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House with the men and Sarah stayed to help June get straight.
    June did not particularly want to get straight. She would have preferred to sit down and do a little quiet gloating – about the bliss of leaving Baggy’s house and coming to this jewel, about Robert’s happiness at moving to the country, about the joy of being so close to May. All this plus the glory of the fact that she would be seeing George at dinner. However, she acquiesced in Sarah’s determination to get the beds made up and put the kitchen in some kind of working order. They then went back to the Dower House.
    May, having tipped the men nobly, was just seeing them off.
    ‘And now I must telephone George,’ she said. ‘I want to be sure he makes an early start. There’ll be a lot of City traffic to drive through.’
    But George, when she eventually got him, had decided against driving – ‘Not in all this rain.’
    ‘It’s not too bad here,’ said May. ‘It actually stopped for a while, and it’s thinner now.’
    ‘It isn’t here. It’s very, very thick and looks determined. We’ll come down on the 6.36 and eat on the train. That’ll save you cooking dinner.’
    ‘But I’ve got steaks.’
    ‘Steaks will keep,’ said George firmly.
    Well, they would. And if she didn’t have to cook a full meal she could unpack her clothes and all George’s things. Also she was determined, from now on, never to nag George about what time he got home or what meals he missed. So she agreed cheerfully, and assured George the move had gone splendidly. Then she rang off and said brightly, ‘Tea now, and I could eat an egg. I could eat two eggs, possibly three. Sarah, stay and eat three eggs with us.’
    ‘I didn’t know anyone ever ate three eggs,’ said Sarah, ‘but I could certainly eat some . I can’t tell you what lunch was like. Well, our poor old cook’s nearly eighty.’
    ‘I could teach you to cook,’ said May.
    ‘But if I did the cooking, our poor old dear couldn’t do the housework I do. And anyway, she’d be terribly upset if I cooked.’
    As far as May knew, the only other help at the Hall was an elderly man who combined the offices of butler, valet and male nurse. She had a great desire to cope with Sarah – ask about her circumstances, advise her, help her. But Sarah, in spite of her frightful old clothes, her friendliness, and her habit of deferring to May and June, retained a touch of aristocratic aloofness. ‘Or am I being class-conscious?’ May asked herself, starting to get tea. ‘I only know I’d as soon offer advice to royalty.’
    Sarah, after her eggy tea – never before had she handled an electric toaster – said she must go, in time to have sherry with her grandfather. The rain had now definitely stopped and there was a hint of watery late-afternoon sunshine beyond the Hall. May, gazing at it through the bow window, said, ‘I never realised this window faces west. Then the others must face south.’
    She opened the French window, to let Sarah out, and let in a gust of cool, damp air.
    ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ said June.
    ‘Heavens, no. Everything’s sopping wet.’ May hastily closed the window behind Sarah. ‘And I’ve lots to do. Come and see what you think of Baggy’s room. That awful wardrobe and dressing table have wrecked everything.’
    ‘They won’t look as bad to me as they do to you. I’ve seen them every day for ten years.’
    But they looked worse than June had expected. Baggy’s Edwardian house had been their spiritual home. This austere room wasn’t. But at least she could praise the curtains. ‘They must have cost you a fortune – for those enormous windows.’
    ‘Yes, they’re good ones, but I’d have liked something more modern. George didn’t think I could risk it. I wanted to get some good rugs but when Baggy heard about the parquet he said he didn’t want it covered.’
    ‘He sets a lot of store by parquet. That’s the old house agent coming out.’
    ‘Let’s make