them because, deep down, you feel spring—your second spring is near.’
‘St Martin’s summer, you mean,’ said Ann ruefully.
‘Yes, if you like to call it that.’
‘But really, Laura, I daresay it’s a very pretty idea, but I only bought these violets because the woman who was selling them looked so cold and miserable.’
‘That’s what you think. But that’s only the superficial reason. Look down to the real motive, Ann. Learn to know yourself. That’s the most important thing in life—to try and know yourself. Heavens—it’s past two. I must fly. What are you doing this evening?’
‘I’m going out to dinner with James Grant.’
‘Colonel Grant? Yes, of course. A nice fellow.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘He’s been after you for a long time, Ann.’
Ann Prentice laughed and blushed.
‘Oh, it’s just a habit.’
‘He’s asked you to marry him several times, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but it’s all nonsense really. Oh, Laura, do you think perhaps—I ought to? If we’re both lonely—’
‘There’s no ought about marriage, Ann! And the wrong companion is worse than none. Poor Colonel Grant—not that I pity him really. A man who continually asks a woman to marry him and can’t make her change her mind, is a man who secretly enjoys devotion to lost causes. If he was at Dunkirk, he would have enjoyed it—but I daresay the Charge of the Light Brigade would have suited him far better! How fond we are in this country of our defeats and our blunders—and how ashamed we always seem to be of our victories!’
I
Ann arrived back at her flat to be greeted by the faithful Edith in a somewhat cold fashion.
‘A nice bit of plaice I had for your lunch,’ she said, appearing at the kitchen door. ‘And a caramel custard.’
‘I’m so sorry. I had lunch with Dame Laura. I did telephone you in time that I shouldn’t be in, didn’t I?’
‘I hadn’t cooked the plaice,’ admitted Edith grudgingly. She was a tall lean woman with the upright carriage of a grenadier and a pursed-up disapproving mouth.
‘It’s not like you, though, to go chopping and changing. With Miss Sarah, now, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I found those fancy gloves she was looking for after she’d gone and it was too late. Stuffed down behind the sofa they were.’
‘What a pity.’ Ann took the gaily knitted woollen gloves. ‘She got off all right.’
‘And happy to go, I suppose.’
‘Yes, the whole party was very gay.’
‘Mayn’t come back quite so gay. Back on crutches as likely as not.’
‘Oh no, Edith, don’t say that.’
‘Dangerous, these Swiss places. Fracture your arms or your legs and then not set proper. Goes to gangrene under the plaster and that’s the end of you. Awful smell, too.’
‘Well, we’ll hope that won’t happen to Sarah,’ said Ann, well used to Edith’s gloomy pronouncements, which were always uttered with considerable relish.
‘Won’t seem like the same place without Miss Sarah about,’ said Edith. ‘We shan’t know ourselves, we’ll be so quiet.’
‘It will give you a bit of a rest, Edith.’
‘Rest?’ said Edith indignantly. ‘What would I want with a rest? Better wear out than rust out, that’s what my mother used to say to me, and it’s what I’ve always gone by. Now Miss Sarah’s away and she and her friends won’t be popping in and out every minute I can get down to a real good clean. This place needs it.’
‘I’m sure the flat’s beautifully clean, Edith.’
‘That’s what you think. But I know better. All the curtains want to be took down and well shook, and them lustres on the electrics could do with a wash—oh! there’s a hundred and one things need doing.’
Edith’s eyes gleamed with pleasurable anticipation.
‘Get someone in to help you.’
‘What, me? No fear. I like things done the proper way, and it’s not many of these women you can trust to do that nowadays. You’ve got nice things here and nice things should be kept nice. What with cooking and one thing and another I can’t get down to my proper work as I should.’
‘But you do cook beautifully, Edith. You know you do.’
A faintly gratified smile transformed Edith’s habitual expression of profound disapproval.
‘Oh, cooking,’ she said in an off-hand way. ‘There’s nothing to that. It’s not what I call proper work, not by a long way.’
Moving back into the kitchen, she asked:
‘What time will you have your tea?’
‘Oh, not just yet. About half-past four.’
‘If I were you I’d put your feet up and take a nap. Then you’ll be fresh for this evening. Might as well enjoy a bit of peace while you’ve got it.’
Ann laughed. She went into the sitting-room and let Edith settle her comfortably on the sofa.
‘You look after me as though I were a little girl, Edith.’
‘Well, you weren’t much more when I first came to your ma, and you haven’t changed much. Colonel Grant rang up. Said not to forget it was the Mogador Restaurant at eight o’clock. She knows, I said to him. But that’s men all over—fuss, fuss, fuss, and military gentlemen are the worst.’
‘It’s nice of him to think I might be lonely tonight and ask me out.’
Edith said judicially:
‘I’ve nothing against the colonel. Fussy he may be, but he’s the right kind of gentleman.’ She paused and added: ‘On the whole you might do a lot worse than Colonel Grant.’
‘What did you say, Edith?’
Edith returned an unblinking stare.
‘I said as there were worse gentlemen … Oh well, I suppose we shan’t be seeing so much of that Mr Gerry now Miss Sarah’s gone away.’
‘You don’t like him, do you, Edith?’
‘Well, I do and I don’t,
