face to face again with Francis Ingram.
Pulling myself together I fixed my mind on how comforting it would be to confide in Aidan, and embarked on the letter I could no longer avoid.
‘My dear Father,’ I wrote, and paused. I was thinking how peculiarly repellent it was to be obliged to address an exact contemporary as ‘Father’ and absolutely repellent it was to be obliged to address Francis as a superior. However such thoughts were unprofitable. Remembering Aidan again I made a new effort to concentrate. ‘Forgive me for troubling you,’ I continued rapidly, ‘but I wonder if you’d be kind enough to grant me leave to make a brief visit to Ruydale. I’m currently worried about my son, and since Aidan’s met him I feel his advice would be useful. Of course I wouldn’t dream of bothering you with what I’m sure you would rank as a very minor matter, but if you could possibly sanction a couple of days’ absence I’d be most grateful.’ I concluded with the appropriate formula of blessings and signed myself JONATHAN.
He replied by return of post. My heart sank as I saw his flamboyant handwriting on the envelope, and I knew in a moment of foreknowledge that my request had been refused. Tearing open the letter I read:
‘My dear Jonathan, Thank you so much for your courteous and considerate letter. But I wonder if – out of sheer goodness of heart, of course – you’re being just a little too courteous and a little too considerate? If you have the kind of problem which would drive you to abandon your brethren and travel nearly two hundred miles to seek help, I suggest you journey not to Ruydale but to London to see me. I shall expect you next week on Monday, the seventeenth of June. Assuring you, my dear Jonathan, of my regular and earnest prayers …’
I crumpled the letter into a ball and sat looking at it. Then gradually as my anger triggered the gunfire of memory the present receded and I began to journey through the past to my first meeting with Francis Ingram.
VIII
I first saw Francis when we were freshmen at Cambridge. He was leading a greyhound on a leash and smoking a Turkish cigarette. He was also slightly drunk. During that far-off decade which concluded the nineteenth century Francis looked like a degenerate in a Beardsley drawing and talked like a character in a Wilde play. In response to my fascinated inquiry the college porter told me that this exotic incarnation of the spirit of the age was the younger son of the Marquis of Hindhead. The porter spoke reverently. Even in those early days of our Varsity career Francis was acclaimed as ‘a character’.
I wanted to be ‘a character’ myself, but I was up at Cambridge on a scholarship, my allowance was meagre and I knew none of the right people. Francis, I heard, gave smart little luncheon parties in his rooms and offered his guests caviar and champagne. Barely able to afford even the occasional pint of ale I nursed my jealousy in solitude and spent the whole of my first term wondering how I could ‘get on’.
‘If you get on as you should,’ my mother had said to me long ago, ‘then no one will look down on you because I was once in service.’
I was just thinking in despair that I was doomed to remain a social outcast in that bewitching but cruelly privileged environment when Francis noticed me. I heard him say to the porter as I drew back out of sight on the stairs: ‘Who’s that excessively tall article who looks like a bespectacled lamp-post and wears those perfectly ghastly cheap suits?’ And later he said to me with a benign condescension: ‘The porter mentioned that you told his fortune better than any old fraud in a fair-ground, and it occurred to me that you might be rather amusing.’
I received an invitation to his next smart little luncheon-party and put myself severely in debt by buying a new suit. The fortune-telling was a success. More invitations followed. Soon I became an object of curiosity, then of respect and finally of fascination; I had discovered that by devoting my psychic gifts to the furtherance of my ambition the closed doors were opening and I had become ‘a character’ at last.
‘Darrow’s the most amazing chap,’ said Francis to his latest ‘chère amie’. ‘He reads palms, stops watches without touching them and makes the table waltz around the room during a seance – and now he’s taken to healing! He makes his hands tingle, strokes you in the right place and the next moment you’re resurrected from the dead! He’s got this droll idea that he should be a clergyman but personally I think he was born to be a Harley Street quack – he’d soon have all society beating a path to his door.’
By that time we were in our final year and I was more ambitious than ever. It was true that I was reading theology out of a genuine interest to learn what the best minds of the past had thought about the God I already considered I knew intimately, but I was also possessed by the desire to ‘get on’ in the Church and I saw an ecclesiastical career as my best chance of self-aggrandisement; I used to dream of an episcopal palace, a seat in the House of Lords and invitations to Windsor Castle. Naturally I had enough sense to keep these worldly thoughts to myself, but an ambitious man exudes an unmistakable aura and no doubt those responsible for my moral welfare were concerned about me. Various members of the divinity faculty endeavoured to give me the necessary spiritual direction, but I was uninterested in being directed because I was fully confident that I could direct myself. I felt I could communicate with God merely by flicking the right switches in my psyche, but it was a regrettable fact that my interest in God faded as my self-esteem, fuelled by my social success, burgeoned to intoxicating new dimensions.
‘How divinely wonderful to see you – I’m in desperate need of a magic healer!’ said Francis’ new ‘chère amie’ when I arrived to ‘dine and sleep’ one weekend at her very grand country house. A widowed twenty-year-old, she had already acquired a ‘fin de siècle’ desire to celebrate her new freedom with as much energy as discretion permitted. ‘Dear Mr Darrow, I have this simply too, too tiresome pain in this simply too, too awkward place …’
I was punting idly with the lady on the Cam two days later when Francis approached me in another punt with two henchmen and tried to ram me. I managed to deflect the full force of the assault but when he tried to use the punting pole as a bayonet I lost my temper. Abandoning the lady, who was feigning hysterics and enjoying herself immensely, I leapt aboard Francis’ punt and tried to wrest the pole from him with the result that we both plunged into the river.
‘You charlatan!’ he yelled at me as we emerged dripping on the bank. ‘You common swinish rotter! You ought to be castrated like Peter Abelard and then burnt at the stake for bloody sorcery!’
I told him it was hardly my fault if he was too effete to satisfy the opposite sex, and after that it took five men to separate us. I remember being startled by his pugnacity. Perhaps it was then that I first realized there was very much more to Francis Ingram than was allowed to meet the eye.
In the end his henchmen dragged him away and I was left to laugh at the incident, but I only laughed because at that moment my psychic faculty was dormant and I never foresaw the future. A month later the lady, who had been telling everyone I had miraculously cured her abdominal pain, became violently ill, and in hospital it was discovered that her appendix had ruptured. She died twenty-four hours later.
I knew that because I had temporarily removed the pain she had refrained from seeking medical advice until it was too late, and as the enormity of the catastrophe overwhelmed me I perceived for the first time the danger in which I stood. Contrary to what I had supposed my psychic powers made me not strong and impregnable but weak and vulnerable, a prey to any passing demonic force. I had used my powers to serve myself and the result had been tragedy. I now realized I had to use my powers to serve God, not merely in order to be a good man but in order to survive as a sane rational being, and as I finally recognized a genuine call to the priesthood I stumbled through the meadows which separated Cambridge from Grantchester and knocked on the door of the Fordite monks.
IX
At that stage of my life I had no thought of being a monk. I was merely desperate to obtain absolution from someone who, unlike the stern authorities at Laud’s College, might hear my confession with compassion, and if anyone had told me that one day I would myself enter the Order I would have laughed in scorn.
It would be edifying to record that my spiritual problems were solved once I came under the Abbot of Grantchester’s direction, but although James Reid was the holiest of men he was quite the wrong director for me. I liked him because he was fascinated by my psychic gifts and this, I regret to say, enhanced my pride by making me feel special. The result was that I fell into the habit of using my powers to manipulate him until we had both fooled ourselves into believing that we had achieved a successful ‘rapport’. In retrospect the truth seems obvious: I was still so spiritually immature that I could only tolerate a director who cocooned me in indulgence, and beyond my genuine desire to devote my life to God’s service, my psyche was as disruptive and undisciplined as ever. The years of my troubled priesthood had begun.
I saw no more of Francis after we came down from Cambridge, and for a time I was so absorbed by my preparations for ordination that I never thought of him, but five years later when I was a married Naval chaplain I heard the astonishing news that he had entered the Order. He began his monastic career at the Starwater house, some forty miles from where I worked at the Naval base in Starmouth, but I had lost touch with the Fordites by that time and I saw no reason why I should ever meet Francis again.
However word of his progress continued to reach me as he rose with lightning speed to the office of Bursar, no mean post in a place like Starwater Abbey where there was a large school to run and complex accounts to be kept. He was still at Starwater when I myself entered the Order in 1923, but as my career was unfolding at Ruydale we never met. Nor did we correspond. He represented a past which I could remember only with shame, and I suspected that I represented a similar burden of guilt to him. But then in 1930 he was transferred to the London headquarters in order to assist its ailing Bursar, and in a flash of foreknowledge I knew that our lives were drawing together again after completing some enigmatic circle in time.
Our reunion came sooner than I had anticipated. I underwent a period of crisis which I have no intention of describing so I shall only record that it concerned the house-cat, Whitby, and nearly terminated my career as a monk; Father Darcy had to be summoned to Yorkshire to set me back on the spiritual rails. I recovered from my crisis, but six months later Father Darcy decided to reassure himself that I had fully surmounted the disaster which was now known as ‘The Whitby Affair’, and I was summoned to London for an inspection.
The summons was most unusual. No one ever visited London from Ruydale except Aidan, who was obliged to travel there once a year for the Abbots’ Conference, and although I was apprehensive at the prospect of being inspected by Father Darcy I was also flattered that I was to receive special attention. However when I arrived in London in a state of wary but not unpleasant anticipation it was a rude shock when I found myself welcomed not by the Guest-Master but by the new Bursar, Francis Ingram.
‘So you’re still as lean as a lamp-post!’ he exclaimed. ‘But what happened to those owlish spectacles?’
‘My sight improved with age. What happened to the greyhound?’
‘He died of a surfeit of champagne.’
We laughed, shaking hands as if we were the oldest of friends, but I was unnerved by his aura of hostility. It lay like a ball of ice beneath the warmth of his welcome; to my psychic eye it was unmistakable, and immediately I heard myself say: ‘Perhaps we should agree to draw a veil over the past.’
‘Should we? Personally I think it’s more honest to face one’s disasters and chalk the whole lot up to experience. After all,’ said Francis, suddenly fusing his middle-aged self with the undergraduate of long ago, ‘Wilde did say that experience was the name men give to their mistakes.’
I said with as much good humour as I could muster: ‘Still quoting Wilde? I’m surprised our superior permits it!’
‘Then perhaps now’s the moment to make it clear to you that I’m the favourite with a licence to be entertaining,’ said Francis at once, and as he smiled, making a joke of the response, I recognized the demon jealousy and knew our old rivalry was about to be revived in a new form.
I said abruptly: ‘You’ve told him about the past?’
‘How could I avoid it? As soon as the rumour reached London that you’d got up to something thoroughly nasty with a cat I said: “That reminds me of my salad-days.” And then before I knew where I was –’
‘He’d prised the whole story out of you.’
‘But didn’t he know most of it anyway?’
‘I admit I told him about the Cambridge catastrophe, but I never mentioned you by name! And now, of course, he’s decided it would be amusing as well as edifying to batter us into brotherly love – he’s summoned me here not just to put my soul under the microscope but to purge us of our ancient antipathy!’
This deduction proved to be all too correct. Every evening after supper Father Darcy would summon us to his room and order a debate on a subject of theological interest. The debates lasted an hour and were thoroughly exhausting as Francis and I struggled to keep our tempers and maintain an acceptable level of fraternal harmony. Afterwards Father Darcy would pronounce the winner, dispatch Francis and embark on a fresh examination of my spiritual health. By the end of the week I was so worn out that I could hardly drag myself back to Yorkshire.
Before my departure I said in private to Francis: ‘I hope the old man doesn’t intend to make a habit of this. All I want is a quiet life at Ruydale.’
‘Dear old chap!’ said Francis. ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe that, do you? After a few years of living on the Yorkshire moors a man of your ambition would feel like Napoleon marooned on St Helena!’
‘I don’t think that’s funny, Francis.’
‘I’m hardly delirious with amusement myself.’
‘Obviously you see me as a rival, but I assure you –’
‘Don’t bother. I’m not in the mood for hypocrisy.’
‘What’s this – a nursery tantrum? I’ve never seen such an unedifying exhibition of jealousy in all my life!’
‘And I’ve never seen such a plausible performance of a holy man devoid of ambition, but my dear Jonathan, just answer me this: has it never occurred to you that for a holy man devoid of ambition you seem to be carving out a quite remarkably successful career?’
I turned my back on him and walked away.
X
It is a relief to record that this disgraceful scene was not repeated; no doubt Francis was afterwards as ashamed of our hostile exchange as I was, and when we met again he even took the initiative in apologizing for the incident.
I paid six more visits to London before I was transferred to Grantchester, and each time Father Darcy pitted us against each other in debate, dragged our antipathy into the open and, in a metaphorical sense, rubbed our noses in the mess to discourage us from further antagonism. I was reminded of how one house-trains a cat. In the end Francis and I were so chastened by this remorseless spiritual purging that we almost became friends, but I never felt I knew him well. My psychic faculty, blunted by the antipathy which we both learnt to master but not erase, was dead in his presence. I received no insights which would have offered me the key to his character, nor could I perceive the texture of his spiritual life. Our debates had revealed his powerful intellect, but I came to the conclusion that although he was intellectually able he was spiritually limited and that this fact lay at the root of his jealousy. He was quite intelligent enough to know his limitations, more than intelligent enough to conceal them whenever possible and certainly human enough to resent a man who displayed the gifts he secretly coveted but knew he would never attain. He was also, I soon realized, deeply envious of the effortless psychic understanding which existed between Father Darcy and myself, and when I realized how much he depended on our mentor’s approbation I found myself driven to question the propriety of their relationship.
Father-son relationships are as forbidden in the cloister as the notorious ‘particular friendships’ which prurient laymen find so titillating, but I thought that Father Darcy, in characteristic fashion, might be riding roughshod over the rules in order to give Francis some form of psychological security which could prove beneficial to his character. I was not jealous. I had no desire whatsoever that Father Darcy should treat me as a son; I had a tough enough time surviving his attentions as a spiritual director. But I did wonder if Father Darcy were taking an unwise risk, and I wondered too, as time passed, if he were using Francis to gratify some immaculately concealed emotional need.
I knew I was of intense interest to Father Darcy but the interest was essentially detached; I was just the parlourmaid’s son who had presented him with the challenge of a monastic lifetime but who could nonetheless be kept at arm’s length in Yorkshire. But Francis was the man from his own class with whom he could feel at ease, the man who had to be transferred to London not merely to supervise the Order’s financial affairs but to keep the Abbot-General company in his old age. Such a situation was all very comfortable for Father Darcy, but was it good for Francis? I often considered this question but could never answer it with any degree of confidence. Perhaps Francis needed this special attention in order to make the most of those limited spiritual gifts. It was possible. With Father Darcy any bizarre monastic situation was possible – as I realized all too clearly when he lay on his deathbed and declared that his successor must be a man who could tell vintage claret from Vin ordinaire’.
Francis took care to say to me afterwards: ‘I’d like to think that despite the old man’s appalling final antics we can somehow contrive to be friends.’
‘Of course. Why not?’ I said equably before retreating to my cell to seethe with rage.
‘I fear I shall still worry in the future about you and Francis,’ confessed Aidan to me after the funeral, but I only answered with all my most fatal arrogance: ‘I can’t imagine any difficulty arising which can’t be easily resolved.’
Less than two months later I received my summons to London and I travelled there in the knowledge that I was deep in difficulties which were incapable of an easy resolution. Moreover after years of rivalry Francis now had me where he wanted me: in a position which was utterly subject to his will.
It was a bitter pill to swallow.
XI
Journeying beyond the walls of one’s cloister was always a disturbing experience – I shall never forget my first journey from Ruydale to London when I encountered the amazingly exposed legs of two flappers on the train – and now I found myself more disturbed than ever. But this time I barely noticed the female passengers. I was too busy reading The Times. It seemed the French had collapsed; Pétain had ordered a cessation of the fighting and was in touch with the Nazi command. For weeks the countries of Europe had been falling to the Nazis and now after the collapse of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium it appeared that France too had been conquered. Without the French we would be quite alone. More than fifteen hundred years of Christian culture hung by a thread and the Devil’s breath was hot upon our necks.
I found myself thinking that the chaos in the world mirrored the chaos in my psyche. I saw my career as a monk hanging by a thread, and as I forced myself to acknowledge that my vision could have been a delusion I was aware of the demonic menace which always had the power to annihilate me. A second later I was trying to recover my equilibrium by telling myself I should put my trust in God, but the trouble was, as I well knew, I was quite unable to put my trust in Francis Ingram.
Unless I wanted to be judged an apostate I could not leave the Order without his permission, and that meant my entire future rested on his ability to exercise the charism of the discernment of spirits, the gift from God which enabled a man to perceive whether a situation was divinely or diabolically inspired. Francis, as I had long since decided, was spiritually limited. This did not mean he was incapable of exercising the charism of discernment, for with God’s grace even the most unlikely people can display charismatic powers, but it did mean that I had ample opportunity to worry about how far he was capable of placing himself in God’s hands so that he might act as a channel for the Holy Spirit. Francis was a clever, cunning, efficient, ambitious, jealous, charming and outwardly devout monk. But was he a good one? I found I could derive no reassurance from reflecting that Father Darcy would hardly have willed the Order to a monk who was merely a first-class administrator. Sickness had undermined Father Darcy’s powers at the end of his life, and it was more than possible that in a moment of weakness he had given way to the temptation to leave the Order not to the best monk he ever trained but to the best son he never had.
These lowering thoughts occupied me throughout my journey on the underground railway from Liverpool Street Station to Marble Arch. Then I pulled myself together as best I could, gathered up a few scattered shreds of faith and trudged north through the brilliant June sunshine to the townhouse which had once belonged to the Order’s founder, Mr Horatio Ford.
XII
‘My dear Jonathan, how wan you look!’ said Francis in his most theatrical voice as I entered the room where he conducted his daily business. ‘But then the news in this morning’s Times is enough to make anyone blanche. I confess I’m seriously tempted to buy a wireless in order to hear Mr Churchill’s broadcast tonight – only the thought of Father Darcy turning in his grave deters me.’
‘If Father Darcy were alive he would already have discovered what kind of wireless the Archbishop keeps at Lambeth Palace and he’d be busy ordering a better one from Harrods!’
We laughed. The interview seemed to have begun in a promising spirit of amity, but I was acutely aware that the amity was no more than skin-deep.
When I had first met Francis in his gilded youth I had been reminded of that famous acid description of Julius Caesar: ‘He was every man’s woman and every woman’s man.’ But despite this appearance of ambivalence he had paid carnal attention only to the opposite sex and it was not until years later, when I became enamoured with modern psychological theories, that I suspected he was a homosexual who had indulged in heterosexual affairs to conceal his true inclinations not only from the world but from himself. Later still, when I had become far more cautious in applying modern psychology to complex characters, I became less confident of this facile diagnosis and wondered if the effete airs of Francis’ youth had merely been part of a mask he had assumed in order to draw attention to himself; I even wondered if the mask had been his way of damping down strong heterosexual inclinations which he believed might disrupt his life disastrously. But whatever the truth was about his sexuality the fact remained that in his maturity no one could have called him effete. He was a tall man, though not as tall as I was, and the passing years, stripping aside the air of decadence, had substituted a flamboyant air of distinction. He had fine dark eyes, expressive dark eyebrows and a remarkable head of silver hair which he wore longer than a monk should, no doubt out of vanity. I was surprised Father Darcy had permitted it. The Fordites may have dispensed with the medieval custom of the tonsure, but they are still expected to keep their hair decently short.
