My Cousin Rachel (8 page)

“That is all, Seecombe,” I said. “I will let you know if Mrs. Ashley decides to visit us. I don’t know about a room. I leave that side of the business to you.”

“Why surely, Mr. Philip, sir,” said Seecombe in surprise, “it will be correct to put Mrs. Ashley into Mr. Ashley’s own room?”

I stared at him, shocked into sudden silence. Then fearing my feelings showed in my face, I turned away.

“No,” I said, “that won’t be possible. I shall be moving into Mr. Ashley’s room myself. I meant to tell you so before. I decided upon the change some days ago.”

It was a lie. I had not thought of such a thing until that moment.

“Very well, sir,” he said, “in that case the blue room and the dressing room will be more suitable for Mrs. Ashley.” And he left the room.

Good God, I thought, to put that woman into Ambrose’s room, what sacrilege. I flung myself down in my chair, biting the stem of my pipe. I felt angry, unsettled, sick of the whole concern. It was madness to have sent that message through my godfather, madness to have her in the house at all. What in the name of the devil had I let myself in for? That idiot, Seecombe, with his ideas of what was right and what was wrong.

The invitation was accepted. She wrote a letter back to my godfather, not to me. Which, as no doubt Seecombe would have thought, was duly right and proper. The invitation had not come direct from me, therefore it must be returned through the correct channel. She would be ready, she said, whenever it was convenient to send for her, or if not convenient she would come by post chaise. I replied, again through my godfather, that I would send the carriage for her on the Friday. And that was that.

Friday came all too soon. A moody, fitful sort of day, with gusts of wind. We often had them thus, the third week in September, with the big tides of the year. The clouds were low, scudding across the sky from the southwest, threatening rain before the evening. I hoped it would rain. One of our true downpours, with maybe a gale thrown in for further measure. A west country welcome. No Italian skies. I had sent Wellington off with the horses the day before. He would stay overnight in Plymouth and return with her. Ever since I had told the servants that Mrs. Ashley was expected a sort of unrest had come upon the house. Even the dogs were aware of it and followed me about from room to room. Seecombe reminded me of some old priest who, after years of abstinence from any form of religious celebration, suddenly conforms again to forgotten ritual. He moved about, mysterious and solemn, with hushed footsteps—he had even bought himself a pair of soft-soled slippers—and bits of silver I had never seen in my life before were borne into the dining room and placed on the table, or on the sideboard. Relics, I suppose, of my uncle Philip’s day. Great candlesticks, sugar-castors, goblets, and a silver bowl filled—great Joshua—with roses placed as a centerpiece.

“Since when,” I said to him, “have you turned acolyte? What about the incense, and the holy water?”

He did not move a muscle of his face. He stood back, surveying the relics.

“I have asked Tamlyn to bring cut flowers from the walled garden,” he said. “The boys are sorting them now, out at the back. We shall need flowers in the drawing room, and in the blue bedroom, in the dressing room and boudoir.” He frowned at the pantry boy, young John, who slipped and nearly fell, staggering under the load of yet another pair of candlesticks.

The dogs gazed up at me, dejected. One of them crept and hid under the settle in the hall. I went upstairs. Heaven knows when last I had trespassed into the blue room. We never had visitors, and it was connected in my mind with some game of hide-and-seek, long since, when Louise had come over with my godfather one Christmas. I could remember creeping into the silent room and hiding beneath the bed, among the dust. I had a dim recollection that Ambrose had once said it was aunt Phoebe’s room, and aunt Phoebe had gone away to live in Kent, and later died.

No trace of her remained today. The boys, under Seecombe’s direction, had worked hard, and aunt Phoebe had been swept away with the dust of years. The windows were open, looking out on the grounds, and the morning sun shone on the well-beaten rugs. Fresh linen, of a quality unknown to me, had been put upon the bed. Had that washstand and ewer always been there, I wondered, in the dressing room adjoining? Did that easy chair belong? I remembered none of them, but then I remembered nothing of aunt Phoebe, who had taken herself to Kent before I was even born. Well, what had done for her would do for my cousin Rachel.

