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coming—“why don’t you surprise everybody this birthday dinner by being nice the whole evening?”
    The babyish expression appeared once more on her father’s face.
    â€œI tried it once. I got bored. Anyway, it made everybody twice as jumpy.”
    â€œThat’s because you’re usually only nice when you’re planning something awful. I mean, be nice the whole evening, and the whole weekend, if necessary.”
    â€œYou can hardly expect me to be nice to Mark for one whole evening. Terence I might just manage it with, but Mark . . .”
    â€œYes, Mark as well. And Ben too—”
    â€œAnd Ben’s mousey little wife?”
    â€œDoes he have a wife?” Bella raised her eyebrows. “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. He’s the sort that someone was bound to get hold of and cling on to, so that they both sink without a trace together.” She remained a moment in thought, and then said: “Yes, her as well. You like surprising people. Well, surprise them by being genial, and pleasant, and tolerant.”
    â€œTolerant!” snorted Oliver Fairleigh. “The mediocrity’s virtue!”
    â€œDaddy!” said Bella. And then, with an implied threat in her voice: “You do want me to come, don’t you?”
    Oliver Fairleigh looked pleadingly at his daughter, who did not soften her gaze. He returned to his plate, and toyed with his food for a little, but when he looked up again, the same stern gaze was upon him. At length he pushed his plate away.
    â€œPerhaps,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.”
    Thursday
    Oliver Fairleigh’s visit to London had gone very well. He had created hell at the BBC. He had delivered the last chapters of his new book to his publisher, and received the nervous homage due to a bestselling author. He had partaken of a good meal with his favorite child. He had heaved himself into his club in St. James’s, where old men who had sodomized each other at school shook their heads over the younger generation. All these things he had enjoyed. It would be too much to say that they had put him into a good mood, or made him at peace with the world, but they had certainly made him feel that for the moment life was bearable.
    Eleanor Fairleigh-Stubbs was rather surprised. After the euphoria had worn off, the period between books was usually especially difficult. Yet here was Miss Cozzens sitting in the study, putting her files in order and writing replies to fan letters, and here was Oliver, walking with her and Cuff in the gardens of Wycherley Court in the early-summer sun, for all the world as if he were an ordinary country gentleman.
    It wouldn’t last. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that it wouldn’t last into Saturday. Every year the birthday dinner—the preparations, the mere thought of it—filled her with a gloom that was amply justified by the occasion itself. It was the nadir of her year, worse even than Christmas. But Lady Fairleigh was a hopeful woman. If she had not been, she would not have married Oliver Fairleigh. So she put her forebodings from her, and tried to enjoy the brief period of peace.
    â€œThe roses are coming along well,” she said tentatively, bending close and inspecting them for aphids with an expert eye.
    â€œDon’t know how,” said Oliver Fairleigh, peering at them less expertly, his gooseberry eyes popping out from under flaring eyebrows. “With that incompetent Wiggens as gardener.”
    â€œI see to the roses myself,” said Lady Fairleigh, with the very slightest touch of asperity in her voice. “As you know.”
    â€œProbably accounts for it,” said Oliver Fairleigh. “I wouldn’t trust Wiggens to water a pot-plant if I could get anyone better, but I can’t.”
    â€œHe does his best,” said his wife vaguely. “Perhaps Bella could find us someone—with her gardening