Susan Howatch Part III the Starbridge Novels

The third clergyman in the Starbridge series is Neville Asygarth, who has an important job in the diocese, (as Archdeacon) and who finds himself working with Jon Darrow.  Jon becomes head of the Local theological college after he leaves his monastery and has had some trouble adjusting to the world…
  As a conservative Anglo Catholic, he is inclined to clash over issues, with the Protestant and liberal modern minded Aysgarth.  Then Neville’s wife dies, leaving him with 5 young children.  Neville has a guilty reaction since prior to his wife’s death, he has become attracted to a young “Society” woman, Dido Tallent... whose father is a millionaire.
He was attracted to her partly because he himself was a scholarship boy from a relatively poor background and she appeared glamorous and exciting to him… 
After the death of his wife, Neville tries to adjust to widowerhood, but he wants to marry Dido.  However he realises that in spite of her charm and liveliness, she is a neurotic young woman, and that marriage to such an “eccentric” society girl  is not wise.  (Some of the relationships in the Starbridge Novels are based on the lives of the Asquith family... and Dido has a slight resemblance to HH Asquith's eccentric "Society girl" second wife, Margot.)

Neville knows that he is behaving madly but he can't seem to control his feelings for her.  He persuades her to marry him and soon after their marriage, when their first child is born dead, he realises that the marriage was a dreadful mistake.  He has hit rock bottom spiritually and maritally and he is forced to seek help from Jon Darrow.

The first three Starbridge novels are set in the 1930s and during World War II.  The second trio is set in the 1950s and 60s when the Church of England was being buffeted by new ideas about theology, by a decline in society's religious faith, and the rise of the Permissive Society.   
But the problems of the 3 clergymen are still ongoing.  Howatch is aware that people may try to overcome their faults and struggle to put right the messes they have made but that it is not an easy struggle and will often have more defeats than victories.

I will write some more about Howatch and her religious novels in another post…