Glittering Images (66 page)

‘But before God – the compassion and forgiveness of Christ –’

‘I trust we’ll all be praying that God looks upon Dr Jardine with compassion and forgiveness, but it’s quite unthinkable in spiritual terms, Miss Christie, that a bishop should be able to contract a valid marriage after an informal divorce by mutual consent. In fact many would say he couldn’t justifiably remarry even after a formal divorce.’

All Lyle said was, ‘He was so sure.’

‘Yes,’ said Darrow, ‘there was indeed great self-deception. He deceived himself into thinking that his marriage was spiritually null. He deceived himself into thinking that any marriage could be possible after an informal divorce. He deceived himself into thinking he was above the law of England and he deceived himself into thinking that a cohabitation bordering on bigamy was acceptable in the eyes of God. He also deceived both you and his wife by allowing you to think he was entided as a bishop to make up his own spiritual rules as he went along and negotiate with God as he thought fit. This is the sin of pride and shows a degree of spiritual unhealthiness conducive to gross error.’

Lyle was too overwhelmed to do more than whisper, ‘What’s to become of him?’ She started to weep again.

‘That’s a question which none of us can answer, but like you he has a choice of futures and we must all pray that he’s guided to take the right one. However at present you’re more important than Dr Jardine. Do you want to continue talking now or would you prefer to rest and return tomorrow?’

‘What more is there to say?’ Lyle put down the cross in order to wipe away her tears. ‘I know now I’m free to marry Charles – I know the truth in its entirety at last –’

‘Yes, you do. But does Charles?’

She stared at him. So did I. I demanded at once: ‘What do you mean?’

Darrow stood up, moved around to the other side of the table and sat down opposite us in the counsellor’s conventional position. All he said was, ‘“Strait is the gate and narrow is the way”.’

The signal passed between us and suddenly I felt the dread sink to the pit of my stomach, but Lyle did not understand. She looked at him fearfully. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Never forget,’ said Darrow to her, ‘that I want above all to help you and Charles to reach a correct solution here in accordance with God’s will. And remember that this can’t be done unless we know the whole truth.’

‘But I’ve told Charles the whole truth! I have, haven’t I, Charles?’

‘It certainly sounded like the whole truth to me,’ said my voice. I sounded emphatic but strained.

‘Then in that case, Miss Christie,’ said Darrow, ‘you’ll have no objection to enlightening me on one or two points which I still find obscure.’

Lyle continued to look at him fearfully. Then she said to me: ‘I’m not sure what he means, Charles, but he seems to be implying I’ve deceived you in some way.’

‘I don’t think he means that,’ I said with care. ‘After all, he doesn’t know what you’ve told me. Think of him as holding up a torch to illuminate the dark corners – and always with your welfare in mind.’

She considered that. ‘All right,’ she said finally to Darrow. ‘Ask away. What do you want to know?’

‘Well, the first and most obvious question,’ said Darrow with great gentleness, ‘is: when did you decide to have this baby?’

I thought she was going to faint. I felt unsteady myself. Before she could reply I said rapidly to Darrow, ‘It was an accident.’

But Darrow’s first concern was for Lyle. ‘Charles, go into the hall and ask Barnabas to fetch a glass of water.’

‘No!’ gasped Lyle. She clung to me. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him!’

Darrow himself promptly called for the glass of water.

‘Now, Miss Christie,’ he said as he returned, ‘have you considered your reply?’

She leant forward, her forearms on the table, her face hard and set. ‘I’m not telling you the details of my sex-life. You must get your vicarious thrills in some other way.’

‘Lyle!’ I exclaimed but Darrow said tersely, ‘Be quiet, Charles. Miss Christie –’

‘You’re prejudiced against women!’ cried Lyle. ‘You’re seeing me as a sex-obsessed bitch who’s ruined one good man and is about to ruin another!’

‘This is the demon of your guilt,’ said Darrow. ‘Pick up that cross again from the table.’

