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Page 25
Lady Caroline, who had been looking at Mrs. Arbuthnot, now looked
at Mrs. Wilkins. That day at the queer club she had had merely a
blurred impression of Mrs. Wilkins, for it was the other one who did
all the talking, and her impression had been of somebody so shy, so
awkward that it was best to take no notice of her. She had not even
been able to say good-bye properly, doing it in an agony, turning red,
turning damp. Therefore she now looked at her in some surprise; and
she was still more surprised when Mrs. Wilkins added, gazing at her
with the most obvious sincere admiration, speaking indeed with a
conviction that refused to remain unuttered, "I didn't realize you were
so pretty."
She stared at Mrs. Wilkins. She was not usually told this quite
so immediately and roundly. Abundantly as she was used to it--
impossible not to be after twenty-eight solid years--it surprised her
to be told it with such bluntness, and by a woman.
"It's very kind of you to think so," she said.
"Why, you're very lovely," said Mrs. Wilkins. "Quite, quite
lovely."
"I hope," said Mrs. Arbuthnot pleasantly, "you make the most of
it."
Lady Caroline then stared at Mrs. Arbuthnot. "Oh yes," she said.
"I make the most of it. I've been doing that ever since I can
remember."
"Because," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling and raising a warning
forefinger, "it won't last."
Then Lady Caroline began to be afraid these two were originals.
If so, she would be bored. Nothing bored her so much as people who
insisted on being original, who came and buttonholed her and kept her
waiting while they were being original. And the one who admired her--
it would be tiresome if she dogged her about in order to look at her.
What she wanted of this holiday was complete escape from all she had
had before, she wanted the rest of complete contrast. Being admired,
being dogged, wasn't contrast, it was repetition; and as for originals,
to find herself shut up with two on the top of a precipitous hill in a
medieval castle built for the express purpose of preventing easy goings
out and in, would not, she was afraid, be especially restful. Perhaps
she had better be a little less encouraging. They had seemed such
timid creatures, even the dark one--she couldn't remember their
names--that day at the club, that she had felt it quite safe to be very
friendly. Here they had come out of their shells; already; indeed, at
once. There was no sign of timidity about either of them here. If
they had got out of their shells so immediately, at the very first
contact, unless she checked them they would soon begin to press upon
her, and then good-bye to her dream of thirty restful, silent days,
lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not
being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolized, but
just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of
the too much.
Besides, there was Mrs. Fisher. She too must be checked. Lady
Caroline had started two days earlier than had been arranged for two
reasons: first, because she wished to arrive before the others in order
to pick out the room or rooms she preferred, and second, because she
judged it likely that otherwise she would have to travel with Mrs.
Fisher. She did not want to travel with Mrs. Fisher. She did not want
to arrive with Mrs. Fisher. She saw no reason whatever why for a
single moment she should have to have anything at all to do with Mrs.
Fisher.
But unfortunately Mrs. Fisher also was filled with a desire to
get to San Salvatore first and pick out the room or rooms she
preferred, and she and Lady Caroline had after all traveled together.
As early as Calais they began to suspect it; in Paris they feared it;
at Modane they knew it; at Mezzago they concealed it, driving out to
Castagneto in two separate flys, the nose of the one almost touching
the back of the other the whole way. But when the road suddenly left
off at the church and the steps, further evasion was impossible; and
faced by this abrupt and difficult finish to their journey there was
nothing for it but to amalgamate.
Because of Mrs. Fisher's stick Lady Caroline had to see about
everything. Mrs. Fisher's intentions, she explained from her fly when
the situation had become plain to her, were active, but her stick
prevented their being carried out. The two drivers told Lady Caroline
boys would have to carry the luggage up to the castle, and she went in
search of some, while Mrs. Fisher waited in the fly because of her
stick. Mrs. Fisher could speak Italian, but only, she explained, the
Italian of Dante, which Matthew Arnold used to read with her when she
was a girl, and she thought this might be above the heads of boys.
Therefore Lady Caroline, who spoke ordinary Italian very well, was
obviously the one to go and do things.
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