‘No, darling,’ Belle said, ‘you can’t. You might love them. They might be just what you need to – to distract you. They are called Lucy and Nancy. Lucy and Nancy Steele.’

Margaret was going home with a new school friend and would not, she said with emphasis, need picking up by Elinor. There had been a good deal of telephoning and need for reassurance about this arrangement, but Elinor had finally prevailed over all Belle’s anxieties by using her lunch break to visit the friend’s mother and see for herself the absolute reliability of the situation: a semi-detached house in a suburban street, unmistakably inhabited by a family of unimpeachable orthodoxy. She had even felt impelled to half apologise to Margaret’s friend’s mother.

‘It’s just that we’re a bit new to round here and Mags has only been at the school a few weeks and …’

The woman was laughing. She patted Elinor’s hand. ‘I get it, dear. No hard feelings.’

But even that confirmation of respectability didn’t stop Belle from ringing Elinor’s mobile several times during the afternoon, so that when it rang, yet again, Elinor snatched it up without glancing at the screen and said almost crossly into it, ‘What now, Ma?’

‘It’s Jonno,’ Sir John said.

‘Help. Sorry. So sorry. Family stuff.’

‘Tell me about it. Just tell me about it. That’s why I’m ringing.’ Elinor felt an instant clutch of alarm.

‘What, what—’

‘I’ve been turned down,’ Sir John said. ‘By your mother.’

‘Turned down?’

‘I’ve got a brace of lovely girls here and your mother has declined to bring you all here to supper to meet them.’

Elinor swallowed. ‘But you’re too good to us. We were with you only—’

‘Listen,’ Sir John said, ‘I’d have you to supper every night if I had my way, promise you. But I can’t shift your mother. And it’s dull for these lasses, stuck with us, although I have to say that they are brilliant with the kids, brilliant. They said they adored nippers and they really do seem to. Amazing. But look. I rang you because even if I can’t shift your mother and Marianne, why don’t you drop by on your way home?’

Elinor closed her eyes. ‘That’s sweet of you, but—’

‘Don’t but me. Don’t.’

‘Jonno,’ Elinor said, opening her eyes, ‘it’s really nice of you, and I’d really like to meet them. But I’m tired. I—’

‘It’ll perk you up to come to supper!’

‘No,’ Elinor said, with more force than she intended. ‘No.’

There was a brief and startled pause. She could hear Sir John giving some instruction or other to his secretary. Then his voice boomed in her ear again.

‘Just a drink, then.’

‘Well …’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Splendid. Settled. We’ll see you for a drink on your way home.’

Elinor sighed. He had already put the phone down. She laid hers down too, slowly, on the bottom rim of her drawing board.

Tony Musgrove looked at her over the top of his reading glasses. ‘Boyfriend trouble?’ he said.

Elinor made a face. ‘I wish.’

The sitting room at Barton Park was in uproar. It seemed to Elinor to be too hot, too bright and too full of charging children, never mind the noise. There were two young women – dressed, Elinor couldn’t help noticing, with elaborate modishness – on the floor, trying to field a child or two as it hurtled past, and, on a sofa at a slight distance, surveying the scene with every evidence of satisfaction, was Mary Middleton, placid in cream cashmere.

Sir John sprang forward to greet her, a glass in his hand. ‘Hello, lovely girl. Welcome to the usual madness. G and T?’

‘Actually,’ Elinor said, ‘could I have something soft?’

‘No!’ Sir John said. ‘No! Don’t be such a party pooper. Wine, at least, if you won’t have any gin! I shall get you wine. Don’t argue. You know I can’t bear to be argued with.’

Elinor shrugged, resignedly. ‘OK.’

‘Good girl. That’s more like it. Shan’t be a tick.’

Elinor looked back at the riot in the room. One of the girls on the floor, with a sharp, pretty face and tumble of carefully arranged long glossy curls, caught her eye, got to her feet and came towards her, her hand out ready, and smiling. The hand, Elinor observed, was encircled with charm bracelets and carefully manicured.

