I wondered if in Italy her task was harder. I did not think so. Only her company there was more suited to her mettle. And with Rainaldi at her hand to help her, speaking the language she knew best, the talk would sparkle at the villa Sangalletti with greater brilliance than it had ever done at my dull table. Sometimes she gestured with her hands, as though to clarify her rapid speech. When she talked to Rainaldi in Italian, I had noticed she did it even more. Today, interrupting my G.o.dfather in some statement, she did it once again; both hands, so quick and deft, brushing aside the air. Then, waiting for his answer, her elbows resting lightly on the table, the hands folded themselves, were still. Her head was turned to him as she listened, so that from the head of the table, where I sat, I looked on her in profile. She was always a stranger, thus. Those neat clipped features on a coin. Dark and withdrawn, a foreign woman standing in a doorway, a shawl about her head, her hand outstretched. But full-face, when she smiled, a stranger never. The Rachel that I knew, that I had loved.
My G.o.dfather finished his story. There was a pause, and silence. Trained now to all her movements, I watched her eyes. They looked to Mrs. Pascoe, then to me. "Shall we go into the garden?" she said. We all rose from our chairs, and the vicar, pulling out his watch, sighed and observed, "Much as I regret it, I must tear myself away."
"I too," remarked my G.o.dfather. "I have a brother sick at Luxilyan, and promised to call and see him. But Louise may stay."
"Surely you have time to drink your tea?" said Rachel; but it seemed the hour was later than they thought, and at length, after some pother, Nick Kendall and the Pascoes departed in the brougham. Louise alone remained.
"Since there are only the three of us," said Rachel, "let us be informal. Come to the boudoir." And smiling at Louise she led the way upstairs. "Louise shall drink tisana," she called, over her shoulder. "I will show her my method. When her father suffers from insomnia, if ever, this is the remedy."
We all came to the boudoir and sat down, I by the open window, Louise upon the stool. Rachel busied herself with her preparations.
"The English way," said Rachel, "if there can be an English way, which I rather doubt, is to take peeled barley. I brought my own dried herbs from Florence. If you like the taste, I will leave some with you when I go."
Louise rose from the stool, and stood beside her. "I heard from Mary Pascoe that you know the name of every herb," she said, "and have doctored the tenants here on the estate for many ailments. In old days, the people knew more about these things than they do now. Yet some of the old folk can still charm away warts and rashes."
"I can charm more than warts," laughed Rachel. "Call in at their cottages, and ask them. Herb-lore is very ancient. I learned it from my mother. Thank you, John." John had brought up the kettle of steaming water. "In Florence," said Rachel, "I used to brew the tisana in my room, and let it stand. It is better thus. Then we would go out into the court, and sit, and I would turn on the fountain, and while we sipped our tisana the water dripped into the pool. Ambrose would sit there, watching it, for hours." She poured the water that John had brought into the teapot. "I have a mind," she said "to bring back from Florence, next time I come to Cornwall, a little statue, like the one above my pool. It will take some finding, but I shall be successful in the end. Then we can put him to stand in the middle of the new sunken garden we are building here, and make a fountain too. What do you think?" She turned to me, smiling, and she was stirring the tisana with a spoon in her left hand.
"If you like," I answered.
"Philip lacks all enthusiasm," she said to Louise; "either he agrees to all I say, or does not care. Sometimes I think my labors here are wasted, the terrace walk, the shrubs in the plantation. He would have been content with rough gra.s.s, and a muddied path. Here, take your cup."
She gave the cup to Louise, who sat down on the stool. Then she brought me mine, where I was sitting on the windowsill.
I shook my head. "No tisana, Philip?" she said. "But it is good for you, and makes you sleep. You have never refused before. This is a special brew. I have made it double strength."
"You drink it for me," I replied.
She shrugged her shoulders, "Mine is already poured. I like it to stand longer. This must be wasted. What a pity." She leaned over me, and poured it from the window. Drawing back, she put her hand on my shoulder, and from her came the scent I knew so well. No perfume, but the essence of her own person, the texture of her skin.
