“Don’t move. Rest a little; you have had a shock.”
She did not seem to hear me. She rose slowly to her feet, and stood in front of the picture.
“Yes,” she said to the cavalier. “It’s you, only not quite you either. You are not really as handsome as that you know, and you have a firmer mouth and darker brows.”
The cavalier smiled at her from the wall: a somewhat insipid supercilious face I thought, but a wonderful portrait.
The old caretaker came back.
“The gentleman said you’d be the better for something to eat,” she said, “and that you would take it in the hall.”
Through the open door I saw the chauffeur unstrapping the baskets from Fortnum and Mason.
“Whose portrait is that?” said Essie.
“Henry Vavasour Kenstone,” said the old woman in a parrot voice. “Equerry to our martyred King, by Vandyck. You will observe the jewelled sword and the gloves sewed with pearls. The sword and the gloves are preserved in the banqueting ’all in a glass case.”