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She was a little concerned, however, as to how Owen and her parents would get on together, but she need not have worried. Whatever his manners might be in his own home, as a guest they were exemplary and he showed a deference to a generation senior to his own in a way which took no account of wealth or social position.

He accepted Mrs. Darvill’s offer of tea with what at least appeared to be genuine gratitude, and accompanied Mr. Darvill into the garden while Lucy went with her mother to the kitchen.

“It was very kind of Mr. Vaughan to bring you,” Mrs. Darvill remarked, lighting the gas under the kettle. “In fact, he seems a very pleasant young man altogether.”

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Lucy agreed discreetly, though privately she wondered if her mother would feel the same way about Owen if she knew just how different he could be.

“Now, if you’ll just wheel the trolley in—oh, fill the milk jug first, will you? The tea won’t be long.”

It was a surprisingly pleasant little meal. Most of the conversation was provided by Owen and Mr. Darvill, but Owen, Lucy noticed with slightly reluctant approval, took good care to see that neither she nor her mother was entirely left out.

When he left, after shaking hands with his host and hostess, Owen turned to Lucy.

“Tomorrow, eleven sharp?” he asked pleasantly.

“Eleven sharp,” Lucy agreed, and took his extended hand. The contact was brief, but it was long enough for Lucy to note that his was a firm grasp—she detested a flabby handshake, particularly from a man—and that it had an oddly sustaining quality about it.

Mr. Darvill saw their visitor off. When he came back to rejoin his wife and daughter, he was smiling.

“Nice young chap, that,” he remarked, absently taking a left-over sandwich from the plate. “Seems to know all about roses, too.”

“Does he?” Lucy was surprised. She had imagined that Owen’s only interest in his extensive gardens was very secondhand. Certainly she had never seen him so much as snip off a dead flower.

“If you eat any more of those sandwiches, you’ll be putting on weight again,” Mrs. Darvill remarked, deftly whipping the plate out of her husband’s reach. “Now, off you go out into the garden again while Lucy and I wash up.”

This was it, Lucy thought wryly. An opportunity for a confidential chat if ever there was one! That was the last thing she wanted, and yet if nothing was said at all, she knew quite well that it would be such an unnatural state of affairs that the past would assume the nature of a barrier between her and her parents. She need not have worried. Mrs. Darvill dealt with the situation promptly and finally.

As soon as she and Lucy were alone together she took the bull by the horns.

“Now, Lucy, your father and I think you are absolutely right in feeling that there is nothing to be said over—what happened. We think, too, that you were quite right to go away, so there’s nothing to be said about that, either, is there? And now, tell me about your work. Is it interesting?”

“Very,” Lucy told her with convincing emphasis. “Much more interesting than working for Mr. Keane, nice though he was.”

“And you get on well with Mrs. Mayberry?”

“Yes, I do. I like her very much indeed. And I think she likes me.”

“Why shouldn’t she, I’d like to know?” Mrs. Darvill was up in arms immediately.

Lucy laughed.

“You’re something of a partisan, aren’t you, Mummy? Still, it’s nice to have it that way!” And she gave her mother a hug which both of them knew was really an expression of Lucy’s gratitude for her parent’s understanding. “But the important thing is that when two people get on well they can work together so much more smoothly.”

“Do you ever do any work for Mr. Vaughan?” Mrs. Darvill asked.

“No, never,” Lucy replied, wondering whether, after all, her mother had been shrewd enough to guess that Owen might well be a very difficult person for whom to work. “I don’t see very much of him at all, really. Meals and odd times, that’s all. He’s a very busy man and he has a study of his own as well as an office in town.”

In response to her mother’s obvious interest Lucy explained what Owen’s work was, and that gave her an opportunity of explaining just why she wanted a smart dress.

“Just fancy, Mummy. I shall be meeting some of the most interesting and famous people in the world,” she went on with deliberate enthusiasm. “It’s an opportunity that few people get. I think it’s very, very kind of them to include me on—well, practically on equal terms with their guests.”

