‘Thirty-six.’ I drained my glass of champagne. ‘I’m afraid – very much afraid – that I’m probably a little older than you suspected. I married at twenty-three. Ruth was born a year later. So as far as my age is concerned … well, it seems quite fantastic – indeed sometimes – well, fairly often – I can hardly believe it, but in actual fact – well, the truth is –’
‘You’re sixty. How distinguished! I wouldn’t have you a day younger. More champagne?’
Now it was my turn to be overcome with gratitude. Speechless with relief I turned my back on old age and once more pulled her into my arms.
Twenty-four hours later I was still wreathed in euphoria but I felt sufficiently composed to communicate with those concerned for my welfare. Deciding to tackle Francis first I wrote:
‘You will be aghast to learn that I have proposed to Miss Barton-Woods and we are to be married on October the first. You will also be startled, if not aghast, to learn that I’ve decided to work here full-time as a curate, and I’m glad to report that when I volunteered my services to the Bishop of Starbridge he couldn’t have been more willing to produce a stipend. Let me hasten to add that I’m sure I haven’t been called back into the world solely to be a country priest; my true call will no doubt unfold in due course but while I wait it seems better that I should be fully occupied.
‘Don’t be too cross with me, my dear Francis, because knowing myself as I do I’m convinced that an early marriage is the best safeguard against the error to which I’m particularly prone. Moreover since I have no doubt now that you were right and that I’m being called not only to marry but to marry this particular woman, I see no point in prolonging my celibacy for a day longer than necessary.’
Allowing myself to relax after the ordeal of informing my spiritual director that I proposed to toss his advice to the winds, I then penned a request to Charles Ashworth. Charles was now stationed with his regiment less than forty miles away on Starbury Plain, and I hoped that he might obtain leave not only to attend my wedding but to conduct it. Anne did not care for the retired canon who had been taking the essential services since the Vicar’s departure, and having heard me talk of Charles she was anxious to meet him. There were other priests whom I might have asked to conduct the ceremony, but Charles had a special place in my affections; I often felt that the crisis which I had helped him surmount in 1937 had indissolubly linked us together. He had been the first priest who had sought my help
after my arrival in Grantchester, and the absorbing complexity of his case had helped relieve the acute stress which had burdened me as I had struggled to bring my lax community to order.
Having written a long affectionate letter to Charles with ease I was then confronted with the ordeal of breaking the news to my children. My heart was already sinking at the prospect of either of them attending the wedding; I found it all too easy to imagine a nightmare in which Martin arrived drunk while Ruth staged some emotional scene, and I knew I wanted no reminders of my first marriage as I embarked on my second. Could any paternal attitude have been more unworthy of a Christian priest? I thought not, and in a paroxysm of guilt I began the required letter to my daughter. Eventually I produced a communication which read:
‘My dearest Ruth: You will be greatly surprised to hear that I am to be married to someone I met at Allington Court. Her name is Anne Barton-Woods. The wedding will be on October the first in the family chapel of the manor house where she lives here at Starrington Magna, and I do hope that you, Roger and the children will be able to attend. I have just been appointed curate of this parish while the Vicar’s absent in the Army, so my new life is rapidly taking shape. As for Miss Barton-Woods, she is a woman of your own generation, a fact which encourages me to hope that in due course you will become friends. Meanwhile I send you my love and blessing, and in assuring you that you’re always in my prayers I remain your devoted father, J.D.’
I sent a copy of this letter, amended where appropriate, to Martin and tried to suppress the hope that neither he nor Ruth would find the invitation irresistible.
The first response to all this arduous letter-writing came in the form of a wire which read:
DELIGHTED BY YOUR NEWS
FLATTERED BY YOUR REQUEST HONOURED TO ACCEPT EAGER TO SEE YOU MANY CONGRATULATIONS CHARLES.
