Heavily she moved away. The chapel had become a pit of disappointment. She had ruined it all by saying the wrong thing.

But he called after her: 'Find a few favours to do your cousin that will make her happier. And come back here a moment: He enclosed -her wrist with his fingers. Warmth seeped from his flesh to hers. 'Go in peace. Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater. . : His blessing fell like rain and his I4 gaze followed her hand as she touched her forehead, breast, left and right shoulders.

Anne's steward was waiting outside the chapel. Isabel smiled tenderly and floated away, her skirts brushing the wainscotting. Behind, in a long train, came all the responsibilities the priest had given her.

When she reached the schoolroom she thought her face must be shining like a statue of the Virgin Mary. She sat opposite Susannah, deaf to Master Turner's instruction. Her hands felt gentle on the edge of the table and she was distracted by the problem of how to make Susannah happy. He could not have set a more difficult task.

At midday Isabel passed her own bread to her cousin. Of course Susannah nudged it back. A tussle of wills followed which Isabel finally allowed her cousin to win. She ate the bread.

In the end she had to resort to the most difficult prayer of all.

If grandmother does decide to go on pilgrimage, let her take Susannah and not me.

When a priest was staying at Oakshott there were two masses a day and, after confessions had been heard, communion. Everyone attended except a couple of manservants who kept guard. From a secret place deep in the house Anne Winshawe, accompanied by the steward, Oswald Fairbrother, unlocked the chalice, an ancient cup studded with three emeralds that had belonged to the Winshawes for two hundred years, the embossed plate called the paten for the host, the silk burse, the chalice veil and the linen altar cloths. These things held a powerful magic because they were kept hidden most of the time and were priceless. Nobody touched them but Anne, Oswald and occasionally Martha who was allowed to do the polishing, starching and pressing.

During mass Oswald .served on the altar and he appeared first from behind the screen, grey beard trimmed very neat. Next came the priest. It was like the sudden appearance of a rainbow for he wore a floating chasuble striped in silks of crimson, green, cream, black and violet. 'Typical Jesuit trick: sniffed Nicholas Turner later. 'Sheer affectation. It's supposed to be a vestment for all occasions, feasts, funerals and ordinary days.' But Isabel thought the cloak beautiful, a shimmer of brilliant colour in a house of dark corners.

The saying of mass was forbidden by law and priests often hurried through it in case they were caught in the act but this man took his time. Every gesture he made was weighted with meaning. Isabel felt so bound to him that the movements of his body and the sound of his voice hurt her, as if they had been wrung from her own. And the familiarity of the ritual drew her like a diver into a deep pool. Each word he spoke, though she had heard it a hundred times, was new and lovely.

At communion she knelt at his feet. He stooped over her and she closed her eyes. His finger brushed her lower lip and the host was a whisper on her tongue.

 Isabel lay awake that night, not tortured by guilt for once but in a fever of hope. Her conscience had been cleared not just of petty sins but of frustration. The priest had given her a future.

She turned away from Susannah and travelled back to yesterday. The sight of him springing through the sunlit herb garden was as vivid as ever. His pleasure in movement and disregard for rules lay at the heart of his difference.

'So, Isabel: he had said. He had given her name a singing quality. ,

‘Isabel.'

There was someone else in the room. The night sky on the other side of the lattice ~as blotted out by a heavy figure standing over the bed. A voice hissed: 'Isabel. Wake up.'