Luzia’s second drive up to Larége with Nick the following morning was not nearly as pleasurable as the first one; in fact it was rather gloomy. She was burdened by Julia’s injunction to tell Nick that she had dismissed his brother, but could not quite bring herself to do so, lacking some excuse; the young man, immensely relieved as he had been by Dick’s brusque statement, felt that it was impossible to cash in, as it were, immediately on his twin’s generosity. There had been generosity behind it, but Dick’s words were prompted by an emotional impulse: the need to tell someone, and most of all the person closest to him in the world. Oh, this terrible twin-ness!—suddenly it struck Nick as frightening. The pair were very silent till they reached Larége and picked up their passenger, who was waiting for them in the Place.
As good luck would have it, Edina Reeder’s letter to Julia, saying how glad she and her Philip would be to employ Bonnecourt as a stalker, and do all they could to make his wife’s life easy and pleasant at Glentoran, arrived just over an hour before Mme. Bonnecourt got to Pau. Philip Jamieson had in fact taken rather a chance on this, driven by circumstances: Bonnecourt had simply got to be removed from France at once, Julia had suggested it, and she knew the set-up completely; moreover he had spent several days sailing with the Reeders himself, and formed his own opinion of them. ‘They’re sensible people’ he said, when at one point his wife had expressed belated qualms about his launching the hunter off to Scotland with Colin before getting any reply from her cousin. ‘They won’t throw him out; it will do for the time being, anyhow I expect they’ll find him jolly useful.’ All the same he was definitely relieved to see Edina’s letter, when he went in to pay his usual morning visit to his wife. ‘That’s all right’ he said. ‘Now all you have to do is to boost Madame’s morale.’
‘Well, let me get up and dress’ Julia said. ‘She may be less embarrassed if I’ve got a frock on.’
‘Oh, it’s to be a frock today, is it?’
‘Yes. Darling do clear off; I’ve got to fit in a feed before she comes, too.’
‘Greedy monster, young Philip Bernard!’ the man said, as he went out.
At first Julia thought it was going to be rather difficult to boost Mme. Bonnecourt’s morale. Luzia brought her in and introduced her easily and delightfully; sat her down in the solitary arm-chair, and suggested that she ask for coffee. Then she left. But even after the coffee was brought the hunter’s wife sat on the edge of her chair, looking shy and frightened; she kept a steady gaze on Julia’s dress, and the first remark she volunteered was— ‘C’est de Dior, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Non, de Hardy Amies’ Julia replied, amused.
‘Ah, I have never seen an example of the haute couture anglaise. C’est formidable!’
Julia began to feel that the frock had perhaps been a false move; however, they talked clothes for a few minutes. How little she was, and how timid, Julia thought, at once compassionate and alarmed; how on earth would she get on with the rather dour and silent Highlanders? Edina was far too busy to spend much time in succouring her. She switched the conversation from clothes to cows, and spoke of the pedigree Ayrshire milking herd at Glentoran. This aroused a more hopeful sign of interest.
‘Three hundred cows! But what do they do with the milk? Make cheese?’
‘No; what is not required on the place goes by lorry to Glasgow, twice a day. But Mrs. Reeder always needs more help than she can easily get for cleaning out the churns and the coolers, and for feeding the calves. Of course the milking is done by electricity.’
‘Tiens! I have heard of this; I should like to see it. These tubes and so on, also, must need great attention.’
‘Indeed they do; and of course they make their own butter’ Julia added, encouraged.
‘Ah, this I can do! But I believe the English use salt; we, we make sweet butter.’
Putting the salt in is quite easy; Mrs. Reeder could show you that’ Julia said. She got up and opened her despatch case; she had made time the evening before to hunt through her suitcases, packed at Larége by Luzia, and found a folder with some snapshots taken at Glentoran. ‘This is Mrs. Reeder’ she said, holding out a photograph.
‘She is so like Monsieur Monro’ the Frenchwoman said. ‘Have you any pictures of the cows?’
Alas no, Julia had not—but she showed pictures of the big house, the garden with the rhododendrons in flower, the azalea glen. Mme. Bonnecourt was impressed.
‘But this is a Paradise!’
‘Yes it is, really, in spring and summer. In the winter it’s a bit cold, and it gets dark early—and it rains a great deal all the year round. But of course there is electricity in all the cottages, and any amount of wood for fires.’
‘We cut this?’
‘No, the foresters do that, and a tractor brings loads from the saw-mill to each house.’
