‘But I hope there is a great deal,’ said Lucia. ‘Some tableaux, some singing, in order to raise funds for the hospital. It would be so kind of you if you would supply the fruit for the refreshment booth from your garden. Apropos I should be so pleased to buy some of it every day myself. It would be fresher than if, as at present, it is taken down to the greengrocer and brought up again.’

‘Anything to oblige you, dear Lulu,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But that would be difficult to arrange. I have contracted to send all my garden-produce to Twistevant’s – such a quaint name, is it not? – for these months, and for the same reason I should be unable to supply this fête which I have heard spoken of. The fruit is no longer mine.’

Lucia had already made up her mind that, after this affair of the chain, nothing would induce her to propose that Elizabeth should take her place on the committee. She would cling to it through storm and tempest.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Perhaps then you could let us have some fruit from Diva’s garden, unless you have sold that also.’

Elizabeth came to the point, disregarding so futile a suggestion.

‘The fête itself, dear one,’ she said, ‘is what I must speak about. I cannot possibly permit it to take place in my garden. The ragtag and bobtail of Tilling passing through my hall and my sweet little sitting room and spending the afternoon in my garden! All my carpets soiled and my flower beds trampled on! And how do I know that they will not steal upstairs and filch what they can find?’

Lucia’s blood had begun to boil: nobody could say that she was preserving a benevolent neutrality. In consequence she presented an icy demeanour, and if her voice trembled at all, it was from excessive cold.

‘There will be no admission to the rooms in the house,’ she said. ‘I will lock all the doors, and I am sure that nobody in Tilling will be so ill bred as to attempt to force them open.’

That was a nasty one. Elizabeth recoiled for a moment from the shock, but rallied. She opened her mouth very wide to begin again, but Lucia got in first.

‘They will pass straight from the front door into the garden,’ she said, ‘where we undertake to entertain them, presenting their tickets of admission or paying at the door. As for the carpet in your sweet little sitting room, there isn’t one. And I have too high an opinion of the manners of Tilling in general to suppose that they will trample on your flowerbeds.’

‘Perhaps you would like to hire a menagerie,’ said Elizabeth, completely losing her self-control, ‘and have an exhibition of tigers and sharks in the garden-room.’