Chapter 22
That evening was the evening of the full moon. The garden was an enchanted place where all the flowers seemed white. The lilies, the daphnes, the orange-blossom, the white stocks, the white pinks, the white roses—you could see these as plainly as in the day-time; but the coloured flowers existed only as fragrance.
The three younger women sat on the low wall at the end of the top garden after dinner, Rose a little apart from the others, and watched the enormous moon moving slowly over the place where Shelley had lived his last months just on a hundred years before. The sea quivered along the path of the moon. The stars winked and trembled. The mountains were misty blue outlines, with little clusters of lights shining through from little clusters of homes. In the garden the plants stood quite still, straight and unstirred by the smallest ruffle of air. Through the glass doors the dining-room, with its candle-lit table and brilliant flowers—nasturtiums and marigolds that night—glowed like some magic cave of colour, and the three men smoking round it looked strangely animated figures seen from the silence, the huge cool calm of outside.
Mrs. Fisher had gone to the drawing-room and the fire. Scrap and Lotty, their faces upturned to the sky, said very little and in whispers. Rose said nothing. Her face too was upturned. She was looking at the umbrella pine, which had been smitten into something glorious, silhouetted against stars. Every now and then Scrap’s eyes lingered on Rose; so did Lotty’s. For Rose was lovely. Anywhere at that moment, among all the well-known beauties, she would have been lovely. Nobody could have put her in the shade, blown out her light that evening; she was too evidently shining.
Lotty bent close to Scrap’s ear, and whispered. “Love,” she whispered.
Scrap nodded. “Yes,” she said, under her breath.
She was obliged to admit it. You only had to look at Rose to know that here was Love.
“There’s nothing like it,” whispered Lotty.
Scrap was silent.
“It’s a great thing,” whispered Lotty after a pause, during which they both watched Rose’s upturned face, “to get on with one’s loving. Perhaps you can tell me of anything else in the world that works such wonders.”
But Scrap couldn’t tell her; and if she could have, what a night to begin arguing in. This was a night for—
She pulled herself up. Love again. It was everywhere. There was no getting away from it. She had come to this place to get away from it, and here was everybody in its different stages. Even Mrs. Fisher seemed to have been brushed by one of the many feathers of Love’s wing, and at dinner was different—full of concern because Mr. Briggs wouldn’t eat, and her face when she turned to him all soft with motherliness.
Scrap looked up at the pine-tree motionless among stars. Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful. . .
She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn’t want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvellous night stole in through all one’s chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings—feelings one couldn’t manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities.
“I suppose,” whispered Lotty, “Rose’s husband seems to you just an ordinary, good-natured, middle-aged man.”
Scrap brought her gaze down from the stars and looked at Lotty a moment while she focussed her mind again.
“Just a rather red, rather round man,” whispered Lotty.
Scrap bowed her head.
“He isn’t,” whispered Lotty. “Rose sees through all that. That’s mere trimmings. She sees what we can’t see, because she loves him.”
Always love.
Scrap got up, and winding herself very tightly in her wrap moved away to her day corner, and sat down there alone on the wall and looked out across the other sea, the sea where the sun had gone down, the sea with the far-away dim shadow stretching into it which was France.
Yes, love worked wonders, and Mr. Arundel—she couldn’t at once get used to his other name—was to Rose Love itself; but it also worked inverted wonders, it didn’t invariably, as she well knew, transfigure people into saints and angels. Grievously indeed did it sometimes do the opposite. She had had it in her life applied to her to excess. If it had let her alone, if it had at least been moderate and infrequent, she might, she thought, have turned out a quite decent, generous-minded, kindly, human being. And what was she, thanks to this love Lotty talked so much about? Scrap searched for a just description. She was a spoilt, a sour, a suspicious, and a selfish spinster.
The glass doors of the dining-room opened, and the three men came out into the garden, Mr. Wilkins’s voice flowing along in front of them. He appeared to be doing all the talking; the other two were saying nothing.
Perhaps she had better go back to Lotty and Rose; it would be tiresome to be discovered and hemmed into that cul-de-sac by Mr. Briggs.
She got up reluctantly, for she considered it unpardonable of Mr. Briggs to force her to move about like this, to force her out of any place she wished to sit in; and she emerged from the daphne bushes feeling like some gaunt, stern figure of just resentment and wishing that she looked as gaunt and stern as she felt; so would she have struck repugnance into the soul of Mr. Briggs, and been free of him. But she knew she didn’t look like that, however hard she might try. At dinner his hand shook when he drank, and he couldn’t speak to her without flushing scarlet and then going pale, and Mrs. Fisher’s eyes had sought hers with the entreaty of one who asks that her only son may not be hurt.
