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Page 85
"I'm sure," said Mrs. Fisher benignly, "you have no thoughts we
may not hear."
"I'm sure," said Briggs, "I would be telling you every one of my
secrets in a week."
"You would be telling somebody very safe, then," said Mrs. Fisher
benevolently--just such a son would she have liked to have had. "And
in return," she went on, "I daresay I would tell you mine."
"Ah no," said Mr. Wilkins, adapting himself to this tone of easy
badinage, "I must protest. I really must. I have a prior claim, I am
the older friend. I have known Mrs. Fisher ten days, and you, Briggs,
have not yet known her one. I assert my right to be told her secrets
first. That is," he added, bowing gallantly, "if she has any--which I
beg leave to doubt."
"Oh, haven't I!" exclaimed Mrs. Fisher, thinking of those green
leaves. That she should exclaim at all was surprising, but that she
should do it with gaiety was miraculous. Rose could only watch her in
wonder.
"Then I shall worm them out," said Briggs with equal gaiety.
"They won't need much worming out," said Mrs. Fisher. "My
difficulty is to keep them from bursting out."
It might have been Lotty talking. Mr. Wilkins adjusted the
single eyeglass he carried with him for occasions like this, and
examined Mrs. Fisher carefully. Rose looked on, unable not to smile
too since Mrs. Fisher seemed so much amused, though Rose did not quite
know why, and her smile was a little uncertain, for Ms. Fisher amused
was a new sight, not without its awe-inspiring aspects, and had to be
got accustomed to.
What Mrs. Fisher was thinking was how much surprised they would
be if she told them of her very odd and exciting sensation of going to
come out all over buds. They would think she was an extremely silly
old woman, and so would she have thought as lately as two days ago; but
the bud idea was becoming familiar to her, she was more apprivois�e
now, as dear Matthew Arnold used to say, and though it would
undoubtedly be best if one's appearance and sensations matched, yet
supposing they did not--and one couldn't have everything--was it not
better to feel young somewhere rather than old everywhere? Time enough
to be old everywhere again, inside as well as out, when she got back to
her sarcophagus in Prince of Wales Terrace.
Yet it is probable that without the arrival of Briggs Mrs. Fisher
would have gone on secretly fermenting in her shell. The others only
knew her as severe. It would have been more than her dignity could
bear suddenly to relax--especially towards the three young women. But
now came the stranger Briggs, a stranger who at once took to her as no
young man had taken to her in her life, and it was the coming of Briggs
and his real and manifest appreciation--for just such a grandmother,
thought Briggs, hungry for home life and its concomitants, would he
have liked to have--that released Mrs. Fisher from her shell; and here
she was at last, as Lotty had predicted, pleased, good-humoured and
benevolent.
Lotty, coming back half an hour later from her picnic, and
following the sound of voices into the top garden in the hope of still
finding tea, saw at once what had happened, for Mrs. Fisher at that
very moment was laughing.
"She's burst her cocoon," thought Lotty; and swift as she was in
all her movements, and impulsive, and also without any sense of
propriety to worry and delay her, she bent over the back of Mrs.
Fisher's chair and kissed her.
"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Fisher, starting violently, for such
a thing had not happened to her since Mr. Fisher's earlier days, and
then only gingerly. This kiss was a real kiss, and rested on Mrs.
Fisher's cheek a moment with a strange, soft sweetness.
When she saw whose it was, a deep flush spread over her face.
Mrs. Wilkins kissing her and the kiss feeling so affectionate. . .
Even if she had wanted to she could not in the presence of the
appreciative Mr. Briggs resume her cast-off severity and begin rebuking
again; but she did not want to. Was it possible Mrs. Wilkins like her--
had liked her all this time, while she had been so much disliking her
herself? A queer little trickle of warmth filtered through the frozen
defences of Mrs. Fisher's heart. Somebody young kissing her--somebody
young wanting to kiss her. . . Very much flushed, she watched the
strange creature, apparently quite unconscious she had done anything
extraordinary, shaking hands with Mr. Briggs, on her husband's
introducing him, and immediately embarking on the friendliest
conversation with him, exactly as if she had known him all her life.
What a strange creature; what a very strange creature. It was natural,
she being so strange, that one should have, perhaps, misjudged her. . .
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