Fanny Waddington would always have pleasure in enclosing something....
"A ho-om--boom, hoom, hee." A sound so light that it hardly stirred the
quiet of the room. If a butterfly could hum it would hum like Fanny
Waddington.

Barbara Madden had not been two days at Lower Wyck Manor, and already
she was at home there; she knew by heart Fanny's drawing-room with the
low stretch of the Tudor windows at each end, their lattices panelled by
the heavy mullions, the back one looking out on to the green garden
bordered with wallflowers and tulips; the front one on to the round
grass-plot and the sundial, the drive and the shrubbery beyond, down the
broad walk that cut through it into the clear reaches of the park. She
liked the interior, the Persian carpet faded to patches of grey and fawn
and old rose, the port-wine mahogany furniture, the tables thrusting out
the brass claws of their legs, the latticed cabinets and bookcases, the
chintz curtains and chair-covers, all red dahlias and powder-blue
parrots on a cream-coloured ground. But when Fanny wasn't there you
could feel the room ache with the emptiness she left.

Barbara ached. She caught herself listening for Fanny Waddington's feet
on the flagged path and the sound of her humming. As she waited she
looked up at the picture over the bureau in the recess of the
fireplace, the portrait in oils of Horatio Bysshe Waddington, Fanny's
husband.

He was seated, heavily seated with his spread width and folded height,
in one of the brown-leather chairs of his library, dressed in a tweed
coat, putty-coloured riding breeches, a buff waistcoat, and a grey-blue
tie. The handsome, florid face was lifted in a noble pose above the
stiff white collar; you could see the full, slightly drooping lower lip