Читать книгу Ultimate Prizes - Susan Howatch - Страница 27

The immediate result of this scene was that I wanted to punch Alex on the nose for gossiping about me to his favourite ladyfriend, but then I calmed down and reflected that I had jumped to a conclusion which was most unlikely to be true. Devoted as Alex was to Lady Starmouth, he would hardly have disclosed to her details about my domestic troubles; any clergyman would have judged our conversation about my private life to be confidential. Reluctantly I was driven to assume that some other person – perhaps Mrs Ottershaw, commenting on Grace’s absence from the fatal palace dinner-party – had indiscreetly murmured that the Archdeacon’s wife seemed to be quietly fading away at the vicarage, and Lady Starmouth had consequently made her own shrewd deductions about what was going on in my marriage. I saw clearly that she liked Grace but doubted her stamina, that she liked me but worried that I might land up in a mess, and that she disliked Dido very much indeed but was prepared to tolerate her for a weekend in order to humour her husband.

Feeling considerably shaken by this benign but bruising encounter with my hostess, I put aside all thoughts of a chance encounter with Dido among the roses and withdrew to the house. No one was about. Padding upstairs I glided along a thick carpet past portraits of voluptuous Georgian ladies and quietly eased open the door of the bedroom in an attempt to avoid waking Grace. But she was not asleep. To my dismay, exasperation and – worst of all – anger, I found her sobbing softly into her pillow.

I shoved the door shut. Then making a belated effort to control my feelings I slumped down on the bed beside her and said in my most neutral voice: ‘So the truth is you hate it here. You were only pretending to enjoy it.’

I had thought such bleak statements might jolt her into a denial but she merely nodded her head in despair as she made a futile attempt to wipe away her tears.

‘And of course you’re missing the children.’

Another nod. More tears began to fall.

Rising to my feet I took off my jacket and hung it carefully over the back of the nearest chair; because of the heat I had changed from my archidiaconal uniform to a plain clerical suit immediately after lunch. Then I removed my collar and slumped down on the bed again. These trivial movements helped to calm me. My voice was still devoid of resentment when I said: ‘Well, it’s no good having anything but a candid talk, is it? We’ve got to try to solve this problem.’

Grace made yet another attempt to mop up her tears but by this time her eyes were red and swollen. I realized it was going to be impossible for her to go down to tea.

‘Now,’ I said, trying to take control of the situation by adopting a brisk sensible manner, ‘the first thing we have to do is to find out why you’re so unhappy. I’m not talking about your present misery. I’m talking about the more general unhappiness which I know has been afflicting you for some time. When exactly did it all begin? Was it when we found out Sandy had been conceived and you started to worry about how you were going to cope?’

I was, of course, busy laying the foundations for an unanswerable argument that we should employ a live-in nursemaid, so I was expecting her to reply ‘Yes’ to my question. It came as a considerable shock to me when she said: ‘No, this has nothing to do with Sandy. He simply complicated a situation which already existed.’

I stared at her. ‘You’re saying this unhappiness existed before Sandy was conceived in 1940?’

‘Yes, I first became aware of it when we moved to Starbridge in ’37, but now that I look back with the wisdom of hindsight I believe the seeds of my unhappiness were sown in 1932.’

‘At Willowmead? But that’s impossible! You were so happy there!’

‘Yes, but that’s when things started to go wrong.’

‘But what on earth happened at Willowmead in ’32?’

‘You met Alex Jardine. As soon as he started taking an interest in you he was a malign influence on our lives.’

I was speechless.

‘I’ve never liked Alex,’ said Grace in a rush. ‘Never. I know you were always ambitious, but I felt he stoked up your ambition so that it blazed in all the wrong directions –’

‘What on earth are you talking about? It was his sympathetic interest which gave me the confidence I needed to make the most of my God-given abilities!’ I was now very shocked indeed. ‘My dear Grace, I can hardly believe you feel like this about Alex! He’s always admired you so much and said what a perfect wife you were for a clergyman!’

‘Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I dislike him – I always feel he sees me as no more than an appropriate accessory, like a pair of gloves. Poor Carrie! No wonder they’re unhappily married.’

‘But they’re devoted to each other!’

‘I don’t think he’s devoted to her at all. Think of all the times we’ve heard him being sarcastic when poor Carrie makes one of her stupid remarks!’

‘Well, I agree there’s a large amount of surface irritation, but I’m sure that underneath he’s –’

‘Underneath I think he’s actually a rather nasty piece of work – and I’m absolutely convinced that his influence has had a disastrous effect on our marriage.’

‘But how can you possibly blame Alex for –’

‘Very easily. It was Alex who singled you out from all the other clergy in the diocese and gave you ideas above your station –’

‘Ideas above my station? Good heavens, Grace, which century are you living in? I’m not a Victorian servant!’

