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The hops, when picked, are packed into ‘pokes’ and taken to the oast-houses, where they are spread out on a hair mat that covers the lattice floor of the upper storey. The ‘dryer' has charge of the oast-house, and on his experience depends that complicated process of firing the anthracite fires and adjusting the picturesque white ventilating cowls according to the wind. Once dried the hops are packed again, this time into ‘pockets’, and taken away to the breweries.

It was hard to imagine the comfortable home that she and her father were enjoying had once been a working oast-house. Sarah had never seen one that was still in use, but she promised herself that she would one day before they too were swept away in the wake of more modem processes.

Sarah followed the bed of the nailbourne right down to the river bank. The sun made it impossible to see into the depths of the water, but she found by squatting on the bank under a tree she could see quite well and she settled herself down without moving for a few minutes to see if she could see any fish in the river. Her own reflection peered back at her out of the water, rippled and vanished only to reappear again, joined this time by another shape, far taller than herself. She looked round, startled, to see Robert Chaddox smiling down at her.

She stood up hastily, looking at her watch to make sure that the time hadn’t slipped by without her being aware of it. “Are—aren’t you working?” she asked him baldly. She had discovered that Robert was a solicitor, with a valuable practice in Canterbury, as well as owning most of Chaddoxbourne.

“Not this afternoon,” he answered.

He sat on the bank beside her, easing his back against the trunk of the tree. “It’s nice to have nothing to do for a bit,” he added.

Sarah looked at him seriously. “It palls, after a while. Even in this beautiful weather I’m beginning to wish that I had something positive to do.”

“Your father is looking better. Isn’t that enough?”

“It ought to be,” she admitted. “I must be very hard to please!”

“I doubt it. I think I’d feel much the same. Neil is the one in our family who enjoys being idle. He doesn’t start work until September and he’s revelling in this long, hot summer.”

“He’s going to teach, isn’t he?” Sarah confirmed.

“Heaven help us!”

Sarah laughed. “What about the small boys he teaches?”

“Nothing will help them!”

Sarah laughed again. She eyed Robert covertly for a long moment in silence, wondering at her own pleasure just in having him sit beside her.

“Mr. Chaddox, do you think there’s any work in the village which I might do?”

His expression changed to one of surprise. “Am I still supposed to be calling you Miss Blaney?”

“Of course not!”

“Then perhaps you could bring yourself to call me Robert?”

Her heart lurched against her ribs. “If—if you don’t mind, I’d like to.”

His grey eyes met hers. “You’re a funny girl,” he remarked. “Don’t you think you have enough to do, looking after your father, without doing anything else?”

“I thought so for a while,” she admitted soberly. “But the truth is that if I go on like this for very much longer I shall be really bored.”

“Have you never lived in the country before?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that though— I mean, I should feel exactly the same in London, or anywhere!”

“You’re not missing the theatre?”

She looked straight at him for the first time, her eyes laughing. “It’s terrible of me, but I don’t think I am. I’d like to do something ordinary for a bit, something that wouldn’t interfere with my father when he doesn’t feel well. Do you know of anything like that I might do?”

“If I did I’m not sure I'd tell you about it,” he said at last. “I don’t approve of people playing at work. It’s almost as bad as playing with other people’s lives.”

“Oh, surely not! Besides, I wouldn’t be playing! I really need something to do. I’d do it as well as I possibly could, whatever it was, whether it was paid or not. I do know what work is!”

“In the theatre?”

She found that she was angry. She turned away from him and studied the river intently, following a small fish with her eyes as it swam against the rippling current close to the opposite bank. She felt his hand on her shoulder and shrugged away from him, her muscles tensing.

“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “How would you like to work as my secretary?”

She was surprised into forgetting her momentary anger. “Haven’t you got one? Besides, I don’t know all the legal terms you use and—and I haven’t any shorthand.”

“But you can type?”

She nodded. “Enough to make copies of scripts and things like that.”

