All this she would have watched, sitting in the little court, with Ambrose at her side.
“I would dearly love to visit Florence,” said Mary Pascoe, her eyes round, and dreaming of God knew what strange magnificence, and Rachel turned to her, and said,
“Then you must do so, next year, and come and stay with me.
You must all come and stay with me, in turn.”
At once we were in the midst of exclamations, questions and expressions of dismay.
Must she go soon?
When would she return?
What were her plans?
She shook her head in answer.
“Presently I shall go,” she said, “and presently return.
I act on impulse, and will not confine myself to dates.”
Nor would she be drawn into further detail.
I saw my godfather glance at me, out of the corner of his eye; then, tugging his mustache, stare at his feet.
I could imagine the thought that was passing through his head.
“Once she has gone, he will be himself again.”
The afternoon wore on.
At four, we sat to dinner.
Once more I was seated at the head of the table and Rachel at the foot, my godfather and the vicar on either hand.
Once more there was talk and laughter, even poetry.
I sat, much with the same silence that I had at first, and watched her face.
Then, it had been with fascination, because unknown.
The continuation of conversation, the change of topic, the inclusion of each person at the table, was something that I had never seen a woman do, so it was magic.
Now, I knew all the tricks.
The starting of a subject, the whisper behind her hand to the vicar, and the laughter of both followed at once by my godfather leaning forward asking,
“Now what was that, Mrs. Ashley, what did you say?” and her immediate reply, quick and mocking,
“The vicar will inform you,” with the vicar, blushing red and proud, thinking himself a wit, embarking on a story that his family had not heard.
It was a little game that she enjoyed, and we were all of us, with our dull Cornish ways, so easy to handle, and to fool.
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 godfather 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 godfather 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 godfather.
“I have a brother sick at Luxilyan, and promised to call and see him.
But Louise may stay.”