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Page 20
"We're in God's hands," said Mrs. Arbuthnot again; and again Mrs.
Wilkins was afraid.
They reached the bottom of the sloping path, and the light of the
lantern flickered over an open space with houses round three sides.
The sea was the fourth side, lazily washing backwards and forwards on
pebbles.
"San Salvatore," said the man pointing with his lantern to a
black mass curved round the water like an arm flung about it.
They strained their eyes. They saw the black mass, and on the
top of it a light.
"San Salvatore?" they both repeated incredulously, for where were
the suit-cases, and why had they been forced to get out of the fly?
"Si, si--San Salvatore."
They went along what seemed to be a quay, right on the edge of
the water. There was not even a low wall here--nothing to prevent the
man with the lantern tipping them in if he wanted to. He did not,
however, tip them in. Perhaps it was all right after all, Mrs. Wilkins
again suggested to Mrs. Arbuthnot on noticing this, who this time was
herself beginning to think that it might be, and said no more about
God's hands.
The flicker of the lantern danced along, reflected in the wet
pavement of the quay. Out to the left, in the darkness and evidently
at the end of a jetty, was a red light. They came to an archway with a
heavy iron gate. The man with the lantern pushed the gate open. This
time they went up steps instead of down, and at the top of them was a
little path that wound upwards among flowers. They could not see the
flowers, but the whole place was evidently full of them.
It here dawned on Mrs. Wilkins that perhaps the reason why the fly had
not driven them up to the door was that there was no road, only a
footpath. That also would explain the disappearance of the suit-cases.
She began to feel confident that they would find their suit-cases
waiting for them when they got up to the top. San Salvatore was, it
seemed, on the top of a hill, as a mediaeval castle should be. At a
turn of the path they saw above them, much nearer now and shining
more brightly, the light they had seen from the quay. She told Mrs.
Arbuthnot of her dawning belief, and Mrs. Arbuthnot agreed that it was
very likely a true one.
Once more, but this time in a tone of real hopefulness, Mrs.
Wilkins said, pointing upwards at the black outline against the only
slightly less black sky, "San Salvatore?" And once more, but this time
comfortingly, encouragingly, came back the assurance, "Si, si--San
Salvatore."
They crossed a little bridge, over what was apparently a ravine,
and then came a flat bit with long grass at the sides and more flowers.
They felt the grass flicking wet against their stockings, and the
invisible flowers were everywhere. Then up again through trees, along
a zigzag path with the smell all the way of the flowers they could not
see. The warm rain was bringing out all the sweetness. Higher and
higher they went in this sweet darkness, and the red light on the jetty
dropped farther and farther below them.
The path wound round to the other side of what appeared to be a
little peninsula; the jetty and the red light disappeared; across the
emptiness on their left were distant lights.
"Mezzago," said the man, waving his lantern at the lights.
"Si, si," they answered, for they had by now learned si, si.
Upon which the man congratulated them in a great flow of polite words,
not one of which they understood, on their magnificent Italian; for
this was Domenico, the vigilant and accomplished gardener of San
Salvatore, the prop and stay of the establishment, the resourceful, the
gifted, the eloquent, the courteous, the intelligent Domenico. Only
they did not know that yet; and he did in the dark, and even sometimes
in the light, look, with his knife-sharp swarthy features and swift,
panther movements, very like somebody wicked.
They passed along another flat bit of path, with a black shape
like a high wall towering above them on their right, and then the path
went up again under trellises, and trailing sprays of scented things
caught at them and shook raindrops on them, and the light of the
lantern flickered over lilies, and then came a flight of ancient steps
worn with centuries, and then another iron gate, and then they were
inside, though still climbing a twisting flight of stone steps with old
walls on either side like the walls of dungeons, and with a vaulted
roof.
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