Christopher wondered if Mrs. Tommy were the cook, and was on the point of asking for further particulars, when Miss Mullen continued:
“She’s the great-great-grandmother of all me cats, and I want you to immortalise her; but don’t come till after Monday, as I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Miss Fitzpatrick; did you hear she was coming?”
“Yes, Mr. Lambert told us she was to be here next week,” said Christopher, with an indescribable expression that was not quite amusement, but was something more than intelligence.
“What did he say of her?”
Christopher hesitated; somehow what he remembered of Mr. Lambert’s conversation was of too free and easy a nature for repetition to Miss Fitzpatrick’s cousin.
“He—er—seemed to think her very—er—charming in all ways,” he said rather lamely.
“So it’s talking of charming young ladies you and Roddy Lambert are when he comes to see you on estate business!” said Charlotte archly, but with a rasp in her voice. “When my poor father was your father’s agent, and I used to be helping him in the office, it was charming young cattle we talked about, and not young ladies.”
Christopher laughed in a helpless way.
“I wish you were at the office still, Miss Mullen; if anyone could understand the Land Act I believe it would be you.”
At this moment there was an upheaval among the matrons; the long line rose and broke, and made for the grey stone house whose windows were flashing back the sunlight through the trees at the end of the lawn-tennis grounds. The tedious skirmish with midges, and the strain of inactivity, were alike over for the present, and the conscience of the son of the house reminded him that he ought to take Miss Mullen in to tea.