That he should so quickly assimilate the atmosphere, that he should at once become nothing but kindness, showed surely what a real affinity he had with good and beautiful things. He belonged quite naturally in this place of heavenly calm. He was – extraordinary how she had misjudged him – by nature a child of light. Fancy not minding the dreadful fibs she had gone in for before leaving home – fancy passing even those over without comment. Wonderful. Yet not wonderful, for wasn’t he in heaven? In heaven nobody minded any of those done-with things, one didn’t even trouble to forgive and forget, one was much too happy. She pressed his arm tight in her gratitude and appreciation – and though he did not withdraw his, neither did he respond to her pressure. Mr Wilkins was of a cool habit, and rarely had any real wish to press.
Meanwhile Costanza, perceiving that she had lost the Wilkinses’ ear, had gone back to Mrs Fisher, who at least understood Italian, besides being clearly in the servants’ eyes the one of the party marked down by age and appearance to pay the bills, and to her – while Mrs Fisher put the final touches to her toilette, for she was preparing, by means of putting on a hat and veil and feather boa and gloves, to go for her first stroll in the lower garden: positively her first since her arrival – she explained that, unless she was given money to pay the last week’s bills, the shops of Castagneto would refuse credit for the current week’s food. Not even credit would they give, affirmed Costanza, who had been spending a great deal and was anxious to pay all her relations what was owed them and also to find out how her mistresses took it, for that day’s meals. Soon it would be the hour of colazione,* and how could there be colazione without meat, without fish, without eggs, without…
Mrs Fisher took the bills out of her hand and looked at the total, and she was so much astonished by its size, so much horrified by the extravagance to which it testified, that she sat down at her writing table to go into the thing thoroughly.
Costanza had a very bad half-hour. She had not supposed it was in the English to be so mercenary. And then la Vecchia,* as she was called in the kitchen, knew so much Italian, and with a doggedness that filled Costanza with shame on her behalf – for such conduct was the last one expected from the noble English – she went through item after item, requiring, and persisting till she got them, explanations.
There were no explanations, except that Costanza had had one glorious week of doing exactly as she chose, of splendid unbridled licence, and that this was the result.
Costanza, having no explanations, wept. It was miserable to think she would have to cook from now on under watchfulness, under suspicion – and what would her relations say when they found the orders they received were whittled down? They would say she had no influence – they would despise her.
Costanza wept, but Mrs Fisher was unmoved. In slow and splendid Italian, with the roll of the cantos of the Inferno, she informed her that she would pay no bills till the following week, and that meanwhile the food was to be precisely as good as ever, and at a quarter the cost.
Costanza threw up her hands.
Next week, proceeded Mrs Fisher, unmoved, if she found this had been so, she would pay the whole. Otherwise – she paused, for what she would do otherwise she did not know herself. But she paused and looked impenetrable, majestic and menacing, and Costanza was cowed.
Then Mrs Fisher, having dismissed her with a gesture, went in search of Lady Caroline to complain. She had been under the impression that Lady Caroline ordered the meals and therefore was responsible for the prices, but now it appeared that the cook had been left to do exactly as she pleased ever since they got there, which of course was simply disgraceful.
Scrap was not in her bedroom, but the room, on Mrs Fisher’s opening the door – for she suspected her of being in it and only pretending not to hear the knock – was still flowerlike from her presence.
“Scent,” sniffed Mrs Fisher, shutting it again, and she wished Carlyle could have had five minutes’ straight talk with this young woman. And yet – perhaps even he…
She went downstairs to go into the garden in search of her, and in the hall encountered Mr Wilkins. He had his hat on, and was lighting a cigar.
Indulgent as Mrs Fisher felt towards Mr Wilkins, and peculiarly and even mystically related after the previous morning’s encounter, she yet could not like a cigar in the house. Out of doors she endured it, but it was not necessary, when out of doors was such a big place, to indulge the habit indoors. Even Mr Fisher, who had been, she should say, a man originally tenacious of habits, had quite soon after marriage got out of this one.
