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When at last the service was over, the Ruispidges were the first to file out of the church into the sunlight, with Mr Carswall’s party hard at their heels. The rest of the congregation followed us outside, and an air of festivity and freedom filled the little churchyard. The villagers were like children let out of school. Even their betters acquired an air of holiday. Charlie and Edgar played a discreet game of tag among the gravestones. I did not have the heart to stop them.

Mr Carswall hobbled as fast as he could after the baronet and contrived to pin him in a corner between the wall of the church and a buttress. “Sir George,” he cried. “Was not that an edifying sermon?”

Sir George nodded, and I noted his eyes straying away from Mr Carswall towards Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall, who were now in conversation with his mother Lady Ruispidge and the dark-haired lady from their pew. Captain Ruispidge hovered gracefully between the two younger ladies.

“We should be very glad to see you at Monkshill, Sir George, you and the Captain, and Lady Ruispidge, too, if she would not find the drive too fatiguing.”

Sir George remarked that it was very good of Mr Carswall. Miss Carswall had said Sir George was accounted handsome, as perhaps baronets often are, but I thought he looked like a hungry greyhound. He had to a nicety the art of making civil remarks which lacked warmth and substance.

“I believe you have not yet met my cousin, Mrs Frant, sir,” the old man went on. “Pray allow me to rectify the omission.”

Sir George bowed. “Thank you, I shall be glad to meet her.” He added, his voice and face studiously neutral, “I was acquainted with her husband, the late Mr Frant, when we were boys.”

Mr Carswall bowed very low, as if in acknowledgement for this remarkable condescension. He led the baronet towards the knot of women. It so happened that I was standing at the side of the path, engaged partly in eavesdropping, partly in keeping an eye on the boys and partly in attempting to digest the implications of the unexpected intelligence about Henry Frant that I had recently acquired. Carswall had his head turned towards the baronet, but he was aware of my presence. With his arm he nudged me aside, off the path and on to the grass. It was carelessly done, and without malice, as one would push aside a dog that blocked the doorway of a room, or scoop a cat from a chair. He did not look at me, and he did not break off the flow of his remarks to Sir George.

I own I was angry and perhaps hurt, not least because I had been so treated in full view of the four ladies, the Ruispidge gentlemen, my two pupils and the entire population, or so it seemed, of Flaxern Parva. I felt the colour flooding into my cheeks. I watched as Carswall and Sir George joined the others, and the introductions were made. Miss Carswall had already met the Ruispidges, but none of the other party was acquainted with Mrs Frant.

“Why, Mrs Johnson,” said Miss Carswall to the dark-haired lady. “Have you news of the gallant lieutenant? Is he still on the West Indies station?”

“Yes,” said the lady, and made as if to turn away.

“Did I not see you in Town a few weeks ago?” Miss Carswall asked, in that little innocent voice she used when she was up to mischief. “I thought I glimpsed you in Pall Mall the other week – you was going into Payne and Foss’s – but there was such a crush I could not be sure, and then the carriage moved on and it was too late.”

“No,” Mrs Johnson replied. “You must be mistaken. I have not been further than Cheltenham these six or seven months.”

At that moment, I recalled when and where I might have seen Mrs Johnson before. I was not perfectly convinced, mind you, not then.

“You must not hesitate to step out of your garden into the park, ma’am,” Carswall interrupted, addressing Mrs Johnson. “You must treat it quite as your own. I shall tell my people so. A word of caution, though: keep away from the covers. We have had such a plague of poachers in the last few months that I have had to sow the woods with a number of surprises. I would not wish a friend to fall foul of one of them.”

Mrs Johnson bowed. A moment later, I saw her watching Mr Carswall as he turned back to Sir George and, for an instant, I surprised upon her face an expression of distaste that amounted almost to hatred.

“I say, George,” said Captain Jack, who until now had been chatting with Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall, “I was acquainted with Mrs Frant’s father. He was most kind to me when I went out to Portugal in the year nine. Colonel Marpool of the Ninety-Seventh, you know, though at the time he was seconded to the Portuguese army. A most distinguished officer – he played a great part in the recovery of Oporto, and he gave Masséna himself a drubbing at Coimbra.”

