Ultimate Prizes by Howatch Part II

Neville goes alone to the dinner, which has dull limited food and he tries not to be tempted by the alcohol on display.... He is surprised to meet a friend of the Bishop's daughter, who is a WREN at the Naval base. Dido Tallent is a society girl, who appears in the fashionable papers, being well known as the daughter of a Scottish millionaire. She is rather plain but amusing, and he finds himself talking to her and feeling flattered that he is being chosen as the conversation partner of a glamour girl. She tells him that she lost her favourite sister, Laura a few years earlier, Laura having died in childbirth, and left her lonely. She joined the Wrens but realised that life there wasn't very heroic and felt more depressed. Neville finds himself feeling interested in her and believes her when she seems to be looking for spiritual guidance. The following day, Dido turns up at his house, and asks him to write to her on religious matters. Grace can see uneasily that there is an attraction between the 2 of them..... Soon afterwards, Neville and Grace get an invitation to visit a stately home, of the Earl of Starmouth, a friend of Dido's. The Earl's wife is interested in the church and is friendly with Alex Jardine, who like Neville is from a modest middle class background. Alex identifies with Neville because of their similar lives as boys. Neville is invited to preach, and does so, but to his horrified amazement, Dido is there as well and clearly eager to flirt with him. He knows that he is getting into dangerous waters and in order to try to get his marriage back to normal, he suggests to Grace that they change their holiday arrangements and they end up going to a different place, for their summer holiday. They go to the Lake district and find that the cottage they have hired is dirty and uncared for, and one of the children becomes ill, immediately. Grace nurses him and then collapses herself with pneumonia. She gets worse quickly, and dies within a day or so..... Grace is only a young woman, of 41 and Neville is shaken to the core.