Dangerous Ages

February at St. Mary's Bay. The small fire flickered and fluttered in the grate with a sound like the windy beating of wings. The steady rain sloped against the closed windows of The Gulls, and dropped patteringly on the asphalt pavements of Marine Crescent outside, and the cold grey sea tumbled moaning.

Grandmama sat in her armchair by the hearth, reading the Autobiography of a Cabinet Minister's Wife and listening to the fire, the sea and the rain, and sleeping a little now and again.