“Come along in, Mirrie.”

She shut the door and came a few steps forward.

“I don’t want to interrupt-”

“You won’t be interrupting-I wanted to see you. Come along over here and sit down.”

He got up, fetched a chair, and laid a hand on her shoulder before seating himself again. Throughout the interview which had just ended Georgina had remained standing, but Mirrie was to sit, and to sit comfortably. His glance softened as it dwelt on her. She was wearing some of the things she had bought with the cheque he had given her, a green tweed skirt, and a jumper and cardigan that went with it. The colour suited her. He said,

“Well, my dear, I’m just off to town to see Maudsley. He is my solicitor. I want to get on with the business I spoke to you about the other day. There’s no time like the present.”

“Oh- Georgina didn’t tell me-”

“ Georgina didn’t know. That is to say, I have told her that I am going to make changes in my will, but she doesn’t know that I am going up to see about it today. As a matter of fact I have only just made up my mind about that. Wills are gloomy things, and I’ll be glad to get the business over and done with. Besides I want to see you in your proper place. I want everyone to know how I think of you. It’s only right that they should. From now on it will be just the same as if you were my daughter. You have the name already, so there won’t be any need to change it, and under my will you will have just what I would leave to a daughter.”

Her hands were clasped in her lap, her eyes were lifted to his face.

“Oh, you are good to me!”

“My dear child-”

“No one has ever been good to me like you are! It’s so wonderful I can’t believe it! When you brought me here I thought how wonderful it was. And then I thought how dreadful it was going to be to go back. I used to wake up in the night and cry about it. And then you asked me whether I was happy here, and you said-and you said that if I was I could stay- always. Oh you don’t know what I felt like-you don’t know!”

Jonathan Field was considerably affected. He got out a stiff old-fashioned linen handkerchief and blew his nose, and with a quick graceful movement Mirrie was out of her chair and down on her knees beside him.

“Oh, darling-darling-darling! You can’t possibly know how grateful I am!”

He pushed the handkerchief down into his breast pocket and put an arm round her.

“Grateful, are you? Well, there’s no need for that between you and me. But you’re glad to be my little girl? That’s all I want from you, you know-just to see you happy and enjoying yourself, and to know that you’re a little bit fond of an old fellow who is quite stupidly fond of you.”

She looked up at him through her lashes.

“Is it stupid to be fond of me? No one has ever really been fond of me before.”

“My darling child!”

She said, “It’s wonderful for me. You don’t know how wonderful it is.” And then she was dropping a kiss on his hand and slipping back on to her chair, and when she was there she took a small green handkerchief out of her cardigan pocket and dabbed her eyes with it.

IT WAS NOT until the rest of the party met at lunch that Jonathan Field’s journey to town became generally known. Mrs. Fabian had apparently encountered him in the hall and delayed him to the point of frenzy whilst she considered whether it would be worth his while to go to the Army and Navy Stores and enquire whether a certain kind of rice was now available. As they settled themselves round the diningtable, now reduced to its smallest proportions, she proceeded to relate the incident.

“They always used to stock it before the war, so I thought it would be a good thing if he went and asked. The other sort is not really any good for milk puddings-at least that is what Mrs. Stokes always says, though I don’t see why. But the trouble is that I never can remember which is which. There is Indian, and Carolina rice, and one of them is good for milk puddings and the other isn’t. There wasn’t time for me to go and ask Mrs. Stokes. Really men are terribly impatient when they are starting for anywhere, and I don’t see that it could possibly matter as he was going by car, and I thought if he were just to ask them at the Stores they would be able to tell him-about which was which and the milk puddings, you know. But he seemed to be in such a hurry. Really he might have had half a dozen trains to catch instead of going all the way in his comfortable car! So I thought it would be best to leave it-especially when he said he had an appointment with Mr. Maudsley! Of course solicitors are very busy people, and I am sure they must make a great deal of money-at least my Uncle James always said they did. He was my father’s brother but they didn’t get on very well, and he kept on having lawsuits, so when he died there wasn’t any money at all. He used to get quite worked up about lawyers. I remember his getting a terribly large bill after a lawsuit he had over a dispute about some property on the borders of Wales which had come to him from his grandmother. I know he quoted a verse about it, and my mother was quite distressed. Now let me see if I can remember it-

‘Find me a parson that will not lie-’ She broke off and cast a deprecating look round the table. “Really that was very rude and uncalled for, but the person who wrote it may have had some unfortunate experience. Perhaps I had better begin again-

‘Find me a parson that will not lie,

And a webster that is leal,

And a lawyer that will not steal,

And lay these three a dead corpse by,

And by the virtue of these three

The said dead corpse shall quickened be.’

“But I’m not sure that I’ve got the lines in the right order, because after all it is quite a long time ago.”

Johnny Fabian burst out laughing and said,

“A bit hard on websters, don’t you think? I should have thought weaving was a most respectable trade-poor but honest and all that sort of thing. So Jonathan has gone up to see his solicitor, has he? Who is he going to cut out of his will?”

It was purely a matter of luck that Stokes at that moment should have been out of the room. No one who knew Johnny could have deceived himself into imagining that the mere presence of a butler would be any check upon his tongue. Mrs. Fabian said, “My dear boy!” in a tone of indulgent reproof, Georgina looked across the table at him. But he only laughed.

“Hush-not a word! What an inhibited lot we are. The more passionately interested you are in a subject, the worse form it is to mention it. Everyone is passionately interested in wills, but we mustn’t mention them.”

Anthony said, “Dry up, Johnny!” and Stokes came back into the room bearing a covered silver dish. With the ease of long practice Johnny accomplished a dexterous verbal slide.

“Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave. If you’ve got any you’ve got to keep it breeding, and if you’re not interested enough to do that you wake up one day and find it’s gone and left you! If you haven’t got the stuff you have to work frightfully hard to get it, and if I’ve got to tell the truth and shame the devil I don’t mind saying it’s a rotten prospect. When you’ve got to do a twelve-hour grind every day, what’s the good of being rich? You just end up like the millionaires who live on tabloids and spend their vacations having a rest-cure in some expensive nursing home. On the other hand there’s something dreary about being poor.”

Mrs. Fabian was beginning to help a dish of chicken and mushrooms which had been placed before her. She said,

“ Georgina, my dear-this is always so good. Mirrie-Anthony-I am sure you must be hungry, and I don’t have to ask about Johnny.”