Now they really got down to brass tacks. Julia described the cottage at Ach-an-Draine, and its garden and byre—‘If you wanted to keep pigs too, there is a stye.’ Mme. Bonnecourt was startled, as well she might be, at the degree of comfort in which employees on big British estates live. ‘But we pay for our milk?’
‘No, that’s thrown in.’
‘And the wood?—and the electricity?’
‘Certainly not for the wood; I’m not sure about the electricity.’ She had an idea that since Glentoran stopped making its own supply and went onto the national grid Philip Reeder, shocked by old Mrs. Monro’s fecklessness (which had practically reduced the place to bankruptcy) had insisted that his workers should pay for their own electric light, as in the past they had always bought the paraffin for their lamps. ‘Anyhow, that’s about all you do pay for.’
‘But the rent of the house is how much?’
‘Usually there is no rent. Estate people get their cottages free, or at a tiny rent; something like 5/6 a week—say 4 francs.’ Julia tried to explain to the astonished Frenchwoman the English system of ‘tied cottages’, which the Socialists now use as a dirty word; to Mme. Bonnecourt it did not appear dirty at all.
‘It seems impossible! A house with five rooms and a bathroom, eau courante, and a garden and a maison des cochons, at such a price! How can the propriétaires afford it?’
It was the custom, Julia told her.
‘Eh bien, I should wish to do all I can for Madame Reeder, since she is so liberal. How far is our house from the dairy?’ She became very practical; Julia felt much more hopeful. After several further questions—‘And is there Mass in the village? Or how far off? Mme. Bonnecourt asked.
‘Well actually twenty-five miles. But don’t worry’ Julia said hastily, seeing the horrified look on the little face. ‘The Church of England church is in the same town as the Catholic one; Mr. Reeder drives his wife and any other Anglicans down every Sunday morning, early, in the Estate van; and they pick up one Catholic family on the way. He calls it “the ecumenical bus” ’ she added, smiling.
When Luzia arrived to take Mme. Bonnecourt out to luncheon she found the little woman very cheerful; Colonel Jamieson drove them to the small restaurant he had chosen, and over their déjeuner the hunter’s wife expatiated on the wonders of life at Glentoran as described by Julia. ‘Écosse must be a marvellous place— all provided!’ She had found Mme. Jamieson wonderful too: ‘So practical, so full of understanding.’ Presently Luzia took her in a taxi to get her hair-do; no, Mme. Bonnecourt said, she had no desire to do any shopping, except for a pair of shoes, and these could be bought practically next door to the coiffeur. But she would dearly like to go to the cinema; there was a splendid film, beginning at a quarter to four. It would be over by 5.30; would that be too late for Monsieur Nicolas to drive her home? ‘I adore the films, and I so seldom see them; the little woman said wistfully. ‘But of course not if it is inconvenient.’
Luzia realised that this would make Nick terribly late for dinner; he could not get back till well after nine. However she took upon herself to say that it would be all right, and that she would tell him. The cinema was quite near the big tree-shaded Place in which the Hotel de France stands, and she settled that Mme. Bonnecourt should go straight to a seat near the hotel entrance; it would be easier for Nick to pick her up there than among a crowd of people swarming out into a narrow street, where he could not park. They parted with warm farewells.
Luzia walked back. She wanted time to do some thinking, and she had very little time left in Pau. When Lady Heriot had told her that she could stay to move Julia from the clinic to the Victoire she had written to her Father, telling him that she would be starting home on the 27th, and asking him to book her a sleeper from Bordeaux to Lisbon—the voucher had come that very morning. But today was Friday; tomorrow she would be first packing, then unpacking for Julia, and seeing that she was comfortable. She had slipped round to the Victoire that morning during Mme. Bonnecourt’s interview and inspected Julia’s room; she asked for another armchair and two more small tables. ‘But for books and papers, and for les boissons,’ she replied firmly to the patron’s protests. ‘Does Monsieur not desire that Madame should be in comfort?’ She had switched on the bed-side light; as usual in France it was a 25-watt bulb; she pulled it out. ‘This must be replaced with one of 60 watts; Madame will read much in bed. Monsieur le Patron cannot wish to put out her eyes!’ With a reluctant laugh the Patron had agreed—’ But there must be a slight surcharge.’ Luzia told him to discuss that with M. le Colonel. The Jamiesons could afford ‘surcharges’, outrageous as they were. Anyhow the move would occupy tomorrow—and Monday was the 27th! Oh goodness, and she had forgotten to get any flowers when she was up in the town; down here in the suburbs there didn’t seem to be any flower-shops. (Luzia had grown up with the idea that any move to a new place must be greeted with flowers in the room.)
