If Robin was disenchanted at being described as a child or the fact that he was introduced by his mother’s stage name, he didn’t show it, but murmured ‘Thank you’ and smiled as she said, ‘I hear that you play a good hand at cards. Perhaps we might have a game of bezique whilst you’re here?’
He expressed his disappointment that he didn’t know the game but offered to play cribbage. ‘I haven’t played it in a while,’ he said. ‘Not since I last saw Mr Arthur Crawshaw, but I think I can remember it.’
‘Perhaps we’ll all play this evening,’ Crawshaw suggested, and then turned to the door as the ladies and Giles entered the room.
Introductions were made and both Delia and Jenny were aware they were under intense scrutiny from Arthur’s mother. Delia didn’t know how much Mrs Crawshaw knew of her history, and knowing, as Arthur had often told her, that both his parents disapproved of his theatrical life, she behaved with impeccable decorum; Jenny, having only just met Arthur, responded politely as she would as a guest in anyone’s home, and with deference to their hostess’s seniority, but without any flattery or fussiness as behoved a liberated woman.
Giles conducted himself with charm and courtesy, and it was immediately apparent that he had gained Mrs Crawshaw’s approval.
‘You have a beautiful home, Mrs Crawshaw,’ Jenny commented, as they sat down to await the luncheon bell. ‘Have you lived here very long?’
‘I came as a bride nearly fifty years ago.’ She gave a disheartened sigh. ‘But I will be turned out if Arthur should marry, which of course he must, and be confined to the dower house.’ She made it sound as if she were to be locked away in the Tower of London.
‘Convention must rule, I suppose?’ Jenny acknowledged. ‘But then,’ she paused as if considering, ‘might you not find that you’re willing to discharge the responsibility to someone else; and as this fine house speaks so beautifully of your hand, would it not be satisfying for you to create a comparable design on a smaller scale and with less effort?’
Mrs Crawshaw’s eyes burned into Jenny’s but Jenny smiled openly back at her, as if she had spoken from the heart and not with any hidden purpose.
Giles’s mouth worked to hide a wry grin. The house had an aged elegance about it, but the furnishings were tired, the curtains faded and the decor in need of several coats of paint; and, he thought, it must be freezing cold in the winter. Arthur Crawshaw, he perceived, was not so much in need of a wife as of an administrator with enough energy to return it to its once regal splendour. He gave a breath of satisfaction. If Miss Robinson kept her wits about her, she could be that person.
During luncheon, Mrs Crawshaw questioned Delia and Giles about their careers and Delia in particular came in for much probing; her hostess wanted to know how she had come to decide on a musical career and about the difficulties of bringing up a child at the same time; at no time did she enquire after the whereabouts of a husband.
‘My voice was the only thing I could offer,’ Delia explained when she was questioned about her first singing role. ‘I wanted a career of my own,’ she realigned the truth a little, ‘and one day as I passed a Hull theatre I saw an advertisement on their door.’ She didn’t say that the postcard was asking for a cleaner and not a singer, nor that it was raining and cold and she’d pushed open the door and gone inside and begged for the work. She’d told the manager she was used to cleaning; to sweeping and scrubbing floors, dusting and polishing, and that no job would be too hard for her. The singing had come later.
‘Excuse me,’ Robin interrupted. ‘May I ask a question?’
Mrs Crawshaw looked benevolently at this polite child. ‘What is it?’
‘I wondered if it would be possible, if I’m very careful, for me to slide down the banister rail?’
Everyone laughed, and he went on. ‘I’ve never seen such a long rail and never ever one with a big curve in the middle of it.’ He glanced at his mother and said, ‘I’d hold on very tight so that I wouldn’t fall off and damage anything. It would be such an exciting thing to do.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Crawshaw, and Arthur looked at his mother in astonishment, ‘I think that might be possible. Arthur,’ she commanded. ‘You must put out cushions and rugs to be sure of a soft landing if he should fall.’
Mrs Crawshaw herself took Jenny and Delia on a tour of the house as far as the first floor; she declined to go any further, but said that they could have a wander about themselves if they wished. They peeped into the very top attic where the maids slept and reported back that there were several damp patches on the ceiling, indicating loose roof tiles.
‘Well, there you are, you see! Arthur can be quite lax at times,’ Mrs Crawshaw said irritably. ‘And I can’t be expected to be everywhere.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t like to look in the servants’ quarters, Mrs Crawshaw,’ Jenny suggested. ‘The housekeeper ought to have noticed, or the maids should have told her.’
‘You’re quite right.’ To Jenny’s surprise, her hostess agreed with her, although she sighed and shook her head.
Robin ran up and down the lawns, turning somersaults and looking for fish in the lake as Arthur took them on a tour of the gardens; they saw parkland, and meadows where cattle grazed, and then they came to the kitchen garden which was overgrown with rampant weeds. Delia noticed that Jenny’s eyes gleamed as she came up with various proposals for improvement.
‘You sound as if you know what you’re talking about,