‘You have to be Elinor!’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Lucy. Lucy Steele.’ She turned and pointed towards the floor again. ‘That’s my sister. She was Mr J.’s goddaughter.’

Elinor nodded.

‘We’ve come for the weekend,’ Lucy said. ‘Amazing house! You should see my bedroom. You could put our whole flat into my bedroom! And the children are so cute, really lively.’

‘Certainly lively.’

‘And she’s just amazing, too,’ Lucy said. ‘Isn’t she? I mean Lady M. Awesome clothes, and her figure! You’d never think she’d had four children, would you? Amazing.’

Elinor looked across the room. Mary Middleton was watching the two older boys pushing Lucy’s sister down on to her back on the carpet, one of them using her hair to speed the process, with no sign that she was other than completely oblivious to the need for discipline.

Elinor said anxiously, ‘Is your sister all right, d’you think?

Lucy glanced across, almost casually. ‘Oh, Nancy’s fine. She can take care of herself.’

Nancy gave a faint but distinct cry of pain and put her hands to her head. Mary roused herself, without urgency, from her sofa. She said lovingly, ‘Be careful, boys.’

‘Get off!’ Sir John roared at his children, returning with wine for Elinor in a glass as big as a small bucket. ‘Get off the poor girl, this instant!’

‘Jonno,’ Mary said reproachfully, ‘they’re only playing, bless them.’

Nancy Steele struggled to her feet and adjusted her clothing. She smiled bravely, showing long, unnaturally white teeth.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, ‘I’m OK. Totes OK. Mos def.’

‘Nancy,’ Sir John said, ‘come and meet Elinor. Elinor lives—’

‘Oh,’ Nancy said, advancing on Elinor and thrusting out a hand adorned with long, acrylic nails, ‘I know about you! Don’t we, Luce? You lived at Norland, didn’t you? We know all about Norland.’

Elinor took her hand for as brief a moment as possible. ‘Oh?’

Nancy looked significantly at Sir John. She said, nodding, ‘Oh yeah. We know all about the F-word guy! Fo sho we do!’

‘Nancy,’ her sister said tensely.

Elinor looked steadfastly into her drink.

‘We know it all!’ Nancy said. She ran a hand through her visibly straightened hair, letting it fall back into exactly the same shape as it had been before she touched it. ‘We know that your sister’s made it with a really cute guy, and that you’ll be next! Scream!’ She gave Sir John a nudge with her elbow. ‘We even know the F-word guy! Don’t we, Luce?’

Lucy shifted slightly and examined her bracelets. ‘Well, only slightly.’

‘Luce! We do! At Uncle Peter’s!’

There was a sudden squeal of pain and rage from across the room. They all swung round. Mary Middleton was holding her kicking three-year-old, Anna-Maria, and saying urgently, ‘So sorry, darling, careless Mumma, silly Mumma, horrid Mumma’s brooch to hurt poor baby Anna, sorry, sweetie, sorry, poppet.’

Sir John strode over. ‘What’s happened?’

‘My pin caught her little arm, her poor little arm.’

Sir John seized his daughter’s flailing arm and peered at it. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

‘There!’ Mary cried. ‘There!’

Anna-Maria wrenched her arm out of his grasp, flung her head back and screamed afresh.

‘Totes adorable kids,’ Nancy Steele said.

‘Really cute,’ Lucy echoed, without complete conviction.

Elinor regarded them both. She took a step back and put her almost untouched glass of wine down on the nearest surface. ‘I think I’ll just slip out,’ she said. ‘Quietly. Have a good evening.’ She managed a smile. ‘See you soon.’

At the end of Saturday lunch at Barton Cottage, throughout which Marianne had sat without speaking, gazing aloofly past the assembled company out of the window, Lucy Steele followed Elinor out to the kitchen. She said eagerly, ‘I’ll help you make coffee.’

Elinor put the pile of pudding plates she was carrying down, with difficulty, on the cluttered table. ‘It’s OK.’

‘Let me help, do. Look at all this washing up!’

