Scrap wanted to know so much about her mother that Arundel had presently to
invent. He would talk about anything she wished if only he might be with her
for a while and see her and hear her, but he knew very little of the
Droitwiches and their friends really—beyond meeting them at those bigger
functions where literature is also represented, and amusing them at luncheons
and dinners, he knew very little of them really. To them he had always remained
Mr. Arundel; no one called him Ferdinand; and he only knew the gossip also
available to the evening papers and the frequenters of clubs. But he was,
however, good at inventing; and as soon as he had come to an end of first-hand
knowledge, in order to answer her inquiries and keep her there to himself he
proceeded to invent. It was quite easy to fasten some of the entertaining
things he was constantly thinking on to other people and pretend they were
theirs. Scrap, who had that affection for her parents which warms in absence,
was athirst for news, and became more and more interested by the news he
gradually imparted. At first it was ordinary news. He had met her mother here, and seen her there.
She looked very well; she said so and so. But presently the things Lady
Droitwich had said took on an unusual quality: they became amusing. “Mother said that?” Scrap interrupted, surprised. And presently Lady Droitwich began to do amusing things as well as say them. “Mother did that?” Scrap inquired, wide-eyed. Arundel warmed to his work. He fathered some of the most entertaining ideas he
had lately had on to Lady Droitwich, and also any charming funny things that
had been done—or might have been done, for he could imagine almost anything. Scrap’s eyes grew round with wonder and affectionate pride in her mother. Why,
but how funny—fancy mother. What an old darling. Did she really do that? How
perfectly adorable of her. And did she really say—but how wonderful of her to
think of it. What sort of a face did Lloyd George make? She laughed and laughed, and had a great longing to hug her mother, and the
time flew, and it grew quite dusk, and it grew nearly dark, and Mr. Arundel
still went on amusing her, and it was a quarter to eight before she suddenly
remembered dinner. “Oh, good heavens!” she exclaimed, jumping up. “Yes. It’s late,” said Arundel. “I’ll go on quickly and send the maid to you. I must run, or I’ll never be
ready in time—” And she was gone up the path with the swiftness of a young, slender deer. Arundel followed. He did not wish to arrive too hot, so had to go slowly.
Fortunately he was near the top, and Francesca came down the pergola to pilot
him indoors, and having shown him where he could wash she put him in the empty
drawing-room to cool himself by the crackling wood fire. He got as far away from the fire as he could, and stood in one of the deep
window-recesses looking out at the distant lights of Mezzago. The drawing-room
door was open, and the house was quiet with the hush that precedes dinner, when
the inhabitants are all shut up in their rooms dressing. Briggs in his room was
throwing away spoilt tie after spoilt tie; Scrap in hers was hurrying into a
black frock with a vague notion that Mr. Briggs wouldn’t be able to see her so
clearly in black; Mrs. Fisher was fastening the lace shawl, which nightly
transformed her day dress into her evening dress, with the brooch Ruskin had
given her on her marriage, formed of two pearl lilies tied together by a blue
enamel ribbon on which was written in gold letters Esto perpetua; Mr.
Wilkins was sitting on the edge of his bed brushing his wife’s hair—thus far
in this third week had he progressed in demonstrativeness—while she, for her
part, sitting on a chair in front of him, put his studs in a clean shirt; and
Rose, ready dressed, sat at her window considering her day. Rose was quite aware of what had happened to Mr. Briggs. If she had had any
difficulty about it, Lotty would have removed it by the frank comments she made
while she and Rose sat together after tea on the wall. Lotty was delighted at
more love being introduced into San Salvatore, even if it were only one-sided,
and said that when once Rose’s husband was there she didn’t suppose, now that
Mrs. Fisher too had at last come unglued—Rose protested at the expression, and
Lotty retorted that it was in Keats—there would be another place in the world
more swarming with happiness than San Salvatore. “Your husband,” said Lotty, swinging her feet, “might be here quite soon,
perhaps to-morrow evening if he starts at once, and there’ll be a glorious
final few days before we all go home refreshed for life. I don’t believe any of
us will ever be the same again—and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Caroline
doesn’t end by getting fond of the young man Briggs. It’s in the air. You
have to get fond of people here.” Rose sat at her window thinking of these things. Lotty’s optimism . . . yet it
had been justified by Mr. Wilkins; and look, too, at Mrs. Fisher. If only it
would come true as well about Frederick! For Rose, who between lunch and tea
had left off thinking about Frederick, was now, between tea and dinner,
thinking of him harder than ever. It had been funny and delightful, that little interlude of admiration, but of
course it couldn’t go on once Caroline appeared. Rose knew her place. She could
see as well as any one the unusual, the unique loveliness of Lady Caroline.