However, Mr Wilkins, snatching off his hat on seeing her, instantly threw the cigar away. He threw it into the water a great jar of arum lilies presumably contained, and Mrs Fisher, aware of the value men attach to their newly lit cigars, could not but be impressed by this immediate and magnificent amende honorable.
But the cigar did not reach the water. It got caught in the lilies, and smoked on by itself among them, a strange and depraved-looking object.
“Where are you going to, my prett—” began Mr Wilkins, advancing towards Mrs Fisher, but he broke off just in time.
Was it morning spirits impelling him to address Mrs Fisher in the terms of a nursery rhyme? He wasn’t even aware that he knew the thing. Most strange. What could have put it, at such a moment, into his self-possessed head? He felt great respect for Mrs Fisher, and would not for the world have insulted her by addressing her as a maid – pretty or otherwise. He wished to stand well with her. She was a woman of parts, and also, he suspected, of property. At breakfast they had been most pleasant together, and he had been struck by her apparent intimacy with well-known persons. Victorians, of course, but it was restful to talk about them after the strain of his brother-in-law’s Georgian parties on Hampstead Heath. He and she were getting on famously, he felt. She already showed all the symptoms of presently wishing to become a client. Not for the world would he offend her. He turned a little cold at the narrowness of his escape.
She had not, however, noticed.
“You are going out,” he said very politely, all readiness should she confirm his assumption to accompany her.
“I want to find Lady Caroline,” said Mrs Fisher, going towards the glass door leading into the top garden.
“An agreeable quest,” remarked Mr Wilkins. “May I assist in the search? Allow me,” he added, opening the door for her.
“She usually sits over in that corner behind the bushes,” said Mrs Fisher. “And I don’t know about its being an agreeable quest. She has been letting the bills run up in the most terrible fashion, and needs a good scolding.”
“Lady Caroline?” said Mr Wilkins, unable to follow such an attitude. “What has Lady Caroline, if I may enquire, to do with the bills here?”
“The housekeeping was left to her, and as we all share alike it ought to have been a matter of honour with her—”
“But – Lady Caroline housekeeping for the party here? A party which includes my wife? My dear lady, you render me speechless. Do you not know she is the daughter of the Droitwiches?”
“Oh, is that who she is,” said Mrs Fisher, scrunching heavily over the pebbles towards the hidden corner. “Well, that accounts for it. The muddle that man Droitwich made in his department in the war was a national scandal. It amounted to misappropriation of the public funds.”
“But it is impossible, I assure you, to expect the daughter of the Droitwiches—” began Mr Wilkins earnestly.
“The Droitwiches,” interrupted Mrs Fisher, “are neither here nor there. Duties undertaken should be performed. I don’t intend my money to be squandered for the sake of any Droitwiches.”
A headstrong old lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealth would make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches. Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, and had d
escribed her house as a mausoleum with goldfish swimming about in it, but now he was sure she was more than very well off. Still, he wished he had not joined her at this moment, for he had no sort of desire to be present at such a spectacle as the scolding of Lady Caroline Dester.
Again, however, he was reckoning without Scrap. Whatever she felt when she looked up and beheld Mr Wilkins discovering her corner on the very first morning, nothing but angelicness appeared on her face. She took her feet off the parapet on Mrs Fisher’s sitting down on it, and listening gravely to her opening remarks as to her not having any money to fling about in reckless and uncontrolled household expenditure, interrupted her flow by pulling one of the cushions from behind her head and offering it to her.
“Sit on this,” said Scrap, holding it out. “You’ll be more comfortable.”
Mr Wilkins leapt to relieve her of it.
“Oh, thanks,” said Mrs Fisher, interrupted.
It was difficult to get into the swing again. Mr Wilkins inserted the cushion solicitously between the slightly raised Mrs Fisher and the stone of the parapet, and again she had to say “Thanks.” It interrupted. Besides, Lady Caroline said nothing in her defence – she only looked at her, and listened with the face of an attentive angel.
