What he had not anticipated, and what disappointed him, was that from the ante-chapel he could not see whether the Dashwoods were in the Chapel or not. The screen and organ loft were in the way, they blocked his vision, and not having any "permit" for the Chapel, he had to remain in the ante-chapel, and just hope for the best. He seated himself as near to the door as he could, on the end of the back bench, already crowded. There he disposed of his hat and prepared himself to go through with the service.
Boreham did not, of course, follow the prayers or make any responses; he merely uttered a humming noise with the object of showing his mental aloofness, and yet impressing the fact of his presence on the devout around him.
Many a man who has a conscientious objection to prayer, likes to hear himself sing. But Boreham's singing voice was not altogether under his own control. It was as if the machinery that produced song was mislaid somewhere down among his digestive organs and had got rusted, parts of it being actually impaired.
It had been, in his younger days, a source of regret to Boreham that he could never hope to charm the world by song as well as by words. As he grew older that regret faded, and was now negligible.
Is there any religious service in the world more perfect than evensong at Magdalen? Just now, in the twilight of the ante-chapel, a twilight faintly lit above at the spring of the groined roof, the voices of the choir rose and fell in absolute unison, with a thrill of subdued complaint; a complaint uttered by a Hebrew poet dead and gone these many years, a complaint to the God of his fathers, the only true God.
Boreham marked time (slightly out of time) muttering—
"Tum/tum tum/ti:
Tum/tum tum/tum ti/tum?"
loud enough to escape the humiliation of being confounded with those weak-minded strangers who are carried away (in spite of their reason) by the charm of sacerdotal blandishments.
He stood there among the ordinary church-goers, conscious that he was a free spirit. He was happy. At least not so much happy as agreeably excited by the contrast he made with those around him, and excited, too, at what was going to happen in about half an hour. That is, if May Dashwood was actually behind that heavy absurd screen in the Chapel. He went on "tum-ing" as if she was there and all was well.
And within the chapel, in one of those deep embrasures against the walls, was May Dashwood. But she was alone. Lady Dashwood had been too tired to come with her, and Gwendolen had been hurried off to Potten End immediately after lunch, strangely reluctant to go. So May had come to the Chapel alone, and, not knowing that Boreham was in the ante-chapel waiting for her, she had some comfort in the seclusion and remoteness of that sacred place. Not that the tragedy of the world was shut out and forgotten, as it is in those busy market-places where men make money and listen too greedily to the chink of coin to hear any far-off sounds from the plain of Armageddon. May got comfort, not because she had forgotten the tragedy of the world and was soothed by soft sounds, but because that tragedy was remembered in this hour of prayer; because she was listening to the cry of the Hebrew poet, uttered so long ago and echoed now by distressful souls who feel just as he felt the desperate problem of human suffering and the desire for peace.