Chapter 18

They had a very pleasant walk, with a great deal of sitting down in

warm, thyme-fragrant corners, and if anything could have helped Rose to

recover from the bitter disappointment of the morning it would have

been the company and conversation of Mr. Briggs. He did help her to

recover, and the same process took place as that which Lotty had

undergone with her husband, and the more Mr. Briggs thought Rose

charming the more charming she became.

Briggs was a man incapable of concealments, who never lost time if he

could help it. They had not got to the end of the headland where the

lighthouse is—Briggs asked her to show him the lighthouse, because the

path to it, he knew, was wide enough for two to walk abreast and fairly

level—before he had told her of the impression she had made on him in

London.

Since even the most religious, sober women like to know they have made

an impression, particularly the kind that has nothing to do with

character or merits, Rose was pleased. Being pleased, she smiled.

Smiling, she was more attractive than ever. Colour came into her

cheeks, and brightness into her eyes. She heard herself saying things

that really sounded quite interesting and even amusing. If Frederick

were listening now, she thought, perhaps he would see that she couldn’t

after all be such a hopeless bore; for here was a man, nice-looking,

young, and surely clever—he seemed clever, and she hoped he was, for

then the compliment would be still greater—who was evidently quite

happy to spend the afternoon just talking to her.

And indeed Mr. Briggs seemed very much interested. He wanted to hear

all about everything she had been doing from the moment she got there.

He asked her if she had seen this, that, and the other in the house,

what she liked best, which room she had, if she were comfortable, if

Francesca was behaving, if Domenico took care of her, and whether she

didn’t enjoy using the yellow sitting-room—the one that got all the sun

and looked out towards Genoa.

Rose was ashamed how little she had noticed in the house, and how few

of the things he spoke of as curious or beautiful in it she had even

seen. Swamped in thoughts of Frederick, she appeared to have lived in

San Salvatore blindly, and more than half the time had gone, and what

had been the good of it? She might just as well have been sitting

hankering on Hampstead Heath. No, she mightn’t; through all her

hankerings she had been conscious that she was at least in the very

heart of beauty; and indeed it was this beauty, this longing to share

it, that had first started her off hankering.

Mr. Briggs, however, was too much alive for her to be able to spare any

attention at this moment for Frederick, and she praised the servants in

answer to his questions, and praised the yellow sitting-room without

telling him she had only been in it once and then was ignominiously

ejected, and she told him she knew hardly anything about art and

curiosities, but thought perhaps if somebody would tell her about them

she would know more, and she said she had spent every day since her

arrival out-of-doors, because out-of-doors there was so very wonderful

and different from anything she had ever seen.

Briggs walked by her side along his paths that were yet so happily for

the moment her paths, and felt all the innocent glows of family life.

He was an orphan and an only child, and had a warm, domestic

disposition. He would have adored a sister and spoilt a mother, and was

beginning at this time to think of marrying; for though he had been

very happy with his various loves, each of whom, contrary to the usual

experience, turned ultimately into his devoted friend, he was fond of

children and thought he had perhaps now got to the age of settling if

he did not wish to be too old by the time his eldest son was twenty.

San Salvatore had latterly seemed a little forlorn. He fancied it

echoed when he walked about it. He had felt lonely there; so lonely

that he had preferred this year to miss out a spring and let it. It

wanted a wife in it. It wanted that final touch of warmth and beauty,

for he never thought of his wife except in terms of warmth and

beauty—she would of course be beautiful and kind. It amused him how

much in love with this vague wife he was already.

At such a rate was he making friends with the lady with the sweet name

as he walked along the path towards the lighthouse, that he was sure

presently he would be telling her everything about himself and his past

doings and his future hopes; and the thought of such a swiftly

developing confidence made him laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked, looking at him and smiling.

“It’s so like coming home,” he said.

“But it is coming home for you to come here.”

“I mean _really_ like coming home. To one’s—one’s family. I never had a

family. I’m an orphan.”

“Oh, are you?” said Rose with the proper sympathy. “I hope you’ve not

been one very long. No—I mean I hope you have been one very long. No—I

don’t know what I mean, except that I’m sorry.”

