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nearly took one of the Stately Gateposts with him.
    When I went back inside Netta was leaning in the Office doorway looking worn. “Hello, love,” I said, “how’s it going?” She grinned at me, but the old sparkle just wasn’t there. “He’s been an absolute
bugger
,” she said. “I don’t care if he never comes back, I don’t want to set eyes on him again. Or his expensive tooth,” she added vindictively.
    Dangerous talk that, from a Class A to an inferior likeme; I was moderately surprised. “Well, at least he’s out of the way for a couple of days,” I said. “How’s it feel to be in charge?”
    She stuck her lip out. “I’m not in charge,” she said. “I couldn’t be, I’m not even cleared. Nobody knows he’s gone, he’s just left me to cook the books. There’ll be hell to pay if we get a spot check.”
    “We’ll face that as and when,” I said cheerfully. “In the meantime, you look as if you could use a break.”
    She shook her head. “No chance,” she said. “You should see the stuff he’s left me to do, I shan’t get through the half of it. And he wants it all ready when he gets back.”
    I know how to be firm, when the occasion demands. I took her arm and pulled. She came with me, it seemed not too unwillingly. “The first thing we’re going to do,” I said, “is have a cuppa. We’ll nick that tin of Orange Pekoe he keeps on top of the cupboard, the one he thinks I don’t know about. Then you can come down to the brook. I’ve got some sketching to do; and you need the fresh air.”
    She looked doubtful, then rebellious. “I’m damned if I don’t,” she said. “The work will just have to wait, none of it’s urgent anyway. How’s your new painting coming on?”
    The afternoon turned out to be one of those you remember for a long time. We walked along to the deep part by the bend, where the willows cast a cool green shade; I set the easel up, she lounged on the bank beside me and watched. It was nearly full summer, the irises showing colour and a haze of blue over the brooklime. Damsel flies staggered about above the reed beds like little bright World War One biplanes; a cow was lowing somewhere in the distance, but there were no other sounds at all.
    I worked for an hour or so, then sat back. I lit my pipe and propped a sketchbook on my knee. Shehalf turned to me and grinned. “It’s marvellous,” she said. “I feel better already.”
    “Shush,” I said. “Don’t move, I’ve just seen Coventina.”
    “What?” she said. “Where?”
    “Keep still. You’ll see her in a minute.”
    In fact she kept still a good deal longer than a minute, her arms round her knees and her hair moving slightly in the puffs of breeze that reached under the trees. But when I dropped the book in her lap she laughed. “That’s not Coventina,” she said. “That’s only me. I’m nothing like her.”
    “I’ll be the judge of that,” I said sternly. “Who’s the artist round here anyway?”
    Lady A even sent a picnic tea down from the House; strawberries and oatcakes, a round of peat-smoked cheese and a carafe of home-made lemonade. James the Footpad didn’t care for that either; the tweeny was having the afternoon off, he had to bring it himself. Nor did the good things end there. I played music, in the blueing dusk; Butterworth, and the best of my Hoist settings. The Assistant curled on the sofa in a pricey-looking shirtwaister in blue-grey and white. Summery, but still with that hint of the Official. Later she talked; about herself and the Service, how she’d come to be doing what she was. It was an ordinary little story, though no less sad for that; a marriage, a bustup, a hastily-built new life. He’d been well connected, and a louse; his people knew they owed her a favour. “So that’s that,” she said bitterly when she had finished. “I’ve had all the kicks I’m likely to get; now I suppose I just settle down to a Good Career.”
    “For God’s sake, girl,”