There was a great fire of logs burning in the open hearth in the hall, flinging a ruddy glare on the panelled walls and glinting on bits of armour and hunting trophies. Upstairs also, Brand told me, there was a splendid fire in Elsa’s room, which had once been the room of Harding’s wife. It warmed Elsa not only in body but in soul. Here was an English welcome, and kindness of thought. On her dressing-table there were flowers from Harding’s hot-houses, and she gave a little cry of pleasure at the sight of them, for there had been no flowers in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. That night she was strong enough to come down to dinner, and looked very charming there at the polished board, lit only by candlelight whose soft rays touched the gold of her hair.
“It is a true English home,” she said, glancing up at the panelled walls and at portraits of Harding’s people in old-fashioned costumes which hung there.
“A lonely one when no friends are here,” said Harding, and that was the only time he referred in any way to the wife who had left him.
That dinner was the last one which Elsa had sitting at table with us. She became very tired again. So tired that Brand had to carry her upstairs and downstairs, which he did as though she weighed no more than a child. During the day she lay on a sofa in the drawing-room, and Brand did no writing now, nor any kind of work, but stayed always with his wife. For hours together he sat by her side, and she held his hand and touched his face and hair, and was happy in her love.
A good friend came to stay with them, and brought unfailing cheerfulness. It was Charles Fortune, who had come down at Harding’s invitation. He was as comical as ever, and made Elsa laugh with ripples of merriment while he satirised the world as he knew it, with shrewd and penetrating wit. He played the jester industriously to get that laughter from her, though sometimes she had to beg of him not to make her laugh so much because it hurt her. Then he played the piano late into the afternoon, until the twilight in the room faded into darkness except for the ruddy glow of the log fire, or after dinner in the evenings until Brand carried his wife to bed. He played Chopin best, with a magic touch, but Elsa liked him to play Bach and Schumann, and sometimes Mozart, because that brought back her girlhood in the days before the war.