He did not know whether she knew about La
Dolciquita or whether she imagined that he had gone off yachting
or had stayed at Monte Carlo. He was just dumb and he just
wanted to get into a hole and not have to talk. Leonora did not
make him talk and she said nothing herself.
I do not know much about English legal procedure--I cannot, I
mean, give technical details of how they tied him up. But I know
that, two days later, without her having said more than I have
reported to you, Leonora and her attorney had become the
trustees, as I believe it is called, of all Edward's property, and
there was an end of Edward as the good landlord and father of his
people. He went out. Leonora then had three thousand a year at her
disposal. She occupied Edward with getting himself transferred to
a part of his regiment that was in Burma--if that is the right way to
put it. She herself had an interview, lasting a week or so--with
Edward's land-steward. She made him understand that the estate
would have to yield up to its last penny. Before they left for India
she had let Branshaw for seven years at a thousand a year. She
sold two Vandykes and a little silver for eleven thousand pounds
and she raised, on mortgage, twenty-nine thousand.
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