Читать книгу Glamorous Powers - Susan Howatch - Страница 20

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.