“Where do we go next? I’ve forgotten.”
Lizzie Straker licked a finger that had managed to get itself smeared with Swiss milk.
“Let’s see. Something beginning with B, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—Basingford.”
The pupils of Eve’s eyes dilated. They were going to Basingford!
CHAPTER XXXIX
LYNETTE
They found themselves at the “Black Boar” at Basingford, sitting round a green table under a may tree in the garden. The “Black Boar” was an ancient hostelry, all white plaster, black beams, and brown tiles, its sign swinging on a great carved bracket, its parlour full of pewter and brass. It had the pleasant smell of a farmhouse rather than the sour odour of an inn. Everything was clean, the brick-floored passages, the chintz curtains at the windows, the oak stairs, the white coverlets on the solid mahogany beds. A big grandfather clock tick-tocked in the main passage. The garden at the back ended in a bowling-green that was remarkably well kept, its mown sward catching the yellow evening light through the branches of ancient elms.
They were having tea under the may tree, whose trusses of white blossom showered down an almost too sweet perfume. At the edge of the lawn was a border packed full of wallflowers, blood red and cloth of gold. It was sunny and windless. The tops of the tall elms were silhouetted against the blue.