Evensong: Tales from Beechbourne, Chickmarsh, & the Woolfonts: Omnibus Edition

By GMW Wemyss

The Woolfonts are the most peaceful and placid – some say, the most chocolate-box – villages in the West Country, if not in the whole of the UK. Or ... they're meant to be. Of course, that doesn't take account of the eccentricities of the villagers, from the humblest to the highest; or of all the ungentlemanly balls life can bowl.

The year began in flood and spate. Teddy Gates, the Celebrated Hipsta Chef and proprietor of The Woolford House Hotel, newly the local councillor, fell prey to a cross-party stitch-up at his colleagues' hands, over social housing; now the duke, ably assisted by the indispensable Mr Viney, is cunningly working to get him out of his jam. By nobbling the MoD and the Defence Estates. There are plans to resurrect the old Cottage Hospital. Snook, the world's most useless sexton, waxes odder by the day. The High Church Rector, Fr Paddick –, and Mr Mirza, the English master at the Free School – are becoming stressed by the well-meaning support of friends, family, and neighbours who don't grasp the concepts of chastity, celibacy, and obedience. The Breener, now married to the Hon. Gwen, is in for a delightful shock. Edmond Huskisson is letting his activism get the better of him. The future prospects of Canon Judith Potecary, in Beechbourne, have the Dean, the Archdeacon, and the Bishop on wires. Sher Mirza's uncle (and Charles duke of Taunton's old right-hander and fellow OE), the Nawab, is facing a succession crisis.

Then tragedy strikes the duke's family, with knock-on effects on the duke's own health, even as Fr Noel Paddick's constitution buckles under various strains. It shall indeed want a village – well: three of them, and the adjoining parishes, and the market towns, and the little hamlet of Woolfont Parva, and the whole of the Deanery – to Keep Buggering On and win through, and resolve every crisis at the last. Not least by putting some very special old soldiers in the new build of social housing: with a right Royal assist.

The old beloved characters and scenes return in this second instalment of GMW Wemyss' Village Tales; a few old faces depart and new, arrive; and at the end, the Woolfonts once more can say, This was their finest hour.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bapton Books
• Release date: Oct 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311237538

GMW Wemyss

Parliamentary historian, chronicler of Titanic’s sinking and Churchill’s ascent, annotator of Kipling and of Kenneth Grahame: GMW Wemyss lives and writes, wisely pseudonymously, in Wilts. Having, by invoking the protective colouration of tweeds, cricket (he was a dry bob at school), and country matters, somehow evaded immersion in Mercury whilst up at University, he survived to become the West Country’s beloved essayist; author or co-author of histories of the Narvik Debate, the fall of Chamberlain and the rise of Churchill, of 1937 – that year of portent – and of the UK and US enquiries into the sinking of Titanic; and co-editor and co-annotator of Kipling’s Mowgli stories and Kenneth Grahame.

Book preview

Omnibus Edition

Containing Parts I (Nunc dimittis)

&

II (Te lucis ante terminum)

Evensong:

Tales from Beechbourne,

Chickmarsh,

&

the Woolfonts

GMW Wemyss

Bapton Books

About the Author:

GMW Wemyss lives and writes, wisely pseudonymously, in Wilts. Having, by invoking the protective colouration of tweeds, cricket (he was a dry bob at school), and country matters, somehow evaded immersion in Mercury whilst up at University, he survived to become the author of Cross and Poppy: a village tale; of The Confidence of the House: May 1940 and of Sensible Places: essays on time, place & countryside; co-author of The Transatlantic Disputations: Essays & Observation; The Bapton Books Sampler: a literary chrestomathy; When That Great Ship Went Down: the legal and political repercussions of the loss of RMS Titanic; '37: the year of portent; and of the forthcoming history, The Crisis: 1914; and co-editor and co-annotator of The Complete Mowgli Stories, Duly Annotated, and The Annotated Wind in the Willows, for Adults and Sensible Children (or, possibly, Children and Sensible Adults).

This is the second novel in the Village Tales series.

The omnibus edition comprises the two parts, also issued separately, of this title: Part I, Nunc dimittis, and Part II, Te lucis ante terminum.

Mr Wemyss' Twitter account is @GMWWemyss. The Twitter account for Bapton Books is @BaptonEditor. The partners in Bapton Books maintain a Tumbler presence, to be found at baptonbooks.tumblr.com; the Bapton Books website is at www.baptonbooks.co.uk.

Other books by GMW Wemyss

from Bapton Books

baptonbooks.co.uk

Village Tales:

Cross and Poppy (the first volume in the series)

Evensong: Part I: Nunc dimittis & Part II: Te lucis ante terminus

Bapton Books Annotated Classics (with Markham Shaw Pyle):

The Complete Mowgli Stories, Duly Annotated

The Annotated Wind in the Willows, for Adults and Sensible Children (or, possibly, Children and Sensible Adults)

Bapton Books History Selections:

The Confidence of the House: May 1940

When That Great Ship Went Down: the legal and political repercussions of the loss of RMS Titanic (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

'37: the year of portent (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

Essays:

Sensible Places: essays on time, place & countryside

The Transatlantic Disputations: Essays & Observations (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

The Bapton Books Sampler: a literary chrestomathy (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

Freedom, Fascists, Fools, & Frauds: Bapton Books Position Papers and Other Critical Pieces, 2011 – 2014 (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

Other fiction:

Crafts and Assaults: Two Uncanny Tales for the Season (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

Forthcoming:

The Crisis: 1914 (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

The Annotated Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson) (with Markham Shaw Pyle)

Britain by the Slice (in two volumes):

From Samphire Hoe to Saunton Sands (vol. I)

From Kinnaird Head to Dancing Ledge (vol. II)

Copyright © 2014, 2015, 2016 by Bapton Literary Trust No 1 (for GMW Wemyss)

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition

Book design by Bapton Books

A note to the reader: it is the aspiration of this imprint, small though Bapton Books be, to have as few errors and literals – 'typographical errors', misprints – as occur in any average Oxford University Press publication (which, alas, in these thin and piping times, gives us a margin of perhaps five or ten). Any obliging corrections shall be gratefully received.

One chapter of this work has already appeared in substantially the same form in Crafts and Assaults: Two Uncanny Tales for the Season, Bapton Books 2014.

This revised electronic edition corrects certain literals which occurred in the conversion of the authoritative typeset text. Bloody ligatures...

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment, and yours alone. This ebook mayn't be re-sold or given away to others. Should you wish to share this book with others, do please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or should it not have been purchased for your use only, then do please return to the site of purchase, and purchase a copy of your own. We shall be greatly obliged to you for respecting the hard work of our authors and this publishing house.

Contents:

About the Author

Other books by GMW Wemyss

Præludium: This is the day which the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it

A Touch of Plain Bob Minor

Psalm Preludes

Sentences

Repent Ye: All Evil and Mischief

A Bidding Prayer

A General Confession

Our Father

Give us this day

Preces and Responses

A Psalm of David

The First Lesson

The Magnificat

He hath put down the mighty from their seat

The lowliness of his handmaiden: Whom Seekest Thou?