How could a human being, thought Scrap, frowning as she issued forth from her corner, how could a man made in God’s image behave so; and he fitted for better things she was sure, with his youth, his attractiveness, and his brains. He had brains. She had examined him cautiously whenever at dinner Mrs. Fisher forced him to turn away to answer her, and she was sure he had brains. Also he had character; there was something noble about his head, about the shape of his forehead—noble and kind. All the more deplorable that he should allow himself to be infatuated by a mere outside, and waste any of his strength, any of his peace of mind, hanging round just a woman-thing. If only he could see right through her, see through all her skin and stuff, he would be cured, and she might go on sitting undisturbed on this wonderful night by herself.
Just beyond the daphne bushes she met Frederick, hurrying.
“I was determined to find you first,” he said, “before I go to Rose.” And he added quickly, “I want to kiss your shoes.”
“Do you?” said Scrap, smiling. “Then I must go and put on my new ones. These aren’t nearly good enough.”
She felt immensely well-disposed towards Frederick. He, at least, would grab no more. His grabbing days, so sudden and so brief, were done. Nice man; agreeable man. She now definitely liked him. Clearly he had been getting into some sort of a tangle, and she was grateful to Lotty for stopping her in time at dinner from saying something hopelessly complicating. But whatever he had been getting into he was out of it now; his face and Rose’s face had the same light in them.
“I shall adore you for ever now,” said Frederick.
Scrap smiled. “Shall you?” she said.
“I adored you before because of your beauty. Now I adore you because you’re not only as beautiful as a dream but as decent as a man.”
Scrap laughed. “Am I?” she said, amused.
“When the impetuous young woman,” Frederick went on, “the blessedly impetuous young woman, blurted out in the nick of time that I am Rose’s husband, you behaved exactly as a man would have behaved to his friend.”
“Did I?” said Scrap, her enchanting dimple very evident.
“It’s the rarest, most precious of combinations,” said Frederick, “to be a woman and have the loyalty of a man.”
“Is it?” smiled Scrap, a little wistfully. These were indeed handsome compliments. If only she were really like that . . .
“And I want to kiss your shoes.”
“Won’t this save trouble?” she asked, holding out her hand.
He took it and swiftly kissed it, and was hurrying away again. “Bless you,” he said as he went.
“Where is your luggage?” Scrap called after him.
“Oh, Lord, yes—” said Frederick, pausing. “It’s at the station.”
“I’ll send for it.”
He disappeared through the bushes. She went indoors to give the order; and this is how it happened that Domenico, for the second time that evening, found himself journeying into Mezzago and wondering as he went.
Then, having made the necessary arrangements for the perfect happiness of these two people, she came slowly out into the garden again, very much absorbed in thought. Love seemed to bring happiness to everybody but herself. It had certainly got hold of everybody there, in its different varieties, except herself. Poor Mr. Briggs had been got hold of by its least dignified variety. Poor Mr. Briggs. He was a disturbing problem, and his going away next day wouldn’t she was afraid solve him.
When she reached the others Mr. Arundel—she kept on forgetting that he wasn’t Mr. Arundel—was already, his arm through Rose’s, going off with her, probably to the greater seclusion of the lower garden. No doubt they had a great deal to say to each other; something had gone wrong between them, and had suddenly been put right. San Salvatore, Lotty would say, San Salvatore working its spell of happiness. She could quite believe in its spell. Even she was happier there than she had been for ages and ages. The only person who would go empty away would be Mr. Briggs.
Poor Mr. Briggs. When she came in sight of the group he looked much too nice and boyish not to be happy. It seemed out of the picture that the owner of the place, the person to whom they owed all this, should be the only one to go away from it unblessed.
Compunction seized Scrap. What very pleasant days she had spent in his house, lying in his garden, enjoying his flowers, loving his views, using his things, being comfortable, being rested—recovering, in fact. She had had the most leisured, peaceful, and thoughtful time of her life; and all really thanks to him. Oh, she knew she paid him some ridiculous small sum a week, out of all proportion to the benefits she got in exchange, but what was that in the balance? And wasn’t it entirely thanks to him that she had come across Lotty? Never else would she and Lotty have met; never else would she have known her.
Compunction laid its quick, warm hand on Scrap. Impulsive gratitude flooded her. She went straight up to Briggs.
