For the chance of getting her cards read she had been chatty enough, and was glad to tell them about the older woman coming running down the lane yelling for help till Old Beattie had hauled his cart over, and then the younger man following with the lady in his arms all broken. She had watched them go up this way too, and reckoned by her memory of the pattern of her duties done that there had been no more than half an hour between Kate turning up this way looking happy and bright, and her sad return. The way was muddy, and Jocasta thought it an odd walk to take on a Sunday with the clean paths of Hyde Park so close, but it had been chosen for its quietness. London was pushing out west like a growing baby stretches and pulls out its mother’s belly for new space. Here they were near its edge and limit. On one side of the way sat the high brick wall of one of the fancier houses, on the left as they walked was hedgerow and a view of the fields. As they cleared the backs of the gardens, she sniffed the air and it tasted of green things hiding away for the winter, and woodsmoke.
