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 advertisement. 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 grass
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, an entirely new side of
God, 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. . . She sighed. “You mustn’t sigh in heaven,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “One doesn’t.” “I was thinking how one longs to share this with those one loves,” said Mrs.
Arbuthnot. “You mustn’t long in heaven,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “You’re supposed to be quite
complete there. And it is heaven, isn’t it, Rose? See how everything has been
let in together—the dandelions and the irises, the vulgar and the superior, me
and Mrs. Fisher—all welcome, all mixed up anyhow, and all so visibly happy and
enjoying ourselves.” “Mrs. Fisher doesn’t seem happy—not visibly, anyhow,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot,
smiling. “She’ll begin soon, you’ll see.” Mrs. Arbuthnot said she didn’t believe that after a certain age people began
anything. Mrs. Wilkins said she was sure no one, however old and tough, could resist the
effects of perfect beauty. Before many days, perhaps only hours, they would see
Mrs. Fisher bursting out into every kind of exuberance. “I’m quite sure,” said
Mrs. Wilkins, “that we’ve got to heaven, and once Mrs. Fisher realises that
that’s where she is, she’s bound to be different. You’ll see. She’ll leave off
being ossified, and go all soft and able to stretch, and we shall get
quite—why, I shouldn’t be surprised if we get quite fond of her.” The idea of Mrs. Fisher bursting out into anything, she who seemed so
particularly firmly fixed inside her buttons, made Mrs. Arbuthnot laugh. She
condoned Lotty’s loose way of talking of heaven, because in such a place, on
such a morning, condonation was in the very air. Besides, what an excuse there
was. And Lady Caroline, sitting where they had left her before breakfast on the
wall, peeped over when she heard laughter, and saw them standing on the path
below, and thought what a mercy it was they were laughing down there and had
not come up and done it round her. She disliked jokes at all times, but in the
morning she hated them; especially close up; especially crowding in her ears.
She hoped the originals were on their way out for a walk, and not on their way
back from one. They were laughing more and more. What could they possibly find
to laugh at? She looked down on the tops of their heads with a very serious face, for the
thought of spending a month with laughers was a grave one, and they, as though
they felt her eyes, turned suddenly and looked up. The dreadful geniality of those women. . . She shrank away from their smiles and wavings, but she could not shrink out of
sight without falling into the lilies. She neither smiled nor waved back, and
turning her eyes to the more distant mountains surveyed them carefully till the
two, tired of waving, moved away along the path and turned the corner and
disappeared. This time they both did notice that they had been met with, at least,
unresponsiveness. “If we weren’t in heaven,” said Mrs. Wilkins serenely, “I should say we had
been snubbed, but as nobody snubs anybody there of course we can’t have been.” “Perhaps she is unhappy,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Whatever it is she is she’ll get over it here,” said Mrs. Wilkins with
conviction. “We must try and help her,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Oh, but nobody helps anybody in heaven. That’s finished with. You don’t try to
be, or do. You simply are.” Well, Mrs. Arbuthnot wouldn’t go into that—not here, not to-day. The vicar, she
knew, would have called Lotty’s talk levity, if not profanity. How old he
seemed from here; an old, old vicar. They left the path, and clambered down the olive terraces, down and down, to
where at the bottom the warm, sleepy sea heaved gently among the rocks. There a
pine-tree grew close to the water, and they sat under it, and a few yards away
was a fishing-boat lying motionless and green-bellied on the water. The ripples
of the sea made little gurgling noises at their feet. They screwed up their
eyes to be able to look into the blaze of light beyond the shade of their tree.