As I entered the room and we embarked on our friendly opening remarks he moved gracefully around the corner of his large handsome desk to meet me. The room too was large and handsome, littered with the antiques old Ford had left behind, and, as Father Darcy had once boasted smugly: ‘More than a match for any of the Archbishop’s private chambers at Lambeth.’ Father Darcy had been dangerously bold in his belief that to attract worldly respect the Order should present a worldly façade, and personally I deplored such a policy. The Abbot-General’s office in which I now stood was in the enclosed part of the house which meant that no one outside the Order ever saw it, but nevertheless it was furnished as lavishly as the Abbot-General’s parlour where important visitors were received. There was even, I regret to record, a peculiarly gross chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
After we had laughed with studied heartiness at the thought of Father Darcy ordering the latest wireless from Harrods, we moved swiftly through the formula of cenobitic greeting like actors in a well-rehearsed play. As Francis paused by the desk I knelt, touched his abbot’s ring with my lips and then rose to shake his hand. A moment later we were both seated facing each other across his desk.
‘I’m sorry to hear you have a difficulty with your son,’ said Francis, idly picking up my letter in which I had requested his permission to visit Yorkshire. ‘What’s the trouble?’
‘As it happens I’ve now decided that Martin isn’t my main worry at present.’ I had to will myself to add: ‘My major difficulty lies elsewhere.’
Francis, who had been rereading the letter, at once glanced up. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘And what, may I ask, is your major difficulty?’
I said: ‘I want to leave the Order,’ and at that moment the die was cast.
TWO (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
‘When Tertullian, who was not a mystic, says that most men apprehend God by means of visions, we realize how natural it seemed to the ancients to believe that these experiences were a genuine and by no means unusual revelation.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion
I
I had expected a theatrical reaction but none came. Not a muscle moved in Francis’ face; his fine eyes were unreadable. Finally he dropped the letter on his desk, donned a pair of spectacles and produced from a drawer a clean sheet of foolscap. Then after dipping his pen in the ink he wrote at the top of the page: ‘JONATHAN DARROW: 17th June, 1940,’ and said casually: ‘I assume that when you say you want to leave the Order this isn’t a mere whim that’s tickled your fancy?’
‘I’m sorry, I expressed myself badly. What I want is of course quite irrelevant. But I believe this is what God wants.’
Francis underlined his heading and asked: ‘When were you first aware of this call?’
‘May the seventeenth.’
Francis raised an eyebrow, ostentatiously examined his desk-calendar and allowed a pregnant pause to develop. But eventually all he said was: ‘How did you become aware of the call?’
‘I had a vision.’
A second pause ensued and was allowed to reach a far more advanced stage of pregnancy. Francis took off his spectacles, dangled them between his thumb and forefinger and glanced at the chandelier as if each crystal had demanded a careful inspection. Then replacing his glasses he pushed them down to the tip of his nose and looked at me over the frames. Francis had a whole series of such mannerisms; I always found them excessively irritating.
‘You had a vision.’
‘Yes.’
‘You had a vision of profound importance on the seventeenth of May and yet it’s only now that you deign to confide in your superior?’
‘I felt I needed time for reflection.’
‘How arrogant! You have what can only be described as a disruptive experience which must inevitably have affected your spiritual life, and yet you coolly decide you’re in a position to reflect on the experience at leisure!’
I said at once: ‘I was in error. I’m sorry.’
‘So you should be.’ Pushing back his glasses to the bridge of his nose he wrote: ‘Reflects for a month but now admits the arrogance of his failure to confide in me immediately.’ On completing this sentence he added in his most acid voice: ‘And now I suppose you’ll tell me that you’ve failed to confide in your confessor! Incidentally, who is he?’
‘Timothy.’ Remembering that Francis had not yet visited the house at Grantchester I offered the most fundamental description I could devise. ‘He’s our senior monk, a very good, holy old man.’
‘Cosy for you,’ said Francis. ‘I’m only surprised Father Darcy sanctioned someone so pliable, but then I suppose he thought you couldn’t go too far astray so long as he was alive to keep an eye on you.’
I said nothing.
‘Very well,’ said Francis, writing the word ‘VISION’ on a fresh line, ‘You’d better tell me what happened,’ and I began my account of the abnormal in the most normal voice I could muster.
II
When I had finished Francis drew a line under his last note and stared in silence at the written page. ‘Is that all?’ he said abruptly at last. ‘There weren’t, for example, six naked women dancing merrily in the glade?’
‘Absolutely not!’
Unexpectedly Francis smiled. ‘I was only thinking that apart from the ending, which I admit is spectacular, it’s a dull sort of vision, isn’t it? No naked ladies, no heavenly choirs, no disembodied voices exhorting you to great spiritual feats.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ll try to have a more entertaining vision next time.’
He laughed. I was tempted to relax but sensed that he wanted to lure me off my guard. ‘Tell me,’ he was saying idly, ‘how often do you have these visions?’
‘On average about once every four years. A far more common experience is foreknowledge, a flash in the consciousness which lasts no more than a couple of seconds.’
‘How accurate are these flashes?’
‘There’s a high margin of error. But the correct predictions can be striking.’
‘But you admit you’re often wrong.’
‘Certainly. I believe the future is foreknown to God but not foreordained – or in other words, I believe there are many futures but the future which actually happens in finite time is one which can be shaped by the exercise of man’s free will. I think my failures occur when man steps in and alters the pattern.’
‘Quite. But I really must resist the temptation to be diverted,’ said Francis, ‘by an enthralling discussion of determinism and free will. Now if we may return to your visions –’ Francis sighed as if he found the word a heavy cross to bear ‘– do they always relate to the future?’
‘Not necessarily. They may represent the present or past seen from another angle. Or if they do relate to the future, the past may be present as well. It’s as if I’m moving in a dimension of reality which exists beyond time as we understand it.’
‘How do you classify this present vision as far as time’s concerned?’
‘I think I’ve seen the future. There was nothing of the past or present in it at all.’
‘And maybe nothing of the future either. But before we get bogged down in scepticism,’ said Francis, allowing me no chance to comment, ‘give me an example of a vision which was rather less enigmatic than this one. I feel I need some yardstick of comparison.’
After a pause I said: ‘In my last vision – not this present one, but a vision I had in 1937 – I found myself back in the prison where I worked before I entered the Order. I was walking down one of the main halls, but then I turned out of the past into an unfamiliar corridor and entered a large room which was certainly like no cell which exists in the prison service. About a dozen prisoners were confined there but they didn’t see me so I knew that in this particular dimension of reality I wasn’t physically present. At the same time I felt deeply involved; perhaps I was psychically present in my prayers. Then as I drew closer I realized the prisoners were grouped around a man who lay dying and that this dying man was being tended by a priest whom I recognized. It was Charles Ashworth, the Canon of Cambridge Cathedral and the Tutor in Theology at Laud’s. I act as his spiritual director. Then I felt the evil emanating from the walls and as I automatically began to recite the Lord’s Prayer the vision ended.’ I paused before adding: ‘Over the years I’ve become increasingly certain that I saw a scene in a future prisoner-of-war camp.’
‘Where’s Ashworth at the moment?’
‘Still safe in England. But he’s become an army chaplain.’ Before I could stop myself I was prejudicing my case by voicing the opinion I so much wanted to believe. ‘However there’s a good chance that the vision won’t come true; I think it may have been a psychic aberration brought on by the strain of my translation to Grantchester.’
Francis immediately pounced. ‘What makes you so sure that this latest vision isn’t a mere psychic aberration?’
I kept calm. ‘The light shining through the north window was the light of God. The knowledge imprinted on my consciousness formed a divine revelation. Unlike the Ashworth vision I felt no doubt afterwards, no confusion.’
Francis said sharply: ‘What did Timothy think?’
‘He saw the vision as an allegory, but he was handicapped by the fact that I concealed the revelation at the end.’ I recounted Timothy’s interpretation.
‘And do you dismiss this allegorical approach entirely?’
‘I’m sure I was in a real place – but I concede there may have been symbolism present. I don’t believe the suitcase existed on the same level of reality as the chapel. I suspect it represented travel, or possibly change.’
‘Tell me why you’re so convinced that you were moving in a landscape which actually existed.’
I said without hesitation: ‘The quality of the detail. It was unusually distinct. In the chapel I even smelt the scent of the lilies, and such an experience is most unusual in a vision. The sense of smell is nearly always dormant.’
Francis made a long note before extracting a fresh sheet of foolscap from his desk. Then he said: ‘After the vision had ended, what sort of state were you in?’
‘I was trembling and sweating. The amount of psychic energy required to generate a vision always produces a powerful physical reaction.’
‘Were you sexually excited?’
Silence. I was acutely aware that the longer I took to reply the more questionable my hesitation would seem but several seconds elapsed before I could say: ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything.’
‘That’s not for you to decide.’ Francis wrote on his fresh sheet of foolscap: ‘Possible evidence of sexual trouble,’ before he glanced up in time to catch me reading his writing. ‘Jonathan, would you kindly desist from flaunting the perfect sight you’ve been fortunate enough to acquire in middle age and abstain from any attempt to decipher my notes? That’s an order.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘The correct response to an order from your superior,’ said Francis, ‘is: “Yes, Father.” And by the way, are you aware that since this interview commenced you haven’t once addressed me in an appropriate manner?’
‘I’m sorry, Father. Please forgive me.’
There was a pause. Having flexed the muscles of his new power and found them in good order Francis allowed himself a discreet sigh of satisfaction before he picked up his pen again. ‘Very well, let’s continue with the subject of sexual intimacy – or, to use the coarse abbreviation of the younger generation, “sex”. How many women are there in your life at present?’
‘There’s my daughter –’
‘Let’s leave Freud out of this, shall we?’
‘There’s the Abbess at Dunton. She’s a splendid old lady of seventy-eight whom I see when I pay the Abbot’s traditional call on the nuns once a year.’
‘And let’s leave out the old age pensioners too. Is there any woman under forty whom you’ve been seeing regularly?’
‘Only Mrs Charles Ashworth, the wife of the theologian I mentioned just now.’
‘Is she attractive?’
‘Not to me. In fact I rather dislike her. May I stress at this point that my vision has absolutely nothing to do with women and sex?’
‘Why are you getting so ruffled on the subject of women and sex?’
‘I’m not getting ruffled! I’m simply impatient because –’
‘When did you last see Mrs Ashworth?’
Silence.
‘Jonathan?’
‘I last saw Mrs Ashworth,’ I said, ‘on the sixteenth of May.’
‘The day before your vision.’
‘Yes.’ Now it was my turn to gaze up at the chandelier as if every crystal had demanded a meticulous inspection.
‘And apart from the visit of Mrs Ashworth,’ said Francis as the nib of his pen whispered across the page, ‘what else happened on the sixteenth of May?’
‘Nothing much. There were the usual minor irritations – Augustine, one of my drones, fell asleep in choir and another drone, Denys, had to be reprimanded for raiding the larder.’
‘Just another dreary monastic day – but outside in the world it wasn’t dreary at all, was it? It was painfully exciting. Chamberlain had just fallen, Churchill had taken over as Prime Minister, the British Army in France was heading for the ordeal of Dunkirk –’
‘In such circumstances it was a relief to be diverted by my drones.’
‘Your drones and Mrs Ashworth. Was she your only visitor that day?’
‘No.’ I hesitated before adding neutrally: ‘My son came to see me.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Francis. ‘Martin. Obviously now is the moment when you should tell me about your current difficulty with him.’
I glanced down at my hands and to my horror I saw their outline begin to blur. Willing my abbot’s ring to remain distinct I managed to say: ‘It was nothing. We had a disagreement but that’s irrelevant to the subject under discussion.’
‘That’s not for you to judge.’ As my vision cleared I saw him write ‘MARTIN’ and underline the name twice. ‘Has anything else happened to upset you lately – apart, of course, from Father Darcy’s death and your failure to become Abbot-General?’
By this time I had myself so tightly in control that I never even flinched. ‘No, Father.’
Francis removed his spectacles and to my profound relief I realized the interview was drawing to a close. ‘Well, Jonathan,’ he said dryly, ‘you’ve certainly given me food for thought. I trust you’ve made adequate arrangements for your prior to hold the fort in your absence?’
‘I did tell him that I’d almost certainly have to stay overnight –’
‘Overnight?’ Francis regarded me incredulously. ‘Did you really think this matter could be settled in a few hours?’
‘No, of course not, but I thought that after you’d cross-examined me you’d merely suggest various avenues of prayer and meditation before sending me back to Grantchester to reflect further on the problem.’
‘I see. That’s what you’d do, would you, if you were the Abbot-General?’
After a pause I said: ‘Yes, Father.’
‘But you’re not the Abbot-General, are you?’
‘No, Father.’
Francis pushed his telephone across the desk towards me. ‘Ring your prior and tell him you’re going to be away for a week.’
III
I had to cancel not only a number of counselling appointments but an important retreat for theological students. I felt sorry for my prior, burdened with the necessity of making numerous awkward telephone calls, but he brushed aside with admirable alacrity the apology I felt he deserved.
While I was speaking to Bernard Francis was engaged in writing a letter. ‘Take this to the infirmary,’ he said when he had finished. ‘The first thing to do with any monk who has visions is to give him a thorough medical examination. I’ve told Ambrose you’re a psychic so he won’t immediately jump to the conclusion that you’re off your head, but I’ve forbidden him to ask you about the contents of your vision and I forbid you to reveal them.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘When Ambrose has finished his examination you’ll probably be in time to make an appearance in choir. I shall expect to see you in the chapel and also afterwards in the refectory. As for the afternoon, you must spend it in prayer. I suggest you meditate on the subject of truth and pray for the courage to be entirely honest with me during the ordeal which lies ahead for us both. Then at four o’clock you’ll return to this room and I shall inform you how I intend to proceed.’
‘Yes, Father.’
He made a gesture of dismissal and at once I departed for the infirmary.
IV
I had first met Ambrose the Infirmarian in 1923 during the turbulent opening year of my monastic life; when Father Darcy had removed me from Grantchester I had spent the night at the London headquarters before being dispatched to Ruydale. After an indescribable scene in the punishment cell and another equally harrowing ordeal in which I had been obliged to kneel in a humiliated state in front of the Abbot-General’s table in the refectory while the brethren ate their supper, I had been dumped in the infirmary to be repaired and Ambrose had given me the welcome reassurance that the Christian spirit was not entirely absent in that rich repulsive house.
Later I had met him on my unorthodox visits to London after the Whitby affair. He had sought my company during the Saturday recreation hour, and I suspected he was interested in me because he had heard I possessed the charism of healing. He was in correspondence with Wilfred, the Infirmarian at Ruydale, a man who unlike Ambrose had had no formal medical training but who nonetheless possessed considerable gifts as a healer, and Wilfred had probably let slip a detail or two which had stimulated Ambrose’s curiosity. However since I was forbidden to discuss my ill-fated career as a healer this curiosity had remained unassuaged.
‘Good morning, Father!’ he said, meticulous in respecting my office even though before my final preferment he had been one of the brethren invited to call me Jon. ‘I heard you were visiting us today but I didn’t realize I was going to have the pleasure of talking to you.’ And when he had read Francis’ letter he said with an admirable serenity: ‘Do you normally enjoy good health?’
‘Very good health,’ I said, and at once wondered if I sounded too firm. Psychics are sensitive on the subject and never more so than when their powers are being critically examined.
Ambrose asked a number of mundane questions about my bowels, bladder, heart, eyes and teeth before enquiring if I were prone to suffer from headaches. Immediately I knew he was toying with the idea of a brain tumour.
‘I never have headaches,’ I said.
‘Never?’ said Ambrose mildly.
Realizing that I was sounding thoroughly implausible I changed course and admitted to the occasional headache.
‘Have you ever suffered from epilepsy?’
‘Absolutely not!’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Ambrose, very soothing. ‘But I’m sure you understand that the question has to be asked. I must say, it certainly sounds as if you’re unusually fit for a man of your age – and what age would that be exactly, Father, if you’ll forgive my asking?’
I was caught unprepared. To my surprise I found the question annoyed me, and my surprise was followed by an emotion which I can only describe as a rebellious embarrassment. I said abruptly: ‘One’s as old as one feels and I feel no more than forty-five.’
When Ambrose looked astonished I saw the stupidity of my evasion and regretted it. Flatly I said: ‘I’ve just had my sixtieth birthday.’
‘Congratulations! I trust the milestone didn’t go unmarked?’
‘No, my daughter wrote and my grandchildren sent cards.’
‘What about your son?’ said Ambrose, and at once I knew he had been briefed to make an inquiry about Martin.
‘He came to see me.’
‘How nice!’ Ambrose began to take my blood pressure. ‘What’s he doing nowadays? I suppose he’s too old to be called up.’ At that time compulsory enlistment only encompassed men up to the age of twenty-seven.
‘No doubt he’ll eventually be assigned to some non-combatant task. He’s a pacifist.’
‘I admire these young men for having the courage of their convictions,’ said Ambrose generously. I knew his favourite nephew was in the Air Force. ‘What terrible times we live in! I feel I know now exactly how St Augustine felt when he witnessed the civilized world collapsing and saw the barbarians at the gates of his city. Indeed sometimes,’ said Ambrose, listening to my chest with his stethoscope, ‘no matter how deep one’s faith it’s impossible not to feel depressed.’
We had reached the subject of depression. After Ambrose had completed his tour with the stethoscope, peered down my throat and congratulated me on having kept all my teeth, I said firmly: ‘Before you ask the question you’ve already framed in your mind, may I assure you that I’m not in the least depressed?’
Ambrose gave me a quizzical look. ‘I was actually going to ask if you’d been aware of overworking lately.’
I opened my mouth to say no but instead forced myself to admit: ‘Perhaps.’
‘Overwork can lead to exhaustion and then depression becomes a danger, even with people who aren’t normally depressed. Any trouble getting to sleep?’
‘Not usually.’
‘And getting up? I was wondering if, when this vision began, you were lying in bed and wishing you could stay there all day.’
After a pause I said: ‘I wasn’t lying in bed when the vision began. I was sitting on the edge.’
‘Ah. And what exactly happened? I’m not asking for details of the vision, I hasten to add, but merely for a description of the signs which preceded it.’
‘My visual perceptions altered. Colours became very bright.’
‘Did you at any time lose consciousness?’ said Ambrose, still surreptitiously clinging to the notion of epilepsy.
‘No. My visions are always one continuous experience, the abnormal consciousness flowing directly out of the normal consciousness and back again.’
‘Is it at any time an out-of-the-body experience?’
‘Yes, in the transitional period between the normal and the abnormal I can look down on my body from above.’
