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Page 49
At that Rose felt she would like to sit down. Mellersh a poor
lamb? That same Mellersh who a few hours before was mere shimmer?
There was a seat at the bend of the path, and Rose went to it and sat
down. She wished to get her breath, gain time. If she had time she
might perhaps be able to catch up the leaping Lotty, and perhaps be
able to stop her before she committed herself to what she probably
presently would be sorry for. Mellersh at San Salvatore? Mellersh,
from whom Lotty had taken such pains so recently to escape?
"I see him here," said Lotty, as if in answer to her thoughts.
Rose looked at her with real concern: for every time Lotty said
in that convinced voice, "I see," what she saw came true. Then it was
to be supposed that Mr. Wilkins too would presently come true.
"I wish," said Rose anxiously, "I understood you."
"Don't try," said Lotty, smiling.
"But I must, because I love you."
"Dear Rose," said Lotty, swiftly bending down and kissing her.
"You're so quick," said Rose. "I can't follow your developments.
I can't keep touch. It was what happened with Freder--"
She broke off and looked frightened.
"The whole idea of our coming here," she went on again, as Lotty
didn't seem to have noticed, "was to get away, wasn't it? Well, we've
got away. And now, after only a single day of it, you want to write to
the very people--"
She stopped.
"The very people we were getting away from," finished Lotty.
"It's quite true. It seems idiotically illogical. But I'm so happy,
I'm so well, I feel so fearfully wholesome. This place--why, it makes
me feel flooded with love."
And she stared down at Rose in a kind of radiant surprise.
Rose was silent a moment. Then she said, "And do you think it
will have the same effect on Mr. Wilkins?"
Lotty laughed. "I don't know," she said. "But even if it
doesn't, there's enough love about to flood fifty Mr. Wilkinses, as you
call him. The great thing is to have lots of love about. I don't
see," she went on, "at least I don't see here, though I did at home,
that it matters who loves as long as somebody does. I was a stingy
beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession
about justice. As though justice mattered. As though justice can
really be distinguished from vengeance. It's only love that's any
good. At home I wouldn't love Mellersh unless he loved me back,
exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn't,
neither did I, and the aridity of that house! The aridity . . ."
Rose said nothing. She was bewildered by Lotty. One odd effect
of San Salvatore on her rapidly developing friend was her sudden free
use of robust words. She had not used them in Hampstead. Beast and
dog were more robust than Hampstead cared about. In words, too, Lotty
had come unchained.
But how she wished, oh how Rose wished, that she too could write
to her husband and say "Come." The Wilkins m�nage, however pompous
Mellersh might be, and he had seemed to Rose pompous, was on a
healthier, more natural footing than hers. Lotty could write to
Mellersh and would get an answer. She couldn't write to Frederick, for
only too well did she know he wouldn't answer. At least, he might
answer--a hurried scribble, showing how much bored he was at doing it,
with perfunctory thanks for her letter. But that would be worse than
no answer at all; for his handwriting, her name on an envelope
addressed by him, stabbed her heart. Too acutely did it bring back the
letters of their beginnings together, the letters from him so desolate
with separation, so aching with love and longing. To see apparently
one of these very same letters arrive, and open it to find:
Dear Rose--Thanks for letter. Glad you're having a good time.
Don't hurry back. Say if you want any money. Everything going
splendidly here--
Yours, Frederick.
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