“I want Mr. Canterton to get this before twelve o’clock, and I want you to make sure he has it.”
“I’ll make sure o’ that, miss. I ain’t likely to forget.”
He toddled off, and before twelve o’clock Eve knew that her warning had carried, for a boy on a bicycle brought her a note from Canterton.
“Many thanks indeed. I understand. Let nothing prejudice you.”
Joan Gaunt and Lizzie Straker returned about half-past twelve, and five minutes later a big grey motor pulled up outside the inn. Mr. Lawrence Kentucky climbed out, and went in to order lunch.
From her room Eve had a view of the bowling green and of the doorway of a little summer-house that stood under the row of elms. She saw Lizzie Straker walk out into the garden and arrive casually at the door of the summer-house. Two minutes later Lawrence Kentucky wandered out with equal casualness, appeared drawn by some invisible and circuitous thread to the summer-house, and vanished inside.
Eve smiled. It was a comedy within a comedy, but there was no cynical edge to her amusement. She felt more kindly towards Lizzie Straker, and perhaps Eve pitied her a little because she seemed so incapable of distinguishing between gold and brass.
Lawrence Kentucky did not stay more than five minutes in the summer-house. He had received his instructions, and Joan Gaunt’s map, and a promise from Lizzie Straker that she would keep watch in the lane up by Orchards Corner, so that he should not lose himself in the Fernhill woods. Lawrence Kentucky went in to lunch, and drove away soon afterwards in his big grey car.
She found that Lizzie Straker was in a bad temper when they sat down to lunch. The tête-à-tête in the summer-house had been too impersonal to please her, and Lawrence Kentucky had shown great tactlessness in asking questions about Eve. “Is Miss Carfax here? Where did you pick her up? Oh, one of Pallas’s kittens! Jolly good-looking girl.”
Lizzie was feeling scratchy, and she sparred with Eve.