Chapter 14

That first week the wistaria began to fade, and the flowers of the

Judas-tree and peach-trees fell off and carpeted the ground with

rose-colour. Then all the freesias disappeared, and the irises grew

scarce. And then, while these were clearing themselves away, the double

banksia roses came out, and the big summer roses suddenly flaunted

gorgeously on the walls and trellises. Fortune’s Yellow was one of

them; a very beautiful rose. Presently the tamarisk and the daphnes

were at their best, and the lilies at their tallest. By the end of the

week the fig-trees were giving shade, the plum-blossom was out among

the olives, the modest weigelias appeared in their fresh pink clothes,

and on the rocks sprawled masses of thick-leaved, star-shaped flowers,

some vivid purple and some a clear, pale lemon.

By the end of the week, too, Mr. Wilkins arrived; even as his wife had

foreseen he would, so he did. And there were signs almost of eagerness

about his acceptance of her suggestion, for he had not waited to write

a letter in answer to hers, but had telegraphed.

That, surely, was eager. It showed, Scrap thought, a definite wish for

reunion; and watching his wife’s happy face, and aware of her desire

that Mellersh should enjoy his holiday, she told herself that he would

be a very unusual fool should he waste his time bothering about anybody

else. “If he isn’t nice to her,” Scrap thought, “he shall be taken to

the battlements and tipped over.” For, by the end of the week, she and

Mrs. Wilkins had become Caroline and Lotty to each other, and were

friends.

Mrs. Wilkins had always been friends, but Scrap had struggled not to

be. She had tried hard to be cautious, but how difficult was caution

with Mrs. Wilkins! Free herself from every vestige of it, she was so

entirely unreserved, so completely expansive, that soon Scrap, almost

before she knew what she was doing, was being unreserved too. And

nobody could be more unreserved than Scrap, once she let herself go.

The only difficulty about Lotty was that she was nearly always

somewhere else. You couldn’t catch her; you couldn’t pin her down to

come and talk. Scrap’s fears that she would grab seemed grotesque in

retrospect. Why, there was no grab in her. At dinner and after dinner

were the only times one really saw her. All day long she was invisible,

and would come back in the late afternoon looking a perfect sight, her

hair full of bits of moss, and her freckles worse than ever. Perhaps

she was making the most of her time before Mellersh arrived to do all

the things she wanted to do, and meant to devote herself afterwards to

going about with him, tidy and in her best clothes.

Scrap watched her, interested in spite of herself, because it seemed so

extraordinary to be as happy as all that on so little. San Salvatore

was beautiful, and the weather was divine; but scenery and weather had

never been enough for Scrap, and how could they be enough for somebody

who would have to leave them quite soon and go back to life in

Hampstead? Also, there was the imminence of Mellersh, of that Mellersh

from whom Lotty had so lately run. It was all very well to feel one

ought to share, and to make a _beau geste_ and do it, but the _beaux

gestes_ Scrap had known hadn’t made anybody happy. Nobody really liked

being the object of one, and it always meant an effort on the part of

the maker. Still, she had to admit there was no effort about Lotty; it

was quite plain that everything she did and said was effortless, and

that she was just simply, completely happy.

And so Mrs. Wilkins was; for her doubts as to whether she had had time

to become steady enough in serenity to go on being serene in Mellersh’s

company when she had it uninterruptedly right round the clock, had gone

by the middle of the week, and she felt that nothing now could shake

her. She was ready for anything. She was firmly grafted, rooted, built

into heaven. Whatever Mellersh said or did, she would not budge an inch

out of heaven, would not rouse herself a single instant to come outside

it and be cross. On the contrary, she was going to pull him up into it

beside her, and they would sit comfortably together, suffused in light,

and laugh at how much afraid of him she used to be in Hampstead, and at

how deceitful her afraidness had made her. But he wouldn’t need much

pulling. He would come in quite naturally after a day or two,

irresistibly wafted on the scented breezes of that divine air; and

there he would sit arrayed in stars, thought Mrs. Wilkins, in whose

mind, among much other _débris_, floated occasional bright shreds of

poetry. She laughed to herself a little at the picture of Mellersh,

that top-hatted, black-coated, respectable family solicitor, arrayed in

stars, but she laughed affectionately, almost with a maternal pride in

how splendid he would look in such fine clothes. “Poor lamb,” she

murmured to herself affectionately. And added, “What he wants is a

thorough airing.”

