My Cousin Rachel(3)

In the middle of May, I received another letter from Ambrose. He said that he and my cousin Rachel were staying in Italy for the summer. I was so happy. Thank God, this woman was not going to come to the house yet! I began to enjoy life again.

The summer passed and winter came. Ambrose did not return. He continued to write to me but his letters changed. I began to feel that he was not happy. The summer and autumn were very hot in Italy that year. Ambrose was having terrible headaches. He had never had headaches before. But he said nothing about coming home.

The second winter passed and then the spring. Ambrose had been married for more than a year now. Many weeks passed and I did not receive a letter. I began to worry. At last a letter came in July. But it made me more worried than before. I got on my horse at once and rode over to Nick Kendall's house to show him the letter.

The writing was so bad that we could hardly read it. Ambrose wrote to say that he had a terrible illness. He wrote about his fear of Italian doctors and of a man called Rainaldi. He also seemed to be afraid of his wife, Rachel.

'These are the words of a very sick man,' Nick Kendall said slowly. 'A man whose mind is very disturbed. You do not know this, Philip, but Ambrose's father died of a tumour of the brain. In the last weeks of his life, he was sometimes like a madman. I hope that Ambrose...'

Then Nick Kendall looked at me and said, 'I think you had better go to Italy, Philip. You must find out what is happening.'

I knew immediately that I had to go to Italy. I did not look forward to the long journey in a strange country. I could not speak French or Italian. But I knew I had to go-

I went home and got ready to leave. Seecombe, our head servant, was going to look after the house while I was away. I did not tell him about Ambrose's illness.

I was in the carriage ready to leave when a last letter arrived from Ambrose. It was very short and almost impossible to read.

"For God's sake, come quickly!" Ambrose had written. "Rachel, my torment, has won. I am dying. Come quickly, or it will be too late!"

I began my joumey with a terrible fear in my heart. It was the 10th of July. I knew I could not reach Ambrose until the middle of August.





CHAPTER 3



The Villa Sangalletti



I had a terrible journey. The roads were noisy and dirty. The weather got hotter every day. By the time I reached Florence, it was the 15th of August.

I found a room in a hotel and washed and changed my clothes. When I went out again, the streets were full of people. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and still very hot. I stopped a carriage.

'Villa Sangalletti,' I said to the driver. He nodded and pointed up the hill.

The horse pulled the carriage slowly up a long, twisting road. At last, the driver stopped in front of a gate in a high wall. I made signs to him to wait.

There was a bell beside the gate and I pulled it hard. I waited a few moments, but no one carne. I rang the bell again. I heard the sounds of a dog barking and a child crying. It was very hot. Then I heard footsteps and the gate slowly opened. A servant woman stood in the gateway. There was a long, wide path behind her. It led to the villa.

'Villa Sangalletti? Signor Ashley?' I asked.

The woman tried to shut the gate, but I pushed past her. A man appeared and the woman shouted to him in Italian. I heard the words: 'Ashley... Inglese...'

The man stared at me. 'I speak a little English, signore,' he said. 'Can I help you?'

'I have come here to see Mr Ashley,' I said. 'Are Mr and Mrs Ashley at the villa?'

The man looked worried.

'Are you Signor Ashley's son, signore?' he asked.

'No,' I said, 'I am his cousin. Tell me quickly. Is he at home?'

'You are from England, signore?' the man asked slowly. 'You have not heard the news? Signor Ashley, he died three weeks ago. Very sudden. After the funeral, the contessa, his wife, shut up the villa and went away. We do not know if she will come back again.'

I did not say anything. There was nothing I could say.

'Signor,' the man said kindly, 'I will open the villa for you. You can see where Signor Ashley died.'

I was not interested in where I went or what I did. The man began to walk up the path, taking some keys from his pocket. I followed.

The villa was very beautiful. All the windows were closed and shuttered [tapadas com madeira]. The man opened the big door. He and the woman began to open the shutters. The rooms were large and the air was dry and dusty.

'The Villa Sangalletti is beautiful, signore, very old,' said the man. 'The Signor Ashley, this is where he sat. This was his chair.'

I looked at the chair. I could not think of Ambrose in this house, in this room.

I went to the window. Outside, there was a little courtyard [pátio]. It was open to the sky, but shaded from the sun. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a fountain and a little pool. A laburnum [arbusto ornamental europeu] tree stood beside the pool. Its golden flowers had died. And its small, green seeds lay on the ground.