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Page 75
That, thought Mrs. Fisher, her eyes going steadily line by line
down the page and not a word of it getting through into her
consciousness, if foolish of friends. It is condemning one to a
premature death. One should continue (of course with dignity) to
develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing,
against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not
dead--obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and development, change,
ripening, were life. What she would dislike would be unripening, going
back to something green. She would dislike it intensely; and this is
what she felt she was on the brink of doing.
Naturally it made her very uneasy, and only in constant movement
could she find distraction. Increasingly restless and no longer able
to confine herself to her battlements, she wandered more and more
frequently, and also aimlessly, in and out of the top garden, to the
growing surprise of Scrap, especially when she found that all Mrs.
Fisher did was to stare for a few minutes at the view, pick a few dead
leaves off the rose-bushes, and go away again.
In Mr. Wilkins's conversation she found temporary relief, but
though he joined her whenever he could he was not always there, for he
spread his attentions judiciously among the three ladies, and when he
was somewhere else she had to face and manage her thoughts as best she
could by herself. Perhaps it was the excess of light and colour at San
Salvatore which made every other place seem dark and black; and Prince
of Wales Terrace did seem a very dark black spot to have to go back to
--a dark, narrow street, and her house dark and narrow as the street,
with nothing really living or young in it. The goldfish could hardly
be called living, or at most not more than half living, and were
certainly not young, and except for them there were only the maids, and
they were dusty old things.
Dusty old things. Mrs. Fisher paused in her thoughts, arrested
by the strange expression. Where had it come from? How was it
possible for it to come at all? It might have been one of Mrs.
Wilkins's, in its levity, its almost slang. Perhaps it was one of
hers, and she had heard her say it and unconsciously caught it from
her.
If so, this was both serious and disgusting. That the foolish
creature should penetrate into Mrs. Fisher's very mind and establish
her personality there, the personality which was still, in spite of the
harmony apparently existing between her and her intelligent husband, so
alien to Mrs. Fisher's own, so far removed from what she understood and
liked, and infect her with her undesirable phrases, was most
disturbing. Never in her life before had such a sentence come into
Mrs. Fisher's head. Never in her life before had she though of her
maids, or of anybody else, as dusty old things. Her maids were not
dusty old things; they were most respectable, neat women, who were
allowed the use of the bathroom every Saturday night. Elderly,
certainly, but then so was she, so was her house, so was her furniture,
so were her goldfish. They were all elderly, as they should be,
together. But there was a great difference between being elderly and
being a dusty old thing.
How true it was what Ruskin said, that evil communications
corrupt good manners. But did Ruskin say it? On second thoughts she
was not sure, but it was just the sort of thing he would have said if
he had said it, and in any case it was true. Merely hearing Mrs.
Wilkins's evil communications at meals--she did not listen, she avoided
listening, yet it was evident she had hear--those communications which,
in that they so often were at once vulgar, indelicate and profane, and
always, she was sorry to say, laughed at by Lady Caroline, must be
classed as evil, was spoiling her own mental manners. Soon she might
not only think but say. How terrible that would be. If that were the
form her breaking-out was going to take, the form of unseemly speech,
Mrs. Fisher was afraid she would hardly with any degree of composure be
able to bear it.
At this stage Mrs. Fisher wished more than ever that she were
able to talk over her strange feelings with some one who would
understand. There was, however, no one who would understand except
Mrs. Wilkins herself. She would. She would know at once, Mrs. Fisher
was sure, what she felt like. But this was impossible. It would be as
abject as begging the very microbe that was infecting one for
protection against its disease.
She continued, accordingly, to bear her sensations in silence,
and was driven by them into that frequent aimless appearing in the top
garden which presently roused even Scrap's attention.
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