Chapter 15
The strange effect of this incident was that when they met thatevening at dinner both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline had a singularfeeling of secret understanding with Mr. Wilkins. He could not be tothem as other men. He could not be to them as he would have been ifthey had met him in his clothes. There was a sense of broken ice; theyfelt at once intimate and indulgent; almost they felt to him as nursesdo--as those feel who have assisted either patients or young childrenat their baths. They were acquainted with Mr. Wilkins's legs.
What Mrs. Fisher said to him that morning in her first shock willnever be known, but what Mr. Wilkins said to her in reply, whenreminded by what she was saying of his condition, was so handsome inits apology, so proper in its confusion, that she had ended by beingquite sorry for him and completely placated. After all, it was anaccident, and nobody could help accidents. And when she saw him nextat dinner, dressed, polished, spotless as to linen and sleek as tohair, she felt this singular sensation of a secret understanding withhim and, added to it, of a kind of almost personal pride in hisappearance, now that he was dressed, which presently extended in somesubtle way to an almost personal pride in everything he said.
There was no doubt whatever in Mrs. Fisher's mind that a man wasinfinitely preferable as a companion to a woman. Mr. Wilkins'spresence and conversation at once raised the standard of thedinner-table from that of a bear garden--yes, a bear garden--tothat of a civilized social gathering. He talked as men talk, aboutinteresting subjects, and, though most courteous to Lady Caroline,showed no traces of dissolving into simpers and idiocy whenever headdressed her. He was, indeed, precisely as courteous to Mrs. Fisherherself; and when for the first time at that table politics wereintroduced, he listened to her with the proper seriousness on herexhibiting a desire to speak, and treated her opinions with theattention they deserved. He appeared to think much as she did aboutLloyd George, and in regard to literature he was equally sound. Infact there was real conversation, and he liked nuts. How he couldhave married Mrs. Wilkins was a mystery.
Lotty, for her part, looked on with round eyes. She had expectedMellersh to take at least two days before he got to this stage, but theSan Salvatore spell had worked instantly. It was not only that he waspleasant at dinner, for she had always seen him pleasant at dinnerswith other people, but he had been pleasant all day privately--sopleasant that he had complimented her on her looks while she wasbrushing out her hair, and kissed her. Kissed her! And it was neithergood-morning nor good-night.
Well, this being so, she would put off telling him the truthabout her nest-egg, and about Rose not being his hostess after all,till next day. Pity to spoil things. She had been going to blurt itout as soon as he had had a rest, but it did seem a pity to disturbsuch a very beautiful frame of mind as that of Mellersh this first day.Let him too get more firmly fixed in heaven. Once fixed he wouldn'tmind anything.
Her face sparkled with delight at the instantaneous effect of SanSalvatore. Even the catastrophe of the bath, of which she had beentold when she came in from the garden, had not shaken him. Of courseall that he had needed was a holiday. What a brute she had been to himwhen he wanted to take her himself to Italy. But this arrangement, asit happened, was ever so much better, though not through any merit ofhers. She talked and laughed gaily, not a shred of fear of him left inher, and even when she said, struck by his spotlessness, that he lookedso clean that one could eat one's dinner off him, and Scrap laughed,Mellersh laughed too. He would have minded that at home, supposingthat at home she had had the spirit to say it.
It was a successful evening. Scrap, whenever she looked at Mr.Wilkins, saw him in his towel, dripping water, and felt indulgent.Mrs. Fisher was delighted with him. Rose was a dignified hostess inMr. Wilkins's eyes, quiet and dignified, and he admired the way shewaived her right to preside at the head of the table--as a gracefulcompliment, of course, to Mrs. Fisher's age. Mrs. Arbuthnot was,opined Mr. Wilkins, naturally retiring. She was the most retiring ofthe three ladies. He had met her before dinner alone for a moment inthe drawing-room, and had expressed in appropriate language his senseof her kindness in wishing him to join her party, and she had beenretiring. Was she shy? Probably. She had blushed, and murmured as ifin deprecation, and then the others had come in. At dinner she talkedleast. He would, of course, become better acquainted with her duringthe next few days, and it would be a pleasure, he was sure.
