‘Yes,’ Mrs Custance had to admit.

‘I bet you did not prune it in July, leaving the requisite couple of eyes.’

‘I never prune it,’ Mrs Custance dared.

‘What,’ said Miss Docker, ‘you are not one of those who are afraid to prune?’

Mrs Custance almost might have been, though that was not, in fact, the case. She said:

‘It is useful for drying things on, when they overflow from the line.’

‘But that is not a hydrangea’s purpose.’

Miss Docker was so depressed.

‘Hy-der-range-y

hy-der-range-y

hy-der-range-y-er!’

she breathed and hummed.

In the dark-brown light her cheeks were turning a chocolate-purple.

‘Oh dear,’ she suddenly shrieked, ‘whatever will you think of me? Everyone will tell you I’m nothing if not cheerful. And helpful. Here,’ she said, ‘give us a towel.’

She flung a few dishes together.

‘Where does the tea live?’ she asked.

‘But it is far too late and still too early,’ protested Mrs Custance, who could stick to principles.

‘It is never too early for a cup of tea,’ Miss Docker had to contradict.

Oh dear – Mrs Custance had herself in hand – I must on no account begin to sulk.

‘No one is installed,’ said Miss Docker, ‘till after her first cup of tea.’

When Ted Custance returned he crunched across tea and sugar, and realized it had happened.

‘It is me!’ called Miss Docker, to emphasize.

Mr Custance looked at her.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘no one can deny, Yours Truly least of all, it makes a difference having a man in the house.’

Ted Custance walked through. His footfall followed him in tea and sugar.

‘Where skies are blue,
And hearts are true...’

Miss Docker sang.

‘Tea in the dinette, I presume, when we are ong fameel.’

She began to lay the cutlery. She continued humming.

‘Wouldn’t know I had a voice,’ she said. ‘Only amateur, of course. Chorus work. But there has to be a chorus too.’

Mrs Custance did several things very firmly.

‘I say,’ Miss Docker said, ‘do you people really go for these hard lights?’

‘We have nothing to hide,’ said Mrs Custance.

‘Now! Now!’ Miss Docker reproached. ‘Sharp tongues give unkind answers.’

So that Mrs Custance was most terribly mortified.

‘Tea is ready, Ted,’ she had to confess to her husband.

Ted Custance made up his mind there was one corner of the kitchen his eyes should avoid in future. Miss Docker had taken out her teeth before coming to table. She sat munching, breathing, holding up her jaw, as though to resist death by drowning. She had decided, apparently, to live on bread.

‘Not all that much,’ she said, when offered her helping of macaroni cheese. ‘Just a teeny weeny bit for me. Because, you see, I have to resist gluttony. Oh yes, you wouldn’t believe. There was never such a glutton, and worst of all for meat.’

So Miss Docker masticated bread in virtuous lumps.

‘Is it tender, Mr Custance?’ she asked.

He did not answer.

‘Not very talkative, is he?’ she said.