Lindsay took her time to answer while Paddy studied her anxiously. This was a conversation Lindsay had hoped would not have had to take place, and it was one she would rather have had over a drink after they’d both become accustomed to being with each other again. At last she said, “I gathered it was serious from your letter. But I can’t help feeling it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the public schools felt the pinch like everyone else. It seems somewhat unreal to be worrying about playing fields when a lot of state schools can’t even afford enough books to go round.”

“Even if it means the school closing down?”

“Even if it means that, yes.”

“And put another sixty or seventy people on the dole queue? Not just teachers, but cleaning staff, groundsmen, cooks, the shopkeepers we patronize? Not to mention the fact that for quite a lot of the girls, Derbyshire House is the only stable thing in their lives. Quite a few come from broken homes. Some of their parents are living abroad where the local education isn’t suitable for one reason or another. And others need the extra attention we can give them so they can realize their full potential.”

“Oh, Paddy, can’t you hear yourself?” Lindsay retorted plaintively, and was rewarded by scowls and whispered “shushes” from around the reading room. She dropped her voice. “What about all the kids in exactly the same boat who don’t have the benefit of Mummies and Daddies with enough spare cash to use Derbyshire House as a social services department? Maybe their lives would be a little bit better if the middle classes had to opt back into real life and use their influence to improve things. I can’t be anything but totally opposed to this system you cheerfully shore up. And don’t give me those spurious arguments about equal opportunities. In the context of this society, what you’re talking about isn’t an extension of equality; it’s an extension of inequality. Don’t try to quiet my conscience like that.

“Nevertheless . . . I’ve had to come to the reluctant conclusion that I can’t stab you in the back having accepted your hospitality. Shades of the Glencoe massacre, eh? Don’t expect me to be uncritically sycophantic. But I won’t be doctrinaire either. Besides, I need the money!”

Paddy smiled. “I should have known better than to worry about you,” she said.

“You should, really,” Lindsay reproached her. “Now, am I going to see this monument to the privileged society or not?”

They walked back to the Land Rover, relaxed together, catching up on the four months since they had last seen each other. On the short drive from Buxton to Axe Edge, where Derbyshire House dominated a fold of moorland, Paddy gave Lindsay a more detailed account of the weekend plans.