"Are you not well?" she whispered, so that Louise could not hear.
If all knowledge, and all feeling, could be blotted out, I would have asked it then, and that she should remain, her hand upon my shoulder. No letter torn to shreds, no secret packet locked in a little drawer, no evil, no duplicity. Her hand moved from my shoulder to my chin, and stayed there for a moment in a brief caress, which, because she stood between me and Louise, pa.s.sed unseen. "My sullen one," she said.
I looked above her head, and saw the portrait of Ambrose above the mantelpiece. His eyes stared straight into mine, in youth and innocence. I answered nothing; and moving from me she put back my empty cup onto the tray.
"What do you think of it?" she asked Louise.
"I am afraid," apologized Louise, "that it would take me a little time to like it well."
"Perhaps," said Rachel; "the musty flavor does not suit all persons. Never mind. It is a sedative to unquiet minds. Tonight we shall all sleep well." She smiled, and drank slowly from her own cup.
We chatted a little while, for perhaps half an hour or more, or rather she did with Louise; then rising, and putting back her cup upon the tray, she said, "Now it is cooler, who will walk with me in the garden?" I glanced across at Louise, who, looking at me, stayed silent.
"I have promised Louise," I said, "to show her an old plan of the Pelyn estate that I came across the other day. The boundaries are strongly marked, and show the old hill fortress being part of it."
"Very well," said Rachel, "take her to the drawing room, or remain here, as you please. I shall take my walk alone."
She went, humming a song, into the blue bedroom.
"Stay where you are," I said softly, to Louise.
I went downstairs, and to the office, for in truth there was an old plan that I had somewhere, among my papers. I found it, in a file, and went back across the court. As I came to the side door, that led from near the drawing room to the garden, Rachel was setting forth upon her walk. She wore no hat, but had her sunshade, open, in her hand. "I shall not be long," she said, "I"m going up to the terrace-I want to see if a little statue would look well in the sunken garden."
"Have a care," I said to her.
"Why, of what?" she asked.
She stood beside me, her sunshade resting on her shoulder. She wore a dark gown, of some thin muslin stuff, with white lace about the neck. She looked much as I had seen her first, ten months ago, except that it was summer. The scent of the new cut gra.s.s was in the air. A b.u.t.terfly flew past in happy flight. The pigeons cooed from the great trees beyond the lawn.
"Have a care," I said slowly, "of walking beneath the sun."
She laughed, and went from me. I watched her cross the lawn and climb the steps towards the terrace.
I turned back into the house, and going swiftly up the stairs came to the boudoir. Louise was waiting there.
"I want your help," I said briefly, "I have little time to lose."
She rose from the stool, her eyes a question. "What is it?"
"You remember the conversation that we had those weeks ago, in the church?" I said to her. She nodded.
"Well, you were right, and I was wrong," I answered, "but never mind that now. I have suspicious of worse beside, but I must have final proof. I think she has tried to poison me, and that she did the same to Ambrose." Louise said nothing. Her eyes widened in horror.
"It does not matter now how I discovered it," I said, "but the clue may lie in a letter from that man Rainaldi. I am going to search her bureau here, to find it. You learned a smattering of Italian, with your French. Between us, we can reach some translation."
Already I was looking through the bureau, more thoroughly than I was able to do the night before by candlelight.
"Why did you not warn my father?" said Louise. "If she is guilty, he could accuse her with greater force than you?"
"I must have proof," I answered her.
Here were papers, envelopes, stacked neatly in a pile. Here were receipts and bills that might have alarmed my G.o.dfather had he seen them but meant little to me, in my fever to discover what I sought. I tried again the little drawer that held the packet. This time it was not locked. I pulled it open, and the drawer was empty. The envelope had gone. This might be an added proof, but my tisana had been poured away. I went on opening the drawers, and Louise stood beside me, her brows knit with anxiety. "You should have waited," she said. "It is not wise. You should have waited for my father, who could take legal action. What you are doing now is what anyone might do, a common thief."
