He was especially pleased to see old Bill back at Barton Park. It seemed months since he had been there, months in which Bill had been preoccupied with all the halfwits he seemed so devoted to, never mind that mad bad daughter of the girl he’d once been so keen on. Sir John shook his head. He had a shocking propensity to try and sort the wrecks, poor old Bill, and seemed never happier than when knee deep in other people’s problems and trouble. And it had had an effect, of course it had, ageing the poor fellow before his time, stiffening his morals, fossilising his sense of fun. But he seemed different this visit, very different, improved even. In fact, Sir John would go as far as to say that Bill was very nearly relaxed.

Last night, when they were all at dinner – nine of them round the table, and Sir John would ideally have liked double that number – and those girls were telling Bill what had happened to Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele, Bill was laughing with the best of them. Mind you, Marianne was a brilliant mimic, and by the time she’d taken off Lucy Steele and old Mrs Ferrars, and Fanny Dashwood having the vapours, they were all of them sobbing with laughter. It had been a riot, an absolute riot. With many more riots to come, Sir John sincerely hoped. Not only was fun right up his street, but it livened Mary up nicely. She’d been, well, quite amenable later that night, even – dare he say it – a bit frisky. He beamed to himself and leaned forward to read something that had just popped up on his screen.

There was a knock on his office door.

‘Come!’ he called.

The door opened on to a familiar billow of scarves.

‘Jonno?’

‘Abi, my dear.’

‘Am I interrupting?’

‘Yes, Abi. You always are. I am a busy man.’

‘Two minutes, Jonno.’

He waved a hand towards a chair the other side of the desk.

‘Sit, you. No coffee, because I don’t want you staying.’

Abigail subsided into the chair. ‘I must have a little sound-off.’

‘Go ahead.’

Mrs Jennings settled her scarves. Then she leaned forward slightly.

‘Last night, dear. Huge fun. Enormous fun. And those girls are a joy, aren’t they? Bill looked a decade younger, even though there is no point in him gazing at Marianne. She could have her pick, the form she’s in right now, she has no need—’

‘Abi,’ Sir John said warningly.

Abigail collected herself. ‘Sorry, dear. Sorry. Well, what I wanted to say was that I’m afraid I just don’t care how rude they are about that little minx, Lucy Steele. I tell you, Jonno, she was in my sitting room, pleading poverty and true love for Edward, ten minutes before she runs off with his brother! And then, no sooner has she gone, than her sister tips up, having lent Lucy whatever she could spare, in a panic that Mrs Ferrars would have their guts for garters, and also distraught because she now couldn’t afford the plane fare to join her plastic surgeon at a villa party he’s having in Ibiza, or somewhere. So, me being as silly as I’m soft-hearted—’

‘Abi,’ Sir John said, ‘you could tell me all this any time. I may look as if I’m hardly ever working—’

Mrs Jennings shook her head. ‘I’m hopeless, dear. Really I am. But I’ll get to the point. And the point is – is that Ferrars boy really in love with Elinor?’

Sir John gawped at her. ‘Several hundred per cent, I’d say.’

‘Well,’ Abigail said, ‘I need to know because you see, he utterly adored Lucy.’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘My dear Jonno, she broke his heart!’

Sir John stood up, for emphasis. ‘Rubbish,’ he said.

She stood too, uncertainly.

‘He was trying to do the right thing,’ Sir John said. ‘He felt obliged to her family, having a mother like he’s got. That’s all.’

‘But she said—’

Sir John strode over to his office door and opened it. ‘Out, Abi.’

‘Yes, dear.’

She trotted over, and paused in front of him. She said, defensively, ‘I like to think the best of people, Jonno.’

He bent towards her. He said firmly, ‘Then don’t waste your time on the worst ones, Abi,’ and pushed her out of the room.

Edward was lying on the sofa at Barton Cottage. He had spent the day at Delaford with Bill Brandon, being shown round the place and meeting the people, and had come back to Barton with the contented and slightly disbelieving feeling that he had at last found a work environment that chimed amazingly with his own temperament and beliefs. He was waiting now, his head on a cushion and his feet dangling over the arm at the end of the sofa, for Elinor to come home from work in Exeter.

