What a pity.”
She leaned over me, and poured it from the window.
Drawing back, she put her hand on my shoulder, and from her came the scent I knew so well.
No perfume, but the essence of her own person, the texture of her skin.
“Are you not well?” she whispered, so that Louise could not hear.
If all knowledge, and all feeling, could be blotted out, I would have asked it then, and that she should remain, her hand upon my shoulder.
No letter torn to shreds, no secret packet locked in a little drawer, no evil, no duplicity. Her hand moved from my shoulder to my chin, and stayed there for a moment in a brief caress, which, because she stood between me and Louise, passed unseen.
“My sullen one,” she said.
I looked above her head, and saw the portrait of Ambrose above the mantelpiece.
His eyes stared straight into mine, in youth and innocence.
I answered nothing; and moving from me she put back my empty cup onto the tray.
“What do you think of it?” she asked Louise.
“I am afraid,” apologized Louise, “that it would take me a little time to like it well.”
“Perhaps,” said Rachel; “the musty flavor does not suit all persons.
Never mind.
It is a sedative to unquiet minds.
Tonight we shall all sleep well.”
She smiled, and drank slowly from her own cup.
We chatted a little while, for perhaps half an hour or more, or rather she did with Louise; then rising, and putting back her cup upon the tray, she said,
“Now it is cooler, who will walk with me in the garden?”
I glanced across at Louise, who, looking at me, stayed silent.
“I have promised Louise,” I said, “to show her an old plan of the Pelyn estate that I came across the other day.
The boundaries are strongly marked, and show the old hill fortress being part of it.”
“Very well,” said Rachel, “take her to the drawing room, or remain here, as you please.
I shall take my walk alone.”
She went, humming a song, into the blue bedroom.
“Stay where you are,” I said softly, to Louise.
I went downstairs, and to the office, for in truth there was an old plan that I had somewhere, among my papers.
I found it, in a file, and went back across the court.
As I came to the side door, that led from near the drawing room to the garden, Rachel was setting forth upon her walk.
She wore no hat, but had her sunshade, open, in her hand.
“I shall not be long,” she said,
“I’m going up to the terrace—I want to see if a little statue would look well in the sunken garden.”
“Have a care,” I said to her.
“Why, of what?” she asked.
She stood beside me, her sunshade resting on her shoulder.
She wore a dark gown, of some thin muslin stuff, with white lace about the neck.
She looked much as I had seen her first, ten months ago, except that it was summer.
The scent of the new cut grass was in the air.
A butterfly flew past in happy flight.
The pigeons cooed from the great trees beyond the lawn.
“Have a care,” I said slowly, “of walking beneath the sun.”
She laughed, and went from me.
I watched her cross the lawn and climb the steps towards the terrace.
I turned back into the house, and going swiftly up the stairs came to the boudoir.
Louise was waiting there.
“I want your help,” I said briefly,
“I have little time to lose.”
She rose from the stool, her eyes a question.
“What is it?”