“She’s bored,” he said. “ I don’t think she likes to admit it. She was so excited about coming but if I got another job she would be immensely relieved.”

It was not until the Cup had been passed several times around the room that Palmer-Jones remembered his promises to Mary.

He looked over the floor. Most of the dancers seemed to be drunk. Sarah was stumbling through a dance with Jim. They were both laughing. Her white dress was grubby at the hem, and she had taken off her shoes and was moving in bare feet. Sylvia was giggling, trying to drag Jonathan to his feet to join her. George felt pompous and straight-laced.

The band stopped then. There was a break in the proceedings and more home-made cakes and scones and biscuits were laid out on the table at the back of the room. George thought that perhaps Mary had been helping to prepare the food in the kitchen and he went to find Maggie.

“Have you seen Mary?”

“No. Little madam. She was supposed to be giving me a hand. What that child needs is a spanked bottom.”

Her freckled face was red with exertion and her sandy hair seemed to have lost its perm. George realized that he had not seen Maggie dancing.

“It must have been hard work,” he said, “ organizing all this. Not much fun being stuck in the kitchen all evening.”

“Oh well,” she said. “I don’t mind. At least I wouldn’t mind if it was appreciated. But Sandy and Agnes spend so much time bothering about that spoilt brat that they don’t get round to considering other folks.”

“So you don’t know where Mary is?”

“She’ll be hiding somewhere. She does that quite often when she’s after attention.”

So he thought no more of it, and enjoyed Elspeth’s singing.

Agnes had been drinking from the Cup, too, so it took her longer than it would otherwise have done to realize Mary was missing. She had told the girl to go to Maggie to help prepare the supper, but that had been a while before the interval. While they ate and while Elspeth was singing she presumed that Mary was in the kitchen. She congratulated herself even, that her daughter had obeyed her. There was a lot of coming and going. Some of the women were taking younger children home to bed, and the men went outside to drink from illicit bottles of whisky and relieve themselves.