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“I told you that she had asked me to supper after the theatre, but you didn’t believe me.”

He looked at her seriously. “You haven’t quite forgiven me for that, have you? The trouble was I wanted to believe you too much. I was equally sure that Madge would tell me the truth if I asked her outright if she had had supper with you that night.”

“Is that why you asked her to dinner?”

“I asked her twice,” he said flatly. “Once directly, and once when we were talking about her show I slipped in some comment about your reaction to what she’d said to you about it on Monday. I drew a blank.”

“Oh, Robert!”

“I know, I should have known better. But I kept remembering that you were in the theatre too, and how your thoughts flit across your face. There was always the possibility that it was an act for my benefit.”

“I know,” Sarah said gently. “You were afraid of that from the beginning, weren’t you?”

“I kept remembering how Neil’s mother ran rings round my father. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“No,” Sarah agreed. “I learned that last night, in a way. Personal relationships are not easy to get into perspective. I realised last night that I’d always believed all the clichés about them. Family feeling, and loving the child because she loved the father, and even that loving one’s family was a happy feeling and wanting to be with them.”

“Yet you left home and went off on your own?”

“That was different.” She hesitated, not knowing quite how to tell him. “I wanted to go on the legitimate stage, and I didn’t want to be crowded by the great Madge Dryden. But I still thought we loved each other. I suppose we still do—in a way, mixed up with a whole lot of other things. Some of them aren’t very nice. Maybe I didn’t want to see them before.”

“Poor Sarah! Yet you kept your head better than I did, insisting that you’d be vindicated in the end.”

“I didn’t always believe it.”

“But you didn’t give up. You gave me some uncomfortable moments when you kept on insisting that I was wrong about you. There was all the evidence against you, unanswerable, as I thought, and all you had was hurt bewilderment that I wouldn’t believe you. It was such an uneven battle that I found myself wondering why you didn’t admit that you’d been with Alec, but you never did.”

“I might have done if I hadn’t understood how you felt,” Sarah said gruffly. “But I couldn’t help agreeing with you that one can’t compromise with the truth. If I had been playing games with Alec, I’d have thought you were right.” She smiled fleetingly. “Now that you know the truth, I find it comforting that you think it important. We may hurt each other, but it will be a clean hurt.”

“I’ll try not to hurt you,” he promised. “Will you mind being nothing more exciting than Mrs. Robert Chaddox?”

She took a quick breath, her face white and solemn. “Oh, Robert, I hadn’t thought—I haven’t much to bring you, but I will try to be worthy of your name!”

And she wondered why he let out a whoop of joy, completely overcome by delighted laughter.

Madge Dryden went straight back to London when she heard that Sarah intended to marry Robert.

“I’m not going to encourage you in this foolishness,” she said as she climbed into her car. “I won’t have anything to do with it! When you want to come back to the theatre, let me know, and I’ll do what I can to help you.”

Sarah ignored that. “You’ll come to the wedding, won’t you, Madge?”

Madge screwed up her face while she thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re too old to be my daughter—even my stepdaughter—and if I came, there would be a whole lot of publicity about us and my age would be bound to come out.”

“I see,” said Sarah.

Her stepmother looked her straight in the eyes. “You won’t miss me,” she said wryly.

Sarah felt both guilty and inadequate. “I’ll send you some wedding cake. And you’ll always know where to find me.”

“I suppose so,” Madge sighed. “I might come and visit you after a year or two. Robert’s bound to insist on children and they may be glad to have a famous step-grandmother. It will counteract some of the worst effects of their country upbringing and, you never know, one of them may have a yen for the theatre later on.”

Sarah blinked at this pat presentation of a readymade family when the idea of children—Robert’s children !— had scarcely crossed her mind. She' felt decidedly foolish, especially when she realised that her stepmother knew exactly what she had been thinking.

“Come whenever you can!” she said.

“We’ll see,” Madge nodded. She revved up the engine and blew a kiss in Sarah’s direction. “ ’Bye, darling!”

Sarah watched the car disappear down the road. She still felt guilty and knew it was because she was glad that her stepmother had decided not to come to the wedding. It was not a moment that she wanted to share with Madge Dryden, either in the guise of famous star or of her stepmother. She wouldn’t enjoy being outshone by Madge’s dazzling charm herself, but worse still Madge would be bound to annoy Robert on a day when she wanted everything to be perfect for him. Then she laughed at herself for the conceit of that particular desire, and went through the orchard into the Manor gardens to find him.

Robert greeted her with a smile. He held out a hand to her and she slipped into the circle of his arm with a sigh of relief.

“Has she gone?”

She nodded. “It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. She says she’ll come and visit us when we produce some grandchildren to appreciate her!”

“I hope you carried it off with an air,” Robert said, enjoying the expression on her face.

She chuckled. “You would have been proud of me,” she teased him. “I’ll never learn to act off a stage! I’m afraid it was only too clear that the idea came as a shock to me. Rather a delightful shock,” she added. “Ridiculous because you as good as told me that you would marry to have an heir to leave the house to rather than have it go out of the family!”

“You sound very willing to oblige me,” he retorted.

“Yes, I am,” she said frankly, acknowledging the pressure of his arm with a smile. “Mother won’t come to the wedding. I think it’s just as well, don’t you?”

“I’d have preferred you to have someone to support you, but as long as you don’t change your mind about marrying me, I don’t care what happens.”

Sarah looked thoughtful. “I think I’ll ask Uncle Edwin. He’d like to stand in for Daddy, and he’ll approve of my being married in a village church in the place where I’m going to live.”

“Good idea. Neil will be my best man. That leaves the reception—”

Sarah gave him an embarrassed look. “I think that’s all been arranged,” she told him. “The Women’s Institute choir is going to sing for us, and the rest of them, led by Mrs. Vidler, are going to make the food and so on.”

Robert kissed her cheek. “I’m ashamed to say I was worried about your lack of family, in case you minded, but with the whole of Chaddoxbourne on your side of the church I shall look to my own laurels!”

“Darling, you don’t have to! It’s only because I’m going to be your wife and they’re pleased for you. They’ve all been so kind to me that I’d like it to be a day to remember for them.”

His arms tightened about her and she turned to face him, reaching up for his kiss. It would not be many days now until she was Mrs. Robert Chaddox, and if it seemed long, it was all too short for the multitude of things that had to be done.

“Happy, darling?” he asked her.

She answered him with her lips. She was indeed totally happy and she had no fears for the future, for together they would guard their happiness well, working at it all the harder because it had so nearly fallen through their fingers. His kiss deepened and her heart thudded against her ribs with the new familiar magic that his touch produced in her.

“Well?” he smiled at her, loosening his hold on her.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you very much.” She smiled and threw back her head, her eyes loving him, and, half-laughing, she quoted very slowly in a voice; husky with emotion:

“Of Briton's race, if one surpass,

A Man of Kent is he!”