The House by Danielle Steel Page A

had lived here, and on top of it, his money. It would have been enough to destroy anyone, particularly a man, to lose so much and have to give all this up.
    “I don't think she took the children with her,” Marjorie said pensively, wondering the same thing herself. “The story I read about them, and the house, didn't say much about it. It said that she ‘vanished.’ I didn't get the impression they vanished with her.”
    “What do you suppose happened to them, and to him?”
    “God knows. Apparently, he died relatively young, of grief, they implied. It said nothing about his family. And I think the family died out. There is no prominent family in San Francisco by that name anymore. Maybe they went back to their roots in France.”
    “Or maybe they all died,” Sarah said, sounding sad.
    After they left the nursery, Sarah led Marjorie to the back stairs and the attic floor she was so familiar with from her many visits to Stanley. She stood in the hallway with her eyes cast down, while Marjorie inspected the rooms without her. She didn't want to see the room where Stanley had lived. Sarah knew it would make her too sad. All that had mattered to her, of him, was in her heart and her head. She didn't need to see his room, or the bed where he had died, and never wanted to again. What she had loved of him, she had taken with her. The rest was unimportant. She was reminded of the Saint-Exupéry book The Little Prince , which she had always loved. Her favorite quote from it was “What is essential in life is invisible to the eyes, and only seen by the heart.” She felt that way about Stanley. He was forever in her heart. He had been a great gift in her life during the three years of their friendship. She would never forget him.
    Marjorie followed her back down the stairs to the third floor again, and reported that there were twenty small servants' rooms on the attic floor. She said that if several of the walls between them were knocked down, a new owner could get several good-size bedrooms out of them, and there were six working bathrooms, although the ceilings were much lower than on the three main floors below.
    “Do you mind if I walk back through the house again and make some notes and sketches?” Marjorie asked politely. They were both in awe of what they'd seen. It was totally overwhelming. Neither of them had ever before seen such beauty, and exquisite detail and workmanship except in museums. The master craftsmen who had built the house had all come from Europe. Marjorie had read that in the story. “I'll send someone in to do official plans, and photographs of course, if you let us sell it for you. But I'd like to have a few quick sketches to remind myself of the shape of the rooms, and number of windows.”
    “Go right ahead.” Sarah had set aside the entire morning to spend with her. They'd been there for two hours by then, but she didn't have any appointments in the office until three-thirty. And she was impressed by how serious and respectful Marjorie was. Sarah knew she had chosen the right woman to sell Stanley's house.
    Marjorie took out a small sketch pad in the master suite, and worked quickly, walking off distances and making notes to herself, as Sarah looked at the bathrooms again, and wandered through the dressing rooms, opening a multitude of closets. She didn't think she'd find anything there, but it was fun to imagine the gowns that had hung in them when Lilli was in residence. She must have had a mountain of jewels, incredible furs, and even a tiara. Those had all been sold off, undoubtedly, nearly a century before. Thinking about it, and the grief that had come to them, financially and otherwise, made Sarah sad. In all her years of visiting Stanley there, she had never thought about the previous owners much before. Stanley never said anything about them, and seemed to have no interest in them himself. He had never even mentioned them to her by name. Suddenly the name de Beaumont seemed