And in my office it would be the same.
I would stare at the papers on the desk before me, bite on my pen, tilt backwards on my chair; and what I had been writing would become, of a sudden, of no importance whatsoever.
That letter could wait, those figures need not be reckoned, that piece of business over in Bodmin could be decided upon another time; and pushing everything aside I would leave the office, and pass through the courtyard to the house and so the dining room.
She was usually there before me, to give me welcome and wish me a good morning.
Often she laid a sprig beside my plate, as a sort of offering, which I would put into my buttonhole; or there would be some new cordial for me to taste, one of those herb brews of which she seemed to have a hundred recipes and was forever giving to the cook to try.
She had been several weeks with me in the house before Seecombe told me, in deadly secret, behind his hand, that the cook had been going to her every day to ask for orders, and that was the reason why we now fed so well.
“The mistress,” Seecombe said, “had not wished Mr. Ashley to know, lest it should be thought presumptuous of her.”
I laughed, and did not tell her that I knew; but sometimes, for the fun of it, I would remark upon some dish that we were having, and exclaim,
“I cannot think what has come over them in the kitchen.
The boys are turning into chefs from France,” and she would answer me in innocence,
“Do you like it?
Is it something better than you had before?”
One and all called her “the mistress” now, and I did not mind it.
I think it pleased me and gave me, too, a sort of pride.
When we had eaten luncheon she would go upstairs to rest, or if it was a Tuesday or a Thursday I might order the carriage for her, and Wellington would drive her about the neighborhood to return the calls that had been made upon her.
Sometimes, if I had business on the way, I would ride with her for a mile or so, and then get out of the carriage and let her go her way.
She would take great care about her person, when she went calling.
Her best mantle, and her new veil and bonnet.
I would sit with my back to the horses, in the carriage, so that I could look at her; and, I think to tease me, she would not lift her veil.
“Now to your gossip,” I would say, “now to your little shocks and scandals.
I would give much to become a fly upon the wall.”
“Come with me,” she would answer; “it would be very good for you.”
“Not on your life.
You can tell me all, at dinner.”
And I would stand in the road and watch the carriage bowl away, while from the window blew the wisp of a handkerchief to taunt me.
I would not see her again until we dined at five, and the intervening hours become something to be gone through for the evening’s sake.
Whether I was on business, or about the estate, or talking with people, all the time I had a sense of urgency, an impatience to be done.
How was the time?
I looked at Ambrose’s watch.
Still only half-past four?
How the hours dragged.
And coming back to the house, by way of the stables, I would know at once if she had returned, for I would see the carriage in the coach-house and the horses being fed and watered.
Going into the house, passing into the library and the drawing room, I would see both rooms were empty, and this would mean she had gone up to her rooms to rest.
She always rested before dinner.
Then I would take a bath, or wash, and change, and go down into the library below to wait for her.
My impatience mounted as the hands of the clock drew nearer to five.
I would leave the door of the library open, so that I could hear her step.
First would come the patter of the dogs—I counted for nothing with them now, they followed her like shadows—and then the rustle of her gown as it swept the stairs.
It was, I think, the moment I loved best in the whole day.
There was something in the sound that gave me such a shock of anticipation, such a feeling of expectancy, that I hardly knew what to do or what to say when she came into the room.
I don’t know what stuff her gowns were made of, whether of stiff silk, or satin, or brocade, but they seemed to sweep the floor, and lift, and sweep again; and whether it was the gown itself that floated, or she wearing it and moving forward with such grace, but the library, that had seemed dark and austere before she entered, would be suddenly alive.
A new softness came to her by candlelight that was not with her in the day.
It was as if the brightness of morning and the duller shades of afternoon were given up to purposes of work, of practicality, making a briskness of movement that was definite and cool; and now with evening closed in, the shutters fastened, the weather banished, and the house withdrawn into itself, she shone with a radiance that had lain concealed about her person until now.
There was more color to her cheeks and to her hair, great depth to her eyes, and whether she turned her head to speak, or moved to the bookcase to pick up a volume, or bent to pat Don as he lay stretched out before the fire, there was an easy grace in all she did which gave to every movement fascination.
I wondered, in these moments, how I could ever have thought her unremarkable.
Seecombe would announce dinner, and we would pass into the dining room and take our places, I at the head of the table, she at my right hand, and it seemed to me this had always happened, there was nothing new in it, and nothing strange, and I had never sat there alone, in my old jacket, unchanged, with a book propped up in front of me so that I did not have to talk to Seecombe.
Yet, if it had always happened, it would not have seemed stimulating to me, as it did now, with the mere process of eating and drinking becoming, in a sense, a new adventure.
The excitement did not lessen with the passing weeks, rather it increased, so that I would find myself making excuses to be about the house, for the sake of five minutes or so, when I might catch a glimpse of her, thus making an addition to the regular time of midday and evening when we would be together.
She might be in the library, or passing through the hall upon some business, or waiting in the drawing room for her callers, and she would smile at me and say, in some surprise,
“Philip, what brings you home at such an hour?” causing me to think up some invention.