Chapter 19
And then when she spoke . . . what chance was there for poorBriggs? He was undone. All Scrap said was, "How do you do," on Mr.Wilkins presenting him, but it was enough; it undid Briggs.
From a cheerful, chatty, happy young man, overflowing with lifeand friendliness, he became silent, solemn, and with little beads onhis temples. Also he became clumsy, dropping the teaspoon as he handedher her cup, mismanaging the macaroons, so that one rolled on theground. His eyes could not keep off the enchanting face for a moment;and when Mr. Wilkins, elucidating him, for he failed to elucidatehimself, informed Lady Caroline that in Mr. Briggs she beheld the ownerof San Salvatore, who was on his way to Rome, but had got out atMezzago, etc. etc., and that the other three ladies had invited him tospend the night in what was to all intents and purposes his own houserather than an hotel, and Mr. Briggs was only waiting for the seal ofher approval to this invitation, she being the fourth hostess--when Mr.Wilkins, balancing his sentences and being admirably clear and enjoyingthe sound of his own cultured voice, explained the position in thismanner to Lady Caroline, Briggs sat and said never a word.
A deep melancholy invaded Scrap. The symptoms of the incipientgrabber were all there and only too familiar, and she knew that ifBriggs stayed her rest-cure might be regarded as over.
Then Kate Lumley occurred to her. She caught at Kate as at astraw.
"It would have been delightful," she said, faintly smiling atBriggs--she could not in decency not smile, at least a little, but evena little betrayed the dimple, and Briggs's eyes became more fixed thanever--"I'm only wondering if there is room."
"Yes, there is," said Lotty. "There's Kate Lumley's room."
"I thought," said Scrap to Mrs. Fisher, and it seemed to Briggsthat he had never heard music till now, "your friend was expectedimmediately."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Fisher--with an odd placidness, Scrapthought.
"Miss Lumley," said Mr. Wilkins, "--or should I," he inquired ofMrs. Fisher, "say Mrs.?"
"Nobody has ever married Kate," said Mrs. Fisher complacently.
"Quite so. Miss Lumley does not arrive to-day in any case, LadyCaroline, and Mr. Briggs has--unfortunately, if I may say so--tocontinue his journey to-morrow, so that his staying would in no wayinterfere with Miss Lumley's possible movements."
"Then of course I join in the invitation," said Scrap, with whatwas to Briggs the most divine cordiality.
He stammered something, flushing scarlet, and Scrap thought,"Oh," and turned her head away; but that merely made Briggs acquaintedwith her profile, and if there existed anything more lovely thanScrap's full face it was her profile.
Well, it was only for this one afternoon and evening. He wouldleave, no doubt, the first thing in the morning. It took hours to getto Rome. Awful if he hung on till the night train. She had a feelingthat the principal express to Rome passed through at night. Why hadn'tthat woman Kate Lumley arrived yet? She had forgotten all about her,but now she remembered she was to have been invited a fortnight ago.What had become of her? This man, once let in, would come and see herin London, would haunt the places she was likely to go to. He had themakings, her experienced eye could see, of a passionately persistentgrabber.
"If," thought Mr. Wilkins, observing Briggs's face and suddensilence, "any understanding existed between this young fellow and Mrs.Arbuthnot, there is now going to be trouble. Trouble of a differentnature from the kind I feared, in which Arbuthnot would have played aleading part, in fact the part of petitioner, but trouble that may needhelp and advice none the less for its not being publicly scandalous.Briggs, impelled by his passions and her beauty, will aspire to thedaughter of the Droitwiches. She, naturally and properly, will repelhim. Mrs. Arbuthnot, left in the cold, will be upset and show it.Arbuthnot, on his arrival will find his wife in enigmatic tears.Inquiring into their cause, he will be met with an icy reserve. Moretrouble may then be expected, and in me they will seek and find theiradviser. When Lotty said Mrs. Arbuthnot wanted her husband, she waswrong. What Mrs. Arbuthnot wants is Briggs, and it looks uncommonly asif she were not going to get him. Well, I'm their man."
"Where are your things, Mr. Briggs?" asked Mrs. Fisher, her voiceround with motherliness. "Oughtn't they to be fetched?" For the sunwas nearly in the sea now, and the sweet-smelling April dampness thatfollowed immediately on its disappearance was beginning to steal intothe garden.
Briggs started. "My things?" he repeated. "Oh yes--I mustfetch them. They're in Mezzago. I'll send Domenico. My fly iswaiting in the village. He can go back in it. I'll go and tell him."
He got up. To whom was he talking? To Mrs. Fisher, ostensibly,yet his eyes were fixed on Scrap, who said nothing and looked at noone.
