T. S. Eliot

Charles Williams

The story begins with Lester Furnival wandering around London in a bit of a haze. Slowly she remembers that she was recently killed by a plane crashing along the Thames and that she is now a ghost wandering through an eerily vacant city. Lester has left behind her husband, Richard, who is good friends with the painter Jonathan Drayton. Drayton has recently been commissioned by Lady Wallingford to paint the portrait of her spiritual mentor, Simon le Clerk, often known simply as Father or The Clerk. Drayton does a wonderful job of it, but captures too closely the dark nature of the Clerk. Lady Wallingford is repulsed by it and demands that it be destroyed. However, Simon finds it a true and accurate likeness and tries to pull Drayton into his twisted circle. We learn gradually that Simon le Clerk is trying to control the world through spiritual means, and critical to this plan is the death of his daughter whom he sired via Lady Wallingford, who also happens to be engaged to Jonathan Drayton. Into this fray wanders Lester's ghost and Richard also, to reach a climactic confrontation between the forces of good (as represented by Lester, Richard, and Jonathan) and the forces of evil (Simon and Lady Wallingford).

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