This was during the first half of the week. By the beginning of the

last half, at the end of which Mr. Wilkins arrived, she left off even

assuring herself that she was unshakeable, that she was permeated

beyond altering by the atmosphere, she no longer thought of it or

noticed it; she took it for granted. If one may say so, and she

certainly said so, not only to herself but also to Lady Caroline, she

had found her celestial legs.

Contrary to Mrs. Fisher’s idea of the seemly—but of course contrary;

what else would one expect of Mrs. Wilkins?—she did not go to meet her

husband at Mezzago, but merely walked down to the point where Beppo’s

fly would leave him and his luggage in the street of Castagneto. Mrs.

Fisher disliked the arrival of Mr. Wilkins, and was sure that anybody

who could have married Mrs. Wilkins must be at least of an injudicious

disposition, but a husband, whatever his disposition, should be

properly met. Mr. Fisher had always been properly met. Never once in

his married life had he gone unmet at a station, nor had he ever not

been seen off. These observances, these courtesies, strengthened the

bonds of marriage, and made the husband feel he could rely on his

wife’s being always there. Always being there was the essential secret

for a wife. What would have become of Mr. Fisher if she had neglected

to act on this principle she preferred not to think. Enough things

became of him as it was; for whatever one’s care in stopping up,

married life yet seemed to contain chinks.

But Mrs. Wilkins took no pains. She just walked down the hill

singing—Mrs. Fisher could hear her—and picked up her husband in the

street as casually as if he were a pin. The three others, still in bed,

for it was not nearly time to get up, heard her as she passed beneath

their windows down the zigzag path to meet Mr. Wilkins, who was coming

by the morning train, and Scrap smiled, and Rose sighed, and Mrs.

Fisher rang her bell and desired Francesca to bring her her breakfast

in her room. All three had breakfast that day in their rooms, moved by

a common instinct to take cover.

Scrap always breakfasted in bed, but she had the same instinct for

cover, and during breakfast she made plans for spending the whole day

where she was. Perhaps, though, it wouldn’t be as necessary that day as

the next. That day, Scrap calculated, Mellersh would be provided for.

He would want to have a bath, and having a bath at San Salvatore was an

elaborate business, a real adventure if one had a hot one in the

bathroom, and it took a lot of time. It involved the attendance of the

entire staff—Domenico and the boy Giuseppe coaxing the patent stove to

burn, restraining it when it burnt too fiercely, using the bellows to

it when it threatened to go out, relighting it when it did go out;

Francesca anxiously hovering over the tap regulating its trickle,

because if it were turned on too full the water instantly ran cold, and

if not full enough the stove blew up inside and mysteriously flooded

the house; and Costanza and Angela running up and down bringing pails

of hot water from the kitchen to eke out what the tap did.

This bath had been put in lately, and was at once the pride and the

terror of the servants. It was very patent. Nobody quite understood it.

There were long printed instructions as to its right treatment hanging

on the wall, in which the word _pericoloso_ recurred. When Mrs. Fisher,

proceeding on her arrival to the bathroom, saw this word, she went back

to her room again and ordered a sponge-bath instead; and when the

others found what using the bathroom meant, and how reluctant the

servants were to leave them alone with the stove, and how Francesca

positively refused to, and stayed with her back turned watching the

tap, and how the remaining servants waited anxiously outside the door

till the bather came safely out again, they too had sponge-baths

brought into their rooms instead.

Mr. Wilkins, however, was a man, and would be sure to want a big bath.

Having it, Scrap calculated, would keep him busy for a long while. Then

he would unpack, and then, after his night in the train, he would

probably sleep till the evening. So would he be provided for the whole

of that day, and not be let loose on them till dinner.

Therefore Scrap came to the conclusion she would be quite safe in the

garden that day, and got up as usual after breakfast, and dawdled as

usual through her dressing, listening with a slightly cocked ear to

the sounds of Mr. Wilkins’s arrival, of his luggage being carried into

Lotty’s room on the other side of the landing, of his educated voice

as he inquired of Lotty, first, “Do I give this fellow anything?” and

immediately afterwards, “Can I have a hot bath?”—of Lotty’s voice

cheerfully assuring him that he needn’t give the fellow anything

because he was the gardener, and that yes, he could have a hot bath;

and soon after this the landing was filled with the familiar noises of

wood being brought, of water being brought, of feet running, of tongues

vociferating—in fact, with the preparation of the bath.

Scrap finished dressing, and then loitered at her window, waiting till

she should hear Mr. Wilkins go into the bathroom. When he was safely

there she would slip out and settle herself in her garden and resume

her inquiries into the probable meaning of her life. She was getting on

with her inquiries. She dozed much less frequently, and was beginning

to be inclined to agree that tawdry was the word to apply to her past.

