Lucia’s beady eyes dwelt for a moment on Daisy’s rather anxious face with a glance of singular disdain. What a fool poor Daisy was to think that she, Lucia, could possibly consent to take any subordinate part in tableaux or processions or anything else at Riseholme where she had been Queen so long! She had decided in her own mind that with a very little judicious pressing she would take the part of the Queen, and thus make her superb entry into Riseholme life again, but all the pressure in the world would not induce her to impersonate anyone else, unless she could double it with the Queen. Was there ever anything so tactless as Daisy’s tact? …

She gave a wintry smile, and stroked the cover of Pepino’s poems again.

‘Sweet of you to suggest it, dear,’ she said, ‘but indeed it would be quite too much for me. I was wrong to entertain the idea even for a moment. Naturally I shall take the greatest, the very greatest interest in it all, and I am sure you will understand if I do not even feel equal to coming to it, and read about it instead in the Worcestershire Herald.’

She paused. Perhaps it would be more in keeping with her empty heart to say nothing more about the fête. On the other hand, she felt a devouring curiosity to know how they were getting on. She sighed.

‘I must begin to interest myself in things again,’ she said. ‘So tell me about it all, Daisy, if you would like to.’

Daisy was much relieved to know that even the part of Drake’s wife was too much for Lucia. She was safe now from any risk of having the far more arduous part of the Queen snatched from her.

‘All going splendidly,’ she said. ‘Revels on the green to open with, and madrigals and Morris dances. Then comes the scene on the Golden Hind which was entirely your idea. We’ve only elaborated it a little. There will be a fire on the poop of the ship, or is it the prow?’

‘It depends, dear, which end of the ship you mean,’ said Lucia.

‘The behind part, the stern. Poop, is it? Well, there will be a fire on the poop for cooking. Quite safe, they say, if the logs are laid on a sheet of iron. Over the fire we shall have an Elizabethan spit, and roast a sheep on it.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Lucia, feeling the glamour of these schemes glowing in her. ‘Half of it will be cinders and the rest blood.’

‘No, dear,’ said Daisy. ‘It will really be roasted first at the Ambermere Arms, and then just hung over the fire on the Golden Hind.’

‘Oh, yes: just to get a little kippered in the smoke,’ said Lucia.