Sing to the harp with a psalm of thanksgiving

The Second Lesson

Nunc Dimittis

For mine eyes have seen

Credo

Lord have mercy upon us: 'From lightning and tempest; from earth-quake, fire, and flood'

Grant us thy salvation

Bless thine inheritance: O all ye Beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord

We, being defended from the fear of our enemies

Our time in rest and quietness

For aid against all perils

An Anthem: 'In Quires and places where they sing'

Grace at this time with one accord

Desires and Petitions

Grace; Amen

Te lucis ante terminum

Postlude: Author's Afterword

Coming in 2016, in the third Village Tale

Praeludium: This is the day which the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it

+Ye Chvrches of Ye Woolfonts:+

S Margaret of Antioch, Woolfont Magna (Grade II*)

Clergy: The Revd Noel John Paddick SSC, Rector; the Revd Paul Campion SSC, Curate

Built: 1294; addition, crossing tower, 1452; bell tower, 1636

Patron: HG the Duke of Taunton

Churchwardens, Joint PCC (Benefice Council): HG the Duke of Taunton; Mr Paul Viney; Sec'y, Sir Thos Douty

Churchwardens, PCC, S Margaret Woolfont Magna: Mr Simon Kellow; Mrs William Hart-Macey (Gemma); Sec'y, Sir Thos Douty

Diocese of Salisbury

Archdeaconry: Beechbourne

Deanery: Wolfdown

Benefice: The Woolfonts (Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis with Woolfont Parva, & Woolfont Abbas with Wolfdown)

Benefice Legal Name: Pursuant to Bishop's Order requested by the Joint PCC, The Woolfonts

Parish Legal Name: Woolfont Magna

S Aldhelm, Woolfont Crucis (Grade I)

Clergy: The Revd Noel John Paddick SSC, Rector; the Revd Paul Campion SSC, Curate

Built: 1227; additions and extensions, 1328, 1511

Patron: HG the Duke of Taunton

Churchwardens, Joint PCC (Benefice Council): HG the Duke of Taunton; Mr Paul Viney; Sec'y, Sir Thos Douty

Churchwardens, PCC, S Aldhelm Woolfont Crucis: Miss Joan Goodfellow; Mr Jonathan Carpenter; Sec'y, Mrs Margaret Ponton

Diocese of Salisbury

Archdeaconry: Beechbourne

Deanery: Wolfdown

Benefice: The Woolfonts (Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis with Woolfont Parva, & Woolfont Abbas with Wolfdown)

Benefice Legal Name: Pursuant to Bishop's Order requested by the Joint PCC, The Woolfonts

Parish Legal Name: Woolfont Crucis with Woolfont Parva

SS Mary & Leonard, Woolfont Abbas (Grade I)

Clergy: The Revd Noel John Paddick SSC, Rector; the Revd Paul Campion SSC, Curate

Built: As abbatial church, possibly on site of previous church, 1361; additions and extensions, 1435, 1489

Patron: HG the Duke of Taunton

Churchwardens, Joint PCC (Benefice Council): HG the Duke of Taunton; Mr Paul Viney; Sec'y, Sir Thos Douty

Churchwardens, PCC, SS Mary & Leonard Woolfont Abbas: HG the Duke of Taunton; Mr Paul Viney; Sec'y, Miss Lucy Stevens (Mrs Robert Larence)

Diocese of Salisbury

Archdeaconry: Beechbourne

Deanery: Wolfdown

Benefice: The Woolfonts (Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis with Woolfont Parva, & Woolfont Abbas with Wolfdown)

Benefice Legal Name: Pursuant to Bishop's Order requested by the Joint PCC, The Woolfonts

Parish Legal Name: Woolfont Abbas with Wolfdown

+ Chapel of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Wolfdown House, Woolfont Abbas (Grade II*) (nb Wolfdown House as a whole is Grade I)

Private chapel to HG the duke of Taunton

Contact: The Rector, The Rectory, Woolfont Magna; Fr Campion, the Old Rectory, Woolfont Abbas; Church Office (Joint Benefice), the Old Rectory, Woolfont Crucis

Persons of Consequence:

Taunton, 11th Duke of

cr 1685

Charles Arthur Donald Ivor Waldemar Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet KG GCB KCVO MiD TD (now VRSM)

Earl Fitzwarren, 1658, 1660 (Baron Malet, 1212, recr. 1328)

Duke of Taunton, Marquess of Templecombe, Earl Fitzwarren, Earl of Dilton, Viscount Malet, Baron Daubeny, Baron Chard, Baron Beechbourne, Baron Marden and Widham; Hereditary Keeper & Constable of S Aldhelm's Castle; Hereditary Ranger of Yarncombe Forest

b 13 July 1962, er s of Brigadier the 10th Duke of Taunton (James Rupert Gilbert Henry) & his duchess Frances Margaret Anne (née Daubeny)

JP, DL; Privy Counsellor; public member, Wilts Police & Crime Panel; sole proprietor, the Taunton Estate; trustee, the Taunton Estate Trust; patron & lay rector, S Margaret of Antioch Woolfont Magna, S Aldhelm Woolfont Crucis, & SS Mary and Leonard Woolfont Abbas

Succession

s father, 2008

Education

Hawtreys (prep.); Eton; Christ Church (Oxon) (Blue, cricket)

MA (Oxon); FRHistS

Career

Owns 112,057 acres; Fellow of All Souls; historian and author; Governor (Chairman), the Beechbourne Free School; estate management, the Taunton Estate, since 2009; Patron & President, Woolfonts & District Agricultural Show; Hon. Colonel, 7 Military Intelligence Battalion; Deputy Hon. Col., 7th Bn, The Rifles; Deputy Hon. Col., 39th (Skinners) Signal Regt (Volunteers); Pres., West Wiltshire Show; Master, the Duke of Taunton's Hunt; public member, 2009 – 2012, Wilts Police Authority; churchwarden, SS Mary & Leonard, Woolfont Abbas; churchwarden, Woolfonts Combined Benefices; president, Woolfonts Combined CC; captain, Woolfonts Combined CC 1st XI; chairman, Woolfonts & District Fête Committee; chairman, the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway; chairman, the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Community Rail Partnership; chairman, Woolfont Brewery Community Trust; chairman, the Woolfonts, Beechbourne, and Chickmarsh Conservative Association; late Major, the Intelligence Corps

Heir

br, Lord Crispin Leonard George Valentine Gilbert Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, Master of Dilton

Publications

Archbishop Laud and Honour (Duff Cooper Prize); Rose and Laurel; Sir John, God Save You: a life of Betjeman; Beating the Bounds: the Wiltshire and Dorset Clubmen in 1645 (Wolfson Prize); Steam in Sacrifice: Operation Herrick; &c

