Their eyes followed her admiringly. They had no idea they had been snubbed. It
was a disappointment, of course, to find she had forestalled them and that they
were not to have the happiness of preparing for her, of watching her face when
she arrived and first saw everything, but there was still Mrs. Fisher. They
would concentrate on Mrs. Fisher, and would watch her face instead; only, like
everybody else, they would have preferred to watch Lady Caroline’s. Perhaps, then, as Lady Caroline had talked of breakfast, they had better begin
by going and having it, for there was too much to be done that day to spend any
more time gazing at the scenery—servants to be interviewed, the house to be
gone through and examined, and finally Mrs. Fisher’s room to be got ready and
adorned. They waved their hands gaily at Lady Caroline, who seemed absorbed in what she
saw and took no notice, and turning away found the maidservant of the night
before had come up silently behind them in cloth slippers with string soles. She was Francesca, the elderly parlour-maid, who had been with the owner, he
had said, for years, and whose presence made inventories unnecessary; and after
wishing them good-morning and hoping they had slept well, she told them
breakfast was ready in the dining-room on the floor below, and if they would
follow her she would lead. They did not understand a single word of the very many in which Francesca
succeeded in clothing this simple information, but they followed her, for it at
least was clear that they were to follow, and going down the stairs, and along
the broad hall like the one above except for glass doors at the end instead of
a window opening into the garden, they were shown into the dining-room; where,
sitting at the head of the table having her breakfast, was Mrs. Fisher. This time they exclaimed. Even Mrs. Arbuthnot exclaimed, though her exclamation
was only “Oh.” Mrs. Wilkins exclaimed at greater length. “Why, but it’s like having the bread
taken out of one’s mouth!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkins. “How do you do,” said Mrs. Fisher. “I can’t get up because of my stick.” And
she stretched out her hand across the table. They advanced and shook it. “We had no idea you were here,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Yes,” said Mrs. Fisher, resuming her breakfast. “Yes. I am here.” And with
composure she removed the top of her egg. “It’s a great disappointment,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “We had meant to give you
such a welcome.” This was the one, Mrs. Fisher remembered, briefly glancing at her, who when she
came to Prince of Wales Terrace said she had seen Keats. She must be careful
with this one—curb her from the beginning. She therefore ignored Mrs. Wilkins and said gravely, with a downward face of
impenetrable calm bent on her egg, “Yes. I arrived yesterday with Lady
Caroline.” “It’s really dreadful,” said Mrs. Wilkins, exactly as if she had not been
ignored. “There’s nobody left to get anything ready for now. I feel thwarted. I
feel as if the bread had been taken out of my mouth just when I was going to be
happy swallowing it.” “Where will you sit?” asked Mrs. Fisher of Mrs. Arbuthnot—markedly of Mrs.
Arbuthnot; the comparison with the bread seemed to her most unpleasant. “Oh, thank you—” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, sitting down rather suddenly next to her. There were only two places she could sit down in, the places laid on either
side of Mrs. Fisher. She therefore sat down in one, and Mrs. Wilkins sat down
opposite her in the other. Mrs. Fisher was at the head of the table. Round her was grouped the coffee and
the tea. Of course they were all sharing San Salvatore equally, but it was she
herself and Lotty, Mrs. Arbuthnot mildly reflected, who had found it, who had
had the work of getting it, who had chosen to admit Mrs. Fisher into it.
Without them, she could not help thinking, Mrs. Fisher would not have been
there. Morally Mrs. Fisher was a guest. There was no hostess in this party, but
supposing there had been a hostess it would not have been Mrs. Fisher, nor Lady
Caroline, it would have been either herself or Lotty. Mrs. Arbuthnot could not
help feeling this as she sat down, and Mrs. Fisher, the hand which Ruskin had
wrung suspended over the pots before her, inquired, “Tea or coffee?” She could
not help feeling it even more definitely when Mrs. Fisher touched a small gong
on the table beside her as though she had been used to that gong and that table
ever since she was little, and, on Francesca’s appearing, bade her in the
language of Dante bring more milk. There was a curious air about Mrs. Fisher,
thought Mrs. Arbuthnot, of being in possession; and if she herself had not been
so happy she would have perhaps minded. Mrs. Wilkins noticed it too, but it only made her discursive brain think of
cuckoos. She would no doubt immediately have begun to talk of cuckoos,
incoherently, unrestrainably and deplorably, if she had been in the condition
of nerves and shyness she was in last time she saw Mrs. Fisher. But happiness
had done away with shyness—she was very serene; she could control her
conversation; she did not have, horrified, to listen to herself saying things
she had no idea of saying when she began; she was quite at her ease, and
completely natural. The disappointment of not going to be able to prepare a
welcome for Mrs. Fisher had evaporated at once, for it was impossible to go on
being disappointed in heaven. Nor did she mind her behaving as hostess. What
did it matter? You did not mind things in heaven. She and Mrs. Arbuthnot,
therefore, sat down more willingly than they otherwise would have done, one on
either side of Mrs. Fisher, and the sun, pouring through the two windows facing
east across the bay, flooded the room, and there was an open door leading into
the garden, and the garden was full of many lovely things, especially freesias. The delicate and delicious fragrance of the freesias came in through the door
and floated round Mrs. Wilkins’s enraptured nostrils. Freesias in London were
quite beyond her. Occasionally she went into a shop and asked what they cost,
so as just to have an excuse for lifting up a bunch and smelling them, well
knowing that it was something awful like a shilling for about three flowers.
