For the clipping of the church some adults were required, otherwise there would not be a long enough loop of arms to reach all the way around the chapel’s exterior. The teachers who had, by now, caught up with their excitable charges, joined in, along with the three holy sisters – Agnes, Sarah and Clare – and some mothers of children from the younger years. The circle in place, Father Daniel began the hymn, one they knew the verses of without the aid of their books – ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ – and above them the bug-eyed gargoyles, with their horns and wings and fangs, stuck out their tongues in approval.

The singing done, the clipping could commence, and they advanced towards the grey stone walls in their circle, elbows drawn in, hands held high, before retreating, arms at full stretch. Advance, retreat, advance, retreat. The younger children oooh-ed and aah-ed in time with the motion.

Then it was time for the play.

When the weather was fine, as it was that day (by Lark standards this meant when the rain was not heavy and no storm was lashing), the play was held outdoors at the harbour. Rufus Huxley had set aside his school-caretaking tasks for the morning to construct the makeshift stage – a series of pallets screwed together, a pole frame on top, from which hung red silky curtains, fishing-net weights in the hems so they did not dance with the wind.

The committee of unusual suspects, who had been meeting at chapel in the preceding weeks to plan the Easter celebrations, these mid-Lent festivities included, set up a refreshment stall at the front of the Provisions Store, offering hot tea and coffee in mugs, orange squash for the children and a batch of freshly baked hot cross buns.

It was manned in rotation by Cat Walton and Ruth French, Martha Signal and Reuben Springer, Mary Ahearn and Ingrid Duchamp, while Rhoda Sayers ran back and forth, refreshing the sugar pot and the squash jugs. At one point, Margaritte Carruthers stood serving and custom slowed, word trickling across the cobbles that she had spiked the drinks with truth tinctures and love potions, or even a hallucinogenic dose of belladonna. Still, the usual women of the committee, Diana Crane and Elizabeth Bishy, Eleanor Springer and Miriam Calder, stood in line for their drinks and a sticky bun, only so they could say, with absolute authority, that the quality of the buffet was definitely not as good as last year.

‘Once the sun is past the yardarm,’ Eleanor Springer reassured her clan, ‘Jed will open up the Anchor.’ Then she bit into one of Martha Signal’s hot cross buns and pretended not to like it.