Mr Wyse bowed so low that his large loose tie nearly dipped itself in an ice pudding.

‘I was trying to summon my courage to suggest exactly that,’ he said. ‘Susan, Mrs Lucas encourages us to hope that she will give you a favourable audience about the project we talked over.’

The favourable audience began as soon as the ladies rose, and was continued when Georgie and Mr Wyse followed them. Already it had been agreed that the Padre might contribute an item to the entertainment, and that was very convenient, for he was to dine with Lucia the next night.

‘His Scotch stories,’ said Susan. ‘I can never hear them too often, for though I’ve not got a drop of Scotch blood myself, I can appreciate them. Not a feature of course, Mrs Lucas, but just to fill up pauses. And then there’s Mrs Plaistow. How I laugh when she does the sea-sick passenger with an orange, though I doubt if you can get oranges now. And Miss Coles. A wonderful mimic. And then there’s Major Benjy. Perhaps he would read us portions of his diary.’

A pause followed. Lucia had one of those infallible presentiments that a certain name hitherto omitted would follow. It did.

‘And if Miss Mapp would supply the refreshment department with fruit from her garden here, that would be a great help,’ said Mrs Wyse.

Lucia caught in rapid succession the respective eyes of all her guests, each of whom in turn looked away. ‘So Tilling knows all about the garden-produce already,’ she thought to herself.

Bridge followed, and here she could not be as humble as she had been last night, for both the Wyses abased themselves before she had time to begin.

‘We know already,’ said Algernon, ‘of the class of player that you are, Mrs Lucas,’ he said. ‘Any hints you will give Susan and me will be so much appreciated. We shall give you no game at all I am afraid, but we shall have a lesson. There is no one in Tilling who has any pretensions of being a player. Major Benjy and Mrs Plaistow and we sometimes have a well-fought rubber on our own level, and the Padre does not always play a bad game. But otherwise the less said about our bridge the better. Susan, my dear, we must do our best.’