The Enchanted April · Chapter 15 (2/2)

A headstrong old lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealth would make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches. Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, and had described her house as a mausoleum with goldfish swimming about in it; but now he was sure she was more than very well off. Still, he wished he had not joined her at this moment, for he had no sort of desire to be present at such a spectacle as the scolding of Lady Caroline Dester.

Again, however, he was reckoning without Scrap. Whatever she felt when she looked up and beheld Mr. Wilkins discovering her corner on the very first morning, nothing but angelicness appeared on her face. She took her feet off the parapet on Mrs. Fisher’s sitting down on it, and listening gravely to her opening remarks as to her not having any money to fling about in reckless and uncontrolled household expenditure, interrupted her flow by pulling one of the cushions from behind her head and offering it to her.

“Sit on this,” said Scrap, holding it out. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

Mr. Wilkins leapt to relieve her of it.

“Oh, thanks,” said Mrs. Fisher, interrupted.

It was difficult to get into the swing again. Mr. Wilkins inserted the cushion solicitously between the slightly raised Mrs. Fisher and the stone of the parapet, and again she had to say “Thanks.” It was interrupted. Besides, Lady Caroline said nothing in her defence; she only looked at her, and listened with the face of an attentive angel.

It seemed to Mr. Wilkins that it must be difficult to scold a Dester who looked like that and so exquisitely said nothing. Mrs. Fisher, he was glad to see, gradually found it difficult herself, for her severity slackened, and she ended by saying lamely, “You ought to have told me you were not doing it.”

“I didn’t know you thought I was,” said the lovely voice.

“I would now like to know,” said Mrs. Fisher, “what you propose to do for the rest of the time here.”

“Nothing,” said Scrap, smiling.

“Nothing? Do you mean to say⁠—”

“If I may be allowed, ladies,” interposed Mr. Wilkins in his suavest professional manner, “to make a suggestion”⁠—they both looked at him, and remembering him as they first saw him felt indulgent⁠—“I would advise you not to spoil a delightful holiday with worries over housekeeping.”

“Exactly,” said Mrs. Fisher. “It is what I intend to avoid.”

“Most sensible,” said Mr. Wilkins. “Why not, then,” he continued, “allow the cook⁠—an excellent cook, by the way⁠—so much a head per diem”⁠—Mr. Wilkins knew what was necessary in Latin⁠—“and tell her that for this sum she must cater for you, and not only cater but cater as well as ever? One could easily reckon it out. The charges of a moderate hotel, for instance, would do as a basis, halved, or perhaps even quartered.”

“And this week that has just passed?” asked Mrs. Fisher. “The terrible bills of this first week? What about them?”

“They shall be my present to San Salvatore,” said Scrap, who didn’t like the idea of Lotty’s nest-egg being reduced so much beyond what she was prepared for.

There was a silence. The ground was cut from under Mrs. Fisher’s feet.

“Of course if you choose to throw your money about⁠—” she said at last, disapproving but immensely relieved, while Mr. Wilkins was rapt in the contemplation of the precious qualities of blue blood. This readiness, for instance, not to trouble about money, this freehandedness⁠—it was not only what one admired in others, admired in others perhaps more than anything else, but it was extraordinarily useful to the professional classes. When met with it should be encouraged by warmth of reception. Mrs. Fisher was not warm. She accepted⁠—from which he deduced that with her wealth went closeness⁠—but she accepted grudgingly. Presents were presents, and one did not look them in this manner in the mouth, he felt; and if Lady Caroline found her pleasure in presenting his wife and Mrs. Fisher with their entire food for a week, it was their part to accept gracefully. One should not discourage gifts.

On behalf of his wife, then, Mr. Wilkins expressed what she would wish to express, and remarking to Lady Caroline⁠—with a touch of lightness, for so should gifts be accepted in order to avoid embarrassing the donor⁠—that she had in that case been his wife’s hostess since her arrival, he turned almost gaily to Mrs. Fisher and pointed out that she and his wife must now jointly write Lady Caroline the customary letter of thanks for hospitality. “A Collins,” said Mr. Wilkins, who knew what was necessary in literature. “I prefer the name Collins for such a letter to either that of Board and Lodging or Bread and Butter. Let us call it a Collins.”

Scrap smiled, and held out her cigarette case. Mrs. Fisher could not help being mollified. A way out of waste was going to be found, thanks to Mr. Wilkins, and she hated waste quite as much as having to pay for it; also a way was found out of housekeeping. For a moment she had thought that if everybody tried to force her into housekeeping on her brief holiday by their own indifference (Lady Caroline), or inability to speak Italian (the other two), she would have to send for Kate Lumley after all. Kate could do it. Kate and she had learnt Italian together. Kate would only be allowed to come on condition that she did do it.

But this was much better, this way of Mr. Wilkins’s. Really a most superior man. There was nothing like an intelligent, not too young man for profitable and pleasurable companionship. And when she got up, the business for which she had come being settled, and said she now intended to take a little stroll before lunch, Mr. Wilkins did not stay with Lady Caroline, as most of the men she had known would, she was afraid, have wanted to⁠—he asked to be permitted to go and stroll with her; so that he evidently definitely preferred conversation to faces. A sensible, companionable man. A clever, well-read man. A man of the world. A man. She was very glad indeed she had not written to Kate the other day. What did she want with Kate? She had found a better companion.

But Mr. Wilkins did not go with Mrs. Fisher because of her conversation, but because, when she got up and he got up because she got up, intending merely to bow her out of the recess, Lady Caroline had put her feet up on the parapet again, and arranging her head sideways in the cushions had shut her eyes.

The daughter of the Droitwiches desired to go to sleep.

It was not for him, by remaining, to prevent her.