‘Well, that’s all very orthodox for a psychic, I suppose,’ said Ambrose, compensating for his obsession with epilepsy by accepting my descriptions calmly. ‘When did you start having these experiences?’
‘I’ve always been psychic in the sense of being able to receive flashes of foreknowledge. But the psychic energy required to generate the visions didn’t develop until I was fourteen.’
‘The age of puberty? By the way, that reminds me – I’d better examine you for possible prostate trouble.’
We had reached the subject of sex. I kept quiet and waited.
‘No sign of disease,’ said Ambrose presently. ‘Good. But I wonder if you have any more mundane problems in that area? For instance I had a man in here the other day who was plagued by early-morning erections. Of course nothing could be more common than an early-morning erection, but this man suffered such discomfort that he found he could only obtain relief by masturbating, and as he was a priest this put him in a difficult spiritual position.’
‘Self-abuse hardly results in an easy spiritual position for a layman either, Ambrose.’
We both laughed.
‘Of course a lot of monks would give their back teeth to have such problems,’ remarked Ambrose, washing his hands. ‘It’s curious, isn’t it, how a man likes his equipment to be in working order even though he’s taken a vow not to use it? I find that psychologically interesting.’
I made no comment.
‘I’m told that this vision of yours was accompanied by certain sexual manifestations,’ said Ambrose, forced by my silence to abandon his discreet approach. ‘I presume this means you had an erection.’
By this time I was getting dressed. Buckling the belt of my habit I said: ‘It’s unhelpful, Ambrose, to press the connection between the sexual force in the body and the psychic force in the mind. There may indeed be some sort of link, but exactly what that link is can only be a matter of speculation and in my opinion any sexual manifestations which occur are essentially irrelevant.’
‘They’re not indicative of sexual frustration?’
‘One of my most striking visions,’ I said, ‘occurred during my marriage when I was regularly enjoying my marital rights.’
‘Then I’d certainly agree sexual frustration couldn’t have been involved on that occasion, but what about this present incident? Has celibacy been uncomfortable for you lately?’
‘Certainly not, and personally I’d have taken a very sceptical view of that monk who could only solve his physical problem by masturbating! I hope you had the good sense to tell him to apply cold water more liberally and work harder.’
‘So with regard to your present vision –’
‘It had nothing to do with sex, Ambrose.’
‘But nevertheless it was accompanied by –’
‘Why are you laying such stress on this trivial physical phenomenon? Sexuality should be accepted without fuss, not turned into an object of morbid speculation!’
‘Yes, Father. Did you ejaculate?’
‘Ambrose, I know you’re asking these ridiculous questions with the best will in the world, but I really think –’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you –’
‘I’m not upset!’
‘– but I’m merely anxious to get everything quite clear in my mind. Now, if these sexual manifestations are irrelevant, am I right in thinking that the visions have nothing to do with any event, sexual or otherwise, which may be taking place in your life at the time?’
I willed myself to be calm and recalled my duty to be honest. ‘No, that’s not right,’ I said with reluctance. ‘There’s usually an event which seems to act as a trigger.’ I hesitated before adding: ‘In 1937 I had a vision about a young priest whom I’d just helped through a grave spiritual crisis. It seemed clear afterwards that this crisis, which had absorbed me deeply, had acted as a stimulant, triggering this psychic glimpse of one of his possible futures.’
‘And may I ask if you’ve identified the trigger of this latest vision?’
I said flatly: ‘There was no trigger. The vision came from God.’
We sat in silence for a moment. I sensed that Ambrose was anxious to signal not only his respect for me but his reverence for any gift from God, and because I was aware of his sympathy I managed to control my anger when he eventually asked: ‘Have you felt persecuted lately?’
‘No. And I haven’t been hearing voices either. I’m not a paranoid schizophrenic’
‘The most difficult patients, as any doctor will tell you,’ said Ambrose, smiling at me, ‘are always the ones who like to run their own interviews and dictate the results to their unfortunate physicians.’ He stood up before adding: ‘However I have to admit that in my opinion you’re physically very fit for a man of sixty, and I’m not surprised you feel no older than forty-five.’
At last I was able to relax. ‘Thank you, Ambrose!’ I said, smiling back at him, but after I had left the infirmary I realized he had ventured no opinion on my mental health at all.
V
‘I’ve been reading your file,’ said Francis when I returned to his room at four o’clock that afternoon. ‘Of course I’d read it before – I plucked it from the safe as soon as the old man had breathed his last – but in the light of the present situation I find it doubly fascinating.’
Father Darcy, like all efficient dictators, had kept files on those subject to his authority so that he always knew who was likely to cause trouble. The information had been acquired not only from the regular reports of his abbots but from his annual visitations to their houses.
I said dryly: ‘I doubt if a fascinating file should be a source of pride.’
‘That shows a promising spirit of humility.’ Francis, entrenched behind his theatrical mannerisms, began to flick idly through the assorted papers in the bulging cardboard folder, and suddenly I wondered if he were feeling insecure, playing for time while he steadied his nerves. ‘The part I enjoyed most,’ he was saying amused, ‘was the section about Whitby the cat. Whitby! Was he named about the Synod?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ll be surprised to hear Father Darcy gives him a favourable mention. “A very superior animal,” he writes, “much admired by the community.”’
I said nothing, but the mention of Father Darcy seemed to give Francis the confidence he needed and he embarked on the necessary speech. ‘This is how I intend to proceed,’ he said briskly. ‘Every afternoon at this time you’ll come here and we’ll discuss certain aspects of your situation. Let me hasten to reassure you that at this stage I’ve no intention of behaving like either a prosecuting counsel or a member of the Spanish Inquisition; I merely want to shine a torch, as it were, into various obscure areas to try to widen your perspective on what I suspect is a very difficult and complex reality. Then I’ll send you back to Grantchester for further reflection.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘After a month of further reflection,’ said Francis, soothed by my immaculate docility and steadily gaining in confidence, ‘if you still feel called to leave the Order, you must return here so that I can wheel on the rack, take you apart and poke around among the pieces. It’ll be very unpleasant but I’ve no choice; I’m responsible as your superior for the care of your soul, and I can’t possibly release you from your vows until I’m absolutely certain that this call comes from God and not from – but no, we won’t talk of the Devil. Father Darcy would, but I’m not Father Darcy, and to be honest I think he was a great deal too obsessed with demonic infiltration and very much too fond of exorcism.’
This confession intrigued me. It was the first time I had ever heard Francis disagree with our mentor or hint at his own private spiritual attitudes. Cautiously I said: ‘Father Darcy was a psychic and it’s easier for psychics, I think, to talk symbolically of forces which they can perceive so clearly but which normal people find opaque.’
‘Oh, don’t misunderstand!’ said Francis at once. ‘I’m not one of those liberal theologians who cheerfully write off the Devil as passé! Obviously demonic infiltration exists – look at Hitler. But you’re not Hitler, Jonathan, and I think that any corruption of your call is going to come from the dark side of your personality within you, not from the dark forces of the Devil without.’
‘Father Darcy would say –’
‘Father Darcy would say the Devil could be at work in your psyche, but that would just be his old-fashioned Victorian shorthand for what you and I know to be the disruptive force of the subconscious mind.’ Francis, who had discarded his theatrical mannerisms as his confidence increased, now leant forward across the desk to hammer his point home. ‘So let me repeat: it’s not the Devil we have to fear here but a dislocation of your personality, possibly brought on by emotional strain or overwork or some cause which is at present hidden from us.’
There was a pause while I debated whether it would be wiser to make no comment but finally I was unable to resist saying: ‘A dislocation of the personality is by no means always incompatible with a genuine call. Indeed in some cases a call can’t be heard until some dislocation occurs to open the spiritual ears.’
Francis immediately felt intimidated. ‘I trust you’re not intending to carp and snipe at everything I say.’
‘No, Father, I’m sorry.’
‘It may indeed be the case that God is calling you by putting you under psychological pressure,’ said Francis irritably, ‘but how can we tell that until we uncover the exact state of your psyche and see whether the pattern reveals the hand of God or the self-centred desires of your disturbed ego?’
‘Quite.’ As I assumed my meekest expression, Francis suddenly realized that if he persisted in his ill-temper I could outflank him by taking a saintly stance which would make him look both petulant and foolish. His innate cunning triumphed over his insecurity; at once he altered course.
‘Once I believe your vision is a gift from God,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’ll be the first to shake your hand and give you my blessing. But meanwhile …’ He gave a theatrical sigh ‘… meanwhile I have a duty to be sceptical.’ Effortlessly he began to exude an aura of benign concern. ‘Now Jonathan, I’m not going to give you orders about how you should spend your time in between our daily interviews, but I do urge you to relax as much as possible. Ambrose thought a little holiday would do you no harm at all –’ This was the first proof I had that Ambrose felt ambivalent about my mental health ‘– so please don’t exhaust yourself in excessive spiritual exercises. Oh, and I forbid you to fast. I don’t want you having visions brought on by lack of food.’
The interview having thus been terminated on a relentlessly friendly note, I retired with relief to my cell.
VI
My cell was in fact not a cell at all but one of the distressingly well-appointed bedrooms set aside for visiting abbots. It lay on the same landing as the Abbot-General’s sumptuous bedchamber, and faced west across the immaculately tended grounds which were bordered by a high brick wall. Our founder Mr Ford, an adventurer who had made his fortune from slave-trading before his miraculous conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in the 1840s, had lived in style on his ill-gotten gains, and his Order, supported from the start by the greater part of his massive wealth, had husbanded their resources with skill.
I have no wish to imply that there is anything wrong with a monastic community which skilfully husbands its resources; on the contrary, every abbot has a duty to make ends meet. But I found it unedifying that a religious order should spend such a large part of those skilfully husbanded resources on maintaining such a luxurious headquarters. I was offended not merely by the antiques in the Abbot-General’s office. The atmosphere of debilitating affluence permeated the entire house and even the novices were pampered by having linoleum on the floor of their scriptorium. As I returned to my grossly over-furnished chamber that afternoon I wondered, not for the first time, how I was expected to pray in it, and to counter my disgust I embarked on some alterations.
My first act was to take down the three pictures and put them in the wardrobe. I like paintings but when I am at work I find them distracting. Then I rolled up the carpet, which was woven into a pattern so exquisite that I had already wasted far too much time gazing at it, and tackled the bed, which I knew from past experience during the annual abbots’ conferences was soft enough to give me back-ache. Having stacked the mattress against the wall I replaced the coverings on the base, which was reassuringly hard, and sat down at the table.
I closed my eyes but not to pray; I was sharpening my concentration in order to plan how I might best master Francis, but the next moment, realizing that I was behaving like some buccaneering politician engaged in a seamy struggle for power with his party’s leader, I checked myself in shame. How unedifying! I resolved to order my thoughts along more salubrious lines, but the more I tried to think like a priest the more I despaired of ever being able to concentrate in that distracting house, and at last, abandoning my room, I sought refuge in the garden.
I felt better outside. At first I merely strolled around the lawn and savoured the sunshine but later my feet carried me through the gates of the cemetery until I found myself standing by the cross which marked Father Darcy’s grave.
Desolation overwhelmed me. I felt lost and adrift, unnervingly vulnerable – and the next moment I was experiencing not only a painful grief but a painful rage that I should have been so abruptly abandoned.
The emotion lasted no longer than a second but I was shocked by the glimpse I had received into such a dark desperate corner of my psyche. I even glanced over my shoulder as if I feared Francis might be spying on me in my weakness, but of course there was no one there and finally, pulling myself together, I withdrew to the chapel to pray.
VII
At four o’clock on the following afternoon I presented myself once more at the Abbot-General’s office, and the gross china clock which squatted on the marble mantelshelf chimed the hour as I halted before my superior’s desk.
‘Today we’re going to examine your vision in more detail,’ said Francis, motioning me to be seated. ‘So let me start by asking you this: are you sure the chapel was in England?’
I was sufficiently startled to say: ‘It certainly never occurred to me that it wasn’t. The light was so English – that dull greenish light which is so typical of a cloudy English day.’
‘Presumably the greenish light means the trees were in leaf. But was it spring or summer?’
‘Summer. It was too warm to be spring.’
‘If you were aware of the warmth,’ said Francis, writing busily, ‘were you also aware of your clothing? Were you wearing your habit, which we know is hell in hot weather, or were you enjoying the bliss of trousers and a shirt?’
I was intrigued but had to confess: ‘I don’t know.’
‘Then let’s approach the memory from another angle. You said yesterday –’ He consulted his notes ‘– that there were steps leading to the doors of the chapel. Did you raise the skirt of your habit as you mounted these steps?’
‘No,’ I said at once, and added without thinking: ‘How clever of you, Francis!’
He looked at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘Father.’
‘Father. I’m sorry.’
There was a pause before he continued: ‘So it seems you weren’t wearing your habit. But that’s not evidence that you weren’t still a monk. You may have been on an authorized visit to this place, in which case you’d be wearing a clerical suit, just as we all must whenever we journey outside the cloister. So my next question is inevitably: what was your purpose in going to the chapel?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Was it your impression that the chapel was in regular use?’
‘Yes. The lilies –’
‘Obviously the lilies prove that it had been visited recently but was there any evidence that the building was being used for worship? The lack of orthodox altar furnishings seems odd.’
‘I agree but I’m sure it wasn’t deconsecrated. Perhaps I was going there for private prayer.’
‘The place seemed familiar to you?’
‘Yes, I felt no surprise either when I saw the chapel below me in the dell or when I opened the door and saw the interior.’
‘Why do you consistently refer to it as a chapel as if it were owned by a family or an institution? Couldn’t it have been some isolated country church?’
‘In my experience isolated country churches are always medieval. This building was Victorian even though it was built in the style of Inigo Jones.’
‘What makes you so sure it was a Victorian imitation and not the work of the master himself? I thought Victorian architects were in love with medievalism, not classicism.’
‘Then this must have been the exception that proves the rule. The pews were typically Victorian. Of course they could have been added later, but –’
‘If you know so much about the chapel why don’t you know what this ruined building was behind it?’
‘I’m sure I did know exactly what it was, but my mind’s now a blank. Could it have been an ancient castle?’
‘In a dell?’ Francis was sceptical. ‘Castles are usually built on mounds.’
‘Perhaps it was a much older church, then – a church which for some reason had been allowed to fall into ruins.’
There was a pause while we both pondered on this mystery but eventually Francis said: ‘As we know neither the name nor the vicinity of this place it would be well-nigh impossible to track down, but even if we found the chapel really did exist that still wouldn’t prove your vision came from God. All the discovery would prove is that you’re capable of a certain type of clairvoyance.’ Drawing a line below his last note he dipped his pen in the ink again. ‘Let’s leave the chapel now and turn to this bag which you believe to be a symbol. Am I right in assuming this wasn’t a bag you’ve ever owned?’
‘I’d never have owned such a piece of luggage. It was expensive – and somewhat feminine, pale beige with dark brown corners. In fact it was the sort of suitcase one would associate with a wealthy woman.’
Francis raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen it before?’
‘I was sure at the time. But on reflection … Yes, it’s not impossible that I’ve seen it before. I suspect that when my vision required the symbol I didn’t invent the suitcase but plucked the forgotten memory from my subconscious mind.’
‘But why that particular bag?’
‘Because it was striking enough to lodge in my memory. After all, one never usually looks at a bag twice.’
Francis laid down his pen, took off his spectacles and idly contemplated the chandelier. ‘Supposing,’ he said, ‘just supposing you’ve got this entirely wrong and it’s the bag, not the chapel, which exists in reality.’
‘I’m absolutely sure –’
‘Yes,’ said Francis, at once leaning forward on his desk and looking me straight in the eyes, ‘you’re a great deal too sure of yourself here, Jonathan, and I think you should proceed with more mental flexibility and very much more humility. Go away now and ask yourself the following questions: first, what was your connection with the chapel? The assumption that you were going there for prayer is plausible, I agree, but it actually explains nothing. What were you doing in that environment? And what were you thinking about during that walk through the woods? Your mind seems to have been unusually vacant. Does your lack of surprise when you saw the chapel indicate that the scene was familiar to you, or is it in truth an example of the curiously dreamlike quality which permeates this experience of yours? If this were a real glimpse of the future, why weren’t you thinking of your current problems, the current people in your life, possibly even of your current approach to God? I put it to you that you were drifting along like a somnambulist, and I think you should consider whether Timothy was really so far off the mark when he interpreted the vision as an allegory. Ask yourself if the ruined building might symbolize what you, in your recent disappointment over your lack of preferment, might consider your spent career as a monk. Ask yourself if this chapel, modern but built along classical lines, might represent your subconscious longing for an entirely new career in the Church. Ask yourself if the evidence that you weren’t wearing your habit is in fact a manifestation of your subconscious desire to discard it. And finally ask yourself why you should have seen a bag which apparently symbolizes not travel and change to you (yesterday’s explanation) but (so you now confess) wealth and women. Think on all these questions, Jonathan. Think carefully. And return here at four o’clock tomorrow.’
THREE (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
‘The danger (of hallucinations) is recognized by the best mystical writers.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion
I
I had by this time planned a course of reading and meditation to occupy the hours when I was neither crossing swords with my superior nor attending services in the chapel. The Fordites have imprinted their own idiosyncratic stamp on the Divine Office of the Benedictines, merging Terce with Sext and None with Vespers, but several hours of each day are still spent in choir; a monk must never forget that his chief work is to worship God. However beyond the hours of worship lie the hours of service to others, and normally I was heavily occupied not only with looking after my community but with giving counsel to those outside the Order who sought my spiritual direction. It was odd, even disconcerting, to find myself suddenly with no work on my hands beyond the hours spent in choir. I might have been advised to rest but anyone who has ever attempted to lead a celibate life knows how important it is to keep oneself constructively occupied, so after a prolonged perusal of the library shelves I selected some books which I judged would engage my mind without unhealthily over-exerting it.
I chose Dame Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, not merely because it was one of my favourite classics but because I felt I would be cheered by the writings of a sane practical good-humoured person whose visions had been recognized by the Church. As a masculine counterpoise to Dame Julian’s robust femininity I also chose The Cloud of Unknowing, another of my favourite works. Feeling I should then emerge from the woods of mysticism into the more arid plains of modern theology I avoided the works of Karl Barth, whose preoccupation with God’s transcendence is fundamentally hostile to mysticism, and was about to select the latest book by Reinhold Niebuhr, who parted company with Barth in several important ways, when suddenly I spotted Dean Inge’s The Philosophy of Plotinus.
I was amazed. Plotinus had been a great religious philosopher with a vast influence on Christian Neo-Platonism, but he had been a pagan and Father Darcy had always refused to have Inge’s celebrated masterwork in the house. However on opening the cover of the first volume I found the words ‘Cuthbert Darcy’ inscribed on the fly-leaf. The old fraud! It seemed he had acquired the copy secretly and kept it in his room where it had been discovered after his death. Silently paying tribute to Francis’ broadminded good sense in placing the work in the library, I added both volumes to the collection already in my hands and prepared to retire to my cell, but on my way out I caught sight of a new section devoted to modern psychology.
