Ultimate Prizes (17 page)

I said only: “Aren’t you forgetting there’s one Englishman who always understands? Who wants to go to Germany as soon as possible to preach the Christian message of hope in the ruins of Berlin? Who’s dedicated himself to the task of helping the German churches take their place in a reconstructed Europe? Who speaks out again and again for suffering people, regardless of their nationality, in a world ravaged and brutalised by war?”

Hoffenberg shed a very small, very pathetic tear. I hated this side of my ministry. The sight of a man overcome by emotion always makes me want to bolt in the opposite direction, but of course I stayed with Hoffenberg, and at last I heard his simple answer: “Who else but the Bishop of Chichester? Who else but George Bell?”

By 1945 Bell was the most famous churchman in Europe. He was the man whom the politicians found intolerable but whom no civilised democracy could afford to silence; he was the voice of conscience and humanity, the voice of an idealism which no horror could ever obliterate and no evil could ever destroy. Passed over for the Bishopric of London in 1939, he was rejected for the Archbishopric of Canterbury when William Temple died unexpectedly in 1944. “Bell should go to Canterbury,” I had said to Dr. Ottershaw, but we had both known it would never happen. Bell had disqualified himself long since by criticising the Government whenever they found it politic to ride roughshod over Christian principles in the pursuit of victory, and in the February of 1944 he had driven the final nail into the coffin which contained his hopes of future preferment. With a courage which I had found almost inconceivable he had risen to his feet in the House of Lords to condemn the Government’s policy of saturation bombing and remind the nation yet again of the other Germany which existed beyond the swastikas: the Germany of the persecuted, the suffering and the innocent. Bell was doggedly anti-Nazi, but no one was more mindful that not all Germans were Nazis and that Nazism itself was transcended by the brotherhood of man.

“Bell’s wasting his breath,” I said tersely to Dr. Ottershaw after Bell had committed professional suicide by condemning the policy of saturation bombing. “No one wants to be reminded of the other Germany—when one country’s fighting another country to the death it can’t afford to see the enemy as anything but an evil monolith.”

“Then isn’t it all the more important for our moral survival,” said Dr. Ottershaw gently, “that someone should remind us innocent people are dying in Germany as well as in England?”

But I was too confused about Bell to reply. Indeed sometimes my feelings seemed so intolerably complex that I could not even read his speeches in
The Times
. However—and this was very strange—I found I could always talk about him to my Germans. After all, whenever I entered that camp I ceased to be the successful Archdeacon obliged to avoid discussions of controversial bishops, and as I struggled, just like any other ordinary unknown chaplain, to communicate with my flock I would use Bell as a Trojan horse to penetrate the hostile citadel of their minds. Here at last I could confess my admiration for Bell’s courage; here at last I no longer had to suffer in agonising silence whenever he was battered by the forces of antagonism which he inevitably unleashed.

“Here’s a great man speaking for humanity!” I would declare with passion to my Germans, although later that same day I could only bring myself to say offhandedly to Dr. Ottershaw: “It’s such a pity Bell will never be more than Bishop of a dull little town in Sussex.”

“Ah!” said Dr. Ottershaw at once. “But all the persecuted victims of the Nazis care nothing for the internal politics of the Church, do they? They can’t spell Canterbury and they’ve never heard of York, but every one of them’s heard of Chichester—and every one of them talks of George Bell.” He paused before adding mildly: “It’s a question of values, isn’t it? Whenever I read one of George’s speeches I can always imagine him saying to himself like Luther: ‘Here I stand! I can do no other.’ ”

“Of course—better that he should stand up for his beliefs and remain in Chichester than keep his mouth shut and go to Canterbury,” I said at once, anxious that my superior should not find my values wanting, but privately, to my shame, I hoped I would never be trapped in a position where I had to pass up a great prize in order to echo the famous words of Martin Luther. I knew then exactly why Bell could wreck my equilibrium with such ease. It was as if he held up a mirror to me, and whenever I glanced in that glass I saw how far I fell short of his outstanding spiritual power. This insight was so painful that sometimes I longed to smash the glass by whole-heartedly condemning him in public, but I never did. Outside the camp I merely continued my policy of keeping silent about him as far as I could while I struggled with my conflicting emotions, and towards the end of that May in 1945 it was a relief to turn aside from him at last in order to concentrate on my marriage.

