for the nearby pile of newspapers and glossy magazines.
This was partly pleasure and partly work for Elise â searching for new and exciting recipes and ideas for settings, and keeping up to date with the personal lives of those she might expect to meet socially or entertain. She had her contacts, of course, but down here in the heart of Gloucestershire it was sometimes possible to feel a little cut-off, and with the high incidence of divorce and separation these days it was impossible to be too careful. For example, an invitation addressed to Sir Charles and Lady Lauderdale would become a disaster if the latter had left home â as the gossip columns had been predicting â in order to live in the South of France with a director of art films. And the live-in lover situation placed even greater pitfalls in the path of smooth entertaining. But Elise kept confidently abreast of current changes in partners where less experienced hostesses might have fallen by the wayside, thereby enhancing her reputation even further.
The glossy magazines she had already scanned â a quick glance assured her she had missed nothing. Then she opened the first of the daily papers to the gossip column pages and immediately her mouth softened as she recognised the face smiling up at her from the central photograph.
âMiss Katrina Fletcher,â the caption read, but to Elise she would always be Katy and her heart lifted as it invariably did at the sight of her favourite grandchild. Katy was nineteen years old now, and as pretty as a picture. Not even black and white newsprint could mar the perfection of the oval face with its high cheekbones and delicate mouth, and with the love of a grandmother for her only granddaughter Elise looked beyond, seeing in her mindâs eye the warm brown eyes flecked with sparkling hazel lights and fringed with long, thick lashes that had no need of mascara, and the luxuriant fall of shining brown hair, smooth yet with a tantalising hint of curl at the ends.
Those who had known Elise as a girl often remarked on the similarity â Katy was like her, they said. But Elise would have none of it. She gloried in Katyâs beauty because she loved her â to admit that some of it might have been inherited would be another sign of the vanity she despised.
But she did acknowledge that Katy had taken after her in many ways. From the time Katy was a small child Elise had been able to identify with her and understand her as she had never been able to do with Geraldine. Empathy had jumped a generation, it seemed, for Katy liked the same things which Elise had liked as a girl, showed signs of the same passions, cried for the same tragedies. For her, life was a constant voyage of adventure and discovery, as it had been for the young Elise. There was a spirit there, a spark, that sometimes made Elise feel she was looking into a mirror when she listened to Katy dreaming her dreams; she knew that beneath the gaiety, Katy could be as stubborn and wilful as she and as fearless.
Indulgently Elise gave her head a little shake. What had Katy done to attract the gossip columnistâs attention? she wondered. Partyed with too wild a crowd? Or danced until dawn with a duke, in one of the exclusive clubs to which she was frequently taken since moving to London to try to find herself a niche in the world of art and antiques? Elise had tried to persuade her to stay closer to home here in Gloucestershire â the thought of Katy going away had been like a light going out in her life. But she had known even as she had suggested trying to find her a position in Bristol or Bath that the request was a selfish one, and when Katy had told her, eyes alight: âBut I really want to stand on my own two feet. Granny,â she had smiled sadly.
âYouâre right, Katy. You need that; we all do.â
But since Katy had left, how she had missed her! For eighteen years she had never been more than a short car