A Change of Pace by Virginia Budd

Angelo was by now safely dead; killed by an Allied bullet in North Africa in 1942 — this time a retired rubber planter, recently demobilised from the army, by the name of Reggie Morris. The couple bought a house in Camberley and set up a riding school, and for the first time in years Angela decided to take an interest in her son; he must, of course, come and live with them.
    Unfortunately Simon thought otherwise. He loathed his step-father, didn’t much like his mother, whom he barely knew, and kept on running back to Hopton. It didn’t matter how much the Colonel leathered him on arrival; like the proverbial cat, he continued to come back. In the end everyone gave up. Angela had never been all that keen on him anyway, and had really only asked to have him back out of a belated sense of duty. Simon was sent away to boarding school, and spent his holidays at Hopton. ‘So he got his own way in the end.’ Christine rinsed her cup under the kitchen tap. But then people like him usually do, don’t they.’
    Predictably, the invitation to Hopton Manor was given a pretty mixed reception by the rest of Bet’s household. Nell was delighted, but immediately afterwards said she couldn’t possibly go as she had nothing to wear and no time to buy anything. Diz said he thought he’d give it a miss, cocktail parties with the gentry not being much in his line. And Bernie, giving his moustache a quick comb in the kitchen mirror, said he hoped the Westover servants’ hall was comfortable, because as an ex-Barton Comprehensive boy, that was where he would be entertained; at least he knew his place, if no one else did. Bet groaned and went on peeling potatoes; she knew they’d all agree to go in the end.
    Later, during the washing-up, Nell said: ‘Joking apart, Mum, why do you think we’ve been invited to the Manor? You must know how snobbish they are round here. The Rawdons — that nice couple in Buttercup Close, Bernie and I had supper with them the other night — said that unless you’ve lived here at least three hundred years, or you’re a millionaire, people like the Westovers won’t have anything to do with you socially; it isn’t that they’re nasty, it’s just they simply don’t notice you, which in a way is even worse.’
    ‘Dear Nelly, you’re such an innocent!’ Diz dropped a handful of forks into the silver drawer with a crash that made his mother wince. ‘Don’t you realise that people from the Rectory rate higher in your actual social hierarchy than the simple denizens of a housing estate? The rector, now, would certainly come before, say, your local doctor, even possibly your local lawyer, and — ’
    ‘Two points, you berk, before I throw up,’ interrupted his brother-in-law. ‘One, none of us happens to be the rector; and two, the Westovers are nothing anyway, just a load of chinless idiots who happen to have inherited a house paid for by the proceeds of some sort of quack horse medicine ... ’
    Quite suddenly, Bet started to giggle, and once started, couldn’t stop. Shoulders shaking, eyes streaming, she hung over the sink, scrubbing ineffectively at the mashed potato saucepan in an agony of suppressed laughter. ‘Now look what you’ve done, you idiots.’ Nell put a comforting hand on her mother’s heaving shoulder. ‘You’ve gone and upset Mum! She doesn’t have much of a life down here, and all you two can do when she is asked out, is try and spoil it for her.’
    ‘She’s not crying, she’s laughing.’ Diz knew his mother better than the others. Nell went pink. ‘Quite honestly, Mum, I can’t see it’s that funny.’
    ‘Oh darling, it isn’t, not really, — you’re quite right. It’s just ... well, it was the cousin, you see. I happened to meet him in the wood — I must have forgotten to tell you. He ... he was quite friendly, actually, in spite of the dogs, and I think it may be because of him we’ve been asked.’
    Suddenly everyone shut up. What was so funny about