By V-E Day the preparations for my wedding were well advanced. I had expected war-time shortages to reduce the dimensions of the society wedding which Dido demanded, but her detestable father, reaching deep into his pocket and using his influence to surmount the difficulties caused by rationing, confounded me by plotting a celebration of almost pre-war sumptuousness. I could sense his relief that his youngest daughter was finally getting off the shelf, but I became increasingly worried about the prospect of a flashy wedding and feared it might raise disapproving eyebrows among the churchmen who mattered. Finally I was so concerned that I confided my anxiety to Dr. Ottershaw.

“But my dear Neville,” he exclaimed warmly without a second’s hesitation, “how can anyone hold you responsible for the fact that Dido’s local church happens to be St. Mary’s Mayfair? And how can anyone expect you to restrain Mr. Tallent from running wild afterwards at Claridges?”

This generous approach to the revels reassured me, but as soon as I had stopped worrying about the churchmen who mattered, I found myself worrying—not for the first time—what my children would think of their father’s extraordinary transformation into a society bridegroom.

It was a subject which greatly disturbed me.

7

Since my first meeting with her, Dido had always taken care to stay away from Starbridge during the school holidays. At first I had not realised this absence was deliberate; because of wartime circumstances it was hardly surprising that our long courtship had been conducted mostly by letter. Later, when I realised she was avoiding the children I had raised the matter with her, but she had always insisted that the meeting should wait until we became engaged. She had reasoned that because the children were deterring her from agreeing to marry me, any meeting would affect her ability to consider the problem with rational detachment.

At first I accepted this decision but when I came to suspect that Dido was merely using the children as an acceptable excuse to postpone marriage, I realised that her determination to avoid a meeting was rooted in her fear of failure: she was afraid the children would compare her unfavourably with their mother and dislike her. I sympathised with this fear, which did indeed represent an unpalatable reality, so I never attempted to force a meeting, but when we became engaged in early March I at once invited her to the vicarage to see the younger children. Sandy was the one child she had met, since he was young enough to be always at home during her rare visits to Starbridge, but Primrose, who was now approaching her eighth birthday, attended a day school in the Close and had been easier for Dido to avoid.

The meeting appeared to be a success. Dido departed in good spirits and Sandy commented graciously that it would be nice to have a real mother again, just like everyone else.

“She won’t be your mother,” said Primrose, “and besides, everyone knows stepmothers are always perfectly horrid.”

My heart sank. This was exactly the reaction Dido and I had both feared. “I’m surprised you should say that, Primrose,” I said, knowing I could not let the remark pass without censure but taking care to use my mildest voice. “Since Dido was so anxious to be friendly, I think you’re being a little unkind.”

Primrose, unaccustomed to any word of criticism from me, promptly burst into tears. But worse was to come. The next day, before visiting James at his prep school in Salisbury, I travelled to Winchester to break the news of my impending marriage to Christian and Norman. I took them out to lunch. Naturally I had planned the entire meeting with military precision. The main course was allocated to a conversation about life at school. Then as soon as I had given the order for pudding to the waitress, I embarked on the speech which I had carefully prepared and memorised. For perhaps thirty seconds all went well. Then the metaphorical curtain tried to rise. If I had been one of those misguided people who believe in spiritualism I would have thought that Grace’s ghost had joined us at the table.

I broke off. The two boys, curiously alike in their resemblance to my father, regarded me with an unflawed politeness. Somehow I managed to drag the curtain down again but to my fury I could feel myself blushing. “Good heavens, what a hash I’m making of this!” I exclaimed, trying to hide my agonised confusion beneath a burst of jovial bonhomie. “The truth is I’m so excited that I hardly know whether I’m coming or going!”

They both smiled courteously and waited in silence for me to continue.

“Well,” I said, “possibly you may be quite surprised that I wish to remarry. In fact you may well be very surprised indeed. But it’s really better for a clergyman to be married.”

