The ducal pew in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Halvergate had a fireplace in it, and that was the first thing Frances Blakeney had not expected. It stood against the north wall of the chancel like a small panelled room that had lost its way and wandered into the house of God, with a door that latched, a floor raised a step above the nave, green baize cushions faded to the colour of pond water, and, in the corner, a little iron grate with a fender, swept and laid but not lit. Above the grate hung a board painted with the Ten Commandments.
Above the Commandments, very new and very black, hung the hatchment of the fourth Duke of Halvergate: the lozenge of the family arms on its field of sable, the otter and the fish, the motto Patiens et Fidus, and a little gilt skull at the bottom that seemed to Frances to be grinning at her for her impertinence.
"Is it for toasting things?" whispered Robin, looking at the grate.
"It is for keeping dukes warm while they are told they are miserable sinners," said Frances. "Sit up. Keep your hands in your lap."
"Will he toast things in it?"
"I very much doubt he will toast anything in front of the parish. Hush now."
It was the second Sunday in September, in the year 1819, and a little before eleven in the morning. The bell had been going for a quarter of an hour, a single cracked note that came down through the tower like somebody knocking on a cask, and the parish of Halvergate had been coming in underneath it: farmers in their Sunday drab, their wives in straw bonnets with the ribbons turned, a row of charity children from the school in the village with their hair flattened with water, and a great many people who had looked at the ducal pew as they came up the aisle, and looked again, and nudged each other.
Frances kept her eyes on her prayer book. She had chosen her place with care. She had got here early, before the bell, and walked in through the south porch with Robin's hand in hers as though she had every right to, and she had opened the door of the pew and sat down in it and arranged her skirts, and when the verger came hurrying up from the vestry with his gown flapping and his face the colour of a boiled ham she had said, very pleasantly, "Good morning. I am waiting for His Grace."
"Ma'am, you cannot sit there."