At sight of me, both fall silent. I cannot but wonder what it is they have been discussing.
Once, when she had gone into the villa and Rainaldi and I were left alone, he asked an abrupt question as to my will.
This he had seen, incidentally, when we married.
He told me that as it stood, and should I die, I would leave my wife without provision.
This I knew, and had anyway drawn up a will myself that would correct the error, and would have put my signature to it, and had it witnessed, could I be certain that her fault of spending was a temporary passing thing, and not deep-rooted.
“This new will, by the way, would give her the house and the estate for her lifetime only, and so to you upon her death, with the proviso that the running of the estate be left in your hands entirely.
“It still remains unsigned, and for the reason I have told you.
“Mark you, it is Rainaldi who asked questions on the will, Rainaldi who drew my attention to the omissions of the one that stands at present.
She does not speak of it, to me.
But do they speak of it together?
What is it that they say to one another, when I am not there?
“This matter of the will occurred in March.
Admittedly, I was unwell, and nearly blinded with my head, and Rainaldi bringing up the matter may have done so in that cold calculating way of his, thinking that I might die.
Possibly it is so.
Possibly it is not discussed between them.
I have no means of finding out.
Too often now I find her eyes upon me, watchful and strange.
And when I hold her, it is as though she were afraid.
Afraid of what, of whom?
“Two days ago, which brings me to the reason for this letter, I had another attack of this same fever, which laid me low in March.
The onset is sudden.
I am seized with pains and sickness, which passes swiftly to great excitation of my brain, driving me near to violence, and I can hardly stand upon my feet for dizziness of mind and body.
This, in its turn, passes, and an intolerable desire for sleep comes upon me, so that I fall upon the floor, or upon my bed, with no power over my limbs.
I do not recollect my father being thus.
The headaches, yes, and some difficulty of temperament, but not the other symptoms.
“Philip, my boy, the only being in the world whom I can trust, tell me what it means, and if you can, come out to me.
Say nothing to Nick Kendall.
Say no word to any single soul.
Above all, write not a word in answer, merely come.
“One thought possesses me, leaving me no peace.
Are they trying to poison me?
“AMBROSE.”
I folded the letter back into its creases.
The dog stopped barking in the cottage garden below.
I heard the keeper open his gate and the dog yelp at him in welcome.
I heard voices from the cottage, the clank of a pail, the shutting of a door.
From the trees on the hill opposite the jackdaws rose in flight, and circled, cawing, and moved in a black cloud to the tops of other trees, beside the marshes.
I did not tear the letter.
I dug a hole for it, beneath the slab of granite. I put it inside my pocketbook, and buried the pocketbook, deep in the dark earth.
Then I smoothed the place with my hands. I walked away down the hill, and through the woods to the avenue below.
As I climbed again, up the back way to the house, I heard the laughter and the chatter of the men as they went home from work.
I stood a moment and watched them trudge off across the park.
The scaffolding placed against the walls where they had been working all the day looked bleak and bare.
I went in, through the back entrance across the court, and as my feet sounded on the flags Seecombe came out to me from the steward’s room, with consternation on his face.
“I am glad you have come, sir,” he said.
“The mistress has been asking for you this long while.
Poor Don has had an accident.
She is much concerned.”
“An accident?” I said.
“What happened?”