Clubs

The MCC; Vincent's Club; The In & Out; The Rag; Savage; The Athenaeum; Boodle's; Carlton; Farmers; Flyfishers'; Hurlingham; Oxford and Cambridge; Special Forces; White's; also, Royal Bath & West Society; Royal Agricultural Society of England; Royal Welsh Agricultural Society; Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland; National Farmers Union; Rare Breeds Survival Trust; CLA; BFA; BBKA; Wild Trout Trust; Salmon and Trout Association; Angling Trust; CAMRA; the Countryside Alliance; the Prayer Book Society; Society of King Charles the Martyr; Anglo-Catholic History Society; Forward in Faith; Royal Historical Society; Richard III Society; the Working Clumber Spaniel Society; the Clumber Spaniel Club; the Gloucestershire Old Spots Pig Breeders' Club; the Wiltshire Horn Sheep Society; the Devon Closewool Sheep Breeders Society; the Derbyshire Gritstone Sheepbreeders Society; the Portland Sheep Breeders Group; the Cotswold Sheep Society; the Shropshire Sheep Breeders' Association and flock Book Society; the Clun Forest Sheep Breeders Society; the Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Breeders' Association; the North Country Cheviot Sheep Society; the Blackface Sheep Breeders Association; the Cheviot Sheep Society; the Shire Horse Society; the Suffolk Punch Trust; the Suffolk Horse Society; the Welsh Pony and Cob Society; the Irish Draught Horse Society of Great Britain; the Gloucester Cattle Society; the South Devon Herd Book Society; the Shorthorn Society of the UK & Ireland; the Highland Cattle Society; the Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society; the Ayrshire Cattle Society of Great Britain and Ireland; the Welsh Black Cattle Society; the Hereditary Peerage Association; the Campaign for Wool

Recreations

Philanthropic meddling; Stepping on toes; Bullying bullies; Cricket; Hunting, shooting, and angling; Wild swimming; Beagling; Squash; Eton fives; Real tennis; Polo (No. 4); Real ale, real cider, real perry, wine; Rural pursuits; Clumber spaniels; Steam railways; Draught horses; Bristol motorcars; Classics; history, geography, agriculture, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, politics, philosophy, Classical Liberal economics; Parish matters; campanology; Heraldry; Music, largely the Baroque and the corpus of English classical music, with an emphasis upon choral works

Address

Taunton House, W1

Wolfdown House

Woolfont Abbas, Wilts

Malet House

Salisbury

Templecombe House ('Number One, Bath')

Bath

Clentwood House

Upper Clatter, Worcs

Melverley Court

Melverley, Salop

Tidnock Hall

Marton, Cheshire

Camserney Castle

Lurgan, Perth & Kinross

Luineag Lodge

Aultnancaber, Badenoch & Strathspey, Highland

– Black's

Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, Lady Crispin

née the Hon. Constance Ivy Diana de Clifforde

b Nether Wallop, Hants, 12 February 1965, dau & only child of Baron Mallerstang and Swarthfell (Rodger Alban Percival Thomas de Clifforde) & his baroness Pamela Mary Penelope (née Portingale-Vypont), dau of the Earl of Wigan

m 10 June 1986, at The Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, Lord Crispin Leonard George Valentine Gilbert Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, Master of Dilton

Education

Roedean School; Somerville College (Oxon)

Career

Charitable work in the parish & community; Patroness, Woolfonts CLCGB; Patroness, Woolfonts & District YFC

Issue

er s, Rupert Charles Edward Donald; yr s, James Denzil Valentine Gilbert; dau Henrietta Maria Flora Anne

Organisations

The RHS; the Royal Bath & West Society; the Pony Club; the Duke of Taunton's Hunt; the Woolfonts & District Beagles; the Wolfbourne Bassets; Woolfonts CLCGB; the Guide Association; Woolfonts & District Horticultural Society; Wilts Horticultural Society; West Wilts Horticultural Society; Woolfonts Combined Benefice Mothers Union; the WI; the Kennel Club; the West of England Old English Sheepdog Club; the Old English Sheepdog Club

Recreations

Gardening & horticulture; Equestrian sport; Beagling; Basetting; Embroidery & needlework; Dog-breeding

Address

The Dower House

Wolfdown House

Woolfont Abbas, Wilts

– Black's

Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, Crispin Leonard George Valentine Gilbert , Master of Dilton

Heir presumptive to HG the Duke of Taunton

b Sennelager, (West) Germany, 25 October 1964, yr son of Brigadier the 10th Duke of Taunton (James Rupert Gilbert Henry) & his duchess Frances Margaret Anne (née Daubeny)

m 10 June 1986, at The Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, the Hon. Constance Ivy Diana de Clifforde, dau of Baron Mallerstang and Swarthfell (Rodger Alban Percival Thomas de Clifforde) & his baroness Pamela Mary Penelope (née Portingale-Vypont), dau of the Earl of Wigan

Education

Hawtreys (prep.); Eton; Christ Church (Oxon) (Blue, cricket)

MA (Oxon)

Siblings

er br, Charles, (11th) Duke of Taunton

Issue

er s, Rupert Charles Edward Donald; yr s, James Denzil Valentine Gilbert; dau Henrietta Maria Flora Anne

Clubs

Vincent's Club

Recreations

Cricket

Address

Generally abroad; correspondence to:

The Bank of Somers, Swire & Son Ltd

Hamilton, Bermuda

– Black's

Paddick, Noel John SSC, Woolfont Magna Rectory, Woolfont Magna, Wilts. – Keble Coll. Oxon BA MA; College of the Resurrection (Mirfield); S Stephen's Ho. Oxon. Deac. and Pr. by Bp of Lichfield. R. of Combined Woolfonts Benef. (S Margaret Woolfont Magna, S Aldhelm Woolfont Crucis, & SS Mary & Leonard Woolfont Abbas), Dio. Sarum (Patron, HG the D. of Taunton). Chaplain, Tisbury Station, Wilts fire & Rescue Service; Chaplain, Beechbourne Free School; Chaplain, Woolfonts Combined CC. Served title S Martin Rough Hill. Formerly C. of S Martin Rough Hill & S Stephen Wolverhampton & of S James the Great Lower Gornall, Dudley. Author, The Depth of Love Divine: John Wesley, the Caroline Divines, and the Oxford Movement (var. title, The Depth of Love Divine: John Wesley & the Anglo-Catholic Tradition); and The Beauty of Holiness and the Poetry of Grace: Andrewes, Donne, Ken, and Ferrar.

– The Clerical Directory

BRIAN FRANCIS MICHAEL MAGUIRE OBE, MCC Member, was born in Kilgarvan, County Kerry, to a farming family. Fortunately for Ireland and England both, 'The Breener', as he was known from the cradle, had in the local parish priest of St Patrick's Church a mentor who was not content only to encourage the irrepressible young man in Gaelic games (in which he excelled alongside his promise as a chorister), but who was ecumenical in matters of sport; and fortunately again, the Church of Ireland incumbent in Kenmare was prevailed upon by his Roman Catholic colleague to look over the youngster with a sportsman's eye. This he did, accompanied on the day, as it happened, by the father of the present Earl of Maynooth, an MCC member of long standing, and that Earl's uncle, the retired (C of I) Bishop of Omagh, both of whom were stopping with the Revd Dr Orpen-Athy-Fitzgarrett on an angling holiday.

A lengthy consultation between the three visitors and Fr Healey, who swiftly appealed to Bishop Herlihy in support, resulted in representations which resulted in the finding for the young Breener of an assisted place at Downside, in Somerset, the XI of which did not know what had hit it.