Meanwhile Lady Caroline was all and more than all Mr. Wilkins hadimagined, and had received his speeches, worked in skillfully betweenthe courses, graciously; Mrs. Fisher was the exact old lady he had beenhoping to come across all his professional life; and Lotty had not onlyimmensely improved, but was obviously au mieux--Mr. Wilkins knew whatwas necessary in French--with Lady Caroline. He had been muchtormented during the day by the thought of how he had stood conversingwith Lady Caroline forgetful of his not being dressed, and had at lastwritten her a note most deeply apologizing, and beseeching her tooverlook his amazing, his incomprehensible obliviousness, to which shehad replied in pencil on the back of the envelop, "Don't worry." Andhe had obeyed her commands, and had put it from him. The result was hewas now in great contentment. Before going to sleep that night hepinched his wife's ear. She was amazed. These endearments . . .
What is more, the morning brought no relapse in Mr. Wilkins, andhe kept up to his high level through out the day, in spite of its beingthe first day of the second week, and therefore pay day.
It being pay day precipitated Lotty's confession, which she had,when it came to the point, been inclined to put off a little longer.She was not afraid, she dared anything, but Mellersh was in such anadmirable humour--why risk clouding it just yet? When, however, soonafter breakfast Costanza appeared with a pile of very dirty little bitsof paper covered with sums in pencil, and having knocked at Mrs.Fisher's door and been sent away, and at Lady Caroline's door and beensent away, and at Rose's door and had no answer because Rose had goneout, she waylaid Lotty, who was showing Mellersh over the house, andpointed to the bits of paper and talked very rapidly and loud, andshrugged her shoulders a great deal, and kept on pointing at the bitsof paper, Lotty remembered that a week had passed without anybodypaying anything to anyone, and that the moment had come to settle up.
"Does this good lady want something?" inquired Mr. Wilkinsmellifluously.
"Money," said Lotty.
"Money?"
"It's the housekeeping bills."
"Well, you have nothing to do with those," said Mr. Wilkinsserenely.
"Oh yes, I have--"
And the confession was precipitated.
It was wonderful how Mellersh took it. One would have imaginedthat his sole idea about the nest-egg had always been that it should belavished on just this. He did not, as he would have done at home,cross-examine her; he accepted everything as it came pouring out, abouther fibs and all, and when she had finished and said, "You have everyright to be angry, I think, but I hope you won't be and will forgive meinstead," he merely asked, "What can be more beneficial than such aholiday?"
Whereupon she put her arm through his and held it tight and said,"Oh, Mellersh, you really are too sweet!"--her face red with pride inhim.
That he should so quickly assimilate the atmosphere, that heshould at once become nothing but kindness, showed surely what a realaffinity he had with good and beautiful things. He belonged quitenaturally in this place of heavenly calm. He was--extraordinary howshe had misjudged him--by nature a child of light. Fancy not mindingthe dreadful fibs she had gone in for before leaving home; fancypassing even those over without comment. Wonderful. Yet notwonderful, for wasn't he in heaven? In heaven nobody minded any ofthose 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 andappreciation and though he did not withdraw his, neither did herespond to her pressure. Mr. Wilkins was of a cool habit, and rarelyhad 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 markeddown 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, bymeans of putting on a hat and veil and feather boa and gloves, to gofor her first stroll in the lower garden--positively her first sinceher arrival--she explained that unless she was given money to pay thelast week's bills the shops of Castagneto would refuse credit for thecurrent week's food. Not even credit would they give, affirmedCostanza, who had been spending a great deal and was anxious to pay allher relations what was owed them and also to find out how hermistresses took it, for that day's meals. Soon it would be the hour ofcolazione, 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 thetotal; and she was so much astonished by its size, so much horrified bythe extravagance to which it testified, that she sat down at herwriting-table to go into the thing thoroughly.
Costanza had a very bad half-hour. She had not supposed it wasin the English to be so mercenary. And then la Vecchia, as she wascalled in the kitchen, knew so much Italian, and with a doggedness thatfilled Costanza with shame on her behalf, for such conduct was the lastone 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 oneglorious week of doing exactly as she chose, of splendid unbridledlicence, and that this was the result.
Costanza, having no explanations, wept. It was miserable tothink she would have to cook from now on under watchfulness, undersuspicion and what would her relations say when they found the ordersthey 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 splendidItalian, with the roll of the cantos of the Inferno, she informed herthat she would pay no bills till the following week, and that meanwhilethe food was to be precisely as good as ever, and at a quarter thecost.
Costanza threw up her hands.
