Glittering Images by Susan Howatch Read Free Book Online

conversations and kept a surreptitious watch on Miss Christie.
    Lady Starmouth suddenly glided into my field of vision. ‘I think you must be the youngest canon I’ve ever met, Dr Ashworth! Does this mean the Church is at last beginning to believe it’s not a crime to be under forty?’
    ‘The canonry came with the job, Lady Starmouth. When Archbishop Laud founded Laud’s College and Cambridge Cathedral in the seventeenth century he stipulated that the College should appoint a doctor of divinity to teach theology and act as one of the Cathedral’s residentiary canons.’ I suddenly realized that Miss Christie was looking straight at me, but when our glances met she turned away. I continued to watch as she picked up the sherry decanter again but Colonel Cobden-Smith cornered her before she could embark on the task of refilling glasses.
    ‘… and I hear you were Dr Lang’s chaplain once,’ Lady Starmouth was saying. ‘How did you meet him?’
    Reluctantly I averted my gaze from Miss Christie. ‘He gave away the prizes during my last year at school.’
    ‘You were head boy of your school, of course,’ said Jardine from the depths of the sofa nearby.
    ‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ I said surprised, ‘yes, I was.’
    ‘How clever of you, Alex!’ exclaimed Mrs Jardine. ‘How did you guess Dr Ashworth had been head boy?’
    ‘No boy attracts His Grace’s attention unless he shows signs of becoming a walking advertisement for Muscular Christianity.’
    ‘I adore Muscular Christianity,’ said Lady Starmouth.
    ‘If Christianity were a little more muscular the world wouldn’t be in such a mess,’ said the forthright Mrs Cobden-Smith.
    ‘If Christianity were a little more muscular it wouldn’t be Christianity,’ said the Bishop, again displaying his compulsion to argue with his sister-in-law. ‘The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t a lecture on weight-lifting.’
    ‘What exactly
is
Muscular Christianity?’ inquired Mrs Jardine. ‘I’ve never been quite sure. Is it just groups of nice-looking young clergymen like Dr Ashworth?’
    ‘“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”’ said the Bishop, raising his eyes to heaven as he quoted
Hamlet.
    ‘More sherry, anyone?’ said Miss Christie, finally escaping from Colonel Cobden-Smith.
    ‘Dinner is served, my Lord,’ said the butler in a sepulchral voice from the doorway.

V
    The dining-room was as vast as the drawing-room and it too faced down the garden to the river. I had wondered if the gentlemen were required to ‘take a lady in’ to dinner, but Mrs Jardine gave no instructions and as we all wandered informally into the dining-room I was hoping I might claim the chair next to Miss Christie. However there were place-cards, and a quick glance told me I was to be disappointed. Although I shared with the Bishop the pleasure of being seated next to Lady Starmouth my other neighbour proved to be the formidable Mrs Cobden-Smith and meanwhile, far away on the opposite side of the table, Miss Christie was once more finding herself trapped with the Colonel; to my irritation I saw he was clearly delighted by his undeserved good fortune.
    After the Bishop had said grace we all embarked on a watery celery soup, a disaster which was subsequently redeemed first by poached trout and then by roast lamb. The main course was accompanied by a superb claret. I almost asked the Bishop to identify it, but decided he might subscribe to the view that in Church circles a keen interest in wine was permissible only for bishops or for archdeacons and canons over sixty. With a superhuman exercise of will-power I restricted myself to two glasses and was aware of Jardine noticing as I declined a third.
    ‘Leaving room for the post-prandial port, Canon?’
    ‘Oh, is there port, Bishop? What a treat!’ I assumed an expression of innocent surprise.
    The dinner surged on, everyone talking with increasing animation as the claret exerted its influence. Mrs Cobden-Smith asked me about