Part 11 (1/2)

”She must be exhausted,” I said.

”I was afraid of that, sir. I suggested she should go to bed, but she would not hear of it. 'Tell the boys to bring me up cans of hot water. I'll take a bath, Seecombe,' she said to me, 'and I'll wash my hair as well.' I was about to send for my niece, it seems hardly right for a lady to wash her own hair, but she would not hear of that either.”

”The boys had better do the same for me,” I told him; ”I've had a hard day too. And I'm devilish hungry. I want my dinner early.”

”Very well, sir. At a quarter to five?”

”Please, Seecombe, if you can manage it.”

I went upstairs, whistling, to throw my clothes off and sit in the steaming tub before my bedroom fire. The dogs came along the corridor from my cousin Rachel's room. They had become quite accustomed to the visitor, and followed her everywhere. Old Don thumped his tail at me from the top of the stairs.

”Hullo, old fellow,” I said; ”you're faithless, you know. You've left me for a lady.” He licked my hand with his long furry tongue, and made big eyes at me.

The boy came with the can and filled the bath, and it was pleasant to sit there in the tub, cross-legged, and scrub myself, whistling a tuneless song above the steam. As I rubbed myself dry with the towel I noticed that on the table beside my bed was a bowl of flowers. Sprigs from the woods, orchis and cyclamen among them. No one had ever put flowers in my room before. Seecombe would not have thought of it, or the boys either. It must have been my cousin Rachel. The sight of the flowers added to my mood of high good humor. She may have been messing with the plants and shrubs all day, but she had found the time to fill the bowl with flowers as well. I tied my cravat and put on my dinner coat, still humming my tuneless song. Then I went along the corridor, and knocked upon the door of the boudoir.

”Who is it?” she called from within.

”It is me, Philip,” I answered. ”I have come to tell you that dinner will be early tonight. I'm starving, and so I should think are you, after the tales I've heard. What in the world have you and Tamlyn been up to, that you have to take a bath and wash your hair?”

That bubble of laughter, so infectious, was her answer.

”We've been burrowing underground, like moles,” she called.

”Have you earth up to your eyebrows?”

”Earth everywhere,” she answered. ”I've had my bath, and now I am drying my hair. I am pinned up and presentable, and look exactly like aunt Phoebe. You may come in.”

I opened the door and went into the boudoir. She was sitting on the stool before the fire, and for a moment I scarcely recognized her, she looked so different out of mourning. She had a white dressing wrapper around her, tied at the throat and at the wrists with ribbon, and her hair was pinned on the top of her head, instead of parted smoothly in the center.

I had never seen anything less like aunt Phoebe, or aunt anyone. I stood blinking at her in the doorway.

”Come and sit down. Don't look so startled,” she said to me. I shut the door behind me, and went and sat down on a chair.

”Forgive me,” I said, ”but the point is that I have never seen a woman in undress before.”

”This isn't undress,” she said, ”it's what I wear at breakfast. Ambrose used to call it my nun's robe.”

She raised her arms, and began to jab pins into her hair.

”At twenty-four,” she said, ”it is high time you saw a pleasant homely sight such as aunt Phoebe doing up her hair. Are you embarra.s.sed?”

I folded my arms and crossed my legs, and continued to look at her. ”Not in the slightest,” I said, ”merely stunned.”

She laughed, and holding the pins in her mouth took them one by one, and winding her hair into a roll placed it the way it should go, in the low knot behind. The whole matter only took a few seconds, or so it seemed to me.

”Do you do that every day in so short a time?” I asked, amazed.

”Oh, Philip, what a lot you have to learn,” she said to me; ”have you never seen your Louise pin up her hair?”

”No, and I wouldn't want to,” I answered swiftly, with a sudden memory of Louise's parting remark as I left Pelyn. My cousin Rachel laughed, and dropped a hairpin on my knee.

”A keepsake,” she said. ”Put it under your pillow, and watch Seecombe's face at breakfast in the morning.”

She pa.s.sed from the boudoir into the bedroom opposite, leaving the door wide open.

”You can sit there and shout through to me while I dress,” she called.

I looked furtively at the little bureau to see if there was any sign of my G.o.dfather's letter, but could see nothing. I wondered what had happened. Perhaps she had it with her in the bedroom. It might be that she would say nothing to me, that she would treat the matter as a private one between my G.o.dfather and herself. I hoped so.

”Where have you been all day?” she called to me.

”I had to go into town,” I said, ”there were people there I was obliged to see.” I need not say a word about the bank.

”I was so happy with Tamlyn and the gardeners,” she called. ”There were only very few of the plants to be thrown away. There is so much, Philip, you know, still to be done in that plantation; the undergrowth bordering the meadow should be cleared, and a walk laid down, and the whole ground there given up to camellias, so that in less than twenty years you could have a spring garden there that the whole of Cornwall would come to see.”

”I know,” I said; ”that was what Ambrose intended.”

”It needs careful planning,” she said, ”and not just left to chance and Tamlyn. He is a dear, but his knowledge is limited. Why do you not take more interest in it yourself?”

”I don't know enough,” I said, ”it was never my department anyway. Ambrose knew that.”

”There must be people who could help you,” she said. ”You could have a designer down from London to lay it out.”

I did not answer. I did not want a designer down from London. I was pretty sure she knew more about it than any designer.

Just then Seecombe appeared and hovered in the pa.s.sage.

”What is it, Seecombe, is dinner ready?” I asked.

”No, sir,” he replied. ”Mr. Kendall's man, Dobson, has ridden over with a note for madam.”

My heart sank. The wretched fellow must have stayed somewhere drinking on the road to be so late. Now I should be caught for the business of her reading it. How wretchedly ill-timed. I heard Seecombe knock on her open door, and give in the letter.

”I think I will go below and wait for you in the library,” I said.

”No, don't go,” she called, ”I'm ready dressed. We can go down together. Here is a letter from Mr. Kendall. Perhaps he invites us both to Pelyn.”

Seecombe disappeared along the corridor. I stood up and wished that I could follow him. Suddenly I felt uneasy, nervous. No sound came from the blue bedroom. She must be reading the letter. Ages seemed to pa.s.s. At last she came out of the bedroom, and she stood in the doorway, the letter open in her hand. She was dressed for dinner. Perhaps it was the contrast of her skin against the mourning that made her look so white.

”What have you been doing?” she said.

Her voice sounded quite different. Oddly strained.

”Doing?” I said. ”Nothing. Why?”

”Don't lie, Philip. You don't know how.”

I stood most wretchedly before the fire, staring anywhere but in those searching accusing eyes.

”You have been to Pelyn,” she said; ”you rode over there today to see your guardian.”