“Eh? What? Peculiar? Well, let her be peculiar if she likes. A woman with her looks can be any damned thing she pleases,” was the infatuated answer.
“I do let her,” said her mother meekly; and indeed if she did not, what difference would it make?
Mrs. Fisher was sorry she had bothered about Lady Caroline. She went along the hall towards her private sitting-room, and her stick as she went struck the stone floor with a vigour in harmony with her feelings. Sheer silliness, these poses. She had no patience with them. Unable to be or do anything of themselves, the young of the present generation tried to achieve a reputation for cleverness by decrying all that was obviously great and obviously good and by praising everything, however obviously bad, that was different. Apes, thought Mrs. Fisher, roused. Apes. Apes. And in her sitting-room she found more apes, or what seemed to her in her present mood more, for there was Mrs. Arbuthnot placidly drinking coffee, while at the writing-table, the writing-table she already looked upon as sacred, using her pen, her own pen brought for her hand alone from Prince of Wales Terrace, sat Mrs. Wilkins writing; at the table; in her room; with her pen.
“Isn’t this a delightful place?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot cordially. “We have just discovered it.”
“I’m writing to Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins, turning her head and also cordially—as though, Mrs. Fisher thought, she cared a straw who she was writing to and anyhow knew who the person she called Mellersh was. “He’ll want to know,” said Mrs. Wilkins, optimism induced by her surroundings, “that I’ve got here safely.”
Chapter 11
The sweet smells that were everywhere in San Salvatore were alone enough to produce concord. They came into the sitting-room from the flowers on the battlements, and met the ones from the flowers inside the room, and almost, thought Mrs. Wilkins, could be seen greeting each other with a holy kiss. Who could be angry in the middle of such gentlenesses? Who could be acquisitive, selfish, in the old rasped London way, in the presence of this bounteous beauty?
Yet Mrs. Fisher seemed to be all three of these things.
There was so much beauty, so much more than enough for every one, that it did appear to be a vain activity to try and make a corner in it.
Yet Mrs. Fisher was trying to make a corner in it, and had railed off a portion for her exclusive use.