‘Dear me, how quickly it is all taking shape,’ said Lucia, finding that almost without effort on her part she had been drawn into the place of prime mover in all this, and that still a sort of conspiracy of silence prevailed with regard to Miss Mapp’s name, which hitherto had only been mentioned as a suitable provider of fruit for the refreshment department. ‘You must form a little committee, Padre, for putting all the arrangements in hand at once. There’s Mr Wyse who really thought of the idea, and you –’

‘And with yourself,’ broke in the Padre, ‘that will make three. That’s sufficient for any committee that is going to do its work without any argle-bargle.’

There flashed across Lucia’s mind a fleeting vision of what Elizabeth’s face would be like when she picked up, as she would no doubt do next morning, the news of all that was becoming so solid.

‘I think I had better not be on the committee,’ she said, quite convinced that they would insist on it. ‘It should consist of real Tillingites who take the lead among you in such things. I am only a visitor here. They will all say I want to push myself in.’

‘Ah, but we can’t get on wi’out ye, Mistress Lucas,’ said the Padre. ‘You must consent to join us. An’ three, as I say, makes the perfect committee.’

Mrs Bartlett had been listening to all this with a look of ecstatic attention on her sharp but timid little face. Here she gave vent to a series of shrill minute squeaks which expressed a mouse-like merriment, quite unexplained by anything that had been actually said, but easily accounted for by what had not been said. She hastily drank a sip of water and assured Lucia that a crumb of something (she was eating a peach) had stuck in her throat and made her cough. Lucia rose when the peach was finished.

‘Tomorrow we must start working in earnest,’ she said. ‘And to think that I planned to have a little holiday in Tilling! You and Mr Wyse are regular slave drivers, Padre.’

Georgie waited behind that night after the others had gone, and bustled back to the garden-room after seeing them off.

‘My dear, it’s getting too exciting,’ he said. ‘But I wonder if you’re wise to join the committee.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Lucia, ‘but there really is no reason why I should refuse, because they won’t have Elizabeth. It’s not me, Georgie, who is keeping her out. But perhaps you’re right, and I think tomorrow I’ll send a line to the Padre and say that I am really too busy to be on the committee, and beg him to ask Elizabeth instead. It would be kinder. I can manage the whole thing just as well without being on the committee. She’ll hear all about the entertainment tomorrow morning, and know that she’s not going to be asked to do anything, except supply some fruit.’