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.‘Surely,’ said Michael, ‘nobody can be going anywhere else this evening.’‘Michael has just been telling me a piece of news,’ said Beatrice in a rather shaky voice.‘He’s probably going to be a chaplain in the Army.’‘I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Michael to Canon Palfrey, ‘but I’ve only just heard from them this afternoon.’‘And I was the first one to be told,’ said Beatrice, still sounding confused, for the telling of this piece of news was not the only thing which the Palfreys had interrupted.‘It’s been quite a day,’ Michael said laughing.‘Do you know what amazing sight met my eyes when I went to Beatrice’s house this evening?’‘Do tell us,’ Jane said with interest.‘Mrs Wyatt.Sitting downstairs in the drawing room! It’s the first time she has been downstairs for three years!’‘I really must come to see her,’ Jane said, from force of habit, and then, realizing what Michael had said, added in amazement, ‘How marvellous! You must be so pleased.’‘Oh, yes, I am,’ said Beatrice.‘It’s Miss Stoat who has done it really.She has been a splendid companion to Mother and has been encouraging her to get up a bit every day.’Michael, whose private opinion it was that Miss Stoat had so exasperated Mrs Wyatt that she had been driven from her bed to the drawing room, smiled.He was feeling quietly happy.On his walk with Beatrice that evening, he had proposed to her at last.Indeed, he had just been given his answer when the Palfreys interrupted them.It had not been Yes, but it had not been No.Beatrice still saw herself as the spinster daughter looking after her invalid mother.But now the situation had improved.Given the continuing attention of Miss Stoat, there seemed to be no reason why Mrs Wyatt should not go out.Let her but take up afternoon bridge and all might yet be as he wanted it, thought Michael.To use the phrase so often employed by his favourite Victorian novelists, Beatrice had given him to understand that she cared.‘I still don’t understand about this party,’ said Canon Palfrey rather plaintively.‘Nobody has really explained to me what we are going to do.’‘Some people are going to play bridge and some whist, and the proceeds from the tickets are going to buy wool for the working parties for knitting comforts for the troops,’ explained Flora patiently.‘Here we are,’ said Canon Palfrey, shining his torch brightly among the laurels round the front door of Malories.‘Now then!’ said a sharp female voice.‘You really ought to have that torch covered with at least two thicknesses of tissue paper.’‘Ah, Miss Grote,’ said the vicar, correctly identifying the author of this admonition.‘And Miss Aspinall?’ he asked, looking round at the scurrying breathless figure behind her.‘Agnes goes so fast,’ said Connie resentfully.They left their coats and galoshes with Rogers, who was, as she put it to the other maids, glad to see a bit of life about the place at last.‘Come along,’ Agnes’s voice rang out, ‘we’re going to play bridge in the drawing room.’ Connie, who had been bustled along by Agnes before she had had time to tidy her hair properly, arranged the lace modesty vest that filled in the vee of her maroon wool dress.She noticed with some satisfaction that Agnes’s collar was half tucked in at the back.As they entered the drawing room she saw Lady Nollard smiling most graciously, apparently at her, so that everything else went out of her head.She at once left the others and made for the corner by the great fireplace where Lady Nollard was sitting in a large, regal armchair, her feet in their long, buckled Langtry shoes resting on a footstool.‘Well, Miss Aspinall,’ she said condescendingly, ‘I hope you are in better health than I am.I have been quite poorly, you know.Yesterday I was prostrated by a sick headache …’‘I think it’s liver,’ said Mandy in her clear voice.‘I believe there are some pills you can take, but Eleanor won’t try them.Now, shall we draw for partners? Lyall is in the other room arranging the whist.’Connie was racked by indecision.She was not a good bridge player and enjoyed whist much more.But, on the other hand, Lady Wraye and Lady Nollard were here and Sir Lyall might only be arranging the whist.He might come and play bridge when he had got things settled …‘Well, well,’ said Canon Palfrey.‘We seem to have made up our table.’‘I can’t think why you people don’t learn contract,’ said Agnes, who was already dealing.‘Now then, Lady Wraye, you do play one club, don’t you?’Mandy swallowed nervously and picked up her cards.She was not happy at the idea of having Miss Grote as a partner.She thought enviously of her husband playing whist, and even of the vicar playing auction.‘Oh yes,’ she said bravely.‘I love one club.’Connie was playing with Jane Palfrey and two other women, one of them the wife of the local draper – ‘This war is a great equalizer,’ Lady Nollard had said, and her tones had not been those of approval.But they were pleasant women and nobody minded when Connie dropped her cards so that her ace of diamonds fell face upwards and they had to deal them again.‘Funny, wasn’t it, Mrs Palfrey,’ said Mrs Horrocks, who had been playing the hand, ‘how those spades went.’Jane, who had slipped off her shoes under the table and was now trying unsuccessfully to locate the left one, came to with a start.‘How is your son getting on in the Army?’ she asked.‘Oh, very well.He’s putting in for a commission.He’s not far from here, though I’m not supposed to know where.But he comes home on twenty-four-hour leaves.It would be nice if he could be at the camp here next summer.’‘Camp?’ asked Jane, startled.‘Oh, yes, they’re going to have a summer camp in the fields – just beyond here.’ She waved her arm in the direction of the window.‘We shall be quite jolly, shan’t we, with the soldiers in the district!’It would be fun for Flora, Jane thought.There might be some nice young men she could be friendly with.Soldiers coming to supper.Jane’s nimble mind leapt forward through the remaining months of winter and spring and she wondered what they could have to eat.She hoped that they might still be able to get the odd chicken – boiled, smothered with white sauce – or was that only for the clergy?‘Oh, Sir Lyall is coming in here,’ breathed Connie.‘I wonder whether he will play bridge.’He did not play bridge, but stood watching the tables, and when the break came for refreshments an admiring crowd gathered around him, asking questions about the progress of the war and begging for the inside story of Mr Hore-Belisha’s resignation, which had been announced that week
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