In contrast to this happy communication Ruth wrote: ‘Darling Daddy, I have just received your rather worrying letter. Of course I wish you every happiness but I can’t help wondering
if you’re being wise in rushing into marriage with a girl half your age whom you’ve only known for a few weeks. It’s none of my business and I wouldn’t dream of criticizing you, but it does all seem a little undignified, and I do feel it’s my duty as your daughter to point out that there are plenty of people less loyal to you than I am who will make some very snide remarks behind your back. In fact speaking as one who loves you I feel bound to say that in my opinion a man of your age should approach marriage with the greatest caution – if indeed he should approach it at all. Yours in deepest love and concern, RUTH. P.S. Thank you for the invitation to the wedding, but in the circumstances I think it would be less awkward for Miss Barton-Woods if we didn’t accept. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be reminded on her wedding-day that she’s marrying a grandparent who’s old enough to be her father.’
I wondered if Martin would write a letter which was equally unspeakable, but to my relief he failed to reply.
However Francis was hardly the man to abandon me to my fate without comment. He took longer to respond than Ruth but I knew the delay arose because he had been praying and meditating on the problems I had posed him. Finally he wrote:
‘My dear Jon: Did I really expect you to wait until you had been in the world for six months? Probably not. But I felt I had to set you a goal, even if it proved to be a goal which you chose to repudiate. You would not have respected me, I think, if I had murmured indulgently: “Yes, yes – marry the lady tomorrow!” and you would not respect me now if I were to respond to your news by writing: “Bless you, my friend – run off and live happily ever after!” But before I start making you uncomfortable, let me congratulate you on abandoning your earlier conviction that you should live the rest of your life as a celibate. I myself have always been convinced that despite your sad past you should live in the world as a married man, and therefore I’m delighted that you’ve coaxed an apparently sympathetic, compatible woman to promise to accompany you to the altar.
‘My main anxiety – and this is where I start to make you
uncomfortable – is not that you’re rushing to the altar in such haste. I think you’re being precipitate, certainly, but after all you’re a man of considerable experience and you should be granted at least some liberty to act with an incisiveness which in a young man would deserve the description “hot-headed folly”. No, my main anxiety is that you may be busy glossing over all the difficulties which inevitably surround your situation. I’m just an ignorant old bachelor, of course, but I seem to remember hearing somewhere that a honeymoon can be a time of profound disillusionment if either partner has failed to be as honest as the rules of the game require.
‘Let me complete your discomfort by asking you a series of questions: (I) Have you talked frankly to your fiancée about why your marriage went so wrong that you felt you could never marry again” (2) Have you explained why the subject of parenthood is peculiarly painful to you? (3) Have you even discussed the subject of parenthood? (4) Have you made any attempt to describe Ruth and Martin in terms which bear at least a passing resemblance to reality? (5) Have you talked to your fiancée in detail about your spiritual needs so that she has a true idea of the amount of time you devote daily to prayer, meditation and devotional reading? (6) Have you warned her that in order to satisfy your spiritual needs you’re obliged to spend much time being what the world deems unsociable? (7) Have you discussed the contribution she might make to your work in the parish? (8) Will she in fact be able to give you the support you need when she’s busy running her estate? (9) How are you going to resolve the conflict arising from the fact that you belong to different wings of the Church of England? (10) Have you had a frank conversation with her about money? (n) Have you had a conversation with her, frank or otherwise, about marital intimacy, a matter which could create grave difficulties if the emotional damage proves hard to heal? (12) Have you in truth paused long enough to imagine what this marriage will really be like, or are you at present only capable of imagining how charming Miss Barton-Woods will look in her nightgown? (13) –
‘But no. Twelve awkward questions are quite enough, and meanwhile I trust I’ve made my point: when one’s in love one’s instinct is to present oneself in the best possible light, but I can’t counsel you too strongly to present yourself “warts and all” to Miss Barton-Woods at the earliest opportunity. But perhaps you’ve already done so. In which case I humbly beg your pardon and offer you my sincere congratulations.
