‘You see, it’s not just an ordinary nosegay, please, and don’t thank us, please, because it wasn’t to please you but to serve our own ends, though, of course, if we’d known how nice you are, and if we’d thought you’d care about one, we would have, in a minute.’
‘I see,’ said Lord Andore, quite as if he really had seen.
‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Caroline; ‘don’t be polite, please. Say if you don’t understand. What we want is justice. It’s one of your tenants that had the cottage in your father’s time before you, and they’re turning her out because there are some week-endy people think the cottage is so pretty, with the flowers she planted, and the arbour her father made, and the roses that came from her mother’s brother in Cambridgeshire. And she said you didn’t know. And we decided you ought to know. So we made you the nosegay and we came. And we ought to go, and here’s her name and address on a bit of paper, and I’m sorry it’s only pencil. And you will see justice done, won’t you?’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Lord Andore slowly, ‘to take so much interest in my tenants.’
‘There,’ said Charlotte; ‘of course we were afraid you’d say that. But we didn’t mean to shove our oar in. We just went in for ginger-beer, and Caro found her crying, and there’s a hornbeam arbour, ever so old, and a few shillings a week can’t make any difference to you, with a lovely castle like this to live in. And the motto on the tombs of your ancestors is Flat Justicia. And it’s only bare justice we want; and we saw the tomb on Sunday in church, with the sons and daughters in ruffs.’
‘Stop!’ said Lord Andore. ‘I am only a poor weak chap. I need my tea. Come and have some too, and I’ll try to make out what it’s all about.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said the three C.’s, speaking all together. And Caroline added, ‘We mustn’t be long over tea, please, because we’ve got to get home by half-past six, and it must be nearly that now.’
‘You shall get back at half-past six all right,’ said Lord Andore, and led the way, a huge figure in the dust-coloured clothes, through the little door by which he had come, on to a pleasant stone terrace with roses growing all over and in and out and round about its fat old balustrades.
‘Here’s tea,’ he said. And there it was, set on a fair-sized table with a white cloth—a tea worth waiting for. Honey and jam and all sorts of cakes, and peaches and strawberries. The footman was hovering about, but Charles was the only one who seemed to see him. It was bliss to Charles to see this proud enemy humbly bearing an urn and lighting a spirit-lamp to make the tea of those whom he had tried to drive from even the lowly hospitality of Lord Andore’s doorstep.
‘Come on,’ said the big sixth-form-looking boy, who was Lord Andore; ‘you must be starved. Cake first (and bread and butter afterwards if you insist upon it) is the rule here. Milk and sugar?’