“There is only one place in London where it is procurable.
I was told of it in Florence.
Would you like to see the coverings, Philip, or does it not interest you?”
She put the question to me half hopefully, half anxiously, as though wishing for my opinion, yet fearing I should be bored.
I don’t know how it was, but I felt myself go scarlet.
“Why, yes,” I said, “I shall be pleased to look at them.”
We rose from dinner and went into the library.
Seecombe followed us, and in a moment or two he and John brought down the coverings and spread them out.
Seecombe was right.
There could be no other furnishings like these in Cornwall.
I had seen none like them anywhere, either in Oxford or in London. There were many of them.
Rich brocades, and heavy silken hangings.
They were the kind of stuffs you might see in a museum.
“There is quality for you, sir,” said Seecombe. His voice was hushed. He might have been in church.
“I thought this blue for the bed-hangings,” said my cousin Rachel, “and the deeper blue and gold for the curtains, and the quilting for the coverlet.
What do you say, Philip?”
She looked up at me, anxiously.
I did not know how to answer her.
“Do you not like them?” she said to me.
“I like them very much,” I said, “but”—I felt myself go red again—“are they not very dear?”
“Oh, yes, they are dear,” she answered, “any stuff like this is dear, but it will last for years, Philip.
Why, your grandson, and great grandson, will be able to sleep in the blue bedroom, with these coverings upon the bed and these hangings for the curtains.
Isn’t that so, Seecombe?”
“Yes, madam,” said Seecombe.
“The only thing that matters is whether you like them, Philip,” she asked again.
“Why yes,” I said, “who could help but like them?”
“Then they are yours,” she told me, “they are a present to you, from me.
Take them away, Seecombe.
I will write to the place in London in the morning and say we will keep them.”
Seecombe and John folded the coverings and took them from the room.
I had the feeling that her eyes were upon me, and rather than meet them I took out my pipe and lit it, taking longer over the job than usual.
“Something’s the matter,” she said.
“What is it?”
I was not sure how to answer her.
I did not want to hurt her.
“You should not give me a present like that,” I said awkwardly, “it will cost you far too much.”
“But I want to give them to you,” she said, “you have done so much for me. It’s such a little gift to give, in return.” Her voice was soft and pleading, and when I glanced up at her there was quite a wounded look about her eyes.
“It’s very sweet of you,” I said, “but I don’t think you should do it, all the same.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” she answered, “and I know, when you see the room finished, you will be pleased.”
I felt wretched, and uncomfortable; not that she should wish to give me a present, which was generous of her and impulsive, and which I would have accepted without thought had it been yesterday. But this evening, since I had read that infernal scrap of letter, I was haunted by the doubt that what she wanted to do for me might turn in some way to her disadvantage; and that in giving way to her I was giving way to something that I did not fully understand.
Presently she said to me,
“That book of gardens is going to be very helpful for our planning here.
I had forgotten I had given it to Ambrose.
You must look at the engravings.
Of course they are not right for this place, but certain features would work in well.
A terraced walk, for instance, looking down to the sea across the fields, and on the other side of it a sunken water garden—as they have in one of the villas in Rome where I used to stay.
There’s an engraving of it in the book.
I know just the spot for it, where that old wall used to stand.”
I hardly know how I did it, but I found myself asking her, in a voice at once casual and offhand,
“Have you always lived in Italy, since you were born?”