Here they were everywhere—bursting out of every corner and carpeting the rose
beds. Imagine it—having freesias to pick in armsful if you wanted to, and with
glorious sunshine flooding the room, and in your summer frock, and its being
only the first of April! “I suppose you realise, don’t you, that we’ve got to heaven?” she said, beaming
at Mrs. Fisher with all the familiarity of a fellow-angel. “They are considerably younger than I had supposed,” thought Mrs. Fisher, “and
not nearly so plain.” And she mused a moment, while she took no notice of Mrs.
Wilkins’s exuberance, on their instant and agitated refusal that day at Prince
of Wales Terrace to have anything to do with the giving or the taking of
references. Nothing could affect her, of course; nothing that anybody did. She was far too
solidly seated in respectability. At her back stood massively in a tremendous
row those three great names she had offered, and they were not the only ones
she could turn to for support and countenance. Even if these young women—she
had no grounds for believing the one out in the garden to be really Lady
Caroline Dester, she had merely been told she was—even if these young women
should all turn out to be what Browning used to call—how well she remembered
his amusing and delightful way of putting things—Fly-by-Nights, what could it
possibly, or in any way matter to her? Let them fly by night if they wished.
One was not sixty-five for nothing. In any case there would only be four weeks
of it, at the end of which she would see no more of them. And in the meanwhile
there were plenty of places where she could sit quietly away from them and
remember. Also there was her own sitting-room, a charming room, all
honey-coloured furniture and pictures, with windows to the sea towards Genoa,
and a door opening on to the battlements. The house possessed two
sitting-rooms, and she had explained to that pretty creature Lady
Caroline—certainly a pretty creature, whatever else she was; Tennyson would
have enjoyed taking her for blows on the downs—who had seemed inclined to
appropriate the honey-coloured one, that she needed some little refuge entirely
to herself because of her stick. “Nobody wants to see an old woman hobbling about everywhere,” she had said. “I
shall be quite content to spend much of my time by myself in here or sitting
out on these convenient battlements.” And she had a very nice bedroom, too; it looked two ways, across the bay to the
morning sun—she liked the morning sun—and onto the garden. There were only two
of these bedrooms with cross-views in the house, she and Lady Caroline had
discovered, and they were by far the airiest. They each had two beds in them,
and she and Lady Caroline had had the extra beds taken out at once and put into
two of the other rooms. In this way there was much more space and comfort. Lady
Caroline, indeed, had turned hers into a bed-sitting-room, with the sofa out of
the bigger drawing-room and the writing-table and the most comfortable chair,
but she herself had not had to do that because she had her own sitting-room,
equipped with what was necessary. Lady Caroline had thought at first of taking
the bigger sitting-room entirely for her own, because the dining-room on the
floor below could quite well be used between meals to sit in by the two others,
and was a very pleasant room with nice chairs, but she had not liked the bigger
sitting-room’s shape—it was a round room in the tower, with deep slit windows
pierced through the massive walls, and a domed and ribbed ceiling arranged to
look like an open umbrella, and it seemed a little dark. Undoubtedly Lady
Caroline had cast covetous glances at the honey-coloured room, and if she, Mrs.
Fisher, had been less firm would have installed herself in it. Which would have
been absurd. “I hope,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smilingly making an attempt to convey to Mrs.
