He winked and said: “On your high horse today, missus? You come along with me into my back parlour and we’ll change all that.”

“Saucy young devil,” retorted Meg, twinkling.

And my father was the sort of man who could make her look as she did when in the company of Mr. Burr, the butcher.

That was significant and gave me something to think about.

I was on the way to the vicarage to take a note to the Reverend John Mathers. My mother often communicated in this way when she was displeased.

This was due to some misunderstanding about the flower arrangements for the church. Last year, she complained, they were a great disappointment. Mrs. Carter and Miss Allder really had no idea. What could you expect from a jumped-up shopkeeper who had made a fortune by selling sweets and tobacco? Her display had been positively vulgar. As for Miss Allder, she was a poor simpering creature with a fixation on the curate and quite clearly Mrs. Carter’s puppet. It was absurd, when my mother had had a vast experience in decorating the church in the days when she lived in Cedar Hall and when the gentry had had some influence on church matters.

I knew my mother would suffer acutely over this, which was of no importance whatever, because she saw it as an affront to her dignity and that was of the utmost importance to her. She had written several versions of the note to the Reverend Mathers, torn them up and worked herself into a rage. It was the kind of occasion which created in her a state of tension out of all proportion to the matter concerned.

Ever since my conversation with Meg about my father, I had tried to lure her to talk of him, but I could not discover very much, though I did get the impression that she was on his side rather than that of my mother.

It was a lovely spring day. I crossed the Common past the seat by the pond on which sat two old men whom I knew by sight because they were there most days. They were two farm labourers, or had been, for they were too old to work now and spent their days sitting talking. I called a good-morning to them as I passed.

I turned into the lane which led to the vicarage. The country was very beautiful at this time of the year when the horse chestnut trees were in flower and the wild violets and wood sorrel were growing under the hedges. What a contrast to Meg’s jellied eels in the markets!

I laughed to myself. I supposed it was rather amusing in a way-my mother yearning for grandeur, and Meg longing for the streets of London. Perhaps people were inclined to want what they did not have.

And there was the vicarage-a long grey stone house with a pleasant garden in front of it and the graveyard stretching out beyond it.

The vicar received me in an untidy sitting-room with mullioned windows looking out on the graveyard. He was at a desk littered with papers.

“Ah, Miss Hammond,” he said, pushing up his glasses until they rested on his forehead. He was a mild man and I immediately noticed a look of apprehension in his rather watery grey eyes. He was a man of peace and he guessed that there might be some threat to that happy state, which often happened after a communication from my mother. When I told him I had a note from her, his fears were confirmed.

I handed it to him.

“I think there is a reply to come,” I said gently.

“Oh, yes … yes.” He pulled his spectacles down to his nose and turned slightly so that I should not see his reaction to my mother’s words.

“Dear, dear,” he said, and his eyes were full of consternation.

“It is regarding the Easter flowers. Mrs. Carter has provided them and naturally …”

“Of course,” I said.

“And sheer … has asked Miss Allder to help her arrange them, and I believe Miss Allder has agreed to do so. So you see …”

“Yes, I see. I understand perfectly.”

He smiled at me gratefully.

“And so … if you will convey my apologies to your mother and … er explain that … the matter is out of my hands, I think there is no need to write.”

Knowing my mother as I did, I felt sorry for him.

“I will explain,” I said.

“Thank you. Miss Hammond. Please do convey my regrets.”

“I will,” I promised him.

I came out of the vicarage but did not hurry home. I knew there would be a storm. I felt impatient. What could it matter who did the flowers? Why did she care so much? It was not the flowers. It was that eternal bogey. In the days of influence she would have provided the flowers. She would have decided whether they should adorn the pulpit or the altar. It all seemed so trivial. I felt both angry with and sorry for her.

So I loitered, turning over in my mind how I would break the news.

She was waiting for me.

“You’ve been a long time. Well… have you got his reply?”

“There wasn’t any need to write,” I said.

Then I told her.

