“Don’t you do it! Lots of trouble, and nobody pleased. Let someone else take that job.”
“Oh, but”—Teresa looked shocked—“I want to! It’s an honour. I’ve only done the finials before. But it needs lots of flowers. I wondered if...”
“I’ll bet you did! They always do.” Bernard laughed good-naturedly. “All right, Miss Teresa; you shall have them. Someone has them every year, and I’d sooner give them to you than most. Tell Dawes what you want, and I’ll see that he remembers. And if you want him to help—”
“Oh, thanks!” Teresa’s cheeks showed a deeper colour. “I have some helpers. Mr Peignton has promised.”
“That’s right, Peignton! Make yourself useful.” Bernard’s smile was so significant, that Teresa made haste to give the conversation a turn.
“The Martin Beverleys have come home.”
“They have, have they? That’s the author fellow who married the heiress, who was not an heiress, because she gave it all up to marry him. Chucked away,—how much was it? Fifty thousand a year?”
“Thirty!”
“Ah well, thirty’s good enough! He didn’t seem to me, the few times I’ve met him, exactly cheap at the price. Good-looking enough in a fashion, and plays a fair game, but a stiff, reserved kind of beggar. Takes himself too seriously for my taste. They tell me he writes good books.”
Teresa waxed eloquent in favour of the local celebrity.