Francis and I, enjoying a rare moment of unity, had succeeded in convincing our mentor that not all psycho-analysts should be burnt at the stake, and rising to unprecedented heights of eloquence we had argued that we had a religious duty to understand as much about the human mind as was possible in the light of the latest scientific theories. When Father Darcy had declared that the Devil was corrupting intellectual progress by the writings of his servant Freud I had even summoned the courage to say to him sternly: ‘Remember Galileo.’ The Church has been put in some ridiculous positions in the past by turning up its nose at the scientists.
However although Father Darcy had given us permission to read the books we felt were important, he had been adamant that we should keep any work on psycho-analysis under lock and key, and the sight of Francis’ collection now standing bravely on the shelves was certainly a surprise. An even greater surprise was that I felt ambivalent. On the one hand I approved of Francis’ resolution to bring the Order openly into the twentieth century, but on the other hand I was aware that monks were very ordinary men in many ways and might not automatically benefit from such intellectual modernism; I could well imagine my drones feasting on certain passages with a curiosity which was more salacious than spiritual. To my horror I saw Francis had even displayed the volumes of Havelock-Ellis on human sexuality. This work was not without interest to a serious student of human nature, but there were parts of it which even I, the crusader for modern knowledge, had felt inclined to burn. Certainly I believed such a work could only have an unwholesome effect on the average monk.
I suddenly realized I was perturbed to a degree more complex than might have been anticipated, and retiring to my room I tried to analyse my feelings further. After a while I realized I was worried that Francis might be tempted to compensate himself for his spiritual limitations by relying too heavily on psycho-analytical theory. It was a chilling thought. Psychoanalysis can be a useful tool and it had certainly given me numerous important insights during my work as a counsellor, but it is not a substitute for religion and it should always be a servant, never a master. If Francis intended to rely on Freud and Jung instead of on God as he exercised the charism of discernment, then both he and I could well be heading straight for the most profound disaster.
II
‘No doubt you’ve composed a host of brilliant answers to the questions I posed yesterday,’ said Francis when I returned to his room on the following afternoon, ‘but since my aim at present is not to initiate a debate but to illuminate your situation, I propose we move on to the next topic and discuss your failure to become Abbot-General. I trust you’re not going to deny you were disappointed?’
‘No, Father.’
Francis picked up his pen. ‘What steps did you take to adjust to this disappointment?’
‘I had a long talk with Aidan before the funeral and made a full confession to him. That helped. Aidan’s a wily old fox. He never said anything so obvious as: “You’ve got to forgive the old boy in order to be at peace with his memory,” but he paved the way to forgiveness by persuading me to admit how much I’d have disliked being Abbot-General and how far more suitable you were for the job.’
Francis leant back in his chair. Perhaps he thought his expression was merely quizzical but I found it cynical to the point of being offensive. ‘Why would you have disliked being Abbot-General?’
‘Too much administration. Too much vapid socializing with the upper echelons of the Church. Not enough time to counsel men outside the Order. Not enough time to meditate in solitude.’
‘A small price to pay, surely,’ said Francis, ‘for such enormous gratification to your self-esteem.’
‘My ego isn’t so insatiable as you seem to think! After my talk with Aidan I was happy enough to remain Abbot of Grantchester.’
‘But were you?’ said Francis. That’s the next big question, isn’t it? The world beyond our cloister has been turned upside down, the barbarians are at the gates and it’s a very unpleasant fact of life, as Machiavelli knew all too well, that war can be immensely stimulating. It kicks people out of their well-worn ruts, offers adventure and provides all manner of enthralling changes – unless, of course, one happens to be in a monastery. Then life becomes increasingly drab.’
‘I hope you’re not implying –’
‘Do you deny that the War’s been a depressing influence on your work? You lost one of your best young men the other day, didn’t you?’
‘Barnabas, yes. He’s gone into the Army.’
‘It’s always a harrowing experience to lose a good young monk. And meanwhile you still have more than your fair share of boring old drones – Augustine who falls asleep in choir, Denys the glutton – and what was the name of that monk you told me about once, the one who always has to wash his hands when the clock strikes noon?’
‘Clement. But a monastery wouldn’t be a monastery without its share of harmless eccentrics!’
‘Tedious eccentrics. And meanwhile there you are, active as ever but beached like a stranded whale in your Grantchester backwater –’
‘I hardly think you can describe a place which is only two miles from one of the great universities of the world as a backwater!’
‘Don’t try and tell me the War hasn’t affected Cambridge! My spies inform me that Air Force officers are now billeted in the Colleges and undergraduates are being sucked into the war machine – with the inevitable result that fewer people must be coming to the house to make a retreat or seek counselling. And meanwhile your tedious administrative tasks are increasing – all the irritating war-time regulations have to be mastered, interminable forms have to be filled in –’
‘Bernard likes doing all those sort of things.’
‘– and your frustration must be growing daily. What a contrast to the last war when you were on active service as a chaplain! Then you were making a positive contribution to the war-effort, but now all you can do is twiddle your thumbs in your Grantchester backwater amidst all your boring old men –’
‘That’s a gross misrepresentation!’
‘– and it would be only natural, wouldn’t it, if you occasionally longed to get out into the world and make some vital contribution to the fight to save England from the Nazis?’
‘But even if I went out into the world,’ I exclaimed, unable to resist the temptation to outshout him and falling straight into the trap he had constructed for me, ‘I couldn’t be a chaplain in the Navy again!’
‘No.’ For the second time Francis leant back in his chair and regarded me cynically. ‘You couldn’t. You’re too old, aren’t you? You’re sixty. Sixty! Jonathan –’ The trap sprang shut ‘– why didn’t you remind me that the day preceding your vision happened to be your sixtieth birthday?’
I could only say stiffly: ‘I didn’t think it was important.’
‘No? Could you really regard it as just another birthday? When I was sixty last February I was so sunk in gloom that the old man had to shake me, metaphorically speaking, until my teeth rattled and remind me that to mope about one’s age is self-centred, futile and a prime example of that morbid introspection which can so seriously impair one’s spiritual health. But the old man wasn’t there to shake you till your teeth rattled, was he, Jonathan? He was dead – and that, of course, leads me to my last big question of the afternoon: exactly what effect has his death had on you? It seems to me that you’ve lost the one spiritual director who was capable of keeping you on the rails.’
‘That’s not true. Aidan’s always shown great skill.’
‘Aidan’s skill lay in translating the old man’s orders into action. Father Darcy ruled your career from the moment he removed you from Grantchester seventeen years ago, and perhaps now that you’re without him you’re beginning to feel lost, confused, adrift – even unbalanced –’
This was a line of attack which had to be instantly terminated. ‘I must insist –’
‘No, indeed you must not! You’re not here to be dogmatic and opinionated!’ Francis, wielding his power with the efficiency of a giant cat bent on disembowelling his prey, was at his most formidable. In self-defence I assumed an expressionless silence, and as the pause lengthened I sensed Francis deciding how he might best complete my demolition. Finally he said in the most mellifluous voice he could muster: ‘I can see you’re a trifle upset, Jonathan. Would you like me to tell you a little fairy-story to help calm you down?’
The giant cat was closing in for dinner. With a sinking heart I resigned myself to the inevitable.
III
‘Once upon a time,’ said Francis, ‘there was a hero, but he wasn’t a prince as most heroes are in fairytales; he was a monk. At his christening long before he became a monk, two fairies were present. The good fairy gave our hero a range of unusual gifts which would one day make him an outstanding monk, but the bad fairy made him proud, arrogant, stubborn, wilful and opinionated. Our hero grew up and had an interesting career in the Church but it was blighted because despite his gifts the bad fairy’s curse made him unable to develop them to the full. However when he at last became a monk the miracle happened and he met his fairy godfather, the godfather who knew how to wave the magic wand so that all those nasty qualities bequeathed by the bad fairy could finally be overcome.
‘Our hero endured many vicissitudes but thanks to his fairy godfather, who constantly waved the magic wand, our hero flourished, became happy in his new life and eventually allowed himself to hope that he might climb right to the top of the monastic tree. But then one day a terrible thing happened: the fairy godfather retired to live in fairyland, and our hero suddenly found himself not only abandoned, deprived of the magic wand, but also blocked from reaching the top of the monastic tree.
‘Because he was a good monk he did his best to go on as usual, but slowly the bad fairy tiptoed back into his life and all those unfortunate flaws in his personality began to emerge again. Our hero became restless and dissatisfied. He fought to overcome these feelings by diverting himself with hard work, but this only made him exhausted and once the exhaustion began he slipped into a depression. Then slowly, very slowly, as life in the monastery became increasingly dreary, he began to think how nice it would be to abandon the soporific routine of his monastic life and ride off bravely, just as all heroes should, to join the great crusade against the Devil which was currently being waged in the world beyond the walls of his cloister.
‘But of course he knew he couldn’t leave the Order just to satisfy his own desires so he slogged heroically on – until a really terrible thing happened, so terrible that it sent him into a panic. He had a birthday, a particularly nasty birthday for a man, the sort of birthday which made him realize he wasn’t just middle-aged any more, he was OLD. And before he could stop himself he was thinking in terror: I’m old, I’ve got nothing to look forward to except a few more years of living in this dreary backwater and I can’t bear it, I’ve got to get out, I’ve got to live by joining in the Crusade somehow and proving I’m not as old as the calendar says I am! Because he was such a good monk he did attempt to suppress this thought but at that moment the bad fairy pounced, sneaking into his subconscious and showing him the perfect way to escape from his dilemma. And on the morning after that terrible birthday he had a beautiful vision, just as beautiful as any vision from God should be, so beautiful that he had no doubt at all, in his pride and arrogance, that he was being called to leave the Order.’
Francis stopped speaking. With a supreme effort of will I maintained my silence, while far away on the mantelshelf the hideous china clock ticked so abrasively that I longed to smash it to pieces.
‘Now, Jonathan,’ said Francis, smiling at me with great charm, ‘having, I trust, soothed your nerves by spinning you that quaint little tale which of course you’ll deny has any relevance to your current situation, I shall conclude this interview by asking you to meditate on the following questions: how vulnerable are you as a monk now that you’ve been deprived of your mentor? How vulnerable are you as a man who’s just turned sixty? Why did you so fiercely deny to Ambrose that you might be seriously depressed? Why did you resent Ambrose asking about your age? Why, when Ambrose began to talk about carnal matters, were you first withdrawn, then evasive and finally downright annoyed? Why have you been so busy insisting both to Ambrose and to me that everything in the garden’s lovely when it’s quite obvious that some very nasty weeds have begun to flourish in the flower-beds? Forget that pride of yours for a moment, Jonathan! Try and see yourself for once as the, vulnerable man you really are instead of as the superhuman mystic whom your vanity requires you to be – and then perhaps we may have some hope of unravelling this most complex of mysteries … Now go away, please, and when you return here tomorrow I trust you’ll have made up your mind to display very much more honesty and infinitely more humility than you’ve deigned to display so far.’
IV
Retiring to my room I sat for a long time on the edge of the bed. It was not until after Compline that I was able to read a chapter of Dame Julian’s ‘Revelations’ and feel comforted. ‘And at the end of our woe,’ Dame Julian had written, ‘suddenly our eyes shall be opened and in clearness of light our sight shall be full; which light is God, our Maker and Holy Ghost, in Christ Jesus our Saviour. Then I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night; which light is God, our endless day.’
I thought of the light of God in the chapel, and at once my faith was renewed. As a good monk I accepted that I had to consider all Francis’ repulsive and degrading insinuations, but my will to survive his attacks was now as iron and it was in a new mood of obstinate defiance that I knocked the next day on his door.
V
‘I know this is going to be just as tedious for you as it’ll undoubtedly be for me, Jonathan,’ said Francis in his most businesslike voice as soon as I was seated, ‘but I’m afraid that today we’ll really have to discuss sexual matters.’
‘I was wondering how long you’d be able to keep off the subject of Havelock-Ellis! Are you sure it’s wise to allow all your men access to his work?’ I was well aware that this critical response represented a gross impertinence, but I was becoming a little tired of standing by meekly while Francis flexed the muscles of his power.
For a moment I thought he would lose his temper but he controlled himself; and despite all my animosity I was impressed. Dealing with a recalcitrant monk was never easy; dealing with a hostile abbot would without doubt be a nightmare, and the temptation to wield one’s power repressively, even violently, would be strong.
‘No monk in this house is permitted to take a book from the psychology section of the library without my permission,’ he said at last, ‘but I thought it right that everyone should be able to see what’s on offer. I wanted to avoid the hypocritical situation sanctioned by Father Darcy in which a select group of men is granted unlimited freedom in their reading while the superior continues to declare virtuously that only devotional and theological books can stand on the library shelves. Now if you’ve satisfied your urge to be obnoxious in order to prove to me that you’re under strain, may we proceed with this interview?’
Finding myself wholly outmanoeuvred by this honest and dignified reply I could only say: ‘I’m extremely sorry, Father. I’m afraid I was in error. Forgive me.’
‘Very well, but let me take advantage of your penitent mood by turning immediately to the subject of your celibacy; perhaps your penitence will encourage a frank response. Have you any comment to make about your past difficulties here?’
I said cautiously: ‘The difficulties weren’t serious. My chief problem as a monk has been in accepting authority, not in doing without women.’
‘Nevertheless I see from your file that there’s been at least one occasion during your career in the Order when you’ve longed – and I quote your own words, recorded with startling fidelity by Father Darcy – “to chuck it all up and fuck every woman in sight”.’
‘I assure you I don’t usually use such language, but I was extremely upset when I made that remark and having worked for years among working-class men who used that sort of word with monotonous regularity –’
‘My dear Jonathan, just because you’ve always taken a “holier-than-thou” attitude to my own occasional lapses into vulgarity, there’s no need for you to go into such a paroxysm of embarrassment now that I’ve caught you out in a rare verbal indiscretion! The truth is, as you well know, that so long as you avoid blasphemy and talk like a gentleman in front of your subordinates I don’t care a fig about your language. And now if we may return to the subject of your sexual frustration –’
‘I see no point in dwelling on it. All normally-sexed monks feel frustrated occasionally.’
‘Quite. But would it be fair to say, do you think, that these bouts of difficulty with your celibacy coincided with periods of emotional stress in other areas of your life?’
I said obtusely: ‘I’m not sure I understand you.’
‘I think you do but you’re playing for time while you try to drum up an innocuous response. Very well, let me be more precise: we all have our different ways of coping with emotional disturbances. When I was in the world I used to cope with them by drinking too much, but I seem to remember you were never greatly interested in food and drink. Your solace always lay elsewhere.’
‘Only when I was a very young man. But after my call to the priesthood –’
‘– you turned over a new leaf, yes, of course you did, but nevertheless isn’t it a fact that when you experienced emotional turbulence as a monk you also experienced a period of difficulty with your celibacy?’
‘Well –’
‘And isn’t it a fact that in the emotional stress which followed Father Darcy’s death you might have expected to experience yet another bout of discontent with the celibate life?’
I said abruptly: ‘I thought you assured me at the beginning of these conversations that you didn’t intend to behave like a prosecuting counsel.’
We stared at each other.
‘So!’ said Francis. ‘You sidestep the question! May I remind you that we’ll get absolutely nowhere unless –’
‘I was aware of sexual tension but it wasn’t an urgent problem. It didn’t interfere with my work – indeed I worked harder than ever in order to take my mind off the difficulty.’
‘And no doubt this aggravated the exhaustion which led to your depression.’
‘I deny –’
‘Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? But never mind, we’ve somehow succeeded in establishing that you felt sexually tense. Now let’s turn again to that young woman Mrs Charles Ashworth. How often has she been coming to see you and why does she come?’
I had been prepared for this assault. I said: ‘I helped her husband through a profound spiritual crisis in 1937 and she was part of that crisis. Without breaking the secrecy of the confessional it’s impossible for me to say more than that as the result of the crisis I know facts about them which no one else knows, and in consequence I’m important as a confidant to them both. Indeed Mrs Ashworth has apparently come to see me as a comforting presence in her life. There’s no question of counselling – I’ve referred her to Dame Veronica at Dunton – but occasionally Mrs Ashworth finds it helpful to visit me for a short talk and I always try to be available to see her.’
‘But surely,’ said Francis, ‘if you “rather dislike” the woman – your own words – aren’t these visits a bore? Why do you continue to make yourself available?’
I had anticipated this question too. ‘I feel it’s something I can do for Charles,’ I said. ‘It’s not an easy marriage for either of them and in my unusual position I have the opportunity to exert a stabilizing influence.’
‘Is Mrs Ashworth so unstable?’
‘I was referring to the marriage.’
‘And I’m referring to Mrs Ashworth. Any woman in an unstable marriage is liable to be emotionally volatile. Are you in fact telling me that you’ve been having regular private interviews with a disturbed woman while you yourself were suffering from sexual tension?’
‘That gives an entirely false impression –’
‘I think not. Could you explain, please, why you’ve been pursuing a course of conduct which must inevitably have been bad for your spiritual health?’
I knew I had to proceed with great care. After a pause I said: ‘Perhaps I feel guilty that I dislike her and this guilt makes me feel obliged to bend over backwards to be charitable. To tell the truth, I never wanted her to marry Charles. But on the other hand I fully accepted that he felt called to make the marriage, and since this meant I had to master my dislike in order to accept God’s will, my continuing antipathy makes me feel guilty; I feel I’m failing to respond to God’s will as I should.’
Francis merely said: ‘Why do you dislike her?’
‘I think she’s a tough ambitious little baggage who’s fundamentally only interested in herself.’
‘Tell me what happened at that last meeting.’
Obediently I embarked on an account of my interview with Lyle. ‘… and then she left,’ I concluded in my most colourless voice.
‘Did she shake your hand?’
‘No.’
‘There was no physical contact of any kind between you?’
This was the one question which I had prayed he would never ask. The ensuing silence seemed intolerably loud.
‘Dear me,’ said Francis, removing his spectacles, ‘how very difficult this is. Jonathan, I’m sorry but I’m afraid I shall really have to ask –’
‘It was a very trivial incident,’ I said rapidly. ‘As I opened the door of the visitors’ parlour she exclaimed: “Thank you for always being so kind to me!” and then she stood on tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek and swept out into the hall. Naturally I knew I couldn’t possibly see her alone again, so later I wrote to her and –’
‘Did you respond to the kiss in any way?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘I’m not just talking of a voluntary response. Was there any involuntary reaction?’
‘Don’t be absurd!’ I said before I could stop myself but added at once: ‘Forgive me, Father, that was the height of disrespect. I’m sorry.’
Francis ignored the apology. ‘Why is my question absurd?’
‘Well …’ To my horror I found myself floundering.
‘You were in a state of sexual tension, some saucy little baggage comes along and pecks you on the cheek –’
‘My sexual tension had been dowsed by my anxiety. I was worried in case anyone had seen us, I was angry that she should have behaved like a trollop and I was repelled by my fundamental dislike of her.’