‘I’m used to it.’

Lucy, taking no notice, began to run hot water into the sink. She said confidingly, ‘I’m really sorry about Nance. All the endless, endless man talk. I’m afraid she’s a bit one-track-minded and this guy in Exeter, Brian Rose, she was going on about, well, he’s, um … well, she’s my sister but it’s a bit much really. Kind of embarrassing. Are there any gloves?’

‘Gloves?’

‘Washing-up gloves. Rubber gloves. You know.’

Elinor shook her head, ‘Sorry. We just have neglected hands.’

Lucy put her own hands behind her head, and twisted her hair into an artless knot. ‘No matter. Anyway, poor old Nance. I’m afraid it’s all boys and bags with her.’

‘Bags?’

‘Handbags,’ Lucy said. She located a bottle of washing-up liquid and squirted some liberally into the sink. Then, appearing to concentrate very hard on swishing the soap into a foam, she said, almost carelessly, ‘Have you ever met Mrs F.?’

Elinor stopped scraping scraps off plates into the bin. ‘Who?’

‘Mrs Ferrars. Ed’s mum.’

‘No,’ Elinor said shortly. ‘The scary mother. No, I’m glad to say.’

There was a short pause and then Lucy said, turning from the sink, ‘That’s a real pity. I wish you had. I – I so wanted you to advise me.’

Elinor put the scraped plate down on the nearest worktop. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I don’t get …’

Lucy looked down at her wet hands. She appeared to be deciding something. Then she looked up again, earnestly, at Elinor. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

‘Of course, but should you—’

Lucy held up one hand. She said solemnly, ‘I knew I could trust you. The minute you walked into the room at Barton Park, I just knew you were honour bright.’

‘Well,’ Elinor said, picking up the next plate, ‘thank you, but I can’t see how I can advise you about anything, nor where Ed’s mum fits in.’

‘Oh, not now,’ Lucy said, ‘She doesn’t matter now. But she might, you see. Soon. Quite soon.’

She smiled to herself, shyly, as if she were relishing some secret. Elinor put the plate down and came round the table.

‘Are – are you going out with Ed’s brother or something? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You’re going out with Robert and he hasn’t told his mother?’

Lucy looked straight at Elinor. Her eyes were wide and guileless. She smiled again. ‘Oh,’ she said softly, ‘not Robert. He’s a complete muppet. I’m talking about Ed.’ She let a fraction of a second pass and then she said, ‘My Ed.’

Elinor didn’t move. She remained where she was, standing by the table. Everything seemed to have stopped, even her breathing. As she stood there, she was conscious, through the intensity of her own shock, that Lucy was watching her carefully. She made a supreme effort. ‘Wow …’

‘I know,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s so great, but it’s so awful, having to keep it a secret. Are you OK?’

Elinor nodded. She could feel her body starting up again, tentatively, as if it was wondering whether it would work again.

‘Ed wanted me to tell you,’ Lucy said. ‘He thinks the world of you and your family. You’re like a sister to him.’

‘Ed wanted you to tell me …’

‘Well, I know he would want me to tell you. You know how hopeless he is at expressing himself – it drives me mad sometimes! But the thing is …’ She stopped, significantly.

Elinor, concentrating on both breathing and giving nothing away, waited.

‘Actually,’ Lucy said, ‘he is my Ed.’ She looked away, as if privately communing with someone who wasn’t there. ‘I think you could actually say we were engaged, in a way. Enough for me to have this, anyway.’

She reached into the neck of her shirt and pulled out a chain, holding it bunched in her hand to indicate that it was private and personal.

‘Wow,’ Elinor said again, her voice sounding to herself as if it came from miles away, ‘I didn’t – know you even knew each other, let alone …’

‘Oh yes,’ Lucy said, moving to stand very close to her. ‘Oh yes. My uncle Peter runs a crammers, in Plymouth. Ed was sent there. Didn’t he tell you? And Nancy and I grew up in Plymouth. We were always round at Uncle Peter’s. Peter Pratt. He was like a dad to Ed.’