She walked on; the pretty, light-filled streets were getting hot; suddenly she felt tired and discouraged. She hailed a passing taxi, and drove to the Heriot mansion; she dismissed the cab at the gate, and turned into the shrubberies. If she went up to the house she was sure to be caught by someone, and she must think—especially about if, and when, she should carry out Miss Probyn’s injunction to ‘be fair to Nick,’ and tell him that she had broken with his brother. The girl felt uncertain about this, much as she trusted her ex-governess’s judgment. If she did, Nick might feel obliged to propose to her, even if he didn’t want to; and if he did want to, he would propose, and she didn’t feel equal to deciding about that either, yet. Everything was happening much too fast; she wanted time, and quiet; and there was almost no time left.
At such moments important and unimportant matters jostle one another in the agitated mind. Catching a glimpse of the rosegarden, glowing brilliant through the dusky shrubs, Luzia thought again of some flowers for Julia. She always carried nailscissors in her hand-bag; she could cut a bunch of roses. Lady Heriot would not mind, there were thousands; the second blooming was in full flood. She emerged from the shrubbery into the rosery; there she was fairly caught—Lady Heriot, seated on a camp-stool, wearing a shady hat and armed with a vast basket, was snipping off dead flowers. Luzia tried to retreat, but her hostess caught sight of her too soon. ‘Come and tell me how it all went’ she called.
Reluctantly, Luzia walked down one of the grassy paths which intersected the rose-beds.
‘I think it went well’ she said. ‘Mme. Bonnecourt seemed quite enthusiastic about going to Scotland.’
The old lady glanced up at her.
‘You look tired’ she said. ‘Come and sit.’ There were wooden seats at the end of all the intersecting paths; Lady Heriot chose one in the shade, and again studied the face of the girl beside her as they sat down.
‘It’s rather hot today’ she said. ‘I expect you’ve done too much, with that second early start, and all. I hope you’ll be able to have a quiet day tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow I pack for Mrs. Jamieson, and take her to the Victoire’ Luzia said.
‘Oh Lawks!—so you do. I wish I could help you in any way, my dear child.’
‘Could you perhaps give me some roses for Mrs. Jamieson’s room? I was distraite in the town, and forget to buy any flowers for her.’
‘Yes of course—I’ll cut you some. There’s never any need to buy flowers, in this house! Now I think you should go in and rest; tell Jeanne to bring you tea in your room.’
‘Lady Heriot, I have done one thing which perhaps I ought not—only I am so sorry for Mme. Bonnecourt.’ She mentioned the arrangement about the cinema. ‘This will mean that Nick is terribly late for dinner; I hope that Lord Heriot will not mind?’
‘My husband is sorry for Madame Bonnecourt too; I feel sure he won’t mind’ Lady Heriot said comfortably. ‘Anyhow I don’t think you can do wrong, in his eyes!’ she added, smiling.
“Oh, he is kind!—and you also. But where is Nick? I must tell him how to meet Madame—just after 5.30, outside the Hotel de France.’
‘I will see to that. In the Place, about half-past five? Right; leave it to me. Now you go and rest.’
There was something else that Lady Heriot considered saying, but she decided against it; clearly the girl had had all she could manage for the moment. As far as Dick was concerned, she had carried out the ‘soundings’ enjoined on her by her husband, and learned that Luzia had refused him the night before. The boy had made no bones about telling his Mother. ‘Yes, she turned me down flat. She’s been saying No all along’ he said ingenuously, ‘but this was absolutely final. I don’t know why, except that I made a fool of myself at the Gave the other morning.’ After a moment of hesitation—’ And she’s seen a bit more of Nick, now’ he added.
‘Does Nick know?’
‘Yes, I told him. I thought I’d better.’ He hesitated again. ‘But Maman, she hasn’t been playing about with me—don’t ever think that! She’s never said anything but No. It was just I that kept on and on.’
‘I don’t wonder, dearest. She’s a most dearly-beloved person.’ Lady Heriot used the charming Scottish phrase for someone completely lovable. But she had left it at that with Dick, and now she left it at that with Luzia.
