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lipstick, a coquettish scarf tied in a bow under her left ear as if she were off to a party.
    Grace was actually quite a sharp and pleasant woman at times. She was very knowledgeable about roses and about local history. The Major remembered a conversation they had enjoyed in the church one day, when he had found her carefully examining seventeenth-century wedding records. She had worn white cotton gloves to protect the books from her fingers and had been unconcerned about her own clothes, which had been coated with soft dust. “Look,” she had whispered, a magnifying lens held close to the pale brown ink scribbles of an ancient vicar. “It says, “Mark Salisbury married this day to Daniela de Julien, late of La Rochelle.” This is the first record of Huguenots settling in the village.” He had stayed with her a half hour or so, watching her page reverently through the subsequent years, looking for hints and clues to the tangle of old families in the area. He had offered to lend her a recent history of Sussex that might be of use, only to find that she had a copy already. She also owned several more obscure and wonderful old texts that he ended up borrowing from her. For a brief while, he had considered pursuing their friendship. However, Daisy and Alma had no sooner learned of the conversation than they had begun to interfere. There were coy comments in the street, a whispered word or two at the golf club bar. Finally they had sent Grace to a luncheon date with him, all made up and forced into a hideous silk dress. She looked as niched and tied as a holiday pork roast. They must have filled her head with advice on men, too, so that she sat and made frozen conversation all through her green salad (no dressing) and plain fish, while he chewed a steak and kidney pie as if it were shoe leather and watched the hands of the pub clock creep unwillingly around the dial. He remembered that he had dropped her at her door with mingled relief and regret.
    Today, Grace was left to keep him pinned in the living room with whispery conversation about the weather while Daisy and Alma clattered the cups and banged the tray and talked to him at the tops of their voices from the kitchen. He caught Grace shifting her eyes to the left and right around the room and knew all three of them were inspecting him and his house for signs of neglect and decline. He squirmed in his chair with impatience until the tea was brought in.
    “There’s nothing like a good cup of tea from a real china pot, is there?” said Daisy, handing him his cup and saucer. “Biscuit?”
    “Thank you,” he said. They had brought him a large tin of assorted ‘luxury’ biscuits. The tin was printed with views of thatched cottages of England and the biscuits were appropriately tumescent; stuffed with fudge, dribbled with pastel icing, or wrapped in assorted foils. He suspected that Alma had picked it out. Unlike her husband, Alec, who was proud of his history as an East End boy, Alma tried hard to forget her origins in London; but she sometimes betrayed herself with a taste for showy luxuries and the sweet tooth of someone who grew up without quite enough to eat. The other ladies, he suspected, were hiding their mortification. He selected an undecorated shortbread and took a bite. The ladies settled themselves on chairs, smiling at him with compassion as if watching a starving cat lap from a saucer of milk. It was somewhat difficult to chew under the scrutiny and he took a large swallow of tea to help the sandy biscuit down. The tea was weak and tasted of paper. He was rendered speechless by the realisation that they had brought their own teabags as well.
    “Was your brother older than you?” asked Grace. She leaned toward him, her eyes wide with compassion.
    “No – younger, actually, by two years.” There was a pause.
    “He was ill for some time?” she asked hopefully.
    “No, quite sudden, I’m afraid.”
    “I’m so, so very sorry.” She fussed with her