It seemed to Mr Wilkins that it must be difficult to scold a Dester who looked like that and so exquisitely said nothing. Mrs Fisher, he was glad to see, gradually found it difficult herself, for her severity slackened, and she ended by saying lamely, “You ought to have told me you were not doing it.”
“I didn’t know you thought I was,” said the lovely voice.
“I would now like to know,” said Mrs Fisher, “what you propose to do for the rest of the time here.”
“Nothing,” said Scrap, smiling.
“Nothing? Do you mean to say—”
“If I may be allowed, ladies,” interposed Mr Wilkins in his suavest professional manner, “to make a suggestion” – they both looked at him, and, remembering him as they first saw him, felt indulgent – “I would advise you not to spoil a delightful holiday with worries over housekeeping.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs Fisher. “It is what I intend to avoid.”
“Most sensible,” said Mr Wilkins. “Why not, then,” he continued, “allow the cook – an excellent cook, by the way – so much a head per diem” – Mr Wilkins knew what was necessary in Latin – “and tell her that for this sum she must cater for you, and not only cater but cater as well as ever? One could easily reckon it out. The charges of a moderate hotel, for instance, would do as a basis, halved, or perhaps even quartered.”
“And this week that has just passed?” asked Mrs Fisher. “The terrible bills of this first week? What about them?”
“They shall be my present to San Salvatore,” said Scrap, who didn’t like the idea of Lotty’s nest egg being reduced so much beyond what she was prepared for.
There was a silence. The ground was cut from under Mrs Fisher’s feet.
“Of course, if you choose to throw your money about…” she said at last, disapproving but immensely relieved, while Mr Wilkins was rapt in the contemplation of the precious qualities of blue blood. This readiness, for instance, not to trouble about money, this free-handedness – it was not only what one admired in others, admired in others perhaps more than anything else, but it was extraordinarily useful to the professional classes. When met with, it should be encouraged by warmth of reception. Mrs Fisher was not warm. She accepted – from which he deduced that with her wealth went closeness – but she accepted grudgingly. Presents were presents, and one did not look them in this manner in the mouth, he felt – and if Lady Caroline found her pleasure in presenting his wife and Mrs Fisher with their entire food for a week, it was their part to accept gracefully. One should not discourage gifts.
On behalf of his wife, then, Mr Wilkins expressed what she would wish to express, and remarking to Lady Caroline – with a touch of lightness, for so should gifts be accepted in order to avoid embarrassing the donor – that she had in that case been his wife’s hostess since her arrival, he turned almost gaily to Mrs Fisher and pointed out that she and his wife must now jointly write Lady Caroline the customary letter of thanks for hospitality. “A Collins,” said Mr Wilkins, who knew what was necessary in literature. “I prefer the name Collins for such a letter to either that of Board and Lodging or Bread and Butter. Let us call it a Collins.”*
Scrap smiled, and held out her cigarette case. Mrs Fisher could not help being mollified. A way out of waste was going to be found, thanks to Mr Wilkins – and she hated waste quite as much as having to pay for it – also a way was found out of housekeeping. For a moment she had thought that if everybody tried to force her into housekeeping on her brief holiday by their own indifference (Lady Caroline), or inability to speak Italian (the other two), she would have to send for Kate Lumley, after all. Kate could do it. Kate and she had learnt Italian together. Kate would only be allowed to come on condition that she did do it.
But this was much better, this way of Mr Wilkins’s. Really a most superior man. There was nothing like an intelligent, not-too-young man for profitable and pleasurable companionship. And when she got up, the business for which she had come being settled, and said she now intended to take a little stroll before lunch, Mr Wilkins did not stay with Lady Caroline – as most of the men she had known would, she was afraid, have wanted to – he asked to be permitted to go and stroll with her, so that he evidently definitely preferred conversation to faces. A sensible, companionable man. A clever, well-read man. A man of the world. A man. She was very glad indeed she had not written to Kate the other day. What did she want with Kate? She had found a better companion.
