But Monica would not consent, until one day Dean Knapp telephoned and asked her so pleasantly to assist at the service that she could not refuse without seeming churlish. She still resented the Dean, because of Auntie Puss Pottinger’s rebuke, when she had spoken of him as “Reverend Knapp”. Well, it was high time to get over such nonsense.

High time indeed. On the morning of December the sixth, which is St Nicholas’ Day, and the day also of the Bridgetower Sermon, she went to Cobbler’s to rehearse, and found Humphrey and Molly in a great state of triumph and excitement.

“I was right,” shouted Cobbler, dancing in the middle of his chaotic living-room. It’s a boy!”

“What’s a boy?”

“Baby Bridgetower! Who else? Here safe and sound, everything screwed on tight, fingers and toes complete—even hair, I’m told by those in the know. You see what a prophet I am; I’m going to go into the business. Slip happy couples my card at weddings—’Five Months hence, Consult Cobbler; Put your Sexpectations on a Scientific Basis; Strictest Confidence Observed’. There’s a fortune in it!”

“But I thought it wasn’t due for another month or more?”

“Sit down, and have some coffee,” said Molly Cobbler. “And shut up, Humphrey, you’re being silly. As a matter of fact, it was a rather nasty business. Veronica has been awfully well during her pregnancy, you know. Not a bit like last time. So they weren’t worrying about a thing. But last night, somewhere around three in the morning, Veronica woke up and thought she heard a storm window rattling in another room. Now shut up, Humphrey—I’m telling this and I want to tell it my own way. The room in which she heard the sound was old Mrs Bridgetower’s room, which was queer, because nobody ever opens the windows in there; it’s kept just as the old lady left it, and Puss Pottinger sees that nothing is moved. But Veronica must have been confused by sleep—Humphrey, shut up!—and went in there. Solly woke when he heard a terrible scream, missed Veronica, and started to look for her. But he didn’t think of looking in his mother’s room until he had searched in several other places, and when he finally found her, she was on the floor in a terrible way—very badly frightened, a bit irrational and quite a way on in labour. Anyhow, they got the doctor, and he popped her right into old Mrs Bridgetower’s bed, and that’s where young Solomon was born at half-past five this morning.”

“And serve Ma Bridgetower damn well right,” said Humphrey. “She got the first child, but Veronica was too many for her this time. Now Molly, nobody’s going to convince me that Veronica didn’t have some kind of wrestle with that old woman in the middle of the night, so shut up! That’s love. That’s devotion, and I call your attention to it,” said he, shaking his head at his wife like a solemn golliwog. “Why don’t we whip over there right now and drink a toast to the infant trust-breaker? Better take our own bottle; the Bridgetowers aren’t always prepared for toasts. But there’s a better day coming on, if I may say so without giving Monny the fiscal creeps.”

So it was that about a quarter of an hour later Monica was in what must still be called Mrs Bridgetower’s drawing-room (for it never lost that character) drinking a toast to Mrs Bridgetower’s grandson. In spite of Cobbler’s efforts the feeling in the room was restrained, and Monica knew very well why it was so: the Bridgetowers, for all their goodwill and kind words, felt that they were taking from her money upon which she counted for another year, and were wondering how much she resented it.

Well, thought Monica, it’s up to me. I’m the one who has been trained to communicate emotion readily, and gracefully, and with an artist’s control. Unless this gathering is to be a wretched frost, I must supply the warmth. We’ve all got to grow up some time, so here goes.

“Is there any chance that I could see Veronica and the baby, just for a moment?” she said to Solly.

“As far as I’m concerned, certainly,” he replied. “The doctor did a lot of fussing earlier—apparently it’s unsanitary, or illegal, or inconvenient for the profession, or something, for a baby to be born at home; he insists on referring to the child as “a preem”; I think I’ve persuaded him that the worst is over and Veronica can stay here. Come on up.”

Old Mrs Bridgetower’s bedroom was not a pretty room, but it had much frowsty comfort about it, and old Ethel had made a fire in the grate; it was not needed, but it was very cheerful and a touch of childbed luxury. Already there were flowers from the Knapps and—marvellous in the telling—some from Miss Puss. Veronica was lying back on a heap of pillows, eating bacon and eggs.

“I know it’s unromantic for a gasping, new-delivered mother to be so hungry,” she said, “but I’ve had a long sleep, and I’m famished. Look at him. Isn’t he a pet?”

The pet lay in a small clothes-basket on a low table by the bed. Monica, who had never seen so new a baby, found it rather repulsive. But that was not what she had come to say.

“He’s adorable, and I wish him long life and every happiness,” said she, breathing a fairy-godmother muhd and bending over the basket. After all, said a voice, startlingly loud and familiar in her head, you’re giving this goblin upwards of a million dollars—not that it was ever yours. She started slightly, for it was the voice of Giles Revelstoke. Was he, like Ma, going to be one of the voices which complicated her life, and at the same time kept her romanticism from running away with her?

These thoughts did not interrupt her as she turned from the basket to the bed. She leaned over it and kissed Veronica gently; but Veronica was chewing at her late breakfast, and as she did not halt in time, Monica kissed an undulant, chewing cheek. They both began to laugh: Veronica because she was happier than she had been in her life; Monica because the inner critic had made her prima donna-like performance seem ridiculous. Stop behaving like Ludwiga Kressel, said Giles’ voice. And as they laughed, Solly and the Cobblers began to laugh, though they could not have said why, and Mrs Bridgetower’s bedroom rang with happy laughter. The embarrassment had quite gone, and Monica knew that nobody there was wary of her any longer.

“Let’s have another nip,” said Cobbler; “Veronica too. But we mustn’t get stewed. There’s the Memorial Sermon at four-thirty.”

“You must all come back here afterward,” said Solly. “We’ll have a party—small but select. But—oh, hell, I suppose we must ask The Trust. Well, it’ll be for the last time. Tea for them, Ronny, from Old Puss’s Rockingham service.”

At twenty-five minutes past four that afternoon Monica was sitting on a small chair beside the organ console in St Nicholas’ cathedral; it was a position of vantage, for she could see all of the nave by peeping between two large pillars, but she was not likely to be seen. She felt silly in a purple cassock and a ruff, and she did not think that the veil on her head was becoming; still, it was what Cobbler wanted her to wear, and she would not be a complainer, as Anglicans seemed to attach so much importance to ritual dress. But if she had to wear costume, she wished it could have been a better fit, and did not smell so pungently of choir-boy. She was not to walk with the choir in procession: no women—apparently it was another Anglican caprice. “You’re to be dearly heard but not clearly seen,” Cobbler had said, and she was well enough content to slip into her place unnoticed.

Cobbler himself now joined her. “Let’s have a look,” said he, leaning over her shoulder to peep between the pillars. “Quite a good house; nearly a hundred; not bad for a weekday and a business day; old Nicholas, Bishop and Confessor, ought to be pleased; the late Louisa Hansen Bridgetower would have expected a bigger crowd for her memorial sermon, but she had no humility. There’s Solly… old Snelgrove… Auntie Puss; the Bridgetower Trust in force. You know, the cathedral will soon have its Bridgetower bequest? Wonder if I could get any of it to rebuild the organ? Well, here goes.” He played a brief flourish and then was silent, as the choir was heard in the distance, beginning the processional hymn.