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Page 54
"I'll lend it to you," said Mrs. Wilkins, over whose face
laughter rippled.
"No," said Scrap.
"And its author," said Mrs. Fisher icily, "though not perhaps
quite what one would have wished him to be, was frequently at my
father's table."
"What a bore for you," said Scrap. "That's what mother's always
doing--inviting authors. I hate authors. I wouldn't mind them so much
if they didn't write books. Go on about Mellersh," she said, turning
to Mrs. Wilkins.
"Really--" said Mrs. Fisher.
"All those empty beds," said Mrs. Wilkins.
"What empty beds?" asked Scrap.
"The ones in this house. Why, of course they each ought to have
somebody happy inside them. Eight beds, and only four people. It's
dreadful, dreadful to be so greedy and keep everything just for
oneself. I want Rose to ask her husband out too. You and Mrs. Fisher
haven't got husbands, but why not give some friend a glorious time?"
Rose bit her lip. She turned red, she turned pale. If only
Lotty would keep quiet, she thought. It was all very well to have
suddenly become a saint and want to love everybody, but need she be so
tactless? Rose felt that all her poor sore places were being danced
on. If only Lotty would keep quiet . . .
And Mrs. Fisher, with even greater frostiness than that with
which she had received Lady Caroline's ignorance of the Blessed
Damozel, said, "There is only one unoccupied bedroom in this house."
"Only one?" echoed Mrs. Wilkins, astonished. "Then who are in
all the others?"
"We are," said Mrs. Fisher.
"But we're not in all the bedrooms. There must be at least six.
That leaves two over, and the owner told us there were eight beds--
didn't he Rose?"
"There are six bedrooms," said Mrs. Fisher; for both she and Lady
Caroline had thoroughly searched the house on arriving, in order to see
which part of it they would be most comfortable in, and they both knew
that there were six bedrooms, two of which were very small, and in one
of these small ones Francesca slept in the company of a chair and a
chest of drawers, and the other, similarly furnished, was empty.
Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot had hardly looked at the house,
having spent most of their time out-of-doors gaping at the scenery, and
had, in the agitated inattentiveness of their minds when first they
began negotiating for San Salvatore, got into their heads that the
eight beds of which the owner spoke were the same as eight bedrooms;
which they were not. There were indeed eight beds, but four of them
were in Mrs. Wilkins's and Mrs. Arbuthnot's rooms.
"There are six bedrooms," repeated Mrs. Fisher. "We have four,
Francesca has the fifth, and the sixth is empty."
"So that," said Scrap, "However kind we feel we would be if we
could, we can't. Isn't it fortunate?"
"But then there's only room for one?" said Mrs. Wilkins, looking
round at the three faces.
"Yes--and you've got him," said Scrap.
Mrs. Wilkins was taken aback. This question of the beds was unexpected.
In inviting Mellersh she had intended to put him in one of the four
spare-rooms that she imagined were there. When there were plenty of
rooms and enough servants there was no reason why they should, as they
did in their small, two-servanted house at home, share the same one.
Love, even universal love, the kind of love with which she felt herself
flooded, should not be tried. Much patience and self-effacement were
needed for successful married sleep. Placidity; a steady faith; these
too were needed. She was sure she would be much fonder of Mellersh,
and he not mind her nearly so much, if they were not shut up together
at night, if in the morning they could meet with the cheery affection
of friends between whom lies no shadow of differences about the window
or the washing arrangements, or of absurd little choked-down resentments
at something that had seemed to one of them unfair. Her happiness, she
felt, and her ability to be friends with everybody, was the result of
her sudden new freedom and its peace. Would there be that sense of
freedom, that peace, after a night shut up with Mellersh? Would she be
able in the morning to be full towards him, as she was at that moment
full, of nothing at all but loving-kindness? After all, she hadn't been
very long in heaven. Suppose she hadn't been in it long enough for
her to have become fixed in blandness? And only that morning what an
extraordinary joy it had been to find herself alone when she woke, and
able to pull the bed-clothes any way she liked!
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