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leaving that morning to take up a new post as companion to a lady in Cannes. She was a distant connection of Dr Pelman and came from time to time to restore order in a masculine household where disorder sometimes came close to chaos.
    â€˜Miss Bondless is an exception,’ her father conceded. ‘She has wide interests.’
    â€˜And courage,’ Sarah said. ‘Not that she says much about all she’s gone through.’
    Even Alex was a little in awe of a woman who had been within earshot of German howitzers, endured air-raids when she nursed as a VAD in a casualty dressing station on the Western Front and survived the sinking of the Britannic when it was torpedoed on the way to Malta. Since then she had managed a home for war orphans in London, had been a prison visitor, secretary to more than one charitable organization, and had shown no sign whatever of needing the support of a husband.
    â€˜A remarkable woman,’ Edward repeated. ‘But look at Miss Burdon, left to run a successful family business and making a hash of it. Look at Mrs Judd. Look at Mrs Grey.’
    Margot looked at each of the three as bidden. Any similarity between them, especially between Mrs Judd and Mrs Grey had not occurred to her.
    â€˜You’re thinking of our generation, Edward,’ her mother pointed out. ‘Girls growing up now will find a husband, surely.’
    Husbands, it seemed, had to be found; they did not materialize of their own accord. Doubts as to her own ability to search successfully inclined Margot to take her father’s advice. She must somehow, albeit in the remote future, be able to earn her own living. Miss Burdon did, if only just; Mrs Judd did by taking in washing; on the other hand, Mrs Grey did not.
    â€˜No,’ her father said when she mentioned Mrs Grey’s abstention from work. ‘That’s just the point.’
    â€˜I wonder if Linden will be able to earn her own living.’
    â€˜We must hope so. Otherwise.…’ From Sarah’s glance at her husband Margot understood that otherwise Linden would be faced with the ordeal of searching for a husband, an ordeal which she herself hoped to escape.
    â€˜What shall I do? About earning my living?’
    â€˜Well,’ – his daughter’s brisk acceptance of her lot found Edward unprepared – ‘you must work hard at school and pass your exams and then we’ll see.’
    Margot relaxed. The path ahead if not smooth was less stony than she had feared. She worked quite hard already: not being clever like Alex, she had to. Unfortunately the topic prompted her father also to think of Alex.
    â€˜It’s time he settled down.’
    The French Foreign Legion as a choice of career had lost its appeal, as had medicine (like poor old Pelman), mining engineering (like poor old Dad), the stage (he hadn’t dared to mention it). At present he favoured the law. As a barrister he would confound the judiciary, the public, the innocent and the guilty with the eloquence of his pleas.
    â€˜If he fails his matric this term,’ Edward said, ‘he’ll have to leave Bishop Cosin’s and go somewhere else for a year’s cramming. He can’t go on picking and choosing.’
    The Humberts were comfortably off. Edward would inherit his father’s share in a family shipping company, importers of timber from Scandinavia mainly for pit props. In his early twenties, he had reacted from trade and commerce in favour of the ministry, but had soon found himself unable to accept its orthodoxy. He abandoned theology and trained as a mining engineer. Spiritual guidance was questionable as to the form it should take: the need for coal was indisputable, its quality easier to assess.
    But the imagination and compassion that had drawn him to a pastoral vocation remained unchanged. He was efficient and practical in his present position as agent to the Fellside and District Coal Company but he found it