Her hand trembled on Jenny’s arm and, inexplicably, there was a blur of tears in her eyes. Jenny was astounded.

‘Patrick will show you where you are and there’s supper in the old dining-room. I – I’m busy at the moment. There’s a sort of meeting. Patrick will explain,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I hope I shan’t be long. You can’t think how pleased we are, can she, Patrick?’

‘She hasn’t an inkling,’ he said. ‘I forgot about the emergency meeting, Jenny. It’s to discuss strategy and Miss Pride. How’s it going, Mama?’

‘I don’t know. Not very well. I don’t know.’

She hesitated, winding her fingers together in the old way. Patrick gave her a kiss. ‘Don’t give it a thought,’ he said. ‘What is it they say in Jenny’s antipodes? “She’ll be right”? She’ll be right, Mama, never you fear.’

But when his mother had left them, Jenny thought for a moment he looked very troubled.

III

In the old bar-parlour Major Barrimore with Miss Pride’s letter in his hand and his double-Scotch on the chimneypiece, stood on the hearthrug and surveyed his meeting. It consisted of the Rector, Dr Maine, Miss Cost and Mr Ives Nankivell, who was the newly-created Mayor of Portcarrow, and also its leading butcher. He was an undersized man with a look of perpetual astonishment.

‘No,’ Major Barrimore was saying, ‘apart from yourselves I haven’t told anyone. Fewer people know about it, the better. Hope you all agree.’

‘From the tone of her letter,’ Dr Maine said, ‘the whole village’ll know by this time next week.’

‘Wicked!’ Miss Cost cried out in a trembling voice, ‘that’s what she must be. A wicked woman. Or mad,’ she added, as an afterthought. ‘Both, I expect.’

The men received this uneasily.

‘How, may I inquire, Major, did you frame your reply?’ the Mayor asked.

‘Took a few days to decide,’ said Major Barrimore, ‘and sent a wire. “Accommodation reserved will be glad to discuss matter outlined in your letter”.’

‘Very proper.’

‘Thing is, as I said when I told you about it: we ought to arrive at some sort of agreement among ourselves. She gives your names, as the people she wants to see. Well, we’ve all had a week to think it over. What’s our line going to be? Better be consistent, hadn’t we?’

‘But can we be consistent?’ the Rector asked. ‘I think you all know my views. I’ve never attempted to disguise them. In the pulpit or anywhere else.’

‘But you don’t,’ said Miss Cost, who alone had heard the Rector from the pulpit, ‘you don’t deny the truth of the cures, now do you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thank God for them but I deplore the – excessive publicity.’