“We have covered as much ground in that sense as your young cousin has in actual fact upon his feet.
Or was it not upon feet today, but in the saddle?
Young Englishmen are forever driving their bodies to fatigue.”
I could sense his mockery of me, a cart-horse with a turnip head, and the way Rachel came to my rescue, once more the teacher with her pupil, made me more angry still.
“Surely it is Wednesday,” she said, “and on Wednesday Philip does not ride or walk, he does his accounts, in the office.
He has a good head for figures, and knows exactly what he spends, don’t you, Philip?”
“Not always,” I answered, “and in point of fact today I attended Petty Sessions for a neighbor, and sat in judgment upon a fellow accused of theft.
He was let off with a fine, and not imprisoned.”
Rainaldi watched me, with his same air of tolerance.
“A young Solomon as well as a young farmer,” he said.
“I am continually hearing of new talents.
Rachel, does not your cousin remind you very much of Del Sarto’s portrait of the Baptist?
He has much the same arrogance and innocence so charmingly blended.”
“Perhaps,” said Rachel,
“I had not thought of it before.
He resembles one person only, to my mind.”
“Ah, that of course,” answered Rainaldi, “but there is also quite definitely a Del Sarto touch about him.
Some time you will have to wean him from his acres here, and show him our country.
Travel broadens the mind, and I would like to see him wander in a gallery or a church.”
“Ambrose was bored by both,” said Rachel,
“I doubt if Philip would be anymore impressed.
Well, did you see your godfather at Petty Sessions?
I would like to take Rainaldi to call upon him at Pelyn.”
“Yes, he was there,” I said, “and sent you his respects.”
“Mr. Kendall has a very charming daughter,” said Rachel to Rainaldi, “a little younger than Philip.”
“A daughter?
H’m, indeed,” observed Rainaldi, “then your young cousin is not entirely cut off from youthful feminine society?”
“Far from it,” laughed Rachel.
“Every mother has her eye upon him within a distance of forty miles.”
I remember glaring at her, and she laughed the more; and passing by me on her way to dress for dinner, she patted my shoulder in the infuriating habit that was hers—aunt Phoebe’s gesture, I had called it before now, which delighted her as though I told her so for compliment.
It was upon this occasion that Rainaldi said to me, when she had gone upstairs,
“It was generous of you and your guardian to give your cousin Rachel the allowance.
She wrote and told me of it.
She was deeply touched.”
“It was the very least the estate owed to her,” I said, and hoped my tone of voice was discouraging to further conversation.
I would not tell him what was going to happen in three weeks’ time.
“You perhaps know,” said Rainaldi, “that apart from the allowance she has no personal means whatsoever, except what I can sell for her from time to time.
This change of air has done wonders for her, but I think before long she will feel the need of society, such as she has been used to in Florence.
That is the real reason I do not get rid of the villa.
The ties are very strong.”
I did not answer.
If the ties were strong, it was only because he made them so.
She had spoken of no ties until he came.
I wondered what was the extent of his own personal wealth, and if he gave her money from his own possession, not only what he sold from Sangalletti’s estate.
How right Ambrose had been to distrust him.
But what weakness in Rachel made her keep him as her counselor and friend?
“Of course,” continued Rainaldi, “it would possibly be wiser to sell the villa eventually, and for Rachel to have a small apartment in Florence, or else to build something small, up in Fiesole.
She has so many friends who have no wish to lose her, I among them.”
“You told me, when we first met,” I said, “that my cousin Rachel was a woman of impulse.
No doubt she will continue to be so, and live where she pleases.”