How warm, though, things like admiration and appreciation made one feel, how
capable of really deserving them, how different, how glowing. They seemed to
quicken unsuspected faculties into life. She was sure she had been a thoroughly
amusing woman between lunch and tea, and a pretty one too. She was quite
certain she had been pretty; she saw it in Mr. Briggs’s eyes as clearly as in a
looking-glass. For a brief space, she thought, she had been like a torpid fly
brought back to gay buzzing by the lighting of a fire in a wintry room. She
still buzzed, she still tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been,
having an admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers.
They seemed, in some strange way, to make one come alive. Although it was all over she still glowed with it and felt more exhilarated,
more optimistic, more as Lotty probably constantly felt, than she had done
since she was a girl. She dressed with care, though she knew Mr. Briggs would
no longer see her, but it gave her pleasure to see how pretty, while she was
about it, she could make herself look; and very nearly she stuck a crimson
camellia in her hair down by her ear. She did hold it there for a minute, and
it looked almost sinfully attractive and was exactly the colour of her mouth,
but she took it out again with a smile and a sigh and put it in the proper
place for flowers, which is water. She mustn’t be silly, she thought. Think of
the poor. Soon she would be back with them again, and what would a camellia
behind her ear seem like then? Simply fantastic. But on one thing she was determined: the first thing she would do when she got
home would be to have it out with Frederick. If he didn’t come to San Salvatore
that is what she would do—the very first thing. Long ago she ought to have done
this, but always she had been handicapped, when she tried to, by being so
dreadfully fond of him and so much afraid that fresh wounds were going to be
given her wretched, soft heart. But now let him wound her as much as he chose,
as much as he possibly could, she would still have it out with him. Not that he
ever intentionally wounded her; she knew he never meant to, she knew he often
had no idea of having done it. For a person who wrote books, thought Rose,
Frederick didn’t seem to have much imagination. Anyhow, she said to herself,
getting up from the dressing-table, things couldn’t go on like this. She would
have it out with him. This separate life, this freezing loneliness, she had had
enough of it. Why shouldn’t she too be happy? Why on earth—the energetic
expression matched her mood of rebelliousness—shouldn’t she too be loved and
allowed to love? She looked at her little clock. Still ten minutes before dinner. Tired of
staying in her bedroom she thought she would go on to Mrs. Fisher’s
battlements, which would be empty at this hour, and watch the moon rise out of
the sea. She went into the deserted upper hall with this intention, but was attracted on
her way along it by the firelight shining through the open door of the
drawing-room. How gay it looked. The fire transformed the room. A dark, ugly room in the
daytime, it was transformed just as she had been transformed by the warmth
of—no, she wouldn’t be silly; she would think of the poor; the thought of them
always brought her down to sobriety at once. She peeped in. Firelight and flowers; and outside the deep slits of windows
hung the blue curtain of the night. How pretty. What a sweet place San
Salvatore was. And that gorgeous lilac on the table—she must go and put her
face in it . . . But she never got to the lilac. She went one step towards it, and then stood
still, for she had seen the figure looking out of the window in the farthest
corner, and it was Frederick. All the blood in Rose’s body rushed to her heart and seemed to stop its
beating. Frederick. Come. She stood quite still. He had not heard her. He did not turn round. She stood
looking at him. The miracle had happened, and he had come. She stood holding her breath. So he needed her, for he had come instantly. So
he too must have been thinking, longing . . . Her heart, which had seemed to stop beating, was suffocating her now, the way
it raced along. Frederick did love her then—he must love her, or why had he
come? Something, perhaps her absence, had made him turn to her, want her . . .
and now the understanding she had made up her mind to have with him would be
quite—would be quite—easy— Her thoughts wouldn’t go on. Her mind stammered. She couldn’t think. She could
only see and feel. She didn’t know how it had happened. It was a miracle. God
could do miracles. God had done this one. God could—God could—could— Her mind stammered again, and broke off. “Frederick—” she tried to say; but no sound came, or if it did the crackling of
the fire covered it up. She must go nearer. She began to creep towards him—softly, softly. He did not move. He had not heard. She stole nearer and nearer, and the fire crackled and he heard nothing. She stopped a moment, unable to breathe. She was afraid. Suppose he—suppose
he—oh, but he had come, he had come. She went on again, close up to him, and her heart beat so loud that she thought
he must hear it. And couldn’t he feel—didn’t he know— “Frederick,” she whispered, hardly able even to whisper, choked by the beating
of her heart. He spun round on his heels. “Rose!” he exclaimed, staring blankly. But she did not see his stare, for her arms were round his neck, and her cheek
was against his, and she was murmuring, her lips on his ear, “I knew you would
come—in my very heart I always, always knew you would come—”