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Tea was announced and a mass move to the dining-room accomplished.

“Hullo, Syb,” said Verity Preston. “Can I help?”

“Darling!” cried Mrs. Foster. “Would you? Would you pour? I simply can’t cope. Such arthritis! In the wrists. ”

“Sickening for you. ”

“Honestly: too much. Not a wink all night and this party over one, and Prue’s off somewhere watching hang-gliding” (Prunella was Mrs. Foster’s daughter) “so she’s no use. And to put the final pot on it, ghastly McBride’s given notice. Imagine!”

“McBride has? Why?”

“He says he feels ill. If you ask me it’s bloodymindedness. ”

“Did you have words?” Verity suggested, rapidly filling up cups for ladies to carry off on trays.

“Sort of. Over my picking the japonica. This morning. ”

“Is he still here? Now?”

“Don’t ask me. Probably flounced off. Except that he hasn’t been paid. I wouldn’t put it past him to be sulking in the toolshed. ”

“I must say I hope he won’t extend his embargo to take me in. ”

“Oh, dear me, no!” said Mrs. Foster with a hint of acidity. “You’re his adored Miss Preston. You, my dear, can’t do wrong in McBride’s bleary eyes. ”

“I wish I could believe you. Where will you go for honey, Syb? Advertise or what? Or eat humble pie?”

“Never that! Not on your life! Mrs. Black!” cried Mrs. Foster in a voice mellifluous with cordiality, “how good of you to come. Where are you sitting? Over there, are you? Good. Who’s died?” she muttered as Mrs. Black moved, away.

“Her husband. ”

“That’s all right then. I wasn’t overdoing it. ”

“Her brother’s arrived to live with her. ”

“He wouldn’t happen to be a gardener, I suppose. ”

Verity put down the tea-pot and stared at her. “You won’t believe this,” she said, “but I rather think I heard someone say he would. Mrs. Jim, it was. Yes, I’m sure. A gardener. ”

“My dear! I wonder if he’s any good. My dear, what a smack in the eye that would be for McBride. Would it be all right to tackle Mrs. Black now, do you think? Just to find out?”

“Well—”

“Darling, you know me. I’ll be the soul of tact. ”

“I bet you will,” said Verity.

She watched Mrs. Foster insinuate herself plumply through the crowd. The din was too great for anything she said to be audible but Verity could guess at the compliments sprinkled upon the Vicar, who was a good-looking man, the playful badinage with the village. And all the time, while her pampered little hands dangled from her wrists, Mrs. Foster’s pink coiffure tacked this way and that, making toward Mrs. Black, who sat in her bereavement upon a chair at the far end of the room.

Verity, greatly entertained, watched the encounter, the gradual response, the ineffable concern, the wide-open china-blue stare, the compassionate shakes of the head and, finally, the withdrawal of both ladies from the dining-room, no doubt into Syb’s boudoir. “Now,” thought Verity, “she’ll put in the hard tackle. ”

Abruptly, she was aware of herself being under observation.

Mrs. Jim Jobbin was looking at her and with such a lively expression on her face that Verity felt inclined to wink. It struck her that of all the company present — county, gentry, trade and village, operating within their age-old class structure — it was for Mrs. Jim that she felt the most genuine respect.