“Why only tomorrow?”
“Because I go on Monday.
I came for the weekend only.
Your godfather, Nick Kendall, has invited me to Pelyn.”
It seemed to me absurd, and altogether pointless, that she should shift her quarters quite so soon.
“There’s no need to go there,” I said, “when you have only just arrived.
You have plenty of time to visit Pelyn.
You have not seen the half of this yet.
I don’t know what the servants would think, or the people on the estate.
They would be deeply offended.”
“Would they?” she asked.
“Besides,” I said, “there is the carrier coming from Plymouth, with all the plants and cuttings.
You have to discuss it with Tamlyn.
And there are Ambrose’s things to go through and sort.”
“I thought you could do that by yourself,” she said.
“Why,” I said, “when we could do it both of us together?”
I stood up from my chair and stretched my arms above my head. I kicked Don with my foot.
“Wake up,” I said, “it’s time you stopped that snoring and went out with the others to the kennels.”
He stirred himself, and grunted.
“Lazy old devil,” I said. I glanced down at her, and she was looking up at me with such a strange expression in her eyes, almost as though she saw right through me into someone else.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she answered, “nothing at all… Can you find me a candle, Philip, and light me up to bed?”
“Very well,” I said. “I’ll take Don to his kennel afterwards.”
The candlesticks were waiting on the table by the door.
She took hers, and I lighted the candle for her.
It was dark in the hall but above, on the landing, Seecombe had left a light to the further corridor.
“That will do,” she said. “I can find my way alone.”
She stood a moment on one step of the staircase, her face in the shadow. One hand held the candlestick, the other held her dress.
“You don’t hate me anymore?” she asked.
“No,” I said,
“I told you it was not you. It was another woman.”
“Are you sure it was another woman?”
“Quite sure.”
“Good night, then.
And sleep well.”
She turned to go, but I put my hand on her arm and held her back.
“Wait,” I said, “it’s my turn to ask you a question.”
“What is it, Philip?”
“Are you still jealous of me, or was that also some other man, and never me at all?”
She laughed and gave me her hand, and because she stood above me on the stairs there seemed a new sort of grace about her that I had not realized before. Her eyes looked large in the flickering candlelight.
“That horrid boy, so spoiled and prim?” she said.
“Why, he went yesterday, as soon as you walked into aunt Phoebe’s boudoir.”
Suddenly she bent, and kissed my cheek.
“The first you have ever had,” she said, “and if you don’t like it, you can pretend I did not give it to you, but that it came from the other woman.”
She walked up the stairs away from me, and the light of the candle threw a shadow, dark and distant, on the wall.
11
We always carried out a strict routine upon a Sunday.
Breakfast was later, at nine o’clock, and at a quarter past ten the carriage came to take Ambrose and me to church.
The servants followed in the wagonette.
When church was over, they returned to eat their midday dinner, later again, at one; and then at four we dined ourselves, with the vicar and Mrs. Pascoe, possibly one or two of the unmarried daughters, and generally my godfather and Louise.