Lionel tried to listen, but he kept seeing his sister running about the garden, she and he hiding while John James and Hugh counted to a hundred. In some bedroom on the way to Killarney Finnamore Balt would embrace her with lips that were like leather dried in the sun. The uncomfortable-looking moustache above them would roughen her cheeks; in her presence he would take the shoes from his feet. For a moment Lionel wished he had spoken, as once he would have, pleading with her and cajoling. But Villana, of course, would not have listened.

‘Wilt thou have this Woman,’ the Bishop enquired of Finnamore, ‘to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?’

A child whispered and was hushed. ‘Fortunate I was behind you,’ John James remarked to the woman in black. ‘Another few paces and it would be gone for ever.’ He dusted the glove before returning it to her, and when the woman thanked him and turned into a teashop he allowed a few minutes to go by before turning into it also. ‘Do you terribly mind?’ he said through a smile, ‘I’m afraid there isn’t an empty table.’

‘Wilt thou have this Man,’ the Bishop enquired of Villana, ‘to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’

Mrs Rolleston leaned forward. Again she prayed that her granddaughter would draw back. But because there was no immediate response to his question the Bishop pleaded also, that he should not be made a fool of. For a few more moments the clash of these desires hung unresolved above the wedding guests, before the Bishop was rewarded.

‘I will,’ Villana promised.