My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier Page B

folded neatly at the foot. Two pillows, stripped of their linen, were placed on top of one another at the head.
    “The end,” said the man in a hushed voice, “was very sudden, you understand. He was weak, yes, very weak from the fever, but even the day before he had dragged himself down to sit by the fountain. No, no, said the contessa, you will become more ill, you must rest, but he is very obstinate, he will not listen to her. And there is coming and going all the time with the doctors. Signor Rainaldi, he is here too, talking, persuading, but never will he listen, he shouts, he is violent, and then, like a little child, falls silent. It was pitiful, to see a strong man so. Then, in the early morning, the contessa she comes quickly to my room, calling for me. I was sleeping in the house, signore. She says, her face white as the wall there, ‘He is dying, Giuseppe, I know it, he is dying,’ and I follow her to his room, and there he is lying in bed, his eyes closed, breathing still, but heavily, you understand, not a true sleep. We send away for the doctor, but the signor Ashley he never wakes again, it was the coma, the sleep of death. I myself lit the candles with the contessa, and when the nuns had been I came to look at him. The violence had all gone, he had a peaceful face. I wish you could have seen it, signore.”
    Tears stood in the fellow’s eyes. I looked away from him, back to the empty bed. Somehow I felt nothing. The numbness had passed away, leaving me cold and hard.
    “What do you mean,” I said, “by violence?”
    “The violence that came with the fever,” said the man. “Twice, three times I had to hold him down in bed, after his attacks. And with the violence came the weakness inside, here.” He pressed his hand against his stomach. “He suffered much with pain. And when the pain went he would be dazed and heavy, his mind wandering. I tell you, signore, it was pitiful. Pitiful, to see so large a man helpless.”
    I turned away from that bare room like an empty tomb, and I heard the man close the shutters once again, and close the door. “Why was nothing done?” I said. “The doctors, could they not ease the pain? And Mrs. Ashley, did she just let him die?”
    He looked puzzled. “Please, signore?” he said.
    “What was this illness, how long did it last?” I asked.
    “I have told you, at the end, very sudden,” said the man, “but one, two attacks before then. And all winter the signore not so well, sad somehow, not himself. Very different from the year before. When the signor Ashley first came to the villa, he was happy, gay.”
    He threw open more windows as he spoke, and we walked outside onto a great terrace, spaced here and there with statues. At the far end a long stone balustrade. We crossed the terrace and stood by the balustrade, looking down upon a lower garden, clipped and formal, from which the scent of roses came, and summer jasmine, and in the distance was another fountain, and yet another, wide stone steps leading to each garden, the whole laid out, tier upon tier, until at the far end came that same high wall flanked with cypress trees, surrounding the whole property.
    We looked westward towards the setting sun, and there was a glow upon the terrace and the hushed gardens; even the statues were held in the one rose-colored light, and it seemed to me, standing there with my hand upon the balustrade, that a strange serenity had come upon the place that was not there before.
    The stone was still warm under my hand, and a lizard ran away from a crevice and wriggled down onto the wall below.
    “On a still evening,” said the man, standing a pace or so behind me, as though in deference, “it is very beautiful, signore, here in the gardens of the villa Sangalletti. Sometimes the contessa gave orders for the fountains to be played, and when the moon was full she and the signor Ashley used to come out onto the terrace here, after dinner. Last year, before his illness.”
    I