The Breener wasted little time in showing his prowess as a cricketer, becoming very swiftly recognised as a safe pair of hands and a surprising batsman: a wicketkeeper who could bat well up in the middle order. However, as all Old Gregorians can attest, rugby is a madness at Downside School, and The Breener played as expected, as hooker, making up in fierceness what he lacked in bulk. In consequence, he was lost to the school XI for a season owing to injuries sustained on the 2d XV: a baleful omen for the future, although, at the time, a cloud little larger than a man's hand.

Leaving Downside, The Breener was snapped up as one of the first intake at the newly-established ECB National Academy (now the National Cricket Performance Centre at Loughborough University). He was thereafter signed for Derbyshire, until moving to Somerset CCC three years after. It was whilst he was at Somerset that he was first capped for England Lions, and, in short order thereafter, for the England Test side, making his first Test appearance in 2003, against Zimbabwe at Lord's.

His international career (Test, T20I, and ODI) was shaping well when his old knee trouble, the relic of past scrums for the Downside XV, recurred. Plagued by injury, he was not able to reach quite the heights which were confidently predicted for him and clearly within his grasp, although he was twice Cricketer of the Year in his sadly abbreviated career.

Upon his retirement, he became and has remained a popular lecturer and a beloved addition to TMS. He married the Hon. Gwen, née Evans, daughter of the racing life-peer The Baron Evans of Pont-y-clun and Aintree, and, with her, manages the Evans stable, the Woolbury Stud, in the Woolfonts, in West Wilts. They are expecting their first child.

Teams: England; MCC; England Lions; Somerset; Derbyshire

– The Almanack

EDMOND AUSTIN HUSKISSON MBE was born in Illingworth – and born a natural sportsman. As a schoolboy, he was besought to play cricket and rugby; but football was from the first his first and most jealous love. Naturally clever (and mischievous) alike on and off the pitch, he threw himself with steely determination and single-minded ambition into The Beautiful Game from an early age, even to the extent of renouncing other interests, and academic interests not least. Signed as a schoolboy to Halifax Town AFC, he was soon picked up by Leeds United for development: largely, it was thought, through the percipience of Neil Redfearn, who was himself to follow the same trajectory as a manager. 'Huzza' rapidly established himself as 'the thinking man's striker', an accolade which remained wholly his throughout his career; that career, in the time of Leeds Utd's doldrums, took him first to Hull FC, and then, on the cusp of certain stardom, to Manchester City.

Man City, the first Premier League club to be designated 'gay-friendly' by Stonewall UK, soon found occasion to back its new addition, when Huzza was outed on the morning of the city derby. He was sent on in the second half.

Sadly, in a scandal which had lasting consequences, 'the thinking man's striker' was carried off shortly thereafter, having been laid out by a blatant foul and, whilst down, showered not only with abuse but with objects from the Man Utd terraces: for which that club and its supporters have in every sense paid dear ever since. This, regrettably, did not alter the fact that Edmond Huskisson, rendered legally blind in one eye amongst lesser and less permanent injuries, was never again able to play football professionally.

He moved to rural Wiltshire immediately thereafter, taking a small country house, 'Chalkhills', in the Woolfonts. After a period of internal struggle, during which he drank heavily, he turned his life around and in a new direction, with the help of AA, neighbours such as the Duke of Taunton, and the new interest in his life, the celebrity chef Teddy Gates, proprietor of the award-winning The Woolford House Hotel nearby. Huzza could no longer, perhaps, be 'the thinking man's striker', but he was now free to be a thinking man: he earnt his BA (Hons) through the Open University and threw himself into charitable and advocacy endeavours, which continue to this day with the assistance and support of Teddy Gates, now his civil partner.

He now serves on numerous boards and committees dedicated to overcoming discrimination in sport; is a Governor of the Beechbourne Free School, at which he acts as a part-time adjunct games master; and is involved in numerous local charities and community projects. He was created MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to sport and the community.

– Hall of Fame entry

Teddy (Edward Henry Lewis) Gates OBE: born Delamere, Cheshire; BA (Institut Paul Bocuse / IAE Lyon (Université Jean Moulin Lyon III)) MSc (Institut Paul Bocuse / EMLYON). MW (Institute of Masters of Wine). Proprietor-chef, The Woolford House Hotel, Woolfont Abbas, Wilts. (***)

Cllr, Wiltshire (Unitary Authority) Council (Liberal Democrat).

Residence: Chalkhills, Woolfont Crucis.

Civil partner: Edmond Huskisson.

– The Guide

Sher Ali Mirza MA (Ebor) MMus (Leeds) ARCO Dip CHD; b Adel, Leeds, West Yorks. English master & co-Master (Music), the Beechbourne Free School. Nephew to the Nawab of Hubli (HH Abdul Ali Aftab Mirza Khan). Composer & keyboardist; composer-in-residence, the Beechbourne Free School; conductor, the Woolfont Consort. Unmarried.

Bramble Cottage, Woolfont Parva, Wilts.

– The Directory

A Touch of Plain Bob Minor

'What you must remember,' said Professor the Baroness Lacy to her sturdy listeners – when lecturing at a 'Bailey' college, reflected Millicent Lacy, one expected hearties and fell-walkers, rugger-buggers who actually liked running, literally running, up hills, cricketers in perpetual training, and bloody Sherpas, by necessity: parts of Durham are steep indeed, and God help the poor buggers clambering up from Hild Bede, let alone Trevs or the Swamp –, 'what you must always remember and never by any chance forget, are the things historians all too readily do forget – commonly from living in armchairs and forgoing fieldwork.

'Firstly, that no one not literally mad has ever had but a single motivation for anything at all: no matter what they think.' As a Professorial Fellow of Chad's – to her own delight in her College, she being rather indifferent to theology but temperamentally inclined on emotional, devotional, and aesthetic grounds towards Anglo-Catholicism – she knew this rather better even than do other academics who must deal with the eccentricities of scholarly colleagues and barking-mad students.

'And secondly, that the character and motives, the options before anyone – or the options they are capable of recognising as present – and the choices they make between these, are now, ever shall be, and were in the Twelfth Century – and have ever been as long as we've been a species –, constrained and moulded by heredity and history, environment and temperament. I am not arguing the issue of Free Will: we've a Faculty of Philosophy for that: –' she paused for the inevitable laughter – 'I am rather noting that every choice one makes or has made, forecloses, necessarily, some options and opens others for the next round of choosing.

'If you know Who and Where and When, you know, Why; and, How. The decisions of the past, the history of prior choices, shape and limit the present and the character and options of those living in their present.

'History, simply, is mass biography, the cumulative biography of the great and the humble alike, and their choices, most of these made in an absence of mind whilst thinking more about dinner or washing or, as one reels home from the local, what sort of rocket one's going to get from one's spouse.

'Now, let us look at the manor rolls with these principles in view....'

*****

'Oh, really, now, Father Campion,' said Fr Paddick – gently – to his curate, 'I wouldn't at all say this to our dear Roman brother, Mgr Folan, but – you admit, I trust, that in the C of E, at least, we retaining now no process of formal canonisation, we regard, in some sense, all of the faithful departed, the Church Triumphant, the more indifferently than does Rome, as saints.'

'Yes, of course, Father.' It was all young Fr Campion could do not to blush: after all, he had himself only a few moments before raised the issue of the Feasts of All Saints and of All Souls, and what in the world to say in those sermons when one hadn't a particular Kalendar saint to hang a homily upon.

