When the telephone had jangled again a minute later, I picked up the receiver at once, then jiggled my finger rapidly up and down on the cradle.

“Hello?” I had shouted. “Hello? Hello? I’m sorry—Can’t hear you. Frightful connection. Call back some other day.”

On the third ring, I had taken the receiver off the hook and spat into the mouthpiece, which began at once to give off an alarming crackling noise.

“Fire,” I had said in a dazed and vaguely monotonous voice. “The house is in flames … the walls and the floor. I’m afraid I must ring off now. I’m sorry, but the firemen are hacking at the window.”

The bill collector had not called back.

“My meetings with the Estate Duties Office,” Father was saying, “have come to nothing. It is all up with us now.”

“But Aunt Felicity!” Daffy protested. “Surely Aunt Felicity—”

“Your aunt Felicity has neither the means nor the inclination to alleviate the situation. I’m afraid she’s—”

“Coming down for Christmas,” Daffy interrupted. “You could ask her while she’s here!”

“No,” Father said sadly, shaking his head. “All means have failed. The dance is over. I have been forced at last to give up Buckshaw—”

I let out a gasp.

Feely leaned forward, her brow furrowed. She was chewing at one of her fingernails: unheard of in someone as vain as she.

Daffy looked on through half-shut eyes, inscrutable as ever.

“—to a film studio,” Father went on. “They will arrive in the week before Christmas, and will remain in full possession until their work is complete.”

“But what about us?” Daffy asked. “What’s to become of us?”

“We shall be allowed to remain on the premises,” Father replied, “provided we keep to our quarters and don’t interfere in any way with the company’s work at hand. I’m sorry, but those were the best terms I could manage. In return, we shall receive, in the end, sufficient remuneration to keep our noses above water—at least until next Lady Day.”