He laughed again. “Oh I’m used to it. I haven’t anybody. No sisters or

brothers.”

“Then you’re an only child,” she observed intelligently.

“Yes. And there’s something about you that’s exactly my idea of a—of a

family.”

She was amused.

“So—cosy,” he said, looking at her and searching for a word.

“You wouldn’t think so if you saw my house in Hampstead,” she said, a

vision of that austere and hard-seated dwelling presenting itself to

her mind, with nothing soft in it except the shunned and neglected Du

Barri sofa. No wonder, she thought, for a moment clear-brained, that

Frederick avoided it. There was nothing cosy about _his_ family.

“I don’t believe any place you lived in could be anything but exactly

like you,” he said.

“You’re not going to pretend San Salvatore is like me?”

“Indeed I do pretend it. Surely you admit that it is beautiful?”

He said several things like that. She enjoyed her walk. She could not

recollect any walk so pleasant since her courting days.

She came back to tea, bringing Mr. Briggs, and looking quite different,

Mr. Wilkins noticed, from what she had looked till then. Trouble here,

trouble here, thought Mr. Wilkins, mentally rubbing his professional

hands. He could see himself being called in presently to advise. On the

one hand there was Arbuthnot, on the other hand here was Briggs.

Trouble brewing, trouble sooner or later. But why had Briggs’s telegram

acted on the lady like a blow? If she had turned pale from excess of

joy, then trouble was nearer than he had supposed. She was not pale

now; she was more like her name than he had yet seen her. Well, he was

the man for trouble. He regretted, of course, that people should get

into it, but being in he was their man.

And Mr. Wilkins, invigorated by these thoughts, his career being very

precious to him, proceeded to assist in doing the honours to Mr.

Briggs, both in his quality of sharer in the temporary ownership of San

Salvatore and of probable helper out of difficulties, with great

hospitality, and pointed out the various features of the place to him,

and led him to the parapet and showed him Mezzago across the bay.

Mrs. Fisher too was gracious. This was this young man’s house. He was a

man of property. She liked property, and she liked men of property.

Also there seemed a peculiar merit in being a man of property so young.

Inheritance, of course; and inheritance was more respectable than

acquisition. It did indicate fathers; and in an age where most people

appeared neither to have them nor to want them she liked this too.

Accordingly it was a pleasant meal, with everybody amiable and pleased.

Briggs thought Mrs. Fisher a dear old lady, and showed he thought so;

and again the magic worked, and she became a dear old lady. She

developed benignity with him, and a kind of benignity which was almost

playful—actually before tea was over including in some observation she

made him the words “My dear boy.”

Strange words in Mrs. Fisher’s mouth. It is doubtful whether in her

life she had used them before. Rose was astonished. How nice people

really were. When would she leave off making mistakes about them? She

hadn’t suspected this side of Mrs. Fisher, and she began to wonder

whether those other sides of her with which alone she was acquainted

had not perhaps after all been the effect of her own militant and

irritating behaviour. Probably they were. How horrid, then, she must

have been. She felt very penitent when she saw Mrs. Fisher beneath her

eyes blossoming out into real amiability the moment some one came along

who was charming to her, and she could have sunk into the ground with

shame when Mrs. Fisher presently laughed, and she realised by the shock

it gave her that the sound was entirely new. Not once before had she or

any one else there heard Mrs. Fisher laugh. What an indictment of the

lot of them! For they had all laughed, the others, some more and some

less, at one time or another since their arrival, and only Mrs. Fisher

had not. Clearly, since she could enjoy herself as she was now enjoying

herself, she had not enjoyed herself before. Nobody had cared whether

she did or not, except perhaps Lotty. Yes; Lotty had cared, and had

wanted her to be happy; but Lotty seemed to produce a bad effect on

Mrs. Fisher, while as for Rose herself she had never been with her for

five minutes without wanting, really wanting, to provoke and oppose

her.

How very horrid she had been. She had behaved unpardonably. Her

penitence showed itself in a shy and deferential solicitude towards

Mrs. Fisher which made the observant Briggs think her still more

angelic, and wish for a moment that he were an old lady himself in

order to be behaved to by Rose Arbuthnot just like that. There was

evidently no end, he thought, to the things she could do sweetly. He

would even not mind taking medicine, really nasty medicine, if it were

Rose Arbuthnot bending over him with the dose.

