Free Pretty Lady by Marian Babson Page A

of step and who wasn’t.
    â€˜Ah, Mrs O’Magnon,’ he sighed, abandoning the homilies, ‘we’ve seen a lot of change, you and I.’
    â€˜Indeed, we have, Father,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking that, coming along.’ She’d seen the tell-tale glance at the breviary and followed his mind without effort. She’d known him long enough – he’d married her and Brian when he was a new curate; tried to comfort her, first over Denny, then over Brian’s death. He was interwoven into the fabric of her life, and she into his. Like it or not, that was the way of it. And what she intended to do would come as a crushing blow to him. More so than to Sheila, perhaps. He was older and not so resilient.
    â€˜Everything’s changing so fast,’ he said fretfully. ‘Look at that –’ he waved his breviary at the new block going up across the street, where once a terrace of Victorian working men’s cottages had stood. ‘Are people going to live any better in vertical glass hutches than they did in the old houses? New places, new ways – that’s all people think about nowadays. But are all the changes for the best?’
    â€˜I think most of them must be,’ she spoke slowly, trying to choose the right words to absolve him of any sense of guilt at failing her when he looked back at the scene in the light of the knowledge he would soon have. He must not blame himself that he could not have read her mind and averted her from her planned course.
    â€˜Isn’t it better that people should have the light?’
    â€˜Ah,’ he pounced, ‘but do they see The Light?’
    â€˜Isn’t the whole point of it,’ she said, ‘that there are many lights? Aren’t we now admitting that every man must be free to see his own? To follow the dictates of his own conscience, and not just dictates?’
    â€˜I know, I know,’ he said. ‘The curates keep telling me -' She was contrite. He was old and tired. There were too many changes, happening too fast, for him. Perhaps for them all. It wasn’t the church they used to know, and it was still changing. Could anyone blame the parishioners who had drifted away, deciding, ‘ We’ll come back when you’ve made your minds up’?
    So many things were no longer strictly right or strictly wrong. There were still rules left, of course, but for how long? Perhaps, some day, even what she was about to do would be permitted – the law of the land had already changed about that. In a few more months, a few more years, who knew?
    But she didn’t have a few more years, nor even months. Her time was ticking away by the minute. It could be measured in hours now, the time left to her – and to Denny.
    â€˜I beg your pardon, Father?’ He had been speaking, saying something to her, and she had missed it.
    â€˜No matter, no matter.’ He gestured impatiently, and an envelope bearing an official seal slipped from the pages of the breviary and slapped against the ground.
    Automatically, she bent to retrieve it for him and the pain caught at her middle. She gasped, and froze.
    â€˜Eh?’ He picked up the envelope, brushing it off, and looked at her keenly, for the first time. ‘You’re not well, Polly O’Magnon. What is it?’
    â€˜Nothing, Father,’ she denied quickly. ‘Nothing serious. Sure, I was just on my way to the doctor now for some of the medicine to put me straight I’ll be all right.’
    â€˜And I’ve been keeping you standing here talking. I’ve been selfish. Go along, I won’t keep you any longer.’
    â€˜Yes, Father, I will then,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, but I would like to get to the surgery before it gets too crowded.’
    â€˜Of course you would,’ he said.
    She started to turn away, when he called her suddenly. ‘Polly–’
    She turned back.
    â€˜God