“It certainly is,” Mrs. Darvill agreed warmly. And then, the washing up done, she went on briskly: “And now, we’d better go up and see what dresses you want —I suppose you’ll take more than just the cocktail dress?”

Why not? Lucy thought. Since she was making the plunge, why not make a complete job of it? It wouldn’t really hurt more to break into her trousseau for half a dozen dresses than it did for one.

“Yes, I think I will,” she agreed.

“Well, you go up then, dear, and I’ll join you in a few moments. I just want a word with your father first.”

Lucy went slowly upstairs to the familiar room— and memory flooded back. Not just the memory of the shattering blow that had been dealt her here, but memory of trifling details which had seemed so important on the morning she had believed was her wedding day. The sun shining on the carpet, its warmth as she had pattered over to the wardrobe to look at her wedding dress—

Slowly she went over to the wardrobe and opened the door. The wedding dress had gone—well, of course, it would have done. Her mother would have seen to that. She wondered drearily what had happened to it—then she heard her mother’s brisk footsteps on ‘the stairs and quickly took the first dress that came to her hand from the wardrobe.

In the end, she decided to take the larger part of her clothes, although her one long evening dress she left hanging.

“I shan’t need that,” she remarked with an attempt at casualness.

“Well, I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Darvill said doubtfully. “If you’d been asked, I’m pretty sure you would have said that you would have no opportunity of wearing the cocktail dress at Spindles—but you see, you have. And if Mrs. Mayberry and Mr. Vaughan are kind enough to regard you more as a friend than an employee, well, really, you don’t know what you might want. And it might not be so convenient as it has been today for you to get it.”

So that dress was packed as well, and Lucy had to admit that it was just as well that she was travelling back by car, for she could certainly not have managed to handle all her luggage herself had she gone by train.

The evening passed uneventfully. Lucy put on one or two of Marion Singleton’s records, her father dealt in detail with the correspondence he was having with the local Council on the subject of a tree in the front garden which he wanted to have cut down and which they said must remain because it constituted a rural amenity—and then it was time for bed.

And if, involuntarily, Lucy remembered the last time she had gone to bed in this room, at least the following morning had so little in common with that other morning that she did not give it a thought. After a long spell of fine weather, it was raining with a sort of dreary persistence that suggested it had come to stay.

Promptly at eleven o’clock Owen arrived. While he was putting her cases into the car Lucy said a quick goodbye to her parents.

“I do hope this weather doesn’t last over your party,” she remarked as they started off.

“It won’t,” Owen said confidently. “I’m always lucky over weather.”

And Lucy, who had, on the previous day, felt that perhaps Owen was rather nicer than she had thought, decided that her earlier impressions had been the correct ones. At least where she was concerned, he was a thoroughly irritating person.

Yet when they stopped for lunch, he really put himself out to be pleasant, though that in a way was equally irritating. Since if he chose he could be so charming, why did he have to be so beastly at others?

“I like your parents,” he remarked with every appearance of sincerity.

“So do I,” Lucy told him. “And I’ve known them longer than you have!”

Owen did not reply, and Lucy, feeling that he was waiting for her to say something more, ploughed on:

“It isn’t only that they’re
truly
good or that they mean so much to one another—important though that is. But, as well, I know I matter so much to both of them. I’ve always known that, but never so much as now.”

“No?” Owen encouraged.

“No. You see,” Lucy went on slowly, “because of the way they feel about me, it hurts them terribly if—if I'm hurt. And they want to comfort me. Yet they accept my decision to leave them, and that—that there’s nothing to be said about—it without question.” She looked at Owen doubtfully, wondering why she had given him this confidence and how he would take it. He answered her briefly, and, astonishingly, paid her a compliment—the last thing she had thought would ever happen.

“They’re very wise—and so are you.” And promptly changed the conversation.

* * *

The days before the party passed quickly and busily. As the Littleton twins and not the Campneys were completing the number, Lucy had to turn out of her bedroom. Certainly it was not such a pleasant room to which she went, but on the other hand she had the pleasing feeling that Mrs. Mayberry would not have fallen in with her suggestion had she not regarded her as a friend from whom she could accept favours.

