The Wonder Worker Read online

  More praise for The Wonder Worker

  “Enthralling … For fans of Howatch’s earlier novels about the Church of England, this is familiar and juicy territory.… In those novels, Howatch captivated readers with beautifully told struggles between earthly and spiritual forces. She does it again in The Wonder Worker.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “[A] compelling story … After seventeen novels, including the acclaimed series about the Church of England, Howatch continues to write impressive fiction imbued with moral questions.… Howatch engrosses the reader in this splendidly wrought, provocative novel of spiritual ideas.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A look at the ways and means of healing, both spiritual and physical … A good cup of hot tea and reading The Wonder Worker is a sure cure for a dreary winter.”

  —Florida Times Union

  “This book is so well written that readers will race through it.”

  —Library Journal

  Also by Susan Howatch

  Absolute Truths

  Mystical Paths

  Scandalous Risks

  Ultimate Prizes

  Glamorous Powers

  Glittering Images

  The Wheel of Fortune

  Sins of the Fathers

  The Rich Are Different

  Cashelmara

  Penmarric

  The Devil on Lammas Night

  April’s Grave

  The Shrouded Walls

  Call in the Night

  The Waiting Sands

  The Dark Shore

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1997 by Leaftree Limited

  Reader’s Guide copyright © 1998 by The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  FAWCETT is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in Great Britain as A Question of Integrity by Little, Brown, London.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.: Excerpts from A Question of Healing by Gareth Tuckwell and David Flagg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., London. Music Sales Corporation: Excerpt from “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, copyright 1939 (renewed) by Irwin Dash Music Co., Ltd. All rights for the Western Hemisphere controlled by Music Sales Corporation (ASCAP). International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Music Sales Corporation.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-96533

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80536-2

  This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  ALICE: The Romantic Dream

  Part Two

  LEWIS: The Unvarnished Truth

  Part Three

  ROSALIND: The Nightmare Scenario

  Part Four

  NICHOLAS: The Escalating Disaster

  Part Five

  ALICE: The Cutting Edge of Reality

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  A Reader’s Guide

  Part One

  A L I C E

  The Romantic Dream

  Life is a pilgrimage. It is a pilgrimage to health. It is also a pilgrimage of health. We have it on our journey, always partially, always imperfectly, always with an admixture of that illness which is its opposite or the mark of its imperfections.

  CHRISTOPHER HAMEL COOKE

  “Health and Illness, Pastoral Aspects,”

  an entry in A Dictionary of Pastoral Care

  1

  We all have our favourite addictions to which we turn when we are under stress. For you it is food, while for others it can range from chemical substances to spending money or constant contact with others in order to avoid alone-ness.

  GARETH TUCKWELL AND DAVID FLAGG

  A Question of Healing

  I

  I can remember exactly when the miracles began. It was when I first met Nicholas Darrow and fell in love with him. Can I write that and avoid sounding like a romantic schoolgirl? No, so I must start again. I’m not a schoolgirl and being romantic is pointless. What had romance ever done for me, I often asked myself, and the answer was always the same: zilch.

  So let me reject any statement which reeks of romance and write instead: I can remember exactly when my life began to change out of all recognition. It was when I first saw Nicholas Darrow and glimpsed a life-style I had never encountered before.

  That’s better. That’s more truthful, and truth matters. I suppose in the end it’s all a question of integrity.

  The meeting with Nicholas was quite unplanned. No doubt religious people would speak of divine providence, but I wasn’t religious—not after slogging my guts out to look after Aunt. What had God ever done for me, I might have asked myself, and the answer would always have been the same: zilch.

  It was the March of 1988. I was trying to get a permanent job because I needed extra money to pay for more nursing, but I’d messed around with temporary work for so many months that all the shine had been stripped from my curriculum vitae, and when I explained about Aunt I could see my would-be employers thinking: family problems, unreliable, forget her. However, if Aunt was to stay out of the geriatric ward she had to be cared for by a rota of nurses from a private agency, and I had to earn the largest possible salary to—no, not to make ends meet; that was impossible, since the nursing care was so expensive, but at least I could postpone the evil day when Aunt’s savings finally ran out and I had no choice but to consign her to one of the National Health dumping-grounds.

  On that particular morning in March I had unsuccessfully tried to flim-flam my way through an interview with a personnel officer who had behaved like a sadist. Trudging away from the hideous office block which housed her, I felt in a mood to jump off Tower Bridge.