Fisher that though she, Mrs. Fisher, might not be exactly a guest she certainly
was not in the very least a hostess, “your room is comfortable.” “Quite,” said Mrs. Fisher. “Will you have some more coffee?” “No, thank you. Will you?” “No, thank you. There were two beds in my bedroom, filling it up unnecessarily,
and I had one taken out. It has made it much more convenient.” “Oh that’s why I’ve got two beds in my room!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkins,
illuminated; the second bed in her little cell had seemed an unnatural and
inappropriate object from the moment she saw it. “I gave no directions,” said Mrs. Fisher, addressing Mrs. Arbuthnot, “I merely
asked Francesca to remove it.” “I have two in my room as well,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Your second one must be Lady Caroline’s. She had hers removed too,” said Mrs.
Fisher. “It seems foolish to have more beds in a room than there are
occupiers.” “But we haven’t got any husbands here either,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “and I don’t see
any use in extra beds in one’s room if one hasn’t got husbands to put in them.
Can’t we have them taken away too?” “Beds,” said Mrs. Fisher coldly, “cannot be removed from one room after
another. They must remain somewhere.” Mrs. Wilkins’s remarks seemed to Mrs. Fisher persistently unfortunate. Each
time she opened her mouth she said something best left unsaid. Loose talk about
husbands had never in Mrs. Fisher’s circle been encouraged. In the ’eighties,
when she chiefly flourished, husbands were taken seriously, as the only real
obstacles to sin. Beds too, if they had to be mentioned, were approached with
caution; and a decent reserve prevented them and husbands ever being spoken of
in the same breath. She turned more markedly than ever to Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Do let me give you a
little more coffee,” she said. “No, thank you. But won’t you have some more?” “No indeed. I never have more than two cups at breakfast. Would you like an
orange?” “No, thank you. Would you?” “No, I don’t eat fruit at breakfast. It is an American fashion which I am too
old now to adopt. Have you had all you want?” “Quite. Have you?” Mrs. Fisher paused before replying. Was this a habit, this trick of answering a
simple question with the same question? If so it must be curbed, for no one
could live for four weeks in any real comfort with somebody who had a habit. She glanced at Mrs. Arbuthnot, and her parted hair and gentle brow reassured
her. No; it was accident, not habit, that had produced those echoes. She could
as soon imagine a dove having tiresome habits as Mrs. Arbuthnot. Considering
her, she thought what a splendid wife she would have been for poor Carlyle. So
much better than that horrid clever Jane. She would have soothed him. “Then shall we go?” she suggested. “Let me help you up,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, all consideration. “Oh, thank you—I can manage perfectly. It’s only sometimes that my stick
prevents me—” Mrs. Fisher got up quite easily; Mrs. Arbuthnot had hovered over her for
nothing. “I’m going to have one of these gorgeous oranges,” said Mrs. Wilkins,
staying where she was and reaching across to a black bowl piled with them.
“Rose, how can you resist them. Look—have this one. Do have this beauty—” And
she held out a big one. “No, I’m going to see to my duties,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, moving towards the
door. “You’ll forgive me for leaving you, won’t you,” she added politely to
Mrs. Fisher. Mrs. Fisher moved towards the door too; quite easily; almost quickly; her stick
did not hinder her at all. She had no intention of being left with Mrs.
Wilkins. “What time would you like to have lunch?” Mrs. Arbuthnot asked her, trying to
keep her head as at least a non-guest, if not precisely a hostess, above water. “Lunch,” said Mrs. Fisher, “is at half-past twelve.” “You shall have it at half-past twelve then,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “I’ll tell
the cook. It will be a great struggle,” she continued, smiling, “but I’ve
brought a little dictionary—” “The cook,” said Mrs. Fisher, “knows.” “Oh?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Lady Caroline has already told her,” said Mrs. Fisher. “Oh?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot again. “Yes. Lady Caroline speaks the kind of Italian cooks understand. I am prevented
going into the kitchen because of my stick. And even if I were able to go, I
fear I shouldn’t be understood.” “But—” began Mrs. Arbuthnot. “But it’s too wonderful,” Mrs. Wilkins finished for her from the table,
delighted with these unexpected simplifications in her and Rose’s lives. “Why,
we’ve got positively nothing to do here, either of us, except just be happy.
You wouldn’t believe,” she said, turning her head and speaking straight to Mrs.
Fisher, portions of orange in either hand, “how terribly good Rose and I have
been for years without stopping, and how much now we need a perfect rest.” And Mrs. Fisher, going without answering her out of the room, said to herself,
“She must, she shall be curbed.”