But Mr Wilkins did not go with Mrs Fisher because of her conversation, but because, when she got up, and he got up because she got up, intending merely to bow her out of the recess, Lady Caroline had put her feet up on the parapet again, and arranging her head sideways in the cushions, had shut her eyes.
The daughter of the Droitwiches desired to go to sleep.
It was not for him, by remaining, to prevent her.
16
And so the second week began, and all was harmony. The arrival of Mr Wilkins, instead of – as three of the party had feared and the fourth had only been protected from fearing by her burning faith in the effect on him of San Salvatore – disturbing such harmony as there was, increased it. He fitted in. He was determined to please, and he did please. He was most amiable to his wife – not only in public, which she was used to, but in private, when he certainly wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t wanted to. He did want to. He was so much obliged to her, so much pleased with her, for making him acquainted with Lady Caroline, that he felt really fond of her. Also proud – for there must be, he reflected, a good deal more in her than he had supposed, for Lady Caroline to have become so intimate with her and so affectionate. And the more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he, affected in his turn, became really very nice himself – so that they went round and round, not in a vicious, but in a highly virtuous, circle.
Positively, for him, Mellersh petted her. There was at no time much pet in Mellersh, because he was by nature a cool man – yet such was the influence on him of, as Lotty supposed, San Salvatore, that in his second week he sometimes pinched both her ears, one after the other, instead of only one, and Lotty, marvelling at such rapidly developing affectionateness, wondered what he would do, should he continue at this rate, in the third week, when her supply of ears would have come to an end.
He was particularly nice about the washstand, and genuinely desirous of not taking up too much of the space in the small bedroom. Quick to respond, Lotty was even more desirous not to be in his way, and the room became the scene of many an affectionate combat de générosité, each of which left them more pleased with each other than ever. He did
not again have a bath in the bathroom, though it was mended and ready for him, but got up and went down every morning to the sea, and in spite of the cool nights making the water cold early, had his dip as a man should, and came up to breakfast rubbing his hands and feeling, as he told Mrs Fisher, prepared for anything.
Lotty’s belief in the irresistible influence of the heavenly atmosphere of San Salvatore being thus obviously justified, and Mr Wilkins, whom Rose knew as alarming and Scrap had pictured as icily unkind, being so evidently a changed man, both Rose and Scrap began to think there might after all be something in what Lotty insisted on, and that San Salvatore did work purgingly on the character.
They were the more inclined to think so in that they too felt a working going on inside themselves: they felt more cleared, both of them, that second week – Scrap in her thoughts, many of which were now quite nice thoughts, real amiable ones about her parents and relations, with a glimmer in them of recognition of the extraordinary benefits she had received at the hands of – what? Fate? Providence? – anyhow of something, and of how, having received them, she had misused them by failing to be happy; and Rose in her bosom, which though it still yearned, yearned to some purpose, for she was reaching the conclusion that merely inactively to yearn was no use at all, and that she must either by some means stop her yearning or give it at least a chance – remote, but still a chance – of being quieted by writing to Frederick and asking him to come out.
If Mr Wilkins could be changed, thought Rose, why not Frederick? How wonderful it would be, how too wonderful, if the place worked on him too and were able to make them even a little understand each other, even a little be friends. Rose, so far had loosening and disintegration gone on in her character, now was beginning to think her obstinate strait-lacedness about his books and her austere absorption in good works had been foolish and perhaps even wrong. He was her husband, and she had frightened him away. She had frightened love away, precious love, and that couldn’t be good. Was not Lotty right when she said the other day that nothing at all except love mattered? Nothing certainly seemed much use unless it was built up on love. But once frightened away, could it ever come back? Yes, it might in that beauty, it might in the atmosphere of happiness Lotty and San Salvatore seemed between them to spread round like some divine infection.
The Enchanted April Page 17