  I was in the City, that square mile of London’s financial district which always seems a world away from what I call Tourist London: the grand West End streets crammed with monuments of our Imperial past, and the grand department stores crammed with frenzied shoppers. On London Wall, that wide, bleak highway just south of the Barbican, I paused to work out which was my nearest tube station but by that time I was so overpowered by the desire to binge on a high-calorie lunch (mushroom quiche, chocolate-chip cookies, rum raisin ice cream) that I was incapable of coherent thought. To make matters worse the heavens then opened, the rain bucketed down and I realised I’d left my umbrella in the office of the sadist. In disgust I looked around for shelter, but there were no shops to be seen, only office blocks, and no buses, only taxis which I couldn’t afford. I hurried towards the nearest side-street but when I turned the corner I found no sandwich-bar where I might have sheltered but only older, grimier office buildings. The street was narrow and soon became cobbled. I started to slither in the vile high heels I’d worn for the interview, and the next moment I wrenched my ankle. It was then, as I leaned against the nearest wall to take the weight off my throbbing foot, that I glanced further down the street and saw the church.

  It was washed, shining, serene, an oasis in the midst of a desert. Automatically I l
imped on over the cobbles towards it.

  I knew I had never seen the building before but I guessed it was one of the City’s many Wren churches. As I drew nearer, the roar of the traffic on London Wall receded. I heard the birds singing in the churchyard and saw the daffodils blooming among the ancient graves.

  Suddenly I forgot the misery of the morning. I forgot the sadistic personnel officer, and I forgot my dread that all the well-paid boardroom cooking jobs in the City would nowadays be awarded to girls called Caroline or Sophie who looked like the Princess of Wales, possessed Porsche-driving merchant-banker boyfriends and lived in the fabled streets around golden Sloane Square. I even ceased to be aware of the slapping, slashing rain. I was remembering the day long ago when Aunt had taken me on a tour of some of the City churches. They had strange names such as St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, St. Botolph Aldgate and St. Lawrence Jewry—and this church, I had just discovered, was called St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall; I glimpsed the name as I stumbled past the painted board outside. On reaching the outer door, which stood open, I plunged into the shelter of the porch. The relief of escaping from the downpour was considerable. Breathing hard I smoothed my wet hair, gave my spectacles a quick polish and prepared to take refuge in what I assumed would be a quiet, deserted interior.

  I heaved open the inner door and stopped dead. The church was packed. I gazed open-mouthed, jaw sagging. What was all this? What could possibly be going on? I’d thought nothing happened in the City churches any more. I’d thought they were mere clerical museums maintained for their architectural interest. During all the times I’d done temporary work in the City I’d never realised the churches were still active … But of course my work as a cook meant that I was never around in the lunch-hour to witness such a phenomenon.

  This particular church was obviously very active indeed. The whole building seemed to be pulsating. Automatically I stood on tiptoe to try to glimpse what was going on, but I was too short to see past the forest of suits. Surely men didn’t go to church any more? Maybe the building had been hired for some sort of yuppie rally … I pictured an American guru holding forth on the wonders of capitalism before hosting a buffet lunch in the crypt. (Californian wine, barbecued nibbles, chicken-with-everything, coleslaw in tubs.)

  I had just realised I’d forgotten I was hungry when more people came in behind me and I was propelled towards a dark, pretty woman of about forty who was wearing a badge inscribed: ST. BENET’S: FRANCIE. I muttered an apology as I bumped into her, but she merely whispered with a smile: “Welcome!”, a reaction which astonished me so much that I found I had the courage to ask what was going on.

  She said: “It’s our Friday healing service. It’s just started. Stick close and I’ll get you behind the wheelchairs so that you can see.”

  I had no interest in watching a church service of any kind, least of all something so peculiar as a healing service, but since she was being friendly I didn’t like to be impolite. I followed her as she eased her way through the throng to the side of the church, and when I stood at last behind one of the wheelchairs I took care to whisper my thanks, but she was already on her way to attend to the other late arrivals. Turning back towards the altar I began to absorb the sight which met my eyes.

  The interior of the church was so unlike the usual Wren design in which the stalls face each other across a wide central aisle that I was sure the space had recently been rearranged. The wide central aisle now dissected a semi-circle of chairs, set in curving rows and catering for a much larger congregation than Wren would have envisaged. The distant altar looked as if it might date from a previous century, but both pulpit and lectern were modern, carved in the same pale wood as the chairs. The windows were clear; I supposed that the Blitz had blown out the old stained glass. The walls were a creamy white, nonclinical, almost luminous, and the panelling which rose some twelve feet from the floor was sumptuously dark in contrast. All the brass memorial tablets gleamed. Despite the greyness of the day there was an overwhelming impression of light, and despite the presence of so many people there remained also an overwhelming impression of space. With extreme reluctance I had to admit to myself that I was intrigued.

  Beyond the lectern and seated facing the congregation were two clergymen, one silver-haired, one red-headed, but my glance travelled over them without stopping because I had finally become aware that someone was saying, in a pleasant, casual voice devoid of histrionics, exactly what that utterly silent, utterly fascinated audience wanted to hear.

  I looked into the pulpit and saw Nicholas Darrow.

