Helwise bustled down the stairs in the requested lavender, and fell over the bicycle, which instantly swung round by the head and described a graceful curve on the paint with a ribbed handle. The master of the house picked it up, and followed the ladies out, to find them already mounted. Helwise was anxious to be off, in case he remembered the subscriptions. Harriet had dispossessed the factotum of the reins, without asking anybody, and flourished down the drive, leaving echoes of “kitchen tea” behind her. Lanty went back into the house and looked at the mark on the wall.
They did have tea, after all, though not in the kitchen. Hamer would have felt the evading of his hospitality as a child the rejection of its penny bag of sweets. He saw to it also that Armer had a square meal. There were no half-measures about Hamer Shaw.
He had a warm greeting for Lancaster’s aunt, and laboured heartily through her mixed periods, while Mrs. Shaw murmured crochet-patterns as she made the tea, and Dandy, with an anxious expression, hearkened to Harriet’s slashing opinions. There was a fair, pale young man, sitting as close to her as possible, who also seemed fascinated by the caller’s conversational methods. Harriet was enjoying herself.
“Two and a half, at least!” she pronounced firmly, with a critical eye on Dandy’s skirt. “Anything less would be certain to trip you in turnips. And I don’t recommend leather—no, I can’t say that I recommend leather! It’s very nutty when it first comes home, but give it a day over plough, and slap it has to go into the bucket! Those brogues of yours are nailed all wrong, too. They should be done in threes”—she extended a foot for inspection—“and plain tongues, of course, the plainer the better. Those Indian-scalp imitations would soon hang you up in a fence.”
“Does one run all day in the country?” the young man inquired, deeply interested. Harriet nodded with condescension.
“One gets about. Of course there are crowds of cat-footers who frowst indoors with a book or a needle, but nobody worth mentioning. One’s always off somewhere, either on a push-bike or Shanks’s pony. The tennis is getting over, but I can put you up for the hockey, if you care about it, Miss Shaw. I’m captain, and Miss Lancaster is secretary and all that kind of thing. By the way, Helwise, have you got your fixtures out yet?”
Miss Lancaster turned a vague eye.
“Fixtures? I believe Lancelot has them somewhere. He generally arranges them for me—I’m so busy! He likes doing little things like that. Of course, I do all the real work, shaking hands with the teams when they come, and seeing that they have plenty of hairpins and two cups of tea. He only writes the letters and keeps the funds straight.”
“That’s her nephew,” Harriet kindly explained to Dandy and the pale young man. “Agent for Bluecaster—perhaps you’ve met him. Rather a slow old tortoise, but well-meaning. So it’s settled you’ll play hockey? Where’s your place, I wonder? Forward, I should think, in a decent skirt.”