'Any year,' smiled the Rector, 'however dull, furnishes, to the eye of faith, an interesting history of events here in the Church Militant on earth; and although we are not, yet, any of us saints – not half – even the worst of us are souls. Yet, if, say, one were to recount that history, chapter by chapter, one should wish to look backwards and forwards in time and in character, even unto those now translated to the immediate presence of God, in any generation – if only to explain the context. Short stories, as it were, between the chapters of what seems to us – we not yet being, with God, outside time – a linear narrative.

'You might take that as analogy for the yearly burden – and I admit it is that – of coming up with yet another sermon for this double hammer-blow of back-to-back feast days.' Fr Noel Paddick SSC, Rector of the Combined Benefice of S Margaret Woolfont Magna, S Aldhelm Woolfont Crucis, and SS Mary and Leonard Woolfont Abbas, was a young man yet, little older than Fr Paul Campion SSC; and Fr Campion yet looked like the Keble rugger-bugger he had so recently been. It was unfair, really, thought Paul, that Noel already had that Wise Old Cleric's twinkle in his amused eye.

'Got it, Father. Thank you.'

Noel grinned. 'Now go on and get the schedule of fixtures sorted for your beloved rugger club for the Church Lads, Paul. I have to meet Charles Taunton, for my sins, to determine just how, next Summer, we manage the fête, the choir holidays, the ringers, and the village XI, all at once.'

'But all that's not for months, Father!'

'And we're cutting it fine already. I'm very fond of His Grace –' everyone was – 'but, really, Charles is enough to deal with as churchwarden; when he has also his cap on as cricketing captain, well.... Pray for your poor old rector, Father.'

'I'll do better than that,' said Fr Campion. 'I'll shout-in the first round down the Boar, after Evensong. You'll be in want of it.'

'Paul: bless you. You're on.'

Psalm Preludes

There are warnings of gales in all areas….' The natural world has, Father Paddick knew, its own canonical hours; and these also could be aids to contemplation.

It was a dark, rainy, wind-whining morning, in a year, thus far, of storms; and the Anglo-Catholic Rector of the Woolfonts joint benefice was ware and waking, up betimes, combining his matutinal physical exercises with his spiritual, before Mattins and a very full day. All Noel Paddick's days were full, of prayer and of joy as of work: it was his way.

Wherefore his first thought upon rising, this day and every day, was the same: This is the day which the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it.

'… general synopsis….'

Charles – his friend, the duke of Taunton; his churchwarden and parishioner, and patron of the livings, but always from the first a soul in his cure, and a friend – was no doubt likewise up and about, with that sleepless energy that led him so often into mischief, however innocent his object and his interests: his cherished Clumber spaniels – one scion of whom, Swithun, even now watched Noel's physical jerks with mild and indulgent interest (and, Clumber-like, without the slightest interest in or intention of joining in anything resembling exercise) –; the heritage steam railway; the preservation of ancient woodlands…. It was entirely possible that, less despite than in consequence of this weather, Charles was sitting up, as at the bedside of a friend who was ill, with his treasured ancient coppices of small-leaved lime, or mounting guard upon his whitebeams. He'd already, Noel knew, been moved to dancing fury when a patriarchal stag-headed oak had been overthrown by winds a fortnight prior: it had been the loss of an old friend.

In the right stewardship and care of thy creation, O Lord, prayed Noel silently as he did another 'T'-press-up, grant us Grace and perseverance.

Swithun closed his eyes, and began to snore, faintly.

'Sole, Lundy, Fastnet: West or South-West gale 8 to storm 10, occasionally violent storm 11 in Fastnet. High or very high, becoming phenomenal in Sole and Fastnet. Squally showers. Moderate or poor.'

Extraordinary weather: more apt for the dead of winter ('The waies deep, the weather sharp, the daies short, the sunn farthest off in solstitio brumali, the very dead of winter') than for post-equinoctial Lent.

Almighty God, who didst separate the waters and the earth, still tempests, and walk upon the waters, have mercy upon all those who go down to the sea in ships and have business upon the great waters, prayed Noel as he progressed to newer press-ups one-handed.

He was, he knew, a priest, and no prophet. He could not have forecast a day's weather; he certainly could not have foreseen the events of the past few years – nor wished to do. He was content to leave matters in the hand of God, even when it was, mortally speaking, painful so to do.

'…inshore waters….'

Father Paddick wiped his face (and when did his forehead get so high, he wondered, self-deprecatingly), and drank water as he prayed silently: Do thou, O Lord, be merciful unto those in peril on the sea, and who from the depths cry unto thee….

It seemed only yesterday that he and his wife, on their native heath in the West Midlands, hard by their native Wolverhampton, had been in joyous expectation of parenthood, and of his attaining in time to a parish of his own. Grant unto all the faithful departed now in thy presence, O Lord, rest; be upon them thy peace…. He had, in those days, never heard of the Woolfonts, or Beechbourne, or Chickmarsh. The West Country had been, to them both, but a name, and the prospect, perhaps, someday, of a holiday. But God in his wisdom and mercy had called Pauline, and the child that should have been, early to himself, and to his immediate presence: one could mourn one's own loss; one could not regret or repine their triumph, with the saints at rest, having made their personal Easters. Let light perpetual shine upon them….

'Land's End to St David's Head, including the Bristol Channel….'

He had never expected the Woolfonts. He was a priest, and no prophet. He had not foreseen Charles duke of Taunton; or Lady Crispin, and the children, Charles' niece and nephews – and where did the time go? Young Rupert up at Oxford already – and Sir Thomas Douty and Mr Kellow down the Blue Boar, and all the villagers and his parishioners. He had not imagined this Rectory or his benefice; Ebbsfleet and the local ordinary, the Archdeacon and the Dean and Canon Potecary his most cherished sparring-partner; had not conceived that he should find such friends as Teddy-and-Edmond, Mgr Folan his Roman counterpart in Beechbourne, Brian 'The Breener' Maguire and that old cricketer's lovely wife the Hon. Gwen….

'… to severe gale 9. Rough, becoming very rough or high, occasionally very high….'

He was, Father Paddick reminded himself, no prophet; simply a priest, the unworthy man called to worth and to high calling. In thy providence, O God, prevent, protect, and preserve them who labour upon the waters. He could not predict, nor yet could he or any man direct and assuage, the storms of this life; he could but weather them, with God his anchor. Certainly he had never expected this new life in a far country, or the friends he had found there. He had never completely discounted, or recoiled in revulsion from, the theoretical possibility that he could – had he not been married; now that he was a widower – be attracted to another man, although he had always been attracted to women prior, and Pauline had been everything to him, under God. But he had certainly never foreseen that that faint possibility, which existed in almost all men, should become fact; he had never foreseen Sher Mirza. Yet they remained who they were: the one a priest of God in the Church of England, and the other a devout Muslim, and they loved one another in the only ways open to them, in storge and in philia and in agape, recognising eros for what it was and renouncing it. For if either had been tempted to throw over his own conscience for the sake of eros, each loved, one the other, too well to allow the other to do so.

'Scilly Automatic….'