“I owe you so much,” she said, overcome by the sudden realisation of all she did owe him, and ashamed of her churlishness in the afternoon and at dinner. Of course he hadn’t known she was being churlish. Of course her disagreeable inside was camouflaged as usual by the chance arrangement of her outside; but she knew it. She was churlish. She had been churlish to everybody for years. Any penetrating eye, thought Scrap, any really penetrating eye, would see her for what she was—a spoilt, a sour, a suspicious and a selfish spinster.
“I owe you so much,” therefore said Scrap earnestly, walking straight up to Briggs, humbled by these thoughts.
He looked at her in wonder. “You owe me?” he said. “But it’s I who—I who—” he stammered. To see her there in his garden . . . nothing in it, no white flower, was whiter, more exquisite.
“Please,” said Scrap, still more earnestly, “won’t you clear your mind of everything except just truth? You don’t owe me anything. How should you?”
“I don’t owe you anything?” echoed Briggs. “Why, I owe you my first sight of—of—”
“Oh, for goodness sake—for goodness sake,” said Scrap entreatingly, “do, please, be ordinary. Don’t be humble. Why should you be humble? It’s ridiculous of you to be humble. You’re worth fifty of me.”
“Unwise,” thought Mr. Wilkins, who was standing there too, while Lotty sat on the wall. He was surprised, he was concerned, he was shocked that Lady Caroline should thus encourage Briggs. “Unwise—very,” thought Mr. Wilkins, shaking his head.
Briggs’s condition was so bad already that the only course to take with him was to repel him utterly, Mr. Wilkins considered. No half measures were the least use with Briggs, and kindliness and familiar talk would only be misunderstood by the unhappy youth. The daughter of the Droitwiches could not really, it was impossible to suppose it, desire to encourage him. Briggs was all very well, but Briggs was Briggs; his name alone proved that. Probably Lady Caroline did not quite appreciate the effect of her voice and face, and how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem—well, encouraging. But these words were not quite ordinary; she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them. Indeed and indeed she needed an adviser—some sagacious, objective counsellor like himself. There she was, standing before Briggs almost holding out her hands to him. Briggs of course ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess and not by Lady Caroline alone. That very evening he had been considering the presentation to him next day of a round robin of collective gratitude on his departure; but he should not be thanked like this, in the moonlight, in the garden, by the lady he was so manifestly infatuated with.
Mr. Wilkins therefore, desiring to assist Lady Caroline out of this situation by swiftly applied tact, said with much heartiness: “It is most proper, Briggs, that you should be thanked. You will please allow me to add my expressions of indebtedness, and those of my wife, to Lady Caroline’s. We ought to have proposed a vote of thanks to you at dinner. You should have been toasted. There certainly ought to have been some—”
But Briggs took no notice of him whatever; he simply continued to look at Lady Caroline as though she were the first woman he had ever seen. Neither, Mr. Wilkins observed, did Lady Caroline take any notice of him; she too continued to look at Briggs, and with that odd air of almost appeal. Most unwise. Most.
Lotty, on the other hand, took too much notice of him, choosing this moment when Lady Caroline needed special support and protection to get up off the wall and put her arm through his and draw him away.
“I want to tell you something, Mellersh,” said Lotty at this juncture, getting up.
“Presently,” said Mr. Wilkins, waving her aside.
“No—now,” said Lotty; and she drew him away.
He went with extreme reluctance. Briggs should be given no rope at all—not an inch.
“Well—what is it?” he asked impatiently, as she led him towards the house. Lady Caroline ought not to be left like that, exposed to annoyance.
“Oh, but she isn’t,” Lotty assured him, just as if he had said this aloud, which he certainly had not. “Caroline is perfectly all right.”
“Not at all all right. That young Briggs is—”
“Of course he is. What did you expect? Let’s go indoors to the fire and Mrs. Fisher. She’s all by herself.”
“I cannot,” said Mr. Wilkins, trying to draw back, “leave Lady Caroline alone in the garden.”
“Don’t be silly, Mellersh—she isn’t alone. Besides, I want to tell you something.”
“Well tell me, then.”
“Indoors.”
With a reluctance that increased at every step Mr. Wilkins was taken farther and farther away from Lady Caroline. He believed in his wife now and trusted her, but on this occasion he thought she was making a terrible mistake. In the drawing-room sat Mrs. Fisher by the fire, and it certainly was to Mr. Wilkins, who preferred rooms and fires after dark to gardens and moonlight, more agreeable to be in there than out-of-doors if he could have brought Lady Caroline safely in with him. As it was, he went in with extreme reluctance.