‘There’s a great deal I could say to you about your sinister acquisition of the curacy, but I’d prefer to explore the spiritual dimensions of this when we meet – and I trust we can meet soon. You will, of course, be as keenly aware as I am that there’s much you need to discuss before the wedding, so I beg you to write by return to suggest a date for your visit. Meanwhile …’ And he concluded with the formal reference to prayers and blessings before signing himself my devoted friend and brother in Christ.
I could not help thinking that this letter was a masterly example of how to conceal rampant disapproval beneath a diplomatic expression of trenchant common sense. Indeed it took me some hours to rouse myself from my admiration but at last I composed a reply which read:
‘My dear Francis: As usual you’ve given me excellent advice and I must thank you for it. I must also thank you for your support of my decision to marry. In the circumstances I regard this as very generous.
‘I find your reference to the curacy somewhat strange. I hardly think the spiritual dimensions of its acquisition are so pregnant with menace that I need to be hauled immediately to London! In fact it’s extremely difficult for me to get away at present as there’s so much to do before the wedding, and indeed I may be obliged to postpone my next visit to you until after the honeymoon. However please don’t think I intend to approach my wedding in a murky spiritual state; Starwater Abbey’s no more than fifteen miles from here, and I shall see Cyril soon to make my confession.
‘May I thank you again for your letter and repeat how much I value your advice.’
I did not expect a swift reply, but Francis, meticulous as ever in his pastoral care, wrote back promptly: ‘My dear Jon: So be it! But may I leave you with two more questions to consider during your very limited spare time? (I) What was your exact motive for seeking this curacy, and (2) precisely how did you obtain it? The second question is the interesting one, of course; I fear the answer to the first is painfully obvious. As a churchman experienced in financial matters I can only regard your success in coaxing the Bishop to produce a stipend out of thin air as miraculous – in fact I’d have been less surprised if you’d told me that he’d produced six white rabbits out of his lawn-sleeves! Of course we all know that dear old Ottershaw, like our own late Abbot James, finds it almost impossible to say no to anyone, but nevertheless I can’t help thinking that this latest triumph of yours puts even stopping watches in the shade. My dear Jon, beware of those “glamorous powers”! Once you start twisting bishops around your little finger you stand at the top of a very slippery slope indeed, so step back from the brink, I beg of you, by reminding yourself of the truth no priest can afford to forget: we’re here to serve God, not ourselves.’
I sat thinking about this letter for a long time. Then I wrote to Abbot Cyril to suggest a date when I could visit Starwater to make my confession.
‘I’m rather worried about all these Anglo-Catholic habits of yours,’ confessed Anne when I told her of my decision to visit Starwater, and in a rush she added: ‘Are you secretly cross because I don’t want to go to confession too?’
‘Good heavens, no! Anyway, you’ve made your confession – to me. And even if you hadn’t you have a perfect right, as a member of the Church of England, to abstain from confession to a priest.’
‘Yes, but since you’re always doing it –’
‘My case is quite different from yours. I’ve spent many years
living in an environment where a weekly confession was built into the structure of my spiritual life, and in returning to the world I’m certain to have problems which could lead to spiritual debility unless they’re regularly aired with someone skilled in giving advice.’
I paused. We were in the chapel some hours after I had received Francis’ second letter. I had been working on the new altar-table, and Anne, arriving home from the estate-office, had walked through the grounds to exchange news with me before I returned to the village for my evening meal. We were now sitting hand in hand in the front pew.
‘Anne, talking of confessions –’ I stopped, took a deep breath and began again. Talking of confessions I really must tell you all about Betty and my children,’ I said with commendable determination, but then found to my horror that I was unable to continue. This ordeal was much worse than merely confessing my age, and as Anne waited, the model of patience and tact, I realized that part of my difficulty lay in the fact that I could not discuss Betty frankly without referring to the one subject on which Anne was so painfully sensitive; it would hardly be good for either her morale or my honeymoon prospects if I were now to reveal that her predecessor’s ‘forte’ had been sexual intercourse.