He was a priest, and no prophet, he reflected, as he completed another set of repetitions. He had not foreseen, and was content not to have foreseen, that in the few years since he had removed to the Woolfonts, so much should have occurred. The restoration of the steam railway and its microfranchising as a Community Rail Partnership; the boom that had followed; the creation, for a 'Rail Ale' scheme, of the real ale brewery in Woolfont Parva…. And all which had followed had been unforeseen as well, for all his increased familiarity with the duke's fine Italian hand, his Int-Corps-honed cunning: for the railway and the brewery had drawn, had been the ducal pretext for drawing, Pauline's parents and siblings and their spouses, and his small niece to whom Charles stood godfather, away from Wolvo to the Woolfonts; and had drawn his own parents and sisters and brothers-in-law here also, absolving the choice Noel had been forced to make, a young widower in want of healing, between his new living and his old home. That was all Charles, and wholly typical; and as typical had been that Charles and Tom Douty had at the same time and by the same act chosen the best men – and women – possible for the good of the railway and the brewery. After all, Noel's former father-in-law had spent years brewing and malting at Banks's-cum-Marston's; and Noel's sisters' husbands and Pauline's family were all of them men (and women) of parts, trained to skilled manufacture and commerce. (Charles had affected to find that the local accent – save as exemplified by Simon Kellow down the Boar, that adamantly free house, who had spent so long in playing the jovial West Country publican for the sake of trippers that he could no longer not sound like an extra in Hot Fuzz had he tried – was changing, but that was Charles and his donnish humour all over. Noel could well recall the duke's banging in to the private rooms at Teddy's Woolford House Hotel, where The Lads were taking tea, to bellow tweedily that he'd actually overheard one of the greengrocer's lads describe some veg. as 'bostin'', and what was the place comin' to, damn it all.)

'… falling very rapidly.'

He was, Noel reminded himself as he wound down his morning's training, a priest, and no prophet. God, providentially and providently, for all the pleas of his people, did not teach man to number his days, keeping him rather upon the qui vive with the knowledge that his soul might on any night be required of him. Remember, O Lord, thy mercy, and redeem our souls from the jaws of death. There had been weddings and births and christenings and confirmations; there had been funerals. Kit's partner – Kit being Charles' cousin, a few parishes away, the duke of Trowbridge and Warminster – Kit's partner, the former viscount Swaffham by courtesy (he had chosen to remain thus called after his father' death, although becoming thereby earl of Dereham by courtesy), had at last succeeded his astonishingly long-lived grandfather, as marquess of – in its full form – Breckland and Swaffham, or, less formally, Lord Breckland. Yet he had been 'Swaffles' too long for his acquaintance yet to be used to the change in title; and Peregrine Corsham, Kit's son, the courtesy marquess of Corsham – who was the civil partner of Swaffles' eldest in turn, who now bore that courtesy title of Dereham – was even now catching himself introducing his young man as 'Fenton' (the title he had borne in courtesy by Warrant owing to his grandfather's death, upon which he had become, although the old marquess' great-grandson, the heir apparent to the heir apparent) and having to correct himself. Bless them all, O Lord, amend their follies, and give them pride rather in the permanent things. From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord, deliver us. That it may please thee to endue the Lords of the Council, and all the Nobility, with grace, wisdom, and understanding, we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

'… the shipping bulletin. And now, the News Briefing. The Prime Minister….'

He was, Noel reminded himself, no prophet; but he was a priest. Time to let Swithun out into the Rectory garden – if the sluggard would go; indeed, with a very light boot, whether the sluggard would go or not – and to shower and prepare for the day. A pity that even were it later than it was, there should be, at this season and in this weather, so little song in the dawn chorus…. For the beauties of this world, O God, we give thee thanks…. Grant us, O Lord, the unwearying invention of the thrush that we may praise thee with our songs, and endow us with the gentleness of woodpigeon. Yet there was always beauty as well as duty, and perhaps priests see and are graced with more of it than most men.

There was the beauty of Mattins ahead, and a whole day of God's service and the joy of serving his neighbours and parishioners, and Evensong at the end; and before Mattins, the grace and sweetness of Rose James' high concept of breakfast (God be praised for housekeepers who were motherly and who cooked), to be shared – for all that the man loathed mornings, and wakefulness: it was a standing jest – with Sher, before Sher departed to his pupils and Noel to his church. Divine Service was a trifle easier now, young Paul Campion – cousin to Tim Campion, that brilliant organist and composer called to the Woolfonts by Charles' unsleeping energy in doing good – having taken orders. Deacon already, young Paul, serving his title here, and soon to be priested, and where did the time go, it was but yesterday that Tim had left St Peter Wolvo to smooth Noel's way in his new parishes as his organist and choirmaster; and Paul, the younger, but yesterday playing murderous rugger at Keble…. We praise thee, O God, that thou dost raise up in each generation thy priests and ministers….

He was, insisted Fr Paddick, a priest, not a prophet. Yet it did not want a prophet to know that a single raindrop from a dripping eave, if followed regularly by its indistinguishable fellows, wore away even stone at the last. And there were those, thought the Rector, and he (he reminded himself) not least amongst these, who wanted to remember that wisdom and that warning.

*****

That Most High, Noble, and Potent Prince, the Right Honourable His Grace the duke of Taunton KG GCB KCVO MiD TD (nowadays displeasingly replaced by the VRSM, without post-nominals) PC JP DL MA (Oxon) FRHistS, marquess of Templecombe, earl Fitzwarren, earl of Dilton, viscount Malet, baron Daubeny, baron Chard, baron Beechbourne, baron Marden and Widham, Major (Ret'd) the Intelligence Corps, and Fellow of All Souls – otherwise Charles Arthur Donald Ivor Waldemar Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet; otherwise Charles Taunton, 'Snarly Charlie' to detractors, and 'Tempers' to some of his Eton contemporaries of long ago – a trim and tidy man with a deep chest for all his being precisely the height of Old Father Time atop the stand at Lord's, with a basso five times the size and depth of his frame – the duke, then, was indeed, as Noel had suspected, already up and about. If the three parishes and all his acquaintance were divided in seeing him as embodying sleepless energy, or unsleeping mischief, or restless malice, they were all agreed upon the adjectival fact that the duke was not a man given to rest and sleep, let alone sloth. For himself … or for anyone unfortunate enough to be within twenty miles of him.

In fact, he had indeed, precisely as his parish priest had prophesied, made his gale-swept morning rounds of Wolfdown House and its Park and policies, the kennels and stables; damned the Environment Agency and the Met Office and the front benches of all parties in the State; cast the accounts and all things therein reflected; and, being a man who liked to keep fit even in his fifties, was now resolutely ignoring his years and the pain in his lower back, and playing squash against himself, as it were, before a brief swim and a hearty breakfast. He had liefer played against an opponent, at squash or fives or real tennis, but it wasn't on the cards: although Wolfdown House had the facilities for it, and his servants and staff had always been encouraged to use these and to learn such games and sports as they listed, the duke was not a man to roust a servant from sleep or work to partner him in a match, or to impinge upon their hours of leisure; and all his friends were spoken for otherwise at this hour. Well, reflected he, with his usual strict justice, he wasn't the sort who'd demand anyone's time on the courts; he was, without a scrap of penitence, happy to take anyone from his rest or his duties to sweat in the nets or turn out for a match for the Woolfonts Combined XI…. He might be a stringently self-denying duke in his own pleasures, but in his office as captain of the local first XI and of the Club as a whole, Charles Taunton recognised no limitations. And why, he'd always wondered, ought he to do? If there were anything, with the possible exceptions of civic, military, and divine service and duty, that was more important than cricket, damn it all, he'd yet to learn what it might be….