Her considerateness was in vain, as far as sparing Luzia any more emotion went. When the girl emerged from the lift Nick popped out of the twins’ sitting-room—he had heard that giveaway click when it reached the landing.
‘Oh, there you are’ he said.
‘Yes—I go to rest.’
He studied her face.
‘I expect you’d better; you look a bit tired.’ He hesitated. ‘I did want to see you for a moment’ he said, doubtfully. ‘Everyone’s out, so it seems a good chance. Could you spare just a few minutes?’ He opened the drawing-room door as he spoke.
‘Very well’ Luzia said. Whatever it was, better to get it over: there was so little time left. She went in and sat down. ‘Alors?’ she asked, still with Julia’s injunction in mind.
What Nick had to say let her out on that. Rather nervously, he repeated what his brother had told him the night before.
‘This was good of Dick’ she said.
‘Yes—he is good. All the same, I’m pretty sure you were right. But what I wanted to say—he checked, troubled by the difficulty of saying what he did want to say.
‘Yes?’ She leaned towards him, her vivid face now full of sympathy and attention. ‘Dites, Nick.’
‘Well, I don’t feel that we can go ahead too fast, just now. He’s frightfully in love with you, and he’s taken this knock. It’s so wretched that it should have to be him, of all people!’ the boy said sadly, and not very lucidly. ‘I mean, I don’t know how you feel about me, though I know how I feel about you. But I’d really rather let it all spin, for the moment—and later on you might let me come to Gralheira, and meet your Father, and see how it all looks then. What do you say?’
‘Oh, dear Nick! This is exactly how I have been feeling. You understand everything!’ Luzia exclaimed, greatly relieved.
Nick too was enormously relieved, as well as startled, by the implications of this—they answered all the questions that he had so carefully refrained from putting. He wanted very much at least to take Luzia’s hand, but managed not to. After a pause—.‘Well, don’t ever forget that I love you’ he said. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’ (The Heriots were all great ones for leaving things at that.)
‘Yes, let us do this.’ Suddenly she gave a little broken laugh.
‘You must pick up Madame Bonnecourt outside the Hotel de France at half-past five, to take her home; she goes to the cinema after the coiffeur. I have told your Mother that I arranged this, though it will make you so late.’
‘Of course I’ll do that. But why do you laugh?’
‘Because this matters so little, and we so much; and yet it must be arranged. Your Mother promised to tell you, but now I do.’ She went quickly away to her room.
* * *
Luzia was rather thankful that organising Julia’s move to the Victoire kept her out of the house for practically the whole of the next day. Lady Heriot, with her usual wise kindness, arranged that old Pierre should drive her there early in the morning, instead of either twin; there was a big basket of roses in the car, and another with assorted vases. ‘They never have any vases that it’s possible to arrange flowers in in these small hotels’ she said to Luzia, as she saw her off. ‘Tell Mrs. Jamieson that they’re mine, and she’ll see that they come back.’. ‘Oh yes, of course you’ll want to lunch there’ she pursued, in reply to a remark of Luzia’s. ‘No point in running to and fro all the time! I’m sure the Colonel will bring you back. Don’t get too tired, my dear.’
At the Victoire the all-time valet-de-chambre carried the baskets up to Mrs. Jamieson’s room; at Luzia’s request he brought her a jug of water to fill the vases, and looked on with pleasure while the girl arranged Lady Heriot’s roses. The room was large, with two French windows giving onto a wide shady verandah; as a result of Luzia’s urgency with the patron it now contained a reasonable number of chairs and small tables—when the roses were disposed about it the general effect was very pleasant. Satisfied, Luzia walked round to the clinic, and set to on Julia’s packing. Philip Jamieson was there.
‘Ah, good. Julia wouldn’t let me touch a thing till you came! Now, is there anything I can take along in advance?’ Luzia said he could take the sherry and the vin du pays out of the cupboard, and most of the suit-cases which she and Dick had, so happily, brought down together from Larége. Oh, poor Dick, the girl thought sadly, as she folded nightdresses and stowed slippers and toilet accessories. There was really not much to do; Julia had brought very little in her hurried flight to the clinic, when Bonnecourt had packed for her.