The hot smell from the pine-needles and from the cushions of wild thyme that
padded the spaces between the rocks, and sometimes a smell of pure honey from a
clump of warm irises up behind them in the sun, puffed across their faces. Very
soon Mrs. Wilkins took her shoes and stockings off, and let her feet hang in
the water. After watching her a minute Mrs. Arbuthnot did the same. Their
happiness was then complete. Their husbands would not have known them. They
left off talking. They ceased to mention heaven. They were just cups of
acceptance. Meanwhile Lady Caroline, on her wall, was considering her position. The garden
on the top of the wall was a delicious garden, but its situation made it
insecure and exposed to interruptions. At any moment the others might come and
want to use it, because both the hall and the dining-room had doors opening
straight into it. Perhaps, thought Lady Caroline, she could arrange that it
should be solely hers. Mrs. Fisher had the battlements, delightful with
flowers, and a watch-tower all to herself, besides having snatched the one
really nice room in the house. There were plenty of places the originals could
go to—she had herself seen at least two other little gardens, while the hill
the castle stood on was itself a garden, with walks and seats. Why should not
this one spot be kept exclusively for her? She liked it; she liked it best of
all. It had the Judas tree and an umbrella pine, it had the freesias and the
lilies, it had a tamarisk beginning to flush pink, it had the convenient low
wall to sit on, it had from each of its three sides the most amazing views—to
the east the bay and mountains, to the north the village across the tranquil
clear green water of the little harbour and the hills dotted with white houses
and orange groves, and to the west was the thin thread of land by which San
Salvatore was tied to the mainland, and then the open sea and the coast line
beyond Genoa reaching away into the blue dimness of France. Yes, she would say
she wanted to have this entirely to herself. How obviously sensible if each of
them had their own special place to sit in apart. It was essential to her
comfort that she should be able to be apart, left alone, not talked to. The
others ought to like it best too. Why herd? One had enough of that in England,
with one’s relations and friends—oh, the numbers of them!—pressing on one
continually. Having successfully escaped them for four weeks why continue, and
with persons having no earthly claim on one, to herd? She lit a cigarette. She began to feel secure. Those two had gone for a walk.
There was no sign of Mrs. Fisher. How very pleasant this was. Somebody came out through the glass doors, just as she was drawing a deep
breath of security. Surely it couldn’t be Mrs. Fisher, wanting to sit with her?
Mrs. Fisher had her battlements. She ought to stay on them, having snatched
them. It would be too tiresome if she wouldn’t, and wanted not only to have
them and her sitting-room but to establish herself in this garden as well. No; it wasn’t Mrs. Fisher, it was the cook. She frowned. Was she going to have to go on ordering the food? Surely one or
other of those two waving women would do that now. The cook, who had been waiting in increasing agitation in the kitchen, watching
the clock getting nearer to lunch-time while she still was without knowledge of
what lunch was to consist of, had gone at last to Mrs. Fisher, who had
immediately waved her away. She then wandered about the house seeking a
mistress, any mistress, who would tell her what to cook, and finding none; and
at last, directed by Francesca, who always knew where everybody was, came out
to Lady Caroline. Domenico had provided this cook. She was Costanza, the sister of that one of
his cousins who kept a restaurant down on the piazza. She helped her brother in
his cooking when she had no other job, and knew every sort of fat, mysterious
Italian dish such as the workmen of Castagneto, who crowded the restaurant at
midday, and the inhabitants of Mezzago when they came over on Sundays, loved to
eat. She was a fleshless spinster of fifty, grey-haired, nimble, rich of
speech, and thought Lady Caroline more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen;
and so did Domenico; and so did the boy Giuseppe who helped Domenico and was,
besides, his nephew; and so did the girl Angela who helped Francesca and was,
besides, Domenico’s niece; and so did Francesca herself. Domenico and
Francesca, the only two who had seen them, thought the two ladies who arrived
last very beautiful, but compared to the fair young lady who arrived first they
were as candles to the electric light that had lately been installed, and as
the tin tubs in the bedrooms to the wonderful new bathroom their master had had
arranged on his last visit. Lady Caroline scowled at the cook. The scowl, as usual, was transformed on the
