Glamorous Powers (27 page)

Then in my imagination Father Darcy exclaimed: ‘Disgusting! What a weak, self-centred, cowardly, maudlin exhibition of ill-ordered, unedifying feelings! Pull yourself together this instant!’ And my vision cleared. I saw that I could not be alone when God was with me; nor was I without work for I still had the task not only of worshipping him but of discerning what he required me to do. I was hardly deprived of spiritual counselling either, since Francis had promised to write to me regularly, and certainly I was not without hope of happiness in the future; I would be serving God, and without serving God no lasting happiness, conventional or otherwise, was possible.

Meanwhile I could wage war against despair by committing my anguish to paper and seeking advice.

I retired to my room to write to Francis.

My train to Devon departed from Starmouth at half-past nine the next morning, and Janet came with Ruth to the station to see me off. Disliking protracted goodbyes and fearful that Ruth might use the opportunity to stage yet another emotional scene I managed to part from them outside the ticket-office, but as I hurried on to the platform it was hard to avoid the conclusion that yet again I had wound up running away from my family.

My shame enveloped me all the way to the Devon border and manifested itself in the demon sloth; I was unable even to open my Bible. Then just as I was once more struggling to recall the saving image of my exorcist, I glanced up at the luggage-rack – and saw not my battered old suitcase but the elegant bag of my vision.

I leapt to my feet but it was already gone. I sank back, numb with shock, and some seconds passed before I realized that the Bible was now open in my hands. ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith …’ The famous words of St Paul instantly vanquished the demon, and with my courage renewed by the second ‘showing’ I travelled on into the unknown.

I arrived at Allington Court shortly before luncheon and was warmly greeted by the Warden, Dr Sheen, who two years before had made a retreat under my direction at Grantchester. After a successful career as a schoolmaster he had suddenly decided in his mid-fifties that he was tired of teaching scripture to adolescent boys, and his retreat had taken place shortly before he had become Warden of Allington. I had had no doubt that the change had been right for him and occasionally after his departure from Grantchester I had pictured him ministering briskly, though perhaps a trifle too heartily, to his varied collection of guests.

I was shown to a large room overlooking the garden and possessing only one picture, a print of Massaccio’s The Tribute Money’. As no women were depicted in it I decided it was insufficiently distracting to merit an incarceration in the wardrobe. I pressed the bed surreptitiously. The mattress was hard. Glancing around I noted a plain brown carpet and unobtrusive curtains. My spirits rose. I decided that this was a room in which I could feel at home.

‘Now, sir,’ said Dr Sheen, exuding the most worthy desire to put me at ease, ‘don’t be afraid that I’ll pester you with questions about your new life – I’ve no intention of prying, and the only question I’d like to ask is how you’d care to be addressed now that you’ve left the Order. Obviously I shan’t go around calling you “My Lord Abbot” – well, I never did, did I – but do you wish to be Father Darrow or just plain Mr Darrow nowadays?’

‘I don’t want to raise any hackles among your Low-Church guests. Let it be “Mr”.’

Dr Sheen, mindful of the constant need to maintain harmony in his community, congratulated me on my charity in the face of possible bigotry. It never occurred to him that my request might have arisen not from a saintly wish to avoid irritating others but from a selfish desire to obtain peace and quiet. Church-of-England priests who welcome being addressed as ‘Father’ too often wind up in debilitating debates about the value of the Oxford Movement, the evils of Popery and whether the use of incense is a valid aid to worship or merely a thoroughly nasty piece of un-English mumbo-jumbo. Anglo-Catholicism was capable of arousing strong passions among those who opposed it as a betrayal of Protestant values.

‘I’d also be most grateful,’ I added, ‘if I could be allowed to blend in with your other guests as unobtrusively as possible. Of course there may well be people here who either know me or know of me, but I’m most anxious to avoid being treated with any fuss or fanfare.’