‘You’re trying to prove to Charles that I’m just a calculating adulteress!’

‘This is the demon of your shame and self-hatred. Pick up that cross.’

Lyle leapt to her feet and shouted, ‘Shut up! You’re nothing but a fraud, hiding here in this vile house because you’re frightened that if you went out into the real world you’d seduce every woman in sight, so how dare you have the bloody impertinence to interfere in my private life, how dare you! Well, I won’t let you vent your frustration on me like that, I won’t let you destroy my last hope of happiness,
I won’t let any man wreck my life
–’

‘This is the demon of your rage,’ said Darrow, ‘but the rage isn’t in fact directed against me. Tell me, how many other men apart from Dr Jardine have so painfully disappointed you?’

Lyle gasped, grabbed the cross and hurled it at him, but as I leapt appalled to my feet Darrow caught the cross and sprang up so violently that his chair fell backwards with a crash.

‘How many women did you put through hell before you castrated yourself with that bloody habit?’ screamed Lyle, face contorted, her whole frame shuddering. ‘I hate you,
I hate you,
HATE YOU
!’

I tried to reach her but I was paralysed with shock. I felt as if some huge force had exploded, leaving a chasm between us, but the next moment Darrow was bridging the abyss. Moving swiftly around the table he said with great strength: ‘This torment must end. In the name of God – in the name of Jesus Christ –
THIS TORMENT MUST END
!’ And he slipped the chain of the cross over her head as she flailed her arms to push him away.

‘No, no, no –’ She was screaming very loudly, but when he took her in his arms at last, the screams ceased, her whole body shuddered convulsively and she fainted.

The young monk arrived a second later with the glass of water.

Darrow said sharply, ‘Get the brandy.’

‘Yes, Father.’ He thrust the glass into my outstretched hand and ran.

Darrow had lifted Lyle on to the long table. He moved swiftly and efficiently, laying her out full length and patting her waist with caution. ‘Thank heavens – no sadistic corset,’ was his only comment.

I roused myself from my stupefaction, set down the glass and demanded: ‘Father, what on earth’s going on?’

‘It’s all right, she’ll recover in a minute. Now before she comes round give me some quick answers to some quick questions. The contraception – is she claiming it failed?’

‘There was one occasion when she left herself unprotected.’

‘Was Jardine aware of the omission?’

‘She implied not.’

‘Do either of the Jardines know of her condition?’

‘No. Incidentally the pregnancy isn’t yet confirmed but she seems very certain. Father, I still don’t understand what’s happening –’

‘Don’t worry, Charles, I don’t really believe this is a conspiracy between all three of them to produce a wanted child, but we’ve got to be sure … Ah, she’s coming round. Now keep quiet and leave this to me – yes, come in, Barnabas – Charles, pour out a little brandy, please.’

‘Will that be all, Father?’ said Barnabas, intrigued by the woman prostrate on the table.

‘Yes. Out,’ said Darrow, and Barnabas fled.

Lyle moaned.

‘You’re all right,’ said Darrow, stooping over her. ‘Have some water first. Then you can have brandy.’

Lyle said: ‘Am I having a miscarriage?’ She sounded dazed and childlike.

‘No,’ said Darrow firmly. ‘Give her the water, Charles.’

She drank obediently and after she had sipped the brandy Darrow said: ‘See if you can sit up without feeling faint.’

She tried. I was still supporting her. When there were no ill effects she looked at Darrow. ‘I said terrible things to you,’ she whispered. ‘I remember.’

Once more Darrow used the ancient symbolic language to express profound psychological truths. He said with complete authority: ‘The demons were very strong but they’re gone now. You’re not well yet but you’re going to be well because now the healing can begin.’

‘Supposing the demons come back?’

‘They can’t so long as you’re in touch with God. When you lost touch the demons were free to walk into your soul, but you won’t lose touch now.’ He added to me, ‘Give her another sip of brandy.’

