Chapter 3
The owner of the mediaeval castle was an Englishman, a Mr.Briggs, who was in London at the moment and wrote that it had bedsenough for eight people, exclusive of servants, three sitting-rooms,battlements, dungeons, and electric light. The rent was L60 for themonth, the servants' wages were extra, and he wanted references--hewanted assurances that the second half of his rent would be paid, thefirst half being paid in advance, and he wanted assurances ofrespectability from a solicitor, or a doctor, or a clergyman. He wasvery polite in his letter, explaining that his desire for referenceswas what was usual and should be regarded as a mere formality.
Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins had not thought of references,and they had not dreamed a rent could be so high. In their minds hadfloated sums like three guineas a week; or less, seeing that the placewas small and old.
Sixty pounds for a single month.
It staggered them.
Before Mrs. Arbuthnot's eyes rose up boots: endless vistas, all thestout boots that sixty pounds would buy; and besides the rent therewould be the servants' wages and the food, and the railway journeysout and home. While as for references, these did indeed seem astumbling-block; it did seem impossible to give any without makingtheir plan more public than they had intended.
They had both--even Mrs. Arbuthnot, lured for once away fromperfect candour by the realization of the great saving of trouble andcriticism an imperfect explanation would produce--they had both thoughtit would be a good plan to give out, each to her own circle, theircircles being luckily distinct, that each was going to stay with afriend who had a house in Italy. It would be true as far as it went--Mrs. Wilkins asserted that it would be quite true, but Mrs. Arbuthnotthought it wouldn't be quite--and it was the only way, Mrs. Wilkinssaid, to keep Mellersh even approximately quiet. To spend any of hermoney just on the mere getting to Italy would cause him indignationwhat he would say if he knew she was renting part of a mediaeval castleon her own account Mrs. Wilkins preferred not to think. It would takehim days to say it all; and this although it was her very own money,and not a penny of it had ever been his.
"But I expect," she said, "your husband is just the same. Iexpect all husbands are alike in the long run."
Mrs. Arbuthnot said nothing, because her reason for not wantingFrederick to know was the exactly opposite one--Frederick would by onlytoo pleased for her to go, he would not mind it in the very least;indeed, he would hail such a manifestation of self-indulgence andworldliness with an amusement that would hurt, and urge her to have agood time and not to hurry home with a crushing detachment. Farbetter, she thought, to be missed by Mellersh than to be sped byFrederick. To be missed, to be needed, from whatever motive, was, shethought, better than the complete loneliness of not being missed orneeded at all.
She therefore said nothing, and allowed Mrs. Wilkins to leap ather conclusions unchecked. But they did, both of them, for a whole dayfeel that the only thing to be done was to renounce the mediaevalcastle; and it was in arriving at this bitter decision that they reallyrealized how acute had been their longing for it.
Then Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose mind was trained in the finding ofways out of difficulties, found a way out of the reference difficulty;and simultaneously Mrs. Wilkins had a vision revealing to her how toreduce the rent.
Mrs. Arbuthnot's plan was simple, and completely successful. Shetook the whole of the rent in person to the owner, drawing it out ofher Savings Bank--again she looked furtive and apologetic, as if theclerk must know the money was wanted for purposes of self-indulgence--and,going up with the six ten pound notes in her hand-bag to theaddress near the Brompton Oratory where the owner lived, presented themto him, waiving her right to pay only half. And when he saw her, andher parted hair and soft dark eyes and sober apparel, and heard hergrave voice, he told her not to bother about writing round for thosereferences.
"It'll be all right," he said, scribbling a receipt for the rent."Do sit down, won't you? Nasty day, isn't it? You'll find the oldcastle has lots of sunshine, whatever else it hasn't got. Husbandgoing?"
Mrs. Arbuthnot, unused to anything but candour, looked troubledat this question and began to murmur inarticulately, and the owner atonce concluded that she was a widow--a war one, of course, for otherwidows were old--and that he had been a fool not to guess it.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, turning red right up to his fair hair."I didn't mean--h'm, h'm, h'm--"
He ran his eye over the receipt he had written. "Yes, I thinkthat's all right," he said, getting up and giving it to her. "Now," headded, taking the six notes she held out and smiling, for Mrs.Arbuthnot was agreeable to look at, "I'm richer, and you're happier.I've got money, and you've got San Salvatore. I wonder got which is best."