‘My dear Darrow, I’m afraid my wife and I have already trumpeted your arrival to all our favourite guests! We were so excited at the thought of having you here, but don’t worry, we’ve got a good bunch of people here at the moment and I’m sure they won’t submit you to any tactless interrogation. I’ve already made sure you’ve been put at a civilized table – or do you want to sit by yourself at meal-times?’

I did, but I had already made up my mind that I must make an effort to be sociable in order to hasten my adjustment to the world. The dining-room at Allington, in common with the dining-rooms of ocean liners, had few single tables, and guests on their own were encouraged to share a table with others.

I had been considerably taken aback by Dr Sheen’s carefree confession that he had already revealed my identity on such a sweeping scale, but I suppressed my exasperation by reflecting that my dreams of anonymity had always been unlikely to come true. Warily I went down to luncheon. In the dining-room the Warden’s wife, hair firmly coiffed, front teeth well exposed,
swept me to one of the central tables for six and introduced me to my fellow-guests as Mr Darrow. When the introduction had been completed I found myself in the company of a retired priest called Staples and his wife, a clerical widow called Mrs Digby, a professor of theology called Haydock and a most fetching American called Miss Tarantino who told me she had arrived at Oxford before the outbreak of war to do research and had decided to stay on; she gave no reason for this decision but I thought it not unlikely that she had been influenced by some romantic attachment, now defunct, which had resulted in her being stranded in a foreign country at such a crucial time. Enquiring about her research I learnt that she was writing a book about the influence of the Black Death on fourteenth-century religious thought. I would have asked more questions but at this point little Mrs Staples, wife of the retired priest, could no longer contain her curiosity.

‘Dr Sheen’s told us all about you, Mr Darrow!’ she said, beaming at me with a disarming innocence. ‘How very strange you must find it here after being locked up for so many years!’

‘The Fordite monks aren’t locked up, my dear,’ said her husband hastily, ‘and indeed Fordite abbots go all over the place. I believe the Abbot-General actually has a chauffeur-driven motor at his disposal,’

‘Something tells me,’ said the clerical widow Mrs Digby shrewdly as she noted my expression, ‘that this particular abbot doesn’t approve of chauffeur-driven motors for monks.’

I said in my firmest voice: ‘I’m no longer an abbot. I’m just an ordinary clergyman of the Church of England now.’

‘The last thing you could ever be, surely,’ said the alluring Miss Tarantino with a flutter of her very long eyelashes, ‘is just an ordinary clergyman, Mr Darrow.’

I nearly knocked over my glass of water.

Professor Haydock, exhibiting a remarkable imperviousness to both Miss Tarantino’s allure and my confusion, demanded abruptly: ‘Do you have a degree in theology?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps you feel called to teach!’ said ingenuous little Mrs
Staples. ‘I’m sure an abbot would know just how to keep order in the classroom. Or do you feel called to serve in some quite different field? Do tell us, Mr Darrow – I’m sure we’re all fascinated to know what happens to monks when they go back into the world!’

A heavy silence enveloped us as the others wrestled with their embarrassment that Mrs Staples should be so sublimely tactless and I wrestled with my embarrassment that they should be embarrassed. However eventually Miss Tarantino saved the situation by drawling: ‘What he’s going to do is have a wonderful vacation sizing up exactly how much this wicked old world has to offer!’ But just as I was relaxing with relief she gave me such a brilliant smile that I was again plunged into confusion.

Somehow I managed to restrain myself from bolting unfed from the room, but I was already wondering how I could survive for three weeks in such an atmosphere of gossip, curiosity and rampant carnal temptation.

This state of horror, born of nervous anxiety and nurtured by the sheer novelty of lunching in unknown mixed company, was soon alleviated. I found that the Warden had not underestimated the essential good manners of my fellow-guests and eventually even Mrs Staples retreated into a conscientious discretion. Deciding that my panic had been both ridiculous and unnecessary I retired after luncheon to the library, which was as handsome as I remembered, and settled myself at one of the writing-tables.

