|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 37
That one of the two sitting-rooms which Mrs. Fisher had taken for
her own was a room of charm and character. She surveyed it with
satisfaction on going into it after breakfast, and was glad it was
hers. It had a tiled floor, and walls the colour of pale honey, and
inlaid furniture the colour of amber, and mellow books, many in ivory
or lemon-coloured covers. There was a big window overlooking the sea
towards Genoa, and a glass door through which she could proceed out
on to the battlements and walk along past the quaint and attractive
watch-tower, in itself a room with chairs and a writing table, to where
on the other side of the tower the battlements ended in a marble seat,
and one could see the western bay and the point round which began the
Gulf of Spezia. Her south view, between these two stretches of sea,
was another hill, higher than San Salvatore, the last of the little
peninsula, with the bland turrets of a smaller and uninhabited castle
on the top, on which the setting sun still shone when everything else
was sunk in shadow. Yes, she was very comfortably established here;
and receptacles--Mrs. Fisher did not examine their nature closely, but
they seemed to be small stone troughs, or perhaps little sarcophagi--
ringed round the battlements with flowers.
These battlements, she thought, considering them, would have been
a perfect place for her to pace up and down gently in moments when she
least felt the need of her stick, or to sit in on the marble seat,
having first put a cushion on it, if there had not unfortunately been a
second glass door opening on to them, destroying their complete
privacy, spoiling her feeling that the place was only for her. The
second door belonged to the round drawing-room, which both she and Lady
Caroline had rejected as too dark. That room would probably be sat in
by the women from Hampstead, and she was afraid they would not confine
themselves to sitting in it, but would come out through the glass door
and invade her battlements. This would ruin the battlements. It would
ruin them as far as she was concerned if they were to be overrun; or
even if, not actually overrun, they were liable to be raked by the
actually eyes of persons inside the room. No one could be perfectly at
ease if they were being watched and knew it. What she wanted, what she
surely had a right to, was privacy. She had no wish to intrude on the
others; why then should they intrude on her? And she could always
relax her privacy if, when she became better acquainted with her
companions, she should think it worth while, but she doubted whether
any of the three would so develop at to make her think it worth while.
Hardly anything was really worth while, reflected Mrs. Fisher,
except the past. It was astonishing, it was simply amazing, the
superiority of the past to the present. Those friends of hers in
London, solid persons of her own age, knew the same past that she knew,
could talk about it with her, could compare it as she did with the
tinkling present, and in remembering great men forget for a moment the
trivial and barren young people who still, in spite of the war, seemed
to litter the world in such numbers. She had not come away from these
friends, these conversable ripe friends, in order to spend her time in
Italy chatting with three persons of another generation and defective
experience; she had come away merely to avoid the treacheries of a
London April. It was true what she had told the two who came to Prince
of Wales Terrace, that all she wished to do at San Salvatore was to sit
by herself in the sun and remember. They knew this, for she had told
them. It had been plainly expressed and clearly understood. Therefore
she had a right to expect them to stay inside the round drawing-room
and not to emerge interruptingly on to her battlements.
But would they? The doubt spoilt her morning. It was only
towards lunch-time that she saw a way to be quite safe, and ringing for
Francesca, bade her, in slow and majestic Italian, shut the shutters of
the glass door of the round drawing-room, and then, going with her into
the room, which had become darker than ever in consequence, but also,
Mrs. Fisher observed to Francesca, who was being voluble, would cause
of this very darkness remain agreeably cool, and after all there were
the numerous slit-windows in the walls to let in light and it was
nothing to do with her if they did not let it in, she directed the
placing of a cabinet of curios across the door on its inside.
This would discourage egress.
Then she rang for Domenico, and caused him to move one of the
flower-filled sarcophagi across the door on its outside.
This would discourage ingress.
"No one," said Domenico, hesitating, "will be able to use the
door."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|