‘Jonathan,’ said Francis, ‘you may honestly believe in the truth of every word that you’re saying; I’m inclined to think that you do. But I want you to go away and reflect carefully about where the truth actually lies here. Are you sure you’ve really explained why you dislike this woman so much? Why does an affectionate peck on the cheek turn a clergyman’s respectable wife into a trollop? Why did you become so overheated just now when I suggested you might have responded involuntarily to this most fleeting and harmless of kisses? And last of all I’m going to ask you this: can you deny that only a few hours before your vision your sexual tension had been exacerbated and your emotional equilibrium undermined by your encounter with this woman?’ He paused but when I remained silent he waved his hand in dismissal and I retired, seething with angry humiliation, from the room.
VI
Once again I found myself unable to do anything except sit on the edge of my bed. I had long since drawn up a timetable of work in which simple reading and prayer were interspersed with ‘lectio divina’ and meditation, but now I found that my will to maintain this admirable discipline had begun to flag. Hoping for comfort I turned to Dame Julian again but this time her joyful optimism had no message for me and halfway through one of my favourite passages I realized I was thinking not of her ‘showing’ but of Francis’ appalling ‘fairy-story’. Earlier I had protected myself by refusing to dwell upon it, but now, shaken by Francis’ remorseless exposure of the Achilles’ heel represented by my sexuality, I found my defences had been impaired. In desperation I thrust aside The Revelations of Dame Julian and sought to distract myself with the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing.
But no distraction was forthcoming. Almost immediately I read: ‘Oftimes the devil feigneth quaint sounds in their ears, quaint lights and shining in their eyes, and wonderful smells in their noses; and all is but falsehood.’
Snapping the book shut I gave a convulsive shudder and dragged my way down to the chapel for Vespers.
VII
‘I lied to you yesterday,’ I said to Francis when we met again. ‘I’m sorry. I know very well I’ve got to be entirely truthful in order to help you reach the right decision.’
Francis never asked what the lie was. That impressed me. Nor did he make any attempt to humiliate me further by embarking on a justifiable reproof. That impressed me even more. Instead he motioned me to sit down and said abruptly: ‘It’s a question of trust, isn’t it, and you don’t trust me yet.’
I forced myself to say: ‘I do want to trust you.’
‘Well, at least that’s a step in the right direction.’
‘And I do accept that you’re a first-class monk –’
‘No, you don’t. You accept that I’m a first-class administrator and you accept that the old man gave me a first-class training, but I’ve still to prove I’m a first-class monk, and that’s why it’s just as vital for me as it is for you that I should deal with your crisis correctly. I know perfectly well that you believe the only reason why I became Abbot-General was because I knew how to exploit the old man’s secret longing for a son. Well, now I have the chance to prove the old man wasn’t completely off his head and that I really am the right man for the job, so accept that I have a powerful motive to behave properly here, Jonathan, and do please discard your fear that I’ll be unable to wield the charism of discernment unless you regularly throw in a lie or two to help me along.’
Yet again I was impressed. I heard myself say: ‘It takes courage to be as honest as that. Thank you. I can’t promise you I’ll succeed in matching your honesty, but I can promise I’ll do my best to try.’
‘Then put on your boxing-gloves,’ said Francis, not ill-pleased by this exchange, ‘and let’s step back into the ring for the next round.’
VIII
‘Today,’ said Francis, ‘we’re going to talk about your son.’ Flicking through the pages of my file he added: ‘There’s not much on record about either of your children. Abbot James noted a few details when you entered the Grantchester house and later when you were at Ruydale Father Darcy made a note – ah yes, here it is – remarking that it was fortunate you were in a remote part of England where your children could only rarely visit you. “Frequent family visits,” writes Father Darcy, “would not have been good for Jonathan’s emotional equilibrium and would have provided a severe spiritual distraction.” Have you any comment to make on that judgement?’
‘Father Darcy knew that like any conscientious father I tend to spend an unnecessary amount of time worrying about my children’s welfare.’
‘But was there so much to worry about once you’d entered the Order? Your daughter’s marriage has been a success, you’ve always said, and your son’s certainly not been a failure as an actor.’
I said: ‘I’m very proud of both my children.’
‘Nevertheless it must have given you a jolt when Martin decided to go on the stage.’
‘It was hardly a bolt from the blue. He’d always excelled at acting, and when he decided to make a career of it I felt it would be churlish to stand in his way.’
‘What a model father! If he’d been my son I’m quite sure I shouldn’t have behaved with such saintly resignation … How old was he?’
‘Eighteen. It was the year I entered the Order. Martin was determined to support himself by taking part-time jobs while he was earning a pittance in repertory. My daughter was married. I was free to go my own way.’
‘Eighteen’s very young. Are you absolutely certain there was no row when he declared his thespian intentions?’
‘Martin and I don’t have rows! Our relationship has always been excellent!’
‘Yet last month, on the day before your vision, you and he had what you described as a “disagreement”. Will you now tell me, please, exactly what happened?’
I had rehearsed this moment many times. ‘He disclosed to me that he wasn’t leading a Christian life. Naturally I was upset.’
Francis looked at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘He’s thirty-five now, isn’t he? Isn’t that rather old to be sowing wild oats?’
I said nothing.
What’s the problem? Trapped in an eternal triangle?’
I heard myself say in an obstinate voice: ‘Martin must choose how to live his life. He’s a grown man and I’ve no right to interfere.’
‘But if the life he’s chosen to live is unChristian –’
‘Well, of course I pray for him to be brought back to Christ. Of course.’ Despite my rehearsals I was finding the conversation difficult to sustain.
‘Has he been leading this unChristian life for some time?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Yet you had no idea?’
I shook my head.
‘Despite your so-called excellent relationship with him?’
I wanted to shout: ‘You bastard!’ and hit him. The violence of my reaction shocked me. Bending my head I stared down at the obscene luxury of the Indian carpet.
After a pause Francis said gently: ‘I’m sorry. Obviously the revelation was a great shock to you,’ and I knew my defences had been destroyed. I could cope with Francis being worldly, cynical, aggressive, snide and downright bloody-minded. But I could not cope with him understanding my misery and being kind.
I stood up. That was wrong. When a monk is seated in the presence of his superior he should never stand until he has been given permission to do so, but now, compelled to turn my back on Francis in order to conceal my emotion, I crossed the room and stood facing the clock on the mantelshelf. My voice said: ‘I made a mess of that scene with Martin. I should have communicated by showing compassion, by forgiving. How can anyone be brought to Christ if Christ’s representative fails to display a Christian face?’
As I stopped speaking I found I was focusing my entire concentration on the clock in an effort to expel my pain by projecting it in a stream of power from the psyche. The clock’s hands quivered; I saw the pendulum falter, and as the present began to grind to a halt the past overwhelmed me, not the recent past but the distant past when I had prostituted my powers in order to ‘get on’ up at Cambridge. ‘I can make your watch stop just by looking at it …’ The girls had worn watches as brooches in those days, and half the fun of stopping a watch had lain in the erotic adventure of putting a hand on the feminine breast to jolt the mechanism back into action.
In panic I realized I had allowed my psychic discipline to slip. My voice said shattered: ‘I’ve stopped the clock,’ but Francis at once retorted: ‘Nonsense, it just gave a hiccough. It does that sometimes,’ and to my relief I realized that the pendulum was still moving. I said confused: ‘I thought –’ but Francis interrupted me.
‘Now Jonathan, it’s no good trying to play that old parlour-trick because I’m well aware that you never stopped any of those watches in the old days – you merely hypnotized all those gullible girls into thinking that you did. Come back here, sit down and behave yourself – you’re acting like a half-baked novice.’
This robust approach, so reminiscent of our mentor, at once steadied me. I returned to my chair.
‘Have you heard from Martin since the quarrel?’ said Francis after allowing me a moment to regain my composure.
‘No, but I’ve written and I know that eventually he’ll write back. Martin’s always been so good at keeping in touch and sharing his world with me.’ But of course he had not shared it. Grief threatened to overwhelm me again.
‘How old was he when his mother died?’
‘Seven. Poor Betty … After the scene with Martin I thought how upset she would have been about him, and I kept thinking of her, thinking and remembering –’ I broke off. Then I added abruptly: ‘Forgive me, I’m digressing. My marriage has nothing to do with my present crisis.’
But Francis only said: ‘Hasn’t it? Yet you’ve just confessed that it was most vividly resurrected in your mind shortly before you had your vision,’ and as we stared at each other in silence we were interrupted by the rapid clanging of the chapel bell proclaiming an emergency.
IX
‘Air-raid drill,’ said Francis casually. ‘We’d better set a good example by retiring speedily to the crypt. I must say, Jonathan, you’ve picked the most tiresome time in the history of the world to embark on a spiritual crisis.’
After the drill had unfolded in a tolerably well-ordered manner there was no time to resume our interview before Vespers and I found I was greatly relieved by the postponement. I was beginning to be alarmed for the future. If Francis’ preliminary talks could so effortlessly destroy my equilibrium, how would I fare when his inquiry became an inquisition? Fear and dread ravaged my psyche, and touring my room I put away all small objects in the chest of drawers. I was afraid that I might be on the brink of generating that activity popularly attributed to poltergeists, an activity caused by bursts of energy from a powerful but poorly disciplined psyche under stress; at such times this energy can move objects, often with considerable force, and if the psyche cannot control itself sufficiently much damage can occur. During my troubled early months in the Order, it had been the poltergeist activity, breaking out in the Grantchester community with alarming violence, which had driven Abbot James to seek help in bringing my disturbed psyche under control.
Memories sprang to life in my mind; I saw myself as a forty-three-year-old postulant summoned to the Abbot’s office for an interrogation. I had planned exactly what to say to James to win his soft-hearted sympathy, but when I entered his room I found my plans had gone astray because James was absent and behind his desk sat a stranger, a man in his early sixties, hard-eyed, thin-lipped, ice-cold. The coldness was so extreme that it seemed to burn with heat, and as I at once recognized the powerful psychic aura I experienced a curious mixture of fright and relief. The fear was because I knew this was the one man I could never manipulate and I felt powerless; the relief was because I knew he would heal my disorder. In fact so great was my relief that I forgot to wait for permission to speak but said rapidly: ‘I’m causing the trouble but I can’t help it because my meditation techniques don’t work.’
He sat in his chair and looked me up and down. Then he said: ‘Do you know who I am?’ and without hesitation I replied: ‘You’re the Abbot-General.’
‘I’m not just the Abbot-General,’ he said. ‘I’m the one man who can get you out of this spiritual cesspit of yours. Now answer me this: do you want to be a monk or don’t you?’
When I immediately answered: ‘I don’t just want to be a monk – I want to be the best monk in the Order,’ he smiled.
‘What ambition!’ he exclaimed. ‘But of course your pride would hardly let you settle for less.’ Then the smile vanished, the aura of ice intensified and he said: ‘Stand up straight, fold your hands properly, keep your mouth shut until you’ve been given permission to speak and wipe that arrogant smirk off your face. You’ve been three months in the Order – are you so unreachable that you haven’t yet learnt how to behave? No doubt you think you’re such a wise mature priest with your Cambridge degree and your twenty years in Holy Orders, but I’m here to tell you now that psychically you’re no better than an ignorant spoilt child and that as a monk you’re at present only capable of play-acting.’
He waited in case I dared to argue with him but I was speechless. This interview was far removed indeed from my cosy chats with Abbot James.
‘Shall I explain to you,’ said the brutal stranger, ‘what’s really going on here? Like many people whose psychic powers are freakishly well developed you’re used to manipulating people whenever you want your own way. What you want here is to be petted and pampered so you’ve entranced your Abbot, you’ve tied your poor Novice-Master into a humiliating knot, and now, just like a spoilt child, you’re calling attention to yourself by being disruptive in the hope that by causing chaos you’ll make everyone realize how special you are!’
‘But I swear I’m not doing this deliberately –’
‘Of course that’s what you swear! You’ve hypnotized yourself into believing in your own innocence, hypnotized yourself into believing you can’t control these ridiculous outbursts of energy! But this is where the hypnosis ends if you want to survive as a monk. We’ve no room in the Order for confidence tricksters who perform psychic parlour-tricks! What you’ve got to understand is that there’ll be no spiritual progress unless you learn humility and obedience, no hope of acquiring true charismatic power unless you starve that crude psychic force of yours of the pride which makes it so destructive. How can you expect God to use you as a channel for the Holy Spirit when you not only invite but welcome the Devil into the driving-seat of your soul?’
I attempted a defence. I said I was not wicked, merely disappointed and unhappy. I told him the community was lax, that Abbot James was weak and that the Novice-Master was a fool.
Then the stranger rose to his feet. He was not a tall man but at that moment he seemed twice as tall as I was. I flinched. I believe I even took a step backwards. But he never raised his voice. He simply said: ‘And who are you to pass judgement on this community? Obviously you’re in an even worse state than I’d feared and radical measures will have to be taken. You must be taught a lesson in humility, a lesson you’ll never forget, and afterwards you must begin your life as a monk all over again elsewhere.’
Then he had taken me to London and after a night spent in the punishment cell where I had been taught the lesson I would never forget, I had been dispatched to Ruydale to make my fresh start.
The memory terminated. I returned to the June of 1940, but I continued to think of Father Darcy and after a while I closed my eyes so that I might imprint his image more accurately on the retina of my psyche. To attempt to call up his spirit was out of the question; such practices are dangerous as well as arrogant and in my opinion the Church is entirely right to discourage them. It is not for us to interfere in our hamfisted way with the great reality of eternal freedom which lies beyond our brief existence in the prison of time and space, and such discarnate shreds of former personalities which linger within the prison walls are usually either trivial or demonic.
So I made no attempt to summon Father Darcy but when I had constructed his memory as accurately as possible I tried to imagine his response to my current dread that stress would seriously impair my psychic control, and at once the word DISCIPLINE was firmly imprinted on my mind. Finding my timetable I stood looking at it. Then sitting down at the table I opened my bible, made an intense new effort to concentrate and began to read St Paul’s mighty epistle to the Romans.
X
‘Further to our conversation which was so rudely interrupted,’ said Francis the next day, ‘I’d just like to clarify a couple of points about this unfortunate interview with your son. Presumably you were very distressed after he left. What did you do?’
‘I dashed off a letter of apology to him. Then I forced myself to make my usual appearances in the chapel and in the refectory, but after Compline I retired to my cell again and read Romans. That always calms me. I think of St Augustine and Luther reading it and going on to change the course of history; it makes me feel I’m close enough to draw strength from people of great spiritual power. I didn’t sleep before the night office but by the time I went downstairs to the chapel I knew I was in control of myself again.’
‘And after the office?’
‘Then I admit I had difficulties.’ I paused to drum up the courage to be honest. ‘Once I was faced with the task of sleeping all the symptoms of stress returned. I felt isolated, unhappy … If I’d been a married man I’d have turned to my wife for consolation.’
‘But as you weren’t a married man –’
‘I behaved like an ill-disciplined novice and consoled myself, as I implied earlier, with my wife’s memory.’
‘You mean –’
‘I gave way to temptation, obtained the relief I needed and fell asleep around three. How Father Darcy would have despised such a failure of the will! I shall always remember him saying that the body should be an obedient servant, not a tyrant balking at the most rudimentary discipline.’
‘Personally I always found Father Darcy’s lectures on the power of the will deeply depressing. After his hypnotic persuasiveness had worn off I was left contemplating my weaknesses in despair.’
‘I was certainly depressed when I awoke the next morning at five-thirty – and not just because of the failure of my will. I was depressed because I’d allowed myself to get into such a state that a failure of the will was inevitable, and I was still sitting on the edge of my bed, still well-nigh immobilized by my depression, when the vision began.’
Francis said with great delicacy as if he feared one careless word might shatter this miraculous frankness: ‘When you said just now that you obtained the relief you needed, am I to understand …’ His delicacy was so extreme that he left the sentence unfinished.
I thought I could understand his difficulty. ‘You doubt that a sixty-year-old man who was emotionally worn out and sexually spent at three o’clock in the morning could manifest the symptoms of sexual excitement during a vision less than three hours later.’
‘Not at all,’ said Francis with an urbanity I could not help but admire. ‘It’s a fact that psychics may command unusual reserves of energy, and anyway where sex is concerned anything’s possible, even for sixty-year-old men who ought to be decently exhausted. If I hesitated it wasn’t because I was boggling at your energy reserves but because I was thinking that if you did achieve a complete release earlier it does support your belief that the vision wasn’t triggered by a purely physical frustration … You’re sure you’re not slipping in a little inexactitude to help me along?’
‘I hope I’m now beyond the stage of deliberately misleading you.’
‘Then I shall merely conclude the interview by asking you to reflect further on the fact that Martin plunged you into a severe emotional disturbance. The question you should ask yourself, I think, is not: “Was this emotional disturbance the direct cause of my vision?” Of course you’re determined to believe that question can only be answered in the negative. So perhaps it would be more profitable if you asked yourself instead: “Exactly why was I so disturbed by Martin’s disclosure? What did it mean to me on the profoundest psychological level?” You might also ask yourself if there was any hidden significance in the fact that you later began to dwell with a great intensity on the memories of your marriage. For example, when you were manipulating those memories in a certain way were you merely seeking a release from tension, or were you perhaps expressing a desire to recapture a time when you were leading such an active sexual life that your wife was annually pregnant?’
I stared at him. ‘Are you implying that subconsciously I felt so disappointed in Martin that I was smitten with the urge to go out into the world and beget a son to replace him?’
‘You find that an unlikely explanation of your vision?’
‘I find it ludicrous!’
Francis twirled his glasses. I was reminded of an angry cat swishing his tail.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said at once. ‘That was disrespectful. But I must insist that Martin’s still my much-loved son and I’ve never – never – felt so dissatisfied with him that I’ve longed for a replacement.’
Francis twirled his glasses again and swept open my file. It took him some seconds to reach the passage he had in mind but eventually he found it and paused to look at me. ‘I’d like to read you an extract from Father Darcy’s report on the Whitby affair,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s remarkably pertinent to our present conversation.’ And clearing his throat he read in a studiedly neutral tone: ‘“Jonathan then became very distressed. He said: ‘I suddenly saw myself as a layman would see me – a pathetic middle-aged monk, starved of women, deprived of a normal masculine life, who was crying, actually crying over a cat.’ Then Jonathan said: ‘Suddenly I hated my life as a monk, hated it – I wanted to chuck it all up and fuck every woman in sight. I thought: here I am, still only fifty years old and feeling no more than forty; I could be out in the world with a young second wife; I could have another daughter, a daughter who wasn’t forever reminding me of Betty – and best of all I could have another son, a son who wasn’t an actor, a son I could talk to, a son who wouldn’t constantly torment me with anxiety. What am I doing here?’ said Jonathan. ‘Why am I living this impossibly difficult life?’ And I said: ‘You’re here because you’re called to be here. You’re here because God requires you to serve him in this hard difficult way. You’re here because if you weren’t here your personality would disintegrate beneath the burden of your weaknesses. You’re here because it’s the only way you can survive.’ Then he broke down and cried: ‘But how do I bear it?’ and I answered: ‘Think of the novices who have so recently been entrusted to your care. Think of others, not yourself, and you’ll find not only liberation from the dark side of your soul but fulfilment of your ability to do great good and live in harmony with your true self.’ After that I made him kneel down and I laid my hands on his head and at last the demonic spirit of doubt departed and he was healed.”’