‘I could really have done that myself’ Julia said, when Luzia had finished. ‘However, I’m most grateful to you. Now sit down and rest for a minute, till Philip comes back.’ She thought the girl’s face looked rather drawn, and was anxious to learn how she had got on, if at all, with the awkward task of dismissing one young man and accepting the other; she wished she had thought of some errand to dispose of her Philip for longer. Luzia, for her part, was equally anxious to tell her most trusted friend the new developments. There would be much more unpacking to do at the Victoire than the packing here, since Julia would want all her things out, now that she was up and about—and probably Colonel Jamieson would be hanging round the whole time. But she felt nervous about embarking on a difficult explanation which might be interrupted at any moment; she felt unwontedly nervous, anyhow. In fact a moment later Philip Jamieson walked in.
‘All set?’ he asked. ‘You’ve made the room lovely with all those flowers’ he said to Luzia.
The words ‘the room’ gave Luzia the cue that Julia had sought in vain.
‘Colonel Jamieson, just one thing. Did you try the light by the bed? It had only a very weak bulb in it; I told the patron to put in one of 60 watts, so that Mrs. Jamieson could read in bed, but I stupidly forgot to look at it just now. I am not sure that he would keep his promise.’
‘No, I didn’t. But we can see to that this afternoon. Come on, now.’
‘No, Philip’ his wife said, in her slowest tones. ‘This afternoon I shall want to be quiet, when this kindest child has done my unpacking—I shan’t want any fusses over lamps! Do please go and check on it at once; if it isn’t a 60-watt bulb, go and buy one. A 75 would really be better—you know what my eyes are like.’ (In fact Julia’s immense and beautiful eyes were both myopic and weak.) ‘There’s heaps of time before déjeuner’ she added.
The Colonel, obediently, went off. But Julia had picked up her cue, too.
‘That was clever of you’ she said. ‘Now, dear child, do tell me how you are getting on—if you would like to, of course.’
‘I wish to’ Luzia said, with her usual direct simplicity. She recounted how she had made the excuse of telephoning to give poor Dick his congé two days before. ‘Because really, Miss Probyn, I found all this so troubling that I wanted to en finir as soon as possible.’
‘Naturally; I quite understand. And what have you done about Nick?’
‘I had no need to do anything! This good Dick told his brother himself, the same evening.’
‘Oh, well done Dick. You’re right about all the Heriots being nice! Well, and then?’
‘Then yesterday I had a most dismal drive up to Larége with Nick to bring Madame Bonnecourt down to see you’ the girl said, with a half-rueful, half-comic little grimace. ‘I had looked forward to it! But of course I did not know that Dick had told him, and he could not know whether I knew or not, so it was merely embarrassing, and empty!’
‘How wretched for you both!’ Julia exclaimed; she could so well envisage that abortive drive, and was full of sympathy. But Luzia must have had some further reason for knowing that Dick had reported his dismissal to his twin. ‘So then?’ she asked.
‘Yesterday morning I remained at the Victoire, seeing about your room, till Madame B. and I went out to luncheon. But when I came back—I was so énervée, trying to think what to do, that I forgot to get any flowers in the town—I went to the rose-garden to pick some, and Lady Heriot was there, and said that she would do it. Oh, if something really happens she will be the kindest of belles-mères!’ the girl exclaimed. ‘She thinks of everything to make all easy for me.’
‘But is anything likely to happen?’ Julia asked—she was tantalised by all this round-about story, sorry as she was about Luzia’s predicament, and longed to get to the point.
‘I think perhaps yes; presently. When I went indoors—Lady Heriot insisted that I should go and rest—Nick intercepted me; he said it was a good opportunity, as everyone was out.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then went on: ‘He told me, then, that Dick had let him know that I would never marry him; but he felt it was too soon to settle anything between us two. I feel the same; it would be inconvenable, at this moment. But later on he wishes to come to Gralheira, and meet Papa; and I think that then, things may arrange themselves.’
‘And would you like to marry Nick, apart from his helping your Father?’ Julia was still acutely conscious that she was responsible for leading Luzia into this imbroglio, and that she would be going back to Portugal, completely out of reach, in forty-eight hours; she felt that she must know where the girl herself stood.
‘Yes’ Luzia said, this time without the smallest hesitation. ‘I am quite decided. He is tao bom’—she fell into her native tongue to express her sense of Nick’s goodness. ‘Miss Probyn, how often does one find a man who even when he is in love puts the feelings of others before himself, is honourable, has delicacy? I have not met any such yet, except Nick!’ She paused. ‘And you say “apart from” his helping Papa, but I cannot put these things apart!’ she stated roundly—’they belong together.’
Julia fastened on one phrase in Luzia’s words: ‘even when he is in love’; she dealt with it.
‘Has he said that he is in love with you?’
