The Marriage Wows, part 2. SPOILER. DO NOT READ, if you wish to follow season 3 unspoiled. This story is based on a storyline which was given in one of the cast interviews. It caught my imagination, as it suited the characters of Patrick and Shelagh in The Songs of Bernadette, and of course they are different from the "originals". There are quite a lot of homages: to Paul McCartney, to St. Julian of Norwich, to T.S. Eliot and to Shakespeare. Moreover, I make a reference to the Timothy Turner and The Entertainment Badge by Kathryn Wemyss.

To avoid anyone seeing a spoiler, I will put on the first page the poems I quote. The story starts on page 2.

"When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait. "(John Milton)

"Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.". (T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding)

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(The year is 1961)

Patrick had just entered the drawing-room after a long day. He exchanged a glance with Shelagh who managed to smile feebly back at him. He had unfortunately not been able to accompany her when she visited a specialist doctor earlier that day. A matter of importance to all of them, but he of course got called away to see an emergency.

Timothy greeted him nonchalantly: "Hi Dad." It seemed he was having a serious conversation with Shelagh. "I am doing my homework on Shakespeare, Dad. On The Twelfth Night."

"Good, son. What ho, Malvolio!"

"No dad, I am not writing on Malvolio. I am writing on Orsino and Viola. So, Shelagh, why is it that she can't say she is that girl, when she speaks as Cesario of her father's daughter? Why is she in disguise?"

"Well, she may not have enough confidence. You must remember that Orsino is a Duke, and Orsino seems to be besotted in someone else, a high-born lady Olivia. I feel that Viola is just like a bewildered child, she has suffered losses, " Shelagh bravely explained in an uneven voice.

"Yes. She has lost her twin brother." There was a twitch in Shelagh's mouth when she heard Timothy say this. Patrick gave her a worried look.

"He was also her look-alike. Twins are rather interesting, aren't they," Timothy rambled on. " I saw the Carter twins today, I mean the babies, well, they are now four years old -they look alike a lot, but then they are both girls. On the other hand, I find Orsino sometimes pretty boring and stupid. How an adult man can't see that Cesario is a woman... I know some BOYS who could make that mistake, but adult men and women are different. They NOTICE each other. Like Jenny and Alec. Or Cynthia and that army chap she now goes out with. And I suspect there are some moments of NOTICING in our kitchen, when I am not around..." He was raising his eyebrows in a very Patrick-like manner.

Patrick and Shelagh laughed at this and looked at each other, but there was a strained quality in Shelagh's laugh, Patrick thought. He decided to take charge. "You're quite an observant and cheeky young man, my son. Now, upstairs you go. You may read or listen to music for one hour, but then it is your bedtime", he commanded. Timothy left without much fuss, because he had now his own radio in his room, and he really enjoyed pop music nowadays.

Patrick sat down by his wife and took her hand. Shelagh's eyes were large and misty. Even though he guessed the reason, he tried to lighten the atmosphere.

"Good madonna, why mournest thou? What did the doctor say?"

Shelagh winced and seemed forlorn. "Well, the test results came. There is abnormal tissue in the womb. it is endometriosis". Patrick took her in his arms. Some minutes passed by that seemed like hours. She let out a few strained sobs, but her whole body was like in a paralysed shock. Patrick was reminded of the moment he sat in the office of The Nonnatus House waiting for Sister Bernadette with the X ray results.

"Did he say is there any hope for...pregnancy?" Patrick asked, since he had to.

"Only in about 20% of cases this severe there is some scant hope of conceiving, he said.". Shelagh was desolate, but since she was Shelagh, she tried to cope with the knowledge, which after all wasn't news after two years of marriage and trying for children. "Oh I am so sorry, Patrick! I really am!" She was whining in a high voice, so unlike her steady, low Scottish rumble.

Patrick took a firm hold on her shoulders and made her look into his eyes. "Listen, Shelagh, you're not alone this time. There is me. There is Timothy. We care for you. You don't need to bear this alone. I will have my share in this most unhappy wreck". He kind of hoped that his mutilated Shakespeare would carry the message better than his own words.

"Yes, dearest, I know that, in theory, at least " She stroked his sleeve. "You have a legitimate share, I am afraid. What poor woman's weeds I carry."

"Shelagh, you're alive and well in general. We will survive this, together"

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"You remember that Moira and I...we had two miscarriages."

"Yes, I remember. You told me. Once before Timothy was born in 1948...".

"And then again in 1954, but then Moira was already ill, so we took it as a result of that."

