My Cousin Rachel (10 page)

My dignity vanished. Holding to it had become too great a strain. I went back to the fire and sat on the stool beside the table.

“I’ll tell you something,” I said. “I have never seen this tray before, nor the kettle, nor the teapot.”

“I didn’t think you had,” she said. “I saw the look in your eyes when Seecombe brought them into the room. I don’t believe he has seen them before either. They’re buried treasure. He has dug for them in the cellars.”

“Is it really the thing to do,” I asked, “to drink tea after dinner?”

“Of course,” she said, “in high society, when ladies are present.”

“We never have it on Sundays,” I said, “when the Kendalls and the Pascoes come to dinner.”

“Perhaps Seecombe doesn’t consider them high society,” she said. “I’m very flattered. I like my tea. You can eat the bread and butter.”

This too was an innovation. Pieces of thin bread, rolled like small sausages. “I’m surprised they knew how to do this in the kitchen,” I said, swallowing them down, “but they’re very good.”

“A sudden inspiration,” said cousin Rachel, “and no doubt you will have what is left for breakfast. That butter is melting, you had better suck your fingers.”

She drank her tea, watching me over her cup.

“If you want to smoke your pipe, you can,” she said.

I stared at her surprised.

“In a lady’s boudoir?” I said. “Are you sure? Why, on Sundays, when Mrs. Pascoe comes with the vicar, we never smoke in the drawing room.”

“It’s not the drawing room, and I’m not Mrs. Pascoe,” she answered me.

I shrugged my shoulders and felt in my pocket for my pipe.

“Seecombe will think it very wrong,” I said. “He’ll smell it in the morning.”

“I’ll open the window before I go to bed,” she said. “It will all blow out, with the rain.”

“The rain will come in and spoil the carpet,” I said, “then that will be worse than the smell of the pipe.”

“It can be rubbed down with a cloth,” she said. “How pernickety you are, like an old gentleman.”

“I thought women minded about such things.”

“They do, when they have nothing else to worry them,” she said.

It struck me suddenly as I smoked my pipe, sitting there in aunt Phoebe’s boudoir, that this was not at all the way I had intended to spend the evening. I had planned a few words of icy courtesy and an abrupt farewell, leaving the interloper snubbed, dismissed.

I glanced up at her. She had finished her tea, and put the cup and saucer back on the tray. Once again I was aware of her hands, narrow and small and very white, and I wondered if Ambrose had called them city-bred. She wore two rings, fine stones both of them, on her fingers, yet they seemed to clash in no way with her mourning, nor be out of keeping with her person. I was glad I had the bowl of my pipe to hold, and the stem to bite upon; it made me feel more like myself and less like a sleepwalker, muddled by a dream. There were things I should be doing, things I should be saying, and here was I sitting like a fool before the fire, unable to collect my thoughts or my impressions. The day, so long-drawn-out and anxious, was now over, and I could not for the life of me decide whether it had turned to my advantage or gone against me. If only she had borne some resemblance to the image I had created I would know better what to do, but now that she was here, beside me, in the flesh, the images seemed fantastic crazy things that all turned into one another and then faded into darkness.

Somewhere there was a bitter creature, crabbed and old, hemmed about with lawyers; somewhere a larger Mrs. Pascoe, loud-voiced, arrogant; somewhere a petulant spoiled doll, with corkscrew curls; somewhere a viper, sinuous and silent. But none of them was with me in this room. Anger seemed futile now, and hatred too, and as for fear—how could I fear anyone who did not measure up to my shoulder, and had nothing remarkable about her save a sense of humor and small hands? Was it for this that one man had fought a duel, and another, dying, written to me and said, “She’s done for me at last, Rachel my torment?” It was as though I had blown a bubble in the air, and stood by to watch it dance; and the bubble had now burst.

I must remember, I thought to myself, nearly nodding by the flickering fire, not to drink brandy another time after a ten-mile walk in the rain; it dulls the senses and it does not ease the tongue. I had come to fight this woman and I had not even started. What was it she had said about aunt Phoebe’s saddle?

“Philip,” said the voice, very quiet, very low, “Philip, you’re nearly asleep. Will you please get up and go to bed?”

I opened my eyes with a jerk. She was sitting watching me, her hands in her lap. I stumbled to my feet, and nearly crashed the tray.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “it must have been because I was sitting cramped there on that stool, it made me sleepy. I usually stretch my legs out in the library.”

“You took a lot of exercise today too, didn’t you?” she said.

Her voice was innocent enough and yet… What did she mean? I frowned, and stood staring down at her, determined to say nothing. “If it’s fine then tomorrow morning,” she said, “will you really find a horse for me that will be steady and quiet, so that I can sit up on him and go and see the Barton acres?”

