Ultimate Prizes (9 page)

Very indignantly I said to Rollo: “All right, I admit I wouldn’t have been your mistress, but I could have been your wife and then you wouldn’t have had to skulk around fornicating in such an undignified manner.” Oh, how cross he was when I said that! “I’m always
very
dignified when I fornicate!” he cried indignantly. “All my mistresses consider me a
paragon
of discretion!” “
All
your mistresses?” I shouted. “You mean you’ve had others?”

Oh Mr. Aysgarth, you’ll think me very naive, especially as I’m a Society Girl who’s supposed to be the last word in sophistication, but you see, I loved him and love is blind and I wanted so much to believe he was pure and noble behind his dashing facade, quite different from all the other men in the world, who appear to see me as a cross between a cream-cake and an ice-cream cornet. Even Father, who’s so well-behaved with his mistresses, only having one at a time and never in the same city as Mother—even Father and my brothers seem to see me as no more than a box of chocolates whenever they take time off from their full varied interesting lives to remind themselves of my existence. How I wish I’d been born a man! Gender’s such a prison sometimes, especially when one wants one’s new true self to be recognised and respected.

Anyway, to return to Rollo, I said: “How would you feel if I were to tell you that I’d been sleeping with everyone in sight for six years despite the fact that I’d regularly been saying that I loved no one but you?” And Rollo said as if I was being very stupid: “Oh, that wouldn’t have been playing the game at all! A man with mistresses is just living a normal life. A woman with lovers is just being a slut. That’s the way of the world, isn’t it?” At which point I drew myself up to my full height and looked him straight in the eyes and declared: “Your world, perhaps.
But not mine
.”

I told him I never wanted to see him again, but the awful part was I did want to, I missed him
terribly
, and it was just as well he was sent to Egypt or I might have weakened. I still loved him even though I could see he was just a selfish lout with the brains of a flea. I thought: That’s the last straw—I’ve lost first Laura and now Rollo, why don’t I just fling myself in the Thames? But I couldn’t bear the thought of being a failure and anyway I’m not the suicidal type, so I staggered on day after day until finally I had a big stroke of luck: I met Charlotte Ottershaw when I was transferred to the Starmouth Naval Base, and as soon as she started talking about her father the Bishop I saw my salvation. It was the Church of England. I thought:
There’s
where I can find a man who’s good and noble and pure, who won’t see me just as a box of chocolates and who’ll never betray me with someone else! Clergymen have to be virtuous because it’s all part of the job, and so adultery and fornication would be absolutely
OUT
.

Well, Archdeacon dear, I knew at once that I’d had a
revelation
and I was fearfully excited because I thought I could see the way ahead at last, but then I started feeling depressed again because I realised I knew
nothing
, beyond a few random facts, about the C. of E. and
absolutely
nothing about theology and philosophy and all the earnest things good pure noble men talk about. So I told myself that I’d got to find someone who’d teach me what I needed to know because my good pure noble man would at least expect his wife to be able to talk church-language intelligently, it would be a sort of minimum requirement for the job. I think I’m actually quite clever, though it’s a wonder I ever learnt anything from Blackboard. Father thought education for women was a waste of time and Mother thought it was positively harmful so I suppose I’m a victim of a bizarre form of child-neglect, but although I expect I often appear quite scatterbrained I’m not really stupid at all.

So now that you’ve agreed to be my Guide, Philosopher and Friend I must urge you
not
to assume I’m a fool and water down your erudition accordingly. I want to know
everything
, even the difficult bits. Can we start with the Church itself? I’d be so grateful if you could give me some information about the most important people, the sort of information which isn’t in
Who’s Who
—although I had such a fascinating time with
Who’s Who
the other day, I looked up the Archbishop of Canterbury and I think it’s so extraordinary that
his
father was Archbishop of Canterbury too—I wonder what the odds are against such a thing happening? It makes the Temples into a sort of dynasty, doesn’t it, and fancy Frederick being over sixty when William was born, maybe more men should take up religion so that they can keep bounding around when rakes like Rollo are chairbound with gout and hardened arteries.

I think William Temple will be a tremendous Archbish, he’s so substantial, isn’t he, and I don’t just mean in weight. He’s so human and sympathetic, not like that pompous old prig Archbishop Lang who was so
beastly
to the Prince of Wales. Now, what I want you to tell me is this: What does William Temple
think?
Someone said he was a Christian Socialist and someone else said his thought is a blend of Hegelian Dialectic and Platonic Idealism. I’ve heard of Plato (just) but who or what is Hegelian? It sounds like a kind of cloth—or possibly a very grand butler—and the syllables have such a thrillingly sumptuous ring. Write
soon
, I implore you, and expound on these esoteric mysteries to your most grateful disciple,

DIANA DOROTHEA TALLENT
.

Much amused I immediately picked up my pen and seized the chance to divert myself from the problems I was unable to face.

7

I thought she would soon lose interest in the intellectual aspects of the Church, but her desire to learn persisted until I could only conclude her interest was genuine. I kept my explanations simple, in the belief that clarity is more important to beginners than complex detail, and I did make an effort not to talk down to her. Again Dido responded with gratitude.

 … and thank you so much for explaining about divine
Hegel
—I was enrapt and shall now see everything in terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. My personal thesis was the frivolous Society Girl, my antithesis is the serious-minded student
thirsting
for enlightenment, but what will my synthesis be??? No, don’t answer that question, just go on telling me what churchmen think—or rather,
think
. (When people think, it might only be about the weather, but when they
think
, it can only be about things that are vital.)