Robert sat up straight, making sure that he had her whole attention. “I have an excellent secretary in Canterbury. I was thinking of the Chaddoxboume estate. At the moment I fit in the work attached to that when I can and hope for the best, but I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to arrange things better. It would involve sorting out the tenants’ problems, writing piles of letters to the various government departments, sending out receipts for rents, and making the plumber call when anyone springs a leak. Do you think you could do all that?”

“I could try.”

“I’d expect you to keep regular hours, except when your father needs you. You won’t be able to come and go as you like.”

“Of course not,” she said simply. “It would be a business arrangement.” Her face broke into laughter. “Are you going to make me sign a legal contract?”

“Not until I see if you’re going to be of any use,” he returned. He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Not quite as meek as you appear at first, are you ?”

She blushed, looked at her watch, and leaped to her feet. “I must get my father’s tea,” she said in a breathless voice. “Would you care to join us?” He shook his head, grinning up at her. “Robert, it is settled, isn’t it? I mean I should like to have the job.”

“Then it’s yours.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you
very
much.” She hesitated an instant, half expecting him to qualify her appointment with some remark about a trial period, but he was silent, his grey eyes looking mockingly up at her.

“Well?”

“N-nothing,” she stammered, and almost ran along the path to the oast-house, her heart hammering within her in the most uncomfortable manner.

Her pace slowed down as soon as she was out of sight of the river. Her pleasure in the idea of working for Robert fountained up within her. She would be bound to see a certain amount of him and that alone was enough to set her spirits leaping. It would be good to have something to do again! How pleased her father would be when he knew, for he too knew how frustrating it was to be at a loose end, without the discipline of work to give shape to one’s days.

But, when she opened the front door of the oast-house, she could hear his distressed breathing coming from the sitting room and immediately forgot all about everything else.

“Have you got your spray?” she called out to him, hurrying into the room.

Her father was sitting in his favourite chair, his face grey and strained, and it was a moment before she realised that he was not alone. Standing beside the chair with his back to her stood Alec Farne. He turned at her entrance, a smile of welcome on his face.

“Sarah, you’re looking very pretty!”

Sarah faced him angrily. “What have you said to upset him?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I like that! I thought you’d be pleased to see me! I haven’t said anything to him. I found the door open and as nobody answered my knock I came in here. He took one look at me and started gasping for breath. I did what I could for him, but—well, I’ve never seen anyone with asthma before.”

“Gave him a fright!” her father panted apologetically.

Sarah tried to still the dart of anxiety that shot through her. Surely no one could go on like this for long, fighting for every breath at every gasp.

“You ought to be in bed, Dad,” she said.

He attempted a smile. “I’ll do, Sarah. You’d better make some tea for this young man who’s come all this way to see you. I expect he’s still hoping to talk you into doing his play.”

“Then he’ll be unlucky,” Sarah retorted lightly. “I’ve found myself a job here, as a matter of fact. Secretary to the Chaddoxbourne Estate! What do you think of that?”

Her father smiled weakly. “So Robert found you by the river?”

“Secretary!
” Alec Farne exclaimed. “Sarah, you can’t! I won’t allow it! Good heavens, girl, haven’t you any idea of how talented you are? You can’t waste all that doing secretarial work for some village yokel!”

“Robert is a solicitor,” Sarah said carefully.

“That doesn’t make you a typist!”

Sarah turned back to her father, controlling her temper with some difficulty. Alec Farne was often referred to as being handsome, but he looked pale and drawn to her when she compared him with the men who lived locally, men like Robert Chaddox, tanned by the sun and fit enough to walk a dozen miles without collapsing.

“Not a good typist,” she agreed. “But I hope to make an adequate one. Dad, don’t you think you’d be better off in bed?”

Daniel Blaney nodded, his laboured breathing worse than ever. “Alec will give me a hand upstairs. You make the tea.”

Sarah watched them set off, hoping that Alec would ignore her father’s objections and lift him bodily up the stairs. The producer was not a particularly strong man, however, and he was panting from the effort when he came back downstairs.