On my arrival at Allington I had found a collection of letters waiting for me, and I now took the opportunity to read them at leisure. My correspondents included people to whom I gave spiritual direction; all regretted my departure from the Order and the majority asked if they could continue to consult me by post, but a small minority displayed their disturbed psyches by berating me for ‘leaving them in the lurch’ when they needed
me most. I decided these gentlemen needed a prompt response.

I also received a number of letters from the monks, ranging from the most eminent to the most humble. Most of them wished me well and promised to pray for me, but there were a few monks who wrote not out of charity but in a self-righteous fury, claiming that I was ‘letting the side down’, ‘throwing in the sponge’ and ‘dyed deep in apostasy’. One Yorkshire officer even raked up the Whitby affair and said he had always known I would come to an unedifying end. I mention these examples of antagonism because I may have given the impression, in describing my departure from Grantchester, that I was universally loved by my brethren, but the truth is that as a controversial figure I have always had my enemies and unfortunately monks are as liable as the rest of mankind to be invaded by the demons of envy and dislike.

The most important letter arrived on the morning after my arrival. In response to my unhappy communication from Starmouth Francis wrote: ‘I’m inclined to think that in your despair you came to some highly questionable conclusions. I would regard the harrowing dramas of the past week not as confirmation that you should never remarry but as a salutary reminder that you should never again attempt marriage to the wrong woman for the wrong reasons. With regard to Martin and Ruth, I’d like to remind you of a remark you made to me once during a discussion of psycho-analytical theory. “I entirely disapprove,” you said, “of the Freudian habit of blaming all a child’s woes on its hapless parents.” How wise you were! And how unfortunate that this wisdom should have been swept away by the hurricane of guilt which has temporarily reduced your rational faculties to rubble! In my opinion Ruth and Martin must be allowed to assume at least some of the responsibility for their errors and shortcomings – to deny them that responsibility in order to assume it all yourself is actually a perverse form of vanity. Besides, are you really such a complete failure as a father? Both your children seem to care deeply what you think of them, and if you were a complete failure they surely wouldn’t give a fig for your opinion.’

This letter was a great comfort to me, and after reading it many times I embarked on a reply late that night in my room.

Again Francis answered by return of post. Knowing how busy he was I was impressed by this scrupulous attention to my welfare. After his opening paragraph in which he professed himself relieved that his earlier letter had provided a steadying influence he wrote: ‘I’m delighted to hear that you’re making the effort to be sociable at mealtimes. I know how difficult this must be for you, but I do wholly endorse your opinion that the effort should be made in order to accelerate your adjustment to the world.

‘Don’t be too frightened of the fetching American damsel. If she were what I believe is now called a “vamp” and what in our young day would have been called a “hussy”, she would hardly have buried herself in a clerical playpen in Devon. The time to worry about the lady, I think, is when she invites you to her room to inspect her manuscript – or when you lure her to a secluded corner of the grounds in order to stop her watch. Meanwhile it’s inevitable that you should find all women intensely interesting at present, particularly foreign women who appear to stand outside English conventions, and instead of fighting your interest in panic you might do better to accept it with a moderate amount of amusement. Remember that a reed which bends before the wind survives intact whereas an unyielding tree can be ignominiously uprooted.’

I spent much time pondering this excellent advice but I continued to find Miss Tarantino, who in fact was as well-behaved as she was charming, almost unbearably distracting. She had only to walk into the library and any serious attempt to read was destroyed. However within forty-eight hours of my arrival Miss Tarantino’s effect on my equilibrium was less disturbing to me than the knowledge that I had become a centre of attention.

Unfortunately I have always tended to stand out in a crowd and this is not merely because I am six foot three and somewhat hard to overlook. At Allington people were primarily intrigued because I was an ex-monk, but even if my past had remained
unknown to them I suspect I would still have attracted as much attention as a lighthouse in a desert. This mysterious aura, generated by my psychic powers under the pressure of mental stress, was part of what Father Darcy had called my ‘infinite capacity for disruption’, and the harder I tried to be unobtrusive the more readily every head would turn whenever I entered a room.