And he had left next day. And that was all. The rest had been looking after father and at the same time keeping out of father’s way. But now? But now? The thieving sun touched Josephine gently. She lifted her face. She was drawn over to the window by gentle beams …

Until the barrel-organ stopped playing Constantia stayed before the Buddha, wondering, but not as usual, not vaguely. This time her wonder was like longing. She remembered the times she had come in here, crept out of bed in her night-gown when the moon was full, and lain on the floor with her arms outstretched, as though she was crucified. Why? The big, pale moon had made her do it. The horrible dancing figures on the carved screen had leered at her and she hadn’t minded. She remembered too how, whenever they were at the seaside, she had gone off by herself and got as close to the sea as she could, and sung something, something she had made up, while she gazed all over that restless water. There had been this other life, running out, bringing things home in bags, getting things on approval, discussing them with Jug, and taking them back to get more things on approval, and arranging father’s trays and trying not to annoy father. But it all seemed to have happened in a kind of tunnel. It wasn’t real. It was only when she came out of the tunnel into the moonlight or by the sea or into a thunderstorm that she really felt herself. What did it mean? What was it she was always wanting? What did it all lead to? Now? Now?

She turned away from the Buddha with one of her vague gestures. She went over to where Josephine was standing. She wanted to say something to Josephine, something frightfully important, about – about the future and what …

‘Don’t you think perhaps – ’ she began.

But Josephine interrupted her. ‘I was wondering if now – ’ she murmured. They stopped; they waited for each other.

‘Go on, Con,’ said Josephine.

‘No, no, Jug; after you,’ said Constantia.

‘No, say what you were going to say. You began,’ said Josephine.

‘I … I’d rather hear what you were going to say first,’ said Constantia.

‘Don’t be absurd, Con.’

‘Really, Jug.’

‘Connie!’

‘Oh, Jug!’

A pause. Then Constantia said faintly, ‘I can’t say what I was going to say, Jug, because I’ve forgotten what it was … that I was going to say.’

Josephine was silent for a moment. She stared at a big cloud where the sun had been. Then she replied shortly, ‘I’ve forgotten too.’

The Doll’s House

When dear old Mrs Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll’s house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No harm could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll’s house (‘Sweet of old Mrs Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!’) – but the smell of paint was quite enough to make anyone seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl’s opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off. And when it was …

There stood the doll’s house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow.