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perturbed by her great-aunt's pallor, Lydie enquired casually, `Do you see your doctor at all?" 'Dr Stokes? She's always popping in.'

    `What for?' Lydie asked in alarm.

    `Nothing in particular. She just likes my chocolate cake.'

     

    Lydie had to stamp down hard on her need to know more than that. Great-Aunt Alice was anti people discussing their ailments. `Are you taking any medication?' Lydie asked tentatively.

    `Do you know anybody over eighty who isn't?' Alice Gough bounced back. `How's your mother? Has she come to terms yet with the fact dear Oliver wants to take a wife?"

    'You're wicked,' Lydie accused.

    `Only the good die young,' Alice Gough chuckled, and took Lydie on a tour of her garden. They had lunch of bread, cheese and tomatoes, though Lydie observed that the elderly lady ate very little.

    Lydie visited with her great-aunt for some while, then, thinking she was probably wanting her afternoon nap, said she would make tracks back to Beamhurst Court. `Come back with me!' she said on impulse-her mother would kill her. `You could stay until after the wedding, and-'

    `Your mother would love that!"

    'Oh, do come,' Lydie appealed.

    `I've got too much to do here,' Alice Gough refused stubbornly.

    `You don't-' Lydie broke off. She had been going to say You don't look well. She changed it to, `You're a little pale, Aunty. Are you sure you're all right?"

    'At my age I'm entitled to creak a bit!' And with that Lydie had to be satisfied.

    `I'll come over early next Saturday,' she said as her great-aunt came out to her car with her.

    `Tell your mother I'll leave my gardening gloves at home,' Alice Gough answered completely poker faced.

    Lydie had to laugh. `Wicked, did I say?' And she drove away.

    The nearer she got to Beamhurst Court, though, the more her spirits started to dip. She was worried about her great-aunt, she was worried about the cold war escalating between her parents, and she was worried, quite desperately worried, about where in the world she was going to find fiftyfive thousand pounds with which to pay Jonah Marriott.

     

    And, having thought about him-not that he and that wretched money were ever very far from the front of her mind-she could not stop thinking about him-in Paris. She hoped it kept fine for him. That made her laugh at herself-she was getting as sour as her mother.

    `Aunty doesn't look so well,' Lydie reported to her mother.

    `What's the matter with her?"

    'She didn't say, but...'

    `She wouldn't! Typical!' Hilary Pearson sniffed. `Some man called Charles Hillier has been on the phone for you.' `Charlie. He's Donna's brother. Did he say why he phoned?"

    'I told him to ring back.'

    Poor Charlie; he was as shy as she had been one time. But while to a large extent she had grown out of her shyness, Charlie never had. He had probably been terrified of her mother. Lydie went up to her room and dialled his number. `I'm sorry I was out when you rang,' she apologised. She was very fond of Charlie. He was never going to set her world on fire, but she thought of him as a close friend.

    `Did I ring your mother at a bad time?' he asked nervously.

     

    'No-she's a little busy. My brother's getting married next Saturday.' Lydie covered the likelihood that her mother had been rude to Charlie if he had been in stammering mode.

    'Ah. Right,' he said, and went on to say he had planned to ask her to go to the theatre with him tonight, and had been shaken when he'd rung Donna to hear that she had already left Donna's home. `You're helping with the wedding, I expect,' he went on. `Would you have any free time? I've got the tickets and everything. I thought we'd have a meal afterwards and you could stay the night here, if you like. That is... You've probably got something else arranged?' he ended diffidently.

    'I'd love to go to the theatre with you,' Lydie accepted. `Would it put you out if I stayed?"

    'Your bed's already made up,' he said happily back, and she could almost see his face