Mr Carswall beamed, as though the exploits of Mrs Frant’s father were in some mysterious way his own. He pulled out his watch and showed it to the company. “I think it very likely that Masséna had a timepiece from the same workshop that produced this. They say Napoleon himself was one of Breguet’s patrons.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Sir George said, his forehead wrinkling. “But who is Breguet?”

“Abraham-Louis Breguet, sir – the finest watchmaker in the world.” Mr Carswall glanced fondly at the timepiece in his palm. “Certainly a number of Napoleon’s officers are known to have had these watches, for they are accurate to a tenth of a second, proof against sudden shocks, and capable of running for eight years without being overhauled, and without going slow. They say – and Captain Ruispidge will I’m sure correct me if I’m wrong – that many of the Emperor’s victories can be attributed to his genius for timing, and it is not far-fetched to imagine that this accuracy in the matter of time depended on a Breguet watch.”

So the old man ran on, to an audience of blank faces. I was mortified on his behalf, despite the way he had slighted me, and turned aside to look for the boys. I did not see them in this part of the churchyard, so I walked back towards the porch, meaning to circumnavigate the church until I found them.

“Mr Shield,” Miss Carswall said, just behind me.

Startled, I swung round. She had broken away from the others, and stood at my elbow.

“Would you be so good as to do me a favour?”

“Of course, Miss Carswall.”

“I have foolishly left my handkerchief in the church, in the pew where we were sitting.”

“Then you must allow me to fetch it for you.”

I passed through the porch into the church and walked down the nave. A moment later, I heard the door open again behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. There was Miss Carswall, smiling.

“Mr Shield, I do so apologise. It was in my muff all the time.” She held up the wisp of embroidered silk. “I sent you on a fool’s errand.”

I retraced my steps. “It don’t signify.”

She waited on the threshold, her hand on the door. “Oh, but it does,” she said quietly. “Particularly as I knew the handkerchief was in my muff all the time.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“It is very simple. I wished to apologise for my father’s behaviour.”

I felt myself blushing once again and turned aside.

“I know I should not say this of my father, but I cannot ignore the fact that he sometimes acts in a manner that –”

“You must not distress yourself, Miss Carswall. It is of no moment.”

She stamped her foot. “He treats you like a servant. It is not just. I saw him pushing you out of his way. I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Or – even better – swallow him.”

“I beg of you, do not be disturbed on my account.”

She turned her head, as though about to leave, but then looked back at me. “Pray, do not take it amiss, my talking to you in this way. You must think me very forward. I should beg your pardon.”

“On the contrary, I think you most considerate of an inferior’s feelings.”

“Oh?” Miss Carswall waited for me to go on. “Is that all?”

“I honour you for it.”

“Oh!” she said, with a different inflection, and darted into the porch.

I followed her under the canopy of evergreen leaves and branches. She stopped in the middle of the porch and looked at me. Beyond the archway into the churchyard I saw the green of the grass, the grey of the gravestones and the blue of the sky. The path from the lych-gate made a right angle as it turned towards the porch. I heard the voices of other people, but I saw no one except Miss Carswall; and no one could see us.

“In the church,” I said, “there was a tablet on the wall which –”

“Hush.”

Flora Carswall laid her hand on my arm, raised herself on tiptoe and kissed my cheek.

Shocked, I sprang back, jarring my elbow against the great iron latch on the door. Her perfume filled my nostrils, and the warmth of her lips burned like a brand on my skin. She smiled, and this time her face was full of mischief.

“This is the time and the place where such liberties are permitted, sir, or at least condoned,” she said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. “Look.”

She pointed upwards and I saw that hanging from the vault above her head was a great bush of mistletoe studded with white berries. My heart pounded in my chest.

“You must pick off one of the berries now,” she said in the same caressing voice. “But there are still plenty left.”

She turned away and stepped into the blinding sunshine of Christmas morning.