To Mrs Standish, her baby was sweet, amusing, pathetic, provoking, hers. When she could concentrate on motherhood, she did so with a passion that expended itself in kisses and in noises, and in holding the child’s head against her cheek and watching their joint reflection in the glass. It was all genuine enough, after the manner of Catherine Standish. And the baby looked at her solemnly, sometimes too solemnly, she felt, as if she was a little idiotic in her efforts to express affection.

He understands. He understands too much, she said to Julia. in half-resentment at the precocity she was wishing on to her child.

But Julia only took him stolidly.

He’s natural enough. He’s only a baby, Julia said.

With Julia the baby became a small, interested human being. Sharing her solemnity, he listened to her monologues, delivered while stringing beans for the cook, or holding him propped on her lap in the Park. It was the kind of recitative that mingled the past and the present with the future. There were no barriers in time. The baby sucked his fist and listened to the flow of words, followed its swinging, changing course, felt on his fist the shape of words, closed with the first indications of form before the lids fell on his heavy eyes. He lived in a world of Julia Fallon’s, with a scent of yellow soap and of shredding beans. And for Julia the child became part of her intimate history, in which the path from school was lined with nettles, in which the boys made stones skip across the frozen pond, in which there was the day our Emily fell and bumped her eye upon the mangle. Julia’s whole existence, past and present, was very real and tangible. She had an unconscious respect for the substance of things. Wiping the dribble from the baby’s mouth was a gesture of humility, and deep respect.

It’s so nice, Willy, Mrs Standish said, I feel I can leave Baby with Julia. She’s quite devoted to the child. If only she won’t spoil him, she said. That’s always the trouble, of course, with inexperienced girls.

Anyway, she felt they could leave the baby with Julia the weekend they decided to go to Dieppe.

It’s so long, Willy said, since we’ve been away by ourselves.

And of course she was eager to agree. She was always too eager now to agree to anything that drew them closer.

So they decided on Dieppe. It was bright and cold, the grey, watery sky, with its patches of blue and streaks of black, and the sea that was a deeper, blackish blue. On the boat, it took your breath. And a veil blew in the wind. And Willy had to hold on to his cap. But they were both in high spirits, over everything they did, eating the cheerless cold roast beef in the saloon, or watching the approaching sickness of the passengers. She hung on his arm and they staggered up and down, struggled against the tilted deck. They were a handsome pair. And you felt they knew. But nobody really grudged them that.