“Yes,” I said, “if you want to go.”

“I needn’t bother you; Wellington shall lead me.”

“No, I can take you. I have nothing else to do.”

“Wait though,” she said, “you forget it will be Saturday. That’s the morning you pay the wages. We’ll wait till afternoon.”

I looked down at her, nonplussed. “Great heavens,” I said, “how in the world do you know that I pay the wages on Saturday?”

To my dismay and great embarrassment, her eyes grew bright suddenly, and wet, as they had done earlier when she talked of my tenth birthday. And her voice became much harder than before.

“If you don’t know,” she said, “you have less understanding than I thought. Stay here a moment, I have a present for you.”

She opened the door and passed into the blue bedroom opposite, and returned within a moment carrying a stick in her hand.

“Here,” she said, “take it, it’s yours. Everything else you can sort out and see another time, but I wanted to give you this myself, tonight.”

It was Ambrose’s walking stick. The one he always used, and leaned upon. The one with the gold band, and the dog’s head on the top carved in ivory.

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly, “thank you very much.”

“Now go,” she said, “please go, quickly.”

And she pushed me from the room, and shut the door.

I stood outside, holding the stick in my hands. She had not given me time even to wish her good night. No sound came from the boudoir, and I walked slowly down the corridor to my own room. I thought of the expression in her eyes as she gave me the stick. Once, not so long ago, I had seen other eyes with that same age-old look of suffering. Those eyes too had held reserve and pride, coupled with the same abasement, the same agony of supplication. It must be, I thought, as I came to my room, Ambrose’s room, and examined the well-remembered walking stick, it must be because the eyes are the same color and they belong to the same race. Otherwise they could have nothing in common, the beggar woman beside the Arno and my cousin Rachel.

I was down early the following morning, and immediately after breakfast walked across to the stables and summoned Wellington, and we went together to the harness room.

Yes, there were some half-dozen sidesaddles among the rest. I suppose the fact was that I had never noticed them.

“Mrs. Ashley cannot ride,” I told him. “All she wants is something to sit upon and to cling onto.”

“We’d better put her up on Solomon,” said the old coachman. “He may never have carried a lady but he won’t let her down, that’s certain. I couldn’t be sure, sir, of any of the other horses.”

Solomon had been hunted years back, by Ambrose, but now took his ease chiefly in the meadow, unless exercised on the high road by Wellington. The sidesaddles were high up on the wall of the harness room, and he had to send for the groom, and a short ladder, to bring them down. It caused quite a pother and excitement, the choice of the saddle; this one was too worn, the next too narrow for Solomon’s broad back, and the lad was scolded because the third had a cobweb across it. I laughed inwardly, guessing that neither Wellington nor anybody else had thought about those saddles for a quarter of a century, and told Wellington that a good polish with a leather would set it to rights, and Mrs. Ashley would think the saddle had come down from London yesterday.

“What time does the mistress wish to start?” he asked, and I stared at him a moment, taken aback by his choice of words.

“Some time after noon,” I said shortly. “You can bring Solomon round to the front door, and I shall be leading Mrs. Ashley myself.”

Then I turned back to the estate room, in the house, to reckon up the weekly books and check the accounts before the men came for their wages. The mistress indeed. Was that how they looked upon her, Wellington and Seecombe and the rest? I supposed in a sense it was natural of them, yet I thought how swiftly men, especially menservants, became fools when in the presence of a woman. That look of reverence in Seecombe’s eye when he had brought in the tea last night, and his respectful manner as he placed the tray before her, and this morning at breakfast it was young John, if you please, who waited by the sideboard and lifted the covers from my bacon, because “Mr. Seecombe,” he said,” has gone upstairs with the tray for the boudoir.” And now here was Wellington, in a state of excitement, polishing and rubbing at the old sidesaddle, and shouting over his shoulder to the boy to see to Solomon. I worked away at my accounts, glad to be so unmoved by the fact that a woman had slept under the roof for the first time since Ambrose had sent my nurse packing; and now I came to think of it her treatment of me as I nearly fell asleep, her words, “Philip, go to bed,” were what my nurse might have said to me, over twenty years ago.

At noon the servants came, and the men who worked outside in the stables, woods, and gardens, and I gave them their money; then I noticed that Tamlyn, the head gardener, was not among them. I inquired the reason, and was told that he was somewhere about the grounds with “the mistress.” I made no observation as to this, but paid the rest their wages and dismissed them. Some instinct told me where I should find Tamlyn and my cousin Rachel. I was right. They were in the forcing ground, where we had brought on the camellias, and the oleanders, and the other young trees that Ambrose had carried back from his travels.

