The Summons

Maria Bede, nee Wilcox, often made a study of the parishioners during her husband's sermons. This sermon, a smaller, simpler one in the middle of Holy Week, was no different. She sat in the front pew and tried to guess what each person was thinking. It was rarely about heaven or hell, nor was it likely to be about the Bible.
She could usually imagine Grace's thoughts, which so often had to do with the doctor. She was similarly certain that the doctor's thoughts were on his fees, which he was ever intent upon raising. The Earl's pew was empty, for he had gone up to London shortly after Palm Sunday, and Maria sincerely doubted he had given anything up for Lent.
The remaining pew of the first four (these Maria could see if she bent her head and turned her eyes a little) was her Aunt's old pew; now it was shared with Sir and Lady Arnold, for her Aunt had no children, and had agreed they might have it after her.














Maria was never quite certain about the Arnolds. Sir Arnold always seemed intent upon the words of the Vicar, although he never seemed to change his expression, and so Maria thought that though he might be an extremely agreable man, he was clearly not a deep thinker. But his wife, sitting quitely next to him, was more of a mystery. She had always seemed quiet and pleasant, and perhaps a little more sensible of Zachary's sermon. But the past two weeks she had come to church not only quiet but somewhat subdued, had declined to come to Grace's house afterwards, and had--quietly--answered that her health was fine, thank you, to Doctor Pershing's inquiries. Now she seemed intent on her prayers, and oblivious to Zachary's speech.














The sermon ended, and Maria rose to play the final hymn. A last hymn was a tradition among their congregation, and it one of Maria's favorite duties to pick choose one each week-the less common, the better. Surely God was bored by the same fare each week, she reasoned. She certainly tired of it.














Will you come and follow me, If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know, And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, Will you let my name be known.
Will you let my life be grown, In you and you in me?
The song was perhaps a little difficult, she thought, for though she had sung the first verse for them, the congregation stumbled from then on, except for one steady baritone somewhere behind her and to her left. Still, by the time they reached the final line, everyone was together.
...Thus I’ll move and live and grow, In you and you in me.














Maria was shutting the lid of the organ when quite suddenly James Menzies, the musicmaster of the parish school, aproached her.
"I simply wanted to ask you, Mrs. Pershing, how you know "The Summons"...?"














"I'm sorry?"
"The song you just played. It's one of my favorite Hymns--a Scottish one. But I have never heard it anywhere but my home town. Not even in Edinburgh when I went to study."
"Oh--I, I've always been fond of music, and my freinds often bring me new songs when they find some. This one's from a book my uncle game me once..."
"I'm quite impressed," he said, and he evidently was.














Suddenly, Maria was struck by an idea. She debated it for only a split second, but during this time she smiled and so he smiled back and turned away.














Before Maria could quite muster the courage to ask him what she wished to, he had left her, somewhat warmer, standing alone again at the back of the church.