‘So you’ve managed to come at last, have you? I’d given you up altogether.’ ‘Sorry, Aunt Janet.’ Stephen was about to make an excuse, but the old woman tossed her head and pulled her woollen cape more tightly round her shoulders. ‘Nobody considers me. It’s always self, self, self. Ronald and Flora are exactly the same.’ Barbara looked down at her hands, with their covering of cheap rings, and braced herself to endure another unpleasant afternoon. She was proved correct. Aunt Janet was at her most obnoxious, and waded in straight away. ‘That Mrs Valentine, the minister’s wife, came round on Friday afternoon collecting things for the Sale of Work, but the chiropodist from Thornkirk was here at the time, so I told her it wasn’t convenient and she’d have to come back later. She was quite annoyed, and it was raining, so, of course, she didn’t appear again. A fine sort of wife for a minister, I must say.’ ‘Did you have anything for the Sale of Work?’ Barbara asked idly, not really caring one way or the other.