way into what appeared to be an intent and beautiful gravity, and Costanza
threw up her hands and took the saints aloud to witness that here was the very
picture of the Mother of God. Lady Caroline asked her crossly what she wanted, and Costanza’s head went on
one side with delight at the sheer music of her voice. She said, after waiting
a moment in case the music was going to continue, for she didn’t wish to miss
any of it, that she wanted orders; she had been to the Signorina’s mother, but
in vain. “She is not my mother,” repudiated Lady Caroline angrily; and her anger sounded
like the regretful wail of a melodious orphan. Costanza poured forth pity. She too, she explained, had no mother— Lady Caroline interrupted with the curt information that her mother was alive
and in London. Costanza praised God and the saints that the young lady did not yet know what
it was like to be without a mother. Quickly enough did misfortunes overtake
one; no doubt the young lady already had a husband. “No,” said Lady Caroline icily. Worse than jokes in the morning did she hate
the idea of husbands. And everybody was always trying to press them on her—all
her relations, all her friends, all the evening papers. After all, she could
only marry one, anyhow; but you would think from the way everybody talked, and
especially those persons who wanted to be husbands, that she could marry at
least a dozen. Her soft, pathetic “No” made Costanza, who was standing close to her, well with
sympathy. “Poor little one,” said Costanza, moved actually to pat her encouragingly on
the shoulder, “take hope. There is still time.” “For lunch,” said Lady Caroline freezingly, marvelling as she spoke that she
should be patted, she who had taken so much trouble to come to a place, remote
and hidden, where she could be sure that among other things of a like
oppressive nature pattings also were not, “we will have—” Costanza became business-like. She interrupted with suggestions, and her
suggestions were all admirable and all expensive. Lady Caroline did not know they were expensive, and fell in with them at once.
They sounded very nice. Every sort of young vegetables and fruits came into
them, and much butter and a great deal of cream and incredible numbers of eggs.
Costanza said enthusiastically at the end, as a tribute to this acquiescence,
that of the many ladies and gentlemen she had worked for on temporary jobs such
as this she preferred the English ladies and gentlemen. She more than preferred
them—they roused devotion in her. For they knew what to order; they did not
skimp; they refrained from grinding down the faces of the poor. From this Lady Caroline concluded that she had been extravagant, and promptly
countermanded the cream. Costanza’s face fell, for she had a cousin who had a cow, and the cream was to
have come from them both. “And perhaps we had better not have chickens,” said Lady Caroline. Costanza’s face fell more, for her brother at the restaurant kept chickens in
his back-yard, and many of them were ready for killing. “Also do not order strawberries till I have consulted with the other ladies,”
said Lady Caroline, remembering that it was only the first of April, and that
perhaps people who lived in Hampstead might be poor; indeed, must be poor, or
why live in Hampstead? “It is not I who am mistress here.” “Is it the old one?” asked Costanza, her face very long. “No,” said Lady Caroline. “Which of the other two ladies is it?” “Neither,” said Lady Caroline. Then Costanza’s smiles returned, for the young lady was having fun with her and
making jokes. She told her so, in her friendly Italian way, and was genuinely
delighted. “I never make jokes,” said Lady Caroline briefly. “You had better go, or lunch
will certainly not be ready by half-past twelve.” And these curt words came out sounding so sweet that Costanza felt as if kind
compliments were being paid her, and forgot her disappointment about the cream
and the chickens, and went away all gratitude and smiles. “This,” thought Lady Caroline, “will never do. I haven’t come here to
housekeep, and I won’t.” She called Costanza back. Costanza came running. The sound of her name in that
voice enchanted her. “I have ordered the lunch for to-day,” said Lady Caroline, with the serious
angel face that was hers when she was annoyed, “and I have also ordered the
dinner, but from now on you will go to one of the other ladies for orders. I
give no more.” The idea that she would go on giving orders was too absurd. She never gave
orders at home. Nobody there dreamed of asking her to do anything. That such a
very tiresome activity should be thrust upon her here, simply because she
happened to be able to talk Italian, was ridiculous. Let the originals give
orders if Mrs. Fisher refused to. Mrs. Fisher, of course, was the one Nature
intended for such a purpose. She had the very air of a competent housekeeper.
