Mystical Paths part I.

This is the 5th book in the Starbridge series and like Glamorous Powers, it's not one of my favourites. I am a little uneasy with the emphasis on the supernatural. It is set in the 1960s, and it follows the early life of Nicholas Darrow, Jon Darrow's son by his second marriage. Nick has some of his father's psychic gifts.. He has visions, and finds conventional religion dry and boring. His father has always wanted him to go into the church, but because he himself made a mess of his ministry of healing, he feels that Nick should not go in for that area of work. Nick's mother, Anne, an upper class girl many years Jon's junior, died in middle age, and that removed her robust common sense from the family. Nick feels her loss. He is like his father in being a loner. He gets annoyed when he's pushed into the set of socialites that hang around with Marina Markhampton. She is the granddaughter of one of Bishop Jardine's lady friends. She is a beautiful upper class girl who has been living temporarily in the Cathedral Close. Nick does like Venetia Flaxton and at the time, Venetia is sharing a flat with Marina in the Close. Then a tragedy occurs in the group. Christian Aysgarth, Neville's eldest son, takes up sailing and is drowned. Some time after the death, Marina, who is a close friend of Katie, Christian's wife, comes to visit Nicholas. She tells him that Katie is very distressed and ill. She needs to find out exactly what happened to her husband or she will never recover.

Constance Markievicz Part II

Constance continued to balance between Dublin society and her new nationalist friends. She tended at times to irritate both sides of the divide. Casimir visited his home in Poland and pursued his artistic interests. Gradually the couple grew apart. Maeve, their daughter was brought up by the Gore Booth family. The child resented her mother's involvement in politics and her own pursuits. She felt that Con saw her once a year, and was fun to be with but then she was off about her own life. Con felt that the children of the poor needed her more than her own daughter. In 1916, she was one of the women who were involved in the Rising, some worked as couriers, or nurses. But Con was used to handling guns and she took a more active part. She led a troop and fought in the Rising. She was sentenced to death, but was reprieved because of her sex. After a period in prison, she went on with her fight for Irish freedom, but when the Treaty was debated she took the Anti Treaty side with Eamon De Valera.. and went on opposing the Treaty. This led to the Irish Civil war which caused a bitter divide in the Irish political nation. Constance was much loved by the Irish poor, because she gave up such wealth as she had to support the Republican cause and to help the poverty stricken. For some time she contintued to oppose the Treaty and like the other TDs in De Valera's party, she refused to take her seat in the Dail. However it was an unrealistic position, and could not go on indefinitely. In 1927, Kevin O'Higgins, a prominent minister in the Free State Government, was shot on his way from Mass, and WT Cosgrave, the Prime Minister, brought in a bill that stated that all TD's must take their seats and that meant taking an Oath to the British King. Constance was very reluctant to do this, but De Valera was more hard headed and decided that now the oath was merely "an empty formula" and that he and his TD's would take it. He found a way of wriggling round his conscience.. and led his party into the Dail. Constance died before she had to face this dilemma. She had had health problems and had 2 operations for appendicitis and she died in a ward for the poor, on 15th July. Less than a month later, Fianna Fail entered the Dail. Constance was often naive and foolish, but she had a warm heart and devoted herself to the cause she had chosen... and gave away most of her possessions to die with the poor. Her husband had gone back to the Ukraine but he came to see her before she died.

Glamorous Powers Part IV

Jon begins to get on better in the church, and he then finds that his children both turn up for a visit. He tells Martin that he is aware that he has many faults and he'll try and be a better father. They start a more friendly relationship. Martin likes Anne as she likes literature and plays and he's an actor. Ruth visits and tells her father that her husband has been having an affair but she is trying to make the marriage work. She admits that she was jealous of Anne because she was upper class. Jon begins to feel closer to his children and to Ruth's 2 young children. After a few months, he is offered a job at the Theological college and he decides that in spite of his previously shying away from teaching, he will take on the job. He begins to enjoy the job, but then Anne tells him she is pregnant again. Their baby will be born at Christmas. Jon finds that he feels very ambivalent. He wants another child, and hopes that if they have a son, it will make up a bit for the loss of their first child, Gerald. But he's scared. He wonders if this child will be the one in the vision.. but resolves to do his best.

Glamorous Powers III

Jon is shaken and embarrassed by his breakdown, in front of a crowd, but he tells Francis he must go to Anne at once. He meets Alan Romaine at the hospital, the doctor who is Charles Ashworth's natural father and he finds him a kind sympathetic man. Anne has her baby, a boy, but the child is premature and having breathing difficulties. Jon baptises him and calls him Gerald, a name Anne liked, but he knows the child is going to die. He is shaken and grieved. He talks to Alan and Francis, and tells Francis that he never got on with his own father. His father was a schoolteacher and wanted him to teach and he resented being pressured. Also his father did not send for him in time when his beloved mother died. When he sees Anne, he and she come to an understanding. She tells him she loves him - and he has always been scared that any woman he loved would leave him, like his mother did. Francis is sympathetic to Jon now, and tries to help him cope with the loss of the baby and his breakdown. He thinks however that Jon should go back to his role as parish priest and try and do better this time. Jon feels at first he cannot face the humiliation of having to admit his own folly and mistakes but Francis is insistent. He starts to try again to be a good husband to his wife and not to treat her like a child bride, and he returns to the parish work. He realises that he made mistakes in pursuing the healing services, that they were a boost for his ego but not really good for him. He also understands that he was wrong in trying to push his congregation into Anglo Catholic practices and he begins to adopt the Middle of the Road services that were more popular in the church of England.

