She had put her hands up to her face, almost in defense, as if she thought I meant to harm her.
“Yes,” she said, “very.”
“Then it is you who make it so,” I said, “not I.”
I folded my arms and looked at her, assuming an ease of manner I was far from feeling.
Yet in a sense by standing there, while she lay in bed, I had her at a disadvantage.
I did not see how a woman with her hair loose, becoming a girl again without a woman’s status, could be angry.
I saw her eyes waver.
She was searching in her mind for some excuse, some new reason why she should be gone, and in a sudden flash I hit upon a master stroke of strategy.
“You told me this evening,” I said, “that I should have a designer down from London, to lay out the gardens.
I know that was what Ambrose always intended to do.
The fact remains that I don’t know of one, and should go mad with irritation anyway, if I had to have such a fellow about me.
If you have any feeling for the place, knowing what it meant to Ambrose, you would remain here for a few months and do it for me.”
The shaft struck home.
She stared in front of her, playing with her ring. I had remarked before that when preoccupied this was a trick of hers. I pushed on with my advantage.
“I never could follow the plans that Ambrose used to draw,” I said to her, “nor Tamlyn either, for that matter.
He works wonders, I know, but only under direction.
Time and again he has come to me this past year and asked for advice which I have been quite at a loss to give him.
If you remained here—just for the autumn, when so much planting needs to be done—it would help us all.”
She twisted the ring back and forth upon her finger.
“I think I should ask your godfather what he feels,” she said to me.
“It does not concern my godfather,” I said.
“What do you take me for, a schoolboy under age?
There is only one consideration, whether you yourself desire to stay. If you really want to go, I cannot keep you.”
She said, surprisingly, in a still small voice,
“Why do you ask that?
You know I want to stay.”
Sweet heaven, how could I know?
She had intimated the exact opposite.
“Then you will remain, for a little while,” I said, “to do the garden?
That is settled, and you won’t go back on your word?”
“I will remain,” she said, “for a little while.”
I had difficulty in not smiling.
Her eyes were serious, and I had the feeling that if I smiled she would change her mind.
Inwardly, I triumphed.
“Very well, then,” I said, “I will bid you good night and leave you.
What about your letter to my godfather?
Do you want me to put it in the postbag?”
“Seecombe has taken it,” she said.
“Then you will sleep now, and not be angry with me anymore?”
“I wasn’t angry, Philip.”
“But you were.
I thought you were going to hit me.”
She looked up at me.
“Sometimes you are so stupid,” she said, “that I think one day I shall.
Come here.”
I drew closer, my knee touched the coverlet.
“Bend down,” she said.
She took my face between her hands and kissed me.
“Now go to bed,” she said, “like a good boy, and sleep well.”
She pushed me away, and drew her curtains.