Francis closed the file. Then still using his most neutral voice he said: ‘And there you have it all: the emotional disturbance, the profound difficulty with your celibacy, the desire to leave the Order and beget a second family – and finally the healing by the one man who was able to keep you on the spiritual rails, the man who’s no longer here to give you the help you so obviously need.’ He allowed a long silence to develop before adding casually: ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday and I always try to spend the hour between four and five in meditation. But come here directly after supper, Jonathan, make a new resolution to tell me no more lies and then we’ll have our last talk before you depart on Monday morning.’
XI
‘I’m worried about your weekly confession,’ he said when we met the following evening. ‘Of course you could make one of your bowdlerized confessions to Timothy, but I really feel that would be most unsatisfactory and as I’m reluctant that anyone else in the Order should know about your crisis I find I’ve no alternative but to volunteer my own services as a confessor. I needn’t remind you of your right under the Order’s constitution to decline to make confession to your superior; if you find my suggestion unacceptable I’ll ask Ambrose to hear you, but if you could somehow see your way towards waiving your constitutional right I admit I’d be greatly relieved.’
I could not help but sympathize with him in his predicament. ‘You forget that Father Darcy ordered Aidan to be my confessor after the Whitby affair,’ I said. ‘I’m well used to making my confession to my superior.’
‘Quite. But one of the vows I made to myself when I became Abbot-General was that I wouldn’t ride rough-shod over the monks’ constitutional rights as often as Father Darcy did. However if you’re willing to waive this particular right without being coerced …’
He allowed me time to prepare, and retiring to the chapel I recalled the episodes of pride, anger and falsehood which had punctuated my life that week. Then I returned to his office and the difficult exercise began. I was surprised when it proved easier than I had feared. He kept unexpectedly quiet, refraining from all the obvious comments, and gradually I began to respect his refusal to gloat over me while I was vulnerable. With a certain amusement I wondered if this compassionate behaviour arose not from his desire to be a good priest but from his instinct to act like a gentleman; I could well imagine him deciding that the waiving of my constitutional right was a sporting gesture which demanded that he should be equally sporting in return.
I was granted absolution and assigned a very moderate penance. I thought Father Darcy would have judged this much too soft and perhaps Francis too was afterwards convinced he had erred on the side of leniency, for as soon as we embarked on our final conversation he became waspish.
‘I want to end these talks where we began – with your vision,’ he said abruptly.‘There’s one glaring omission in your account, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that omission is.’
‘It wasn’t revealed to me what I’m to do when I leave the Order.’
‘If you leave the Order.’
‘If I leave the Order. I’m sorry.’
‘If this vision is from God,’ said Francis, examining a well-manicured fingernail in an elaborate charade of nonchalance, ‘wouldn’t you have expected to receive at least a hint about what you’re supposed to do next?’
Cautiously I said: ‘I believe further enlightenment will be forthcoming.’
‘How wonderfully convenient.’ Francis held his left hand at arm’s length and gave the chosen fingernail another meticulous inspection. Then suddenly he discarded the mask of nonchalance, leant forward purposefully across the desk and said: ‘Now listen to me, Jonathan. You cannot – and I mean cannot – ignore your intellectual faculties in favour of a woolly-minded mysticism when your future has to be considered; you should remember that the best mystics have all been distinguished by their sane practical attitudes to life. As soon as you return to Grantchester pull yourself together, confront the reality of this alleged call of yours and try to visualize what kind of life would be waiting for you outside the Order. You’re a sixty-year-old priest. You’ve been out of circulation for seventeen years. At first you’re inevitably going to find the world confusing, exhausting, depressing and – for the most part – uncaring. Of course we know you can always find work. We know I can always ring up the Archbishop and say: “Oh, by the way, Your Grace, my best abbot’s about to leave the nest – find him a nice little nook in some cosy Cathedral Close, would you?” We know you’re not going to be reduced to eating bread-and-dripping in a sordid lodging-house in between bouts of waiting in the dole-queue, but Jonathan, if you’re going to survive in the world with your equilibrium intact, you absolutely must feel that you’re doing what God’s called you to do. Otherwise you’ll get depressed and fall victim to Monks’ Madness, and we both know what that means, don’t we?’
We did. It was a notorious fact that monks who left the Order often found themselves psychologically compelled to recuperate in the most unfortunate of ways from their years of celibate seclusion.
‘Oh, and while you’re grappling with your possible future in the world,’ said Francis as an afterthought, ‘do ask yourself what you’d do about women. It’s a very important subject and one which must be faced realistically.’
‘I’d remain celibate.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me correctly. I said: “It’s a very important subject – ”’
‘Marriage distracts me from serving God.’
‘In that case you’d better stay in the Order. Oh, go away, Jonathan, before I become really irritable with you, and for goodness’ sake take your brain out of those second-rate mystic mothballs so that you can do some constructive thinking! Nothing annoys me more than to hear a clever man talk like a fool.’
I rose to my feet. ‘Do you wish to see me before I leave tomorrow?’
‘Yes, come here after breakfast so that I can give you my blessing.’
He was so fractious that he made the blessing seem a sinister prospect. Leaving the room I began to count the hours which remained until my departure.
XII
France had fallen, and in England the air-raids had started. At Liverpool Street Station I bought a copy of The Illustrated London News in order to see a summary of the week’s events, and read about the night attacks on the eastern counties. So the long-awaited, inexplicably delayed battle for Britain had begun. Yet I thought the delay might prove significant. God had appeared to withdraw but as always had been eternally present and now the infusion would begin, the outpouring of grace into those facing the blast of the demonic force, the bestowal of courage and endurance which would ultimately triumph over the nightmare of militant idolatry. Our ordeal had begun. The suffering lay before us, but beyond the suffering lay the power of the Spirit, overflowing eternally, in the metaphor of Plotinus, into the muddied waters of mankind, and against that power the ship of idolatry would ultimately shatter. I could see the shattering. It was not a matter of speculation but of ‘gnosis’, of knowledge; I knew. Yet still I shuddered at the thought of the ordeal ahead of Britain, standing alone at the edge of a demoralized, demon-infested Europe, and the next moment Britain’s ordeal was again fusing with my own until it seemed not merely a struggle for survival but a great spiritual quest which could only be described in the ancient language of religious symbolism.
I saw the powers of light withstanding the recurrent invasions of the forces of darkness, the perpetual conflict of finite existence played out amidst the Eternal Now of ultimate reality. Britain wanted peace yet was obliged to go to war to preserve its cherished values; I wanted to serve God in tranquillity yet was obliged to wage a continuous battle against the qualities which marked the opaque side of my nature, and when I saw myself as a microcosm of the conflict which permeated the very air I breathed, I was conscious of the Devil, not the charming little creature rendered so endearingly by medieval artists, but the unseen climate which periodically bruised my psyche as it sensed the vibrations and emanations of the weather-patterns which so many people were apparently unable to perceive. God too can be experienced as a climate, and part of the psychic’s ‘gnosis’ lies in being able to read the barometer which reflects not merely the ebb and flow of demonic forces but the unchanging presence of the kingdom of values, the world of ultimate reality which lies beyond the world of appearances.
It was not until I dismounted from the train at Cambridge that I temporarily abandoned all thought of demonic infiltration. I also abandoned The Illustrated London News; I did not want my men to know I had been reading a magazine. It was a rule of the Order that the abbots should read The Times each day so that they might inform their men during the weekly recreation hour of events in the world, but this was regarded as a necessary duty whereas browsing through even the worthiest magazine could only rank as a distraction.
Resisting the slothful urge to take a taxi I travelled by motorbus from Cambridge to Grantchester and finally, to my profound relief, walked up the drive of my home. I realized then how much I hated that luxurious house which flourished like an anachronistic weed in the heart of drab, dirty, debilitating London. My Grantchester house was neither old nor beautiful; it had been erected late in the nineteenth century by an East Anglian merchant who had shortly afterwards been obliged by his bankruptcy to sell the place to the Fordites, but in its secluded setting at one end of the village it stood in unobtrusive harmony with its surroundings. Returning to it after my enforced absence I found it refreshingly quiet, modest and serene.
‘I’ve kept all the copies of The Times for you, Father,’ said my admirable prior, welcoming me warmly in the hall. ‘I thought you might have been too busy in London to read the newspaper.’
I refrained from telling him that Francis had not offered his copy for my perusal. Reading a newspaper would have constituted intolerably frivolous behaviour for a monk who was supposed to be concentrating on his spiritual problems.
My relief that I was home expanded into pleasure. My best men were all so glad to see me and even the sulkiest drone achieved a smile of welcome. After dinner I briefly interviewed my officers, attended to the most urgent correspondence, dealt with a couple of domestic matters and toured my five-acre domain of flowers, vegetables, fruit-trees, herbs and bee-hives. In the herb-garden the cat came to meet me and I picked him up. A black cat with a white spot on his chest he had been called Hippo after St Augustine’s city, and was a dull affectionate animal like the drone who was responsible for his welfare. After stroking the fur behind the ears I set the creature down again but he was captivated; he padded after me as I completed my tour of the garden and even mewed in protest when I eventually shut the back door in his face.
The bell began to toll in the chapel. I displayed myself in choir, but suddenly as I savoured my happiness that I should once more be worshipping God in my familiar place, I remembered my new call and shuddered. How could I bear to leave? My happiness was at once displaced by misery.
However in my own home I found it easier to regain my equilibrium. Reminding myself that my departure was by no means certain I spent some time reading (the accumulated copies of The Times were a great solace) and later made a satisfactory attempt at meditation. When I returned to my cell after matins that night I was tired enough to feel confident that I would fall asleep without difficulty, and indeed as soon as I had closed my eyes I felt my mind drift free of the fetters which I had subconsciously imposed upon it during the difficult week I had spent in London. I began to dream.
XIII
I dreamt of Whitby, proud arrogant Whitby, who had stalked through the backyard at Ruydale with his tail pointed triumphantly at the sky. Prowling prancing Whitby, living in his monastery but padding off to the nearby hamlet whenever the celibate life became too uncomfortable, clever cunning Whitby, a little battered and scarred like all successful tomcats but still as striking as a racy buccaneer, tough tenacious Whitby who worked hard and deserved his pleasures, lean lithe Whitby, wonderful Whitby – what a cat! Whitby was walking through my dream towards me but suddenly he faded into a black cat, not Hippo of Grantchester but Chelsea, my mother’s favourite cat, serene elegant Chelsea who washed her paws so fastidiously on the hearth. My mother was there too, serene and elegant just like Chelsea, and she was talking to me without words, saying everything she was too reserved to say aloud and making me feel so sorry for my father who was excluded from these conversations because he was unable to hear us in our silence. ‘How lonely you must be with him!’ I said to my mother in my dream, but she answered: ‘No, I have you and Chelsea.’
‘My own children can’t hear me when I talk to them,’ I said to her, and in my dream time was abruptly displaced because my mother had never lived to see her grandchildren. ‘The cat can’t hear either.’ And as I spoke I saw the stupid ginger cat, my children’s cat whom my daughter Ruth had named Goldilocks – which was a ridiculous name for a cat although I had never said so – but whom Martin, enrapt by different fairy-tales, had always called Pussy-Boots. In my dream Betty was slopping some milk into a saucer for the cat and as she stooped I could see past the open neck of her nightgown. ‘You look like a cat facing a bowl of cream!’ she said laughing, and as I took her in my arms the ginger cat watched us, a stupid cat, not trained to be clever, but unfortunately I was away too much at sea to ensure his education.
‘You’re going to talk to me about that cat,’ said Father Darcy, walking into the scriptorium at Ruydale, and suddenly there was Whitby, proud arrogant Whitby, leaping through the window with an exuberance which made the novices laugh, and Aidan was saying: ‘I’m not sure I understand; I’m not even sure I want to understand; but whatever’s going on must stop.’
Then in my dream Ruydale dissolved into London and I was searching the Fordite headquarters for Father Darcy. I searched every room, floor after floor, but he had disappeared and finally I had to confess to Aidan: ‘I can’t go on without him. It’s too difficult.’ But before Aidan could reply in walked Lyle Ashworth, small and slender in an open-necked nightgown, and as she lay down on the bed I turned to Aidan to say: ‘I lied to Francis – I did have an erection after all,’ but Aidan had vanished and when I turned back to the bed I found that Lyle had been replaced by Betty. Betty had taken off her nightgown and the next moment I was consummating my marriage, sunk deep in the folds of the most exquisite pleasure, and yet all the time I was so lonely, so isolated, so ravaged by unhappiness and despair –
I woke up sweating.
The room was filled with the dawn light. For some time I prayed for the further revelation which would validate and clarify my vision of the chapel, but no message imprinted itself on my mind and at last, rising reluctantly from my knees, I trudged to the basin to shave.
XIV
I shall not record the mental torment of the next four weeks as I examined each of my interviews with Francis and lurched from confidence to doubt and from despair to hope. Suffice it to say that I meditated on my crisis as conscientiously as I could and somehow, amidst bouts of the most crippling anxiety, contrived to present a semblance of normality to my community as I went about my daily work. Day after day I prayed for a further divine communication, but God, the utterly transcendent God of Karl Barth’s repellent anti-mystical theology, appeared to have withdrawn from that scrap of finite time in which my soul was imprisoned and no matter how hard I prayed for a manifestation of his immanence I was disappointed.
In Europe God also appeared to be absent. The Germans slaughtered thirty thousand people in Rotterdam, bombed the Channel Islands and abolished the famous motto of France, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. In their shock and fear the British seemed to find such events almost impossible to digest; they twittered about tea-rationing (my drones were very cross) and talked righteously about the evils of the ‘chatterbugs’ who threatened the national security by their gossiping. But we all listened to Churchill with a new intensity. I fell into the habit of reading aloud his speeches, printed in The Times, to my men after breakfast; the national peril was so great that I did not think it right that they should be obliged to wait a full week before hearing the news in the Saturday recreation hour. Monks may live apart from the world but they do not reject it, and day after day we prayed for all those whose lives were being ravaged by the war.
However I was eventually diverted from this urgent work by the inevitable summons from Francis. Three weeks after my return to Grantchester I received a communication which read: ‘Please confirm that you will return to London on Monday to re-examine the matter which we discussed last month,’ and at once I sent an obedient message in reply.
The most arduous part of my ordeal was now confronting me.
I began to steel myself for the inquisition.
XV
‘So here we are again,’ drawled Francis, ‘in spite of Hitler’s attempts to interrupt us. I suppose that if the Germans invade they’d shoot all monks on sight? Atheistic Nazism combined with the German folk-memory of Luther’s repudiation of religious orders certainly doesn’t encourage optimism on the subject.’
‘At least you’d be spared the ordeal of interrogating me.’
‘So I would. But perhaps I’m to be spared it anyway. Have you finally succeeded in taking your mind out of those mystic mothballs and deciding your vision was a delusion?’
‘I’m sorry but –’
‘No, don’t bother to apologize. I never seriously allowed myself to hope that you’d walk in here, prostrate yourself at my feet and announce: “I was deluded.”’ Francis swept back his mane of silver hair and allowed himself a theatrical sigh of resignation. Then he said curtly: ‘Very well. Come back at four this afternoon and I’ll start the task of taking you apart.’
FOUR (#u1c128c5c-1123-543f-9ada-6eb75e6ad280)
‘St John of the Cross even said of a nun who claimed to have had conversations with God: “All this that she says: God spoke to me; I spoke to God, seems nonsense. She has only been speaking to herself.’”
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion
I
‘Before I wheel on the rack,’ said Francis when we met five hours later, ‘I must give you the chance to rebut all the insinuations I made during your last visit, but please, Jonathan, please don’t offer me any fey mystical claptrap. I want rational propositions from you, not romantic waffle. Now first of all, what makes you think this vision was real and not a fantasy triggered by an emotional disturbance?’
Without hesitation I said: ‘Apart from the north light at the end there was no obvious distortion of reality – no six naked women, as you put it, dancing in the glade. If the vision had been triggered by a sexual difficulty I feel some form of sexual symbolism would have shown up.’
‘What about the rich woman’s bag?’
‘I don’t believe that was a sexual symbol. If it were then I suspect the lid would have been open to reveal a feminine garment such as a nightgown.’
‘Very well, but let’s stay with the subject of your sexual difficulties. I concede there was no sexual symbolism in the vision but that might have been because you’d obtained physical relief earlier that night. How can you be sure that the vision wasn’t triggered by a far more complex sexual malaise arising from a disintegrating adjustment to the celibate life?’
‘Primarily because I’ve been through much worse times without any vision being triggered. The truth is this difficulty with my celibacy wasn’t as bad as you’re trying to make out.’
‘And Mrs Ashworth?’
‘With all due respect I think you should guard against turning that particular molehill into a mountain. Obviously I find the woman more attractive than I want to admit and obviously I’ve been protecting myself from that weakness by stressing my dislike of her, but I’m not in love with the woman, I’m never likely to be in love with her and such attraction which exists is only of the most trivial kind.’
‘So might the ageing Antony have said when he saw the still youthful Cleopatra – but I take your point. And now we’ve reached the subject of ageing let me ask you this: why are you so sure that your current crisis isn’t the result of your panic when you awoke on the morning of your sixtieth birthday and realized old age was staring you in the face?’
‘There was no panic. I’m a mature man, not an elderly adolescent clinging to a lost youth! I admit I disliked the idea of being sixty, but what’s so abnormal about that? You yourself admitted that you spent three days sunk in gloom after your own birthday this year – how are you enjoying being sixty years old?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ said Francis, ‘I’m now enjoying myself immensely. But I dare say that’s because I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire this fascinating new career as the Abbot-General.’
Conversation ceased. As Francis caressed his spectacles languidly I was appalled to realize that my fists were clenched. Surreptitiously I relaxed my fingers one by one.
‘Congratulations!’ I said at last. ‘That was a neat twist of the thumbscrew. Are we reaching the point where you wheel on the rack?’
‘Let’s first see how well you defend yourself against the charge that you’re attempting to storm out of the Order in a fit of pique because you failed to become the Abbot-General.’
‘I’m neither a fool nor a bad monk. I’ve got enough brains to see I’d be very miserable here in London, and I’d never request to be absolved from my vows out of mere injured pride.’ I hesitated but when Francis remained silent I added: ‘For seventeen years I’ve had the strongest possible call to the cloister, and on the one occasion ten years ago when I really did long to leave my longing had nothing to do with my lack of preferment. On the contrary, at the time of the Whitby affair I’d just been made Master of Novices and my future in the Order was rosy.’
‘But on that occasion you had Father Darcy to steer you through the crisis to safety – and that brings us to the next point: how do you deny the charge that this vision is simply a spiritual aberration brought on by the loss of your mentor?’
I had long since decided that I had no choice but to grasp this particular bull by the horns. ‘I could only rebut that charge by proving there’s nothing wrong with my spiritual health,’ I said, ‘and since we both know that my spiritual health has recently been impaired by emotional stress, I can’t offer a water-right defence. All I can say is that it never once occurred to me that I couldn’t survive in the Order without my spiritual director. Think of my pride! What would Father Darcy have said if I’d chucked in the sponge in such a pusillanimous fashion? No, of course I had to go on. There was no choice.’
