Missy was enjoying herself too, but less simply. It had been a shock to find the promised thousand pounds had actually been deposited for her, and even more of a shock to be treated with great civility by Quintus Hurlingford, the bank manager; John Smith had instructed him to pay Missy’s withdrawals in gold, since the deposit had been in gold. A thousand pounds!

Well, she had her dress materials and her shirts and her trousers, and several pairs of pretty shoes into the bargain. She really didn’t need anything else. If she kept a hundred pounds of that amazing thousand, it would be more than enough to last her until her allowance was replenished at this same time next year. After all, when had she ever owned more than a shilling or two? She would therefore use the bulk of her allowance to buy Mother and Aunt Octavia a little pony-and-trap. The pony wouldn’t eat the place out the way a bigger horse would, they could manage its harnessing with ease, and never again would they have to walk anywhere, or humble their pride by begging that a conveyance be sent for them. Yes, they should go in style to Alicia’s wedding in a smart pony-and-trap!

The hundred pounds Julia had realised from the sale of her shares was already being spent; half the tea room was roped off, and two workmen were toiling at stripping and sanding.

Once she ceased apologising for the mess, Julia gathered her wits together sufficiently to absorb the full splendour of Missy’s outfit. “It’s a superb dress and hat, dear,” she said, “but isn’t the colour a little lairy?”

“Definitely lairy,” admitted Missy, without shame. “But oh, Aunt Julia, I am so sick to death of brown, and can you name a colour further from brown than this? Besides, it suits me, don’t you think?”

Yes, but does it suit my tea room? was the question Julia burned to ask, then decided it would be unpardonable to criticise her benefactress. And due to the renovations there weren’t many patrons today; she would just have to hope no one would decide she had thrown open her doors to the likes of Caroline Lamb Place. Oh! That must have been what Mrs. Cecil Hurlingford was gobbling about! Oh, dear! Oh, dear dear dear!

In the meantime she had ushered the ladies of Missalonghi to her very best table, and shortly thereafter served them an assortment of sandwiches and cakes, and a big pot of tea.

“I’m going to have a striped paper on the walls in cream and gold and crimson,” she said, sitting down to join her guests, “and my chairs will be re-upholstered in a matching but brighter brocade. I’m having the moulding on the ceiling picked out in gilt, canaries in gold cages, and pots of tall palms everywhere. Let Next Door” – her head tilting scornfully towards the wall she shared in common with the Olympus Café – “compete with that!”

Drusilla’s mouth was open to unburden herself of the news that Missy was married to John Smith and that John Smith was a rich man rather than a jailbird, when Cornelia Hurlingford erupted through the doors and descended upon them, her various scarves and ribbons trailing behind her like moulting feathers from a peacock’s tail.

Cornelia and Julia lived together above the Weeping Willow Tea Room, which Julia did not own outright. She paid a large rent to her brother Herbert, who regularly assured her that one day she would have paid enough, between the rent and what her house and five acres had fetched, to buy the premises.

As well as sharing their living arrangements, the two maiden sisters also shared and relished every morsel of information their public occupations garnered, but mostly Cornelia, the less excitable of the two, could wait until Chez Chapeau Alicia closed its doors for the day; Alicia did not permit her to leave the shop while ever it was open. Obviously whatever she had to impart was urgent enough to run the risk of incurring Alicia’s wrath, and so bursting was Cornelia with her news that Missy’s scarlet outfit got no more than a cursory glance.

“Guess what?” she gasped, plumping herself down on a chair and forgetting she was supposed to be the formidably elegant and snooty sales dame of a formidably elegant and snooty one-off millinery establishment.

“What?” asked everyone, well aware of these various facts, and therefore prepared to be tremendously impressed.

“Alicia ran off with Billy’s chauffeur this morning!”

“What?”

“She did, she did! She eloped! At her age! Oh, what a circus is going on at Aurelia’s! Hysterics and tantrums all over the place! Little Willie nearly tore the house apart looking for Alicia because he refused to believe what her note to him said, and Billy was roaring like a gale because he had to go to some important meeting at the plant when what he really wanted to do was set the police onto his chauffeur! They carted Aurelia off to bed as stiff as a board, and had to send for Uncle Neville when she kept holding her breath until she passed out, and then Uncle Neville gave her such a wallop across the ears because he was cross at being called out for nothing, and he called her no better than a spoiled baby, so that set her off screaming, and she’s still screaming! Oh, and Edmund is sitting on a chair just twitching, and Ted and Randolph are trying to pull him together so he can go to the meeting at the plant. But the worst of it is that Alicia and the chauffeur went off in Billy’s brand new motorcar, for all the world as if they owned it!”

Cornelia ended her breathless recital with a bellow of laughter, Missy joined her, and one by one the others came in to ring a peal of glorious mirth over the events at Mon Repos. After that catharsis everyone felt absolutely tiptop, and settled to a quieter but no less enjoyable dissection of Missy’s marriage and Alicia’s elopement, not to mention lunch.

John Smith arrived at Missalonghi just before five o’clock, looking very pleased with himself. He shook his mother-in-law’s hand with great affability, but refrained from kissing her, a piece of good sense she heartily approved of. The handshake he also offered Octavia disappointed her, but she had to admit, looking at him properly for the first time, that he was a fine figure of a man. Of course the suit aided her impression, as did the fresh haircut and neatly trimmed beard. Yes, Missy had nothing to be ashamed of in her choice of a life’s partner, and to Octavia’s way of thinking, his fifteen years of seniority made him just the right age for a husband.

He seemed a nice man on the inside too, for he made himself easily at home in the kitchen and sniffed at the scent of roast lamb appreciatively.

“I hope you and Missy will stay to dinner?” asked Drusilla.

“We’d love to,” he said.

“What about the road home? It isn’t going to be too risky after dark?”

“Not at all. The horses know it blindfold.”

He leaned back in his chair and raised one eyebrow at his wife, who was sitting opposite and just beaming at him with a pride in him his first wife had certainly never owned. What fools men were! They always went after the pretty women, when their intelligence should tell them the homely ones were much better bets. However, she looked all right in that bright red getup, not beautiful, certainly not pretty, but interesting. In fact, she looked like the sort of woman most men would want to get to know because they weren’t sure what went on inside. Attractive, bumpy nose and all. And as she sat there sparking with life, it was difficult to believe she could die at any moment. His heart twisted, an odd sensation. Tomorrow, tomorrow! Don’t think about it until it happens! You are beginning to dwell on it, and you mustn’t! Don’t think of her death-sentence as a cosmic revenge on you!

Maybe if he could make her happy enough, it wouldn’t happen at all. There were such things as miracles, he had seen one or two in his travels. Getting rid of his first wife undoubtedly fell into the category of a miracle.