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the Book. As a way of easing myself into it gently, I rang Father William and asked if I could come and look at the church records.
    “Oh, do,” he said enthusiastically. “Come over right away. Tuesday is always such a dismal day, don’t you think? It will be so cheering to have a nice chat.”
    The rectory at Mere Barton, a fine early Victorian building, has long since been secularized and sold off (to a film producer who lives in it for only a few months of the year), so Father William now lives in a new bungalow built on what used to be the vegetable garden of the old house.
    He greeted me effusively and ushered me into a large room with bookshelves covering every wall.
    “Do come into the study,” he said. “I’m tempted to call it the library, but that would be too pretentious, don’t you think?”
    “It’s a charming room,” I said. And, indeed, it was. The bookshelves were painted white so the general effect wasn’t at all oppressive. Indeed, the brightly colored jackets on some of the books (no solemn leather-bound sermons here) gave the room a positively lively feel. There were a couple of armchairs and several small antique tables and, facing the window, a handsome mahogany desk with an expensive reading lamp. A large flower arrangement stood on a Pembroke table and there was a screen worked in gros point in the empty hearth of a proper fireplace. Over the fireplace hung a large oil painting of a gentleman in eighteenth-century dress leaning elegantly against a column in a formal landscape, and I wondered if he was an ancestor or merely “bought-in.”
    “How sweet of you to say so. One does one’s best, but it’s hard to achieve any sort of elegance in a bungalow. ” His voice sharpened as he pronounced the word. “How one regrets the old rectory—such vandalism!”
    “It does seem a shame,” I said.
    “I was tempted by the vicarage at Higher Barton,” he said. “You know I have three parishes (so exhausting), but it was appalling. The former incumbent lived there and he had four children (imagine!). So, of course, everything was in a dreadful state. And the church commissioners refused to do more than the absolute minimum, so it was quite impossible. Besides, Mere Barton is quite the most sympathetic of the three villages.”
    I didn’t know the two other villages in question and wondered idly what special qualities in Mere Barton and its inhabitants he found so sympathetic.
    “Well,” I said brightly, “I’m sure everyone is delighted that you chose to live here, even if it is,” I added unkindly, “in a bungalow.”
    “I know—that was unworthy, wasn’t it. But I do feel it’s easier to live a good life in pleasant surroundings.”
    “What does Gilbert say in Iolanthe ? ‘ Hearts just as true and fair/May live in Belgrave Square/As in the lowly air of Seven Dials.’ ”
    He gave me one of his charming smiles. “Now you’re laughing at me, and quite right too. But it would be so nice to have been one of those clergymen like Kilvert or Parson Woodford (all that lovely food!) or Sidney Smith—just down the road at Combe Florey—writing splendid letters or keeping a wonderful literary journal.”
    “Well,” I said, “you have your radio talks. I suppose that’s the modern equivalent.”
    “Oh, do you think so? What a delightful thought. And I suppose I do take a lot of my material from the village, as they did. But, dear me, what must you think of me, chattering away—I’ll just go and get the coffee.”
    He went out of the room and I took the opportunity of going over to examine a photograph on the narrow mantelpiece above the fireplace. It was of a strikingly handsome man in army uniform—I thought a colonel, but I’m never sure about crowns and things. He looked very stern and unbending and his piercing gaze seemed to accuse me of prying, so I averted my eyes and was innocently admiring the eighteenth-century gentleman in his rural setting when Father William