Читать книгу Glittering Images - Susan Howatch - Страница 36

‘Forgive me. Lady Starmouth,’ I said, ‘but in fact I’d been unable to resist wondering if Dr Jardine’s platonic friendships were just a little too good to be true. I still say that any clergyman who dabbles in close friendships with the opposite sex is playing with fire.’

‘Well, in this case I have to admit he got singed … Dr Ashworth, do sit down again – I find you disconcerting when you tower over me like this. It makes me feel I’m being interrogated.’

I sat down at once on the grass but she cut short my apology. ‘No, I know you’re not really interrogating me – it’s all my fault for encouraging your questions earlier, but before I close up like a clam let me just say a little more about Loretta so that you can see why for her sake I prefer to treat the incident as closed. She and I first met in 1917 but I’d heard about her for years because my mother, who was American, had been friends with her mother in childhood and they’d always kept in touch. When Loretta finally came to England she was in a terrible mess. She’d been married young to this man Staviski who was a diplomatist; when America entered the War he was transferred from Washington to London, and almost as soon as he and Loretta arrived in England the marriage went to pieces.’

‘He left her?’

‘She left him. But she was the innocent party – he’d made life quite impossible for her, so I had no hesitation in coming to her rescue. She stayed with us while she recovered, and of course she soon met Alex. Well, to cut a long story short I’ll just say that she was so successful at concealing her true feelings that for a long time neither Alex nor I had any idea she was in love with him, but eventually the truth surfaced and Alex was obliged to end the friendship. Loretta was dreadfully upset. I felt so sorry for her. It was all horribly awkward and pathetic, just as any unreciprocated attachment always is, and later we agreed never to speak of it again.’

‘What happened to her afterwards?’

‘When she returned to America she embarked on an academic career and now she teaches history at some college on the Eastern Seaboard. She’s never remarried but I still wonder if she might one day. She’s much younger than me, perhaps only a few years older than you, and although by fashionable standards she’s plain she’s by no means unattractive … However a lot of men don’t like a woman to be too clever.’

But I thought of Jardine, enjoying with Loretta Staviski all the intelligent conversation he was unlikely to encounter at home, and I was unable to resist saying: ‘Dr Jardine must have been sorry to lose her friendship – was he never tempted to see her again during her later visits to England?’

‘How could he? How could he possibly have renewed a friendship which had been so painful to her and so potentially dangerous for him?’

‘But was she herself never tempted to –’

‘This is an interrogation, isn’t it! My dear Dr Ashworth, aren’t you taking rather too much advantage of your very considerable charm?’

I privately cursed my recklessness and attempted to beat a smooth retreat. ‘I’m so sorry, Lady Starmouth, but many a clergyman has to deal occasionally with the sort of difficulty Dr Jardine faced here, and I’m afraid my personal interest in the subject got the better of me. I do apologize.’

She gave me a searching look but decided to be indulgent. ‘I’ve no objection to a sympathetic interest,’ she said, ‘but perhaps it’s lucky for you that I have a soft spot for clergymen … Heavens, here’s Mrs Cobden-Smith!’ Rising to her feet she folded the stool and picked up her artist’s satchel. ‘For your penance, Dr Ashworth, you can listen with an expression of rapturous attention to the stories of how she and the Colonel civilized India.’

‘You two seem to be having a very cosy little tête-à-tête!’ called Mrs Cobden-Smith as she approached us. ‘I’ve just been urging Carrie to get dressed. It’s no good lying in bed after a touch of insomnia – I told her to get up and have a busy day so that she’d be thoroughly tired by bed-time. I remember when I was in India –’

‘I was only saying to Dr Ashworth how interesting you were about India – but do excuse me, I must go and see Carrie myself,’ said Lady Starmouth, and escaped adroitly across the lawn.

My next witness had delivered herself to me with an admirable sense of timing. Fighting my reluctance I smiled at Mrs Cobden-Smith and suggested that we might sit on the garden bench to enjoy the sunshine.