‘It’s a stupid thing, but just now when I was talking about it I had the feeling – well, it’s difficult to put it into words and, as I said, stupid too, but…’

‘Yes, my dear?’

Althea gave a little laugh.

‘It does sound just plain stupid, but – it frightened me.’

‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

‘Yes, I would, and then you can laugh at me and tell me it’s all nonsense and I shall have got it off my mind. It’s like this. We have had an offer for our house…’

‘You had put it up for sale?’

‘No, that is just the thing – we hadn’t. One of the local house-agents lives up our way. We’ve known him for years, because he is a sidesman in the church we go to. Well, he saw my mother in the front garden one evening when he was passing and he stopped to admire the begonias, which have been very fine. I don’t know how they got on to talking about the house, but she seems to have given him the impression that it was too large for us. It is of course, but I’ve never thought about selling. Never. I told him so when he spoke to me about it, but he sent some people up with an order to view.’

She told Miss Silver about the Blounts.

‘He was all over it, but all she did was to say “Very nice”, as if it was something she had learnt like a parrot. Yet he goes on saying what an extraordinary fancy she has taken to the house and making out that she won’t give him any peace unless he buys it for her, and he goes on making his offers higher and higher. It’s a nice house and the garden is pretty, but it isn’t worth seven thousand pounds, and that is what he is offering now.’

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ It was the strongest expression that she allowed herself, but Althea was not to know that. She nodded.

‘And the extraordinary thing is that now the other agent, Mr Jones, has sent someone up too – a man who used to live here when he was a boy. He says he used to pass our house and think he would like to live there. He is the slick talkative kind and I didn’t like him. I told him we didn’t want to sell, and he said he knew there was someone else after the place, but whatever Mr Blount offered he was prepared to go one better. I really didn’t like him at all.’

Miss Silver asked a few questions about the house – its age, the number of rooms, the extent of the garden, how long the Grahams had been there, and who were the previous owners. To the last of these questions Althea replied that she did not know. ‘But we have been there for more than twenty years. I can’t really remember being anywhere else.’

‘It is an old house?’

‘Oh, not really. Fifty or sixty years old, I should think – not more. I told you it was all very silly, didn’t I? There isn’t anything about the house to make two men start bidding against each other to get it, but they can’t make us sell if we don’t want to. The trouble is that my mother has some idea of going on a cruise…’ She broke off and her voice changed. ‘The only thing is just to keep on saying no. As I said, they can’t make us sell.’

MRS GRAHAM WAS not feeling at all pleased. Half a dozen people had remarked upon the change in Althea’s appearance. Three of them had said how pretty she was looking, and two of them had added, ‘Just like her old self.’ Myra Hutchinson swooped down and murmured in the husky voice which she had always so much disliked, ‘Dear Mrs Graham, isn’t it lovely to have Nicky back again! Althea looks like a million pounds!’ It was really all extremely annoying. If she had known how it was going to be, she could have had a mild attack of palpitations and have stayed at home, and Thea would naturally have had to stay with her. But then she wouldn’t have been able to wear her new dress. Ella Harrison had admired it very much, and even Mrs Justice had said, ‘You are very smart, my dear.’ It seemed very hard indeed that she could not go out to a party at an old friend’s house without being annoyed by the presence of Nicholas Carey. And it was Ella Harrison who had brought him. She should have known better – she did know better. She felt very much annoyed with Ella. She leaned back in her chair and told Nettie Pimm in a failing voice that she didn’t feel very well and she thought she had better go home – ‘If you wouldn’t mind just finding Thea and telling her.’

Talking it over afterwards with Mabel and Lily, Nettie was of the opinion that Mrs Graham really didn’t like to hear her daughter praised.

‘I only said that Althea was looking sweet, and that Nicholas Carey seemed to think so, and she leaned back against the cushion with her eyes shut and said she didn’t feel well. I don’t believe she wants Althea to get married.’

Mabel and Lily agreed with her.

Althea took her mother home, got her out of the blue dress and into a comfortable house-coat, and administered sal volatile. To these accustomed tasks she brought a new equanimity. There was no impatience to be controlled, no resentment to be repressed. In the inner chambers of her mind there was happiness and freedom. What had been miraculously given back to her she would not throw away again. A line from an old song stayed with her – ‘My true love has my heart, and I have his.’ The light and warmth it gave her made it quite easy to be kind.

Mrs Graham lay on the sofa and made plans. They must go away, but not on a cruise which might give them Nicholas Carey as a fellow traveller. There was the private hotel where they had stayed two years ago. She hadn’t liked it very much, but there were other places… She lay comfortably back on the cushions and went on thinking.

They had their supper on a tray in the drawing-room, and when Althea had finished clearing away and washing up she found her mother looking at her in an affectionate and smiling manner.

‘It was a little too much for me, but it was a nice party, Thea.’

Althea said, ‘Yes.’

‘It does one good to get out of the rut and see fresh people.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘I am so glad you agree with me, darling, because I was thinking a little change would be good for both of us. You know that place we went to two years ago. I didn’t care for the hotel, but there was one right on the front which I thought looked rather nice – The Avonmouth, I think it was called. We had tea there once or twice, if you remember, and the cakes were really good. We might try that.’

Althea looked at her with a faintly startled air. She was a long way off and she didn’t want to come back. She said,

‘Go away – now? But why?’

‘Darling, you weren’t really listening. Going out this evening made me feel that it would be good for us to get away for a change.’

This time it got home. Something spoke – ‘She wants to get you away from Nicky.’ Aloud she said,

‘Mother, we couldn’t afford it.’

Mrs Graham kept her smile.

‘Now, darling, don’t be hasty. We have got to be practical about this, and I have thought it all out. You know the Mediterranean cruise we were thinking about – well, I am afraid it might be too much for me, and I hear the society is really very mixed, so perhaps something quieter. And as to not being able to afford it’ – she gave a little silvery laugh – ‘why it wouldn’t cost a quarter of what the cruise would have done. So you see, we should actually be saving money.’

Her speedwell-blue eyes looked up innocently. Althea could never remember when she had not known that look for what it was – a danger signal. Even as a child she had been able to recognize it as a warning that she was going to be asked to do something she didn’t like. She stiffened herself to resist it now.

‘We couldn’t afford the cruise, and we can’t afford to go away to an hotel like the Avonmouth. It’s quite out of the question. We are overdrawn at the bank.’

Mrs Graham sighed.

‘It sounds so sordid when you put it that way, I meant it to be a little pleasure for us both. And I am afraid it’s my fault. I oughtn’t to have got that blue dress, but it was so becoming and just right for the evening if we had gone on the cruise.’