Ultimate Prizes, Part V

Neville returns home, but a short time later, he gets the message that Alex has died. He has to go to Stoneyford, Alex's village to attend the funeral. Lyle is there, and he finds himself still feeling an attraction to her, though he does not like her and she is snappy with him. Carrie, Alex's widow, is exhausted, and while she rests, Neville and Lyle find themselves kissing. They almost end up in bed, but manage to stop, but the following day Neville is appalled at his own behaviour as a clergyman. She and he agree to put the incident behind them. He feels desperately ashamed, but when he gets home, he finds Dido is back. She tells him that she does care for him and she wants to make the marriage work... so they reach an agreement that she will try to cope with sex. Neville knows that she is partly doing this because she does not want to admit to her father that her marriage is a failure. He tries to gently introduce her to sex, but she is not that happy and neither is he. Soon, she becomes pregnant, and secures a separate bedroom. Neville keeps on trying to make the marriage work, and hopes that things will improve when they have children. She is scared and does not find it easy to get on with the children, who take more and more of a dislike to her. In due course, Dido goes into labour, and has a hard time and her doctor tells Neville that the baby cannot be saved. She has a son, born dead, and he realises that the marriage will probably never work out. Dido is too neurotic, she has failed at having a child and that will upset her even further and she has not managed to fit into the world of clergy wives. His world as a clergyman is in ruins. God seems to have abandoned him and Dido. He then accidentally meets Jon Darrow, who is head of the local theological college and while he dislikes Darrow, he dimly feels that perhaps help has arrived. Darrow was a monk, and his order specialised in helping clergy who were in trouble.. Neville talks to him and to another member of the Fordite monks, Aidan Lucas, and works his way through his family's history. His father had died when he was young and Neville knows that there is some kind of mystery about the death. In the end, he discovers that his parents' marraige was far from happy, and he himself while claiming to love his mother, found it hard to get on with her. He goes to visit his elderly uncle, his mother's brother Willoughby, who took charge of him when he was a boy but was never a kindly father figure. Willoughby tells him that Arthur, his father did die in bizarre circumstances. Their old servant, Tabitha, who was illiterate, accidentally gave him a sleeping drug meant for Neville's mother, and Willoughby had to cover up the near scandal. The trauma affected everyone in the family, including his mother who became a weeping widow and very possessive of Neville. This led to an angry row when she was an old lady, which ended in Neville hitting her which he has suppressed because it is so painful. He now understands that she felt guilty that she and her husband did not get on well, that she didnt like sex or having children and it caused a rift in her marriage..and as a result she was not a very affectionate mother. He ends by telling Jon that he now feels he can only atone for his cruelty to his mother by staying with Dido and making the marriage work, no matter how hard it is. He talks to Dido, knowing that she is basically an immature woman and will never be a very close companion to him, but hoping that they will achieve some kind of marital happiness. Jon tells him that he will have to try very hard, and that trying to stay married to a woman like Dido will be a long lonely road, but he can see that for Neville its the only way he can go forward. So he returns home and talks to Dido, and tries to understand her better..Jon tells him that he will try and support him, and that he thinks that Neville should give up drinking as he does depend on it to keep him going. Neville however decides that he will keep on drinking, it will give him a boost when times are hard.