Next week, proceeded Mrs. Fisher unmoved, if she found this hadbeen so she would pay the whole. Otherwise--she paused; for what shewould do otherwise she did not know herself. But she paused and lookedimpenetrable, majestic and menacing, and Costanza was cowed.
Then Mrs. Fisher, having dismissed her with a gesture, went insearch of Lady Caroline to complain. She had been under the impressionthat Lady Caroline ordered the meals and therefore was responsible forthe prices, but now it appeared that the cook had been left to doexactly as she pleased ever since they got there, which of course wassimply disgraceful.
Scrap was not in her bedroom, but the room, on Mrs. Fisher'sopening the door, for she suspected her of being in it and onlypretending not to hear the knock, was still flowerlike from herpresence.
"Scent," sniffed Mrs. Fisher, shutting it again; and she wishedCarlyle could have had five minutes' straight talk with this youngwoman. And yet--perhaps even he--
She went downstairs to go into the garden in search of her, andin the hall encountered Mr. Wilkins. He had his hat on, and waslighting a cigar.
Indulgent as Mrs. Fisher felt towards Mr. Wilkins, and peculiarlyand even mystically related after the previous morning's encounter, sheyet 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, toindulge the habit indoors. Even Mr. Fisher, who had been, she shouldsay, a man originally tenacious of habits, had quite soon aftermarriage 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 jarof arum lilies presumably contain, and Mrs. Fisher, aware of the valuemen attach to their newly-lit cigars, could not but be impressed bythis 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-lookingobject.
"Where are you going to, my prett--" began Mr. Wilkins, advancingtowards Mrs. Fisher; but he broke off just in time.
Was it morning spirits impelling him to address Mrs. Fisher inthe terms of a nursery rhyme? He wasn't even aware that he knew thething. Most strange. What could have put it, at such a moment, intohis self-possessed head? He felt great respect for Mrs. Fisher, andwould 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 awoman of parts, and also, he suspected, of property. At breakfast theyhad been most pleasant together, and he had been struck by her apparentintimacy with well-known persons. Victorians, of course; but it wasrestful to talk about them after the strain of his brother-in-law'sGeorgian parties on Hampstead Heath. He and she were getting onfamously, he felt. She already showed all the symptoms of presentlywishing 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 shouldshe confirm his assumption to accompany her.
"I want to find Lady Caroline," said Mrs. Fisher, going towardsthe glass door leading into the top garden.
"An agreeable quest," remarked Mr. Wilkins, "May I assist in thesearch? Allow me--" he added, opening the door for her.
"She usually sits over in that corner behind the bushes," saidMrs. Fisher. "And I don't know about it being an agreeable quest. Shehas been letting the bills run up in the most terrible fashion, andneeds a good scolding."
"Lady Caroline?" said Mr. Wilkins, unable to follow such anattitude. "What has Lady Caroline, if I may inquire, to do with thebills here?"
"The housekeeping was left to her, and as we all share alike itought to have been a matter of honour with her--"
"But--Lady Caroline housekeeping for the party here? A partywhich includes my wife? My dear lady, you render me speechless. Doyou not know she is the daughter of the Droitwiches?"
"Oh, is that who she is," said Mrs. Fisher, scrunching heavilyover the pebbles towards the hidden corner. "Well, that accounts forit. The muddle that man Droitwich made in his department in the warwas a national scandal. It amounted to misappropriation of the publicfunds."
"But it is impossible, I assure you, to expect the daughter ofthe Droitwiches--" began Mr. Wilkins earnestly.
"The Droitwiches," interrupted Mrs. Fisher, "are neither here northere. Duties undertaken should be performed. I don't intend my moneyto be squandered for the sake of any Droitwiches."
A headstrong old lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as hehad hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealthwould make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches.Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, andhad described her house as a mausoleum with gold-fish swimming about init; but now he was sure she was more than very well off. Still, hewished he had not joined her at this moment, for he had no sort ofdesire to be present at such a spectacle as the scolding of LadyCaroline Dester.
Again, however, he was reckoning without Scrap. Whatever shefelt when she looked up and beheld Mr. Wilkins discovering her corneron the very first morning, nothing but angelicness appeared on herface. She took her feet off the parapet on Mrs. Fisher's sitting downon it, and listening gravely to her opening remarks as to her nothaving any money to fling about in reckless and uncontrolled householdexpenditure, interrupted her flow by pulling one of the cushions frombehind her head and offering it to her.