Her clothes were the clothes of a housekeeper, and so was the way she did her
hair. Having delivered herself of her ultimatum with an acerbity that turned sweet on
the way, and accompanied it by a peremptory gesture of dismissal that had the
grace and loving-kindness of a benediction, it was annoying that Costanza
should only stand still with her head on one side gazing at her in obvious
delight. “Oh, go away!” exclaimed Lady Caroline in English, suddenly exasperated. There had been a fly in her bedroom that morning which had stuck just as
Costanza was sticking; only one, but it might have been a myriad it was so
tiresome from daylight on. It was determined to settle on her face, and she was
determined it should not. Its persistence was uncanny. It woke her, and would
not let her go to sleep again. She hit at it, and it eluded her without fuss or
effort and with an almost visible blandness, and she had only hit herself. It
came back again instantly, and with a loud buzz alighted on her cheek. She hit
at it again and hurt herself, while it skimmed gracefully away. She lost her
temper, and sat up in bed and waited, watching to hit at it and kill it. She
kept on hitting at it at last with fury and with all her strength, as if it
were a real enemy deliberately trying to madden her; and it elegantly skimmed
in and out of her blows, not even angry, to be back again the next instant. It
succeeded every time in getting on to her face, and was quite indifferent how
often it was driven away. That was why she had dressed and come out so early.
Francesca had already been told to put a net over her bed, for she was not
going to allow herself to be annoyed twice like that. People were exactly like
flies. She wished there were nets for keeping them off too. She hit at them
with words and frowns, and like the fly they slipped between her blows and were
untouched. Worse than the fly, they seemed unaware that she had even tried to
hit them. The fly at least did for a moment go away. With human beings the only
way to get rid of them was to go away herself. That was what, so tired, she had
done this April; and having got here, having got close up to the details of
life at San Salvatore, it appeared that here, too, she was not to be let alone. Viewed from London there had seemed to be no details. San Salvatore from there
seemed to be an empty, a delicious blank. Yet, after only twenty-four hours of
it, she was discovering that it was not a blank at all, and that she was having
to ward off as actively as ever. Already she had been much stuck to. Mrs.
Fisher had stuck nearly the whole of the day before, and this morning there had
been no peace, not ten minutes uninterruptedly alone. Costanza of course had finally to go because she had to cook, but hardly had
she gone before Domenico came. He came to water and tie up. That was natural,
since he was the gardener, but he watered and tied up all the things that were
nearest to her; he hovered closer and closer; he watered to excess; he tied
plants that were as straight and steady as arrows. Well, at least he was a man,
and therefore not quite so annoying, and his smiling good-morning was received
with an answering smile; upon which Domenico forgot his family, his wife, his
mother, his grown-up children and all his duties, and only wanted to kiss the
young lady’s feet. He could not do that, unfortunately, but he could talk while he worked, and
talk he did; voluminously; pouring out every kind of information, illustrating
what he said with gestures so lively that he had to put down the watering-pot,
and thus delay the end of the watering. Lady Caroline bore it for a time but presently was unable to bear it, and as he
would not go, and she could not tell him to, seeing that he was engaged in his
proper work, once again it was she who had to. She got off the wall and moved to the other side of the garden, where in a
wooden shed were some comfortable low cane chairs. All she wanted was to turn
one of these round with its back to Domenico and its front to the sea towards
Genoa. Such a little thing to want. One would have thought she might have been
allowed to do that unmolested. But he, who watched her every movement, when he
saw her approaching the chairs darted after her and seized one and asked to be
told where to put it. Would she never get away from being waited on, being made comfortable, being
asked where she wanted things put, having to say thank you? She was short with
Domenico, who instantly concluded the sun had given her a headache, and ran in
and fetched her a sunshade and a cushion and a footstool, and was skilful, and
was wonderful, and was one of Nature’s gentlemen. She shut her eyes in a heavy resignation. She could not be unkind to Domenico.
She could not get up and walk indoors as she would have done if it had been one
of the others. Domenico was intelligent and very competent. She had at once
discovered that it was he who really ran the house, who really did everything.
