“Stockbroker’s firm. Overextended, fell to pieces. They’re living in the family house now.”

“I see. But he and Lady Anna surely won’t carry on living there when you and Miss Carruth move in.”

“Oh yes they blasted will,” Jimmy said, with suppressed vehemence. “Maurice hasn’t anything of his own, and he’s spent every penny of Anna’s that he can get his hands on. That pair live entirely off the Aged Parents. If it wasn’t for him— Well. And of course one couldn’t ask Anna to move to some ghastly hovel while Fen and I take the London house, but you’ve met Maurice. Would you want to live with him?”

“No,” Pat said frankly.

“No. And if he can’t live in London, he and Anna will come here, and you’ve already seen how he is when he can’t get his cocktails, or his cocktail waitresses. I don’t know if my parents could put up with it.”

“I’m awfully sorry.”

Jimmy exhaled. “It’s a sorry business. Anna won’t leave him, I don’t know why the devil not. Well, there’s the child.”

“Is there a child?” Pat hadn’t seen or heard any evidence of one.

“My nephew. He’s three years old. They’ve left him with a nanny for the entire summer because Maurice doesn’t like the noise. Mother asked them to bring him, since she hasn’t seen him since February, but Maurice prefers to grant her the sight of her grandson strictly on his own terms, and when he can take the boy away at any time.”

“Good heavens,” Pat said. “Oh, Jimmy. This is rotten.”

“Anna made her own bed when she insisted on marrying the blighter, and now we all have to lie in it. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t both so determined to make everyone around them miserable, but you’ve seen how he is, and Anna is just making it worse with her extraordinary behaviour with Jack. I don’t know what she’s playing at.”

“It doesn’t sound like Haworth is much of a husband,” Pat pointed out. “What’s sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander.”

“I dare say, but the sauce gets ladled out on the rest of us with a lavish hand. You heard how he spoke to Victoria, and to Fen.”

“I heard the deafening ring of your silence as he insulted your fiancée, yes. What was that about?”

“Oh, Lord, don’t.” Jimmy took off his hat, swiping it through the air at insects Pat couldn’t see. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand what I’d think in her shoes.”