  II

  Anyone who thinks I’m now about to describe some rip-roaring 1980s version of testosterone on two legs is going to be disappointed. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks the clergymen of the Church of England are all wet wimps in frocks is now going to be very surprised indeed. I myself was amazed. I had no time for clergymen (what had the clergy ever done for me? Zilch!) and had long since decided they were all damp-palmed hypocrites, so I was hardly expecting the pulpit to house an ecclesiastical version of a film star, but nonetheless the moment I saw Nicholas Darrow I felt my stomach churn in a way which reminded me of everything I’d always wanted but never come within a million miles of having.

  As he stood in the pulpit it was hard to judge his height, but he was certainly no dwarf. The cut of his cassock was hidden by a surplice so it was also hard to judge his build, but I sensed he was well proportioned, slim without being slender. I was too far away to see the age-lines on his face, but I guessed him to be somewhere in his forties; he had an air of confidence, an aura of natural authority which people usually only acquire in mid-life. His unremarkable brown hair was short, straight and neat. His pale eyes I assumed were either blue or green. His skin was stretched tautly over his prominent cheekbones and the tough line of his jaw. There was no way he could have been described as classically handsome—and yet no way he could have been written off as unattractive. As he continued to talk with such low-key, easy grace, I found I was particularly noticing his elegant hands as they rested lightly on the curving edge of the carved wood.

  There was a crucifix on the wall behind him and he was talking about Jesus Christ—well, he would, wouldn’t he?—but I couldn’t focus on what he was saying because I didn’t really want to hear it. I had no time for all that Bible rubbish, couldn’t understand it, didn’t need it. What I needed was money, loads of it, enough to pay for masses of nurses for Aunt and masses of sessions at a health-farm for me (or could one lose four stone instantly by just having liposuction at an upmarket clinic?), and once I was slim I’d want a stunning house in Chelsea with a beautiful kitchen and a lavish bedroom with yards of wardrobes which contained oodles of designer outfits in size ten—well, twelve, one had to be realistic—and I’d want a gorgeous Mercedes in the garage and a handsome husband who loved me and four stunning children—not necessarily in that order, of course—and oh yes, an elegant cat, very furry, who would travel with us in a custom-made basket from our home in Chelsea to our country house in Gloucestershire which, inevitably, would be just a stone’s throw from the rural retreats of the Royals …

  I had just realised with self-loathing that I was knee-deep in the most pathetic romantic dream, quite unsuitable for any woman of thirty-two who had no choice but to be a hard-bitten realist, when the sermon—homily—chat—whatever it was—ended and I became aware that Francie, the welcomer, was once more by my side. I whispered to her: “Who was that clergyman?” and she whispered back with pride: “That’s our Rector, Nicholas Darrow.”

  As Darrow left the pulpit one of the other clergymen, not the young redhead but the silver-haired veteran, limped to the lectern and began to read, but I mentally disconnected myself again. I was thinking how beautifully the Rector moved, as beautifully as the actors I had seen on the West End stage in the old days when I was a schoolgirl and Aunt had taken me to see a couple of the Shakespeare plays. But perhaps that wasn’t a flattering comparison. No respectable clergyman wou
ld relish being compared with an actor, but nevertheless … I was still meditating on Nicholas Darrow’s mesmerising stagecraft when the reading ended and Francie murmured: “Do you want to go up?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you want to receive the laying-on of hands?”

  “Whose hands? You mean … are you saying he touches people?”

  “All three priests do. It’s all right, it’s absolutely above board, there’s a long Christian tradition of—”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m not sick. I’m fine.”

  To my relief she made no attempt to argue but instead gave me her warm smile and turned her attention to the occupants of the wheelchairs nearby. I was still savouring my relief when someone muttered: “Excuse me,” and I found myself being propelled sideways as people edged past me. Having wound up wedged against the wall I found myself next to a notice-board covered with requests for prayer. “Please pray for Dad who has cancer …” “Please pray for Jim who has AIDS …” “Please pray for Sharon, last seen two months ago …” “Please pray for the family of Jill who died last week …”

  A voice in my head suddenly said: “Please pray for Aunt who’s dying by inches,” but I blotted out the sentence in shame. I didn’t believe in prayer (what had prayer ever done for me? Zilch!) and I hated all that sort of thing and I particularly hated what was now going on in this church—I didn’t know why I hated it so violently but I did hate it, I hated everyone and everything—in fact such was my uncovered rage, the rage I always repressed so efficiently that I had hardly been aware of it, that I wanted to grab a machine-gun and mow down everyone in sight—except that attractive man, of course—but no, why should I spare him? I hated all attractive men; in fact at that moment I felt I hated all men, attractive or otherwise, because none of them had ever displayed the remotest interest in me. So why shouldn’t I want to mow them all down? And after I’d done the mowing I’d shoot myself too because life was so vile, so awful, so hellish, and even when Aunt died I’d still have no hope of happiness because there’d be no money and no one would want to employ me and—