Louise could go to the ends of the earth for all I cared, and garden there to her heart’s content; I had not brought Rachel in the woods to talk about Louise.
I took the primroses from her hands and put them on the ground, and spreading my coat under a tree I asked her to sit down upon it.
“I am not tired,” she said.
“I have been sitting in the carriage this past hour or more.”
“And I also,” I said, “these four hours, by the front door, waiting for you.”
I took off her gloves, and kissed her hands, and put the bonnet and the veil among the primroses, and kissed the rest of her as I had wanted to do for long hours past, and once again she was without defense.
“This,” I said, “was my plan, which you have spoiled by lunching with the Kendalls.”
“I rather thought it might be,” she answered, “which was one of the reasons why I went.”
“You promised to deny me nothing on my birthday, Rachel.”
“There is,” she said, “a limit to indulgence.”
I could see none.
I was happy once again, with all anxiety gone.
“If,” she remarked, “this is a path frequented by the keeper we would look a little foolish.”
“And he more foolish still,” I replied, “when I pay his wages on Saturday.
Or will you take that over with the rest?
I am your servant now, you know, another Seecombe, and await your further orders.”
I lay there, with my head in her lap, and she ran her fingers through my hair.
I shut my eyes, and wished it might continue.
To the end of time, nothing but that moment.
“You are wondering why I had not thanked you,” she said.
“I saw your puzzled eyes in the carriage.
There is nothing I can say.
I always believed myself impulsive, but you are more so.
It will take me a little time, you know, to grasp the full measure of your generosity.”
“I have not been generous,” I answered, “it was your due.
Let me kiss you once again.
I have to make up for those hours upon the doorstep.”
Presently she said,
“I have learned one thing at least.
Never to go walking with you in the woods again.
Philip, let me rise.”
I helped her to her feet, and, with a bow, handed her the gloves and bonnet.
She fumbled in her purse, and brought out a small package, which she unwrapped.
“Here,” she said, “is your birthday present, which I should have given you before.
Had I known that I was coming into a fortune, the pearl head would have been larger.”
She took the pin and put it in my cravat.
“Now will you permit me to go home?” she said.
She gave me her hand, and I remembered that I had eaten no lunch that day and had now a prodigious appetite for dinner.
We turned along the pathway, I thinking of boiled fowl and bacon and the night to come, and suddenly we were upon the granite stone above the valley, which I had forgotten awaited us at the termination of the path.
I turned swiftly into the trees, so as to avoid it, but too late.
She had already seen it, dark and square among the trees, and letting go my hand stood still and stared at it.
“What is it, Philip,” she asked, “that shape there, like a tombstone, rising so suddenly out of the ground?”
“It is nothing,” I said swiftly, “just a piece of granite.
A sort of landmark.
There is a path here, through the trees, where the walking is less steep.
This way, to the left.
Not past the stone.”
“Wait a moment,” she said, “I want to look at it.
I have never been this way before.”
She went up to the slab and stood before it.