The drive back to London began in silence. Simon, concentrating on the road as the rain began again in earnest, was taciturn. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that Lydia was anxiously smoothing her gloves, as if regretting broaching the subject of my traveling with her to her home.

Finally, as the rain let up a little, I said to Simon, “Lydia has asked if I’d go with her to Vixen Hill. That’s her home.”

“Where is Vixen Hill?” he asked, raising his voice a little so that she could hear him.

“It’s in Sussex,” she replied after a moment, her voice reluctant in the darkness.

“Tomorrow we’ll drive you there, shall we?” he suggested. “It will be no trouble.”

“No-that’s lovely of you to ask, but I think-I’d rather not take you so far out of your way,” she answered him, trying to refuse him as politely as she could.

“On the contrary,” he said, “Bess would like to see you safely home.”

“I couldn’t consider it,” she told him. “Please. No.”

And that was the end of that.

I could see Simon’s profile in the dim reflection of the headlamps and could almost read what was going through his mind-that her refusal struck him as odd, given the fact that she’d just asked me to accompany her to Sussex. But I thought I understood her. My presence wouldn’t appear especially threatening. Arriving with someone like Simon as well could send a very different message-that she felt the need of protection.

I said, trying to cast a little oil on troubled waters, “There’s no hurry, Lydia. Truly there isn’t.”

“I must mend this quarrel somehow. It can’t go on-Roger is leaving for France on Boxing Day. I don’t know what to do.”

I thought of offering to let her stay in the flat after I left for Somerset, but I had a feeling she would refuse. And even if she accepted, without money, how would she feed herself, or buy warmer clothing to see her through?