I had never been an expert—I had left that to Tamlyn—and now as I rounded the corner and came upon them I could hear her talking about cuttings, and layers, and a north aspect, and the feeding of the soil, and Tamlyn listening to it all with his hat in his hand and the same look of reverence in the eye that Seecombe had, and Wellington. She smiled at the sight of me and rose to her feet. She had been kneeling on a piece of sacking, examining the shoots of a young tree.

“I’ve been out since half-past ten,” she said. “I looked for you to ask permission but could not find you, so I did a bold thing and went down myself to Tamlyn’s cottage to make myself known to him, didn’t I, Tamlyn?”

“You did, ma’am,” said Tamlyn, with a sheep’s look in his eye.

“You see, Philip,” she continued, “I brought with me to Plymouth—I could not get them in the carriage, they will follow on by carrier—all the plants and shrubs that we had collected, Ambrose and I, during the past two years. I have the lists here with me, and where he wished them to go, and I thought it would save time if I talked over the list with Tamlyn, and explained what everything was. I may be gone when the carrier brings the load.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “You both of you understand these things better than I do. Please continue.”

“We’ve finished, haven’t we, Tamlyn?” she said. “And will you please thank Mrs. Tamlyn for that cup of tea she gave me, and tell her that I do so hope her sore throat will be better by this evening? Oil of eucalyptus is the remedy, I will send some down to her.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tamlyn (it was the first I had heard of his wife’s sore throat), and looking at me he added, with a little awkward air of diffidence, “I’ve learned some things this morning, Mr. Philip, sir, that I never thought to learn from a lady. I always believed I knew my work, but Mrs. Ashley knows more about gardening than I do, or ever will for that matter. Proper ignorant she’s made me feel.”

“Nonsense, Tamlyn,” said my cousin Rachel, “I only know about trees and shrubs. As to fruit—I haven’t the least idea how to set about growing a peach, and remember, you haven’t yet taken me round the walled garden. You shall do so tomorrow.”

“Whenever you wish, ma’am,” said Tamlyn, and she bade him good morning and we set back towards the house.

“If you have been out since after ten,” I said to her, “you will want to rest now. I will tell Wellington not to saddle the horse after all.”

“Rest?” she said. “Who talks of resting? I have been looking forward to my ride all morning. Look, the sun. You said it would break through. Are you going to lead me, or will Wellington?”

“No,” I said, “I’ll take you. And I warn you, you may be able to teach Tamlyn about camellias, but you won’t be able to do the same with me and farming.”

“I know oats from barley,” she said. “Doesn’t that impress you?”

“Not a jot,” I said, “and anyway, you won’t find either out on the acres, they’re all harvested.”

When we came to the house I discovered that Seecombe had laid out a cold luncheon of meat and salad in the dining room, complete with pies and puddings as though we were to sit for dinner. My cousin Rachel glanced at me, her face quite solemn, yet that look of laughter behind her eyes.

“You are a young man, and you have not finished growing,” she said. “Eat, and be thankful. Put a piece of that pie in your pocket and I will ask you for it when we are on the west hills. I am going upstairs now to dress myself suitably for riding.”

At least, I thought to myself as I tucked into the cold meat with hearty appetite, she does not expect waiting upon or other niceties, she has a certain independence of spirit that would seem, thank the Lord, unfeminine. The only irritation was that my manner with her, which I hoped was cutting, she apparently took in good part and enjoyed. My sarcasm was misread as joviality.

I had scarcely finished eating when Solomon was brought round to the door. The sturdy old horse had undergone the grooming of his lifetime. Even his hoofs were polished, an attention that was never paid to my Gypsy. The two young dogs pranced around his heels. Don watched them undisturbed; his running days were over, like his old friend Solomon’s.

I went to tell Seecombe we would be out till after four, and when I returned my cousin Rachel had come downstairs and was already mounted upon Solomon. Wellington was adjusting her stirrup. She had changed into another mourning gown, cut somewhat fuller than the other, and instead of a hat she had wound her black lace shawl about her hair for covering. She was talking to Wellington, her profile turned to me, and for some reason or other I remembered what she had said the night before about Ambrose teasing her, how he had told her once that she reeked of old Rome. I think I knew now what he meant. Her features were like those stamped on a Roman coin, definite, yet small; and now with that lace shawl wound about her hair I was reminded of the women I had seen kneeling in that cathedral in Florence, or lurking in the doorways of the silent houses. As she sat up on Solomon you could not tell that she was so small in stature when she stood upon the ground. The woman whom I considered unremarkable, save for her hands and her changing eyes and the bubble of laughter in her voice upon occasion, looked different now that she sat above me. She seemed more distant, more remote, and more—Italian.

She heard my footstep and turned towards me; and it went swiftly, the distant look, the foreign look, that had come upon her features in repose. She looked now as she had before.

