Luke inspected the foremost pew. His pew. He felt a leaping sense of satisfaction. A threadbare runner, and the evidence suggesting its accumulation of dust had recently been shaken on to the floor, covered only half of the hard wood. He ushered Alicia and Jack and Cordelia into the pew then sat down at the end. He held his three-cornered hat, irritated about the state of the church, on his fingertips.

The man who showed such disregard for the building he had charge over, the Reverend Simeon Thake, took his place. First adjusting his ragged white wig, secondly knocking a mummified insect off his frayed black sleeve, thirdly stamping on the heels of his dusty shoes, as if he was following some ancient ritual, he began the service of Holy Communion. Luke and Cordelia kept their prayer books in their hands, loathe to place them on the dirty ledge in front of them.

Thake was the sort of over-humble curate, wont to lament his own woeful position and plead poverty, who Luke despised. Thin of body, beady of eye, lax of bodily hygiene, he had arrived at Polgissey the day after Luke had moved in, while he was busily lining his bookshelves with the volumes he had brought from Pengarron Manor.

Luke had glared at the curate from the ladder in his library, with a case of instant dislike. ‘You’ll understand if I carry on with my task?’

‘Indeed, Mr Pengarron. Indeed, indeed. It’s good fortune, if I may say, that Mr Cecil Doble left the house so adequately furnished. I came in all haste to welcome you, and… and… and Miss Drannock, isn’t it? To the parish of Porthcarne. I would be delighted if I was to see you and the good lady at St Colwynne’s next Sunday. Do you think there’s a possibility you will attend?’

Luke put a copy of The Four Books of Andrea Palladio’s Architecture next to his horticultural books by mistake. ‘Perhaps, whatever the good Lord wills!’

‘Yes, yes, yes, of course.’

After allowing the curate a sip of port, but not a comfortable seat, Luke ordered Jack to show him the far side of his door.

The service lasted unendurably, the Reverend Thake lapsing into his habit of repeating three times many a word in his sermon, which didn’t teach, preach or make any sense.

Luke gave him only the briefest hand at the church door. ‘Did I spy a dead sparrow inside, Reverend Thake?’

‘Um, dead, Mr Pengarron? Sparrow?’ The curate squirmed.