But the final proof of her acceptance in the home came from Bertha. On Friday morning, Bertha asked her if she would make a round of the bedrooms just to see that nothing had been forgotten.

“I’m sure there isn’t, Bertha,” Lucy smiled. “But I’d love to come all the same.”

So each room was visited in turn, Bertha standing in the door while Lucy made a punctilious inspection. Everything was perfect. Mirrors and furniture gleamed with fresh polishing, bedcovers lay smooth and unwrinkled. There were flowers in vases which had clearly been chosen especially for the rooms they were in, and there were selections of magazines and books— Westerns where Lord Manderville was concerned. Lucy could not find reason for a single criticism until they came to Marion Singleton’s room.

“Why, you haven’t put any flowers here,” she exclaimed.

“That’s right, miss. Miss Marion doesn’t like flowers —at least, not perfumed ones. So Mr. Owen always gets her some orchids.”

There was no trace of criticism in Bertha’s voice— but it was singularly devoid of any expression whatsoever, which did rather suggest that she did not sympathise with Marion’s taste. That might, of course, be because to some people orchids suggest sophistication and even downright evil. Or it might be that Bertha felt a little hurt because her own efforts would not be appreciated. But it could surely not be that she disapproved of Owen going out of his way to please the girl of whom she herself had earlier spoken in such warm terms!

The inspection came to an end. Lucy congratulated Bertha on the thoroughness of her preparations, and went down to Mrs. Mayberry’s study to finish off some work before the guests could be expected to arrive. Mrs. Mayberry called to her from the sitting room which opened off the study and which in its turn led to her bedroom.

“Yes, Mrs. Mayberry?”

Mrs. Mayberry held out a sheet of paper.

“I’ve been arranging where we shall sit at dinner. It’s too small a party to bother about place cards, but I thought you might like to see where you are. I’ve put you between Lord Manderville and Robin Littleton—they’re both extremely easy to talk to, so you needn’t feel in the least bit nervous.” She gave a final glance at the diagram. “Thank goodness, though, that it’s a round table. So much easier to arrange than a long one—Owen’s idea. He doesn’t like formality when he entertains here, and if he has to sit at the top of the table, he says he always feels cut off from everybody else.”

“Yes, I see what you mean," Lucy acknowledged, but she could not help noticing that, informal or not, Marion had been given the place of honour on Owen’s right.

“That’s all then—except that before dinner we don’t have any of the staff to help with the drinks. Owen sees to it, but he asked me if I thought you would mind lending a hand. I said I was sure you didn’t. Is that all right?”

“Quite,” Lucy said tranquilly, wondering whether she was being paid a compliment or whether Owen had rather cleverly chosen this way to make it clear that, after all, she was no more than an employee. “Just what am I to do?”

“Oh, just make sure that nobody has an empty glass and either catch Owen’s eye or if he is busy, take the glass over to him yourself. Really, do just what you would in your own home if you were helping your father.”

So it was a compliment! Lucy smiled and went back to her typewriter where she put in a solid morning’s work, in the course of which she heard a car arrive and a little later Owen’s and another man’s voice out on the terrace. At lunch time she was introduced to Lord Manderville and found herself instantly attracted to him. Just how solemn and awe-inspiring he might be in his official capacity she had no idea, but here he was relaxed, charming and friendly, putting Lucy immediately at her ease. He put her slightly in mind of her father, possibly because of his age and his thick white hair, but also because of the lines of humour and kindliness so firmly etched round his eyes and mouth.

“He doesn’t look like a judge,” Lucy thought. “He’s just as a favourite uncle ought to look!”

The rest of the guests arrived between lunch and dinner. Sinclair Forbes, the conductor, and Jeremy Trent, the operatic star, arrived together as they had travelled by the same train and had been met at the station. Lisa Freyne came next in her own car, shortly followed by the Littleton twins on their own motor scooters and bubbling over with youthful exuberance because they had made such good time.

Marion was last of all. She arrived very late indeed, and more than once Mrs. Mayberry glanced at her watch with a little frown. Owen, however, appeared to be completely oblivious to her absence as, with Lucy’s help, he supplied his guests with drinks.