“Ready?” I said. “Or are you fearful of falling?”

“I put my trust in you and Solomon,” she answered.

“Very well, then. Come on. We shall be about two hours, Wellington.” And taking the bridle I set off with her to tour the Barton acres.

The wind of the day before had blown itself up-country, taking the rain with it, and at noon the sun had broken through and the sky was clear. There was a salty brightness in the air, lending a zest to walking, and you could hear the running swell of the sea as it broke upon the rocks fringing the bay. We had these days often in the fall of the year. Belonging to no season they had a freshness all their own, yet with a hint of cooler hours to come and tasting still the aftermath of summer.

Ours was a strange pilgrimage. We started off by visiting the Barton, and it was as much as I could do to prevent Billy Rowe and his wife from inviting us inside the farmhouse to sit down to cakes and cream; in fact it was only by the promise of doing so on Monday that I got Solomon and my cousin Rachel past the byre and the midden and through the gates at all, up on the stubble of the west hills.

The Barton lands form a peninsula, the beacon fields forming the further end of it and the sea running into bays, east and west, on either side. As I had told her, the corn had all been carried, and I could lead old Solomon wherever I pleased, for he could do no damage on the stubble. The larger part of the Barton land is grazing land anyway, and to make a thorough tour of it all we kept close to the sea, and finally brought up by the beacon itself, so that looking back she could see the whole run of the estate, bounded on the western side by the great stretch of sandy bay and three miles to the eastward by the estuary. The Barton farm, and the house itself—the mansion, as Seecombe always called it—lay in a sort of saucer, but already the trees planted by Ambrose and my uncle Philip grew thick and fast to give the house more shelter, and to the north the new avenue wound through the woods and up the rise to where the four roads met.

Remembering her talk of the night before, I tried to test my cousin Rachel on the names of the Barton fields, but could not fault her; she knew them all. Her memory did not mislead her when she came to mention the various beaches, the headlands, and the other farms on the estate; she knew the names of the tenants, the size of their families, that Seecombe’s nephew lived in the fish house on the beach, and that his brother had the mill. She did not throw her information at me, it was rather I, my curiosity piqued, who led her onto disclose it, and when she gave me the names, and spoke of the people, it was as a matter of course and with something of wonder that I should think it strange.

“What do you suppose we talked of, Ambrose and I?” she said to me at last, as we came down from the beacon hill to the eastward fields. “His home was his passion, therefore I made it mine. Would you not expect a wife of yours to do the same?”

“Not possessing a wife I cannot say,” I answered her, “but I should have thought that having lived on the continent all your life your interests would have been entirely different.”

“So they were,” she said, “until I met Ambrose.”

“Except for gardens, I gather.”

“Except for gardens,” she agreed, “which was how it started, as he must have told you. My garden at the villa was very lovely, but this”—she paused a moment, reining in Solomon, and I stood with my hand on the bridle—“but this is what I have always wanted to see. This is different.” She said nothing for a moment or two, as she looked down on the bay. “At the villa,” she went on, “when I was young and first married—I am not referring to Ambrose—I was not very happy, so I distracted myself by designing afresh the gardens there, replanting much of them and terracing the walls. I sought advice, and shut myself up with books, and the results were very pleasing; at least I thought so, and was told so. I wonder what you would think of them.”

I glanced up at her. Her profile was turned towards the sea and she did not know that I was looking at her. What did she mean? Had not my godfather told her I had been to the villa?

A sudden misgiving came upon me. I remembered her composure of the night before, after the first nervousness on meeting, and also the easiness of our conversation, which, on thinking it over at breakfast, I had put down to her own social sense and my dullness after drinking brandy. It struck me now that it was odd she had said nothing last night about my visit to Florence, odder still that she had made no reference to the manner in which I had learned of Ambrose’s death. Could it be that my godfather had shirked that issue and left it to me to break it to her? I cursed him to myself for an old blunderer and a coward, and yet as I did so I knew that it was I myself who was the coward now. Last night, had I only told her last night, when I had the brandy inside me; but now, now it was not so easy. She would wonder why I had said nothing of it sooner. This was the moment, of course. This was the moment to say, “I have seen the gardens at your villa Sangalletti. Didn’t you know?” But she made a coaxing sound to Solomon and he moved on.

“Can we go past the mill, and up through the woods the other side?” she asked.

I had lost my opportunity, and we went on back towards home. As we progressed through the woods she made remarks from time to time about the trees, or the set of the hills, or some other feature; but for me the ease of the afternoon had gone, for somehow or other I had got to tell her about my visit to Florence. If I said nothing of it she would hear of it from Seecombe, or from my godfather himself when he came to dinner on Sunday. I became more and more silent as we drew towards the house.