He led the way through the black and cavernous kitchen towards the sunny green doorway and the back garden.
Tea was set under an apple tree. The garden was some fifteen yards square, but only close under the tree was there room for the table and the four chairs. Even then we had to be careful how we moved, lest we should crush a growing plant. There were no paths—you could hardly call those single-file, six-inches-wide threads paths. Unless you put one foot fairly in line with the other pop went a radish, a strawberry, a flower. Not one single hand's-breadth anywhere was uncultivated. Behind Madge as she sat a row of scarlet runners made a bright straggle of coral, and dwarf beans filled the interstices. Over the runners tall nodding onion-heads showed, and behind them again bushes heavy with white currant. Along a knee-high latticed fence huge red-coated apples were espaliered, and the ochre flowers of a marrow sprawled over a manure-heap. Bees droned and butterflies flitted in the sun, glints of glass cloches pierced the screens of warm grey-green. And, where a tree of yellow genet covered half the wall, a large green and red parrot in a cage had suddenly become silent on hearing voices.
"That's Coco," Derry said. "Coco! Ck!—'Quand je bois mon vin clairet——'"
The parrot cocked his head on one side and regarded us with an upside-down eye.
"Chants, Coco!—'Quand je bois'—You'll hear him all right in a minute, Mrs Aird.... Ma mè-r-r-r-e! Nous voici à table!"
"Tout est prêt—on va servir!" came the shrill reassurance from somewhere inside the house; and an immensely fat old patronne in a blue check apron brought out tea, followed by one of the reserved young Amazons with strawberries, cream, and little crocks of jam with wasps struggling on the top.
As for Jennie and myself, I think she had completely forgotten that I had ever tried to keep her and Derry apart. I was now the person through whose good offices she sat, with at least semi-parental approval, here in his garden. I do not want to pretend to more knowledge than I have about these secretive young goddesses, but, as she sat there, her eyes still bashfully avoiding Derry's, I was prepared to take a reasonable bet that I guessed what was passing through her mind. Derry had stayed in my house in England. Her too I had asked to visit me there. What an Uncle George indeed I should be if at some time or other I were to ask them together! Only as thanks in advance, after which I could not find it in my heart to withhold the benefit, could I explain the soft and grateful looks I received from time to time. I had one of these glances quite unmistakably before I had as much as touched the cup of tea Madge poured out for me. "You see, mother's all right," it said as plainly as if she had uttered the words; "you'll make it all right with father, won't you? I know you can if you will! And thank you so much, dear Uncle George, for the perfectly lovely time we're going to have when we come to see you!" At any rate, that was my interpretation of it, while Derry, no less charming as a host than he had been as a guest, made himself honey-sweet to Madge and politely attentive to her daughter.
Nevertheless, I presently asked a direct question about the hours of departure of the trams. I saw the faintest flicker of demure fun cross his face; and I too remembered, too late, how I had once countered him about the Sunday trains from Haslemere.
"There's a four-thirty-five and a five-forty-eight," he said. "It's four-twenty now. We can cut out the pictures, of course, but it seems a pity not to have tea."
So we had nearly an hour and a half.