Mind, considered he, this young Paul Campion, soon to be Noel's curate, is dead set on creatin' a rugger side. Well enough for the months ungrateful to cricket – this bloody weather – but why the Field Game's never been popular…. The duke, wrapt in Old Etonian musing, shook the sweat from his conventionally floppy fair hair – which, although it might be thinning just a trifle at the crown, was at least too fair to show grey, to his humble thankfulness – gathered up racquet and ball, and made for a quick rinse under a shower-head before a dip and a few laps in the swimming baths. One must fill the hours in some way….

*****

At Davill Court, Sir Thomas Douty Bt had also been up and awake, if not precisely about, for some time: since the death of his wife, Caroline, Lady Douty, a few years prior (indeed, what time Noel had been introduced to the parish), he had got out of the way of sleeping much – or well. As he looked at the streaming windows, he felt a surge of sympathy and kinship for the duke – even now a bit unwontedly: before Caroline's death, Tom and Charles had not got on terribly well, although the convenances had always been preserved. He knew better now, knowing what the bachelor duke had long and bitterly known: that loneliness is soul-sappingly boring above all else.

Of course, Charles Taunton, being Charles Taunton … well, old Charles should doubtless manage to find – or invoke – a crisis, simply so as to have something to do with his time in solving or averting it. And, reflected Sir Thomas, he'd more than half a mind to help. Even unto creating the crisis.

*****

The Woolford House Hotel, Teddy Gates, Prop., did not, institutionally, sleep. Ever. Both the day and the night must be used to preserve a constellation of Michelin stars, even when the presiding genius is the celebrated 'Hipsta Chef'; and that celebrated and proprietary 'Hipsta Chef' himself, Gates T, was perforce already in his kitchens, steaming alongside the breakfast prep., letting the kitchen heat drive out the cold and wet that had struck him to the bone as he'd journeyed from Chalkhills in the wild, wet, windy dark. He wondered, idly, as he worked, which of the two personae which united in his partner Edmond was foremost just now, back at Chalkhills. Edmond Huskisson – as none knew better or more intimately than Teddy – could quite easily be snuggled back into a bed made into a nest and a cocoon, taking full advantage of what Edmond always called 'perfect sleeping weather'; equally, he could perfectly well be daemonically busy at something or other. When Edmond (as Teddy knew full well) had been made to suffer a career-ending injury on the pitch immediately upon his having been outed, the (suddenly former) Premier League striker had, even before hiding himself away in the Woolfonts under the duke's wings, made two resolves: that never again should he be forced to rise early and train, and that he should spend every waking hour in advocacy and agitation, quiet or noisy, and in raising funds and consciousness, to ensure that no one else ever endured what he had endured. And none knew better than Teddy that, as the immediate pain had receded, Edmond's innate sense of theatre and his truly astounding streak of elfin mischief had re-emerged as well: so that even if it were to serve merely a jape or a prank rather than his cause, Edmond could perfectly well not sleep for days so as to effect an end he had in view. He'd even embraced training again, if only for purely selfish reasons (and those not unrelated to the rewards that ensued, rewards that involved Teddy and a bed. Or wall. Or sturdy table. Or any sufficiently robust surface, vertical or horizontal).

Yes, reflected Teddy, there was no telling which mode and mood Edmond might be in today. He himself, Teddy knew, had but a few principles: love, and acceptance, and locally-sourced food, and craftsmanship; but Edmond…. The trouble – as none knew better than did Teddy – came when Edmond forgot, as he did repeatedly, no matter how often he sincerely apologised after the damage was done, that his principles, which Teddy approved, mustn't be put wholly before people, including his partner and his friends. (There was good reason why Edmond and the duke respected one another, commonly as foemen worthy of each other's steel, and were at once good friends and the best of antagonists, who agreed on very nearly nothing and who could always raise one another's hackles merely by exchanging greetings; and that reason was that they were too damned much alike.) When Edmond was in partisan mode, he saw, as Teddy was all too well aware, people as counters, pieces on a board, abstractions….

*****

The Woolbury Stud, quite as much as The Woolford House Hotel, kept necessarily an unsleeping schedule. The Hon. Gwen – née Evans, daughter of a life peer ennobled for his services to the Turf – had already made her own rounds, quite like those of the duke at Wolfdown House; and returned, damp and chilled even from the short dismounted canter from the stables, to find her husband making her a proper fry-up for her breakfast – and, by the look of it, as a second breakfast for himself.

That husband, the irrepressible Brian 'The Breener' Maguire, the Irish-born former wicketkeeper for England, grinned at her. It was a suggestive grin: The Breener was a man of notorious voracity, and his appetites were not merely culinary. Gwen, at least, no longer wondered just how he burnt off his caloric intake and his incessantly fizzing energy.

'Darling, no – I've much to do even in this weather –'

'Ah, now, didn't I agree to t'at joint service o' Matrimony we had, wit' Feyt'er Pads and Monsignor Folan co-officiatin' the bot' of t'em? And wasn't it myself promised before t'e Dear and bot' priests and bot' Churches I'd worship y' wit' my body? Ye'd not have me false t' t'at vow, surely, darlin' girl….'

When The Breener was putting on his plastic-Paddy Irish turn and his real Irish charm as if in the TMS commentary box, there was, Gwen knew, simply nothing to be done.

*****

Rose James, housekeeper to the Rector, a motherly wee body and a dab hand in the kitchen, had taken on this job – which she treated as a vocation – upon retirement from the duke's service; and she brought to the Rectory – itself nobly Georgian and wholly gentlemanly – a sense of fitness, and of what was fitting, which she had learnt in a great household. That great household having been the duke's, there was no snobbery in it, nor any servility; and as she opened the door and ushered Sher Mirza in, she wasted not a moment in proceeding at once to maternal chiding.

'That motorbike – and in this weather! It'll be the death of you, Mr Mirza, I'm sure: of cold if nothing worse.' Clucking in reproof, she divested him of his helmet and outer leathers, his own hands – slow and chilled – all but slapped away, as if by the mum of a five-year-old (and it was no secret to Sher or to Noel that she regarded them both, save ex officio, as just that). 'Come along, and let's get you warm.'

With a shy smile that usually got 'round anyone he wished to charm, Sher followed, lean and doe-eyed and with his hair, shaken free from the helmet's confines, soft, unquiffed and bereft of product: it made him look boyish, even if he never could quite help looking like a male model born to pout and slink upon a Milan catwalk.

Noel rose from table as he entered and grasped him by his hand and forearm, his face shining with pleasure. Sher knew perfectly well that his own face must be radiant with fondness, with affection, and with all four loves; it no longer even perturbed him that this should be so.

