‘You’ll find her terribly ill,’ she said.

I went to Marchmain House on the first morning of peace. Sir Adrian Porson passed me in the hall, leaving, as I arrived; he held a bandanna handkerchief to his face and felt blindly for his hat and stick; he was in tears.

I was shown into the library and in less than a minute Julia joined me. She shook hands with a gentleness and gravity that were unfamiliar; in the gloom of that room she seemed a ghost.

‘It’s sweet of you to come. Mummy has kept asking for you, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to see you now, after all. She’s just said “good-bye” to Adrian Porson and it’s tired her.’

‘Good-bye?’

‘Yes. She’s dying. She may live a week or two or she may go at any minute. She’s so weak. I’ll go and ask nurse.’

The stillness of death seemed in the house already. No one ever sat in the library at Marchmain House. It was the one ugly room in either of their houses. The bookcases of Victorian oak held volumes of Hansard and obsolete encyclopedias that were never opened; the bare mahogany table seemed set for the meeting of a committee; the place had the air of being both public and unfrequented; outside lay the forecourt, the railings, the quiet cul-de-sac.

Presently Julia returned.

‘No, I’m afraid you can’t see her. She’s asleep. She may lie like that for hours; I can tell you what she wanted. Let’s go somewhere else. I hate this room.’

We went across the hall to the small drawing-room where luncheon parties used to assemble, and sat on either side of the fireplace. Julia seemed to reflect the crimson and gold of the walls and lose some of her warmness.

‘First, I know, mummy wanted to say how sorry she is she was so beastly to you last time you met. She’s spoken of it often. She knows now she was wrong about you. I’m quite sure you understood and put it out of your mind immediately, but it’s the kind of thing mummy can never forgive herself – it’s the kind of thing she so seldom did.’

‘Do tell her I understood completely.’

‘The other thing, of course, you have guessed – Sebastian. She wants him. I don’t know if that’s possible. Is it?’

‘I hear he’s in a very bad way.’

‘We heard that, too. We cabled to the last address we had, but there was no answer. There still may be time for him to see her. I thought of you as the only hope, as soon as I heard you were in England. Will you try and get him? It’s an awful lot to ask, but I think Sebastian would want it, too, if he realized.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘There’s no one else we can ask. Rex is so busy.’

‘Yes. I heard reports of all he’s been doing organizing the gas works.’

‘Oh yes,’ Julia said with a touch of her old dryness. ‘He’s made a lot of kudos out of the strike.’