Читать книгу Glittering Images - Susan Howatch - Страница 40

I was surprised how quickly order was restored. Coaxed by Miss Christie, Mrs Jardine drank all her lemonade and said she felt better. The Starmouths arrived, and while they debated what to drink I could hear the Cobden-Smiths discussing George who presently made a lacklustre entrance. Miss Christie summoned the butler to replenish the lemonade jug, but before I had the chance to speak to her about our outing four guests appeared from various corners of the diocese and all opportunity for private conversation was curtailed.

Lunch passed smoothly if tediously. I busied myself by being sociable with a large matron whose favourite topic of conversation was the Mothers’ Union, and although Miss Christie never looked in my direction I occasionally caught Lady Starmouth’s sympathetic glance across the table.

However, by half-past two the party had dispersed and I was preparing in my bedroom for a country excursion far removed from a clerical duty. Off came my clergyman’s uniform. Having pulled on my coolest informal clothes I unbuttoned my shirt at the neck, adjusted the angle of my hat and once more turned to survey my image in the long glass. Immediately I wondered if I had gone too far with the informality; I fancied I looked like a commercial traveller taking a rest from hawking some dubious product, but when I decided to wear a tie I felt much too hot. Shoving the tie back in the drawer I undid the top button of my shirt again and made up my mind that I looked exactly what I was: an off-duty clergyman about to take a pretty woman for a drive in the country.

But then I looked in the glass and saw the spy beyond the clergyman, the image beyond the image, and beyond the spy was yet another man, the image beyond the image beyond the image. Reality blurred; fantasy and truth became inextricably intertwined. I told myself I had imagined the distant stranger but as I felt my personality begin to divide I covered my face with my hands.

Sinking to my knees by the bed I whispered: ‘Lord, forgive me my sins. Deliver me from evil. Help me to serve you as well as I can.’ After that I felt calmer, and when I glanced again in the glass I found that the off-duty clergyman was now the only visible image. He was wearing a severe expression as if to stress that I had no business to let the heat addle my brain, and immediately erasing all morbid thoughts from my mind, I set off to meet Miss Christie.