"Patrick". There was a serious tone in Shelagh's voice. "How did you really cope with it? "

"We talked, we mourned, we carried on: everybody did so after the war. We had to pick the pieces of our existence and carry on, like people did after the bombings. Timothy - he was of course the most important thing that kept us going. With such a small family, we were like a statistical anomaly in this well-populated district. Babies, babies, all the baby-boomer babies. Just not for us. and later.-"

"Yes, later...what?"

Patrick decided to fast track to the difficult point. He swallowed hard and his voice was gruff. "Moira used to call it a divine intervention. You remember she wasn't very religious, but she liked to talk with Sr Monica Joan, and she laughed with her a lot-no, not at her, I know what you think. She quoted Sister Monica Joan's musings when she knew she was dying. I used to sit with her on her bed, holding her, without being able to say anything, but she liked that. She quoted Milton she had learned from Sister Monica: " those also serve who sit and wait".

"The original is "stand and wait".

"Yes. I know. Our small family was becoming still smaller. Moira also used to tell me of her dreams. I thought that the vividness of them was due to morphine or codeine. Once she dreamed that she saw me alone on the shores of Illyria...

"We are a very Shakespearian tribe", Shelagh said with a longing. "I am glad I married into it.

"Only it wasn't me in the end. It was Jesus."

"Oh. That must have shaken you." Shelagh was hesitant and waited what came next in this story.

"Of course I skipped it as a drug-induced dream. But later I felt, that there was some meaning...in our small family. No more hostages of fortune. I don't know how I could have coped alone with more children than one. Do you recall when I told you that Timothy once asked a lot of what-if's? *

She nodded.

"Yes. I remember. The parallel fates...How we became what we are now."

"I couldn't give him a rational answer, only ramblings. Another piece of Monica Joan that Moira quoted a lot was St Julian's "All shall be well and all the manner of thing shall be well". I was sometimes quite angry at her because of that. But there it is. The sorrow of not having more children, yes, there was that. The grim reality of coping with just one half-orphan child. My lot. Which then became so miraculously your lot. All shall be well."

"The lot of Abelard and me"

"Oh yes those poor tortured souls. Thanks to Sr Monica Joan, and you, my dear, I am now aware of that legend much better. How honored I am of her comparison."

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"I feel so shabby and useless. I sit like Patience..."

."...smiling at her grief. Please, darling, you don't have to smile at this," Patrick reprimanded gently.

He squeezed her hand. "Do you remember...our first kiss. I mean our first proper kiss."

"In the kitchen. In the early morning. At 6 am. Yes." She could not help smiling at this.

"I sort of had a...foreshadowing then. That mother with tuberculosis. It might have been you."

"Yes..I can see that now." Shelagh's voice was very little.

"We both knew that there may be aftereffects of TB. But we knew that we would learn of this kind of thing only gradually. Like we have. There are windows opened by God and shut doors God makes us...storm into. But as we were certain..."

"We were certain. Oh yes."

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

"You are comforting me with Bible verses and God. That's a first."

"Well, you know that I am not much of a believer. I mostly believe in sitting and waiting", he said with a rueful mien. "But this I know: we didn't plan this marriage - it was given to us. You really can't plan a "family"- -if I COULD , I never in my dreams would have been able to plan a son like Timothy. And he is such a blessing, a mixed bag of wonder and exasperation for both of us. "

"I am so grateful of Timothy - I can see now more clearly how he resembles Moira, although earlier I had seen him as your spitting image. He is growing so fast and will be away in university in a few years. I so hoped to have had a baby with a likeness...to you. Something of yours. To keep by. For a while. As a loan from destiny before the hostages of fortune are taken. " She broke down and she put her hands on her face.

It was hard to accept this. He had known that this, although not rationally comprehensible to him, was the bitter pill. Living with her, he had intuitively become aware of this apparition of a complete family she had in her mind, and it was hard that this image was shattered. He felt a lump in his throat.

"Well, Timothy is brighter and livelier than me, that is certain", he started hesitantly.

"Yes. You are my silent and strong knight. There's a ...resilience in Timothy that is more mercurial and flexible than the steady you."

"Yes, that came from Moira. Listen to me Shelagh. What is, is. What is good, is good. What will be, will be. What is not to be, will make sense someday. Remember the fall of a sparrow-"

"The readiness is all."**

"There is a part that is not air or gas or penicillin. Or triple treatment. Or a morphine hallucination. There are accidental blessings in hundred ways and everyday miracles ".

She grudgingly murmured her agreement while he stroke her hair, the golden illumination of the Presence for him. He chuckled a little. "There is also your hair. So divine...You just accept them as evidence of things not seen. A part of...the unity in the universe."

"Is that what you believe in?" Shelagh asked, still numb and blank, but yet listening to the husky voice she had become to cherish and leaning to his tall frame which she now proudly felt was truly hers. These features were a new country for her, a small island or a distant shore which seemed to cradle and to lull her, her asylum in this lonely existence called life.

