Having completed her chart of measurements, Gretchen produced a heavy catalogue of Simplicity patterns and flipped it open to the section on dresses, inviting Jean to browse. The watercolor illustrations depicted a freakish race of women, impossibly tall and slender, with strangulated waists, foreshortened bodies and elongated legs culminating in archly pointed toes. It was hard to feel anything other than dispirited confronted by this cartoon glamour and Jean turned the pages listlessly.

“I don’t know much about fashion,” she said at last. “You choose—something not too difficult.”

“I don’t mind if it’s difficult. It’s more interesting to make. But I think a simple style is better for you.” Gretchen turned to a page marked with a turned-down corner. “I think this would look elegant on you.”

It was a fitted shift with a round collar and white piping, and three-quarter length sleeves. It certainly looked very elegant as depicted by the artist, but would surely be less so on Jean’s size-fourteen-in-need-of-adjustments frame. However, she was impressed that Gretchen had, without any discussion or prior knowledge of her tastes, singled out from this vast selection something that she herself might have chosen and could imagine wearing with pleasure.

“Yes, it’s lovely.”

“Not black, though. Too severe. I think navy blue or green.”

“Yes. Blue.”

“It will be just right,” said Gretchen, closing the heavy book with a sound like gunshot.

But when will I have any call to wear it? thought Jean.

On their way downstairs she couldn’t help glancing in at the open bedroom door and was surprised to see two single beds, side by side, neatly made with matching pink-and-green eiderdowns and a narrow channel between, not wide enough to stand in but a chasm nevertheless. She had never come across this arrangement before between married people, except as an alternative to (unthinkable) divorce. Her grandparents had cohabited joylessly in this fashion for decades until released by death, but the Tilbury marriage bore no resemblance to their frosty stand-off.

Outside in the garden, Margaret and her friend Lizzie were playing badminton across a chewed piece of net strung between the fence and a plum tree. The court area was delineated by the flower beds to each side, the rockery at one end and the vegetable patch at the other.

Howard was in among the bean rows, taking on the blackfly with a pail of soapy water and a spray pump. His jacket hung over a spade planted in the soil. He was dressed in shirt and tie as if for a day at the office. He gave the two women a wave as they came out onto the little patio, where a table and three canvas chairs had been set out for tea.

“Your garden is immaculate,” said Jean. “You put me to shame.”

This was not mere politeness; the flower beds were parallel strips of crumbly soil playing host to tame shrubs of varying colors, textures and heights, and neat clumps of annuals in full bloom. The edges of the lawn were fiercely clipped; the leeks and cabbages in the vegetable patch grew in straight lines at perfect intervals.