She can lie low in Rome or Naples or wherever she is for the present.
But one day I shall hunt her out, and she’ll be sorry for it.”
At that moment my godfather came to find us, and I said no more.
He seemed in a better humor.
No doubt Seecombe and Wellington and the others had been grateful for their little bequests and he, in benign fashion, felt himself in part the author of them.
“Ride over and see me soon,” I told Louise, as I helped her into the dogcart beside her father.
“You’re good for me.
I like your company.”
And she flushed again, silly girl, glancing up at her father to see how he would take it, as though we had not ridden backwards and forwards visiting one another before, times without number.
Perhaps she also was impressed by my new status, and before I knew where I was I would become Mr. Ashley to her too, instead of Philip.
I went back into the house, smiling at the idea of Louise Kendall, whose hair I used to pull only a few years back, now looking upon me with respect, and the next instant I forgot her, and my godfather as well, for on coming home there was much to do after two months’ absence.
I did not think to see my godfather again for at least a fortnight, what with the harvest and other things upon my hands; but scarcely a week had passed before his groom rode over one morning, soon after midday, with a verbal message from his master, asking me to go and see him; he was unable to come himself, he was confined to the house with a slight chill, but he had news for me.
I did not think the matter urgent—we carried the last of the corn that day—and the following afternoon I rode to see him.
I found him in his study, alone.
Louise was absent somewhere.
He had a curious look upon his face, baffled, ill at ease.
I could see he was disturbed.
“Well,” he said, “now something has got to be done, and you have to decide exactly what, and when.
She has arrived by boat in Plymouth.”
“Who has arrived?” I asked.
But I think I knew.
He showed me a piece of paper in his hand.
“I have a letter here,” he said, “from your cousin Rachel.”
7
He gave me the letter.
I looked at the handwriting on the folded paper.
I don’t know what I thought to see.
Something bold, perhaps, with loops and flourishes; or its reverse, darkly scrawled and mean.
This was just handwriting, much like any other, except that the ends of the words tailed off in little dashes, making the words themselves not altogether easy to decipher.
“She does not appear to know that we have heard the news,” said my godfather. “She must have left Florence before Signor Rainaldi wrote his letter.
Well, see what you make of it.
I will give you my opinion afterwards.”
I opened up the letter.
It was dated from a hostelry in Plymouth, on the thirteenth of September.
“DEAR MR. KENDALL,
“When Ambrose spoke of you, as he so often did, I little thought my first communication with you would be fraught with so much sadness.
I arrived in Plymouth, from Genoa, this morning, in a state of great distress, and alas alone.
“My dear one died in Florence on the 20th of July, after a short illness but violent in its attack.
Everything was done that could be done, but the best doctors I could summon were not able to save him.
There was a recurrence of some fever that had seized him earlier in the spring, but the last was due to pressure on the brain which the doctors think had lain dormant for some months, then rapidly increased its hold upon him.
He lies in the Protestant cemetery in Florence, in a site chosen by myself, quiet, and a little apart from the other English graves, with trees surrounding it, which is what he would have wished.
Of my personal sorrow and great emptiness I will say nothing; you do not know me, and I have no desire to inflict my grief upon you.
“My first thought has been for Philip, whom Ambrose loved so dearly, and whose grief will be equal to my own.
My good friend and counselor, Signor Rainaldi of Florence, assured me that he would write to you and break the news, so that you in turn could tell Philip, but I have little faith in those mails from Italy to England, and was fearful either that the news should come to you by hearsay, through a stranger, or that it would not come at all.
Hence my arrival in this country.
I have brought with me all Ambrose’s possessions; his books, his clothes, everything that Philip would wish to have and keep, which now, by right, belong to him.
If you will tell me what to do with them, how to send them, and whether or not I should write to Philip myself, I shall be deeply grateful.
“I left Florence very suddenly, on impulse and without regret.
I could not bear to stay with Ambrose gone.
As to further plans, I have none.