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Page 73
Chapter 16
And so the second week began, and all was harmony. The arrival
of Mr. Wilkins, instead of, as three of the party had feared and the
fourth had only been protected from fearing by her burning faith in the
effect on him of San Salvatore, disturbing such harmony as there was,
increased it. He fitted in. He was determined to please, and he did
please. He was most amiable to his wife--not only in public, which she
was used to, but in private, when he certainly wouldn't have been if he
hadn't wanted to. He did want to. He was so much obliged to her, so
much pleased with her, for making him acquainted with Lady Caroline,
that he felt really fond of her. Also proud; for there must be, he
reflected, a good deal more in her than he had supposed, for Lady
Caroline to have become so intimate with her and so affectionate. And
the more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more
Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he, affected
in his turn, became really very nice himself; so that they went round
and round, not in a vicious but in a highly virtuous circle.
Positively, for him, Mellersh petted her. There was at no time
much pet in Mellersh, because he was by nature a cool man; yet such was
the influence on him of, as Lotty supposed, San Salvatore, that in this
second week he sometimes pinched both her ears, one after the other,
instead of only one; and Lotty, marveling at such rapidly developing
affectionateness, wondered what he would do, should he continue at this
rate, in the third week, when her supply of ears would have come to an
end.
He was particularly nice about the washstand, and genuinely
desirous of not taking up too much of the space in the small bedroom.
Quick to respond, Lotty was even more desirous not to be in his way;
and the room became the scene of many an affectionate combat de
g�n�rosit�, each of which left them more pleased with each other than
ever. He did not again have a bath in the bathroom, though it was
mended and ready for him, but got up and went down every morning to the
sea, and in spite of the cool nights making the water cold early had
his dip as a man should, and came up to breakfast rubbing his hands and
feeling, as he told Mrs. Fisher, prepared for anything.
Lotty's belief in the irresistible influence of the heavenly
atmosphere of San Salvatore being thus obviously justified, and Mr.
Wilkins, whom Rose knew as alarming and Scrap had pictured as icily
unkind, being so evidently a changed man, both Rose and Scrap began to
think there might after all be something in what Lotty insisted on, and
that San Salvatore did work purgingly on the character.
They were the more inclined to think so in that they too felt a
working going on inside themselves: they felt more cleared, both of
them, that second week--Scrap in her thoughts, many of which were now
quite nice thoughts, real amiable ones about her parents and relations,
with a glimmer in them of recognition of the extraordinary benefits she
had received at the hands of--what? Fate? Providence?--anyhow of
something, and of how, having received them, she had misused them by
failing to be happy; and Rose in her bosom, which though it still
yearned, yearned to some purpose, for she was reaching the conclusion
that merely inactively to yearn was no use at all, and that she must
either by some means stop her yearning or give it at least a chance--
remote, but still a chance--of being quieted by writing to Frederick
and asking him to come out.
If Mr. Wilkins could be changed, thought Rose, why not Frederick?
How wonderful it would be, how too wonderful, if the place worked on
him too and were able to make them even a little understand each other,
even a little be friends. Rose, so far had loosening and
disintegration gone on in her character, now was beginning to think her
obstinate strait-lacedness about his books and her austere absorption
in good works had been foolish and perhaps even wrong. He was her
husband, and she had frightened him away. She had frightened love
away, precious love, and that couldn't be good. Was not Lotty right
when she said the other day that nothing at all except love mattered?
Nothing certainly seemed much use unless it was built up on love. But
once frightened away, could it ever come back? Yes, it might in that
beauty, it might in the atmosphere of happiness Lotty and San Salvatore
seemed between them to spread round like some divine infection.
She had, however, to get him there first, and he certainly
couldn't be got there if she didn't write and tell him where she was.
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