The third room, under the arch, making up the suite, had been aunt Phoebe’s boudoir. This too had been dusted, and the windows opened. I dare say I had not entered this room either since those days of hide-and-seek. There was a portrait of Ambrose hanging on the wall above the fireplace, painted when he was a young man. I did not even know of its existence, and he had probably forgotten it. Had it been done by some well-known painter it would have been below with the other family portraits, but sent up here, to a room never used, suggested no one had thought much of it. It was painted three-quarter length, and he had his gun under his arm and carried a dead partridge in his left hand. The eyes looked ahead, into my eyes, and the mouth smiled a little. His hair was longer than I remembered it. There was nothing very striking in the portrait, or in the face. Only one thing. It was strangely like myself. I looked in the mirror, and back again to the portrait, and the only difference lay in the slant of his eyes, something narrower than mine, and in his darker coloring of hair. We could be brothers, though, almost twin brothers, that young man in the portrait and myself. This sudden realization of our likeness gave an uplift to my spirits. It was as if the young Ambrose was smiling at me saying “I am with you.” And the older Ambrose, too, felt very close. I shut the door behind me and, passing back once more through the dressing room and the blue bedroom, went downstairs.

I heard the sound of wheels out on the drive. It was Louise, in the dogcart, and she had great bunches of michaelmas daisies and dahlias on the seat beside her.

“For the drawing room,” she called, on sight of me. “I thought that Seecombe might be glad of them.”

Seecombe, passing that moment through the hall with his drove of minions, looked offended. He stood stiffly, as Louise passed into the house carrying the flowers. “You should not have troubled, Miss Louise,” he said, “I had made all arrangements with Tamlyn. Sufficient flowers were brought in first thing from the walled garden.”

“I can arrange them, then,” said Louise; “your men will only break the vases. I suppose you have vases. Or have they been cramming the flowers into jam-pots?”

Seecombe’s face was a study in pained dignity. I pushed Louise into the library hurriedly and shut the door.

“I wondered,” said Louise, in an undertone, “whether you would have liked me to stay and see to things, and be here when Mrs. Ashley comes. Father would have accompanied me, but he is still rather unwell, and with this threatening rain I thought it best he remained indoors. What do you say? Shall I stay? These flowers were only an excuse.”

I felt vaguely irritated that both she and my godfather should think me so incapable, and poor old Seecombe too, who had worked like a slave driver for the past three days.

“Good of you to suggest it,” I said, “but quite unnecessary. We can manage very well.”

She looked disappointed. She was evidently afire with curiosity to see my visitor. I did not tell her that I had no intention of being in the house myself when she arrived.

Louise looked critically about the room, but made no comment. No doubt she saw many faults, but had the tact to hold her tongue.

“You can go upstairs, if you like, and see the blue room,” I told her, as a sop to disappointment.

“The blue room?” said Louise. “That’s the one facing east, over the drawing room, isn’t it? Then you have not put her in Mr. Ashley’s room?”

“I have not,” I said. “I use Ambrose’s room myself.”

This insistence that she, and everybody else, should put upon the placing of Ambrose’s room at the disposal of his widow added fresh fuel to my rising irritation.

“If you really wish to arrange the flowers, ask Seecombe for some vases,” I said, going towards the door. “I have a mass of things to do outside, and shall be away about the estate most of the day.”

She picked up the flowers, glancing at me as she did so.

“I believe you’re nervous,” she said.

“I am not nervous,” I said, “I merely want to be alone.”

She flushed and turned away, and I felt the prick of conscience that always came to me after wounding anyone.

“Sorry, Louise,” I said, patting her shoulder, “don’t take any notice of me. And bless you for coming, and bringing the flowers, and for offering to stay.”

“When shall I see you again,” she asked, “to hear about Mrs. Ashley? You know I shall be longing to know everything. Of course, if Father is better we shall come down to Church on Sunday, but all tomorrow I shall be thinking and wondering…”

“Wondering what?” I said. “If I have thrown my cousin Rachel over the headland? I might do that, if she goads me hard enough. Listen—just to satisfy you—I will ride over tomorrow afternoon to Pelyn, and paint a vivid picture for you. Does that content you?”

