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that won’t be till April, or it might be later still. I’d very much prefer to come to terms privatelybefore that. Now, as you’ve expressed an interest in the property –’ He did not pause long enough for her to say that she had done nothing of the kind, but hurried on: ‘If you’re not going to remain at the Old House, and if you’re not leaving the district altogether – you’ll appreciate I’m too busy to pay attention to all the rumours I hear – well then, it stands to reason you’ll have to make an offer for another place.’
    He must be distracted by his business worries, she thought. He had come straight out of his shop with his fishmonger’s straw hat still on his head, and a dreadful old suit of overalls. Meanwhile his sly and muddled discourse had brought an idea to her mind, sudden but not strange, for she recognized it immediately as the truth. It was the truth in the form of a warning, for which she must be thankful.
    ‘There has been a misunderstanding, Mr Deben. But that doesn’t matter in the least, and I should like to help you. Mrs Gamart was kind enough to tell me about her scheme for an arts centre – which would, I’m sure, benefit every one of us here in Hardborough. She is, I believe, looking about for premises, and what could be better than a vacant wet fish shop?’
    Without giving herself time for reflection, she left the common by the kissing-gate, which stuck awkwardly, as usual, while she and Deben exchanged politenesses, crossed the High Street, turned right by the Corn andSeed Merchant’s, and right again for Nelson Cottage. Milo North could be seen through the downstairs window, sitting at a table with a patchwork cloth, and doing absolutely nothing.
    ‘Why aren’t you up in London?’ she asked, rapping on the pane. She felt mildly irritated by the unpredictability of his daily life.
    ‘I’ve sent Kattie to work this morning. Do come in.’
    Milo opened the tiny front door. He was much too tall for the house, which was tarred and painted black, like the fishermen’s huts.
    ‘Perhaps you’d like some Nescafé?’
    ‘I have never had any,’ she said. ‘I have heard of it. I’m told it’s not prepared with boiling water.’ She sat down in a delicate bentwood rocking-chair. ‘These things are all much too small for you,’ she said.
    ‘I know, I know. I’m glad you came this morning. Nobody else ever makes me face the truth.’
    ‘That’s fortunate, because I came to ask you a question. When Mrs Gamart was talking at her party about the ideal person to run an arts centre, it was you, of course, wasn’t it, that she had in mind?’
    ‘Violet’s party?’
    ‘She expected me to move out – probably, in fact, to move somewhere else altogether – with the understanding that you would come to the Old House to manage everything?’
    Milo gazed at her with limpid grey eyes. ‘If she meant me, I don’t think she could have used the word “manage”.’
    Florence accused herself of vanity, self-deception, and wilful misconstruction. She was a tradeswoman: why should anyone expect her to have anything to do with the arts? Curiously enough, for the next few days she was on the verge of offering to leave the Old House. The suspicion that she was clinging on simply because her vanity had been wounded was unbearable. – Of course, Mrs Gamart, whom I shall never speak of or refer to as Violet, it was Milo North you had in mind. Instal him immediately. My little book business can be fitted in anywhere. I only ask you not to allow the conventions to be defied too rapidly – East Suffolk isn’t used to it. Kattie will have to live, for the first few years at least, in the oyster warehouse.
    In calmer moments she reflected that if Mrs Gamart and her supporters could extract some kind of Government grant and could afford to pay her price for the freehold, plus moving expenses and a fair profit, she would be open to new opportunities, perhaps not in Suffolk, or even