Mrs. Fisher, her hands folded on her lap, was doing nothing, merely gazing fixedly into the fire. The lamp was arranged conveniently for reading, but she was not reading. Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now—over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect? She craved for the living, the developing—the crystallised and finished wearied her. She was thinking that if only she had had a son—a son like Mr. Briggs, a dear boy like that, going on, unfolding, alive, affectionate, taking care of her and loving her. . .
The look on her face gave Mrs. Wilkins’s heart a little twist when she saw it. “Poor old dear,” she thought, all the loneliness of age flashing upon her, the loneliness of having outstayed one’s welcome in the world, of being in it only on sufferance, the complete loneliness of the old childless woman who has failed to make friends. It did seem that people could only be really happy in pairs—any sorts of pairs, not in the least necessarily lovers, but pairs of friends, pairs of mothers and children, of brothers and sisters—and where was the other half of Mrs. Fisher’s pair going to be found?
Mrs. Wilkins thought she had perhaps better kiss her again. The kissing this afternoon had been a great success; she knew it, she had instantly felt Mrs. Fisher’s reaction to it. So she crossed over and bent down and kissed her and said cheerfully, “We’ve come in—” which indeed was evident.
This time Mrs. Fisher actually put up her hand and held Mrs. Wilkins’s cheek against her own—this living thing, full of affection, of warm, racing blood; and as she did this she felt safe with the strange creature, sure that she who herself did unusual things so naturally would take the action quite as a matter of course, and not embarrass her by being surprised.
Mrs. Wilkins was not at all surprised; she was delighted. “I believe I’m the other half of her pair,” flashed into her mind. “I believe it’s me, positively me, going to be fast friends with Mrs. Fisher!”
Her face when she lifted her head was full of laughter. Too extraordinary, the developments produced by San Salvatore. She and Mrs. Fisher . . . but she saw them being fast friends.
“Where are the others?” asked Mrs. Fisher. “Thank you—dear,” she added, as Mrs. Wilkins put a footstool under her feet, a footstool obviously needed, Mrs. Fisher’s legs being short.
“I see myself throughout the years,” thought Mrs. Wilkins, her eyes dancing, “bringing footstools to Mrs. Fisher. . .”
“The Roses,” she said, straightening herself, “have gone into the lower garden—I think lovemaking.”
“The Roses?”
“The Fredericks, then, if you like. They’re completely merged and indistinguishable.”
“Why not say the Arbuthnots, my dear?” said Mr. Wilkins.
“Very well, Mellersh—the Arbuthnots. And the Carolines—”
Both Mr. Wilkins and Mrs. Fisher started. Mr. Wilkins, usually in such complete control of himself, started even more than Mrs. Fisher, and for the first time since his arrival felt angry with his wife.
“Really—” he began indignantly.
“Very well, Mellersh—the Briggses, then.”
“The Briggses!” cried Mr. Wilkins, now very angry indeed; for the implication was to him a most outrageous insult to the entire race of Desters—dead Desters, living Desters, and Desters still harmless because they were yet unborn. “Really—”
“I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins, pretending meekness, “if you don’t like it.”
“Like it! You’ve taken leave of your senses. Why, they’ve never set eyes on each other before to-day.”
“That’s true. But that’s why they’re able now to go ahead.”
“Go ahead!” Mr. Wilkins could only echo the outrageous words.
“I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins again, “if you don’t like it, but—”
Her grey eyes shone, and her face rippled with the light and conviction that had so much surprised Rose the first time they met.
“It’s useless minding,” she said. “I shouldn’t struggle if I were you. Because—”
She stopped, and looked first at one alarmed solemn face and then at the other, and laughter as well as light flickered and danced over her.
“I see them being the Briggses,” finished Mrs. Wilkins.
That last week the syringa came out at San Salvatore, and all the acacias flowered. No one had noticed how many acacias there were till one day the garden was full of a new scent, and there were the delicate trees, the lovely successors to the wistaria, hung all over among their trembling leaves with blossom. To lie under an acacia tree that last week and look up through the branches at its frail leaves and white flowers quivering against the blue of the sky, while the least movement of the air shook down their scent, was a great happiness. Indeed, the whole garden dressed itself gradually towards the end in white, and grew more and more scented. There were the lilies, as vigorous as ever, and the white stocks and white pinks and white banksia roses, and the syringa and the jessamine, and at last the crowning fragrance of the acacias. When, on the first of May, everybody went away, even after they had got to the bottom of the hill and passed through the iron gates out into the village they still could smell the acacias.