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surplices.’
    ‘Is that all?’ Hervey was bemused. ‘The choir has been surpliced since I myself was in it.’
    ‘And your father has taken to preaching in his, instead of a Genevan gown.’
    Hervey was even more astonished at the insignificance of the offence.
    ‘There is a little more to it than that, is there not, Mama?’ suggested Elizabeth carefully.
    ‘Oh, I do not suppose they will let him off lightly. There’ll be other objections, I’ll be bound.’
    Elizabeth raised her eyebrows the merest touch, but her brother was already alerted to the point. ‘What might these other objections be?’ he asked.
    Elizabeth glanced at her mother to see if she wished to take up the question herself, but Mrs Hervey evidently did not. ‘He has taken to celebrating the Lord’s Supper during the week.’
    ‘But that is scarcely offensive to the bishop, is it? Father is anyway obliged by rubric to say morning and evening prayer. To what can there be objection in adding the Communion?’
    ‘The Prayer Book forbids the celebration of Communion privately,’ said his mother, with another heavy sigh.
    ‘But on this all may not be lost,’ said Elizabeth, with a breeziness intended to lift her mother’s rapidly flagging spirits. ‘For we might yet find sufficient parishioners to attend.’
    ‘At least until the fire has died down,’ suggested Hervey.
    ‘Quite.’ Elizabeth frowned. ‘If only he would not be so . . .
Romish
, as the archdeacon calls it, when he celebrates.’
    ‘Romish? How so?’ Hervey was finally alerted to the true seriousness of his father’s situation.
    Elizabeth looked anxiously at her mother, who purposefully turned her gaze to the window. ‘He places candles on the communion table and stands eastwards. With his back to the congregation, that is.’
    ‘Though there
isn’t
one,’ smiled Hervey. But he knew it was a practice – as well as the candles – that would bring strife. ‘Is any of this of a Sunday, too?’
    ‘No, only the surplice for his sermon.’
    ‘That much is as well,’ opined Mrs Hervey. ‘Though if he speaks any more with Mr Keble, heaven knows where it will all end!’
    ‘Mama,’ protested Elizabeth. ‘You cannot blame Mr Keble. Father has held these opinions for many years before he visited with us. You may as well blame the Jesuit at Wardour, for Father has dined with him many more times than he has ever spoken withMr Keble.’ It was well known in the village – and therefore in the diocese – that the Reverend Thomas Hervey had for many years enjoyed monthly conversation with Father Hazelwood. It was even supposed by some that these were occasions for auricular confession, and yet this had never given offence (as far as the family was aware), for such was Mr Hervey’s genuine piety and devotion to his parish. It was true that he had some years ago written a monograph on the life of Archbishop Laud, but since it remained unpublished its support for Laudian excesses could only be imagined.
    ‘Well, we may say goodbye to all hopes of preferment at any rate,’ complained Mrs Hervey. ‘We shall not see even a canon residentiary now!’ And with that she rose and left the room.
    Elizabeth knew that her father had long considered himself past all preferment, but she was also aware that her mother still entertained some hope of easeful retirement in a cathedral close, and it had occurred to her more than once that her own life might take a more lively turn were she to be translated thus. And much as Hervey would have been loath to quit the place in which he had been born, he too had hoped that his father might see out his days in such comfort, for there was little enough prospect that the modest family annuity would allow him to do so.
    It appeared that John Keble had visited twice while he had been away, and Elizabeth had been to his priesting at Trinitytide the year before. Hervey imagined that to his father the young clergyman was a remembrance of his elder son.