Free My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier Page A

over to the side of the room where books lined the wall and took down a volume.
    “Are you any sort of a student of medical history, Mr. Ashley?” he asked.
    “No,” I said.
    “You will find it here,” he said, “the sort of information you are seeking, or you can question those doctors, whose address I am only too willing to give you. There is a particular affliction of the brain, present above all when there is a growth, or tumor, when the sufferer becomes troubled by delusions. He fancies, for instance, that he is being watched. That the person nearest to him, such as a wife, has either turned against him, or is unfaithful, or seeks to take his money. No amount of love or persuasion can allay this suspicion, once it takes hold. If you don’t believe me, or the doctors here, ask your own countrymen, or read this book.”
    How plausible he was, how cold, how confident. I thought of Ambrose lying on that iron bedstead in the villa Sangalletti, tortured, bewildered, with this man observing him, analyzing his symptoms one by one, watching perhaps from over that threefold screen. Whether he was right or wrong I did not know. All I knew was that I hated Rainaldi.
    “Why didn’t she send for me?” I asked. “If Ambrose had lost faith in her, why not send for me? I knew him best.”
    Rainaldi closed the book with a snap, and replaced it on the shelf.
    “You are very young, are you not, Mr. Ashley?” he said.
    I stared at him. I did not know what he meant.
    “What do you mean by that?” I asked.
    “A woman of feeling does not easily give way,” he said. “You may call it pride, or tenacity, call it what you will. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, their emotions are more primitive than ours. They hold to the thing they want, and never surrender. We have our wars and battles, Mr. Ashley. But women can fight too.”
    He looked at me, with his cold deep-set eyes, and I knew I had no more to say to him.
    “If I had been here,” I said, “he would not have died.”
    I rose from my chair and went towards the door. Once again Rainaldi pulled the bell, and the servant came to show me out.
    “I have written,” he said, “to your guardian, Mr. Kendall. I have explained to him very fully, in great detail, everything that has happened. Is there anything more I can do for you? Will you be staying long in Florence?”
    “No,” I said, “why should I stay? There is nothing to keep me.”
    “If you wish to see the grave,” he said, “I will give you a note to the guardian, in the Protestant cemetery. The site is quite simple and plain. No stone as yet, of course. That will be erected presently.”
    He turned to the table, and scribbled a note which he gave me.
    “What will be written on the stone?” I said.
    He paused a moment, as though reflecting, while the servant waiting by the open door handed me Ambrose’s hat.
    “I believe,” he said, “that my instructions were to put ‘In Memory of Ambrose Ashley, beloved husband of Rachel Coryn Ashley,’ and then of course the date.”
    I knew then that I did not want to go to the cemetery or visit the grave. That I had no wish to see the place where they had buried him. They could put up the stone, and later take flowers there if they wished, but Ambrose would never know, and never care. He would be with me in that west country, under his own soil, in his own land.
    “When Mrs. Ashley returns,” I said slowly, “tell her that I came to Florence. That I went to the villa Sangalletti, and that I saw where Ambrose died. You can tell her too about the letters Ambrose wrote to me.”
    He held out his hand to me, cold and hard like himself, and still he watched me with those veiled, deep-set eyes.
    “Your cousin Rachel is a woman of impulse,” he said. “When she left Florence she took all her possessions with her. I very much fear that she will never return.”
    I left the house and went out into the dark street. It was almost as if his eyes still followed me