Glamorous Powers Part II

Francis has taken on the role of mentor to Jon.. and tells him that he was sure that he would fall in love - albeit he had led a celibate life for many years and seemed fulfilled by it. Jon feels that he cannot propose to Anne, unless he has some kind of job and an income. He manages to get a position as clergyman of the Starbridge Parish where Anne lives as the previous clergyman had joined the army. However, being used to worshipping in a monastery, he finds parish life difficult. People disagree with him, with his Anglo Catholic views. The worship is sloppy compared with the highly professional services at the monastery. He finds that many of the parish ladies seem to take a fancy to him and pester him with their innocent but tiresome attentions. Francis, not being mystic minded, finds Jon's claims to have visions somewhat off putting.. and he thinks that Jon should have looked for a job teaching, rather than becoming a parish priest. But Jon dislikes the idea of teaching, since his own father, with whom he had a difficult relationship was a teacher. There is a theological college in Starbridge but Jon shies away from it. He believes that he has a gift for healing, but he knows that Cuthbert Darcy and Francis Ingram feel that healing is a very difficult calling and that the healer needs to be very humble to do the job well. But Jon is a proud and arrogant man by nature. He is himself concerned that he's not going to enjoy being a parish priest, but he tries to make the best of it because he hates the idea of teaching. Jon finds that his children are not too happy about him remarrying. Ruth resents him marrying an upper class woman. But he and Anne marry and for a short time they are happy enough. But Anne begins to resent Jon's dislike of socialising and she finds that his Anglo Catholic views are causing dissension in the parish, of which she is an active member. She becomes pregnant and Jon feels very ambivalent. He knows he was not a good father to his children, and he's not sure if he can do better now. He has a vision of a child, called Nicholas, and wonders if this is a sign from God that he will have a son who will make him happy. Accidentally, he gets involved in a healing situation again. He helps a cleaning lady in the church who has a bad back.. and he begins to hold healing services. People are amazed at the way he helped the lady with her pain. The services give his ego a boost but again it causes dissension. The local doctor, an atheist, thinks that the healing services are a bad thing. Jon is now under a lot of strain and then collapses at a healing service in front of everyone, and in the ensuing crush to get out, Anne falls and starts in premature labour.

Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch

Glamorous Powers is the 2nd novel in the Starbridge series...It is set during World War II, and the narrator is Jon Darrow, an Anglo Catholic priest who has counselled Charles Ashworth during his breakdown. Jon has a mystical streak. He has had visions, and concentrates on the supernatural and paranormal side of religion. At the start of the novel, he is the Abbot of one of the houses of the Fordite monks. He was married as a young priest, and had 2 children, Ruth and Martin. He is now 60, and has just lost his mentor, the arrogant Fr Cuthbert Darcy. Soon after Darcy's death Jon has a vision which makes him believe that God wants him to give up his monk's life and become a priest in the world again. He has to go to London to discuss the vision. There he sees the head of the order, Fr Francis Ingram, who has been a rival of his for many years, with both of them vying for senior posts. Francis is upper class and Jon who comes from a humble background, (his father was a schoolteacher and his mother was a parlourmaid) has a chip on his shoulder about his fellow monk's superiority in class.. Francis talks to him about his past and his religious life. Jon admits, reluctantly, that his marriage was not a happy one. He married largely to have a permitted sex life. Not having much money, he had to settle for a girl from a humble background, whose father kept a small shop. Betty was a rather silly woman and she and Jon did not get on well. She died young. Jon waited until his children were grown up and then went into the Fordite monastery. He and his children don't get on well. Martin is homosexual and has a drink problem. He became an actor, and he and Jon rarely meet. After some in depth conversations Francis tells Jon that he thinks the vision is indeed a sign that he's meant to leave the order. Jon visits Ruth, his daughter, for a few weeks and it is not a happy visit. She gets annoyed by what she sees as his obsession with religion, and he is upset that she doesn't take the children to church. He then goes for a break to a country hotel, which caters to clerical people and students and tries to adjust to the world outside and the war. In the hotel, he meets a young woman, Anne, who is 20 years his junior. She is plain but interesting. She owns a small estate and manages it herself, and she and Jon fall in love.

Constance Georgina Markievicz Part I

Constance was born in 1868, to a Victorian Anglo Irish upper class family, Sir Henry and Lady Gore Booth. Her home was at Lissadell, in Sligo where her parents had an estate. She was one of the first upper class women to become involved in Irish politics as Ireland moved towards independence. Her family knew the young Yeats. They were interested in art and culture but they were part of the landlord system, and accepted the social divisions of Victorian life. Her family tried to be good landlords, and the children grew up knowing the local poor and trying to help them. Eva, Constance's sister, was a gentle soul but she became a radically minded socialist and pacifist and moved to England to work as a reformer. She lived with a woman friend, who shared her radical views, called Esther Roper. She also wrote poetry. Con was a more energetic active girl who loved country life and horses and was happy enough to take part in the social rituals and to enjoy sports such as hunting. Constance took part in the Social season and was a tomboy... She was also interested in art, and after a few years she married a Polish Count, Casimir de Markievicz who was also artistically minded. He had been married and had a son, Stanislas. Her family were very dubious about her marrying a foreign aristocrat, but the marriage went ahead and they had one child, Maeve. Constance had an aristic salon, and tried to unite upper class Anglo Irish society with more liberal minded Nationalists. She and Casimir did not have much money. Gradually she became more radical in her politics, more of a republican socialist.