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Page 70
Costanza wept, but Mrs. Fisher was unmoved. In slow and splendid
Italian, with the roll of the cantos of the Inferno, she informed her
that she would pay no bills till the following week, and that meanwhile
the food was to be precisely as good as ever, and at a quarter the
cost.
Costanza threw up her hands.
Next week, proceeded Mrs. Fisher unmoved, if she found this had
been so she would pay the whole. Otherwise--she paused; for what she
would do otherwise she did not know herself. But she paused and looked
impenetrable, majestic and menacing, and Costanza was cowed.
Then Mrs. Fisher, having dismissed her with a gesture, went in
search of Lady Caroline to complain. She had been under the impression
that Lady Caroline ordered the meals and therefore was responsible for
the prices, but now it appeared that the cook had been left to do
exactly as she pleased ever since they got there, which of course was
simply disgraceful.
Scrap was not in her bedroom, but the room, on Mrs. Fisher's
opening the door, for she suspected her of being in it and only
pretending not to hear the knock, was still flowerlike from her
presence.
"Scent," sniffed Mrs. Fisher, shutting it again; and she wished
Carlyle could have had five minutes' straight talk with this young
woman. And yet--perhaps even he--
She went downstairs to go into the garden in search of her, and
in the hall encountered Mr. Wilkins. He had his hat on, and was
lighting a cigar.
Indulgent as Mrs. Fisher felt towards Mr. Wilkins, and peculiarly
and even mystically related after the previous morning's encounter, she
yet could not like a cigar in the house. Out of doors she endured it,
but it was not necessary, when out of doors was such a big place, to
indulge the habit indoors. Even Mr. Fisher, who had been, she should
say, a man originally tenacious of habits, had quite soon after
marriage got out of this one.
However, Mr. Wilkins, snatching off his hat on seeing her,
instantly threw the cigar away. He threw it into the water a great jar
of arum lilies presumably contain, and Mrs. Fisher, aware of the value
men attach to their newly-lit cigars, could not but be impressed by
this immediate and magnificent amende honorable.
But the cigar did not reach the water. It got caught in the lilies,
and smoked on by itself among them, a strange and depraved-looking
object.
"Where are you going to, my prett--" began Mr. Wilkins, advancing
towards Mrs. Fisher; but he broke off just in time.
Was it morning spirits impelling him to address Mrs. Fisher in
the terms of a nursery rhyme? He wasn't even aware that he knew the
thing. Most strange. What could have put it, at such a moment, into
his self-possessed head? He felt great respect for Mrs. Fisher, and
would not for the world have insulted her by addressing her as a maid,
pretty or otherwise. He wished to stand well with her. She was a
woman of parts, and also, he suspected, of property. At breakfast they
had been most pleasant together, and he had been struck by her apparent
intimacy with well-known persons. Victorians, of course; but it was
restful to talk about them after the strain of his brother-in-law's
Georgian parties on Hampstead Heath. He and she were getting on
famously, he felt. She already showed all the symptoms of presently
wishing to become a client. Not for the world would he offend her.
He turned a little cold at the narrowness of his escape.
She had not, however, noticed.
"You are going out," he said very politely, all readiness should
she confirm his assumption to accompany her.
"I want to find Lady Caroline," said Mrs. Fisher, going towards
the glass door leading into the top garden.
"An agreeable quest," remarked Mr. Wilkins, "May I assist in the
search? Allow me--" he added, opening the door for her.
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