‘That’, Marianne said, hardly lowering her voice, ‘was absolutely awful. The longest, dullest supper of my life. And the food – well, it’s pure exhibitionism to serve food like that, for just standing about with plates and forks. And can you believe that a roomful of supposedly educated people could be just so banal and boring?’

‘Sh,’ Elinor said automatically.

‘Cars and right-wing politics from the men. Nothing worth the breath it was uttered with from the women.’

Elinor bent towards her sister. ‘M, someone will hear you.’

Marianne raised her chin a little. ‘I don’t care if they do. Why are we here? Why did we get ourselves mixed up in—’

‘John and Fanny’, Elinor said firmly, ‘are family. We had to come.’

‘And why is Fanny all over those Steele girls? Look at her and her mother and your friend Lucy.’

‘She’s not my friend.’

Marianne gave her sister a quick, mischievous smile. She said, ‘She thinks she is.’

Elinor said sadly, ‘That’s the sort of thing Mags would say.’

‘Don’t. Don’t. I miss Mags, I miss—’

The door opened suddenly and revealed Harry on the threshold in his pyjamas, wearing an expression of ferocious defiance.

‘Oh!’ Mary Middleton cried at once. ‘Spider-Man! Look, Spider-Man! My William just adores his Spider-Man PJs!’

Fanny, not to be outdone in the maternal rapture stakes, rushed forward and knelt by Harry. ‘Now, poppet—’

Harry shouted, ‘I don’t like being in bed!’

Fanny tried to put soothing arms around her son. He wrestled himself free immediately.

‘Don’t! Don’t!’

‘Now, Harrykins, Mummy’s big boy …’

Mary Middleton said, to no one in particular, ‘Such a big boy! But not quite as tall as William.’

Fanny twisted round. She was wearing a tight, small smile. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find he’s taller.’

Harry caught sight of his aunts. He shouted, ‘Ellie! Ellie, Ellie, Ellie …’

She came forward, smiling, and knelt on the floor beside him.

‘Hello, Harry.’

He said, ‘I don’t want to be in this bed. I want my proper bed.’

‘Perhaps I could come and read to you?’

‘I think you’ll find’, Mary said to Fanny, ‘that William is in the top percentile of height for his age and that Harry—’

‘—is a much bigger boy!’ Fanny said brightly to her son.

Mary was in no hurry. She indicated Elinor, kneeling beside Harry. She said calmly, ‘She’ll know. Elinor knows both boys. She sees William at least every week.’

Fanny turned to fix her hard, demanding gaze on Elinor. ‘Well?’

There was a pause. Elinor took Harry’s hand and, for once, he didn’t snatch it back. They looked at one another. From the edge of the group, Lucy Steele, whose opinion had not been sought, said loudly that she thought both boys were enormous and that she’d have thought them years older than they actually were, if she hadn’t known their ages. No one took any notice, not even Mrs Ferrars, who had now come to stand on Harry’s other side, as if to defend him from all slights.

‘Well?’ Fanny said again to Elinor, remorselessly.

Elinor squeezed Harry’s hand. ‘You are my nephew,’ she said to him, ‘and I love you, and I think that by next year you will be as tall as William, and by the time you are both grown up, you will probably be the taller because your daddy is taller than his daddy. So you just have to eat all the good stuff, and not the rubbish, and wait.’

Harry nodded. He did not seem unduly upset by the verdict.

‘Thank you,’ Fanny said sarcastically to Elinor.

‘It’s a pity’, Mrs Ferrars said, ‘that she can’t show loyalty even to her own family, don’t you think?’

‘You asked me’, Elinor said, ‘for my opinion, and I gave it.’

She got stiffly to her feet. Looking up at her, Harry said, unexpectedly, ‘I don’t mind. I’m gooder at football, anyway.’

‘Thank you.’

He said, still holding her hand, ‘Will you come and do drawing for me?’

Fanny gave a little snort. ‘Drawing?’ she said, witheringly.

Mrs Ferrars gave Elinor a hostile stare. ‘You draw?’ she said accusingly.

