“Were you ever in the army?”

“I’m delicate,” said Miss Orrincourt with an air of satisfaction. “Bronchial asthma. I was fixed up with E.N.S.A. but my chest began a rival show. The boys in the orchestra said they couldn’t hear themselves play. So I got out. I got an understudy at the Unicorn. It was that West End you barked your shins on the ice. Then,” said Miss Orrincourt simply, “Noddy noticed me.”

“Was that an improvement?” asked Troy.

“Wouldn’t you have thought so? I mean, ask yourself. Well, you know. A man in his position. Top of the tree. Mind, I think he’s sweet. I’m crazy about him, in a way. But I’ve got to look after myself, haven’t I? If you don’t look after yourself in this old world nobody’s going to look after you. Well, between you and I, Mrs. Alleyn, things were a bit tricky. Till yesterday. Look, a girl doesn’t stick it out in an atmosphere like this, unless there’s a future in it, does she? Not if she’s still conscious, she doesn’t.”

Miss Orrincourt inhaled deeply and then made a petulant little sound. “Well, I am fed up,” she said as if Troy had offered some word of criticism. “I don’t say he hasn’t given me things. This coat’s rather nice, don’t you think? It belonged to a lady who was in the Wrens. I saw it advertised. She’d never worn it. Two hundred and dirt cheap, really.”

They jogged on in a silence broken only by the clop of Rosinante’s hooves. There was the little railway Halt and there, beyond a curve in the low hills, the roofs of Ancreton village.

“Well, I mean to say,” said Miss Orrincourt, “when I fixed up with Noddy to come here I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I’ll say I didn’t! Well, you know. On the surface it looked like a win. It’s high up, and my doctor says my chest ought to be high up, and there wasn’t much doing in the business. My voice isn’t so hot, and I haven’t got the wind for dancing like I had, and the ‘legitimate’ gives me a pain in the neck. So what have you?”

Stumped for an answer, as she had so often been since her arrival at Ancreton, Troy said: “I suppose the country does feel a bit queer when you’re used to bricks and mortar.”

“It feels, to be frank, like death warmed up. Not that I don’t say you could do something with that Jack’s-come-home up there. You know. Week-end parties, with the old bunch coming down and all the fun and games. And no Ancreds. Well, I wouldn’t mind Ceddie. He’s one-of-those, of course, but I always think they’re good mixers in their own way. I’ve got it all worked out. Something to do, isn’t it, making plans? It may come up in the lift one of these days; you never know. But no Ancreds when I throw a party in the Baronial Hall. You bet, no Ancreds.”

“Sir Henry?” Troy ventured.

“Well,” said Miss Orrincourt, “I was thinking of later on, if you know what I mean.”

“Good Lord!” Troy ejaculated involuntarily.

“Mind, as I say, I’m fond of Noddy. But it’s a funny old world, and there you have it. I must say it’s nice having someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t an Ancred. I can’t exactly confide in Ceddie, because he’s the heir, and he mightn’t quite see things my way.”

“Possibly not.”

“No. Although he’s quite nice to me.” The thin voice hardened. “And, don’t you worry, I know why,” Miss Orrincourt added. “He’s stuck for cash, silly kid, and he wants me to use my influence. He’d got the burns on his doorstep when the jitterbugs cleaned up his place, and then he went to the Jews and now he doesn’t know where to go. He’s scared to turn up at the flat. He’ll have to wait till I’m fixed up myself. Then we’ll see. I don’t mind much,” she said, moving restlessly, “which way it goes, so long as I’m fixed up.”

They faced each other across the bucket-cart. Troy looked at her companion’s beautifully painted face. Behind it stood wraithlike trees, motionless, threaded with mist. It might have been a sharp mask, by a surrealist, hung on that darkling background, thought Troy.

A tiny rhythmic sound grew out of the freezing air. “I can hear a cat mewing somewhere,” said Troy, pulling Rosinante up.

“That’s a good one!” said Miss Orrincourt, laughing and coughing. “A cat mewing! It’s my chest, dear. This damn night air’s catching me. Can you hurry that brute up?”

Troy stirred him up, and presently they clopped sedately down the one street of Ancreton village and pulled up outside a small chemist’s shop, that seemed also to be a sort of general store.

“Shall I get whatever it is?” Troy offered.

“All right. I don’t suppose there’s anything worth looking at in the shop. No perfume. Thanks, dear. It’s the stuff for the kid’s ringworm. The doctor’s ordered it. It’s meant to be ready.”

The elderly rubicund chemist handed Troy two bottles tied together. One had an envelope attached. “For the children up at the Manor?” he said. “Quite so. And the small bottle is for Sir Henry.” When she had climbed back into the governess-cart, she found that he had followed her and stood blinking on the pavement. “They’re labelled,” he said fussily. “If you’d be good enough to point out the enclosed instructions. The dosage varies, you know. It’s determined by the patient’s weight. Dr. Withers particularly asked me to draw Miss Able’s attention. Quite an unusual prescription, actually. Thallium acetate. Yes. Both labelled. Thank you. One should exercise care… So sorry we’re out of wrapping paper. Good evening.” He gave a little whooping chuckle and darted back into his shop. Troy was about to turn Rosinante when Miss Orrincourt, asking her to wait, scrambled out and went into the shop, returning in a few minutes with a bulge in her pocket.

“Just something that caught my eye,” she said. “Righty ho, dear! Home John and don’t spare the horses.” On their return journey she exclaimed repeatedly on the subject of the children’s ringworm. She held the collar of her fur coat across her mouth and her voice sounded unreal behind it. “Is it tough, or is it tough? That poor kid Panty. All over her head, and her hair’s her one beauty, you might say.”

“You and Panty are rather by way of being friends, aren’t you?” said Troy.

“She’s a terrible kiddy, really. You know. The things she does! Well! Scribbling across Noddy’s mirror with a lake-liner and such a common way to put it, whatever she thought. A few more little cracks like that and she’ll cook her goose if she only knew it. The mother’s wild about it, naturally. Did you know the kid’s favourite in the Will? She won’t hold that rôle down much longer if she lets her sense of comedy run away with her. And then the way she put that paint on your banister! I call it the limit.”

Troy stared at her. “How did you know about that?”

A spasm of coughing shook her companion. “I was crazy,” gasped the muffled voice, “to come out in this lousy fog. Might have known. Pardon me, like a ducks, if I don’t talk.”

“Did Panty tell you?” Troy persisted. “I haven’t told anyone. Did she actually tell you she did it?”

A violent paroxysm prevented Miss Orrincourt from speaking, but with her lovely and enormous eyes fixed on Troy and still clasping her fur collar over the lower part of her face, she nodded three times.

“I’d never have believed it,” said Troy slowly. “Never.”

Miss Orrincourt’s shoulders quivered and shook. “For all the world,” Troy thought suddenly, “as if she was laughing.”