"I think you know," said Mrs. Arbuthnot with her sweet smile.
He laughed and opened the door for her. It was a pity theinterview was over. He would have liked to ask her to lunch with him.She made him think of his mother, of his nurse, of all things kind andcomforting, besides having the attraction of not being his mother orhis nurse.
"I hope you'll like the old place," he said, holding her hand aminute at the door. The very feel of her hand, even through its glove,was reassuring; it was the sort of hand, he thought, that childrenwould like to hold in the dark. "In April, you know, it's simply amass of flowers. And then there's the sea. You must wear white.You'll fit in very well. There are several portraits of you there."
"Portraits?"
"Madonnas, you know. There's one on the stairs really exactlylike you."
Mrs. Arbuthnot smiled and said good-bye and thanked him. Withoutthe least trouble and at once she had got him placed in his propercategory: he was an artist and of an effervescent temperament.
She shook hands and left, and he wished she hadn't. After shewas gone he supposed that he ought to have asked for those references,if only because she would think him so unbusiness-like not to, but hecould as soon have insisted on references from a saint in a nimbus asfrom that grave, sweet lady.
Rose Arbuthnot.
Her letter, making the appointment, lay on the table.
Pretty name.
That difficulty, then, was overcome. But there still remainedthe other one, the really annihilating effect of the expense on thenest-eggs, and especially on Mrs. Wilkins's, which was in size,compared with Mrs. Arbuthnot's, as the egg of the plover to that of theduck; and this in its turn was overcome by the vision vouchsafed toMrs. Wilkins, revealing to her the steps to be taken for itsovercoming. Having got San Salvatore--the beautiful, the religiousname, fascinated them--they in their turn would advertise in the AgonyColumn of The Times, and would inquire after two more ladies, ofsimilar desires to their own, to join them and share the expenses.
At once the strain of the nest-eggs would be reduced from half toa quarter. Mrs. Wilkins was prepared to fling her entire egg into theadventure, but she realized that if it were to cost even sixpence overher ninety pounds her position would be terrible. Imagine going toMellersh and saying, "I owe." It would be awful enough if some daycircumstances forced her to say, "I have no nest-egg," but at least shewould be supported in such a case by the knowledge that the egg hadbeen her own. She therefore, though prepared to fling her last pennyinto the adventure, was not prepared to fling into it a single farthingthat was not demonstrably her own; and she felt that if her share ofthe rent was reduced to fifteen pounds only, she would have a safemargin for the other expenses. Also they might economise very much onfood--gather olives off their own trees and eat them, for instance, andperhaps catch fish.
Of course, as they pointed out to each other, they could reducethe rent to an almost negligible sum by increasing the number ofsharers; they could have six more ladies instead of two if they wantedto, seeing that there were eight beds. But supposing the eight bedswere distributed in couples in four rooms, it would not be altogetherwhat they wanted, to find themselves shut up at night with a stranger.Besides they thought that perhaps having so many
would not be quite sopeaceful. After all, they were going to San Salvatore for peace andrest and joy, and six more ladies, especially if they got into one'sbedroom, might a little interfere with that.
However, there seemed to be only two ladies in England at thatmoment who had any wish to join them, for they had only two answers totheir advertisement.
"Well, we only want two," said Mrs. Wilkins, quickly recovering,for she had imagined a great rush.
"I think a choice would have been a good thing," said Mrs.Arbuthnot.
"You mean because then we needn't have had Lady Caroline Dester."
"I didn't say that," gently protested Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"We needn't have her," said Mrs. Wilkins. "Just one more personwould help us a great deal with the rent. We're not obliged to havetwo."
"But why should we not have her? She seems really quite what wewant."
"Yes--she does from her letter," said Mrs. Wilkins doubtfully.
She felt she would be terribly shy of Lady Caroline. Incredibleas it may seem, seeing how they get into everything, Mrs. Wilkins hadnever come across any members of the aristocracy.
They interviewed Lady Caroline, and they interviewed the otherapplicant, a Mrs. Fisher.
