“You’ll tell her that Edred is ill—a long illness—and wants you,” he repeated in a slow, painstaking voice, as if, for her sake, he was very anxious to remember. “Very well, I’ll try not to forget. Would you like me to drive you to the station this afternoon?”
He saw the lightening of her face.
“So soon! But I could be ready. I’ll start packing now.” She went crisply across the room. “But not you. Let Daborn drive.”
“I’d rather come, if it’s the same to you. There’s a train at four.”
“Four. Very well.”
“We can have an early tea. You like your tea.”
“Tea—yes.”
“Take some flowers. There are plenty of eggs, too. Some of those early pullets are laying already, although the old birds are on the moult. He liked quince jam. Could you manage to pack a pot or so?”
“Jethro!” Her keen voice made the name more a shrill, birdlike cry than a word. “I can’t bear to hear you talk so calmly. I would not mind so much if you looked the martyr. But you sound so every-day—quince jam, pullet eggs! And yet I know how bitterly you care.”
“I must try not to. I’ve made a muddle. I hurried things when I should have let them alone.”