Читать книгу Scandalous Risks - Susan Howatch - Страница 27

‘Must see you!’ I hissed. ‘Top secret!’

His bright blue eyes at once became brighter and bluer. He loved being conspiratorial with young women. ‘You go on ahead,’ he called to Eddie. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

‘We’re late already, Stephen –’

‘I’ll run all the way to the vestry!’ said Aysgarth lightly, and with reluctance Eddie sloped off through the front gate.

Wasting no time I said: ‘I’ve left home and I need advice. Any chance of a quick word without half the Close breathing down our necks?’

‘Meet me in the cloisters after evensong.’

‘Wonderful! Thanks so much … In that case I might as well go to evensong, mightn’t I?’

‘Why not?’ said the Dean amused. ‘It would help to pass the time!’

As it occurred to me that Dr Ashworth would have responded far more coolly to my lukewarm attitude to worship I exclaimed: ‘How glad I am you’re not the Bishop! I’ve just been hobnobbing with him at the South Canonry.’

‘How on earth did you end up there?’

‘I got mixed up with Charley on the train. Mr Dean, what do you think of Honest to God?’

‘Superb! Quite splendid! A breath of fresh air sweeping through the Church of England!’

‘Yes, I thought it probably was. The Bishop’s decided it’s absolutely the bottom.’

‘The trouble with Charles,’ said Aysgarth as we left the garden, crossed Canonry Drive and entered the churchyard of the Cathedral, ‘is that he was trained as a theologian. Such a pity! A theologian’s approach to religion is nearly always much too cerebral and he inevitably becomes cut off from ordinary believers.’

‘But isn’t this book supposed to be bad for ordinary believers?’

‘Rubbish! It’s the best thing that’s happened to them for years. Robinson’s realised that the ordinary believers are waiting for a new comprehensible interpretation of Christianity which will relate to the lives they’re living right now in the 1960s – they’re not waiting for cerebral restatements by theologians in their dead, dry, alienating academic language!’

‘But if the book’s too radical –’

‘Nothing could be too radical! Let’s have this New Reformation Robinson talks about! Let’s have this New Morality! Now that we’re finally emerging from the long shadow of the war and shedding the millstone of the Empire, we need to celebrate our psychological liberation by making everything new – so why not start by flinging religion into the melting-pot, as Robinson suggests, and recasting our beliefs in a bold, creative dynamic style that’s thoroughly attuned to our day and age?’

I began to feel excited – insofar as one can ever feel excited about a subject such as theology. I was, in fact, very much in the mood for revolution and I deeply fancied the thought of an iconoclastic assault on any part of the established order. ‘Long live Bishop John Robinson!’ I declared, making Aysgarth laugh, and we quickened our pace across the sward to the Cathedral.