Letter, Robert Asher to his cousin Maurice Asher, Sunday night, 8 April 1923
Asher Hall stationery, two sheets, ink, Robert's lazy small hand.
Asher Hall — late, Sunday.
Dear Maurice —
Something queer here. The Cymbidium is gone out of the glasshouse, or so Crisp says, and Mother has wired Horncastle and told the wire-girl not to telephone. No constable. No fuss made downstairs. Mother had a face at luncheon I last saw at the Armistice and have not missed.
The strange thing is Aunt H. She arrived Friday in something between disquiet and excitement and I had put it to the small trunk, since she has been thin in the pocket since Uncle's affairs were wound up — you remember the Bayswater flat — and I had thought the visit was a quiet asking. I was wrong about its being quiet. At luncheon today she ate as a person eats who has finished a thing and is at the other side of it. She asked twice for the salt and once for the second helping of the lamb and made Crisp laugh, which is not done in this house in March, never mind in a Sunday April with the press robbed.
She is going up to town on Wednesday by the afternoon train. She told me this at tea, unasked. She told me twice. She told Vellance once. I do not know why she is announcing it.
The Cymbidium, between you and me, is worth not far short of three hundred guineas to the right buyer; you will recall the offer in writing from the American at Christmas. The man who would buy it is the same kind of man who would not ask where it came from.
Write me on Tuesday if you can spare the half-hour. I should like to be told I am imagining a thing.
— Robin