DIANA VACILLATED BETWEEN A grouchy conviction that David’s children would have to take her as they found her and the grouchier conviction that she owed David some effort for all those he’d been willing to make. Clothes had never interested her, and they’d been increasingly hard to find as she put on weight, but she’d never approved of the sterile lab coat, except in the sterile atmosphere of the operating theatre. In her office, her clothes had to be as competent and reassuring as her tone of voice. She had allowed herself one or two suits, but she had mainly worn dresses, simple in line, of expensive material in dark colours, even in summer. She had one good string of pearls and one diamond and gold Toni Calvelti pin, both of which Constance had given her, and she wore them alternately. Diana would not wear a ring or bracelet, not wanting anything to interfere with her diagnostic hands. Her only vanity had been her shoes, perhaps because, until the arthritis came, her feet had stayed slim and her legs shapely. She carried almost all her extra weight in her torso. But all those elegant pairs of shoes had gone to the Salvation Army years ago.

Constance had always loved clothes, but as costumes rather than social messages. And she loved her work boots and overalls as much as the full-length skirts she liked to wear in the evening, which she often made for herself to have the bold colours which made her glow like a fire, to attract and give warning. Now, if Diana didn’t set clothes out for her, choice overwhelmed her, and Diana would find her stalled at the closet door or wandering the house only half-dressed. So Diana chose for her and was aware that the flair had gone out of Constance’s costumes as it had out of the meals they ate. It would have troubled Diana more if Constance had noticed, but she didn’t.

Jack and Laura already knew Constance as the beautiful, eccentric little gardener with her hard-working, slavish crew of young women. Diana momentarily wished their guests were Constance’s relatives, already charmed and no doubt delighted to lay new claim to her, but in the long run they’d be better off with Diana who, once she accepted any relationship, took her share of responsibility. Constance was like an exotic bird among the wrens, escaped from a cage surely, a prize to recapture and keep.

‘What are you going to wear tonight? What am I going to wear?’ Diana asked as they were eating their dinner.

Constance looked down at her memory board and frowned.

‘Maybe I’ll go to bed early?’

‘Oh, don’t desert me, darling,’ Diana pleaded.

‘I’m no earthly use to you,’ Constance said.

‘You are. They already know you, after all. They’ve never laid eyes on me, and who knows what David has said or hasn’t said. …’