The clergyman turned to me. “I am the Reverend Cecil Baring-Ponsonby. Not a connection to the Bessborough Ponsonbys,” he added firmly. I cudgeled my brain a moment before recalling that Ponsonby was the surname of the Earl of Bessborough’s family, a clan noted for its eccentricity since the beginning of the century when one of their young ladies became the mistress of Lord Byron and sent him her nether hairs in the post.
