Later, as we mumbled a little cheese – Brie, I think it was – mounted (the cheese, not us, of course – I must learn to be lucid) – the cheese, I say, mounted on Mr Carr’s incomparable Table Water Biscuits – goodness, what a muddle this sentence is in, as dear Judge Jeffreys said at the Bloody Assize; let me start again. During the cheese-eating period I apologized to Fr Tichborne that I had not been able to offer him any turnips with his luncheon but that I was having the market scoured and hoped to be able to make those sapid roots manifest at dinner.

‘Turnips?’ he said, faintly. ‘Turnips? This is uncommonly thoughtful of you but, to be frank, it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I was a leading turnip-eater.’

‘Not?’ I said puzzledly. ‘But Dr Dryden assured me, albeit cryptically, that turnips were of the very essence.’

He cogitated puzzledly awhile.

‘Hah!’ he cried at last. ‘Hah! Of course!’

‘Yes, yes,’ we agreed, ‘of course …?’

‘No no,’ he went on, ‘I see, I see; he knew I would need a slice or two of turnip for our ritual. You see, at the, ah, equivalent of the Elevation of the Host one must either use a consecrated Wafer which has been desecrated – and I’ve told you how I hate to be rude to the Other Side – or one must bake a travesty of it oneself (naughty old Sir Francis Dashwood and his Hell-fire Club chums used to call it a ”Holy Ghost Pye”) or, best of all, one uses what one might call a caricature of the Host: in fact, one makes it out of a slice of turnip. Stained black, you know, and cut into, well, a sort of curious shape, if you follow me.’ He looked at us worriedly. ‘It gives less offence, you see,’ he went on, ‘and it seems to work quite as well. Quite as well. Really.’

‘Would you like some coffee?’ said Johanna.

That afternoon, all friends now and all full of luncheon – for I fancy Jock had scoffed a moody tin of caviare – we set off for a reconnaissance of the chapels, furnished with a capable picnic hamper in case the sun shone.