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darling? You are an angel. Only you won’t be able to get anything nice in the village. You’ll have to nip into Nottingham.’
    Disengaging himself, Oliver reflected on his wife’s economies. Now there would be the petrol into Nottingham, at least twelve and six for chocolates and he’d still spent nearly two pounds on Nuit de Beltane.
    Nancy began to sew. The dress had begun to look passable. At least he wouldn’t be utterly disgraced.
    ‘Can I come in?’
    That voice was Edith Gaveston’s. Quick as a flash Nancy ripped the silk from the machine, rolled up the dress and crammed it under a sofa cushion.
    ‘Come in, Edith.’
    ‘I see you’ve got into our country way of leaving all your doors unlocked.’
    Edith, hot and unwholesome-looking in an aertex shirt and a tweed skirt, dropped on to the sofa. From the depths of her shopping basket she produced a wicker handbag embroidered with flowers.
    ‘Now, I want the opinion of someone young and “with it”.’ Oliver who was forty-two scowled at her, but Nancy, still in her twenties, smiled encouragingly. ‘This purse …’ It was an absurd word, but Edith was too county, too much of a gentlewoman to talk of handbags unless she meant a small suitcase. ‘This purse, will it do for Tamsin’s present? It’s never beenused.’ She hesitated in some confusion. ‘I mean, of course, it’s absolutely new. I brought it back from Majorca last year. Now, tell me frankly, will it do?’
    ‘Well, she can’t very well sling it back at you,’ Oliver said rudely. ‘Not in front of everyone.’ The mention of Majorca reminded him of his second wife’s demands. ‘Excuse me.’ He went outside to get the car.
    ‘I’m sure it’ll do beautifully,’ Nancy gushed. ‘What did Linda say?’
    ‘She said it was square,’ Edith said shortly. Her children’s failure in achieving the sort of status their parents had wanted for them hurt her bitterly. Linda—Linda who had been at Heathfield—working for Mr. Waller; Roger, coming down from Oxford after a year and going to agricultural college! She would feed them, give them beds in her house, but with other people she preferred to forget their existence.
    Nancy said with tactless intuition: ‘I thought you weren’t terribly keen on the Selbys. Patrick, I mean …’
    ‘I’ve no quarrel with Tamsin. I hope I’m not a vindictive woman.’
    ‘No, but after what Patrick—after him influencing Roger the way he did, I’m surprised you—well, you know what I mean.’
    Nancy floundered. The Gavestons weren’t really county any more. Their house was no bigger than the Gages’. But still—you’d only got to look at Edith to know her brother lived at Chantflower Grange. I suppose she’s only going to the party to have a chance to hob-nob with Crispin Marvell, she thought.
    ‘Patrick Selby behaved very badly, very wrongly,’Edith said. ‘And it was just wanton mischief. He’s perfectly happy and successful in
his
job.’
    ‘I never quite knew …’
    ‘He set out to get at my children. Quite deliberately, my dear. Roger was blissfully happy at The House.’ Nancy looked puzzled, thinking vaguely of the Palace of Westminster. ‘Christ Church, you know. Patrick Selby got talking to him when he was out with that dog of theirs and the upshot of it was Roger said his father wanted him to go into the business but he wasn’t keen. He wanted to be a farmer. As if a boy of nineteen knows what he wants. Patrick said he’d been forced into business when all he wanted was to teach or some absurd thing. He advised Roger to—well, follow his own inclinations. Never mind about us, never mind about poor Paul with no-one to take over the reins at Gavestons, no heir.’
    Nancy, greedy for gossip, made sympathetic noises.
    ‘Then, of course, Roger had to say his sister wanted to earn her own living. Made up some stupid tale about our keeping her at home. The next thing was that impossible interfering man suggested she should work