Lyle sipped and said, ‘I feel better.’

‘Good. Charles, help her back into her chair.’ He made no move to return to his own chair but leant informally against the edge of the table.

Lyle said suddenly to him. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘You want to tell me the truth about the baby?’

‘But you already know, don’t you?’

‘Charles doesn’t know and we both have to look after Charles here.’

‘I love Charles,’ said Lyle, still speaking directly to Darrow. I might have been a hundred miles away. ‘I want to be the best possible wife to him.’

‘And that’s why you must be honest, isn’t it? He’s given you the gift of his love and you must give him the gift of your honesty to prove you’re worthy of him. Very well, let’s talk about this baby.’

Looking steadily at Darrow Lyle said, ‘I don’t know exactly when he was conceived.’

‘You gave up the contraception?’

‘Yes. I wanted to get pregnant.’

‘The only way out, was it?’

She nodded. Her eyes shone with tears.

‘Can you tell me how you reached this decision that pregnancy was the only solution to your problems?’

Lyle said, ‘I’d gone to the chapel in the Cathedral but I couldn’t pray because I was so cut off. Then Charles came. I knew then I had to leave the Jardines, but I couldn’t see how I was ever going to be strong enough to end the marriage. Charles doesn’t understand this part – the bizarre part – and I can’t put into words the quality of the hold Alex had over me, but –’

‘When did the love-making change?’

‘Earlier this year. I went off sex. I felt in such a muddle about everything. But Alex talked me out of it.
Alex talked
–’ She broke off.

‘– and then the sex seemed exciting in a new way.’

She nodded painfully again. ‘I can’t explain to Charles, I don’t want to explain –’

‘Yet he must know. Otherwise he’ll torture himself by trying to guess what you’re concealing.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m afraid Dr Jardine was again abusing his charism. He used hypnosis to enhance his power and then channelled the power into the sexual act with the result that the act became not so much an expression of love as an erotic subjugation of a prisoner by her captor … Do you recognize that description, Lyle?’

She managed to nod.

‘Very well, we’ve explained to Charles that your mind was clouded and your will impaired by this hypnotic and profoundly unhealthy relationship. However when you met Charles in the Cathedral he temporarily acted as a barrier between you and Dr Jardine with the result that you were able to catch a glimpse of your situation in its true perspective – and then you knew the relationship had to end. But once Charles was gone – once the barrier had been removed – you were again vulnerable to Dr Jardine’s will.’

‘Yes, that night when he came to my room I knew I wasn’t going to be able to refuse him, but by chance the contraception wasn’t in place, and … suddenly I saw that all I had to do was nothing. I was incapable of taking positive action by saying: “I can’t go on”; I was only capable of remaining silent, being passive, and while he was making love to me I thought: if I had a baby he couldn’t keep me, not all the talk in the world would keep me, if I had a baby I’ve have to go. And I made up my mind never to use the contraception again. Poor little baby, I did want him so much but I should never have conceived him under those circumstances – so wrong – I shouldn’t have done it –’

‘It’s easy to be wise in retrospect, not so easy when one’s enduring a desperate crisis … How did you see the future evolving once you were pregnant?’

‘I thought I could get Charles to marry me. I knew I’d have to tell him I was pregnant – I never thought of deceiving him on a really colossal scale – but I decided to tell him the pregnancy was the result of a single ghastly lapse.’

‘Tell me how you set about coaxing Charles to propose.’

‘I kept saying how calculating and sex-obsessed I was, implying he wouldn’t want to know me once he knew what I was really like – I thought that would make him even keener. Attractive men are always fascinated by a woman who can give them a challenge.’

‘But even so, surely you were worried that he’d baulk at the last fence when he heard about the baby?’

‘Oh yes – I thought I’d have to force his hand at the end, but you see, I was luring him up the garden path until I could deliver the
coup de grace.
And then … Oh God, oh God, he forestalled me –’

‘How?’