The Dean read the lesson for the day, and Monica paid little attention after the words… thy voice shall be, as one that hath a familiar spirit… reached her ears. Like me, she thought; only I have two; Ma speaks to me sometimes, in her very own voice, so that I’m sure I’m not talking to myself, and today Giles has spoken to me twice, as though he were right behind me. Yet I don’t think I’m out of my head, and I’m certainly not a spiritualist. Will it always be so? Will I acquire other voices as I go through life? It isn’t frightening—not a bit—but it’s certainly odd. Is it perhaps my substitute for thinking—orders and hints and even jokes from deep down, through the voice and personality of someone I’ve loved—yes, and feared? I ought to make up my mind. Certainly before I decide what I’ve got to decide. But I’ve never been much good at making up my mind, and I’m rotten at deciding things, especially since I went away to study and got into such deep water.
Musing thus, she heard nothing of the Dean’s prayer in which he petitioned that God might make all assembled there mindful of the goodness and example of St Nicholas, bishop and confessor and (extraordinary juxtaposition, which the Dean deeply relished) of Louisa Hansen Bridgetower, and all others our benefactors. But she came out of her musing when Cobbler and the choir burst into the “top-notch Christmas rouser” in which Dr William Crotch of Oxford so melodiously bodied forth the eighteenth-century piety, the formal fervour, of Bishop Reginald Heber—
Here was splendour which glorified the dank December twilight and made the modest cathedral, for its duration, a true dwelling-place of one of the many circumscribed, but not therefore ignoble, concepts of God.
Solly, too, heard nothing of the prayer after the mention of his Mother’s name. If ever there were a time to make peace with his Mother’s troubled spirit, it was now—now that the son was born who would deliver him from the hard humiliating conditions of her will. Yet—did that spirit desire a reconciliation? What had called Veronica from sleep so early this morning? With what had Veronica struggled in Mrs Bridgetower’s bedroom, so that he had found her unconscious amid overturned tables and chairs? He was neither mad nor fanciful: he had no doubt who, or what it was that had sought to prevent the live birth of his son. He knew what it was, also, that was at last defeated.
It was a time for forgiveness. Against the strict prohibition of his faith, Solly prayed for his Mother’s soul.
The anthem over, the lights were dimmed and, somewhat carelessly marshalled by the verger, the Dean went into the pulpit, turned to the East, and said: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
“Dearly Beloved: We have gathered here as part of the celebration of the festal day of our patron, St Nicholas of Smyrna, but particularly in obedience to the wish of the latest of our benefactors, Louisa Hansen Bridgetower, who desired that for a fixed period a sermon should be given on this day, relating to the subject of education.”
Monica was scarcely conscious of withdrawing her attention. As a child she had never listened to sermons, and now that she was a grown woman she had never re-considered her position; she was one of the many who feel that it is quite enough to be present while a sermon is being preached. If the Dean had been conscious of her state of mind, he would have recognized it sadly and without condemnation. He had never concurred in the opinion held by many of his brother clergy that learning and eloquence are forms of worldly indulgence to be eschewed; he tried to preach as well as he could. But he had not risen to a deanery without knowing how many people resent being asked to use their heads in church.
What should I tell him, thought Monica? He’ll let me have all the time I want, I know, but it isn’t fair to him to dawdle, as though I were the only person concerned. She began to run over Domdaniel’s letter in her head; it had come three days ago, and she had read and re-read it until she had it by heart:
I can’t think of any way of putting this gradually [it had begun] so I’ll say it at once, and not make two bites of the cherry: will you marry me?
Your immediate decision, I am certain, will be to say no. I understand how you felt about Giles, and I am not such a fool as to think that I would ever command love of that sort from you or anyone. Certainly this is the wrong time to write to you in this vein, but I have been quite unable to help it. Because I love you.
He wouldn’t say that unless he really meant it, thought Monica. He’s always terribly direct. The people who call him Brum Benny only see his formal, courteous manner, and they mistake it for palaver. But he’s never said a thing to me he didn’t mean. If he says he loves me, he does.
As she pondered this unaccustomed sensation of being loved, the Dean was getting into his sermon.—
Education is learning; and learning is apprehension—in the old sense of sympathetic perception. We cannot all perceive the facts of our experience in the same way. As we draw near to the sacred season of Christmas we may fitly turn our attention to the ways in which the birth of Our Lord was perceived by those who first knew of it. Much has been made of the splendour of the vision of the shepherds, as told by St Luke. But so far as I know, little has been said of the fact that it needed an angel and a multitude of the heavenly host to call it to the attention of these good men that something out of the ordinary had happened. Nothing short of a convulsion of nature (if I may so call it without irreverence) could impress them, and the Gospel tells us that they praised God “for all the things that they had heard and seen”. There are many now, as then and always, who learn—who apprehend—only by what they can hear and see, and the range of what they can hear and see is not extensive. And, alas, instructive interruptions of the natural order are as few today as they were two thousand years ago…
Nevertheless, no girl thinks very much about marrying a man seriously older than herself, and one whom she has respected as a being far above her, and a figure of world renown in his particular form of art. How had he written of that?—
I am old enough to be your father; nevertheless you must take my word for it that I am still young enough to be a lover. But I will not deceive you; at my age love is not, and never can be, the whole significance of life. I have known enough of love in my own experience, and seen enough of it in the lives of other people, to have some fear of it, as well as the awe and delight which it inspires. I cannot say, I will be young for you, because that would be folly; let me say that I will be the best that is in me for you. I do not ask you to love me as you might a young man, but to love me, if you can, for what I am.
If you say that this cannot be, I shall understand very well why; but do not suppose that I shall not be downcast. It would be dishonest to say, as a younger man might have every excuse for doing, that my love for you is the whole of my life. At my age, my work is bound to be the mainspring of my existence. But if you were with me, my work would have a sweeter savour. Because it is your work, too, I know that you will understand this, and not think that I am being either cool or pompous. You are the custodian of an important musical tradition—you know how Giles wanted his songs to be sung. I do not seek to intrude on that, but I think I could be helpful with it.