My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

away from the window, and looked back at him.
    “Why should you imagine I don’t wish to see her?” I asked. “I do wish to see her, very much. If she is a woman of impulse, which she appears to be from that letter—I recollect Rainaldi telling me the same thing—then I can also act on impulse, which I propose to do. It was impulse that took me to Florence in the first place, wasn’t it?”
    “Well?” asked my godfather, his brows knitting, staring at me suspiciously.
    “When you write to Plymouth,” I said, “say that Philip Ashley has already heard the news of Ambrose’s death. That he went to Florence on receipt of two letters, went to the villa Sangalletti, saw her servants, saw her friend and adviser, Signor Rainaldi, and is now returned. Say that he is a plain man, and lives in a plain fashion. That he has no fine manners, no conversation, and is little used to the society of women, or indeed of anyone. If, however, she wishes to see him and her late husband’s home—Philip Ashley’s house is at the disposal of his cousin Rachel, when she cares to visit it.” And I placed my hand upon my heart, and bowed.
    “I never thought,” said my godfather slowly, “to see you grow so hard. What has happened to you?”
    “Nothing has happened to me,” I said, “save that, like a young warhorse, I smell blood. Have you forgotten my father was a soldier?”
    Then I went out into the garden to find Louise. Her concern at the news was greater than my own. I took her hand and dragged her to the summerhouse beside the lawn. We sat there together, like conspirators.
    “Your house isn’t fit to receive anyone,” she said at once, “let alone a woman like the contessa—like Mrs. Ashley. You see, I can’t help calling her contessa too, it comes more naturally. Why, Philip, there hasn’t been a woman staying there for twenty years. What room will you put her in? And think of the dust! Not only upstairs but in the drawing room too. I noticed it last week.”
    “None of that matters,” I said impatiently. “She can dust the place herself, if she minds so much. The worse she finds it, the better pleased I shall be. Let her know at last the happy carefree life we led, Ambrose and I. Unlike that villa…”
    “Oh, but you’re wrong,” exclaimed Louise. “You don’t want to seem a boor, an ignoramus, like one of the hinds on the estate. That would be putting yourself at a disadvantage before you even spoke to her. You must remember she has lived on the continent all her life, has been used to great refinement, many servants—they say foreign ones are much better than ours—and she is certain to have brought a quantity of clothes, and jewels too, perhaps, besides Mr. Ashley’s things. She will have heard so much about the house from him that she will expect something very fine, like her own villa. And to have it all untidy, dusty, smelling like a kennel—why, you would not want her to find it so, Philip, for his sake, surely?”
    God damn it, I was angry. “What the devil do you mean,” I said, “by my house smelling like a kennel? It’s a man’s house, plain and homely, and please God it always will be. Neither Ambrose nor I went in for fancy furnishings and little ornaments on tables that come crashing to the ground if you brush your knee against them.”
    She had the grace to look contrite, if not ashamed.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, “I did not mean to offend you. You know I love your house, I have a great affection for it and always will. But I can’t help saying what I think, as to the way it’s kept. Nothing new for so long, no real warmth about it, and lacking—well, lacking comfort, if you’ll forgive that too.”
    I thought of the bright trim parlor where she made my godfather sit of an evening, and I knew which I would prefer to have, and he too in all probability, faced with the choice of that and my library.
    “All right,” I said, “forget my lack of comfort. It suited Ambrose,