"I hope," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smilingly making an attempt to convey to Mrs. Fisher that though she, Mrs. Fisher, might not be exactly a guest she certainly was not in the very least a hostess, "your room is comfortable."
"Quite," said Mrs. Fisher. "Will you have some more coffee?"
"No, thank you. Will you?"
"No, thank you. There were two beds in my bedroom, filling it up unnecessarily, and I had one taken out. It has made it much more convenient."
"Oh that"s why I"ve got two beds in my room!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilkins, illuminated; the second bed in her little cell had seemed an unnatural and inappropriate object from the moment she saw it.
"I gave no directions," said Mrs. Fisher, addressing Mrs.
Arbuthnot, "I merely asked Francesca to remove it."
"I have two in my room as well," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Your second one must be Lady Caroline"s. She had hers removed too," said Mrs. Fisher. "It seems foolish to have more beds in a room than there are occupiers."
"But we haven"t got husbands here either," said Mrs. Wilkins, "and I don"t see any use in extra beds in one"s room if one hasn"t got husbands to put in them. Can"t we have them taken away too?"
"Beds," said Mrs. Fisher coldly, "cannot be removed from one room after another. They must remain somewhere."
Mrs. Wilkins"s remarks seemed to Mrs. Fisher persistently unfortunate. Each time she opened her mouth she said something best left unsaid. Loose talk about husbands had never in Mrs. Fisher"s circle been encouraged. In the "eighties, when she chiefly flourished, husbands were taken seriously, as the only real obstacles to sin. Beds too, if they had to be mentioned, were approached with caution; and a decent reserve prevented them and husbands ever being spoken of in the same breath.
She turned more markedly than ever to Mrs. Arbuthnot. "Do let me give you a little more coffee," she said.
"No, thank you. But won"t you have some more?"
"No indeed. I never have more than two cups at breakfast. Would you like an orange?"
"No thank you. Would you?"
"No, I don"t eat fruit at breakfast. It is an American fashion which I am too old now to adopt. Have you had all you want?"
"Quite. Have you?"
Mrs. Fisher paused before replying was this a habit, this trick of answering a simple question with the same question? If so it must be curbed, for no one could live for four weeks in any real comfort with somebody who had a habit.
She glanced at Mrs. Arbuthnot, and her parted hair and gentle brow rea.s.sured her. No; it was accident, not habit, that had produced those echoes. She could as soon imagine a dove having tiresome habits as Mrs. Arbuthnot. Considering her, she thought what a splendid wife she would have been for poor Carlyle. So much better than that horrid clever Jane. She would have soothed him.
"Then shall we go?" she suggested.
"Let me help you up," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, all consideration.
"Oh, thank you--I can manage perfectly. It"s only sometimes that my stick prevents me--"
Mrs. Fisher got up quite easily; Mrs. Arbuthnot had hovered over her for nothing.
"I"m going to have one of these gorgeous oranges," said Mrs.
Wilkins, staying where she was and reaching across to a black bowl piled with them. "Rose, how can you resist them. Look--have this one.
Do have this beauty--" And she held out a big one.
"No, I"m going to see to my duties," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, moving towards the door. "You"ll forgive me for leaving you, won"t you," she added politely to Mrs. Fisher.
Mrs. Fisher moved towards the door too; quite easily; almost quickly; her stick did not hinder her at all. She had no intention of being left with Mrs. Wilkins.
"What time would you like to have lunch?" Mrs. Arbuthnot asked her, trying to keep her head as at least a non-guest, if not precisely a hostess, above water.
"Lunch," said Mrs. Fisher, "is at half-past twelve."
"You shall have it at half-past twelve then," said Mrs.
Arbuthnot. "I"ll tell the cook. It will be a great struggle," she continued, smiling, "but I"ve brought a little dictionary--"
"The cook," said Mrs. Fisher, "knows."
"Oh?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Lady Caroline has already told her," said Mrs. Fisher.
"Oh?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Yes. Lady Caroline speaks the kind of Italian cooks understand.
I am prevented going into the kitchen because of my stick. And even if I were able to go, I fear I shouldn"t be understood."
"But--" began Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"But it"s too wonderful," Mrs. Wilkins finished for her from the table, delighted with these unexpected simplifications in her and Rose"s lives. "Why, we"ve got positively nothing to do here, either of us, except just be happy. You wouldn"t believe," she said, turning her head and speaking straight to Mrs. Fisher, portions of orange in either hand, "how terribly good Rose and I have been for years without stopping, and how much now we need a perfect rest."
And Mrs. Fisher, going without answering her out the room, said to herself, "She must, she shall be curbed."
Chapter 8
Presently, when Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot, unhampered by any duties, wandered out and down the worn stone steps and under the pergola into the lower garden, Mrs. Wilkins said to Mrs. Arbuthnot, who seemed pensive, "Don"t you see that if somebody else does the ordering it frees us?"
Mrs. Arbuthnot said she did see, but nevertheless she thought it rather silly to have everything taken out of their hands.
"I love things to be taken out of my hands," said Mrs. Wilkins.
"But we found San Salvatore," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "and it is rather silly that Mrs. Fisher should behave as if it belonged only to her."
"What is rather silly," said Mrs. Wilkins with much serenity, "is to mind. I can"t see the least point in being in authority at the price of one"s liberty."
Mrs. Arbuthnot said nothing to that for two reasons--first, because she was struck by the remarkable and growing calm of the hitherto incoherent and excited Lotty, and secondly because what she was looking at was so very beautiful.
All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine ... she remembered the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the gra.s.s was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour, piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers--the periwinkles looked exactly as if they were being poured down each side of the steps--and flowers that grow only in borders in England, proud flowers keeping themselves to themselves over there, such as the great blue irises and the lavender, were being jostled by small, shining common things like dandelions and daisies and the white bells of the wild onion, and only seemed the better and the more exuberant for it.
They stood looking at this crowd of loveliness, this happy jumble, in silence. No, it didn"t matter what Mrs. Fisher did; not here; not in such beauty. Mrs. Arbuthnot"s discomposure melted out of her. In the warmth and light of what she was looking at, of what to her was a manifestation, and entirely new side of G.o.d, how could one be discomposed? If only Frederick were with her, seeing it too, seeing as he would have seen it when first they were lovers, in the days when he saw what she saw and loved what she loved...