“A great slate from the roof fell on him, sir,” he answered.
“You know how deaf he has become of late, and how loath to leave his place in the sun, outside the library window.
The slate must have fallen on his back.
He cannot move.”
I went to the library.
Rachel was kneeling there on the floor, with Don’s head pillowed in her lap.
She raised her eyes when I came into the room.
“They have killed him,” she said, “he is dying.
Why did you stay away so long?
If you had been here, it would not have happened.”
Her words sounded like an echo to something long forgotten in my mind.
But what it was I could not now remember.
Seecombe went from the library, leaving us alone.
The tears that filled her eyes ran down her face.
“Don was your possession,” she said, “your very own.
You grew up together.
I can’t bear to see him die.”
I went and knelt beside her on the floor, and I realized that I was thinking, not of the letter buried deep beneath the granite slab, nor of poor Don so soon to die, stretched out there between us, his body limp and still.
I was thinking of one thing only.
It was the first time since she had come to my house that her sorrow was not for Ambrose, but for me.
19
We sat with Don, through the long evening.
I had my dinner, but Rachel would eat nothing.
Shortly before midnight he died.
I carried him away and covered him, and tomorrow we would bury him in the plantation.
When I returned the library was empty, and Rachel had gone upstairs.
I walked along the corridor to the boudoir and she was sitting there, with wet eyes, staring into the fire.
I sat beside her and took her hands.
“I think he did not suffer,” I said to her.
“I think he had no pain.”
“Fifteen long years,” she said, “the little boy of ten, who opened his birthday pie.
I kept remembering the story, as he lay there with his head in my lap.”
“In three weeks’ time,” I said, “it will be the birthday once again.
I shall be twenty-five.
Do you know what happens on that day?”
“All wishes should be granted,” she answered, “or so my mother used to say, when I was young.
What will you wish for, Philip?”
I did not answer her at once.
I stared, with her, into the fire.
“I shall not know,” I said, “until the day comes.”
Her hand, with rings upon it, lay white and still upon my own.
“When I am twenty-five,” I said, “my godfather has no further control over the property.
It is mine, to do with what I will.
The pearl collar, the other jewels there in the bank, I can give them all to you.”
“No,” she said, “I would not take them, Philip.
They should remain in trust for your wife, when you marry.
I know you have no desire to marry yet, but one day you may change your mind.”
I knew well what I longed to say to her, yet dared not.
Instead, I bent down and kissed her hand, then moved away.
“It is only through error,” I said, “that those jewels are not yours today.