"Life and death," I said, "do not wait for legal action. Here, what is this?" I tossed her a long paper, with names upon it. Some of them in English, some Latin, some Italian.
"I am not sure," she answered, "but I think it is a list of plants, and herbs. The writing is not clear."
She puzzled over it, as I turned out the drawers.
"Yes," she said, "these must be her herbs and remedies. But the second sheet is in English, and would seem to be notes on the propagation of plants; species after species, dozens of them."
"Look for laburnum," I said.
Her eyes held mine an instant, in sudden understanding. Then she looked down once more to the page she held in her hands.
"Yes, it is here," she said, "but it tells you nothing."
I tore it from her hands and read, where her finger pointed. "Laburnum Cytisus. A native of south Europe. These plants are all capable of being increased by seeds, and many of them by cuttings and layers. In the first mode, the seeds should be sown, either in beds or where the plants are to remain. In spring, as about March, and when of sufficient growth, transplanted into nursery rows, to remain till of a proper size for being planted in the situations where they are to grow." Beneath was an added note of the source from where she had taken the information: The New Botanic Garden. Printed for John Stockdale and Company, by T. Bousley, Bold Court. Fleet Street. 1812.
"There is nothing here about poison," said Louise.
I continued searching the desk. I found a letter from the bank. I recognized the handwriting of Mr. Couch. Ruthless and careless now, I opened it. "Dear Madam, We thank you for the return of the Ashley collection of jewels, which, according to your instruction, as you are shortly to leave the country, will remain with us in custody until such time as your heir, Mr. Philip Ashley, may take possession of them. Yours faithfully, HERBERT COUCH."
I put the letter back, in sudden anguish. Whatever Rainaldi"s influence, some impulse of her own directed this action.
There was nothing else of any matter. I had searched thoroughly each drawer, raked every pigeonhole. Either she had destroyed the letter, or carried it upon her. Baffled, frustrated, I turned again to Louise. "It is not here," I said.
"Have you looked through the blotter?" she asked, in doubt.
Like a fool, I had laid it on the chair, never thinking that so obvious a place could hide a secret letter. I took it up, and there, in the center, between two clean white sheets, fell out the envelope from Plymouth. The letter was still inside. I pulled it from its cover, and gave it to Louise. "This is it," I said, "see if you can decipher it."
She looked down at the piece of paper, then gave it back to me. "But it isn"t in Italian," she said to me. "Read it yourself."
I read the note. There were only a few, brief lines. He had dispensed with formality, as I had thought he might; but not in the manner I had pictured. The time was eleven of the evening, but there was no beginning. "Since you have become more English than Italian, I write to you in your language of adoption. It is after eleven, and we weigh anchor at midnight. I will do all you ask of me in Florence, and perhaps more beside, though I am not sure you deserve any of it. At least, the villa will be waiting for you, and the servants, when you at last decide to tear yourself away. Do not delay too long. I have never had great faith in those impulses of your heart, and your emotions. If, in the end, you cannot bring yourself to leave that boy behind, then bring him with you. I warn you though, against my better judgment. Have a care to yourself, and believe me, your friend, Rainaldi."
I read it once, then twice. I gave it to Louise.
"Does it give you the proof you wanted?" she asked.
"No," I said.
Something must be missing. Some postscript, on a further sc.r.a.p of paper, that she had thrust into another sheet of the blotter. I looked once more, but there was nothing. The blotter was clean, save for one folded packet lying on the top. I seized it, and tore away the wrapping. This time it was not a letter, nor a list of herbs or plants. It was a drawing of Ambrose. The initials in the corner were indistinct, but I supposed it was by some Italian friend, or artist, for Florence was scribbled after the initials, and the date was the month of June, of the year he died. As I stared at it, I realized it must be the last likeness ever taken. He had aged much, then, after leaving home. There were lines about his mouth I did not know, and at the corners of his eyes. The eyes themselves had a haunted look about them, as though some shadow stood close to his shoulder and he feared to look behind. There was something lost about the face, and lonely too. He seemed to know disaster was in store. Though the eyes asked for devotion, they pleaded for pity too. Underneath the drawing, Ambrose himself had scribbled some quotation in Italian. "To Rachel. Non ramentare che le ore felici. Ambrose."
