The crowd was nearing the end of the Creed now, turning the corner into the straight, the finishing post within sight of them ahead:

Together with the Father and the Son He is adored and glorified. He it was who spoke through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. I profess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

They rumbled snugly into their seats, sitting back for the Offertory, to let him get on with it. Well, he would get on with it, he just had to get on with it, accepting the wine and water from the server, keeping his hand in close to his side so that no one would know.

And get on with it he did, conscious of nothing but the effort of lifting the chalice, of breaking the bread, of extending his arms in the blessing. “The Lord be with you.” When he left the altar at last, he felt the satisfaction of having survived, just barely survived, in spite of them all.

*

Mrs. Delany was frying rashers and eggs at the oil stove in the vestry. He unvested slowly, having difficulty with the alb until she came across and helped him. Thank God, she wasn’t a talker.

His mouth was sour; he didn’t feel like eating anything, but he let her go back to the stove and continue with his only cooked breakfast of the week. He knelt at the prie-dieu while she set out the things on the checked tablecloth, then he took his place at the table, and she set the cup of tea before him. Gradually he felt himself reviving.

It was his favorite hour of the week, when he rested after work well done. He liked the hot, strong tea, the chair, worn into comfort by generations of clerical posteriors. Above all, he liked the room, the way the light came through the diamond panes, which always shone – he never knew why, nor did he know why the walls always seemed so freshly yellowed; he would have been shocked to know the amount of time Mrs. Delany spent cleaning and distempering the place. It was her room, really, an extension of her neat, warm, well-scrubbed kitchen in the cottage down the road.

Now he watched her move, unsmiling but benign, from the stove to the table, setting out his breakfast before him, the porridge and the cream, and after that the plate of rashers and eggs, the toast and marmalade. When she finished serving him, she withdrew to her chair by the stove, where she always read a book while he ate. A devotional book, maybe? But no, it was a book from the public library, as he could see from the battered maroon jacket. For the first time, he wondered what sort of book she would read.