'Good morning,' said Noel, indulgent and fond and just a trifle tauntingly cheerily. Sher's dislike of mornings was a standing jest in the District – and that he managed to rouse each day for his prayers, and to teach at the Free School in Beechbourne, all the same, was regarded with the respect that always attends upon examples of an iron will's triumphing over natural inclination.

'Is it?' Sher did his best to play to type, but he knew it was hopeless. He'd sacrifice sleep for the rest of his life to spend more time with this dear, lovely man.

'Well, I think so,' said Noel, releasing him. They sat. 'You're here, and Rose is finishing – ah. And here is breakfast: a noble one, as always.'

This could not be gainsaid. There were eggs: shirred, poached, and rumbled – although, in this Lent, for Noel, no accustomed bacon and black pudding and gammon (there was some grouse pie instead from a prior night's supper); there was porridge; there were scones and toast, and there was shirmal, and bakarkhani roti. There was tea; there was coffee; there was lassi that diffused the most marvellous aromas. There was – as only Noel at this table kept Lent – what Rose would not for all the world have called as 'curried mince', and certainly not in Sher's hearing: she was proud of having learnt to cook a proper qeema and a proper shami kebab, and, after all, the Nawab of Hubli, the duke's dear friend from their days at Eton and the House, had been and remained a regular visitor at Wolfdown House. (Rose was quite fond of HH the Nawab. For his Begum, who happened to be the sister of Sher's father, she maintained respect and admiration, not unmixed with the same exasperation that was felt by the Nawab, the duke, Sher, and Sher's father.) There was a mighty dish of murgh cholay fit for a Mughal emperor, and kedgeree apt to an Imperial durbar in a fat Lent. And – Rose having after all been trained by the ducal housekeeper Mrs Viney, aunt to the duke's butler and major-domo, and by Mrs Woolley the duke's cook – there was, even in this season, a profusion of fruit that Teddy at The Woolford might have envied: bananas and melons and mangoes that Bungay the fruiterer should have wept for, from the duke's and Sir Thomas' own legendary orangeries and conservatories. (Noel had long since given over asking. If his and Rose's acquaintance insisted upon giving gifts, there was nothing he, the parish accountants, the diocesan board, or HMRC could, ultimately, do. Not when the duke – or his stable of solicitors and, at need, silks – was involved, at any rate. Noel merely set aside a further portion of his stipend, to the same value, for further alms and small charities.)

'Rose,' breathed Sher, who was daily awed and humbled by her work and obvious affection. 'This….'

'You want your strength, both of you, and in this weather and with such important work before you both, Mr Mirza. Now, do eat up, it's absurd that you'd chance a chill any more than you have done –'

'She is, as always, right,' said Noel. 'Rose: thank you.' His smile and tone were a benediction. Mrs James inclined her head, with affectionate respect, and withdrew kitchen-wards.

'Do you think it wise,' asked Noel, after a brief Latin grace, 'to be sliding and soaking from Parva to here, let alone here to Beechbourne, in this?'

Sher shrugged. He liked his bike. And even with the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway, it should have been necessary first to get to the halt, South of Parva, so as to take the train to Beechbourne; and had he done that, he couldn't have kept his standing breakfast date with Noel. Which was not under any circumstances to be thought of.

Rose was of course far too good a servant to listen at keyholes. She was also far too good a servant not to anticipate needs. She reappeared, with more, pretextual, scones, and at Noel's nod, addressed Sher. 'I'll be putting up what's left over for you to have at luncheon at the School, Mr Mirza.'

'I – my panniers –'

'The Rector of course can't but be using the Rover today in this rain and foulness, for all as he likes to walk when he can, or take the 'bus or train. It's not my half-day, and I hope I can say I showed my sense, driving here this morning in all this. I've all to do here at the Rectory today, Mr Mirza, and no reason to go out. Why don't you take my Mini, then, just for today?'

'An excellent idea,' said Noel, gravely – bar the twinkle in his eye –, before Sher could protest.

There was nothing for it but to surrender as graciously as possible. Sher sighed. 'Thank you, Rose.'

It was as well, really. The next stage of escalation, they all three knew, should have been the unexpected and wholly coincidental arrival of Ponton or Young Whatley with one of the ducal Bristols, to drive Sher to the School in state. And no one should have been able to say they'd seen or heard Rose ring up, or text, or in any way communicate with Wolfdown House, at that; it'd simply happen, magically and mysteriously, by means beyond mortal ken. The loan of a Mini Countryman 'All4' (the duke's idea of a small token of gratitude upon Rose's retirement) for a day was the least bad option: granting that between Rose, the Rector, and the duke, Sher hadn't, actually, any options.

At least it wasn't a bloody fiesta. Or, with the duke involved, a Rover or a Bristol or a bloody Bentley.

*****

At Chalkhills, Edmond was paying no attention whatever to the rain without. He'd put the Clumbers out – these, in theory his one and Teddy's one, being of the litter which had furnished Noel's Swithun, Sher's Ernestine (a name the duke had imposed before Sher had twigged to the ducal humour involved: Sher's cat, already resident, was named Eric, and the duke was a Morecambe and Wise fan of old), and The Breener's Dara – and made them stay out for long enough to have accomplished their ablutions. Since what time he'd let Diana and Vera back withindoors to steam sleeping before the hearth (naturally he and Teddy had named their pups when young for Diana Dors and Dame Vera Lynn; the duke had been heard to say it was a relief they'd not named them 'Brighton' and 'Hove', or for modern diva-icons), Edmond had been shuffling about the house, cuppa in hand, in slippers and trackies, with a knitted cap on his unbrushed hair, meditating activism whilst passing quite convincingly as a tramping down-and-out, had anyone seen him.

The danger, as Teddy might have told anyone who enquired, and as the duke, The Lads, and the villagers all perfectly well knew, rather arose what time Edmond shaved, kitted himself out as if for a red carpet or a presentation at Buck House, and stepped up to a microphone to tell the masses of his meditations.

*****

In Beechbourne ('Twinned With Étretat'), Canon Judith Potecary, bundled stoutly into a vibrant Chinese dressing-gown, was finishing an egg and some toast as her partner, the local psychiatrist Cicely Pinnell-Cundick, soignée and sardonic, looked on affectionately over coffee.

'Ghastly weather,' grumbled Canon Judith. 'And I say nothing against anyone, let alone my revered and reverend team vicar, but I quite envy Noel Paddick this morning.'

Cicely smiled. 'Whatever for, dear? The Woolfonts flood like anything. So either you are envying him breakfast with that luscious Sher Mirza – because you know they've managed that –'

Canon Judith gave Cicely a very old-fashioned look.

'– Or you're reflecting that young Paul Campion, taking one of Noel's Mattins services this morning, is the sort of mad, mud-loving young rugger-bugger who'll positively exult in being out in this. And contrasting that with the disinclination to be out in it that you and Jock Birdwell share. I quite like Jock, but, really, dear, it's unwise to have both a team rector and a team vicar who like their comforts and prefer frowst to fresh air.'

'Cis, honestly, if you regard this Noachic flood as a bit of fresh air….'

*****

'Even in this weather,' smiled Noel, 'I think I may have heard a bit of noise this morning from a tit.'

'Edmond rang up?'

Noel simply looked at Sher with loving patience until