There was a silence while Francis began to polish his spectacles on the skirt of his habit. I could not decide whether he had no idea what to say next or whether he was trying to rattle me by keeping quiet.
‘I suppose,’ I said to show him I was unrattled, ‘you now want me to say something about Martin.’
‘You’re inviting me to wheel on the rack?’
‘No rack’s necessary. I’m willing enough to talk – and willing enough to concede that he thoroughly upset me. In fact I’m even willing to concede that he could have triggered the vision. But I don’t think he did, and I’ll tell you why: if he’d been the trigger I believe the vision would have been different – for instance, I’m sure he would have appeared in it, just as Charles Ashworth appeared in my vision of 1937. And there’s another point which is important here: why should Martin’s problems make me want to leave the Order? Even if I were in the world I could do no more than pray for him, and I can do that equally well in the cloister.’
‘True. But this is where we wonder if you’re subconsciously longing to rebel against old age and wipe out your disillusionment with Martin by taking a young second wife and begetting the ideal son.’
‘You can’t seriously think I’d be quite such a fool!’
‘Fortunately for the human race matrimony and procreation aren’t confined to fools.’
‘Yes, but to embark on both at the age of sixty when I know I can serve God best as a celibate –’
‘Why shouldn’t God now wish you to serve him as a married man?’
‘But I’ve had no indication of that!’
‘You’ve had no indication of anything! All you’ve experienced is this mindless urge to leave the Order, and it’s quite obvious that this could have been triggered by one or more of a number of circumstances –’
‘There was no trigger.’ I tried not to raise my voice but failed. ‘This vision came from God!’
‘You still have no doubts about that?’
‘Absolutely none!’ I said with a dogmatism guaranteed to inflame any superior past endurance.
‘How arrogant!’ exclaimed Francis. ‘How wholly lacking in humility! How utterly devoid of any willingness to admit you could be wrong!’ As he stood up I too rose to my feet and we faced each other across his desk. ‘Go to your cell,’ said my superior, ‘and don’t come out of it – unless there’s an air-raid – until you’re due to return here at four tomorrow. I find your attitude profoundly unedifying.’
‘Yes, Father.’ Walking out I somehow resisted the temptation to slam the door.
II
I wondered if he intended me to fast, but my supper arrived on a tray and later Ambrose appeared, inquiring about my health. Evidently Francis was taking no chances with my mental equilibrium by allowing me to slide into physical debility.
The knowledge that I had deftly repelled Francis’ efforts to undermine my confidence was very cheering; settling down to enjoy my solitary confinement I read, meditated, prayed and retired to bed in a mood which could almost be described as complacent.
However my complacency began to fade when I returned to his office on the following afternoon and was obliged to wait outside the door for ten minutes before he gave me permission to enter. Such a petty exhibition of power I found very irritating and my irritation increased when he ordered me into the room only to keep me standing in front of his desk while he finished writing a memorandum. I was beginning to seethe with anger when I realized that any loss of temper would constitute a victory for him, and at once I willed myself to be calm.
Eventually he motioned me to sit down. Then he said abruptly: ‘Now listen to me. There are two things I want to make clear. Number one: I’m convinced this vision of yours had a trigger. And number two: the existence of a trigger doesn’t necessarily imply the vision didn’t come from God.’
I assumed what I hoped was my politest expression and said nothing.
‘You believe,’ pursued Francis, ‘that in order to prove this vision’s from God you must maintain that it has no connection with anything which was going on in your life at the time. However I’m now certain that this approach is erroneous.’
Still I said nothing, but I was aware that my polite expression was becoming strained.
‘I’m not denying that God’s capable of sending people visions out of the blue,’ resumed Francis, ploughing on purposefully. ‘All I’m saying is that I don’t think this is likely in your case, and I say that because, as you reminded me yesterday, your call to the cloister was so strong. I think God would have had to prepare the ground before he gave the blast on the trumpet; otherwise you would have been either deaf to the blast or convinced you were mistaken. So from the point of view of discernment the crucial question becomes: what was the vision’s final trigger? I think that once we can answer that question we’ll be a lot closer to solving this mystery.’
By this time I had given up trying to look polite and was concentrating on achieving a meek expression.
‘Jonathan, I find it unnerving when you give a bravura performance of the model monk. Could you please stop acting and venture a comment which isn’t entirely lacking in honesty?’
‘I find your opinions very interesting, Father, but I can’t help wondering if you might be mistaken. If a final trigger had existed I’m sure I’d be able to identify it.’
‘How typical!’ said Francis in disgust. ‘You think you can do anything, don’t you – even read your subconscious mind! It never occurs to you in your arrogance that your subconscious mind may be beyond the reach not only of your intellectual powers but of your tiresome psychic powers as well!’
‘Well, of course I’m as capable as anyone else of suppressing a truth I’ve no wish to face, but all I’m saying is –’
‘All you’re saying is that you intend to be as arrogant and obstinate as ever! Very well, let me now ask you the question I would have asked yesterday if you hadn’t driven me into losing my temper: during your month of reflection at Grantchester did you receive any further enlightenment on the subject of what this call’s all about?’
‘No. But I’m convinced that if I leave the Order I’ll be led to the chapel, and once I get there –’
‘Stop!’ Francis held up his hand. Then he said incredulously: ‘Can I possibly have misheard you? Is it conceivable that you seriously believe you’ll be led to this place? You imagine a latter-day Star of Bethlehem will be hanging over the chapel, perhaps, to guide you on your way?’
‘No, Father. All I’m saying is –’
‘That’s enough! Be quiet!’
Silence. I folded my hands together and waited.
‘I can see it’s a complete waste of time talking to you at the moment,’ said Francis. ‘I’m beginning to think old age has softened your brain. Go to the workshop and ask them if they can let you have some wood to play with. When people are mentally disturbed they’re often encouraged to work with their hands.’
‘Yes, Father.’ I did succeed in making a dignified retreat but I could not help thinking as I left the room that this time Francis had fared far better in the interview than I had.
III
In the workshop where four monks made church furniture I introduced myself to Edward the master-carpenter, and informed him that I had been ordered to work with wood. He looked incredulous. Manual labour is encouraged at all levels of the Order and I did my share of gardening alongside my brethren at Grantchester, but nonetheless an abbot is hardly expected to seek work as an artisan.
‘I was trained by Alfred at Ruydale,’ I said.
Edward became deferential. ‘What would you like to do, Father?’
I did not answer the question directly but said: ‘Is it too much to hope that you’ve got some seasoned oak to spare?’
He had the oak. It seemed like a sign. With the wood in my arms I moved in exhilaration to the work-bench and embarked on my first carpentry assignment for ten years.
IV
‘I hear you’re making a cross,’ said Francis the next day. ‘Amusing for you. How long will it take?’
‘Longer than it should. I’m out of practice.’
‘What’s so difficult about making a cross?’ said Francis, deliberately provocative. ‘Can’t you just bang a couple of bits of wood together?’
‘No, Father. I have some very beautiful oak and I want to make the cross out of that one piece, taking every chance to display the grain of the wood to its best advantage.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s all very soothing for your equilibrium-maybe I should take up carpentry myself. I’ve got a novice hearing voices, a visiting bishop who’s in a muddle about pacifism, four young shirkers who swear they’re called to be monks, Harrods trying to sell me something called a radiogram instead of a modest wireless, twenty unanswered letters requesting advice on topics ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous – oh, and I nearly forgot! An abbot whose psychic powers are running riot! When you return to your cell, Jonathan, go down on your knees and thank God you were spared the ordeal of being Abbot-General.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Very well, go away, I’m too busy to bother with you at the moment. I’ll send for you in a day or two.’
Exerting an iron will to control my temper I retired once more to the workshop.
V
‘I hear you’ve finished the cross, Jonathan. Of course it’s a replica of the cross you saw in your vision, so I suppose all you now have to do is build the chapel, isn’t it? Then I can shine a torch through the north window and you can claim a miracle.’
‘That’s right, Father. But before I build the chapel I was hoping we could resume our talks.’
‘Getting impatient? Patience is in many ways the most difficult of all virtues, Jonathan, and one which I feel it would pay you to cultivate.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Perhaps you might have another vision while you wait. It would pass the time.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Jonathan, doesn’t it occur to you that this humourless docility is the height of veiled insolence? I detest it – the least you could do to placate me would be to smile at my witty remarks!’
‘What witty remarks, Father?’
‘Very funny. All right, get out. The Lord Abbot-General is quite definitely not amused.’
VI
‘Curiosity stirred in my mind this morning, Jonathan, and it occurred to me to wonder what you’ve been doing since we last met four days ago. Any more enthralling psychic dramas?’
‘No, Father. I’ve been helping Edward to make an altar-table.’
‘Maybe I can solve your entire problem by ordering you to remain here as a carpenter. Obviously the strain of being an abbot sent you off your head.’
‘Naturally I shall obey any order you care to give me, Father.’
Francis made a noise which sounded like ‘Arrrgh!’ and slumped back in his chair. ‘Very well, Jonathan, let’s have a truce. Sit down.’
Once more we sat facing each other across his desk. I was beginning to feel tense again although the relaxation provided by the carpentry had strengthened me mentally, just as Francis had no doubt intended; a nervous collapse would only have made the task of discernment more protracted. Perhaps he had also intended to strengthen me mentally by severing me from the outside world; I had received no invitation to ‘listen in’ to the wireless which had finally been acquired to give him immediate news of the continuing crisis, and I had been granted no access to The Times. However fortunately for my sanity the monastic grapevine was active. The postman and the milkman were clay in the hands of the doorkeeper, who with impressive journalistic skill jotted down a few pertinent sentences and delivered the scrap to the kitchens. It usually reached the workshop shortly before the office at noon.
‘I’ve reached the conclusion that we must make a completely different approach to this problem of yours,’ Francis was saying. ‘As things stand we’re now firmly entrenched behind fixed positions and no further progress is possible, so we must abandon our survey of the recent past, I think, and turn to the more distant past in our quest for enlightenment.’
Dutifully I said: ‘Yes, Father,’ and assumed an interested expression.
‘What I now want to do,’ pursued Francis, changing the nib of his pen, ‘is to compare your new alleged call to leave the Order with your old call to enter it and uncover the common denominators.’
I was sufficiently startled to exclaim: ‘But there aren’t any!’ However I added at once: ‘I’m sorry. That’s not a helpful attitude and I must do my best to be more constructive.’
Francis said after an eloquent pause: ‘Thank you, Jonathan.’ Throwing the old nib in the wastepaper basket he dipped his pen in the ink and wrote at the top of a new page of foolscap: ‘THE CALL TO BE A MONK’. Then he undid the ribbon which bound my file and opened the folder to reveal the earliest entry.
‘The first point of interest about your original call,’ he said, ‘is that it’s poorly recorded, but I suspect I know why. You were accepted as a postulant by your predecessor in the Abbot’s chair at Grantchester, and we all know now that dear old James Reid, God rest him, was so soft-hearted that he welcomed into the Order almost anyone who knocked on his door. I’d wager your call was never comprehensively investigated. In the end that didn’t matter, since your call was genuine, but no doubt when you quickly became so disruptive poor James thought he’d made a disastrous mistake.’
I felt obliged to say: ‘He did stand by me – even when I came to blows with the Master of Novices James resisted the demands that I should be thrown out. When he called in Father Darcy it wasn’t because he wanted to get rid of me but because he thought the poltergeist activity demanded a first-class exorcist.’
‘How Father Darcy must have enjoyed himself! But as soon as he met you, he knew James was right about your potential, didn’t he? So he didn’t investigate your call in detail either. He was much too busy shaping your future to waste time burrowing into your past.’ Francis picked up a page from the file and added: ‘Let me read you part of James’ opinion recorded after his preliminary interview with you in 1923 when you were still outside the Order. He writes:
‘“Jon tells me that he’s wanted to be a monk ever since his wife died in 1912. He loved his wife very dearly and they had nine happy years of marriage which were blessed by the gift of two children: Ruth (born 1904) and Martin (born 1905). Jon is clearly devoted to his children and during the eleven years since his wife died he has worked hard to support them even though his call to the cloister was becoming increasingly strong. He tells me that despite his happy marriage he realized that a life of domesticity, charming and rewarding though it might be in many ways, proved difficult to combine with his unusual and distinctive spirituality, and when his wife died he knew he must remain celibate in order to serve God best. He is also convinced that in the world he will always be tormented by the temptation to marry to satisfy his carnal inclinations, and he believes that only in a monastery will he be able to serve God without distraction and develop his spiritual gifts to the full. In my opinion he is patently sincere, mentally well-balanced despite his psychic powers and is obviously a man of high intelligence and considerable pastoral ability. In the past he has been led astray by a desire to exploit the glamour inherent in those psychic powers, but I believe that with sufficient training and dedication a truly charismatic power can be developed for the service of God. I told him I would accept him as a postulant, and I believe that in time he will prove a considerable asset to the Order.’”
Francis closed the file. For a long moment we looked at each other in silence. Then he said mildly: ‘Jonathan, I don’t want to appear cynical but it sounds to me as if you manipulated that unworldly man with all the skill your “glamorous powers” could command. During those nine years of happy marriage, what exactly happened which made you feel the trip to the altar was the one journey you never wanted to repeat?’
VII
‘James spells out the truth clearly enough,’ I said. ‘I came to realize that despite my successful marriage I could serve God best without the distraction of family life.’
‘But was your marriage really so happy as James apparently believed it was?’
‘No, of course not. My marriage was like the vast majority of marriages; sometimes it was heaven and sometimes it was hell. Betty and I enjoyed the heaven, survived the hell and on the whole rubbed along very tolerably together. I certainly felt I was entitled to present the marriage to James as a success.’
‘Tell me about the times when the marriage was hell.’
‘You’re most unlikely to understand how unimportant our difficulties really were. If you’d ever been married yourself –’
‘Oh, good heavens!’ Francis was suddenly at his most theatrical. He groaned, shaded his eyes with his hand and twisted his mouth into a mournful grimace. ‘I did hope I’d never hear a monk of your calibre try to trot out that hoary jibe of the snide layman. If you’re not careful you’ll drive me to trot out the equally hoary jibe of the Roman Catholic priests that the onlooker sees most of the game.’
Despite my tension I laughed and apologized.
‘I can see I must tiptoe up to this delicate subject by another route,’ said Francis. ‘How did you meet your wife?’
‘After I was ordained in 1903 I went to work at the Mission for Seamen in Starmouth, and a week later I met Betty in the park. She saw me, failed to look where she was going and stumbled over a patch of uneven ground. Naturally I rushed to assist her.’
‘Just like a romance from Mudie’s Library. What was her background?’
‘Her father owned a tobacconist’s shop.’
‘Dear me, how awkward! What did your schoolmaster father think of your desire to marry below your station?’
‘How could he complain? He’d married a parlourmaid – as Father Darcy never ceased to announce to all and sundry whenever he wanted to rub my nose in the mud and induce a spirit of humility.’
‘Am I to deduce that you married a working-class woman because you wanted a wife who was just like your mother?’
‘No, you can forget your obsession with Freud and deduce that I married a working-class woman because I couldn’t afford to marry a lady on my modest salary as a chaplain.’
‘If you had no private means I’d have thought that any marriage would have been out of the question for a young man of twenty-three. Surely your father advised you to wait!’
‘My father was a quiet scholarly man who didn’t find it easy to talk to me – indeed I both mystified and frightened him. His predominant reaction to my desire to marry seemed to be relief that I wanted to settle down.’
‘And your confessor – who, of course was none other than dear old James himself at our recently-founded Grantchester house – what did he think of your decision?’
‘He was the one who urged me to marry as soon after my ordination as possible.’
Francis said dryly: ‘It’s amazing how dangerous these unworldly holy men can be. However I mustn’t be too harsh on poor old James – after your shady career at the Varsity I suppose it was inevitable that he should doubt your ability to stay chaste for long … Did you continue to see him regularly between your ordination in 1903 and your entry into the Order twenty years later?’
‘No, there came a point when I realized he was incapable of counselling me, so I decided to dispense with a confessor.’
‘You mean you had no direction at all?’
‘Oh, I was never completely adrift! I always had some older priest with whom I could discuss spiritual matters but I never made a formal confession and I never talked in detail about my private life.’
‘In other words you abandoned Anglo-Catholicism.’
‘Not entirely. It was easy enough to drift back into the fold later when I realized I wanted to be a monk. I never lost my admiration for Bishop Gore and the High-Church party.’
‘What was the matter on which James failed to give you acceptable counsel?’
‘Contraception.’ I hesitated but when Francis merely waited I said: ‘Betty could barely manage two children under two. The strain was affecting her health as well as our marriage, and when she threatened to seek an abortion if she became pregnant again I saw contraception as the lesser of two evils.’
‘Meanwhile James, I suppose, had told you to behave like a eunuch. How far were you able to share the spiritual aspects of this dilemma with your wife? Was she devout?’
‘No. She believed in God as children believe in Father Christmas – with a mindless innocence. Religion for her was little more than a charming superstition.’
‘How very difficult for you!’
‘Not at all,’ I said at once. ‘She supported me by coming to church on Sundays and she was very good in bed. What did I have to complain about?’
‘Well, Jonathan, I’m just an ignorant old bachelor, as you tried to tell me a moment ago, but I seem to remember hearing somewhere that there should be more to marriage than sexual intercourse and I’m quite sure there should be more to being a clergyman’s wife than turning up in church on Sundays. Tell me, was your wife intelligent?’
‘No, she was really rather stupid. But that didn’t matter. I prefer to discuss intellectual matters with men, and anyway when a man gets home after a hard day’s work the last thing he wants is to hear his wife expounding on intellectual or spiritual matters. He wants a kiss and a hot meal and the latest report on the domestic front, preferably the more banal the better.’
‘The wife you’re describing seems to be little more than a housekeeper,’ said Francis. ‘Or is it a glorified parlourmaid?’
‘If you’re still clinging to the theory that I wanted to marry a woman just like my mother, I assure you that you couldn’t be more mistaken! Betty and my mother were utterly different.’
‘Tell me about this mother of yours. Were you the only child?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t spoil me. She trained me much as she used to train her cats – firmly and without sentimentality.’
‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Fourteen. Can we stop this digression now, please, and return to more relevant matters?’
‘Why are you becoming so flustered about your mother?’
‘I’m not flustered! It’s just that one doesn’t always welcome the opportunity to share cherished memories, particularly if one’s in the middle of an inquisition. Why are you so obsessed with the Oedipus Complex?’
‘You don’t ask the questions, Jonathan; you answer them. Why do you suppose you married a woman who was so utterly different from your mother?’
Losing patience I said with sarcasm: ‘No doubt you’d advance the theory that when I failed to find my mother’s replica among the women I met through my Cambridge acquaintances, I married my mother’s opposite in despair.’
‘Never mind the theory I’d advance. Let’s hear you advance a theory of your own.’
‘I don’t have a theory; I have knowledge. I married Betty because I loved her and although the marriage had its difficult aspects I must absolutely insist that it was happy and successful.’
