No one had heard her. The meal dragged on. Robinette and Lavendar talked little. Miss Smeardon was preoccupied with the sufferings and the moods of Rupert. Mrs. de Tracy alone seemed in better spirits than usual; she was talkative and even balmy.
“The work at the spinney begins to-day,” she observed complacently, addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an old copse and the planting of a new one––an improvement she had long planned, though hitherto in vain. “The young trees have arrived.”
“But where is the money to come from?” 287 enquired Carnaby suddenly, in a sepulchral tone. (His voice was at the disagreeable breaking stage, an agony and a shame to himself and always a surprise to others.) His grandmother stared: the others, too, looked in astonishment at the boy’s red face.
“I thought it had all been explained to you, Carnaby,” said Mrs. de Tracy, “but you take so little interest in the estate that I suppose what you have been told went in at one ear and out at the other, as usual! It is the sale of land at Wittisham which makes these improvements possible, advantages drawn from a painful necessity,” and the iron woman almost sighed.
“There won’t be any sale of land at Wittisham,––at least, not of Mrs. Prettyman’s cottage,” said Carnaby abruptly.
“It is practically settled. The transfers only remain to be signed; you know that, Carnaby,” said Lavendar curtly. He did not wish the vexed question to be raised again at a meal.
“It was practically settled––but it’s all off now,” said the boy, looking hard at his grandmother. “Waller R. A. won’t want the place any more. The bloomin’ plum tree’s gone––cut down. The bargain’s off, and old Mrs. Prettyman can stay on in her cottage as long as she likes!”
There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing of Rupert on Miss Smeardon’s lap.
“Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby,” said his grandmother with dangerous calmness, “and speak distinctly.”