‘Yes,’ Elinor said. ‘Sort of. I – I’m doing architecture.’

Mrs Ferrars and her daughter exchanged glances. ‘Oh, architecture.’

‘So,’ Fanny said to her mother, ‘nothing artistic. Terribly neat and clean. She’s very good at neat and clean.’

Mrs Ferrars gave a tiny, chilly smile. ‘Not like Tassy Morton, then?’

‘Oh, no, Mother, nothing like. Those divine flower paintings—’

‘And the dragonfly—’

‘Oh, the dragonfly! And those darling autumn berries, bryony or something.’

‘I regard Tassy’, Mrs Ferrars said, ‘as a true artist, with a real gift.’

From the other side of the room, Marianne called, ‘So has Elinor.’

There was sudden silence. Everyone turned and looked at her.

‘What?’ Fanny said dangerously.

‘I don’t know who this Tassy person is,’ Marianne said, ‘and I don’t care. Nor do I care for the utter inhibition of botanical watercolours, actually. But Ellie draws like a dream. She can draw anything. Harry’s right to ask her to draw for him. You’d be amazed at what she can draw.’

Elinor, gripping Harry’s hand, stared at the floor. How had the evening come to this?

‘Who is that?’ Mrs Ferrars enquired of Fanny.

‘Mother, you met her earlier. She’s John’s half-sister, one of the three.’

‘Oh,’ Mrs Ferrars said contemptuously, ‘them.’ She gave another deliberate sniff. ‘No money and plainly no common sense either.’

There was a distinct exclamation of anger, and Marianne plunged forward and flung her arms round her startled sister.

‘Don’t listen to them, Ellie. Don’t pay any attention. They’re just small-minded, money-obsessed—’

‘Sh,’ Elinor said desperately, struggling to stay upright and, at the same time, to put her free hand over Marianne’s mouth. ‘It’s OK, I’m OK.’

‘Is she crying?’ Harry said.

Marianne nodded vehemently, taking both hands away from grasping Elinor and covering her face with them.

Elinor said, slightly desperately, ‘Yes, I think she is.’

‘Why don’t you’, Fanny said crisply, ‘take Harry back to bed and see if you can’t calm Marianne down at the same time? What a ghastly scene, totally unnecessary, John always said she was hysterical.’

Elinor put her free hand out to take Marianne’s.

‘Come on, M.’

Bill Brandon was suddenly beside them. He looked at Marianne with an expression that betrayed everything he felt.

‘Can – can I help you? Can I—?’

Elinor smiled weakly at him. ‘I’ll just try to get her quiet with Harry.’

‘I’m not crying,’ Harry said.

‘No, nor you are.’

‘Will you tell me if there’s anything …’

Elinor turned, holding Harry still in one hand and Marianne in the other. As she turned, she caught a glimpse, across the room, of Sir John and Lucy Steele talking animatedly together, their eyes fixed on the group in the doorway. She said to Bill Brandon, ‘Well, you could murder a few people for me, if you like,’ and then, as she saw him struggling to take in what she had said through his own distress, added with as much lightness as she could muster, ‘only joking.’

‘Sorry, dear,’ Mrs Jennings said, peering into the bathroom, ‘but Lucy’s here.’

Elinor stopped wiping her face. She stared at Mrs Jennings’s reflection in the bathroom mirror over the edge of her washcloth.

‘What?’

‘Lucy’s here, dear. No, I didn’t ask her. I didn’t. She’s just turned up, all bright and breezy, without so much as a phone call, saying she just has to see you. How’s Marianne?’

‘Asleep. She slept quite well, considering.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Poor girl, so emotional.’

Elinor dropped the washcloth. ‘She was defending me.’

‘I know, dear. It was adorable. Even if it ruined the evening. Now, what am I to do about Lucy?’

Elinor sighed. She pulled her hair off her face into a rough ponytail and secured it with a clip. ‘I suppose I’ll see her.’

Mrs Jennings gestured towards Elinor’s pyjama bottoms and grey T-shirt. ‘Like that?’