‘But my dear Jonathan,’ said Francis, ‘can’t you see that you’re trying to harmonize two statements which are fundamentally incompatible? On the one hand you’re insisting that you were happily married – yet on the other you’re insisting that the marriage made you so maimed spiritually that you were unable to serve God to the best of your ability. I put it to you that either you were happily married and not spiritually maimed; or that you were spiritually maimed and unhappily married. But a priest like you can’t possibly be both spiritually maimed and happily married. That would be a psychological impossibility.’ He terminated the interview by laying down his pen. ‘Now go away and consider what I’ve said, please, and when you return tomorrow I trust you’ll be a good deal more explicit about your curious marriage than you’ve deigned to be today.’
VIII
After supper I retired to my cell to examine the new development in my ordeal. I could now perceive the dimensions of the rack, just as I could sense that Francis was steering me towards it, and I knew I had to take defensive action. I felt no guilt in admitting this because I knew Francis was on the wrong track; my duty at this point was clearly not to wave him on his way but to do my best to steer him back on to the right road.
I sat plotting how I might best deflect him and escape the rack. Of course I could not tell lies. I had to be as truthful as possible but that meant I had to calculate with precision where the boundary between the possible and the impossible lay. It would be unfortunate if I were to discover in mid-sentence that I had allowed myself to be strapped to the rack despite all my efforts to avoid it.
I saw then that the next interview would be fraught with danger, and on the following morning in the workshop I barely glanced at the doorkeeper’s daily news. The war beyond the cloister was receding in my consciousness. I was too busy fighting a desperate private war of my own.
IX
‘I’m sorry you thought I was being so paradoxical yesterday,’ I said to Francis when we next met. ‘With your permission I’d now like to explain my marriage in a more comprehensible way.’
Francis kept his expression bland and motioned me to continue.
‘What I was really trying to imply,’ I said, ‘is that I was probably as happy with Betty as I would have been with any other woman. The problem wasn’t Betty; it was marriage itself – the whole business of living in close proximity to another person. The truth was I shouldn’t have married at all, but as I was neither a eunuch nor a homosexual it never occurred to me at the tender age of twenty-three that I’d be better off as a celibate. So I married and was often very happy. It’s true that I did find my spiritual vitality was being sapped, but since I loved my wife and children I was prepared to tolerate that. All marriages involve some degree of compromise and mine was certainly no exception.’
But Francis merely said: ‘I do see the distinction you’re trying to make when you blame your discomfort on the institution of marriage rather than on your wife, but nevertheless if living in close proximity to another person was so difficult for you one can’t help but wonder if that other person might be part of the problem. Forgive me for asking, but did you in fact marry her for any reason other than the sexual and the economic?’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean the marriage was doomed. Most marriages founder over either money or intimacy. It was our modest bank balance and our intimate relationship which held the marriage together.’
‘Well, there wasn’t much else to hold it together, was there?’ said Francis bluntly. ‘She shared none of your intellectual interests; she was spiritually illiterate; she came from a different class, a fact which must have complicated your professional and social life in all kinds of difficult ways –’
‘But I’ve told you – I didn’t care about any of those disadvantages! All I wanted was a morally acceptable outlet for my sexual inclinations –’
The trap sprang shut.
‘How very humiliating for your wife,’ said Francis brutally, and at once I was slammed on the rack.
X
Francis saw his shot had hit the mark and allowed me no time to regain my equilibrium. ‘Tell me more,’ he said, ‘about how unsuited you were for matrimony. I can quite believe that an immature young man who treats his wife merely as a cheap sexual receptacle would make a far from ideal husband.’
I tried to devise a strong response but I was unable to think clearly. I began to twist my abbot’s ring round and round on my finger.
Francis said briskly: ‘The truth is, isn’t it, that you made each other very miserable. When did you first realize you’d made a mistake?’
‘You’re completely misrepresenting the situation –’
‘How can I be when you admit marriage left you cold?’
‘It didn’t leave me cold. It left me deprived of psychic space. That’s different. It wasn’t Betty’s fault. As I keep telling you, it was marriage, not Betty, that made me unhappy.’ I had stopped twisting my ring but my fingers were tightly interlocked. ‘Even before I entered the Order,’ I said, ‘I needed a great deal of time alone in order to meditate and pray, and frankly I had no idea that the daily routine of marriage would be so hostile to any attempt to sustain a rich inner life. Nothing had prepared me for such chaos. My parents were quiet people; our home was very orderly, very peaceful, very conducive to developing a talent for using solitude constructively. But as soon as I married I found myself in a different atmosphere. Betty was seldom still. She was always rushing hither and thither, continually invading my psychic space, laughing, crying, endlessly chattering … And then the children came. Of course I was pleased and proud, but the noise, the mess, the constant destruction of any interlude which encompassed peace and order –’
‘You were born into the wrong class, Jonathan. My parents cheerfully abandoned their children to nannies and governesses and enjoyed numerous delightful interludes with their lovers.’
‘My dear Francis!’
‘Will you kindly stop trying to undermine my authority by addressing me by my Christian name?’
‘I’m sorry, but I was so appalled by your light-hearted attitude to such adulterous irresponsibility –’
‘Good heavens, can’t you see I was trying to signal my sympathy to you by making a joke about my own melancholy experience of family life? No, obviously you can’t and I must apologize. I shouldn’t have forgotten how sensitive you are on the subject of class … But let’s return to your marriage. You’ve admitted you were in a situation which would have driven me, if not you, to drink. How did you make life bearable for yourself?’
The rack creaked. Once more I found myself groping unsuccessfully for a strong response.
‘Come along, Jonathan! Obviously you had to take drastic measures to preserve your sanity –’
‘I volunteered for service at sea.’
‘What a brilliant solution! But didn’t the authorities try to tell you that a married chaplain should remain ashore with his family at the Naval base?’
‘I talked them out of that. I said I’d been called to serve on board ship. I was very convincing.’
‘And how did your wife feel about being abandoned?’
‘She was no more abandoned than any other Naval wife! Anyway I made it up to her – whenever I came home our reunion was as good as a honeymoon.’
‘But how did you get on at sea? There was little privacy and peace, surely, on board ship –’
‘I had my own cabin. Once the door was closed I had the psychic space I needed and I was happy. That was when I finally faced the fact that I couldn’t serve God properly as a married man, yet on the other hand –’
‘– on the other hand you had a wife and two children and no doubt you still couldn’t imagine giving up intimacy entirely. What an exceedingly difficult spiritual position! You led this divided life, you had no adequate spiritual direction, you must have become increasingly isolated –’
‘But I’m a psychic! I was used to isolation, used to no one understanding, used to struggling unaided with my problems –’
‘Nevertheless what a relief it must have been when she died!’
Silence fell after this ultimate turn of the screw. My psyche, jarred and jolted by the rack, flashed a warning to my brain that the strain was proving too much but before I could stop myself I was saying: ‘It was terrible when she died. Terrible. If you think I was glad you couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘The dark side of bereavement lies in the guilt beneath the grief.’
‘Why should I have felt guilty? She loved me, I did everything in my power to make her happy –’
‘You’re wonderfully convincing, Jonathan, and I can almost smell the red roses and hear the Strauss waltz, but unfortunately my sceptical streak means that I have a deep-rooted resistance to romantic fantasies. However I’m always willing to listen. Come back tomorrow and spin me another romantic fantasy about your chaste life as a widower.’
I stared at him. He stared back. I was acutely aware of my file bulging on the desk between us.
‘Francis, I really can’t see what relevance such a conversation can possibly have to my present predicament –’
‘It’s my business to see the relevance, not yours – and for heaven’s sake stop calling me Francis! That’s a privilege I’ll allow you if you ever leave the Order but meanwhile I’m your superior and I don’t want either of us to forget for one moment that I’m responsible for the care of your soul …’
XI
I dreamt about Hilda that night. In my dream she was committing suicide by hanging herself, but I was bound hand and foot, unable to save her. She was hanging herself on the gallows of the prison where I had worked as a chaplain, and as I watched the body twitching on the end of the rope I realized that I was lying in a pool of blood.
‘You look a trifle pale,’ said Francis when I returned to his room the following afternoon. ‘I was sorry to see when I passed your door at three o’clock this morning that your light was on.’
‘Why were you spying on me at three this morning?’
‘Why should you automatically assume I was spying on you? What vanity! As it happens, I was summoned to the infirmary to attend to my poor little novice who hears voices. I’m afraid his place is in a hospital, not a monastery.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was a salutary reminder that ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people who hear voices and see visions are mentally ill. Now,’ said Francis, having tested the rack and found it in good working order, ‘let’s return to the subject of your past. We’d established that your marriage was a nightmare –’
‘It was not a nightmare! It simply had difficult aspects!’
‘Were you faithful to her?’
‘Of course I was faithful to her! How could I have gone on as a priest if I’d committed adultery?’
‘Was she faithful to you?’
‘Yes, she loved me.’
‘Even after you ran away to sea? It sounds to me as if she was either mad or mesmerized. Were you abusing your psychic powers to keep her under control?’
‘Certainly not, and if you hadn’t known me during the most shameful period of my life it would never have occurred to you to ask such an obscene question! After my call to the priesthood no woman ever played Trilby to my Svengali – and anyway there was no need for me to play Svengali to ensure Betty’s devotion. She loved me almost too much as it was.’
Francis at once made a note. I tried to read it but could only decipher the words ‘unreciprocated love’ and ‘additional strain’.
I said: ‘I think you’ve still got quite the wrong impression of my marriage.’
‘Have I? Then before you start getting upset all over again let’s now leave the subject of your marriage and examine your life as a widower.’ Opening my file he turned to the page he had already marked. ‘I’m going to read you another passage from James’ notes,’ he said. ‘The dear old boy writes:
‘“Today Jon made a full confession prior to his entry into our house tomorrow. I must admit I was privately shocked and saddened that he should have drifted so deeply into error, but I remain certain that life in the Order will solve this problem of his by preserving him from temptation, and my original opinion that he will make a good monk remains unchanged.”’ Francis closed the file and waited but when I remained silent he said not unkindly: ‘Jonathan, I promise I shan’t be censorious. You confessed these sins to James, he gave you absolution and from a spiritual point of view the matter’s closed. I only raise the subject now because I want to see how far your difficulties as a widower contributed to your desire to be a monk.’
‘Yes, Father.’ I tried to pull myself together. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘If I hesitate it’s because I’m still ashamed, even now, that I failed to live as a priest should.’
‘I can quite see how difficult it must have been for you. You were accustomed to an intense intimate relationship and you were in a state of spiritual weakness after years of a divided life … Did you never consider remarriage?’
‘Never. I did try hard to avoid women and for most of the time I succeeded. But at the end …’ I fell silent again.
‘Yes?’ said Francis. ‘What happened at the end?’
‘I met this woman. It was 1923 but I didn’t know when I met her that I was going to be able to enter the Order later in the year. I thought I was going to have to support Martin up at Cambridge. If I’d known he had no intention of going I might have resisted the temptation, but as it was … I felt I couldn’t bear my unhappiness any longer.’
‘But you’d had mistresses before 1923, surely?’
‘I wouldn’t call them mistresses. There were incidents during the War when I was on my own somewhere a long way from home. But Hilda … That was quite different. She did voluntary work for a charity which aided discharged prisoners. I met her when I was calling at the home of a prisoner who’d just been freed and she was there too, visiting the wife and children … We were both immediately attracted. Chastity soon became quite impossible.’
‘Did you ask her to marry you?’
‘No, I told her from the beginning that I was only marking time until I could be a monk. But of course she never believed I’d go through with it.’
‘How did you eventually extricate yourself?’
‘I … No, I really can’t describe the ghastliness of it all except to say that she threatened suicide and I nearly died of guilt. I hadn’t hated myself so much since that poor girl died up at Cambridge.’
Francis printed: ‘GUILT. HATES HIMSELF’ on his sheet of foolscap and said without expression: ‘Did she in fact commit suicide?’
‘No.’ I wiped the sweat from my forehead. ‘She married someone else eventually.’
‘And during this agonizing time did it not once occur to you, not once, that you might give up all thought of being a monk and marry this woman?’
‘Oh no,’ I said. The affair with Hilda confirmed what I already knew: that I couldn’t stay in the world and remain a good priest. My only hope of fulfilling my vocation lay in entering a monastery.’
‘Obviously your call was very strong but a satisfactory intimate relationship is no mean driving force either. I’d have thought –’
‘Marriage was an impossible dream,’ I said impatiently. ‘I could never have borne the burden.’
Francis’ pen paused in mid-sentence. ‘Burden?’
‘The burden of guilt that I’d married despite my knowledge that I was unsuited to married life.’ Unable to look at him I glanced around the room until my gaze rested once more on the clock. The temptation to reduce my tension by projecting it in a stream of power from the psyche was very strong.
‘But you’ve just admitted that you nearly died of guilt when you jilted her,’ Francis was saying. ‘Are you now implying –’
‘Yes. The guilt would have been even worse if I’d married her. I chose the lesser of two evils.’
‘How far were you able to set down the burden of all this guilt when you entered the Order?’
‘The relief was instantaneous. I was finally at peace after years of torment.’
‘How very odd! I wouldn’t have thought that merely walking through the door of the Grantchester house would have made so much difference – in fact surely your problems were only exacerbated when you wound up in such a mess as a postulant?’
‘I agree I got in a mess and was miserable, but it was a different kind of mess and a different kind of misery. Grantchester was quite the wrong house for me, of course – but not, as I thought at the time in my arrogance, because it was spiritually slack. It wasn’t, not then; James ran the place well enough in his own mild idiosyncratic way until old age made him lose his grip, but I was beyond being helped by a mild idiosyncratic rule. I needed the austerity of Ruydale, and Father Darcy realized that as soon as he met me.’
‘So once you met Father Darcy –’
‘I was happy.’
‘Even when he followed that first meeting by flogging you in the London punishment cell?’
I stopped staring at the clock and swivelled to face him. ‘Nobody enjoys being flogged!’
‘No?’ said Francis. ‘I rather thought that according to modern psychology some people do.’
I finally lost patience with him. ‘Can we forget the modern psychology for a moment and concentrate on the spiritual dimensions of what was going on? The flogging was necessary because I was so deeply sunk in pride that I was unable to learn humility and obedience in any other way – I was being forcibly turned around and redirected along the correct spiritual path. But once that had been done I was set free to realize my full ability to serve God at last – and that’s why I can say with truth that an enduring happiness only began for me when I met Father Darcy.’
‘And your happiness continued when he kicked you north to Ruydale, the toughest house in the Order – are you sure you don’t enjoy suffering, Jonathan?’
‘Is that another of the witty remarks which I’m supposed to find amusing? I can’t tell you how irritated I’m becoming by your psycho-analytical poses – shouldn’t you now pause to remind yourself that you’re a priest and not a Harley Street quack? If you did you’d have no trouble understanding that the suffering I had to endure – endure, not enjoy – was a necessary part of my development into a good monk, and I endured it – endured it – because my call to be a good monk was so strong.’
‘Yet now you have what is apparently an equally strong call to stop being a good monk – and why, Jonathan, why? Has your life at Grantchester become too soft and easy for you? Do you think you’d suffer more if you went out into the world?’
‘You’re being deeply offensive. I absolutely deny –’
‘Save your breath. Come back at four o’clock tomorrow and – hullo, the clock’s stopped! Ah yes, of course – I forgot to wind it this morning.’ Francis rose to his feet, moved to the fireplace and produced a key from a china vase on the mantelshelf. Then he looked back at me over his shoulder. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he demanded. ‘You’re dismissed.’
Retiring to the chapel I futilely tried to pray.
XII
I was now convinced that Francis was determined to reduce my call to a delusion by burying its spiritual dimensions beneath the rubble of a garbled psycho-analysis. I could see all too clearly the theory which he was developing. Deciding that I was a masochist who had finally exhausted the potential for suffering offered by the monastic life, he was toying with the idea that Father Darcy’s death had been the mythical ‘final trigger’ which had sent me over the edge of sanity. Having suffered the delightful humiliation of being rejected by my mentor and the exquisite pain of failing to become the Abbot-General, I had realized that the Order now offered me nothing but an intolerably pain-free life at Grantchester, and unable to face a monastic future without my favourite sadist I was chafing to return to the world where with any luck I might acquire a wife who would beat me every night. How delicious! All I would have to do would be to buy a whip and a chain or two and then I could live happily ever after.
This atheistic vision of a maimed psyche so appalled me that I even wondered – and this was the final horror – if there could be a grain of truth in it. Surely if the theory were quite inapplicable I should be laughing at its absurdity? But my whole future was at stake. How could I laugh when the future I knew I had to have was now threatened with abortion? Indeed all thought of both present and future had suddenly become so agonizing that instinctively I took refuge in the remote past. Closing my eyes I reached up to clasp my mother’s hand as we walked down the garden to find Chelsea, serene elegant Chelsea who washed her paws so fastidiously before the sitting-room fire on the long winter evenings when my father read his books and my mother sewed in silence and I sat listening to her thoughts.
‘You and your cats!’ said my father to my mother. ‘In the old days you’d have been burnt as a witch!’ And the high clear voice which had belonged to me long ago said in panic: ‘They won’t burn her now, will they? I don’t want her dying and going away.’
My memory shifted. I felt Martin’s small sticky hand in mine and heard him say: ‘I don’t want you going away any more.’
I said aloud in 1940: ‘Martin –’
But then the light was switched off in my memory and stripping off my habit I went to bed and willed myself into unconsciousness.
XIII
‘We’ve discussed your relationship with your wife,’ said Francis, ‘we’ve inspected your relationship with your mistress and now today we’re going to examine your relationship with your children. What happened to them after your wife’s death?’
‘My mother-in-law took charge.’
‘I detect a lack of enthusiasm. How did you tolerate her living in your home?’
‘She didn’t live there. She took the children into her own home and I moved to bachelor quarters on the Naval base. But I wasn’t there much. I still spent most of my time at sea.’
‘Did the children mind not living with you?’
‘I told them that the quality of time fathers spent with their children was more important than the quantity.’
‘Are you good with children?’ said Francis idly, but I could feel his large sleek powerful psyche prowling around mine as he sought to induce a fatal relaxation. ‘Are you one of those gifted adults who always know what to say to anyone under sixteen?’
‘It depends on whether there’s any psychic affinity.’
‘And does such an affinity exist between you and your children?’
‘No. I can’t communicate with them without words as I used to communicate with my mother.’
‘Disappointing for you. How you must have longed for a couple of little replicas of yourself instead of these two people whom you obviously found so alien!’
‘You couldn’t be more mistaken. I despise parents who long for replicas – I consider such a desire indicative of gross selfishness and an inflated self-esteem.’
‘Aren’t you reacting rather strongly? It’s a very human trap for a parent to fall into, I’ve always thought, and it’s certainly not an uncommon one … However I won’t press that point; we already know from Father Darcy’s record that even if you didn’t long for replicas you were nonetheless capable of finding your children a disappointment. But what about your grandchildren?’ said Francis, sweeping on before I could argue further with him. ‘Any affinity there? I notice you never mention them, but perhaps that’s because you’re so sensitive about your age that you dislike being reminded you’re a grandfather.’
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