"The Heisenberg principle, the gamma rays of Andromeda-one unity. "

"Things truly seem to go in an unprecedented way when you cite Sr Monica Joan."

"I am dead serious. Holding Moira in my arms, I learned what a privilege it is to serve. Just to sit and serve. Like you had done for many years as a nun. All those offices when you prayed for the kinds of Meg and Mave Carter. When you breathed life into the little Meg. All the courage you had achieved..."

"I remember you writing of that to me at the sanatorium. How you admired my handling of Meg and Mave and how I should plunge into that courage ."

"Yes. I had to share it with you. My piece of heavenly kingdom. My pieces are usually so trivial or useless, but I hope I didn't overreach by recommending that to you."

"No, not at all", Shelagh sighed, looking into a distance.

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"It is not perhaps so simple. So little is yet known about infertility. Perhaps you could have made a better match. Perhaps it is me, with only one child in 13 years marriage. A poor, simple GP with no power of procreation."

"Now you're doing what-if's."

"Of course there are what-ifs, since we are human. Yes, you could have married a man with a medical career, like some Professor at St. James hospital. Much brighter prospects..."

She was rolling her eyes. "And you could have married Sister Angelica, a beautiful face and a PhD in theology. She would have been a great match for Timothy's relentless inquisitiveness. Or at least you could have married someone with no TB- " Her voice was trembling again.

"You really are going to be jealous of these imaginary choices?" he asked quietly.

"Well, imaginary jealousy is a step forward from the state of emptiness." Her voice sounded angry.

He considered a split second what he wanted say next, as it was a bit of a dare. Then he thought it worth a gamble. "Sister Angelica sure has a very beautiful bone structure...And she will one day be the Mother Superior of the Order of St. John. Damn, what I have missed - the scandal of me marrying a nun of that stature would have been much greater. "

She burst into a mixture of howl and wicked laughter. "Sorry, man, your loss is my gain. Stop thinking of her bone structure".

He sighed of relief. This was surely a road to recovery. She was still trembling with laughter, although it ended in sobs, and she started now to cry properly, leaning to his chest , grabbing his shoulder, the tears staining his shirt. She wailed for a long time, until it came to an end. He had learned to listen to her silences, her sobs, her breathing, her existence in this time and in this place. One soul, one body. He gently stroke her damp cheek. At an appropriate moment, he broke the silence.

"You think that this lowly GP in his great ordinariness is your gain. You have an unusual taste. But I kind of adore it. Forsaking all others..."

"Keeping only unto him, I certainly will, and I will keep watch on your roving eye in the future. Bone structure, indeed. Fortunately your compliments are from an anatomy book." She was still swallowing the tears and sniffling.

"Well, I am a Doctor," he said sheepishly. "Even though I believe in unities of universe, I still like to think scientifically. With my bone structure I thee worship."

"And all my spiritual goods I thee endow. "

Suddenly loud music boomed from upstairs. "Let it be, let it be..."***

"Good gracious, what is that?" Shelagh asked. Timothy seemed to be crooning with the singer.

"It is a new pop band from Liverpool. Some guys with weird hairdos. But there is a message for you. Let it be. That is what Virgin Mary said...I will follow your path, O lord. Babies or no babies. Nazareth and Bethlehem. Calvary and the resurrection. "

"My home Prophet Patrick..."

"Well, for once I think this prophet SHOULD be heard on his home turf," he grinned.

"Aye, aye, Captain". She bravely embraced the consolation he was offering and was trying to move on to speaking of something else.

"Isn't it crazy what Timothy said of us in the kitchen."

"That impertinent bugger! I'll cut his allowance. Oh bother. I love you, and I don't mind. I might even start putting up silly love poems on the fridge door for you, like Orlando."****

She gave way to an impish giggle. "Like 'My Shelagh is the daintiest thing when she strolls in the kitchen and will sing'..."

"Hey, that was good! I'm not that good a poet. My rhymes are more likely simple, like 'Patrick loves Shelagh. Pass it on.' "

She sniggered at this. After a while she raised her voice which was still weary, but gentle:

"For better and for worse. "

"In sickness and in health.-."

"Till death us do part."

"Amen to that. "

* Timothy Turner and The Entertainment Badge, chapter 17

** Hamlet

***The Beatles did not record Let it be until 1970, but I changed history for the purposes of this story. It is also an homage to Liverpool, the home city of Heidi Thomas and Stephen McGann. Paul McCartney is a fan of the show, as his mother, who died when he was 14, was a midwife.

****As You Like It

T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets: Little Gidding (it is of course much longer than the extract in the beginning)

St Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, and all the manner of thing shall be well.