He could not believe the depth of his contentment, nor the height of his optimism. He wasn’t sure he had ever felt either, before, and certainly never to such a degree. Everywhere he looked seemed bathed in light, and every time he thought of Elinor, something inside him felt as if it was simply dissolving in rapture. He lay there, looking at a faint crack in the ceiling and watching a very small spider venturing out along its length, and thought that if this was happiness, then it ought to be bottled and fed intravenously to every single patient of the National Health Service.

‘Gosh, you look down,’ Marianne said, approvingly, from the doorway.

He turned his head and waved at her. ‘Never been more miserable,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see?’

She held out the phone in her hand. She said, smiling, ‘Call for you.’

He swung himself upright. ‘For me? On your phone?’

Marianne made a slight face.

‘It’s brother John. He wants to talk to you.’

‘Yikes.’

Marianne put the phone to her ear. She said, ‘I’ve found him, John. Hard at work on the sofa. I’ll hand you over.’

Edward took the phone and held it gingerly against his head. ‘John?’

The other end of the line, John Dashwood sounded very grave.

‘I imagine, Edward, it’s a bit late for recriminations—’

‘Much too late,’ Edward said cheerfully, ‘and completely pointless, as I have never, ever, in my whole life been so—’

‘Edward,’ John Dashwood said majestically.

‘What?’

‘Your mother is heartbroken. Your sister is feeling, naturally, completely betrayed. It is, in fact, astonishing that either of them are still functioning, let alone as well as they are.’

Edward looked back at the spider. ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘I would have hoped, Edward, for a much more concerned response. Your mother, your sister—’

‘Sorry, John,’ Edward said, ‘but you should be ringing Robert, not me.’

John Dashwood took a steadying breath. He said, ‘Do you realise, Edward, that your mother has not actually mentioned your name since this whole disgraceful business began?’

Edward aimed an imaginary gun at the spider and fired. He said, with one eye shut, ‘No change there, then.’

John Dashwood sounded outraged. ‘Edward!’

Edward said nothing. He got up and stood looking out of the window. Soon, Elinor’s car would come into view.

‘Are you still there?’ John Dashwood said.

‘I am.’

‘Will you please listen to me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Your sister and I – Fanny and I – think you could very easily do something to ease the situation. Your own, as well as your mother’s.’

‘Which is?’ Edward said guardedly.

‘You should write to her. You should write and say how sorry you are for upsetting her.’

‘Why?’ Edward demanded.

‘Because she wants nothing so much as for her children to be happy. Because she has been badly wounded by her sons’ conduct just recently.’

Edward ran his hand through his hair. He said incredulously, ‘Are you saying I should write to my mother and say sorry for Robert?’

‘Well, it would be very much to your advantage—’

‘No.’

‘Edward—’

‘No. Absolutely not. Never. I wish I hadn’t had all that nonsense with Lucy, but I am so certain, so certain about Elinor that I don’t give one single stuff about what any of you think. I’m not sorry. I’m not humble. I might talk to Mother about all this, one day, if she’ll ever listen, but I absolutely refuse to write a letter that I don’t mean and for something I haven’t done. Right?’

John said stiffly, ‘You are making a big mistake.’

‘Not as big as my mother’s!’ Edward shouted.

There was silence. Then John said, with elaborate dignity, ‘I shall go and convey this to your sister.’

‘You do that,’ Edward said rudely. ‘How does it feel to be pussy-whipped by two women in your life?’

There was shocked silence at the other end of the line. An orange car was creeping along the valley floor, and Edward felt his heart lift in his chest, like a bird.

‘Bye,’ he said, into the phone, carelessly, ‘bye,’ and tossed it on to the dented cushions of the sofa.

Marianne was sitting on the ridge above the valley where Allenham lay. She was sitting upright, her hands round her knees, and a yard away, Bill Brandon lay on his elbow in the grass and watched her. Her hair was loose down her back and, every so often, a breath of breeze lifted a strand or two and he watched them float and then settle again.

She was not, he observed, looking tense or strained. She was gazing down at the old house, at its eccentric Tudor chimneys and neat hedge-partitioned gardens, and her expression was one of dreamy half-interest, rather than one of any intensity. It was strangely comfortable, being up there with her, in silence, and he found he was in no hurry to break it, or to know what she was thinking as she looked down, not just on a place she knew, but a place she had hoped to know so much better.