Celia Hanson was the only one of the old friends whom Rachel had not been able to lop off. Ten years older than Rachel, Celia was unmarried, rationally wealthy, sociable and managing. With a number of friends to be managed, she found time for Rachel too. Disregarding Rachel’s insistence on being no more to her, she continued to send birthday and Christmas presents, admirably non-committal, and at Christmas she sent presents to Trevor also. She had met him during the brief engagement, and he had been much taken with her, saying that it was really a pity that she had not found anyone to marry her, she was not the attractive type, but he could see that she was the soul of kindness and a wonderful mixer.

The provisional invitation to be a godmother remained unanswered for some weeks. Rachel had left off being sick, and was quite sure that the child would be a boy, when a letter from Celia appeared. The letter opened with delight, congratulations and a blanket acceptance, passed on to some maternal advice and inquiries, and culminated in Celia’s own news. Celia had been slaving like a black, renouncing the world, selling the lease of her London house, buying tweeds and thick woollen stockings and settling down as a rustic; for old Aunt Hester had died, leaving Celia her house and furniture—the house a little Georgian box, just large enough to hold the aunt’s collection of Rockingham poodles. That was delightful, 146wasn’t it?—but what was even more delightful was that Celia had just realized that the house was in a village only twenty miles from where Rachel lived; ideally adjacent for a godmother, and meanwhile, would Rachel and Trevor come to lunch next Sunday? There was a bus.

Feeling for some uninvestigated reason scornful, Rachel read out this invitation. The feeling of scorn persisted, even into the bus; and as they left the town behind and travelled into a landscape that was like the music of Gluck, she remarked how extraordinary it was to think of Celia, of all people, settling down as a county lady. ‘I suppose she will join the Women’s Institute, and boss the village Flower Show.’

Trevor, for once not attending, exclaimed, ‘Look, Ray! There are lambs in that field. And that church, too! It must be genuinely old. I had no notion there was anything like this within a bus-ride. We must come out oftener. And just look at the size of that hedge!’

‘It’s a bullfinch,’ she replied. There was no time for explanations, as the bus stopped, and the conductor told them that the lane branching off on the left was the lane to Chipgrove.

It was the latter, the enriched half of May. The hawthorn blossom was whiter than anything that could be achieved by delighted housewives in the advertisements of patent soaps, the bluebells and the rose-campion were beyond all plastics. Trevor exclaimed, ‘I’ve made up my mind! When my time comes to retire from the bank, we will buy a cottage in the country.’147