It was a very splendid occasion, Beth, possibly the most successful play that our little dining room has ever yet seen. Cousin Flo declares she never had a finer birthday celebration. And if one of our children or great-great-grandchildren don’t one day become a famous actor or actress, then I will eat Don Felipe’s wicked slouched hat, liniment stain upon the brim and all.

Ever your loving,

Jo.

For the first couple of weeks after Sophie had moved into Charlie’s flat, everyone was on her best behavior. Sophie was careful to tidy up after herself, refrained from slamming the door when coming home in the early hours of the morning, turned down her radio whenever Mrs. Scott-Ramsay rapped on the ceiling, and procured from a former acting teacher tickets to a first night at the Royal Court and an invitation to the party afterwards, which impressed both Lulu and Charlie considerably more than either of them admitted. In return, Lulu, more heedful of harmony in her friend’s home than she had ever been in her family’s, bit her tongue on a variety of sarcastic comments that she would otherwise have voiced aloud and was pleasantly surprised to find how much easier her younger sister had suddenly become to deal with. But best behavior, admirable as its intentions may be, was never meant to last.

“Has anyone seen my hair conditioner?” asked Charlie one soft Saturday morning when the sunlight streamed through the apple blossom, coming sleepily into the kitchen in her white cotton dressing gown. Charlie had inherited from her mother not only her metabolism but also a head of dark glossy hair of which she was, quietly, extremely proud, and on which she lavished a variety of expensive products, causing Lulu to shake her head and mutter ominously about bailiffs knocking on doors and former heiresses reduced to living in cardboard boxes under the railway bridge.

“You mean the hundred-pounds-a-squirt American stuff made from albino skunk droppings and ground South Australian ants?” she said now. “I don’t even dare to look at it—I’m afraid the sight alone would bankrupt me.”

“You’re welcome to use it if you want,” said Charlie. Passing behind Lulu, she pulled gently at her wild brown curls, roughly combed and pulled back, as usual, with a plain covered band. “You have lovely hair, Lulu, if only you’d take care of it.”

“‘Lovely hair if only you’d take care of it,’” mimicked Lulu mincingly. “Stick you in a baggy skirt and an ethnic necklace and you could actually be Mom, it’s really quite impressive. What’s the occasion for the posh glop, anyway? Are you seeing Javier later on?”

“Possibly,” admitted Charlie, pinkening despite herself in the spring sunlight. “There’s a lunch at the Wolseley, and he’s going to try to be there if he can get away in time. But I want to use it anyway, and I just can’t find it, although I’m sure I put it out last night. It’s quite strange.”

“Are you talking about hair conditioner?” Sophie, who had been engrossed in Stage and Screen, looked up. “They’re doing Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Vagabond in Covent Garden—can you imagine the bliss? It’s my favorite theater in the universe. Did the conditioner come in a funny little kind of squishy white bottle with a blue top? Smells sort of coconutty?”