I gave the drawing to Louise. "There is only this," I said. "What does it mean?"
She read the words aloud, then thought a moment. "Remember only the happy hours," she said slowly. She gave it back to me, and the letter from Rainaldi too. "Did she not show it you before?" she asked.
"No," I answered.
We looked at one another in silence for a moment. Then Louise said, "Can we have misjudged her, do you think? About the poison? You see yourself, there is not any proof."
"There never will be any proof," I said. "Not now. Not ever."
I put the drawing back upon the bureau, and the letter too.
"If there is no proof," said Louise, "you cannot condemn her. She may be innocent. She may be guilty. You can do nothing. If she be innocent, and you accused her, you could never forgive yourself. You would be guilty then, not her at all. Let"s leave this room, and go down into the drawing room. I wish now we had not meddled with her things."
I stood by the open window of the boudoir staring out across the lawn.
"Is she there?" asked Louise.
"No," I said, "she has been gone nearly half an hour, and has not returned."
Louise crossed the room and stood by my side. She looked into my face. "Why is your voice so strange?" she said. "Why do you keep your eyes fixed there, on those steps leading to the terrace walk? Is anything the matter?"
I brushed her aside and went towards the door.
"Do you know the bell-rope on the landing beneath the belfry," I said to her, "the one that is used at noon to summon the men to dinner? Go now, and pull it hard."
She looked at me, puzzled. "What for?" she asked.
"Because it is Sunday," I said, "and everyone is out, or sleeping, or scattered somewhere; and I may need help."
"Help?" she repeated.
"Yes," I said, "there may have been an accident, to Rachel."
Louise stared at me. Her eyes, so blue and candid, searched my face.
"What have you done?" she said; and apprehension came upon her, conviction too. I turned, and left the room.
I ran downstairs, and out across the lawn and up the path to the terrace walk. There was no sign of Rachel.
Near to the stones and mortar and the stack of timber above the sunken garden the two dogs were standing. One of them, the younger, came towards me. The other stayed where he was, close to the heap of mortar. I saw her footsteps in the sand and lime, and her sunshade, still open, tipped upon its side. Suddenly the bell rang out from the clock-tower on the house. It went on and on, and the day being still and calm the sound of it must have traveled across the field, down to the sea, so that men fishing in the bay would have heard it too.
I came to the edge of the wall above the sunken garden, and saw where the men had started work upon the bridge. Part of the bridge still remained and hung suspended, grotesque and horrible, like a swinging ladder. The rest had fallen to the depths below.
I climbed down to where she lay among the timber and the stones. I took her hands and held them. They were cold.
"Rachel," I said to her, and "Rachel" once again.
The dogs began barking up above, and louder still came the sound of the clanging bell. She opened her eyes, and looked at me. At first, I think in pain. Then in bewilderment. Then finally, so I thought, in recognition. Yet I was in error, even then. She called me Ambrose. I went on holding her hands until she died.
They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.
Not anymore, though.
About the Author.
Daphne du Maurier (19071989) was born in London, the daughter of the actor Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of the author and artist George du Maurier. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931, but it would be her fifth novel, Rebecca, that made her one of the most popular authors of her day. Besides novels, du Maurier wrote plays, biographies, and several collections of short fiction. Many of her works were made into films, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel, "Don"t Look Now," and "The Birds." She lived most of her life in Cornwall, and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1969.
Books by Daphne du Maurier.
Novels.
The Loving Spirit.
I"ll Never Be Young Again.
Julius.
Jamaica Inn Rebecca Frenchman"s Creek Hungry Hill.
The King"s General The Parasites My Cousin Rachel Mary Anne.