Edward spent a day at the Oval with Tommie Fox watching England draw with the West Indies. A third wicket stand of 264 between Len Hutton and Walter Hammond recalled Hutton’s mighty 364 against Australia at the Oval the previous year.Edward itched to take up a cricket bat again but had to make do with a box of croquet mallets and balls he discovered in what had once been the summerhouse but was now little more than a ruined shed given over to rats and birds. Basil tried to evict the rats but they were too fierce for him so he turned his attention to the birds who protested loudly but otherwise ignored him.Leonard and Virginia they saw almost every day. Edward grew very much to like Leonard and at his urging made a determined attack on Virginia’s Three Guineas which puzzled and rather repelled him. Virginia was so complicated and subtle a character that he found it hard to get a grip on her. While he now thought of Leonard as a friend, he still regarded Virginia as something between a seer and La Gioconda – elusive but infinitely fascinating.Verity was much less struck by Leonard and made no attempt to read Virginia’s novels, having convinced herself that she would not understand them.
