She rang her bell. It was rather touching to think of her little household, oriented to her signal. Florence, Cookie, Gracefield, the parlourmaid, the housemaid and the odd woman: all ready in the kitchen and full of plans for the Great Day. Old Ninn, revelling in her annual holiday, sitting up in bed with her News of the World or perhaps putting the final touch to the bed-jacket she had undoubtedly knitted and which would have to be publicly worn for her gratification. And, of course, Charles. It was curious how Miss Bellamy tended to leave her husband out of her meditations because, after all, she was extremely fond of him. She hurriedly inserted him. He would be waiting for Gracefield to tell him she was awake and had rung. Presently he would appear, wearing a pink scrubbed look and that plum-coloured dressing-gown that did so little to help.

She heard a faint chink and a subdued rumble. The door opened and Florence came in with her tray.

‘Top of the morning, dear,’ said Florence. ‘What’s it feel like to be eighteen again?’

‘You old fool,’ Miss Bellamy said, and grinned at her. ‘It feels fine.’

Florence built pillows up behind her and set the tray across her knees. She then drew back the curtains and lit the fire. She was a pale, small woman with black dyed hair and sardonic eyes. She had been Miss Bellamy’s dresser for twenty-five years and her personal maid for fifteen. ‘Three rousing cheers,’ she said, ‘it’s a handsome-looking morning.’

Miss Bellamy examined her tray. The basket-ends were full of telegrams, a spray of orchids lay across the plate and beside it a parcel in silver wrapping tied with pink ribbon.

‘What’s all this?’ she asked, as she had asked for her last fifteen birthdays, and took up the parcel.

‘The flowers are from the colonel. He’ll be bringing his present later on as per usual, I suppose.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the flowers,’ Miss Bellamy said and opened the parcel. ‘Florrie! Florrie, darling!’

Florence clattered the firearms. ‘Might as well get in early,’ she muttered, ‘or it’d never be noticed.’

It was a chemise, gossamer fine and exquisitely embroidered.

‘Come here!’ Miss Bellamy said, fondly bullying.

Florence walked over to the bed and suffered herself to be kissed. Her face became crimson. For a moment she looked at her employer with a devotion that was painful in its intensity and then turned aside, her eyes filmed with unwilling tears.

‘But it’s out of this world!’ Miss Bellamy marvelled, referring to the chemise. ‘That’s all! It’s just made my day for me.’ She shook her head slowly from side to side, lost in wonderment. ‘I can’t wait,’ she said and, indeed, she was very pleased with it.

‘There’s the usual mail,’ Florence grunted. ‘More, if anything.’

‘Truly?’

‘Outside on the trolley. Will I fetch it in here?’