"An actress?" she heard a woman ask. What Esmé would call a stodgy woman, expensively dressed, a country cousin with a London friend.
"No, a Mrs Carteret, remarkable-looking, isn't she?"
"Well, Bertie. What is it?" Esmé could scarcely wait as her husband ordered tea. "What has Uncle Hugh done?"
"Well, nothing. It is all for your approval, but Uncle Hugh is lonely. He wants his nephew to live near him. There is a great deal of business to see to. The Seaford estate and the Devonshire place, he farmed both. Uncle Hugh found the journeying trying." Briefly, he offered to pay Bertie the same pay as he had drawn from the Army, together with travelling expenses, if he would stay in London and go down to these places when necessary. No more.
"He hasn't promised to leave you the money then?" Esmé asked. "Oh, it suits me splendidly, I hated leaving town."
"No." Bertie Carteret shook his head. "He has promised me nothing, merely that I shall not lose through leaving the Army, nothing more."
Esmé grew angry then, abused the rich old man, forgot his trouble in her annoyance.
"He has so much. Why should we starve now when we are young?" she flashed.
"We have never quite starved, Es." Bertie Carteret laughed, then looked grave. "I thought we were so comfortable, so happy."
"One seems to want more and more as one lives in town." Esmé looked sullen. She too had thought the same, less than a year ago. Been so sure of it that she hated the thought of the third being who would have disturbed their peace. And now with so much more money she seemed poorer.