Then, recollecting himself, he stammered, "I'm awfully sorry--Ikeep on forgetting--I'll go down and fetch them myself."
"We can easily send Domenico," said Rose; and at her gentle voicehe turned his head.
Why, there was his friend, the sweet-named lady--but how had shenot in this short interval changed! Was it the failing light makingher so colourless, so vague-featured, so dim, so much like a ghost? Anice good ghost, of course, and still with a pretty name, but only aghost.
He turned from her to Scrap again, and forgot Rose Arbuthnot'sexistence. How was it possible for him to bother about anybody oranything else in this first moment of being face to face with his dreamcome true?
Briggs had not supposed or hoped that any one as beautiful as hisdream of beauty existed. He had never till now met even anapproximation. Pretty women, charming women by the score he had metand properly appreciated, but never the real, the godlike thing itself.He used to think "If ever I saw a perfectly beautiful woman I shoulddie"; and though, having now met what to his ideas was a perfectlybeautiful woman, he did not die, he became very nearly as incapable ofmanaging his own affairs as if he had.
The others were obliged to arrange everything for him. Byquestions they extracted from him that his luggage was in the stationcloakroom at Mezzago, and they sent for Domenico, and, urged andprompted by everybody except Scrap, who sat in silence and looked at noone, Briggs was induced to give him the necessary instructions forgoing back in the fly and bringing out his things.
It was a sad sight to see the collapse of Briggs. Everybodynoticed it, even Rose.
"Upon my word," thought Mrs. Fisher, "the way one pretty face canturn a delightful man into an idiot is past all patience."
And feeling the air getting chilly, and the sight of theenthralled Briggs painful, she went in to order his room to be gotready, regretting now that she had pressed the poor boy to stay. Shehad forgotten Lady Caroline's kill-joy face for the moment, and themore completely owing to the absence of any ill effects produced by iton Mr. Wilkins. Poor boy. Such a charming boy too, left to himself.It was true she could not accuse Lady Caroline of not leaving him tohimself, for she was taking no notice of him at all, but that did nothelp. Exactly like foolish moths did men, in other respectsintelligent, flutter round the impassive lighted candle of a prettyface. She had seen them doing it. She had looked on only too often.Almost she laid a mother hand on Briggs's fair head as she passed him.Poor boy.
Then Scrap, having finished her cigarette, got up and wentindoors too. She saw no reason why she should sit there in order togratify Mr. Briggs's desire to stare. She would have liked to stay outlonger, to go to her corner behind the daphne bushes and look at thesunset sky and watch the lights coming out one by one in the villagebelow and smell the sweet moistness of the evening, but if she did Mr.Briggs would certainly follow her.
The old familiar tyranny had begun again. Her holiday of peaceand liberation was interrupted--perhaps over, for who knew if he wouldgo away, after all, to-morrow? He might leave the house, driven out ofit by Kate Lumley, but that was nothing to prevent his taking rooms inthe village and coming up every day. This tyranny of one person overanother! And she was so miserably constructed that she wouldn't evenbe able to frown him d
own without being misunderstood.
Scrap, who loved this time of the evening in her corner, feltindignant with Mr. Briggs who was doing her out of it, and she turnedher back on the garden and him and went towards the house without alook or a word. But Briggs, when he realized her intention, leapt tohis feet, snatched chairs which were not in her way out of it, kicked afootstool which was not in her path on one side, hurried to the door,which stood wide open, in order to hold it open, and followed herthrough it, walking by her side along the hall.
What was to be done with Mr. Briggs? Well, it was his hall; shecouldn't prevent his walking along it.
"I hope," he said, not able while walking to take his eyes offher, so that he knocked against several things he would otherwise haveavoided--the corner of a bookcase, an ancient carved cupboard, thetable with the flowers on it, shaking the water over--"that you arequite comfortable here? If you're not I'll--I'll flay them alive."
His voice vibrated. What was to be done with Mr. Briggs? Shecould of course stay in her room the whole time, say she was ill, notappear at dinner; but again, the tyranny of this . . .
"I'm very comfortable indeed," said Scrap.
"If I had dreamed you were coming--" he began.
"It's a wonderful old place," said Scrap, doing her utmost tosound detached and forbidding, but with little hope of success.
The kitchen was on this floor, and passing its door, which wasopen a crack, they were observed by the servants, whose thoughts,communicated to each other by looks, may be roughly reproduced by suchrude symbols as Aha and Oho--symbols which represented and includedtheir appreciation of the inevitable, their foreknowledge of theinevitable, and their complete understanding and approval.
"Are you going upstairs?" asked Briggs, as she paused at the footof them.
"Yes."
