Giant’s Bread · Book IV · III · Chapter 4 3 4

IV

It was extraordinary how much happier she felt at once. Free of that terrible incubus! It wasn’t as though Vernon had lived. Houses and estates were simply white elephants when you hadn’t the necessary money to keep them up properly.

She was undisturbed even by a letter from Joe in Paris.

How can you sell Abbots Puissants when you know what Vernon felt about it? I should have thought it would be the last thing you could have done.

She thought: “Joe doesn’t understand.”

She wrote back:

What was I to do? I don’t know where to turn for money. There’s been the roof and the drains and the water⁠—it’s endless. I can’t go on running into debt. Everything’s so tiring I wish I were dead.⁠ ⁠…

Three days later she got a letter from George Chetwynd, asking if he might come and see her. He had, he said, something to confess.

Mrs. Vereker was out. She received him alone. He broke it rather apprehensively to her. It was he who had purchased Abbots Puissants.

Just at first she recoiled from the idea. Not George! Not George at Abbots Puissants! Then with admirable common sense he argued the point.

Surely it was better that it should pass into his hands instead of those of a stranger? He hoped that sometimes she and her mother would come and stay there.

“I’d like you to feel that your husband’s home is open to you at any time. I want to change things there as little as possible. You shall advise me. Surely you prefer my having it to its passing into the hands of some vulgarian who will fill it with gilt and spurious Old Masters?”

In the end she wondered why she had felt any objection. Better George than anyone. And he was so kind and understanding about everything. She was tired and worried. She broke down suddenly, cried on his shoulder whilst he put an arm round her and told her that everything was all right, that it was only because she’d been ill.

Nobody could have been kinder or more brotherly.

When she told her mother Mrs. Vereker said: “I knew George was looking out for a place. It’s lucky he’s chosen Abbots Puissants. He’s probably haggled less about the price simply because he was once in love with you.”

The remote way she said “once in love with you” made Nell feel comfortable. She had imagined that her mother might have “ideas” still about George Chetwynd.