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“I see,” said Sarah.

Neil looked increasingly more uncomfortable. “Yes, well, you see I was there in plenty of time for the last train—”

“Then why on earth didn’t you bring me home?”

“My dear Sarah, I should have thought that was obvious to a moron!”

“Well, it isn’t obvious to me ! I nearly died when I saw that train going out of the station without me!”

“Oh, come off it! I was there, don’t forget! I
saw
you, Sarah. You
and
Smart Alec. You took one look at the departing train and rushed into his arms as though you couldn’t wait! I followed you the whole way out to his car. You didn’t exactly look upset to me!”

“But that’s why Alec put his arm round me. I didn’t want everyone to see how upset I was!” Sarah sighed. “If you saw me get into Alec’s car, you must have seen my stepmother sitting in the back. Couldn’t you have told Robert about that while you were about it?”

For a desperate moment she actually thought that Neil winked at her. “If you think it would do any good—”

Sarah sat forward, hope kindling in her eyes.

“But you did see her, Neil?”

“Well, between you and me, no,” he said. “Come on, Sarah, I wasn’t born yesterday! I know when two people want to be alone, and that was you and that Smart Alec of yours last night!”

THE week slid by without Sarah seeing anyone but her father and the doctor when he came on his daily visits. Each day her father looked better and, by Saturday, he was well enough to sit out of bed in his dressing gown and take an interest in what was going on.

“Is Madge coming?” he asked Sarah when she took him in his breakfast on Sunday morning.

Sarah threw him a quick look of concern. “I think so,” she said.

His lips quirked downwards. “Don’t worry, I shan’t upset myself. Madge shall come and go as a stranger and I shall greet her as such. Unless—-do you want me to try and make her repair the damage she has caused between you and Robert?”

"No. No, thank you,” Sarah said with dignity. “I’d much rather Madge didn’t know about—about me.”

“Understandable!” her father grunted.

“I don’t suppose she meant any harm,” Sarah continued.

“Probably not. Lack of imagination is a serious handicap in an artist. She would never have got herself tied up with this ridiculous part if she had given a moment’s thought as to how she would look as a teenager!”

Sarah chuckled. “Did you warn her?” she asked with interest.

“Again and again!”

Sarah was still laughing as she went downstairs at the irony in her father’s voice. Poor Madge! What a lot she had missed by not enjoying her husband as much as she might have done. How could any success compare with that?

She didn’t expect her stepmother for several hours, but the sound of a car drawing up in the drive drew her to the kitchen window to see who it could be. She was surprised to see Madge stepping out of the car and ran to the front door to let her in, wondering what could have happened to make her stepmother make such an early start.

“I nearly came last night,” Madge greeted her. “I had to know how Daniel is. Telephone calls tell one nothing. I’m sure you don’t mean it, darling, but you sound as though you’re trying to exclude me from something, you’re so noncommittal on the phone. I have a right to know! I am his wife, you know. You are merely his daughter!”

“Yes, Madge.”

“Oh, Sarah, really! Now you’re upset, I suppose? Well, so am I! I’ve had a terrible week, and worrying about Daniel was almost the last straw!”

Sarah said nothing. She had nearly said that her stepmother had shown no sign of worrying about her father last Monday, but then she realised that that wasn’t quite true. Her stepmother had been unaccountably depressed, and she had said at least twice that she was miserable. From Madge Dryden that was quite a lot.

“Have you had breakfast?” Sarah asked her.

Her stepmother’s eyes lit up hopefully. “I’ve given up eating breakfast. I have to keep my figure—She trailed off uncertainly. “What are you having?”

Sarah smiled almost maternally. “Bacon and eggs?” she suggested.

“Oh yes, darling. That would be lovely!”

Madge sat down expectantly at the kitchen table, slipping her shoes off her feet and wiggling her toes with a grimace. “I’m tired! Nobody makes any effort to pull their weight in the songs! I have to carry it all on my back! It’s too much!”

“It isn’t the right vehicle for you,” Sarah murmured, breaking a couple of eggs into the frying pan.

“You can say that again ! Of course I knew that when I first read the part. I kept telling everyone—including Daniel! But nobody pays any attention to anything. I say!”