And his manners were definitely delightful, and he undoubtedly was a charming
person. It was only that she did so much long to be let alone. If only, only
she could be left quite quiet for this one month, she felt that she might
perhaps make something of herself after all. She kept her eyes shut, because then he would think she wanted to sleep and
would go away. Domenico’s romantic Italian soul melted within him at the sight, for having her
eyes shut was extraordinarily becoming to her. He stood entranced, quite still,
and she thought he had stolen away, so she opened them again. No; there he was, staring at her. Even he. There was no getting away from being
stared at. “I have a headache,” she said, shutting them again. “It is the sun,” said Domenico, “and sitting on the wall without a hat.” “I wish to sleep.” “Sì signorina,” he said sympathetically; and went softly away. She opened her eyes with a sigh of relief. The gentle closing of the glass
doors showed her that he had not only gone quite away but had shut her out in
the garden so that she should be undisturbed. Now perhaps she would be alone
till lunch-time. It was very curious, and no one in the world could have been more surprised
than she herself, but she wanted to think. She had never wanted to do that
before. Everything else that it is possible to do without too much
inconvenience she had either wanted to do or had done at one period or another
of her life, but not before had she wanted to think. She had come to San
Salvatore with the single intention of lying comatose for four weeks in the
sun, somewhere where her parents and friends were not, lapped in forgetfulness,
stirring herself only to be fed, and she had not been there more than a few
hours when this strange new desire took hold of her. There had been wonderful stars the evening before, and she had gone out into
the top garden after dinner, leaving Mrs. Fisher alone over her nuts and wine,
and, sitting on the wall at the place where the lilies crowded their ghost
heads, she had looked out into the gulf of the night, and it had suddenly
seemed as if her life had been a noise all about nothing. She had been intensely surprised. She knew stars and darkness did produce
unusual emotions because, in others, she had seen them being produced, but they
had not before done it in herself. A noise all about nothing. Could she be
quite well? She had wondered. For a long while past she had been aware that her
life was a noise, but it had seemed to be very much about something; a noise,
indeed, about so much that she felt she must get out of earshot for a little or
she would be completely, and perhaps permanently, deafened. But suppose it was
only a noise about nothing? She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel
lonely. She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that
was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one
dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties; and lately even the
parties had seemed once or twice not to be a perfectly certain protection. Was
it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with
the way one met them? Perhaps, she had thought, she had better go to bed. She
couldn’t be very well. She went to bed; and in the morning, after she had escaped the fly and had her
breakfast and got out again into the garden, there was this same feeling again,
and in broad daylight. Once more she had that really rather disgusting
suspicion that her life till now had not only been loud but empty. Well, if
that were so, and if her first twenty-eight years—the best ones—had gone just
in meaningless noise, she had better stop a moment and look round her; pause,
as they said in tiresome novels, and consider. She hadn’t got many sets of
twenty-eight years. One more would see her growing very like Mrs. Fisher. Two
more— She averted her eyes. Her mother would have been concerned if she had known. Her mother doted. Her
father would have been concerned too, for he also doted. Everybody doted. And
when, melodiously obstinate, she had insisted on going off to entomb herself in
Italy for a whole month with queer people she had got out of an advertisement,
refusing even to take her maid, the only explanation her friends could imagine
was that poor Scrap—such was her name among them—had overdone it and was
feeling a little nervy. Her mother had been distressed at her departure. It was such an odd thing to
do, such a sign of disappointment. She encouraged the general idea of the verge
of a nervous breakdown. If she could have seen her adored Scrap, more
delightful to look upon than any other mother’s daughter had ever yet been, the
object of her utmost pride, the source of all her fondest hopes, sitting
staring at the empty noonday Mediterranean considering her three possible sets
of twenty-eight years, she would have been miserable. To go away alone was bad;
to think was worse. No good could come out of the thinking of a beautiful young
woman. Complications could come out of it in profusion, but no good. The
thinking of the beautiful was bound to result in hesitations, in reluctances,
in unhappiness all round. And here, if she could have seen her, sat her Scrap
thinking quite hard. And such things. Such old things. Things nobody ever began
to think till they were at least forty.