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Daphne.
    ‘Look at the work she
causes,’ said Linda. ‘Look at the trouble!’
    Next day, when Daphne
was scrubbing the kitchen floor Aunt Sarah came and stood in a puddle before
her. ‘My Friar’s Balsam,’ she said. ‘I left a full bottle in the bathroom, and
it’s gone.
    ‘I know,’ said Daphne,
scrubbing away, ‘I took it in a weak moment, but now I’ve put it back.’
    ‘Very well,’ said Aunt
Sarah, trotting off and dragging the puddle with her. ‘But don’t do it again.
Pilfering was always a great weakness in your mother, I recall.’
    The winter temperature
lasted well into April. Linda and Daphne had to sit by a one-bar electric fire
in the library if they wanted to smoke; Pooh-bah’s asthma was affected by
cigarette smoke.
    Linda was conducting a
weekend liaison with a barrister in London, and with Daphne in the house she
found it easier to disappear for longer weekends, and then, sometimes, a week. ‘Daphne,’
she would say on the phone, ‘you don’t mind holding the fort, honestly? This is
so important to me.
    Daphne went for walks
with Uncle Pooh-bah. She had to take short steps, for he was slow. They walked
on the well-lad paths to the river which Daphne always referred to as ‘the
Thames’, which indeed, of course, it was.
    ‘We went as far as the
Thames,’ Daphne would tell Linda on their return. They ventured no further than
the local lock, a walk bordered with green meadows and wonderful sheep.
    Relations of some
friends in the Colony invited her to London. She accepted, then told Linda when
she would be away.
    ‘But,’ said Linda, ‘I shall be in London next week. It’s important, you know. Someone’s got to
look after Pooh-bah and Aunt Sarah.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said
Daphne.
    Linda cheered up. ‘Perhaps
you could go the week after?’
    ‘No, next week,’ said
Daphne patiently, ‘that’s when I’m going.’
    ‘Someone’s got to
look after Pooh-bah and Aunt Sarah.’
    ‘Oh, I see.
    Linda started to cry.
Daphne said, ‘I’ll write to my friends, and explain.’ Linda dried her eyes and
said, ‘You can’t imagine how deadly it is living in this awful house year after
year with a couple of selfish old people and that helpless Clara.’
    Next weekend, while
Linda was away, several Patterson relations arrived. Molly, Rat, Mole and an
infant called Pod. Mole was an unattached male cousin. Daphne expressed a
desire to see Cambridge. He said it would be arranged. She said she would
probably be in London soon. He said he hoped to see her there. Aunt Sarah stuck
a pin in the baby’s arm, whereupon Molly and Rat took Daphne aside and advised
her to clear out of the house as soon as possible. ‘It’s unhealthy.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Daphne, ‘but
it’s typically English.’
    ‘Good gracious me!’ said
Rat.
     
    At last she had her week in London with the
relations of her friends in the Colony. Daphne had been told they were wealthy,
and was surprised when the taxi drove her to a narrow house in a mean little
side street which was otherwise lined with garages.
    ‘Are you sure this is
the right place?’ she asked the driver.
    ‘Twenty-five Champion
Mews,’ he said.
    ‘That’s right,’ said
Daphne. ‘This must be it.’
    Before Daphne had left
the country Linda had remarked, ‘A house in Champion Mews. They must be rather
rich. How I would adore a mews house.’ Daphne remembered this.
    The interior of the house
was very winning. She readjusted her ideas, and at dinner was able to say to
her hostess, ‘What an adorable mews house.
    ‘Isn’t it? We were so
lucky — literally everyone was after it.’
    Mrs Pridham was
middle-aged, and smart. Mr Pridham was a plastic surgeon.
    ‘I shan’t make the
mistake,’ he said to Daphne, ‘of asking you about all the dangers you
encountered in darkest Africa.’
    Daphne laughed.
    ‘You must have a Season
of course,’ said Mrs Pridham. ‘Have you arranged anything?’
    ‘I’m here for two years
at least.’ Then she