"Which room do you sit in? The drawing-room, or the small yellowroom?"
"In my own room."
So then he couldn't go up with her; so then all he could do wasto wait till she came out again.
He longed to ask her which was her own room--it thrilled him tohear her call any room in his house her own room--that he might pictureher in it. He longed to know if by any happy chance it was his room,for ever after to be filled with her wonder; but he didn't dare. Hewould find that out later from some one else--Francesca, anybody.
"Then I shan't see you again till dinner?"
"Dinner is at eight," was Scrap's evasive answer as she wentupstairs.
He watched her go.
She passed the Madonna, the portrait of Rose Arbuthnot, and thedark-eyed figure he had thought so sweet seemed to turn pale, toshrivel into insignificance as she passed.
She turned the bend of the stairs, and the setting sun, shiningthrough the west window a moment on her face, turned her to glory.
She disappeared, and the sun went out too, and the stairs weredark and empty.
He listened till her footsteps were silent, trying to tell fromthe sound of the shutting door which room she had gone into, thenwandered aimlessly away through the hall again, and found himself backin the top garden.
Scrap from her window saw him there. She saw Lotty and Rosesitting on the end parapet, where she would have liked to have been,and she saw Mr. Wilkins buttonholing Briggs and evidently telling himthe story of the oleander tree in the middle of the garden.
Briggs was listening with a patience she thought rather nice,seeing that it was his oleander and his own father's story. She knewMr. Wilkins was telling him the story by his gestures. Domenico hadtold it her soon after her arrival, and he had also told Mrs. Fisher,who had told Mr. Wilkins. Mrs. Fisher thought highly of this story,and often spoke of it. It was about a cherrywood walking-stick.Briggs's father had thrust this stick into the ground at that spot, andsaid to Domenico's father, who was then the gardener, "Here we willhave an oleander." And Briggs's father left the stick in the ground asa reminder to Domenico's father, and presently--how long afterwardsnobody remembered--the stick began to sprout, and it was an oleander.
There stood poor Mr. Briggs being told all about it, andlistening to the story he must have known from infancy with patience.
Probably he was thinking of something else. She was afraid hewas. How unfortunate, how extremely unfortunate, the determinationthat seized people to get hold of and engulf other people. If onlythey could be induced to stand more on their own feet. Why couldn'tMr. Briggs be more like Lotty, who never wanted anything of anybody,but was complete in herself and respected other people's completeness?One loved being with Lotty. With her one was free, and yet befriended.Mr. Briggs looked so really nice, too. She thought she might like himif only he wouldn't so excessively like her.
Scrap felt melancholy. Here she was shut up in her bedroom,which was stuffy from the afternoon sun that had been pouring into it,instead of out in the cool garden, and all because of Mr. Briggs.
Intolerably tyranny, she thought, flaring up. She wouldn'tendure it; she would go out all the same; she would run downstairswhile Mr. Wilkins--really that man was a treasure--held Mr. Briggs downtelling him about the oleander, and get out of the house by the frontdoor, and take cover in the shadows of the zigzag path. Nobody couldsee her there; nobody would think of looking for her there.
She snatched up a wrap, for she did not mean to come back for along while, perhaps not even to dinner--it would be all Mr. Briggs'sfault if she went dinnerless and hungry--and with another glance out ofthe window to see if she were still safe, she stole out and got away tothe sheltering trees of the zigzag path, and there sat down on one ofthe seats placed at each bend to assist the upward journey of those whowere breathless.
Ah, this was lovely, thought Scrap with a sigh of relief. Howcool. How good it smelt. She could see the quiet water of the littleharbour through the pine trunks, and the lights coming out in thehouses on the other side, and all round her the green dusk was splashedby the rose-pink of the gladioluses in the grass and the white of thecrowding daisies.
Ah, this was lovely. So still. Nothing moving--not a leaf, nota stalk. The only sound was a dog barking, far away somewhere up onthe hills, or when the door of the little restaurant in the piazzabelow was opened and there was a burst of voices, silenced againimmediately by the swinging to of the door.
She drew in a deep breath of pleasure. Ah, this was--
Her deep breath was arrested in the middle. What was that?
She leaned forward listening, her body tense.
Footsteps. On the zigzag path. Briggs. Finding her out.
Should she run?
No--the footsteps were coming up, not down. Some one from thevillage. Perhaps Angelo, with provisions.
She relaxed again. But the steps were not the steps of Angelo,that swift and springy youth; they were slow and considered, and theykept on pausing.
"Some one who isn't used to hills," thought Scrap.
The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her. Shewas afraid of nothing in life except love. Brigands or murderers assuch held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she onlywould have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands andmurderers and began instead to try and make love.