Lady Caroline came to the club in Shaftesbury Avenue, andappeared to be wholly taken up by one great longing, a longing to getaway from everybody she had ever known. When she saw the club, andMrs. Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Wilkins, she was sure that here was exactlywhat she wanted. She would be in Italy--a place she adored; she wouldnot be in hotels--places she loathed; she would not be staying withfriends--persons she disliked; and she would be in the company ofstrangers who would never mention a single person she knew, for thesimple reason that they had not, could not have, and would not comeacross them. She asked a few questions about the fourth woman, and wassatisfied with the answers. Mrs. Fisher, of Prince of Wales Terrace.A widow. She too would be unacquainted with any of her friends. LadyCaroline did not even know where Prince of Wales Terrace was.
"It's in London," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Is it?" said Lady Caroline.
It all seemed most restful.
Mrs. Fisher was unable to come to the club because, she explainedby letter, she could not walk without a stick; therefore Mrs. Arbuthnotand Mrs. Wilkins went to her.
"But if she can't come to the club how can she go to Italy?"wondered Mrs. Wilkins, aloud.
"We shall hear that from her own lips," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
From Mrs. Fisher's lips they merely heard, in reply to delicatequestioning, that sitting in trains was not walking about; and theyknew that already. Except for the stick, however, she appeared to be amost desirable fourth--quiet, educated, elderly. She was much olderthan they or Lady Caroline--Lady Caroline had informed them she wastwenty-eight--but not so old as to have ceased to be active-minded.She was very respectable indeed, and still wore a complete suit ofblack though her husband had died, she told them, eleven years before.Her house was full of signed photographs of illustrious Victorian dead,all of whom she said she had known when she was little. Her father hadbeen an eminent critic, and in his house she had seen practicallyeverybody who was anybody in letters and art. Carlyle had scowled ather; Matthew Arnold had held her on his knee; Tennyson had sonorouslyrallied her on the length of her pig-tail. She animatedly showed themthe photographs, hung everywhere on her walls, pointing out thesignatures with her stick, and she neither gave any information abouther own husband nor asked for any about the husbands of her visitors;which was the greatest comfort. Indeed, she seemed to think that theyalso were widows, for on inquiring who the fourth lady was to be, andbeing told it was a Lady Caroline Dester, she said, "Is she a widowtoo?" And on their explaining that she was not, because she had notyet been married, observed with abstracted amiability, "All in goodtime."
But Mrs. Fisher's very abstractedness--and she seemed to beabsorbed chiefly in the interesting people she used to know and intheir memorial photographs, and quite a good part of the interview wastaken up by reminiscent anecdote of Carlyle, Meredith, Matthew Arnold,Tennyson, and a host of others--her very abstractedness was arecommendation. She only asked, she said, to be allowed to sit quietin the sun and remember. That was all Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkinsasked of their sharers. It was their idea of a perfect sharer that sheshould sit quiet in the sun and remember, rousing herself on Saturdayevenings sufficiently to pay her share. Mrs. Fisher was very fond,too, she said, of flowers, and once when she was spending a week-endwith her father at Box Hill--
"Who lived at Box Hill?" interrupted Mrs. Wilkins, who hung onMrs. Fisher's reminiscences, intensely excited by meeting somebody whohad actually been familiar with all the really and truly andundoubtedly great--actually seen them, heard them talking, touchedthem.
Mrs. Fisher looked at her over the top of her glasses in somesurprise. Mrs. Wilkins, in her eagerness to tear the heart out quicklyof Mrs. Fisher's reminiscences, afraid that at any moment Mrs.Arbuthnot would take her away and she wouldn't have heard half, hadalready interrupted several times with questions which appearedignorant to Mrs. Fisher.
"Meredith of course," said Mrs. Fisher rather shortly. "Iremember a particular week-end"--she continued. "My father often tookme, but I always remember this week-end particularly--"
"Did you know Keats?" eagerly interrupted Mrs. Wilkins.
Mrs. Fisher, after a pause, said with sub-acid reserve that shehad been unacquainted with both Keats and Shakespeare.
"Oh of course--how ridiculous of me!" cried Mrs. Wilkins,flushing scarlet. "It's because"--she floundered--"it's because theimmortals somehow still seem alive, don't they--as if they were here,going to walk into the room in another minute--and one forgets they aredead. In fact one knows perfectly well that they're not dead--notnearly so dead as you and I even now," she assured Mrs. Fisher, whoobserved her over the top of her glasses.
"I thought I saw Keats the other day," Mrs. Wilkins incoherentlyproceeded, driven on by Mrs. Fisher's look over the top of her glasses."In Hampstead--crossing the road in front of that house--you know--thehouse where he lived--"
Mrs. Arbuthnot said they must be going.
