As Miss Docker meant very little to those who had come, they kept their silence. While Mrs Lillie was tempted again to look in the glass. She saw that what had once been a cool statue, impeccable marble, had melted to soft, palpitating, white kid, except that someone had replaced what should have been the beige strips of lips with a bow of scarlet patent leather. It was quite terrifying. Miss Docker had kindly done it, because Mrs Lillie herself had not known how.

All three visitors jumped when Miss Docker came in. Her advent as usual shook the fibro.

‘Expect you had given me up,’ she panted. ‘But I wouldn’t let a person down. Beat the car by a toot of the horn.’

There, indeed, was the long, black, incredible car, which could not have belonged to anybody. It was a blessing really, because Agnes and the Trevelyan girls were not given time to take fright at Miss Docker.

The young man was so polite.

‘Thank you,’ the elderly ladies said, tottering with grief and brandy.

Miss Docker had begun to organize.

‘Mrs Pinfold get in first,’ she ordered. ‘Then, you, dear, in this nice, comfy corner. The two ladies – twins I’d say at a guess – will take the collapsible seats. But Little Me will squeeze into the middle of the back. You see,’ she said, turning to Agnes, ‘your sister is used to lean on me. I have seen her through so much. And understand. Understanding is everything.’

So they were arranged.

Anticipating friction with Miss Docker’s steamy trunk, Mrs Lillie’s tremulous fragility quailed. Miss Docker was holding Mrs Lillie’s hands, as though she feared they might fly away. Mrs Lillie’s smile struggled to the surface through the heavy impasto of scarlet grease. She would concentrate on the Trevelyans’ backs. For their age, they sat very upright, in spotted voiles and balibuntals.

The service in the church was quickly over. The spirit was not absent from Mr Wakeman, but lack of words made him favour works. So that when he put his hand beneath her elbow, the widow was almost lifted off her feet – not unpleasant – in her return passage to the car.

‘Now, Mrs Lillie,’ Mr Wakeman consoled, ‘you must look to your friends. Of whom you have a fair share. And God,’ he added, as if he were embarrassed.

But his eyes, so blue, so crinkly at the corners, strained to convey a favour which was more perhaps than expected by the parish.

‘Friends all right!’ said Miss Docker; she was still there, even if forgotten. ‘There are friends and friends, though. Some do not always stick.’

If Miss Docker was a plaster to her friend’s side, the rector was a soothing salve.

‘I shall be just in front, Mrs Lillie,’ he explained in simple, unnecessary words. ‘In my car – look – the Morris. You will only have to follow.’

Then he made the little noise which suggested someone had got past his guard, and in spite of his strength, punched him in the ribs.