My Cousin Rachel Read Online Free Page A

particularly want to go, but on the other hand I’m damned if I’ll end my life a cripple. There is one advantage in the plan. I shall bring back plants that nobody else has got. We’ll see how the demons thrive in Cornish soil.”
    The first winter came and went, likewise the second. He enjoyed himself well enough, and I don’t think he was lonely. He returned with heaven knows how many trees, shrubs, flowers, plants of every form and color. Camellias were his passion. We started a plantation for them alone, and whether he had green fingers or a wizard’s touch I do not know, but they flourished from the first, and we lost none of them.
    So the months passed, until the third winter. This time he had decided upon Italy. He wanted to see some of the gardens in Florence and Rome. Neither town would be warm in winter, but that did not worry him. Someone had assured him that the air would be dry, if cold, and that he need not have any fear of rain. We talked late, that evening. He was never one for early bed, and often we would sit together in the library until one or two in the morning, sometimes silent, sometimes talking, both of us with our long legs stretched out before the fire, the dogs curled round our feet. I have said before that I felt no premonition, but now I wonder, thinking back, if it was otherwise for him. He kept looking at me in a puzzled, reflective sort of way, and from me to the paneled walls of the room and the familiar pictures, and so to the fire, and from the fire to the sleeping dogs.
    “I wish you were coming with me,” he said suddenly.
    “It wouldn’t take me long to pack,” I answered.
    He shook his head, and smiled. “No,” he said, “I was joking. We can’t both be away for months at a time. It’s a responsibility, you know, being a landowner, though not everybody feels as I do.”
    “I could travel with you down to Rome,” I said, excited at the idea. “Then, granting the weather did not hold me back, I’d still be home by Christmas.”
    “No,” he said slowly, “no, it was just a whim. Forget it.”
    “You’re feeling well enough, aren’t you?” I said. “No aches or pains?”
    “Good God, no,” he laughed, “what do you take me for, an invalid? I haven’t had a twinge of rheumatism for months. The trouble is, Philip boy, I’m too much of a fool about my home. When you reach my age, perhaps you’ll feel about it the way I do.”
    He got up from his chair and went over to the window. He drew back the heavy curtains and stood for a few moments, staring out across the grass. It was a quiet, still evening. The jackdaws had gone to roost, and for once even the owls were silent.
    “I’m glad we did away with the paths and brought the turf close to the house,” he said. “It would look better still if the grass went sloping right to the end there, by the pony’s paddock. One day you must cut away the undergrowth to give a view of the sea.”
    “How do you mean,” I said, “
I
must do it? Why not you?”
    He did not answer at once. “Same thing,” he said at last, “same thing. It makes no odds. Remember though.”
    My old retriever, Don, raised his head and looked across at him. He had seen the corded boxes in the hall, and sensed departure. He struggled to his feet, and went and stood beside Ambrose, his tail drooping. I called softly to him, but he did not come to me. I knocked out the ashes of my pipe into the hearth. The clock in the belfry struck the hour. From the servants’ quarters I could hear Seecombe’s grumbling voice scolding the pantry boy.
    “Ambrose,” I said, “Ambrose, let me come with you.”
    “Don’t be a damn fool, Philip, go to bed,” he answered.
    That was all. We did not discuss the matter anymore. Next morning at breakfast he gave me some last instructions about the spring planting, and various things he had in mind for me to do before his return. He had a sudden fancy to make a small pool where the ground was marshy in the