“Your father weighs a ton! What have you been feeding him on?” He looked her up and down as she stood by the stove, waiting for the kettle to boil. “You’ve put on some weight yourself ! ”

“I have not!” Sarah denied.

“It suits you,” Alec smiled. “What makes your father go like that?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s been so much better recently. When I went out he was breathing absolutely normally. I can’t think what set him off. You didn’t say anything, did you?”

“I’ll say I did! I told him what I thought of your coming down here to look after him and that he was a selfish old man. Well, what do you expect, Sarah my love? The other girl has two left feet on any stage and can’t learn her lines!”

“Oh, Alec, you didn’t?”

Alec Farne stared at her moodily. “It’s true, isn’t it?” He gnawed at his lower lip thoughtfully. “Why did you tell him that you were better off without the part? It would have made you, do you know that?”

Sarah made the tea, pleased to see that her hands were completely steady. “I think I am better off,” she said finally. “It never occurred to me 'before that I might like to do something else, but I’m enjoying living in the country and being like everyone else. It was odd at first to be at home in the evening instead of working when everyone else is relaxing, but now that I’ve tried it, I find I prefer it. Even when my father is quite well again, I still may not go back to the theatre.”

“You must be mad !”

She smiled at him, amused because even as recently as a couple of weeks ago her own reaction would have been exactly the same. “Perhaps it’s sanity,” she murmured.

“If you ask me, you’re putting a brave face on things. Why can’t your stepmother take over for a while?”

“Because the theatre really is her life. She’d curl up and die if she were away from it for more than a day or so. She wouldn’t flourish on good country air and feel absolutely marvellous on a diet of fresh food and early nights!”

Alec Farne shuddered. “Perish the thought!”

Sarah grinned at him, a touch of malice in her eyes. “There you are then! You’ll have to make the best of your left-footed halfwit. I daresay she can learn lines as well as anyone else if you cosseted her a little. She’s probably scared stiff of you. I was!”

“Never!” he declared. “You never gave me cause to shout at you! ”

“If you had, I would have died there and then, I was so nervous!”

He looked surprised. “Really?” he said. "You’re rather a poppet, Sarah. Do you always do battle for every underdog you hear about?”

“No, that’s a new development too! I’ve never had time to do anything except scratch a living for myself before. Now I have
time
, and you don’t know how marvellous it is! I shall enjoy doing this bit of secretarial work, but that’s something quite different from the stresses and strains of repertory life. For the first time in my life, I have time to be myself, and I’m revelling in every moment of it!”

His look was frankly admiring. “It suits you, love,” he said. “When you do come back to the theatre you’ll knock ’em cold !”

Touched, she blinked rapidly, and poured the boiling water into the teapot. “And you’re quite resigned that I’m not coming back yet?” she enquired.

“If you say so, Sarah sweet, if you say so. I’m prepared to give you a bit more rope at any rate. Will that do?”

She nodded quickly. “Thank you, Alec.”

They had tea in the garden. Sarah took a cup up to her father, sitting on the edge of his bed while he drank it.

“Listen, Sarah,” he said. “You won’t go on with this job until you’ve talked it over with Madge, will you? She might not like you going behind her back—”

“I’ve already decided, Dad,” she said gently.

“Madge won’t like it!”

“Perhaps not.” She smiled at him. “Don’t you worry about it anyway. You’ve been so much better recently. What brought this on?”

Her father shrugged. “How should I know? I suppose I thought young Alec Farne might take you away from me. He wants you in his play, doesn’t he?”

“He did,” she admitted. “Now he thinks I’m doing a good job of growing up a bit here and he’ll keep me in mind later on. That will suit both of us very well!”

“I’m glad.” Daniel Blaney coughed and fought again for breath. “I’m enjoying having you with me. It’s almost worth feeling cheap most of the time.”

Sarah took his cup from him, still smiling. “I’m enjoying it too,” she told him. “In fact you’ll be heartily sick of having me around before I’ll leave you, so you’d better make up your mind to it! Will you be all right if I take Alec to Canterbury for his train ?”