The next moment the footsteps turned the corner of her bit ofpath, and stood still.
"Getting his wind," thought Scrap, not looking round.
Then as he--from the sounds of the steps she took them to belongto a man--did not move, she turned her head, and beheld withastonishment a person she had seen a good deal of lately in London, thewell-known writer of amusing memoirs, Mr. Ferdinand Arundel.
She stared. Nothing in the way of being followed surprised herany more, but that he should have discovered where she was surprisedher. Her mother had promised faithfully to tell no one.
"You?" she said, feeling betrayed. "Here?"
He came up to her and took off his hat. His forehead beneath thehat was wet with the beads of unaccustomed climbing. He looked ashamedand entreating, like a gui
lty but devoted dog.
"You must forgive me," he said. "Lady Droitwich told me whereyou were, and as I happened to be passing through on my way to Rome Ithought I would get out at Mezzago and just look in and see how youwere."
"But--didn't my mother tell you I was doing a rest-cure?"
"Yes. She did. And that's why I haven't intruded on you earlierin the day. I thought you would probably sleep all day, and wake upabout now so as to be fed."
"But--"
"I know. I've got nothing to say in excuse. I couldn't helpmyself."
"This," thought Scrap, "comes of mother insisting on havingauthors to lunch, and me being so much more amiable in appearance thanI really am."
She had been amiable to Ferdinand Arundel; she liked him--orrather she did not dislike him. He seemed a jovial, simple man, andhad the eyes of a nice dog. Also, though it was evident that headmired her, he had not in London grabbed. There he had merely been agood-natured, harmless person of entertaining conversation, who helpedto make luncheons agreeable. Now it appeared that he too was agrabber. Fancy following her out there--daring to. Nobody else had.Perhaps her mother had given him the address because she considered himso absolutely harmless, and thought he might be useful and see herhome.
Well, whatever he was he couldn't possibly give her the troublean active young man like Mr. Briggs might give her. Mr. Briggs,infatuated, would be reckless, she felt, would stick at nothing, wouldlose his head publicly. She could imagine Mr. Briggs doing things withrope-ladders, and singing all night under her window--being reallydifficult and uncomfortable. Mr. Arundel hadn't the figure for anykind of recklessness. He had lived too long and too well. She wassure he couldn't sing, and wouldn't want to. He must be at leastforty. How many good dinners could not a man have eaten by the time hewas forty? And if during that time instead of taking exercise he hadsat writing books, he would quite naturally acquire the figure Mr.Arundel had in fact acquired--the figure rather for conversation thanadventure.
Scrap, who had become melancholy at the sight of Briggs, becamephilosophical at the sight of Arundel. Here he was. She couldn't sendhim away till after dinner. He must be nourished.
This being so, she had better make the best of it, and do thatwith a good grace which anyhow wasn't to be avoided. Besides, he wouldbe a temporary shelter from Mr. Briggs. She was at least acquaintedwith Ferdinand Arundel, and could hear news from him of her mother andher friends, and such talk would put up a defensive barrier at dinnerbetween herself and the approaches of the other one. And it was onlyfor one dinner, and he couldn't eat her.
She therefore prepared herself for friendliness. "I'm to befed," she said, ignoring his last remark, "at eight, and you must comeup and be fed too. Sit down and get cool and tell me how everybodyis."
"May I really dine with you? In these travelling things?" hesaid, wiping his forehead before sitting down beside her.
She was too lovely to be true, he thought. Just to look at herfor an hour, just to hear her voice, was enough reward for his journeyand his fears.
"Of course. I suppose you've left your fly in the village, andwill be going on from Mezzago by the night train."
"Or stay in Mezzago in an hotel and go on to-morrow. But tellme," he said, gazing at the adorable profile, "about yourself. Londonhas been extraordinarily dull and empty. Lady Droitwich said you werewith people here she didn't know. I hope they've been kind to you?You look--well, as if your cure had done everything a cure should."
"They've been very kind," said Scrap. "I got them out of anadvertisement."
"An advertisement?"
"It's a good way, I find, to get friends. I'm fonder of one ofthese than I've been of anybody in years."
"Really? Who is it?"
"You shall guess which of them it is when you see them. Tell meabout mother. When did you see her last? We arranged not to write toeach other unless there was something special. I wanted to have amonth that was perfectly blank."
"And now I've come and interrupted. I can't tell you how ashamedI am--both of having done it and of not having been able to help it."
"Oh, but," said Scrap quickly, for he could not have come on abetter day, when up there waiting and watching for her was, she knew,the enamoured Briggs, "I'm really very glad indeed to see you. Tell meabout mother."