You have grown up ignorant of women, and if you ever marry it will be hard on your wife.
I was saying so to Louise at breakfast.”
He broke off then, looking—if my godfather could look such a thing—a little uncomfortable, as if he said more than he meant.
“That’s all right,” I said, “my wife can take care of all the difficulties when the time comes.
If it ever does come, which is unlikely.
I think I am too much like Ambrose, and I know now what marriage must have done to him.”
My godfather was silent.
Then I told him of my visit to the villa and of my meeting with Rainaldi, and he showed me in turn the letter that the Italian had written him.
It was much as I expected, giving in cold stilted words his story of Ambrose’s illness and death, of his own personal regret, and of the shock and grief to the widow, who was, according to Rainaldi, inconsolable.
“So inconsolable,” I said to my godfather, “that the day after the funeral she goes off, like a thief, taking all Ambrose’s possessions with her, except his old hat, which she forgot.
Because, no doubt, it was torn and had no value.”
My godfather coughed.
His bushy eyebrows knitted.
“Surely,” he said, “you don’t begrudge her the books and clothes?
Hang it all, Philip, it’s all she has.”
“How do you mean,” I asked, “it’s all she has?”
“Well, I’ve read the will to you,” he answered, “and there it is before you.
It’s the same will that I drew up ten years ago.
No codicil, you know, upon his marriage.
There is no provision in it for a wife.
All this past year I rather expected word from him, at some time or other, about a settlement at least.
It’s usual.
But I suppose his absence abroad made him neglectful of such a necessity, and he kept hoping to return.
Then his illness put a stop to any business.
I am a little surprised that this Italian, Signor Rainaldi, whom you seem so much to dislike, makes no mention of any sort of claim on the part of Mrs. Ashley.
It shows great delicacy on his part.”
“Claim?” I said.
“Good God, you talk of a claim when we know perfectly well she drove him to his death?”
“We don’t know anything of the sort,” returned my godfather, “and if that is the way you are going to talk about your cousin’s widow I don’t care to listen.”
He got up and began to put his papers together.
“So you believe the story of the tumor?” I said.
“Naturally I believe it,” he replied.
“Here is the letter from this Italian, Rainaldi, and the death certificate, signed by two doctors.
I remember your uncle Philip’s death, which you do not.
The symptoms were very similar.
It is exactly what I feared, when the letter came from Ambrose and you left for Florence.
The fact that you arrived too late to be of any assistance is one of those calamities that nobody can help.
It is possible, now I think of it, that it was not a calamity after all, but a mercy.
You would not have wished to see him suffer.”
I could have hit him, the old fool, for being so obstinate, so blind.
“You never saw the second letter,” I said, “the note that came the morning I went away.
Look at this.” I had it still.
I kept it always in my breast pocket.
I gave it to him.
He put on his spectacles again, and read it.
“I’m sorry, Philip,” he said, “but even that poor heartbreak of a scribble cannot alter my opinion.
You must face facts.
You loved Ambrose, so did I.
When he died I lost my greatest friend.
I am as distressed as you when I think of his mental suffering, perhaps even more so, because I have seen it in another.