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in a shop till she was old enough to take up nursing. I don’t know why he did it, unless it was because he likes upsetting people. Paul had a great deal to say about it, I assure you. He had quite a stormy interview with Patrick.’
    ‘But it was no good?’
    ‘They do what they like these days.’ She sighed and added despondently, ‘But as to going tonight, one has one’s neighbourhood, one cannot pick and choose these days.’
    ‘Who else is coming?’
    ‘The usual people. The Linchester crowd and Crispin of course. I think it’s splendid of him to come so often considering how bitter he must feel.’ Edith’s sensible, pink-rimmed glasses bobbed on her nose. ‘There was a clause in the Marvell contract, you know. No tree felling. Everyone’s respected it except Patrick Selby. I know for a fact there were twenty exquisite ancient trees on that plot, and he’s had them all down and planted nasty little willows.’
    It was just like Oliver, Nancy thought, to come in and spoil it all.
    ‘If you’re looking for your cheque book,’ she said innocently, ‘it’s on my record player. While you’re about it you might collect my sandals.’
    ‘Oh, are you going to the village?’ Edith got up pointedly.
    ‘I’m going into Nottingham.’
    ‘Into
town
? How perfectly splendid. You can give me a lift.’
    She picked up the wicker basket and they departed together.
    T wo fields and a remnant of woodland away Crispin Marvell was sitting in his living room drinking rhubarb wine and writing his history of Chantefleur Abbey. Some days it was easy to concentrate. This was one of the others. He had spent the early part of the morning washing his china and ever since he had replaced the cups in the cabinet and the plates on the walls, he had been unable to keep his eyes from wandering to the glossy surfaces and the warm rich colours. It was almost annoying to reflect what he had been missing in delaying this particularbit of spring-cleaning, the months during which the glaze had been dimmed by winter bloom.
    For a moment he mused over the twin olive-coloured plates, one decorated with a life-size apple in relief, the other with a peach; over the Chelsea clock with its tiny dial and opulent figurines of the sultan and his concubine. Marvell kept his correspondence behind this clock and it disturbed him to see the corner of Henry Glide’s letter sticking out. He got up and pushed the envelope out of sight between the wall and the Circassian’s gold-starred trousers. Then he dipped his pen in the ink-well and returned to Chantefleur.
    ‘The original building had a clerestory of round-headed windows with matching windows in the aisle bays. Only by looking at the Cistercian abbeys now standing in France can we appreciate the effect of the …’
    He stopped and sighed. Carried away by his own domestic art, he had almost written ‘of the glaze on the apple’. It was hardly important. Tomorrow it might rain. He had already spent two years on the history of Chantefleur. Another few months scarcely mattered. In a way, on a wonderful morning like this one, nothing mattered. He gave the plate a last look, running his fingers across the cheek of the apple—the artist had been so faithful he had even pressed in a bruise, there on the underside—and went into the garden.
    Marvell lived in an almshouse, or rather four almshouses all joined together in a terrace and converted by him into a long low bungalow. The walls were partly of white plaster, partly of rose-coloured brick,and the roof was of pantiles, old now and uneven but made by the hand of a craftsman.
    He strolled round the back. Thanks to the bees that lived in three white hives in the orchard the fruit was forming well; they hadn’t swarmed this year and he was keeping his fingers crossed. The day spent in carefully cutting out the queen cells had been well worth the sacrifice of half a chapter of Chantefleur. He sat down on the bench. Beyond the hedge in the meadows