She felt his bright blue eyes, the brighter because he was so sunburnt,

fixed on her with a twinkle in them, and smiling asked him what he was

thinking about.

But he couldn’t very well tell her that, he said; and added, “Some

day.”

“Trouble, trouble,” thought Mr. Wilkins at this, again mentally rubbing

his hands. “Well, I’m their man.”

“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Fisher benignly, “you have no thoughts we may not

hear.”

“I’m sure,” said Briggs, “I would be telling you every one of my

secrets in a week.”

“You would be telling somebody very safe, then,” said Mrs. Fisher

benevolently—just such a son would she have liked to have had. “And in

return,” she went on, “I daresay I would tell you mine.”

“Ah no,” said Mr. Wilkins, adapting himself to this tone of easy

_badinage_, “I must protest. I really must. I have a prior claim, I am

the older friend. I have known Mrs. Fisher ten days, and you, Briggs,

have not yet known her one. I assert my right to be told her secrets

first. That is,” he added, bowing gallantly, “if she has any—which I

beg leave to doubt.”

“Oh, haven’t I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fisher, thinking of those green leaves.

That she should exclaim at all was surprising, but that she should do

it with gaiety was miraculous. Rose could only watch her in wonder.

“Then I shall worm them out,” said Briggs with equal gaiety.

“They won’t need much worming out,” said Mrs. Fisher. “My difficulty is

to keep them from bursting out.”

It might have been Lotty talking. Mr. Wilkins adjusted the single

eyeglass he carried with him for occasions like this, and examined Mrs.

Fisher carefully. Rose looked on, unable not to smile too since Mrs.

Fisher seemed so much amused, though Rose did not quite know why, and

her smile was a little uncertain, for Mrs. Fisher amused was a new

sight, not without its awe-inspiring aspects, and had to be got

accustomed to.

What Mrs. Fisher was thinking was how much surprised they would be if

she told them of her very odd and exciting sensation of going to come

out all over buds. They would think she was an extremely silly old

woman, and so would she have thought as lately as two days ago; but the

bud idea was becoming familiar to her, she was more _apprivoisée_ now,

as dear Matthew Arnold used to say, and though it would undoubtedly be

best if one’s appearance and sensations matched, yet supposing they did

not—and one couldn’t have everything—was it not better to feel young

somewhere rather than old everywhere? Time enough to be old everywhere

again, inside as well as out, when she got back to her sarcophagus in

Prince of Wales Terrace.

Yet it is probable that without the arrival of Briggs Mrs. Fisher would

have gone on secretly fermenting in her shell. The others only knew her

as severe. It would have been more than her dignity could bear suddenly

to relax—especially towards the three young women. But now came the

stranger Briggs, a stranger who at once took to her as no young man had

taken to her in her life, and it was the coming of Briggs and his real

and manifest appreciation—for just such a grandmother, thought Briggs,

hungry for home life and its concomitants, would he have liked to

have—that released Mrs. Fisher from her shell; and here she was at

last, as Lotty had predicted, pleased, good-humoured and benevolent.

Lotty, coming back half an hour later from her picnic, and following

the sound of voices into the top garden in the hope of still finding

tea, saw at once what had happened, for Mrs. Fisher at that very moment

was laughing.

“She’s burst her cocoon,” thought Lotty; and swift as she was in all

her movements, and impulsive, and also without any sense of propriety

to worry and delay her, she bent over the back of Mrs. Fisher’s chair

and kissed her.

“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Fisher, starting violently, for such a

thing had not happened to her since Mr. Fisher’s earlier days, and then

only gingerly. This kiss was a real kiss, and rested on Mrs. Fisher’s

cheek a moment with a strange, soft sweetness.

When she saw whose it was, a deep flush spread over her face. Mrs.

Wilkins kissing her and the kiss feeling so affectionate. . . Even if

she had wanted to she could not in the presence of the appreciative Mr.

