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Page 12
Of course, as they pointed out to each other, they could reduce
the rent to an almost negligible sum by increasing the number of
sharers; they could have six more ladies instead of two if they wanted
to, seeing that there were eight beds. But supposing the eight beds
were distributed in couples in four rooms, it would not be altogether
what they wanted, to find themselves shut up at night with a stranger.
Besides they thought that perhaps having so many would not be quite so
peaceful. After all, they were going to San Salvatore for peace and
rest and joy, and six more ladies, especially if they got into one's
bedroom, might a little interfere with that.
However, there seemed to be only two ladies in England at that
moment who had any wish to join them, for they had only two answers to
their advertisement.
"Well, we only want two," said Mrs. Wilkins, quickly recovering,
for she had imagined a great rush.
"I think a choice would have been a good thing," said Mrs.
Arbuthnot.
"You mean because then we needn't have had Lady Caroline Dester."
"I didn't say that," gently protested Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"We needn't have her," said Mrs. Wilkins. "Just one more person
would help us a great deal with the rent. We're not obliged to have
two."
"But why should we not have her? She seems really quite what we
want."
"Yes--she does from her letter," said Mrs. Wilkins doubtfully.
She felt she would be terribly shy of Lady Caroline. Incredible
as it may seem, seeing how they get into everything, Mrs. Wilkins had
never come across any members of the aristocracy.
They interviewed Lady Caroline, and they interviewed the other
applicant, a Mrs. Fisher.
Lady Caroline came to the club in Shaftesbury Avenue, and
appeared to be wholly taken up by one great longing, a longing to get
away from everybody she had ever known. When she saw the club, and
Mrs. Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Wilkins, she was sure that here was exactly
what she wanted. She would be in Italy--a place she adored; she would
not be in hotels--places she loathed; she would not be staying with
friends--persons she disliked; and she would be in the company of
strangers who would never mention a single person she knew, for the
simple reason that they had not, could not have, and would not come
across them. She asked a few questions about the fourth woman, and was
satisfied with the answers. Mrs. Fisher, of Prince of Wales Terrace.
A widow. She too would be unacquainted with any of her friends. Lady
Caroline did not even know where Prince of Wales Terrace was.
"It's in London," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Is it?" said Lady Caroline.
It all seemed most restful.
Mrs. Fisher was unable to come to the club because, she explained
by letter, she could not walk without a stick; therefore Mrs. Arbuthnot
and Mrs. Wilkins went to her.
"But if she can't come to the club how can she go to Italy?"
wondered Mrs. Wilkins, aloud.
"We shall hear that from her own lips," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
From Mrs. Fisher's lips they merely heard, in reply to delicate
questioning, that sitting in trains was not walking about; and they
knew that already. Except for the stick, however, she appeared to be a
most desirable fourth--quiet, educated, elderly. She was much older
than they or Lady Caroline--Lady Caroline had informed them she was
twenty-eight--but not so old as to have ceased to be active-minded.
She was very respectable indeed, and still wore a complete suit of
black though her husband had died, she told them, eleven years before.
Her house was full of signed photographs of illustrious Victorian dead,
all of whom she said she had known when she was little. Her father had
been an eminent critic, and in his house she had seen practically
everybody who was anybody in letters and art. Carlyle had scowled at
her; Matthew Arnold had held her on his knee; Tennyson had sonorously
rallied her on the length of her pig-tail. She animatedly showed them
the photographs, hung everywhere on her walls, pointing out the
signatures with her stick, and she neither gave any information about
her own husband nor asked for any about the husbands of her visitors;
which was the greatest comfort. Indeed, she seemed to think that they
also were widows, for on inquiring who the fourth lady was to be, and
being told it was a Lady Caroline Dester, she said, "Is she a widow
too?" And on their explaining that she was not, because she had not
yet been married, observed with abstracted amiability, "All in good
time."
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