‘Yes. He said I should remember that, till we meet again.’ The girl’s sudden expression of happy confidence made any question about her own feelings unnecessary.
‘Dearest, I am so glad’ Julia said. She would make a point of seeing Nick, and forming her own opinion, while she was at the Victoire; there would be plenty of time before young Philip Bernard would be à terme, and strong enough to undertake the flight home to England. Meanwhile her husband’s judgment was wholly in favour of Nick.
‘I wonder how much the old Heriots know’ Julia speculated—‘I mean, about you and Nick.’
‘I think she has some idea’ Luzia was beginning, when Philip walked in.
‘It was only a 40-watt bulb!’ he exclaimed. ‘Really, French hoteliers! I bought a 75 one and put it in myself; and I told that wretched old patron that I wasn’t paying any damned surcharge either! Now, shall we go?’
Julia looked at her watch.
‘If I could fit in one more feed before lunch, I shouldn’t have to come dashing back the moment after’ she said. ‘Luzia, do go and see the old sage-femme, and ask her, would you? It’s not far off the time, anyhow.’
The sage-femme agreed to the baby’s being fed fifteen minutes early, and herself suggested that he should be given a bottle for the next meal—’ Then Madame can get some rest after her déménagement, and need only return at 4.30. Since the child does so well, one feed of le Glaxo will do him no harm.’ So the Philipino, as Julia had begun to call him, was nursed, and then the little party went off to the Victoire.
Julia was delighted with her room, the profusion of flowers, and the cool shady balcony. ‘Perfect!’ she said.
‘The food’s pretty poor’ Philip warned her.
‘Never mind; I have a splendid appetite.’ After lunch they had coffee brought up to the verandah; then Julia lay on her bed while Luzia unpacked and stowed everything in accordance with her wishes, Philip parking the suit-cases on an inner corner of the balcony, where no rain could reach them.
‘Dear child, how good you are to me!’ Julia said, when all was done.
‘You have been good to me in the past, for a long time’ the girl replied. She had no wish to leave, and was glad when Julia caused Philip to have tea brought up; afterwards Mrs. Jamieson went off on the first of many sunny strolls from the hotel to feed the Philipino—down the drive under the acacias, along the Route de Toulouse, and in at the gate of the clinic, where a room was provided for nursing. Luzia stayed and talked with Philip, who spoke with gratitude of all she had done for his wife. ‘She’d have been sunk without you. I hadn’t realised what the position is now at Larége about—er—domestic help and so on; I never dreamt of your having to do what you did.’
‘I enjoyed everything’ Luzia said, pleasantly.
‘Well, I hope your Father won’t be furious when he hears about it’ Philip said, a little anxiously. He knew, far better than the British press ever encourages its public to realise, the immense importance of good relations between England and Portugal from the strategic angle, with the Azores commanding the Western Approaches. He also knew precisely how important a figure the Duke of Ericeira was in the counsels of his country, for all his retired life on his estates for so much of the year. And his daughter had scrubbed Julia’s floors!—as well as doing much of her cooking, and all her washing-up.
‘I tell Papa what I think fit, in my own way’ Luzia said, coolly. ‘In any case it was not Julia’s fault; she had no idea of the circumstances at Larége when she invited me’ she added, with a faint glint of malice. Like Lord Heriot, the girl thought Philip Jamieson had been extraordinarily reckless over the whole plan; she could not resist, at last, this slight dig at him. ‘After all, she had never been there,’ she observed dispassionately. As the man stared at her, actually blushing a little—the implication of blame in her words was so clear, for all their restraint—’ Let us be thankful to le bon Dieu for the Heriots with their car, and all their help; and also for this good Bonnecourt’ Luzia pursued, looking him straight in the face. ‘Without them, we should all have been what you call “sunk”, Colonel.’
Perhaps it was just as well that at that moment Julia walked in.
‘Greedy pig, the Philipino’ she announced, sitting down. ‘Nearly the whole of both sides, this time! He prefers Mother to “le Glaxo”, it seems. Philip, is it too early for a spot of sherry before Luzia goes back? I believe stout is the thing to nurse on, but one can’t get it out here, and one must have some restorative.’ She had noticed her husband’s face, and a certain rather complacent expression on Luzia’s; when he went in from the balcony to fetch the sherry—‘What have you two been talking about?’ she asked, in a lowered voice.
‘Life at Larége!’ Luzia said, with a mischievous little smile.