Glittering Images Part II

Charles talks to the guests at the Bisohop's palace and learns more about Dr Jardine's background, and how he had a religious maniac father and a Swedish stepmother whom he loved. He tries to pay court to Miss Christie but she is very rebuffing. Jardine has some upper class friends, including Lady Starmouth, who is half American, and through them he meets an American lady who lectures at a college there, Loretta Staviski. He meets her too and finds that she was involved in a romance with Alex when he was a young married man. She fell in love with him and he returned her feelings as his own marriage was less than happy. Charles finds Loretta attractive, but confides in her about his feelings for Lyle, and says that he loves her. He breaks down and Loretta takes him to the Anglo Catholic abbey in Starbridge diocese to see a spiritual counsellor. He meets Jon Darrow, a monk who is forceful, gifted and formerly married. Charles has long talks with Darrow, and we learn that he and his father do not get on at all well and that his parents' marriage is not too happy. Charles talks to his parents and his brother Peter, and then finds that his father is not his real father.. that his mother had an affair with a handsome doctor as a girl, and became pregnant and the man could not marry her as he was already married to a woman in an asylum. Eric, Charles father, was a rather dull man, who rescued her, and married her but then was a very strict and jealous husband to his young wife and her son. Because of his father's strictness, Charles suffered as a boy and got on badly with him as a man. Charles finds that his biological father is living in Starbridge, now married and still a doctor, and he likes the rakish old man.. but he realises that Eric Ashworth was a good father in his way. He finds that Lyle's situation is seriously deteriorating. She admits to him that she has been involved in a relationship with Jardine because he and she both beleved that he could end his marriage to Carrie and go through a private ceremony with Lyle. But she has grown uneasy with the private marriage idea and now realises that it was wrong. To make matters worse she is pregnant.