‘No, you’re a Yorkshire draper’s son on the make – and Alex has been constantly encouraging you, bringing you to Starbridge, giving you grand ideas by introducing you to people like the Starmouths, spoiling you with that glamorous preferment which I often think quite turned your head when you were too young to know better –’

‘Well, of course I know you’re a cut above me socially and entitled to look down on me if you please, but I must say I find your attitude offensive and your accusations insane. But then women are notoriously irrational when they’re upset and wives are notoriously peevish when they find they can’t keep up with their husbands any more –’

‘And who put us in a position where I can’t keep up with you any more? Who turned my gentle, sensitive, shy, romantic husband into someone else altogether?’

‘Nobody’s turned me into anything. People evolve, Grace! They don’t just stand still! You can’t expect me to remain as I was when we first met on the beach at St Leonards!’

Once again she dissolved into tears of despair.

‘My dearest love …’ I suddenly realized that I too was in a state of extreme emotional distress. There was a knot of tension in my stomach and I was aware of a vague nausea which threatened to become acute. In the end all I could say in a stricken voice was: ‘You don’t really think of me as just a Yorkshire draper’s son on the make, do you?’

Still crying she shook her head and flung her arms around my neck. Eventually she managed to whisper: ‘Forgive me.’

I suddenly felt I could not bear her misery a second longer, and wanting only to terminate this truly appalling scene I said unevenly: ‘I’m the one who should be asking for forgiveness. My dearest love, tell me what I can do to make you happy again – I’ll make any sacrifice for your sake, I swear it.’

Grace screwed her sodden handkerchief into a ball and gripped it so hard that her knuckles shone white. ‘Give up your archdeaconry. Give up Alex. And give up that double-faced little bitch who’s bent on ruining you.’

I was silenced. As I automatically took a pace backwards she raised her head to look me in the eyes. ‘Well, you did say,’ she said in a shaking voice, ‘that you’d make any sacrifice.’

‘I’m sorry but in my vocabulary “to make a sacrifice” doesn’t mean “to commit professional suicide”.’ I got a grip on myself and managed to add in a calm polite voice: ‘I can’t resign my position as Archdeacon; I honestly believe I’m doing the work God’s called me to do. As for Alex, I’m sorry, but I can’t give him up; it would be the height of ingratitude after all he’s done for me. I’ll make an effort not to inflict him too often on you in future, but it’s quite unthinkable that I should ever say to him –’

‘And Dido Tallent? Don’t let’s pretend, Neville. I know you find her attractive. Wives always do know when their husbands’ attention strays in that particular way.’

‘If you think for one moment that I’ve ever done anything wrong with her –’

‘No, of course I don’t think that! I’ve lived with you for sixteen years and I know better than anyone what a very good, devout man you still are in spite of everything – and that’s exactly why this present crisis is such a nightmare. I feel you’re on the brink of going to pieces in some very profound way which I’m unable to understand.’

‘Going to pieces? Me? But my dear Grace, you’re the one who appears to be disintegrating!’

‘Yes, but I’m only disintegrating because you’re going to pieces! Neville, there’s something dreadfully wrong here, I’m sure there is, and to tell you the truth I don’t really believe our fundamental problem is my unhappiness. I think my unhappiness is just a symptom of something far more complex and sinister.’

‘You’re raving.’ Turning aside from her I replaced my collar and jacket. My Bible was lying on the bedside table. Trailing my fingers across the cover I said: ‘I’m not going to pieces. There are no fundamental problems in our marriage. The only difficulty I have to resolve is how I can make you happy again, and now, by the grace of God, I’m going to work out exactly what I have to do to put matters right.’ Picking up the Bible I headed for the door, and it was only when my fingers clasped the handle that I added casually over my shoulder: ‘Of course I’ll terminate my association with Miss Tallent. I can see clearly now that I’ve been in the wrong there, and I’m very sorry if my acquaintance with her has contributed to your unhappiness.’

I made my exit. My mind was in chaos. In the hall I got in a muddle and dived down the wrong marble passage with the result that I left the house by an unfamiliar side-door. Skirting the kitchen garden I staggered through an orchard and steered myself around a succession of high yew hedges. I was just beginning to feel like one of Kafka’s characters, lost in some nightmarish metaphysical maze, when I found myself back in the rose garden – and there by the wishing-well stood my disciple, quite alone at last, dark hair combed and curled to perfection, dark eyes glowing with a bewitchingly artless delight as I found myself propelled down the grass path to her side.

‘Archdeacon dee-ah!’ she exclaimed, mimicking the drawing-room drawl of an earlier generation of society women. ‘How too, too lovely!’

‘I think not,’ I said, reaching the well. ‘Miss Tallent, I regret to have to inform you –’

‘What a ghastly phrase! That’s the sort of jargon people in trade use when they tell a customer that some important item’s going to be out of stock for six months! Now stop being so beastly pompous, Archdeacon dear, and let me tell you that your sermon this morning was quite wonderful and I was so proud of you and I felt so spiritually uplifted that I soaked two entire handkerchiefs! Isn’t life absolute heaven?’

Without a second’s hesitation I said: ‘Yes, I feel as if it’s spring again after a long dull winter!’ And having delivered myself of quite the most reckless remark any married clergyman could have uttered to a flirtatious young woman, I abandoned my Bible on the parapet of the wishing-well and impulsively clasped both her hands in mine.