Also she was afraid that her future looked black.

There—she could hear Mr. Wilkins’s educated voice again. Lotty’s door

had opened, and he was coming out of it asking his way to the bathroom.

“It’s where you see the crowd,” Lotty’s voice answered—still a cheerful

voice, Scrap was glad to notice.

His steps went along the landing, and Lotty’s steps seemed to go

downstairs, and then there seemed to be a brief altercation at the

bathroom door—hardly so much an altercation as a chorus of

vociferations on one side and a wordless determination, Scrap judged, to

have a bath by oneself on the other.

Mr. Wilkins knew no Italian, and the expression _pericoloso_ left

him precisely as it found him—or would have if he had seen it, but

naturally he took no notice of the printed matter on the wall. He

firmly closed the door on the servants, resisting Domenico, who tried

to the last to press through, and locked himself in as a man should for

his bath, judicially considering, as he made his simple preparations

for getting in, the singular standard of behaviour of these foreigners

who, both male and female, apparently wished to stay with him while

he bathed. In Finland, he had heard, the female natives not only

were present on such occasions but actually washed the bath-taking

traveller. He had not heard, however, that this was true too of Italy,

which somehow seemed much nearer civilisation—perhaps because one went

there, and did not go to Finland.

Impartially examining this reflection, and carefully balancing the

claims to civilisation of Italy and Finland, Mr. Wilkins got into the

bath and turned off the tap. Naturally he turned off the tap. It was

what one did. But on the instructions, printed in red letters, was a

paragraph saying that the tap should not be turned off as long as there

was still fire in the stove. It should be left on—not much on, but

on—until the fire was quite out; otherwise, and here again was the word

_pericoloso_, the stove would blow up.

Mr. Wilkins got into the bath, turned off the tap, and the stove blew

up, exactly as the printed instructions said it would. It blew up,

fortunately, only in its inside, but it blew up with a terrific noise,

and Mr. Wilkins leapt out of the bath and rushed to the door, and only

the instinct born of years of training made him snatch up a towel as he

rushed.

Scrap, half-way across the landing on her way out of doors, heard the

explosion.

“Good heavens,” she thought, remembering the instructions, “there goes

Mr. Wilkins!”

And she ran toward the head of the stairs to call the servants, and as

she ran, out ran Mr. Wilkins clutching his towel, and they ran into

each other.

“That damned bath!” cried Mr. Wilkins, perhaps for the only time in his

life forgetting himself; but he was upset.

Here was an introduction. Mr Wilkins, imperfectly concealed in his

towel, his shoulders exposed at one end and his legs at the other, and

Lady Caroline Dester, to meet whom he had swallowed all his anger with

his wife and come out to Italy.

For Lotty in her letter had told him who was at San Salvatore besides

herself and Mrs. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Wilkins at once had perceived that

this was an opportunity which might never recur. Lotty had merely said,

“There are two other women here, Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester,”

but that was enough. He knew all about the Droitwiches, their wealth,

their connections, their place in history, and the power they had,

should they choose to exert it, of making yet another solicitor happy

by adding him to those they already employed. Some people employed one

solicitor for one branch of their affairs, and another for another. The

affairs of the Droitwiches must have many branches. He had also

heard—for it was, he considered, part of his business to hear, and

having heard to remember—of the beauty of their only daughter. Even if

the Droitwiches themselves did not need his services, their daughter

might. Beauty led one into strange situations; advice could never come

amiss. And should none of them, neither parents nor daughter nor any of

their brilliant sons, need him in his professional capacity, it yet was

obviously a most valuable acquaintance to make. It opened up vistas. It

swelled with possibilities. He might go on living in Hampstead for

years, and not again come across such another chance.

Directly his wife’s letter reached him he telegraphed and packed. This

was business. He was not a man to lose time when it came to business;

nor was he a man to jeopardise a chance by neglecting to be amiable. He

met his wife perfectly amiably, aware that amiability under such

circumstances was wisdom. Besides, he actually felt amiable—very. For

once, Lotty was really helping him. He kissed her affectionately on

getting out of Beppo’s fly, and was afraid she must have got up

extremely early; he made no complaints of the steepness of the walk up;

he told her pleasantly of his journey, and when called upon, obediently

admired the views. It was all neatly mapped out in his mind, what he

was going to do that first day—have a shave, have a bath, put on clean

clothes, sleep a while, and then would come lunch and the introduction

to Lady Caroline.

