“You understand, of course,” she said, smiling, “that we have abandoned the haunts of luxury altogether.”
He looked around at the tiny room with its struggling fire and horsehair sofa, linoleum for carpet, oleographs for pictures, and he shivered, not for his own sake but for hers. On the sideboard were some bread and cheese and a bottle of ginger beer.
“Please imagine,” she begged, taking the pins from her hat, “that you are in those dear comfortable rooms of ours down at Chelsea. Draw that easy-chair up to what there is of the fire, and listen. You smoke still?”
“I have taken to a pipe,” he admitted.
“Then light it and listen,” she went on, smoothing her hair for a minute in front of the looking-glass. “You want to know about Elizabeth, of course.”
“Yes,” he said, “I want to know.”
“Elizabeth, on the whole,” Beatrice continued, “got out of all her troubles very well. Her husband's people were wild with her, but Elizabeth was very clever. They were never able to prove that she had exercised more than proper control over poor Wenham. He died two months after they took him to the asylum. They offered Elizabeth a lump sum to waive all claims to his estate, and she accepted it. I think that she is now somewhere on the Continent.”
“And you?” he asked. “Why did you leave the theatre?”
“It was a matter of looking after my father,” she explained. “You see, while he was there with Elizabeth he had too much money and nothing to do. The consequence was that he was always—well, I suppose I had better say it—drinking too much, and he was losing all his desire for work. I made him promise that if I could get some engagements he would come away with me, so I went to an agent and we have been touring like this for quite a long time.”
“But what a life for you!” Tavernake exclaimed. “Couldn't you have stayed on at the theatre and found him something in London?”