Briggs resume her cast-off severity and begin rebuking again; but she

did not want to. Was it possible Mrs. Wilkins liked her—had liked her

all this time, while she had been so much disliking her herself? A

queer little trickle of warmth filtered through the frozen defences of

Mrs. Fisher’s heart. Somebody young kissing her—somebody young

_wanting_ to kiss her. . . Very much flushed, she watched the strange

creature, apparently quite unconscious she had done anything

extraordinary, shaking hands with Mr. Briggs, on her husband’s

introducing him, and immediately embarking on the friendliest

conversation with him, exactly as if she had known him all her life.

What a strange creature; what a very strange creature. It was natural,

she being so strange, that one should have, perhaps, misjudged her. . .

“I’m sure you want some tea,” said Briggs with eager hospitality to

Lotty. He thought her delightful,—freckles, picnic-untidiness and all.

Just such a sister would he—

“This is cold,” he said, feeling the teapot. “I’ll tell Francesca to

make you some fresh—”

He broke off and blushed. “Aren’t I forgetting myself,” he said,

laughing and looking round at them.

“Very natural, very natural,” Mr. Wilkins reassured him.

“I’ll go and tell Francesca,” said Rose, getting up.

“No, no,” said Briggs. “Don’t go away.” And he put his hands to his

mouth and shouted.

“Francesca!” shouted Briggs.

She came running. No summons in their experience had been answered by

her with such celerity.

“‘Her Master’s voice,’” remarked Mr. Wilkins; aptly, he considered.

“Make fresh tea,” ordered Briggs in Italian. “Quick—quick—” And then

remembering himself he blushed again, and begged everybody’s pardon.

“Very natural, very natural,” Mr. Wilkins reassured him.

Briggs then explained to Lotty what he had explained twice already,

once to Rose and once to the other two, that he was on his way to Rome

and thought he would get out at Mezzago and just look in to see if they

were comfortable and continue his journey the next day, staying the

night in an hotel at Mezzago.

“But how ridiculous,” said Lotty. “Of course you must stay here. It’s

your house. There’s Kate Lumley’s room,” she added, turning to Mrs.

Fisher. “You wouldn’t mind Mr. Briggs having it for one night? Kate

Lumley isn’t in it, you know,” she said turning to Briggs again and

laughing.

And Mrs. Fisher to her immense surprise laughed too. She knew that

at any other time this remark would have struck her as excessively

unseemly, and yet now she only thought it funny.

No indeed, she assured Briggs, Kate Lumley was not in that room. Very

fortunately, for she was an excessively wide person and the room was

excessively narrow. Kate Lumley might get into it, but that was about

all. Once in, she would fit it so tightly that probably she would never

be able to get out again. It was entirely at Mr. Briggs’s disposal, and

she hoped he would do nothing so absurd as go to an hotel—he, the owner

of the whole place.

Rose listened to this speech wide-eyed with amazement. Mrs. Fisher

laughed very much as she made it. Lotty laughed very much too, and at

the end of it bent down and kissed her again—kissed her several times.

“So you see, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Fisher, “you must stay here and

give us all a great deal of pleasure.”

“A great deal indeed,” corroborated Mr. Wilkins heartily.

“A very great deal,” repeated Mrs. Fisher, looking exactly like a

pleased mother.

“Do,” said Rose, on Briggs’s turning inquiringly to her.

“How kind of you all,” he said, his face broad with smiles. “I’d love

to be a guest here. What a new sensation. And with three such—”

He broke off and looked round. “I say,” he asked, “oughtn’t I to have a

fourth hostess? Francesca said she had four mistresses.”

“Yes. There’s Lady Caroline,” said Lotty.

“Then hadn’t we better find out first if she invites me too?”

“Oh, but she’s sure—” began Lotty.

“The daughter of the Droitwiches, Briggs,” said Mr. Wilkins, “is not

likely to be wanting in the proper hospitable impulses.”

“The daughter of the—” repeated Briggs; but he stopped dead, for there

in the doorway was the daughter of the Droitwiches herself; or rather,

coming towards him out of the dark doorway into the brightness of the

sunset, was that which he had not in his life yet seen but only dreamed

of, his ideal of absolute loveliness.