The Parliament House

    'I thought that she was delightful,' said Brilliana.

    'Then why did you never stop harrying her?' asked Susan.

    'I harried nobody.'

    'You did hound her a little, my dear,' said Serle.

    'I was entitled to search for the truth, Lancelot. If Mrs Kitson is to marry Father, I need to know as much about her as possible. Having done so, I must say that I would have no qualms about her being our stepmother.'

    'Nor would I.'

    'Then I must disagree with both of you,' said Susan.

    'Why? Mrs Kitson is a charming lady.'

    'I do not doubt her charm, Lancelot. She could not have been more pleasant. What I could not do was to see her and Father together somehow. They seem so ill-assorted.'

    'That's what people said about Lancelot and me,' Brilliana put in. 'And, quite candidly, I could make the same observation about you and Christopher.'

    'Our ages are at least fairly similar,' said Susan. 'Father is so much older than Mrs Kitson and his background is so different. Can you imagine her being happy in Northamptonshire?'

    'If a wife loves her husband, she will be happy wherever they are.'

    'Thank you, Brilliana,' said Serle.

    'Differences simply disappear in a close relationship.'

    'That was certainly so in our case.'

    'I still have reservations about this friendship,' said Susan, 'and I do not wish to see Father getting hurt. Though he's advanced in years, he's very sensitive in some ways. We must protect him from making a mistake by acting too hastily.'

    'There's no chance of that with Mr Golland involved,' remarked Serle. 'He wishes to slow everything down to a snail's pace.'

    Brilliana sniffed. 'I found him a rather disagreeable fellow.'

    'I liked him. He knows so much about horses.' 'He did not come here primarily to talk about those, Lancelot,' said Susan. 'While we were getting acquainted with Mrs Kitson, her brother was subjecting us to scrutiny. And he was very displeased.'

    'How could he possibly have found us wanting?' said Brilliana.

    'Because he was looking at us through a haze of prejudices. Mr Golland holds one set of values and they are firmly imprinted on his face. Father has strongly differing principles and we, by extension, are tarred with the same brush. He resented us from the start.'

    'But I do not share Father's political views,' said Brilliana.

    'Neither do I,' added Serle.

    'It does not matter,' said Susan. 'We are all one to Mr Golland. He will do everything in his power to dissuade his sister from continuing with this friendship. Put simply, he detests Father.'

    'I gave him the benefit of the doubt,' said Orlando Golland. 'I went there, with judicial impartiality, to weigh the evidence as I saw it.'

    'Your mind was made up before we even arrived.'

    'That's not so, Dorothy.'

    'Yes, it is,' she rejoined. 'You are a man of fixed opinions, Orlando. Those opinions were formed when you were an undergraduate at Cambridge and you have not changed any of them since. I knew that it was a mistake to take you.'

    'You needed someone there as an objective observer.'

    'You were only a hindrance.'

    'So much for gratitude!' he said, huffily.

    Dorothy put a hand on his arm. 'I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I can see it from your point of view. You feel that I need safeguarding.' She gave a wan smile. 'Not any more, Orlando.'

    They had returned to her house in Covent Garden and were seated in the parlour. On the drive back, Golland had not restricted his criticism to Sir Julius. He considered Brilliana Serle to be too garrulous and Susan Cheever to be too quiet and watchful. The one person who had excited his admiration was Lancelot, a son-in-law who clearly had nothing whatsoever in common with Sir Julius and who would therefore suffer at his hands. He decided that the disparity between the two men was as glaring as that between Sir Julius and Dorothy.

    'Differences will out, Dorothy,' he warned.

    'You do not have to lecture me.'

    'But you did not see how out of place you were in that family.'

    'I felt it,' she confessed, 'and it made me look at myself afresh.'

    'Sanity at last!'

    'No, Orlando. Plain commonsense.'

    'Sir Julius is a ridiculous suitor for a woman of your quality.'

    'I do not want him as a suitor - only as a friend. When I saw him with his daughters this evening, I realised that I could never replace the wife that he lost. I would be like a fish out of water. When we are alone together,' she went on, 'Sir Julius is wonderful company and I'd hate to lose that. Anything else, I've come to see, is out of the question.'

    'I told you so.'

    'I had to find out for myself.'

    'What will you tell, Sir Julius?'

    'Nothing,' she said. 'He's an intelligent man. He could sense that we did not belong together in the wider circle of his family.'

    'You do not belong together anywhere, Dorothy.'

    'I'll not let you spoil our friendship.'

    'But it's so embarrassing for me. How could I admit to anyone in my circle that my sister has formed an attachment with Sir Julius?'

    'That's a problem you must cope with as best you may. I love you as a brother and listen to you as an adviser. But the one thing I will not allow if that you should dictate the terms of my social life.'

    'As you wish,' he said, backing off. 'One object has been achieved. I've saved you from even contemplating a third marriage. Well,' he added quickly as she tried to speak, 'if we are being pedantic, you saved yourself from that irredeemable folly. But I do claim credit for moving you in the right direction.'

    She kissed him on the forehead. 'It's too late for an argument, Orlando,' she said, wearily, 'and I'm far too tired to engage in one. Though you might not have thought it, this evening was a rather bruising encounter for me.'

    'I blame Mrs Serle for acting like a Grand Inquisitor.'

    'I did not even mind that. Brilliana was within her rights to question me. No,' she continued with a sigh, 'my pain arose out of a sense of loss. The longer the evening went on, the more convinced I became that hopes I'd once nurtured were silly and inappropriate. I'm too old and contented to consider a third marriage.'

    'It would have been a form of suicide.'

    'No, Orlando. That's unfair. Sir Julius is a good man and my affection for him remains. But the gap that exists between us could never be bridged,' she concluded. 'I'll cherish his friendship instead.'

    'Allow a decent interval to elapse before you see him again.'

    'I had already intended to do so. Both he and I need to recover from this evening's setback. It was a salutary lesson for me.' Dorothy pursed her lips in resignation. 'I am simply not ready for a more serious relationship with anybody.'

        Christopher Redmayne was thrilled to see her again and pleased that she had travelled to his house by coach this time. Since it was such a glorious morning, he took Susan Cheever out into his garden and they sat in the shade of a pear tree. She was unusually subdued.

    'You seem rather sad,' he observed.

    'Not on my own behalf,' she said. 'I feel very sorry for Father.' 'Why?'

    'He built so much upon his friendship with Mrs Kitson. She brought happiness into his life and nobody could