"That's all," the admiral admitted. "I just have this cage of them, you know, nice little chaps." And then, as the children remained silent, "You see, Olivia liked them; she used to say they were such friendly people."
He spoke as though they had known Olivia intimately, as though he expected the children to say: "Yes, of course, Olivia was so fond of animals!"
Reluctantly they left the Mousery and strolled towards the gates; three tired children, one of eleven, one of thirteen and one of sixty-eight. The sun was setting over the sea, it was very cool in the garden after the mousery.
The admiral turned to Joan. "Come again," he said simply. "Come very often, there may be some more young ones to show you soon."
And so they parted on the road outside the gates. The children turned once to look back as they walked down the hill; Admiral Bourne was still standing in the road, looking after them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
A NEW family had come to Conway House under Cone Head. The place had stood vacant for years; now, at length, it was sold, and Elizabeth knew who the new people were. When Elizabeth, meaning to be amiable, had remarked one afternoon that the Bensons had been old friends of her cousin in London, and that she herself had known them all her life, Mrs. Ogden had drawn in her lips, very slightly raised an eyebrow and remarked: "Oh, really!" in what Joan had grown to recognize as "the Routledge voice." It was true that Mrs. Ogden was annoyed; there was no valid reason to produce against Elizabeth having known the Bensons, yet she felt aggrieved. Elizabeth appeared to Mrs. Ogden to be—well—not quite "governessy" enough. She had been thinking this for the last few months. You did not expect your governess to be an old friend of people who had just bought one of the largest places in your neighbourhood, it was almost unseemly. Elizabeth, when closely questioned, had said that the family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Benson, a son of twenty-two, another of seventeen, and one little girl of fourteen. And just at the very end, mark you at the end, and then only after a pressing cross-examination as to who they were, Elizabeth had said quite vaguely that Mr. Benson was a banker, but that his mother had been Lady Sarah Totteridge before her marriage, and that the present Mrs. Benson was a daughter of Lord Down.
Mrs. Ogden had made it clear that she could not quite understand how Elizabeth's cousin had come to know the Bensons, and Elizabeth had said in a casual voice that her cousin and Mrs. Benson had had a great mutual interest; and when Mrs. Ogden had inquired what this interest had been, Elizabeth had replied, "Prostitutes," and had laughed! Of course the children had not been in the room—still, "Prostitutes." Such a coarse way to put it. Mrs. Ogden had spoken to Colonel Ogden about it afterwards and had found him unsympathetic. All he had said was, "Well, what else would you have her call them? Don't be such a damn fool, Mary!"
However, there it was; Elizabeth did know the Bensons and would, Mrs. Ogden supposed, contrive to continue knowing them now that they had come to Conway House. She could not understand Elizabeth; it was "Elizabeth" now at Elizabeth's own request; she had said that Rodney sounded so like Ralph and not at all like her. Did anyone ever hear such nonsense! However, the children had hailed the change with delight and so far it did not appear to have undermined discipline, so that Mrs. Ogden supposed it must be all right. She had to confess that it was a most unexpected advantage for Milly and Joan to have such a woman to teach them. Cambridge women did not grow on gooseberry bushes in Seabourne.