“I wish she’d come more often,” she told Janet. “She’s a God-send to me; Daddy’s so good with her. I put them out on the lawn side by side, and they tell each other their life histories, and admire each other’s children. Then, presently, milk comes out for them both, and your mother says, ‘After you, Colonel,’ and believe me, he swallows every drop without a word of complaint. In the afternoon they both have a snooze, and after tea they go round the garden, and your mother says the right things about every plant.”

“We seem so happy here, and Mum’s getting better, and . . . and everything,” Janet said, “that sometimes I get in a fuss that everything’s going to smash up. Do you ever feel like that when things go nicely?”

Barbara was convinced that Janet was in love with Donald, but her father kept her busy and she had no time to go up to the farm, and had never seen them together. Only intuition, and sometimes an unwillingness in Janet’s manner to talk of Donald, made her sure. She worried over her quite a lot. From what she gathered from Iris and Maggie, Donald never came to the cottage. Was Janet wasting herself on loving a man who didn’t care for her? Barbara, radiant with the knowledge of how much her Dick cared, hated that Janet shouldn’t be equally happy.

She did hope she wasn’t making a mistake. She knew nothing about any love except hers for Dick, and Dick’s for herself, but there were, she had heard, people who did love without getting it back, and anyone who knew Janet would know she wouldn’t suffer casually. If Donald did what it was locally supposed he was going to do, which was marry Gladys, would it break Janet’s heart?

“I think it’s a good thing,” she suggested, “not to be too sure of . . . of things.” She flushed. “I always make myself know that Dick mightn’t come back.”

“You mean because feeling that now would make it easier if . . .”

“Yes.”

Janet turned the conversation into herself. Suppose Donald never cared for her. Suppose, worst of all, he married Gladys. She shivered and tucked her arm through Barbara’s.

“Aren’t we gloomy? Mum would say we needed salts!”

Section 12

Sheila sat in a rocking-chair by the open kitchen window. Gladys was at the table making a pie. For once Sheila was not thinking of her appearance, but Gladys had to pause in her work to gape. “My word, she is a picture!” she thought. The sky outside was radiant blue. The yellow roses, now full bloom, made a flower-frame for Sheila’s golden head and delicate profile. Sheila’s eyes slid round to Gladys. Her voice was elaborately casual.

“Any news?”

Gladys rolled out her paste.

“Funny child, you always ask that. What news should there be up here?”

Sheila wriggled.