“That was Lord Charles’s station?”
“Oh yes. Not ours. We only lived in a small house in a small town. But you see I was so much at Deepacres.”
“It must have been rather a wrench for them, leaving such a place.”
“Not really,” said Roberta. “It was only a New Zealand adventure for them. A kind of interlude. They belong here.”
“Did Lord Charles like farming?”
Roberta had never even thought of Lord Charles as being a farmer. He had merely been at Deepacres. She found it difficult to answer the question. Had he enjoyed himself in New Zealand? It was impossible to say, and she replied confusedly that they had all seemed quite happy, but of course they were glad to be home again. “They are a very united family?” Roberta could see no harm in speaking of the Lampreys’ attachment to each other, and she quite lost her apprehensions in the development of this favourite theme. It was easy to relate how kind the Lampreys had been to her; how, although they argued incessantly, they were happiest when they were together, how she believed they would always come to each other’s aid.
“We had an example of that,” Alleyn agreed, “in the present stand made by the twins.”
Roberta caught her breath and looked at him. His eyes, with their turned-down corners, seemed to express only sympathetic amusement, as though he invited her to laugh a little with him at the twins.
“But they have always been like that,” cried Roberta. “Even at Deepacres when Colin took the big car…” and she was off again, all her anecdotes of the Lampreys tending to show their devotion to each other. Alleyn listened as though everything Roberta said amused and interested him, and she had ridden her hobby-horse down a long road before she stopped suddenly, feeling herself blush with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I’m talking too much.”