In the train he had selected the words of his greeting, going over them

with care—some slight expression of his gratification in meeting one of

whom he, in common with the whole world, had heard—but of course put

delicately, very delicately; some slight reference to her distinguished

parents and the part her family had played in the history of

England—made, of course, with proper tact; a sentence or two about her

eldest brother Lord Winchcombe, who had won his V.C. in the late war

under circumstances which could only cause—he might or might not add

this—every Englishman’s heart to beat higher than ever with pride, and

the first steps towards what might well be the turning-point in his

career would have been taken.

And here he was . . . no, it was too terrible, what could be more

terrible? Only a towel on, water running off his legs, and that

exclamation. He knew at once the lady was Lady Caroline—the minute the

exclamation was out he knew it. Rarely did Mr. Wilkins use that word,

and never, never in the presence of a lady or a client. While as for

the towel—why had he come? Why had he not stayed in Hampstead? It would

be impossible to live this down.

But Mr. Wilkins was reckoning without Scrap. She, indeed, screwed up

her face at the first flash of him on her astonished sight in an

enormous effort not to laugh, and having choked the laughter down and

got her face serious again, she said as composedly as if he had had all

his clothes on, “How do you do.”

What perfect tact. Mr. Wilkins could have worshipped her. This

exquisite ignoring. Blue blood, of course, coming out.

Overwhelmed with gratitude he took her offered hand and said “How do

you do,” in his turn, and merely to repeat the ordinary words seemed

magically to restore the situation to the normal. Indeed, he was so

much relieved, and it was so natural to be shaking hands, to be

conventionally greeting, that he forgot he had only a towel on and his

professional manner came back to him. He forgot what he was looking

like, but he did not forget that this was Lady Caroline Dester, the

lady he had come all the way to Italy to see, and he did not forget

that it was in her face, her lovely and important face, that he had

flung his terrible exclamation. He must at once entreat her

forgiveness. To say such a word to a lady—to any lady, but of all

ladies to just this one . . .

“I’m afraid I used unpardonable language,” began Mr. Wilkins very

earnestly, as earnestly and ceremoniously as if he had had his clothes

on.

“I thought it most appropriate,” said Scrap, who was used to damns.

Mr. Wilkins was incredibly relieved and soothed by this answer. No

offence, then, taken. Blue blood again. Only blue blood could afford

such a liberal, such an understanding attitude.

“It is Lady Caroline Dester, is it not, to whom I am speaking?” he

asked, his voice sounding even more carefully cultivated than usual,

for he had to restrain too much pleasure, too much relief, too much of

the joy of the pardoned and the shriven from getting into it.

“Yes,” said Scrap; and for the life of her she couldn’t help smiling.

She couldn’t help it. She hadn’t meant to smile at Mr. Wilkins, not

ever; but really he looked—and then his voice on the top of the rest

of him, oblivious of the towel and his legs, and talking just like a

church.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” said Mr. Wilkins, with the ceremony of

the drawing-room. “My name is Mellersh-Wilkins.”

And he instinctively held out his hand a second time at the words.

“I thought perhaps it was,” said Scrap, a second time having hers

shaken and a second time unable not to smile.

He was about to proceed to the first of the graceful tributes he had

prepared in the train, oblivious, as he could not see himself, that he

was without his clothes, when the servants came running up the stairs

and, simultaneously, Mrs. Fisher appeared in the doorway of her

sitting-room. For all this had happened very quickly, and the servants

away in the kitchen, and Mrs. Fisher pacing her battlements, had not

had time on hearing the noise to appear before the second handshake.

The servants when they heard the dreaded noise knew at once what had

happened, and rushed straight into the bathroom to try and staunch the

flood, taking no notice of the figure on the landing in the towel, but

Mrs. Fisher did not know what the noise could be, and coming out of her

room to inquire stood rooted on the door-sill.

It was enough to root anybody. Lady Caroline shaking hands with what

evidently, if he had had clothes on, would have been Mrs. Wilkins’s

husband, and both of them conversing just as if—

Then Scrap became aware of Mrs. Fisher. She turned to her at once. “Do

let me,” she said gracefully, “introduce Mr. Mellersh-Wilkins. He has

just come. This,” she added, turning to Mr. Wilkins, “is Mrs. Fisher.”

And Mr. Wilkins, nothing if not courteous, reacted at once to the

conventional formula. First he bowed to the elderly lady in the

doorway, then he crossed over to her, his wet feet leaving footprints

as he went, and having got to her he politely held out his hand.

“It is a pleasure,” said Mr. Wilkins in his carefully modulated voice,

“to meet a friend of my wife’s.”

Scrap melted away down into the garden.