And one of the ladies of the Altar Guild had done the best she could, obscuring the upper levels with large, drooping peonies and twining ivy over the centaurs and one of the sphinxes. It was also newer, and therefore shinier, which tended to hide some of the details. It didn’t look half bad.

“Good Lord,” Verity said. “Is that it?” Her voice echoed back and forth among the fan vaulting. “It’s absolutely hideous.”

“Yes, well, that’s already been established. Keep it down.” I pointed at a pair of workmen at the back of the nave. One of them, in a blue shirt and blackened neckerchief, was shifting boards from one pile to another. The second, his mouth full of nails, was hammering loudly on a board laid across a sawhorse.

“Sorry,” Verity whispered contritely. “It was just rather a shock. I’d never seen it before.” She pointed gingerly at one of the decorations. “What is that, a camel?”

“A unicorn,” I said. “The camels are on this side, here, next to the depiction of Joseph’s being sold into Egypt.”

“And what’s that?” she said, pointing at a large group above a cast-iron garland of roses and thistles.

“The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,” I said. “The Victorians liked art that was representational.”

“And crowded,” she said. “No wonder Lady Schrapnell was having trouble getting a craftsman to make a reproduction.”

“I had made sketches,” I said. “I think the craftsmen refused on moral grounds.”

Verity surveyed it intently, her head to one side. “That cannot possibly be a seahorse.”

“Neptune’s chariot,” I said. “And this over here is the Parting of the Red Sea. Next to Leda and the Swan.”

She reached out and touched the swan’s outstretched wing. “You were right about it being indestructible.”

I nodded, looking at its cast-iron solidity. Even the roof falling in on it would scarcely have dented it.

“And hideous-looking things are never destroyed,” she went on. “It’s a law. St. Pancras Station wasn’t touched in the Blitz. And neither was the Albert Memorial. And it is hideous.”

I agreed. Even the drooping peonies and the ivy couldn’t hide that fact.

“Oh!” Tossie said behind us, in a transport of joy. “That’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

She fluttered up, Terence in tow, and stood gazing at it, her gloved hands clasped under her chin. “Oh, Terence, isn’t it the most cunning thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Well…” Terence said dubiously.

“Look at the darling cupids! And the Sacrifice of Isaac! O! O!” She uttered a series of screamlets that made the workman doing the hammering look up in irritation. He saw Tossie, spit his nails out onto the floor, and nudged his companion. The companion looked up from his sawing. The hammerer said something to him that made him burst into a wide and toothless smile. He tipped his cloth cap to Tossie.

“I know,” I murmured to Verity. “Get their names.”

As the workmen were under the impression that I was going to report them to the curate for leering, it took some time, but when I got back, Tossie was still going on about the bishop’s bird stump.

“O, look!” she mini-screamed. “There’s Salome!”

“Widge and Baggett,” I whispered to Verity. “They don’t know the curate’s name. They refer to him as Bug-Eyes.”

“And look,” Tossie exclaimed. “There’s the platter, and there’s John the Baptist’s head!”

And this was all very well, but so far it didn’t look like a life-changing experience. Tossie had ooh-ed and ahh-ed like this over the china wooden shoe at the jumble sale. And over Miss Stiggins’s cross-stitched needlecases. And even if she was having an Epiphany (depicted above Neptune and his chariot on the side facing the pillar), where was Mr. C?

“O, I do wish I had one,” Tossie enthused. “For our dear home, Terence, after we’re married. One exactly like it!”

“Isn’t it rather large?” Terence said.

The south door banged open, and Baine came in, looking like something from the wreck of the Hesperus, and carrying an oilcloth-wrapped parcel.

“Baine!” Tossie called, and he squelched his way over to us.

“I’ve brought your shawl, miss,” he said, folding the tarp back from a corner of a pew and setting the bundle down and beginning to unwrap it.

“Baine, what do you think of this?” Tossie said, indicating the bishop’s bird stump. “Don’t you agree it’s the most beautiful piece of art you’ve ever seen?”

Baine straightened and looked at it, blinking water out of his eyes.

There was a considerable pause while Baine wrung out his sleeve. “No.”

“No?” Tossie said, making it into a screamlet.

“No.” He bent over the pew, opening the oilcloth to reveal the shawls, neatly folded and perfectly dry. He straightened again, reached inside his coat for a damp handkerchief, wiped his hands on it, and picked the pink shawl up by the corners. “Your shawl, miss,” he said, holding it out to her.

“I don’t want it now,” Tossie said. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said, folding the shawl carefully and bending to lay it back in the bundle.

“How dare you say that?” Tossie said, her cheeks very pink.

Baine straightened. “I beg your pardon, miss. I thought you were asking my opinion.”

“I was, but I expected you to tell me you thought it was beautiful.”

He bowed slightly. “As you wish, miss?’ He looked at it, his face impassive. “It is very beautiful.”

“I don’t wish,” she said, stamping her little foot. “How can you not think it’s beautiful? Look at the cunning little Babes in the Wood! And the sweet little sparrow with a strawberry leaf in its mouth!”

“As you wish, miss.”

“And stop saying that,” she said, her ruffles quivering with rage. “Why do you say it’s an atrocity?”

“This,” he extended his hand toward the bishop’s bird stump, “is cluttered, artificial, and,” he looked pointedly at the Babes in the Wood, “mawkishly sentimental, intended to appeal to the aesthetically uneducated middle class.”

Tossie turned to Terence. “Are you going to allow him to say such things?” she demanded.

“It is a bit cluttered,” Terence said. “And what’s that supposed to be?” he added, pointing to the Minotaur, “A horse or a hippopotamus?”

“A lion,” Tossie said, outraged. “And there’s Androcles taking a thorn out of its paw.

I looked at Verity. She was biting her lip.

“And it is not mawkishly sentimental,” Tossie said to Baine.

“As you wish, miss.”

His life was saved by the timely arrival of the curate and Mrs. Mering from behind the hoardings.

“The Roman cavalry,” Verity murmured.

“Directly beneath Bacchus, holding a bunch of grapes,” I murmured back.

“I do hope you will consider having a jumble sale at your bazaar,” Mrs. Mering was saying, steering the curate toward us. “People have so many treasures in their attics that make excellent jumble sale items.”

She stopped at the sight of the bishop’s bird stump. “Something like this, for instance. Or an umbrella stand. Vases are so useful. We had a china one with a painted waterfall at our fête which sold for—”

Tossie interrupted her. “You think this is beautiful, don’t you?” she said to the curate.

“Indeed I do,” he said. “I consider it an example of all that is best in modern art,” he said. “Excellent representations and a high moral tone. Particularly the depiction of the Seven Plagues of Egypt. It was donated a number of years ago by the Trubshaw family on the death of Emily Jane Trubshaw. She had purchased it at the Great Exhibition, and it was her most treasured possession. The vicar tried to dissuade them from donating. He felt it should remain in the family’s possession, but they were adamant?”

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Tossie said.