She was stricken. I could see no happiness for her in her future life, and I loved her. And I loved poor blundering Ted also. I grieved for them both. And I was sorry for the Duke too.
When the dawn was creeping ghostlike into the room and the night-light was tottering in its saucer, Essie stirred and woke. She lay a long time looking at me, an unfathomable trouble in her eyes.
“Beatrice,” she said at last, “I could not find the way back.”
“Where, dearest?”
“To the house. I tried and tried, but it was no use. It is lost, lost, lost. Everything is lost.”
I did not answer. I tried to put my trust in Time, and in the thought that she would presently see her children in its rooms and playing in its gardens, and would realise that Kenstone was in a new sense her home, though not in the old one.
I brought her breakfast to her in her room, and then, in spite of my entreaties, she got up and dressed and came downstairs. But when a chastened and humble Ted timidly approached her to ask whether she would like to see the house once more before returning to London in a few hours time, she shook her head and averted her eyes. It was evident to me that she was determined never to set foot in it again.
He did not insist, and she was obviously relieved when he left the room. He signed to me to follow him and then told me that he had just received a letter from the Duke asking him to accept the Vandyck in the octagonal room as a present, as on second thoughts he felt it belonged to the house and ought to remain there. The Duke had not started after all, as his ship had been delayed one day. He wrote from the house close at hand where he had been staying till his departure.
“It’s worth thousands,” said Ted. “Thousands. These bigwigs are queer customers. What an awful fool he is to part with it just out of sentiment. But of course I shall never sell it. It shall be an heirloom. I’ve told him so,” and Ted thrust the letter into his pocket and hurried away.
Our rooms were airless, and Essie allowed me to establish her in a wicker armchair under a chestnut tree in the old-fashioned inn garden still brave with Michaelmas daisies and purple asters. The gleaming autumn morning had a touch of frost in it. I wrapped her fur motor cloak round her, and put her little hat on her head. She remained passive in my hands in a kind of stupor. Perhaps that might be the effect of the sedative I told myself. But I knew it was not so.