It was on the tip of Janet’s tongue to say that nothing could have been more descriptive, but words said by the doctor stopped her. He had looked after the Brains since they were small. “Look here, Janet,” he had said. “I’m not very pleased with your mother’s heart, but I’m not saying anything to her about it, it’ll only worry her, and it won’t stop her doing too much. The thing for us to do is to get her away from this bombing, and put her somewhere quiet, where she can’t overwork.” That was when this country scheme had come about. Pinning it on Sheila had been the doctor’s idea. “I’m going to tell your mother that I want that little puss, Sheila, out of London; it’s the only way we can get her to leave you. We’ll tell Sheila to see she rests, and in a couple of months you won’t know your mother for the same woman.” Janet, staring now up in her mother’s face, thought grimly how horribly true were his words, but in the opposite way to which he had intended them, and it was not two months but seven. Maggie had always been thin, but now she seemed transparent, the blue eyes had sunk back into her head, and the bone structure of her face stood out too prominently. Even her hair looked different. She had grey curls which had defied brushing and pins, and stood up gaily in waves and tendrils, but now it lay meek and lank. Janet gave her a little affectionate shake.

“You miserable old woman, you’re all skin and bones, and I sent you to the country to get fat.”

Maggie linked her arm in her daughter’s and led her into the cottage.

“I never was the fat kind; besides, you know what a worrier I am, and worrying is thinning.”

“What have you got to worry about?”

“You for one thing. Do you think I didn’t mind your being in London through all those terrible raids?”

“What else?”

“Oh, lots of things.” Maggie squeezed her daughter’s arm. “We’ll have a nice talk later on.”

The cottage was as charming inside as out. There were beautiful oak beams in all the rooms, and they showed well against white distempered walls. There were two good sitting-rooms, a stone-flagged kitchen, a small scullery, four bedrooms, and halfway up the queer-shaped oak staircase, the pride of the cottage, a bathroom.

“Not that we can use it much,” said Maggie. “We have our own well, but wells don’t seem affected by rain, no matter how wet it is we have a drought.”

“What do we do about washing then?”