"Is it?" smiled Sc.r.a.p, a little wistfully. These were indeed handsome compliments. If only she were really like that ...
"And I want to kiss your shoes."
"Won"t this save trouble?" she asked, holding out her hand.
He took it and swiftly kissed it, and was hurrying away again.
"Bless you," he said as he went.
"Where is your luggage?" Sc.r.a.p called after him.
"Oh, Lord, yes--" said Frederick, pausing. "It"s at the station."
"I"ll send for it."
He disappeared through the bushes. She went indoors to give the order; and this is how it happened that Domenico, for the second time that evening, found himself journeying into Mezzago and wondering as he went.
Then, having made the necessary arrangements for the perfect happiness of these two people, she came slowly out into the garden again, very much absorbed in thought. Love seemed to bring happiness to everybody but herself. It had certainly got hold of everybody there, in its different varieties, except herself. Poor Mr. Briggs had been got hold of by its least dignified variety. Poor Mr. Briggs. He was a disturbing problem, and his going away next day wouldn"t she was afraid solve him.
When she reached the others Mr. Arundel--she kept on forgetting that he wasn"t Mr. Arundel--was already, his arm through Rose"s, going off with her, probably to the greater seclusion of the lower garden.
No doubt they had a great deal to say to each other; something had gone wrong between them, and had suddenly been put right. San Salvatore, Lotty would say, San Salvatore working its spell of happiness. She could quite believe in its spell. Even she was happier there than she had been for ages and ages. The only person who would go empty away would be Mr. Briggs.
Poor Mr. Briggs. When she came in sight of the group he looked much too nice and boyish not to be happy. It seemed out of the picture that the owner of the place, the person to whom they owed all this, should be the only one to go away from it unblessed.
Compunction seized Sc.r.a.p. What very pleasant days she had spent in his house, lying in his garden, enjoying his flowers, loving his views, using his things, being comfortable, being rested--recovering, in fact. She had had the most leisured, peaceful, and thoughtful time of her life; and all really thanks to him. Oh, she knew she paid him some ridiculous small sum a week, out of all proportion to the benefits she got in exchange, but what was that in the balance? And wasn"t it entirely thanks to him that she had come across Lotty? Never else would she and Lotty have met; never else would she have known her.
Compunction laid its quick, warm hand on Sc.r.a.p. Impulsive grat.i.tude flooded her. She went straight up to Briggs.
"I owe you so much," she said, overcome by the sudden realization of all she did owe him, and ashamed of her churlishness in the afternoon and at dinner. Of course he hadn"t known she was being churlish. Of course her disagreeable inside was camouflaged as usual by the chance arrangement of her outside; but she knew it. She was churlish. She had been churlish to everybody for years. Any penetrating eye, thought Sc.r.a.p, any really penetrating eye, would see her for what she was--a spoilt, a sour, a suspicious and a selfish spinster.
"I owe you so much," therefore said Sc.r.a.p earnestly, walking straight up to Briggs, humbled by these thoughts.
He looked at her in wonder. "You owe me?" he said. "But it"s I who--I who--" he stammered. To see her there in his garden ...
nothing in it, no white flower, was whiter, more exquisite.
"Please," said Sc.r.a.p, still more earnestly, "won"t you clear your mind of everything except just truth? You don"t owe me anything. How should you?"
"I don"t owe you anything?" echoed Briggs. "Why, I owe you my first sight of--of--"
"Oh, for goodness sake--for goodness sake," said Sc.r.a.p entreatingly, "do, please, be ordinary. Don"t be humble. Why should you be humble? It"s ridiculous of you to be humble. You"re worth fifty of me."
"Unwise," thought Mr. Wilkins, who was standing there too, while Lotty sat on the wall. He was surprised, he was concerned, he was shocked that Lady Caroline should thus encourage Briggs. "Unwise-- very," thought Mr. Wilkins, shaking his head.
Briggs"s condition was so bad already that the only course to take with him was to repel him utterly, Mr. Wilkins considered. No half measures were the least use with Briggs, and kindliness and familiar talk would only be misunderstood by the unhappy youth. The daughter of the Droitwiches could not really, it was impossible to suppose it, desire to encourage him. Briggs was all very well, but Briggs was Briggs; his name alone proved that. Probably Lady Caroline did not quite appreciate the effect of her voice and face, and how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem--well, encouraging. But these words were not quite ordinary; she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them. Indeed and indeed she needed an adviser--some sagacious, objective counselor like himself. There she was, standing before Briggs almost holding out her hand to him. Briggs of course ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess and not by Lady Caroline alone. That very evening he had been considering the presentation to him next day of a round robin of collective grat.i.tude on his departure; but he should not be thanked like this, in the moonlight, in the garden, by the lady he was so manifestly infatuated with.