Mrs. Fisher did nothing to prevent them.
"I really thought I saw him," protested Mrs. Wilkins, appealingfor belief first to one and then to the other while waves of colourpassed over her face, and totally unable to stop because of Mrs.Fisher's glasses and the steady eyes looking at her over their tops. "Ibelieve I did see him--he was dressed in a--"
Even Mrs. Arbuthnot looked at her now, and in her gentlest voicesaid they would be late for lunch.
It was at this point that Mrs. Fisher asked for references. Shehad no wish to find herself shut up for four weeks with somebody whosaw things. It is true that there were three sitting-rooms, besidesthe garden and the battlements at San Salvatore, so that there would beopportunities of withdrawal from Mrs. Wilkins; but it would bedisagreeable to Mrs. Fisher, for instance, if Mrs. Wilkins weresuddenly to assert that she saw Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher was dead; lethim remain so. She had no wish to be told he was walking about thegarden. The only reference she really wanted, for she was much too oldand firmly seated in her place in the world for questionable associatesto matter to her, was one with regard to Mrs. Wilkins's health. Washer health quite normal? Was she an ordinary, everyday, sensiblewoman? Mrs. Fisher felt that if she were given even one address shewould be able to find out what she needed. So she asked forreferences, and her visitors appeared to be so much taken aback--Mrs.Wilkins, indeed, was instantly sobered--that she added, "It is usual."
Mrs. Wilkins found her speech first. "But," she said "aren't wethe ones who ought to ask for some from you?"
And this seemed to Mrs. Arbuthnot too the right attitude. Surelyit was they who were taking Mrs. Fisher into their party, and not Mrs.Fisher who was taking them into it?
For answer Mrs. Fisher, leaning on her stick, went to thewriting-table and in a firm hand wrote down three names and offeredt
hem to Mrs. Wilkins, and the names were so respectable, more, theywere so momentous, they were so nearly august, that just to read themwas enough. The President of the Royal Academy, the Archbishop ofCanterbury, and the Governor of the Bank of England--who would daredisturb such personages in their meditations with inquires as towhether a female friend of theirs was all she should be?
"They have know me since I was little," said Mrs. Fisher--everybody seemed to have known Mrs. Fisher since or when she waslittle.
"I don't think references are nice things at all between--betweenordinary decent women," burst out Mrs. Wilkins, made courageous bybeing, as she felt, at bay; for she very well knew that the onlyreference she could give without getting into trouble was Shoolbred,and she had little confidence in that, as it would be entirely based onMellersh's fish. "We're not business people. We needn't distrust eachother--"
And Mrs. Arbuthnot said, with a dignity that yet was sweet, "I'mafraid references do bring an atmosphere into our holiday plan thatisn't quite what we want, and I don't think we'll take yours up or giveyou any ourselves. So that I suppose you won't wish to join us."
And she held out her hand in good-bye.
Then Mrs. Fisher, her gaze diverted to Mrs. Arbuthnot, whoinspired trust and liking even in Tube officials, felt that she wouldbe idiotic to lose the opportunity of being in Italy in the particularconditions offered, and that she and this calm-browed woman betweenthem would certainly be able to curb the other one when she had herattacks. So she said, taking Mrs. Arbuthnot's offered hand, "Verywell. I waive references."
She waived references.
The two as they walked to the station in Kensington High Streetcould not help thinking that this way of putting it was lofty. EvenMrs. Arbuthnot, spendthrift of excuses for lapses, thought Mrs. Fishermight have used other words; and Mrs. Wilkins, by the time she got tothe station, and the walk and the struggle on the crowded pavement withother people's umbrellas had warmed her blood, actually suggestedwaiving Mrs. Fisher.
"If there is any waiving to be done, do let us be the ones whowaive," she said eagerly.
But Mrs. Arbuthnot, as usual, held on to Mrs. Wilkins; andpresently, having cooled down in the train, Mrs. Wilkins announced thatat San Salvatore Mrs. Fisher would find her level. "I see her findingher level there," she said, her eyes very bright.
Whereupon Mrs. Arbuthnot, sitting with her quiet hands folded,turned over in her mind how best she could help Mrs. Wilkins not to seequite so much; or at least, if she must see, to see in silence.