“That will do very well,” she answered, smiling, and went off to find Seecombe and the vases.

I was out all morning and returned about two, hungry and thirsty after my ride, and had some cold meat and a glass of ale. Louise had gone. Seecombe and the servants were in their own quarters, sitting down to their midday dinner. I stood alone in the library, munching my sandwich of meat and bread. Alone, I thought, for the last time. Tonight she would be here, either in this room or in the drawing room, an unknown hostile presence, stamping her personality upon my rooms, my house. She came as an intruder to my home. I did not want her. I did not want her or any woman, with peering eyes and questing fingers, forcing herself into the atmosphere, intimate and personal, that was mine alone. The house was still and silent, and I was part of it, belonging, as Ambrose had done and still did, somewhere in the shadows. We needed no one else to break the silence.

I looked about the room, almost in farewell, and then went out of the house and plunged into the woods.

I judged that Wellington would be home with the carriage not earlier than five o’clock, so I determined to remain without until after six. They could wait dinner for me. Seecombe already had his instructions. If she was hungry, she must hold her hunger until the master of the house returned. It gave me satisfaction to think of her sitting alone in the drawing room, dressed to the nines, full of self-importance, and no one to receive her.

I went on walking in the wind and rain. Up the avenue to where the four roads met, and eastwards to the boundary of our land; then back through the woods again and northwards to the outlying farms, where I made a point of dallying and talking with the tenants, thus spacing out the time. Across the park and over the westward hills, and home at last by the Barton, just as it grew dusk. I was wet nearly to the skin but I did not care.

I opened the hall door and went into the house. I expected to see the signs of arrival, boxes and trunks, travel rugs and baskets; but all was as usual, there was nothing there.

A fire was burning in the library, but the room was empty. In the dining room a place was laid for one. I pulled the bell for Seecombe. “Well?” I said.

He wore his newfound look of self-importance, and his voice was hushed.

“Madam has come,” he said.

“So I would suppose,” I answered, “it must be nearly seven. Did she bring luggage? What have you done with it?”

“Madam brought little of her own,” he said. “The boxes and trunks belonged to Mr. Ambrose. They have all been put in your old room, sir.”

“Oh,” I said. I walked over to the fire and kicked a log. I would not have him notice for the world that my hands were trembling.

“Where is Mrs. Ashley now?” I said.

“Madam has gone to her room, sir,” he said. “She seemed tired, and she asked you to excuse her for dinner. I had a tray taken up to her about an hour ago.”

His words came as a relief. Yet in a sense it was an anticlimax.

“What sort of journey did she have?” I asked.

“Wellington said the road after Liskeard was rough, sir,” he answered, “and it was blowing hard. One of the horses cast a shoe, and they had to turn in at the smithy before Lostwithiel.”

“H’m.” I turned my back upon the fire and warmed my legs.

“You’re very wet, sir,” said Seecombe. “Better change your things, or you’ll take cold.”

“I will directly,” I answered him, and then, glancing about the room, “Where are the dogs?”

“I think they followed madam upstairs,” he said, “at least old Don did, I am not certain of the others.”

I went on warming my legs before the fire. Seecombe still hovered by the door, as if expecting me to draw him in conversation.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll bath and change. Tell one of the boys to take up the hot water. And I’ll dine in half an hour.”

I sat down that evening alone to my dinner before the newly polished candlesticks and the silver rose bowl. Seecombe stood behind my chair, but we did not speak. Silence must have been torture to him, on this night of nights, for I knew how much he longed to comment on the new arrival. Well, he could bide his time, and then let forth to his heart’s content in the steward’s room.

Just as I finished dinner, John came into the room and whispered to him. Seecombe came and bent over my shoulder.

“Madam has sent word that if you should wish to see her, when you have dined, she will be pleased to receive you,” he said.

“Thank you, Seecombe.”

When they had left the room I did something that I very rarely did. Only after extreme exhaustion, after riding perhaps, or a hard day’s shoot, or buffeting about in a summer gale in the sailing boat with Ambrose. I went to the sideboard and poured myself a glass of brandy. Then I went upstairs, and knocked upon the door of the little boudoir.