"Sit on this," said Scrap, holding it out. "You'll be morecomfortable."
Mr. Wilkins leapt to relieve her of it.
"Oh, thanks," said Mrs. Fisher, interrupted.
It was difficult to get into the swing again. Mr. Wilkinsinserted the cushion solicitously between the slightly raised Mr
s.Fisher and the stone of the parapet, and again she had to say "Thanks."It was interrupted. Besides, Lady Caroline said nothing in herdefence; she only looked at her, and listened with the face of anattentive angel.
It seemed to Mr. Wilkins that it must be difficult to scold aDester who looked like that and so exquisitely said nothing. Mrs.Fisher, he was glad to see, gradually found it difficult herself, forher severity slackened, and she ended by saying lamely, "You ought tohave 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 proposeto 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 hissuavest professional manner, "to make a suggestion"--they both lookedat him, and remembering him as they first saw him felt indulgent-- "Iwould advise you not to spoil a delightful holiday with worries overhousekeeping."
"Exactly," said Mrs. Fisher. "It is what I intend to avoid."
"Most sensible," said Mr. Wilkins. "Why not, then," hecontinued, "allow the cook--an excellent cook, by the way--so much ahead per diem"--Mr. Wilkins knew what was necessary in Latin--"andtell her that for this sum she must cater for you, and not only caterbut cater as well as ever? One could easily reckon it out. Thecharges 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. "Theterrible bills of this first week? What about them?"
"They shall be my present to San Salvatore," said Scrap, whodidn't like the idea of Lotty's nest-egg being reduced so much beyondwhat she was prepared for.
There was a silence. The ground was cut from under Mrs. Fisher'sfeet.
"Of course if you choose to throw your money about--" she said at last,disapproving but immensely relieved, while Mr. Wilkins was rapt in thecontemplation of the precious qualities of blue blood. This readiness,for instance, not to trouble about money, this free-handedness--itwas not only what one admired in others, admired in others perhapsmore than anything else, but it was extraordinarily useful to theprofessional classes. When met with it should be encouraged by warmthof reception. Mrs. Fisher was not warm. She accepted--from whichhe deduced that with her wealth went closeness--but she acceptedgrudgingly. Presents were presents, and one did not look them in thismanner in the mouth, he felt; and if Lady Caroline found her pleasurein presenting his wife and Mrs. Fisher with their entire food fora week, it was their part to accept gracefully. One should notdiscourage gifts.
On behalf of his wife, then, Mr. Wilkins expressed what she wouldwish to express, and remarking to Lady Caroline--with a touch oflightness, for so should gifts be accepted in order to avoidembarrassing the donor--that she had in that case been his wife'shostess since her arrival, he turned almost gaily to Mrs. Fisher andpointed out that she and his wife must now jointly write Lady Carolinethe customary latter of thanks for hospitality. "A Collins," said Mr.Wilkins, who knew what was necessary in literature. "I prefer the nameCollins for such a letter to either that of Board and Lodging or Breadand Butter. Let us call it a Collins."
Scrap smiled, and held out her cigarette case. Mrs. Fisher couldnot 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 topay for it; also a way was found out of housekeeping. For a moment shehad thought that if everybody tried to force her into housekeeping onher brief holiday by their own indifference (Lady Caroline), orinability to speak Italian (the other two), she would have to send forKate Lumley after all. Kate could do it. Kate and she had learntItalian together. Kate would only be allowed to come on condition thatshe did do it.
But this was much better, this way of Mr. Wilkins's. Really amost superior man. There was nothing like an intelligent, not tooyoung man for profitable and pleasurable companionship. And when shegot up, the business for which she had come being settled, and said shenow intended to take a little stroll before lunch, Mr. Wilkins did notstay with Lady Caroline, as most of the men she had known would, shewas afraid, have wanted to--he asked to be permitted to go and strollwith her; so that he evidently definitely preferred conversation tofaces. A sensible, companionable man. A clever, well-read man. A manof the world. A man. She was very glad indeed she had not written toKate the other day. What did she want with Kate? She had found abetter companion.
But Mr. Wilkins did not go with Mrs. Fisher because of herconversation, but because, when she got up and he got up because shegot up, intending merely to bow her out of the recess, Lady Carolinehad put her feet up on the parapet again, and arranging her headsideways 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.
The Enchanted April Page 15