“Tom used to take care of the food.” I feel idiotic, admitting this.

“Deirdre Harper does nice little meals at the Women’s Institute market. In special tinfoil dishes. Stews and so on, and very reasonably priced. She feeds half the elderly in Upton, those who can afford it, anyway.”

I scratch my head. “I can’t afford to think of myself as elderly.”

“Then teach yourself to cook, man. All you have to do is read instructions. D’you like dogs?”

“Er . . . some dogs.” I start to smile. “Why?”

Lady Brock snorts. “I apologize unreservedly for Stuart. I’m entirely aware of his defects. No—I asked you because there’s a hound pup going spare at the kennels. You can have him for nothing. Perfect for you, I’d have thought. Keep you company in that awful barn.”

“Oh, I see. That’s very kind, Lady Brock, but a dog . . . I’d have to take it for walks, and I haven’t got time.”

“Oh, don’t worry about exercise. The puppy’s a runt, that’s why he’s not wanted. The well-grown ones run thirty miles in an afternoon, I admit, but this one’ll be content with a trot around the garden and a cushion by the fire. I can get my friend Lucy Horne to give you a ring. She and her father look after the hounds.”

“Well . . .” I glance at the clock. An alarming amount of time has passed. “I’m so sorry, Lady Brock, I must go.”

“Of course! Visiting the old crocks.”

I find myself laughing. “Be assured, Lady Brock, that your name will be struck from the visiting list.”

“Good. If you come back—and I hope you will, for the odd glass—it’ll have to be in your own right.”

“I’d be very glad to.”

I rise to my feet in a leisurely way, so as not to force her to hurry and struggle. When she’s upright I shake her hand, feeling immensely cheered. “Goodbye, Lady Brock. I’ll be sure to take all your advice.”

“Oh, dear, I’ve gone too far,” she says without a shred of remorse. “I often do.”

On her doorstep I remember the woman I glimpsed earlier.

“Oh—I met a dryad on my way in,” I say. “Some kind of nymph of the woods, anyway. She called off Stuart—tried to, at least.”

Not overly hard, I remember.

“Nymph! I’ll tell her that! It was Ellen. Ellen Parr, a dear friend of mine. She was just leaving when you came through the coppice.” A small smile plays over Lady Brock’s face, a glint of sunlight on the crags. “It’ll be a rare sighting for you, I’m afraid. She’s even worse than me. I don’t think she’s ever really acknowledged the existence of a god.”

—