'No,' he said firmly, 'not even that. Not yet, anyway. But we'll talk about it, what we ought to do, after the operation.'
And for the first time he could believe that there would be a time for them after the operation.
Mr Copley's study was at the back of the Old Rectory, looking out over the unkempt lawn and the three rows of wind-crippled bushes which the Copleys called the shrubbery. It was the only room in the rectory which Meg would not dream of entering without first knocking and it was accepted as his private place as if he were still in charge of a parish and needing a quiet sanctum to prepare his weekly sermon or counsel those parishioners who sought his advice. It was here that each day he read Morning Prayer and Evensong, his only congregation his wife and Meg, whose low feminine voices would make the responses and read alternate verses of the psalms. On her first day with them he had said gently but without embarrassment: 'I say the two main offices every day in my study, but please don't feel that you need to attend unless you wish to.'
She had chosen to attend, at first from politeness but later because this daily ritual, the beautiful, half-forgotten cadences, seducing her into belief, gave a welcome shape to the day. And the study itself, of all the rooms in the solidly ugly but comfortable house, seemed to represent an inviolable security, a great rock in a weary land against which all the rancorous, intrusive memories of school, the petty irritations of daily living, even the horror of the Whistler and the menace of the power station beat in vain. She doubted whether it had greatly changed since the first Victorian rector had taken possession. One wall was lined with books, a theological library which she thought Mr Copley now rarely consulted. The old mahogany desk was usually bare and Meg suspected that he spent most of his time in the easy chair which looked out over the garden. Three walls were covered with pictures; the rowing eight of his university days with ridiculously small caps above the grave moustached young faces; the ordinands of his theological college; insipid watercolours in golden mounts, the record by some Victorian ancestor of his grand tour; etchings of Norwich Cathedral, the nave at Winchester, the great octagon of Ely. To one side of the ornate Victorian fireplace was a single crucifix. It seemed to Meg to be very old and probably valuable but she had never liked to ask. The body of Christ was a young man's body, stretched taut in its last agony, the open mouth seeming to shout in triumph or defiance at the God who had deserted him. Nothing else in the study was powerful or disturbing; furniture, objects, pictures all spoke of order, of certainty, of hope. Now, as she knocked and listened for Mr Copley's gentle 'Come in', it occurred to her that she was seeking comfort as much from the room itself as from its occupant.
He was sitting in the armchair, a book in his lap, and made to get up with awkward stiffness as she entered. She said: 'Please don't get up. I wonder if I could talk to you privately for a few minutes.'
She saw at once the flare of anxiety in the faded blue eyes and thought, He's afraid I'm going to give notice. She added quickly but with gentle firmness: 'As a priest. I wish to consult you as a priest.'
He laid down his book. She saw that it was one he and his wife had chosen the previous Friday from the travelling library, the newest H. R. F. Keating. Both he and Dorothy Copley enjoyed detective stories and she was always slightly irritated that husband and wife took it for granted that he should always have first read. This inopportune reminder of his mild domestic selfishness assumed for a moment a disproportionate importance and she wondered why she had ever thought he could be of help. Yet was it right to criticize him for the marital priorities which Dorothy Copley had herself laid down and gently enforced over fifty-three years? She told herself, I am consulting the priest not the man. I wouldn't ask a plumber how he treated his wife and children before letting him loose on the leaking tank.
He gestured towards a second easy chair and she drew it up opposite him. He marked his page with his leather bookmark with careful deliberation and laid down the novel as reverently as if it were a book of devotions, folding both hands over it. It seemed to her that he had drawn himself together and was leaning slightly forward, head to one side, as if he were in the confessional. She had nothing to confess to him, only a question which in its stark simplicity seemed to her to go to the very heart of her orthodox, self-affirming but not unquestioning Christian faith. She said: 'If we are faced with a decision, a dilemma, how do we know what is right?'
She thought she detected in his gentle face an easing of tension as if grateful that the question was less onerous than he had feared. But he took his time before he replied.
'Our conscience will tell us if we will listen.'
'The still, small voice, like the voice of God?'
'Not like, Meg. Conscience is the voice of God, of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In the collect for Whit Sunday we do indeed pray that we may have a right judgement in all things.'
She said with gentle persistence: 'But how can we be sure that what we're hearing isn't our own voice, our own subconscious desires? The message we listen for so carefully must be mediated through our own experience, our personality, our heredity, our inner needs. Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?'
'I haven't found it so. Conscience has usually directed me against my own desires.'
'Or what at the time you thought were your own desires.'
But this was pressing him too hard. He sat quietly, blinking rapidly as if seeking inspiration in old sermons, old homilies, familiar texts. There was a moment's pause and then he said: 'I have found it helpful to think of conscience as an instrument, a stringed instrument perhaps. The message is in the music, but if we don't keep it in repair and use it constantly in regular and disciplined practice we get only an imperfect response.'
She remembered that he had been an amateur violinist. His hands were too rheumatic now to hold the instrument, but it still lay in its case on top of the bureau in the corner. The metaphor might mean something to him but for her it was meaningless.
She said: 'But even if my conscience tells me what is right, I mean right according to the moral law or even the law of the country, that doesn't necessarily mean the end of responsibility. Suppose if I obey it, do what conscience tells me, I cause harm, even danger to someone else.'
'We must do what we know is right and leave the.consequences to God.'
'But any human decision has to take account of the probable consequences; that is surely what decision means. How can we separate cause from effect?'
He said: 'Would it be helpful if you told me what is troubling you, that is if you feel you can?'
'It isn't my secret to tell, but I can give an example. Suppose I know that someone is regularly stealing, from his employer. If I expose him he'll be sacked, his marriage will be at risk, his wife and children injured. I might feel that the shop or firm could afford to lose a few pounds each week rather than cause all that hurt to innocent people.'
He was silent for a moment, then said: 'Conscience might tell you to speak to the thief rather than to his employer. Explain that you know, persuade him to stop. Of course the money would have to be returned. I can see that that might present a practical difficulty.'
She watched as he wrestled with the difficulty for a moment, brow creased, conjuring up the mythical thieving husband and father, clothing the moral problem in living flesh. She said: 'But what if he won't or can't stop his stealing?'
'Can't? If stealing is an irresistible compulsion then, of course, he needs medical help. Yes, certainly, that would have to be tried, although I'm never very sanguine about the success of psychotherapy.'
'Won't, then, or promises to stop and then goes on stealing.'