My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier Page A

and it suits me, and for the space of a few days—however long she chooses so to honor me with her presence—it can suit my cousin Rachel too.”
    Louise shook her head at me.
    “You’re quite incorrigible,” she said. “If Mrs. Ashley is the woman I believe her to be she will take one look at the house and then seek refuge in St. Austell, or with us.”
    “You’re very welcome,” I replied, “when I have done with her.”
    Louise looked at me curiously. “Will you really dare to question her?” she asked. “Where will you begin?”
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t say until I have seen her. She’ll try to bluster her way out, I have no doubt. Or maybe make a great play of emotion, swoon and have hysterics. That won’t worry me. I shall watch her, and enjoy it.”
    “I don’t think she will bluster,” said Louise, “nor have hysterics. She will merely sweep into the house and take command. Don’t forget, she must be used to giving orders.”
    “She won’t give them in my house.”
    “Poor Seecombe! What I would give to see his face. She will throw things at him, if he fails to come when she pulls her bell. Italians are very passionate, you know, very quick-tempered. I have always heard so.”
    “She’s only half Italian,” I reminded her, “and I think Seecombe is well able to take care of himself. Perhaps it will rain for three days, and she will be confined to bed with rheumatism.”
    We laughed together in the summerhouse, like a pair of children, but for all that I was not so light of heart as I pretended. The invitation had been flung onto the air like a challenge, and already I think I had regretted it, though I did not say so to Louise. I regretted it more when I went home and looked about me. Dear heaven, it was a foolhardy thing to go and do, and had it not been for pride I think I would have ridden back to my godfather and told him to send no message from me, when he wrote to Plymouth.
    What in the world was I to do with that woman in my house? What indeed should I say to her, what action should I take? If Rainaldi had been plausible, she would be ten times more so. Direct attack might not succeed, and what was it the Italian had said anyway about tenacity, and women fighting battles? If she should be loudmouthed, vulgar, I thought I knew how to shut her up. A fellow from one of the farms became entangled with such a one, who would have sued him for breach of promise, and I soon had her packing back to Devon, where she belonged. But sugary, insidious, with heaving bosom and sheep’s eyes, could I deal with that? I believed so. I had met with some of these in Oxford, and I always found extreme bluntness of speech, amounting to brutality, sent them back to their holes in the ground with no bones broken. No, all things considered, I was pretty cocksure, pretty confident, that when I had actual speech with my cousin Rachel I should find my tongue. But preparations for the visit, that was the deuce, the facade of courtesy before the salute to arms.
    To my great surprise, Seecombe received the idea without dismay. It was almost as if he had expected it. I told him briefly that Mrs. Ashley had arrived in England, bringing with her Mr. Ambrose’s effects, and that it was possible she would arrive for a short visit within the week. His underlip did not just forward, as it usually did when faced with any problem, and he listened to me with gravity.
    “Yes, sir,” he said, “very right and very proper. We shall all be glad to welcome Mrs. Ashley.”
    I glanced at him over my pipe, amused at his pomposity.
    “I thought,” I said, “you were like me, and did not care for women in the house. You sang a different tune when I told you Mr. Ambrose had been married, and she would be mistress here.”
    He looked shocked. This time the nether lip went forward.
    “That was not the same, sir,” he said; “there has been tragedy since then. The poor lady is widowed. Mr. Ambrose would have wished