The Osbornes

by E. F. Benson

Claude, as Dora felt, had observed this, and was looking at her, so she passed over him, for fear of catching his eye, and went on to Uncle Alfred, who sat next him. He was closely wrapped up in a shawl that went over his shoulders, and a certain stealthy movement of his lower jaw caused her to suspect that he was eating some sort of lozenge. Then came Mrs. Osborne: Dora could hear her rather tight satin bodice creak to her breathing. She had the Bible in which she had verified the text open in her lap, and she was listening intently to the sermon, which was clearly to her mind, for her plump, pleasant face was smiling, and her eyes fixed on the preacher were a little dim: her smile was clearly one of those smiles of very simple happiness which are allied to tenderness and tears. And then Dora focussed her ear and heard what was being said:

“So this earthly love of ours,” said the preacher, “is of the same immortal quality. Years do not dim it; it seems but to grow stronger and brighter as the mere purely physical part of it——”

And then Dora’s eye was focussed again by a movement on the part of Mrs. Osborne, and her ear lost the rest of the sentence. Mrs. Osborne gave a great sigh and her dress a great creak, and simultaneously she took away the hand that was supporting the Bible in which she had verified the text, so that it slid off the short and steeply inclined plane between her body and her knee, and fell face downward on the floor. She did not heed this: she laid her hand, making kaleidoscopic colours in her rings as she moved it, on the hand of her husband, who sat next her.

He, too, had been following the sermon with evident pleasure, and it was hard to say to which of them the movement came first. For within the same fraction of a second his hand also let fall the silk hat which he had already gathered up in anticipation of the conclusion, and in the same instant of time it was seeking hers. His head turned also to her, as hers to him, and a whispered word passed between them. Then they smiled, each to the other, and the second whisper was audible right across the monument of Francis, first earl, to Dora, where she sat opposite to them.

“Maria, my dear,” whispered Mr. Osborne, “if that isn’t nice!”

Then Mrs. Osborne’s belated consciousness awoke; she withdrew her hand and picked up her Bible.

Mr. Osborne’s instinct in taking up his hat had been quite correct; the doxology followed, and a hymn was given out. He and his wife, so it was clear to Dora, had no consciousness except for each other and the hymn. She was the first to find it in her hymn-book, while he still fumbled with his glasses, and when they all stood up he shared the book with her and put down his own.

Then the organ indicated the first lines of the tune, and again the two smiled at each other, for it was a favourite, as it had been sung at the service for the dedication of the church in Sheffield. They both remembered that, but that did not wholly account for their pleasure: it had been a favourite long before.

Mrs. Osborne sang what is commonly called “second.” That is to say, she made sounds about a third below the air. Mr. Osborne sang bass: that is to say, he sang the air an octave or thereabouts below the treble. They both sang very loudly; so also did Percy, so also did Mrs. Per, who sang a real alto.

And then without reason Dora’s eyes grew suddenly dim. In the last verse Mrs. Osborne closed the large gilt-edged hymn-book with tunes, and looked at her husband. He moistened his lips as the last verse began, and coughed once. Then Mrs. Osborne’s rings again caught the light as she sought her husband’s hand. And she started fortissimo, a shade before anybody else: