Our vicar, Sarah Lane, was thirty-four and had only been at St Michael's for a year. She rode a bicycle everywhere and had a laugh you could hear from the other end of the churchyard.

She came to see me one afternoon in June. She said it was a pastoral visit.

We sat in my kitchen with tea and Victoria sponge. Sarah looked around at Arthur's furniture. The table. The chairs. The dresser with the carved acorns.

“He carved acorns on everything, didn't he?” she said.

“He loved oak trees.”

“The church hall doors have acorns on them too.”

“They do.”

Sarah put down her cup. She looked at me with a little smile.

“Joan,” she said. “I read the donor's conditions very carefully. Every group in the village to use it for free. And the old oak doors restored. Not ‘any old doors.' Those doors. Made by a local craftsman in 1979.”

She tilted her head.

“A millionaire from London doesn't know who made the church hall doors in 1979.”

I didn't say anything. I cut her another slice of cake.

Sarah laughed her big laugh.

“I won't tell a soul,” she said. “But I'm very glad I know.”