Mr. Wilkins therefore, desiring to a.s.sist Lady Caroline out of this situation by swiftly applied tact, said with much heartiness: "It is most proper, Briggs, that you should be thanked. You will please allow me to add my expressions of indebtedness, and those of my wife, to Lady Caroline"s. We ought to have proposed a vote of thanks to you at dinner. You should have been toasted. There certainly ought to have been some--"
But Briggs took no notice of him whatever; he simply continued to look at Lady Caroline as though she were the first woman he had ever seen. Neither, Mr. Wilkins observed, did Lady Caroline take any notice of him; she too continued to look at Briggs, and with that odd air of almost appeal. Most unwise. Most.
Lotty, on the other hand, took too much notice of him, choosing this moment when Lady Caroline needed special support and protection to get up off the wall and put her arm through his and draw him away.
"I want to tell you something, Mellersh," said Lotty at this juncture, getting up.
"Presently," said Mr. Wilkins, waving her aside.
"No--now," said Lotty; and she drew him away.
He went with extreme reluctance. Briggs should be given no rope at all--not an inch.
"Well--what is it?" he asked impatiently, as she led him towards the house. Lady Caroline ought not to be left like that, exposed to annoyance.
"Oh, but she isn"t," Lotty a.s.sured him, just as if he had said this aloud, which he certainly had not. "Caroline is perfectly all right."
"Not at all all right. That young Briggs is--"
"Of course he is. What did you expect? Let"s go indoors to the fire and Mrs. Fisher. She"s all by herself."
"I cannot," said Mr. Wilkins, trying to draw back, "leave Lady Caroline alone in the garden."
"Don"t be silly, Mellersh--she isn"t alone. Besides, I want to tell you something."
"Well tell me, then."
"Indoors."
With reluctance that increased at every step Mr. Wilkins was taken farther and farther away from Lady Caroline. He believed in his wife now and trusted her, but on this occasion he thought she was making a terrible mistake. In the drawing-room sat Mrs. Fisher by the fire, and it certainly was to Mr. Wilkins, who preferred rooms and fires after dark to gardens and moonlight, more agreeable to be in there than out-of-doors if he could have brought Lady Caroline safely in with him. As it was, he went in with extreme reluctance.
Mrs. Fisher, her hands folded on her lap, was doing nothing, merely gazing fixedly into the fire. The lamp was arranged conveniently for reading, but she was not reading. Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now--over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect? She craved for the living, the developing--the crystallized and finished wearied her. She was thinking that if only she had had a son--a son like Mr. Briggs, a dear boy like that, going on, unfolding, alive, affectionate, taking care of her and loving her...
The look on her face gave Mrs. Wilkins"s heart a little twist when she saw it. "Poor old dear," she thought, all the loneliness of age flashing upon her, the loneliness of having outstayed one"s welcome in the world, of being in it only on sufferance, the complete loneliness of the old childless woman who has failed to make friends.
It did seem that people could only be really happy in pairs--any sorts of pairs, not in the least necessarily lovers, but pairs of friends, pairs of mothers and children, of brothers and sisters--and where was the other half of Mrs. Fisher"s pair going to be found?
Mrs. Wilkins thought she had perhaps better kiss her again. The kissing this afternoon had been a great success; she knew it, she had instantly felt Mrs. Fisher"s reaction to it. So she crossed over and bent down and kissed her and said cheerfully, "We"ve come in--" which indeed was evident.
This time Mrs. Fisher actually put up her hand and held Mrs.
Wilkins"s cheek against her own--this living thing, full of affection, of warm, racing blood; and as she did this she felt safe with the strange creature, sure that she who herself did unusual things so naturally would take the action quite as a matter of course, and not embarra.s.s her by being surprised.
Mrs. Wilkins was not at all surprised; she was delighted. "I believe I"m the other half of her pair," flashed into her mind. "I believe it"s me, positively me, going to be fast friends with Mrs.
Fisher!"
Her face when she lifted her head was full of laughter. Too extraordinary, the developments produced by San Salvatore. She and Mrs. Fisher ... but she saw them being fast friends.
"Where are the others?" asked Mrs. Fisher. "Thank you--dear,"
she added, as Mrs. Wilkins put a footstool under her feet, a footstool obviously needed, Mrs. Fisher"s legs being short.
"I see myself throughout the years," thought Mrs. Wilkins, her eyes dancing, "bringing footstools to Mrs. Fisher..."
"The Roses," she said, straightening herself, "have gone into the lower garden--I think love-making."