“Has he told you he doesn’t work?”
“One can see for one’s self, I suppose?” Claudia said, with a fine scorn; and Helen shot a glance at her as if she had wakened up.
“Oh no, you can’t. When you are older you will learn that you can never trust your eyes. Go and ask the bailiff, and the keeper, and the gardeners.”
“That kind of work!”
“Well, we can’t all be landscape gardeners. If we were, I suppose the estate would have to be kept going, or there wouldn’t be much good in beautifying it?”
“Agents,” retorted Claudia.
“Perhaps. But some people have an old-fashioned prejudice that when a father and mother are old and infirm, there are things which even an agent can’t do. Harry is old-fashioned. I have often told him he ought to be more up-to-date.”
There was a silence. Then Claudia remarked in a slightly altered voice—
“He has never said anything to make one suppose living here was any sacrifice.”
“Or that he felt the loss of his trees. Yet, I assure you, he has more than once ridden miles to avoid the crash of doom.” Another pause.