Sarah thought that perhaps her stepmother really did believe that and she very nearly laughed.

“Dad is much better,” she said brightly. “The doctor still comes every day, but I don’t think he has to any longer. He’s been very kind.”

“Which doctor? Is he any good? I think Daniel ought to see someone in London. It’s ridiculous to think that country doctors are any good. They wouldn’t
be
in the country if they were. I think I’ll arrange for him to see someone next week.”

“I don’t think he’ll go. He likes Dr. Fairfield. Besides—”

“I don’t think it’s your decision to make, Sarah. I’m the one to say what should, or should not, be done ! Even if I weren’t his wife, I’m paying for it after all!”

“Dr. Fairfield is a National Health doctor,” Sarah said reluctantly. “Why don’t you wait and see him for yourself before you call in anyone else?”

"I’ll see.” Madge accepted the plate her daughter held out to her and regarded the rashers of bacon and the two fried eggs with satisfaction. “I’ll do it for you, darling. There, you can’t say I never do anything for you, can you?”

Sarah gave her stepmother a sardonic smile, chastising herself inwardly for becoming cynical, and went upstairs for her father’s tray.

Madge prowled round the house, fingering the ornaments as she went. “Why doesn’t he want to see me?” she asked Sarah for the tenth time.

“He’s sleeping,” Sarah told her tactfully.

“Doesn’t he know that I got up at some unearthly hour just to be with him?”

“I suppose so.”

“Sarah, you did tell him, didn’t you?”

“He heard your car arrive. He has an amazing ear for car engines. He can tell whether it’s your car almost before you’ve got here.”

“Well, I think he might put himself out a little to make me welcome. This house is like a morgue! I feel too, too , sad—you know how atmosphere affects me ! No, come to think of it, you wouldn’t! You’ve never had any imagination or sensitivity for others.”

“No,” Sarah agreed, “I’m a hard case!”

“I’m beginning to think you are! Doesn’t he come downstairs at all now? I don’t think he should be encouraged to be lazy. I expect you find it easier to give him his food on a tray, but it isn’t good for him to be on his own so much. I shall make him come down to dinner!”

“Please don’t, Madge. The doctor says his heart is very tired after that last attack and that he shouldn’t put any extra strain on it.”

“But it’s so
boring
!”

“You could go out,” Sarah suggested.

“By myself? I wouldn’t know where to go! Besides I wouldn’t dream of leaving you on your own.” Madge looked thoughtfully at her stepdaughter. “Unless you would like to go somewhere?” she hazarded.

“No, thank you. I don’t think Daddy should be left on his own.”

Madge shrugged her shoulders. “You don’t want to become a
cabbage,
darling,” she remarked.

When the telephone bell went, Sarah was aware of a feeling of relief that she didn’t have to answer her stepmother. “Shall I get it?” she offered.

“No, I will. It’s probably for me anyway. I’m expecting my agent to call some time.”

Sarah’s eyebrows rose. She tried not to listen to her stepmother’s end of the conversation, but the temptation was irresistible, and so she knew that it was Robert who was speaking. Madge sounded both pleased and flattered.

“No, no,” she was saying, “I was down at crack of dawn. Yes, much better! I’m sure we all owe you a big vote of thanks for getting that doctor of yours in to see him. Worked miracles in a few days!”

Sarah tasted a bitterness on her tongue. She tried to turn off her ears, but her stepmother’s voice was too well produced to be ignored.

“Dinner tonight? Why, how very kind of you! I’d love to, of course. How nice of you to ask me! Are you sure it isn’t Sarah you want?”

There was another break and Sarah wondered what it was that Robert was saying.

“You only want me? Well, if you’re sure, I think it would be better if Sarah stayed with Daniel. He isn’t really well enough to be left on his own yet. No, she won’t mind a bit. It’s one of the penalties of having a famous stepmother, that she receives more invitations than you do. Poor Sarah learned that at an early age, but she doesn’t mind, bless her! She hasn’t a glamorous turn of mind!”

Sarah could hear Robert’s laughter. She was hurt that he hadn’t asked her, and even more hurt that he should think she was ever jealous of her stepmother.