Charlotte says you’re a Protestant, not a Catholic, which is most confusing as I thought the whole point of the Reformation in England was that we got rid of the Catholics, said “Yah!” to the Pope and lived happily ever after as the Protestant Church of England. Why are these Catholics still around? Anyway I’m glad you’re a Protestant—Protestant services are so deliciously
austere
and I’ve never been keen on all those flamboyant candlelit genuflections and horrid smells which the Church of Rome finds so essential.

Charlotte also said you were a
Liberal
Protestant, which sounds so enlightened, though I’m told “Liberal” in religion isn’t the same as “Liberal” in politics, which is just as well since the political Liberals are nearly extinct. Finally Charlotte said you were a
Modernist
, which sounds thrillingly wild and abandoned, like those artists who throw a pot of paint at the canvas and call the result
A Sunny Afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne
. Now, Archdeacon dear, do tell: What do all these exotic Church labels really
mean?

By this time I was so enjoying the task of expanding her intellectual horizon that I savoured her letter for an entire week while I reflected on my reply. Finally after a friendly opening paragraph I wrote:

 … and now let me address myself to your enquiries. The Reformation did indeed re-form the Church
in
England into the Church
of
England, but although Catholicism was greatly purged during the following decades it was never eliminated. It had a strong resurgence in the last century (the phenomenon was known as the Oxford Movement) and even today, although most of the Church is Protestant, there is a powerful, vocal and influential Anglo-Catholic minority. The pertinent word here is “Anglo.” They’re our own home-grown breed of Catholics, loyal to the Church of England and owing no allegiance to the Pope. However, they’ve become increasingly keen on the idea of reunion with Rome, a pipe-dream which I’m bound to say I believe to be not only Utopian but misguided.

This Anglo-Catholic group is known as the High Church party. Opposite them on the other wing of the Church are the Protestant Evangelicals, also known as the Low Church party, another powerful and vocal group, which unfortunately has suffered from indifferent leadership during this century. This no doubt helps to explain how the Anglo-Catholics have managed to grab power in so many important places, but the Evangelicals will rise again and put the Anglo-Catholics back in their place, of that I’m quite sure. Catholicism is fundamentally alien to the British temperament. The tradition of the stiff upper lip, the modest understatement and the horror of foreigners is incompatible with a tradition of embarrassing emotion, ritualistic excesses and the ethos of Southern Europe.

In between these two militant wings lie the middle-of-the-road moderates who constitute the majority of church-goers. The services I conduct are aimed at this majority although I do incline to Low Church practice. Certainly nothing would induce me to dabble with incense, auricular confession, perpetual reservation of the Sacrament or any other cause so dear to the Anglo-Catholic heart.

I should perhaps explain here that the Evangelicals play down the importance of the Liturgy (the centrepiece of Anglo-Catholic worship) and play up the importance of the Bible and the sermon. Non-Conformist Evangelicals (those Protestant sects which don’t belong to the Church of England, such as the Methodists and the Baptists) can be fatally bibliolatrous (that is to say, they often believe every word of the Bible to be literally true) but in the Church of England, which places such a high value on enlightened scholarship, I’m glad to say that such a crude approach to religious truth is rare. Although I’m a Low Churchman by inclination I have always insisted that my religion be compatible with the best modern scholarship—and that, my dear Miss Tallent, brings me to MODERNISM.

Modernism cuts across all parties in the Church of England. It also existed in the Roman Catholic Church (in a far more extreme form, I may add, than it existed among the Protestants) but the trend was exterminated by Papal decree earlier in this century. In other words, it’s as possible to be a High Church Modernist as it is to be a Low Church Modernist. Modernism is less a creed than an attitude of mind.

In short, we believe in reinterpreting Christianity in the light of modern knowledge. Consequently we welcome all scientific advances—in geology, anthropology, psychology, chemistry, physics and so on—and use them as a springboard to an expanded spiritual enlightenment. This leads, inevitably, to the expression of theological views which startle conservative people in all parties of the Church and scandalise the ordinary layman—with the result that Modernists are occasionally accused of heresy. This is usually quite unjustified. All genuine Modernists (and here I discount the eccentric crackpots who give the movement a bad name) hold fast to the Divinity of Christ, the Resurrection and the concept of Eternal Life. They are therefore orthodox believers. But exactly how Jesus was the Son of God and in what manner he was resurrected and in what sense one is to interpret “Eternal Life”—these are questions which the Modernists hold are open to constant revision in the light of modern knowledge. For example, Modernists don’t believe in miracles; they don’t believe in anything which contradicts the scientific order. But they still believe that Jesus was the sort of man whom people believed capable of performing miracles; they still believe in the absolute centrality of Christ to the Christian faith.

Because the Modernist movement is based on an attitude of mind and not a creed, there’s a large amount of disagreement among us. Some Modernists believe that women should be ordained, for example, but in my opinion such a view is too extreme. I always take care to be moderate and sensible in my Modernism so as not to give needless offence to my superiors. It’s well known that Raven’s support of the ordination of women has cost him a bishopric. When extreme views are under consideration, one always has a moral duty to discern where to draw the line.

To sum up, my moderate Modernism complements the so-called Liberal Protestant theology which evolved among enlightened Victorians. I believe (and this belief chimes with Darwin’s work) that the world is evolving steadily in accordance with God’s purpose for mankind, a purpose which is fundamentally good and benign. I believe that sin and evil aren’t as important as man’s basic goodness, the goodness which is exemplified for all time by Our Lord Jesus Christ I believe that God is immanent in this world and that the Holy Spirit is present as a spark in every member of mankind.