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Bournemouth during the winter of 1926 when poor Ada was so ill... No, I don't seem to have used it here since 1911 when you would have been too young to enjoy it...." The vicar's sister had engaged John in conversation. He was telling her the story of Peppermint "... he'd have been all right, Ben says, if he had been able to cat the rum up, but mules can't cat, neither can horses..." Nanny grasped him firmly and hurried him towards home. "How many times have I told you not to go repeating whatever Ben Hacket tells you? Miss Tendril didn't want to heart about Peppermint. And don't ever use that rude word 'cat' again." "It only means to be sick." "Well Miss Tendril isn't interested in being sick..." As the gathering between porch and lych gate began to disperse, Tony set off towards the gardens. There was a good choice of button-hole in the hot houses; he picked lemon carnations with crinkled, crimson edges for himself and Beaver and a camellia for his wife. Shafts of November sunshine streamed down from lancet and oriel, tinctured in green and gold, gales and azure by the emblazoned coats, broken by the leaded devices into countless points and patches of coloured light. Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow. Both hands were occupied, holding to her breast a bag, a small hat, a half finished panel of petit-point embroidery and a vast disordered sheaf of Sunday newspapers, above which only her eyes and forehead appeared as though over a yashmak. Beaver emerged from the shadows below and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her. "I say can't I carry something?" "No, thanks, I've got everything safe. How did you sleep?" "Beautifully." "I bet you didn't." "Well I'm not a very good sleeper." "Next time you come you shall have a different room. But I daresay you won't ever come again. People so seldom do. It is very sad because it's such fun for us having them and we never make any new friends living down here." "Tony's gone to church." "Yes, he likes that. He'll be back soon. Let's go out for a minute or two, it looks lovely." When Tony came back they mere sitting in the library. Beaver was telling Brenda's fortune with cards. "... Now cut to me again," he was saying, "and I'll see if it's any clearer.... Oh yes... there is going to be a sudden death which. will cause you great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill someone. I can't tell if it's a man or a woman... yes, a woman... then you are going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a beard and die." "Beast. And all this time I've been thinking it was serious. Hullo, Tony, jolly church?" "Most enjoyable; how about some sherry?" When they were alone together, just before luncheon, he said. "Darling, you're being heroic with Beaver." "Oh, I quite enjoy coping-in fact I'm bitching him rather." "So I saw. Well I'll look after him this afternoon and he's going this evening." "Is he, I'll be quite sorry. You know that's a difference between us, that when someone's awful you just run away and hide, while I actually enjoy it-making up to them and showing off to myself how well I can do it. Besides Beaver isn't so bad. He's quite like us in some ways." "He's not like me," said Tony. After luncheon Tony said, "Well if it would really amuse you, we might go over the house. I know it isn't fashionable to like this sort of architecture now-my Aunt Frances says it is an authentic Pecksniff-but I think it's good of its kind." It took them two hours. Beaver was well practised in the art of being shown over houses; he had been brought up to it in fact, ever since he had begun to accompany his mother, whose hobby it had always been, and later, with changing circumstances, the profession. He made apt and appreciative comments and greatly enhanced the pleasure Tony always took in exposing his treasures. It was a huge building conceived in the late generation of the Gothic