“I will see, if it occurs again——”
“The orders is taken as they come, m’m——”
“They said the first delivery——”
“We wasn’t loaded till one o’clock——”
“That’s none of my business——”
“Very sorry, m’m——”
“Well, the next time it occurs——”
And so forth.
Now in reading what happened the next moment you must remember that Lady Tasker was very, very tired. Had she been less tired she might have wondered why one of the two maids she saw crossing to the tea-table under the copper beech had not been allowed to take in Mrs. Cosimo Pratt’s parcel. And she would certainly have thought it extraordinary that she should be left standing alone while Mrs. Cosimo Pratt scolded the carrier, and wanted to know why the parcel had not been brought yesterday. But, tired as she was, her eyes had already rested on something that had momentarily galvanized even the weariness out of her. It was this:—
Seven or eight people sat in basket-chairs or stood talking; and, under the copper beech, as if Mrs. Pratt had just slid out of it, a hammock of coloured string still moved, slung from the beech to a sycamore beyond. Lady Tasker saw these things at once; she did not at once see what it was that stood just beyond the hammock.