Alicia laughed.
"I'm accustomed to it. Jean will be delighted with an ally. She pretends to disapprove. But Roger and I are generally too much for her."
"Is he a master, then?"
"Good gracious, no! But he has a lot of friends at the school. He ought to be interested—it's his land, you know. His people lived there for generations—the Lumsdens of Dene Compton. The head master has the old house, but the school itself is new—all those buildings you see. No, not those—" Alwynne's eyes were caught by a glitter of glass roofs—"those are Roger's houses. He's a gardener, you know. He lives for his bulbs and his manures."
The tiny cart rocked as the pony bucketed down the dip of the road and whirled it through the gates and up the short drive. Alwynne clutched the inadequate rail.
"He will do it," said Alicia resignedly. "He wants his tea. There's Jean. Mind the door."
She pulled up the rocketing pony as the ridiculous little door burst open and Alwynne and her baggage were precipitated on to the gravel.
A little woman ran out from the porch.
"Are you hurt? It always does that. I'm always asking Alicia to tell Bryce to take it to be seen to. Alicia—I shall speak to Roger if you don't. My dear, I hope you haven't hurt yourself. That pretty frock—but it will all brush off. And how is Elsbeth, and why didn't you bring her with you? Come in at once and have some tea. Alicia has driven round to the stables. It's Bryce's afternoon off."
Jean was a prim little red-haired woman, some years younger than Alicia, with brisk ways, and a clacking tongue. She had Alwynne in a chair, had given her tea, deplored her white looks, suggested three infallible remedies, recounted their effect on her own constitution and Alicia's and her nephew's, and, digressing easily, was beginning a detailed history of Roger's health since, at the age of five or thereabouts, he had come under her care, before Alwynne had had time to realise more than that the room was very cheerful, Jean very talkative, and she herself very, very tired. She could not help being relieved when Alicia returned. Jean, with her neat dress and knowledgeable ways and little air of apologising for her slap-dash elder, should, by all the rules, have been the more reliable of the cousins. Yet Alwynne turned instinctively to Alicia; and Alicia, spread upon a chair, fanning herself cyclonically with her enormous hat, did not fail her.