“Darling, that was Robert! He’s asked me to dinner tonight. I think perhaps he realises how dull it is here for me. Do you think you could press my dress for me? I think something long, don’t you?”

“Who else is going to be there?”

“How should I know?” Madge smiled happily, clasping her hands in front of her. “I believe he mentioned his brother and that girl called Samantha. Is that right?” Sarah pressed her lips together and nodded. He hadn’t lost much time, she thought, in turning back to Samantha. And she was shocked by the depths of her own misery. How was she going to survive without Robert? For an instant her courage faltered and she thought she couldn’t. But then the moment passed and the mundane tasks of the moment took over. She went and got her stepmother’s dress, plugged in the iron, and spent the next half-hour smoothing its ample skirts.

For once Sarah had seen both the films that the television offered that evening, and the third channel offered only a selection of very modern, computerised music that depressed her. She spent an hour or so with her father, losing a game of chess to his quicker and more’ mathematical wits.

“I’d die of shock if I ever won a game of chess!” she remarked as she put the pieces away.

“You’re too impetuous to make a good player,” he told her. “Nor is it very practical to defend your pawns at the expense of your queen!” He laughed at the chagrin on her face. “I really believe you look on them as helpless children in need of care and protection!” he teased her.

“If it were only that, I might improve over the years !”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. I think we all grow more cynical as we grow older—”

Daniel glanced up at her. “Maybe. Bitterness is not an attractive quality, my dear. That is something we must all guard against, if not for our own sake, for those who love us.”

Sarah bit her lip at the reproof. “I’ll try,” she said. “I have an object lesson in you that it would be churlish to ignore.”

“You don’t do so badly!” he smiled. “Would you think me terrible if I asked for a cup of tea?”

She shook her head and went downstairs to make it. It was just nine o’clock, though it felt like midnight. Perhaps she, too, would go to bed with a book, though she doubted her ability to concentrate on the written word.

When her father had finished his tea, she straightened his bedclothes and left his spectacles and his book on his bedside table, adding a bowl of fruit which she knew he liked to pick at if he woke up early.

“What does Robert say to your giving his letters the go-by?” he asked her as he came back into the bedroom. “I should imagine he’s a stickler for time-keeping.”

“It was part of our agreement that I shouldn’t go in if you weren’t well enough,” Sarah answered. “Besides, no matter how angry with me he is, he wouldn’t take it but on you.”

Daniel smiled. “He’s too big a man for that?”

Sarah felt herself blushing. “Yes,” she said firmly, “he is.”

Daniel kissed her cheeks, openly laughing at her. “Oh, Sarah, don’t ever lose that expressive face of yours. And don’t worry about Robert! He’ll come round !”

It was cold comfort to take to bed with her. Sarah undressed quickly and put on her nightdress, only then deciding to have a bath. The water was blazing hot, ready for her stepmother, but Sarah didn’t care. She drew most of it off, stifling any guilt that she might have felt. She even put in handfuls of bath-salts, a luxury she was usually more sparing with, until the water was syrupy and slippery against the bottom of the bath. When she lowered herself into the water, she made no effort to wash herself, but lay there soaking, tantalising herself by imagining what tales her stepmother was telling Robert.

When that occupation became too uncomfortable, even for the masochistic mood she was in, she got out of the bath again and rubbed herself dry, going into her bedroom. She turned out the lights and pulled the curtains back, watching the moonlight as it cast its white light over the laden fruit trees. If she leaned out far enough, she could see the drive as it made its way up to the Manor. She fixed her eyes on the black surface, wishing that she was at the other end of it. Then, just as she was turning away, she saw her stepmother, Robert, and Samantha come walking down the drive towards the gate of the oast-house. Unable to restrain herself, she went into her stepmother’s room and watched them approach. Madge kissed them both as she parted from them, her voice coming floating up to the open window.

“Lovely evening! Robert, I’m so grateful to you for all your good advice and I will
try
not to feel guilty about Daniel, though I can’t help a tiny twinge now and again. Goodnight, Samantha. Don’t let Robert do too much ! That stepdaughter of mine can do a bit more for him! He shouldn’t pay her for doing nothing, I’m sure you agree ! Thanks again for a lovely evening! ”