“Mrs. Carter had already provided the flowers and Miss Allder is helping her arrange them because she has already asked her.”

She stared at me as though I were announcing some great disaster.

“No!” she cried.

“I am afraid that is what he said. He is very unhappy about it and really seems sorry that you are upset ” Oh, how dare he! How dare he! ”

“Well, you see, he explained that he couldn’t do anything else since Mrs. Carter provided the flowers.”

“That vulgar woman!”

“It is not the vicar’s fault.”

“Not his fault!”

Her usually pale face was suffused with a purple colour. She was shaking and her lips were quivering.

“Really, Mama,” I said.

“It is only the Easter flowers. What does it matter?”

She had closed her eyes. I could see a pulse beating rapidly in her forehead. She gasped and swayed. I ran to her and caught her just before she would have fallen. I noticed there was froth on her lips.

I wanted to shout. This is absurd. This is ridiculous. But I was suddenly frightened. This was something more than rage.

Fortunately there was a big easy chair nearby. I eased her into it and called for Meg.

Meg and I, with Amy’s help, got my mother to bed.

The doctor arrived and Meg took him in to my mother while I stood on the stairs listening.

Miss Glover, my governess, came out and saw me.

“What is it?”

“My mother has been taken ill.”

Miss Glover tried to look sympathetic, but not very successfully. She was another of those who were only staying until she found something better.

She went with me into the sitting-room to await the doctor’s departure.

I heard him come down with Meg and say: “I’ll look in this afternoon.

Then we’ll see. “

Meg thanked him and then she came into the sitting-j room where we were waiting.

She looked at me, her eyes full of anxiety. I knew that it was for me rather than for my mother.

“What has happened?” asked Miss Glover.

“He says it’s a seizure … a stroke.”

“What’s that?” I asked, j “It’s bad. But we don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see.” “How dreadful,” said Miss Glover.

“Is sheer … ?”

“He doesn’t seem to be sure. He’s coming back. She’s … pretty bad.”

“Is she all right by herself?” I asked.

“He’s given her something. He said she won’t know any thing about it… yet. He’s going to come back and bring young Dr. Egham with him.”

“It sounds terrible,” I said.

“She must be really ill.”

Meg looked at me mournfully and said: “I think she must be.”

Miss Glover said: “Well, if there’s nothing I can do …”

She left us. She was not really interested. There had been a letter for her in the post that morning. I guessed it was an offer of a new post more suited to her expectations than teaching a girl in a cottage even though it called itself a house employed by someone who had the airs of a great lady without the means to substantiate her claim.

I was beginning to read people’s thoughts.

I was glad when she went. Meg really cared.

“What does it all mean?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, love. She’s pretty ill, I reckon. My Aunt Jane had one of them strokes. Couldn’t move all down one side.

Couldn’t talk either . only mumble. She went on for a year like that. Just like a baby, she was. “

“Oh no … no.”

“Well, sometimes they don’t recover. It can happen to any one of us at any time. You might be going about your business and the Lord will see fit to strike you down.”

I kept thinking of my mother, so dignified, so proud of her breeding, so angry and bitter about the turn of her fortunes; and I was filled with pity for her. I understood then more than I ever had and I wanted to be able to tell her that I did.

A terrible fear had come to me that I should never now be able to and anger surged over me. It was all due to those stupid Easter flowers.

It was her anger which had done this to her. Oh no! It was more than the flowers. It had been growing within her-all that anger, the bitterness, the resentment. The flowers had just brought her to that climax of the years of envy and pent-up rage against fate.

When the doctor came back he had brought Dr. Egham with him. They were with my mother for a long time. Meg was in attendance and afterwards they all came down to the sitting-room and sent for me.

Dr. Canton looked at me in a kindly way which made me fear the worst.

“Your mother is very ill,” he said.

“There is a possibility that she may recover. If she does, I am afraid she will be severely handicapped. She will need attention.” He looked at me dubiously and then he turned more hopefully to Meg.