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Page 39
She was, however, the first to arrive in the dining-room.
Francesca in a white apron stood ready with an enormous dish of smoking
hot, glistening macaroni, but nobody was there to eat it.
Mrs. Fisher sat down, looking stern. Lax, lax.
"Serve me," she said to Francesca, who showed a disposition to
wait for the others.
Francesca served her. Of the party she liked Mrs. Fisher least,
in fact she did not like her at all. She was the only one of the four
ladies who had not yet smiled. True she was old, true she was
unbeautiful, true she therefore had no reason to smile, but kind ladies
smiled, reason or no. They smiled, not because they were happy but
because they wished to make happy. This one of the four ladies could
not then, Francesca decided, be kind; so she handed her the macaroni,
being unable to hide any of her feelings, morosely.
It was very well cooked, but Mrs. Fisher had never cared for
maccaroni, especially not this long, worm-shaped variety. She found it
difficult to eat--slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look,
she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her
mouth, ends of it yet hung out. Always, too, when she ate it she was
reminded of Mr. Fisher. He had during their married life behaved very
much like maccaroni. He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her
feel undignified, and when at last she had got him safe, as she
thought, there had invariably been little bits of him that still, as it
were, hung out.
Francesca from the sideboard watched Mrs. Fisher's way with
macaroni gloomily, and her gloom deepened when she saw her at last take
her knife to it and chop it small.
Mrs. Fisher really did not know how else to get hold of the
stuff. She was aware that knives in this connection were improper, but
one did finally lose patience. Maccaroni was never allowed to appear
on her table in London. Apart from its tiresomeness she did not even
like it, and she would tell Lady Caroline not to order it again. Years
of practice, reflected Mrs. Fisher, chopping it up, years of actual
living in Italy, would be necessary to learn the exact trick. Browning
managed maccaroni wonderfully. She remembered watching him one day
when he came to lunch with her father, and a dish of it had been
ordered as a compliment to his connection with Italy. Fascinating, the
way it went in. No chasing round the plate, no slidings off the fork,
no subsequent protrusions of loose ends--just one dig, one whisk, one
thrust, one gulp, and lo, yet another poet had been nourished.
"Shall I go and seek the young lady?" asked Francesca, unable any
longer to look on a good maccaroni being cut with a knife.
Mrs. Fisher came out of her reminiscent reflections with
difficulty. "She knows lunch is at half-past twelve," she said. "They
all know."
"She may be asleep," said Francesca. "The other ladies are
further away, but this one is not far away."
"Beat the gong again the," said Mrs. Fisher.
What manners, she though; what, what manners. It was not an
hotel, and considerations were due. She must say she was surprised at
Mrs. Arbuthnot, who had not looked like somebody unpunctual. Lady
Caroline, too--she had seemed amiable and courteous, whatever else she
might be. From the other one, of course, she expected nothing.
Francesca fetched the gong, and took it out into the garden and
advanced, beating it as she advanced, close up to Lady Caroline, who,
still stretched in her low chair, waited till she had done, and then
turned her head and in the sweetest tones poured forth what appeared to
be music but was really invective.
Francesca did not recognize the liquid flow as invective; how was
she to, when it came out sounding like that? And with her face all
smiles, for she could not but smile when she looked at this young lady,
she told her the maccaroni was getting cold.
"When I do not come to meals it is because I do not wish to come
to meals," said the irritated Scrap, "and you will not in future
disturb me."
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