‘Well, Mrs J., I’m not dressing up for Lucy.’

Mrs Jennings gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘No, dear, I quite see that. I’ll get you both some coffee.’

Elinor turned round to face her. ‘You’re lovely, but I don’t want to encourage her to stay, exactly.’

‘Like that, is it?’

‘Mrs J., I’ve got to get back to Devon and I—’

Mrs Jennings held up a hand. ‘You can’t go anywhere in pyjamas with no breakfast inside you. You’re as pale as a ghost. Talking of pale, did you see Bill’s face last night when Marianne—’

‘Yes,’ Elinor said shortly.

‘Right,’ Mrs Jennings said. ‘Right. I’m not one to butt in where I’m not wanted. Charlotte’s always telling me to mind my own business. Fine one to talk, she is. Well, Elinor dear, your current business is sitting on my sofa in full make-up and ridiculous shoes. So run along and deal with it, would you?’

‘Ellie!’ Lucy cried, leaping up from the sofa.

She was wearing skinny jeans and stilettos, and her hair had been tonged into long, soft curls which hung well below her shoulders.

She caught Elinor by her upper arms. ‘Wasn’t that amazing?’

‘Amazing?’

‘Last night! Wasn’t it fabby? She was so lovely to me. Gosh, Ellie, are you OK? You look, you look …’

‘Awful?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t – I didn’t want – Were you up all night with your sister?’

Elinor detached herself. ‘Marianne was fine, thank you.’

‘I just thought—’ Lucy began.

Elinor glared at her. ‘She’s fine,’ she said. ‘She’s asleep.’

Lucy took a long, elaborate breath and said, with deliberate politeness, ‘I’m so glad.’

‘Yes. Well.’

‘Ellie?’

‘What?’

‘Wasn’t she just lovely to me last night?’

Elinor was in no mood to be helpful.

‘Who?’ she said.

Lucy sat down on Mrs Jennings’s sofa again with a little bounce. ‘Ed’s mum, of course.’

‘Edward’s mother?’

Lucy bent her head so that her hair swung forward becomingly. ‘She was so sweet. She made such a fuss of me and Nance. So did your sister-in-law. I just loved your sister-in-law. Did you see her shoes?’

Elinor lowered herself into an armchair opposite the sofa. She leaned forward. ‘Lucy …’

‘Yes?’

‘Lucy,’ Elinor said, ‘they weren’t sweet to you for anything particular. I mean, I don’t know why you’re so happy, because they don’t know about you and Ed, do they, so they weren’t pleased for that reason.’

Lucy tossed her hair back. ‘I knew you’d say that!’

Elinor said resignedly, ‘Well, it’s obvious.’

Lucy leaned forward. ‘Ellie. Listen. I can’t expect you not to be a bit jealous of everything looking so rosy for me, but they liked me. They really did. I won’t let you rain on my parade; I know they liked me. And I adored them. Why didn’t you say how amazing your sister-in-law was?’

Elinor said nothing. Lucy peered at her. ‘Ellie, have you got a hangover?’

‘No,’ Elinor said between gritted teeth.

Lucy slipped off the sofa and knelt beside her. She tried to take Elinor’s hand. ‘You’re a fantastic friend, Ellie. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve a brand-new, lovely best friend like you. Next to Ed, you mean the world to me, you really do, even though we’ve only known each other a few months.’

‘Please get up.’

Lucy put up a hand, as if to try and stroke Elinor’s forehead.

‘Don’t,’ Elinor said. ‘Don’t.’

Lucy sighed. She got to her feet, with difficulty, in her heels. ‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘You carry so much, and all alone. It must be awful seeing someone like me with all this lovely future rolling ahead of them, and new friends like Fanny. I hope you’ll tell Fanny that I thought she was awesome.’

Elinor stared at the rug under her bare feet in silence.

‘I know she liked me,’ Lucy repeated, still standing over Elinor. ‘You couldn’t mistake it. Nor Ed’s mother. I was expecting her to be really frosty with me because I know she’s got a killer reputation—’ She broke off. ‘Was that the doorbell?’