“You’ve already said that, Father,” said Norman.

“Ah yes, so I have.” I finally found the correct place in my script. Taking a deep breath, I declared: “Nothing, of course, will ever alter the fact that your mother and I enjoyed sixteen years of the most perfect married life. In my eyes she was the most wonderful woman in the world—and that explains why I now feel I must marry someone quite different. I wouldn’t want my second wife to impinge in any way on such cherished memories.”

They continued to look at me in silence. Then Norman stole a glance at Christian and Christian idly began to examine his fingernails.

“Dido has many fine qualities,” I said as I watched Christian’s expressionless face, “and she’s very anxious to be friends with you. It is my earnest hope—” I broke off again. That sounded too pompous. Unfortunately prepared speeches so often do. “I hope very much that you’ll like her,” I resumed rapidly. “She may feel a little awkward with us all at first, but I know I can rely on you boys to act like gentlemen and try hard to make her feel at home in our family.”

“Of course, Father,” said Christian, Abandoning the examination of his fingernails, he turned to Norman and said: “Well, what are we waiting for? We must behave like gentlemen and offer Father our best wishes.”

“Oh yes,” said Norman. “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very good of you both.” But in the small, deadly pause which followed I heard Christian complaining in my memory about the unreality of our conversations.

I made a great effort. Looking him straight in the eyes, I said: “You should take it as a great compliment to your mother, Christian, that I find I can no longer live without a woman in my home.”

“Oh, I quite understand that living without a woman must be very awkward for a clergyman.”

I suddenly felt much too hot. “I’m not talking about sex.”

“No, of course not. You never do.”

I started to sweat. As the knot of tension began to thicken in the pit of my stomach I somehow managed to say in my most neutral voice: “I don’t thunder on the subject of sex like a Victorian paterfamilias because it’s my firm belief that if a boy’s been given a Christian upbringing and set a good example he should be able to work out for himself exactly where he stands on matters relating to personal conduct. Now—” I had run out of breath. I had to pause for air. “Now, if I may return to the subject under discussion, I was saying—”

“You were saying that Mother is quite irreplaceable but you’ve made the decision to replace her.”

I was finally silenced.

“Well, that’s fine,” said Christian, effortlessly self-possessed. “We wish you well and we’re quite willing to be friends with Miss Tallent. But just don’t expect
us
to treat her as a substitute for Mother. Mothers, unlike wives, are quite irreplaceable.”

I realised the conversation had to be terminated at once. “I don’t think you quite understand my point of view, Christian,” I said as the waitress arrived with the pudding I knew we would be unable to eat, “but I trust I’ll be able to clarify it later. Meanwhile may I say how much I appreciate your willingness to accept the situation in a friendly spirit and how convinced I am that everything’s going to work out well in the end.”

We toyed with our pudding. I made another short speech about the wedding. Both boys nodded at intervals and assumed expressions of courteous interest. At last, as Christian began to examine his fingernails again, I paid the bill, took the boys back to school and escaped.

Fortunately I had my car with me, and so despite the fact that I was wearing a clerical suit I was able to smoke a cigarette as soon as I could halt in a secluded spot. Winchester was not too far from the diocesan border and so there had been no extravagant use of extra petrol coupons. As I smoked I tried to work out why Christian had upset me so much. Perhaps I merely resented the fact that my talent for debate, a talent which had earned me the nickname of “The Sledgehammer” long ago at the Oxford Union, had been used against me with such a devastating result. “You were saying that Mother is quite irreplaceable but you’ve made the decision to replace her …” That was demolition work at its best, a sledgehammer’s tour de force. One had to admire his forensic skill, but on the other hand Christian was not supposed to pound my carefully crafted speeches to pieces, just as he was not supposed to make awkward remarks about sex. Christian was supposed to be perfect. Christian
was
perfect, but if he was perfect why had he deliberately made me look hypocritical and foolish? I felt psychologically bruised in a way not easy to define. I only knew I felt upset when my prizes deviated from my expectations and assumed an unauthorised life of their own.