“Oh! but I was in the end house yesterday, and I tasted one and they seemed very good.”
MacDonald looked at her, and she blushed.
She was made to feel that she had taken an unpardonable liberty. Evidently the late Marchioness of Caterham had never committed such a solecism as to enter one of her own hothouses and help herself to grapes.
“If you had given orders, m’lady, a bunch should have been cut and sent in to you,” said MacDonald severely.
“Oh, thank you,” said Lady Coote. “Yes, I will do that another time.”
“But they’re no properly fit for picking yet.”
“No,” murmured Lady Coote, “no, I suppose not. We’d better leave it then.”
MacDonald maintained a masterly silence. Lady Coote nerved herself once more.
“I was going to speak to you about the piece of lawn at the back of the rose garden. I wondered if it could be used as a bowling green. Sir Oswald is very fond of a game of bowls.”
“And why not?” thought Lady Coote to herself. She had been instructed in her history of England. Had not Sir Francis Drake and his knightly companions been playing a game of bowls when the Armada was sighted? Surely a gentlemanly pursuit and one to which MacDonald could not reasonably object. But she had reckoned without the predominant trait of a good head gardener, which is to oppose any and every suggestion made to him.
“Nae doot it could be used for that purpose,” said MacDonald non-comittally.